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Volume 39, Number 7 | MARCH 11, 2013

$4.25

PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER

www.grainews.ca

Adding adjuvants to chemicals There are more and more adjuvants available to Prairie farmers.

Find out what they are and what they can offer you

BY ANGELA LOVELL

A

n adjuvant is a product that is added to a spray mixture to change its physical or chemical characteristics.

“Adjuvants are designed to maximize a crop protection product’s ability to function by minimizing the constraints in a pesticide application process,” says Dale Ziprick, product manager with UAP. There are several different adjuvants and they have many different purposes, but they basically fall under two categories as defined

by Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

Activators are the first category.

Activators, such as surfactants and crop oils, are designed to enhance the activity of pesticides, for example to improve coverage and increase plant uptake.

The second category, utility modifiers, change the function and physical characteristics of the chemical. This would be done, for example, to reduce foaming, increase solubility, modify pH or reduce spray drift.

Some adjuvants are built into the chemical formulation, so they come in the jug. But sometimes, for vari-

Whether they’re built into the chemicals you buy, or you mix them yourself on the farm, adjuvants can make a big difference. ous reasons, the adjuvant cannot be built in and must be added by the farmer or spray applicator according to the label specifications.

When mixing adjuvants into products on the farm, farmers should follow those label instructions carefully and make sure they add the right amount, says

Tom Wolf, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Saskatoon “Most adjuvants work on the basis of a concentration. If you don’t add the correct rate it won’t work.

Adjuvants are also product specific. There isn’t a universal adjuvant that helps all pesticides.”

SURFACTANTS Surfactants are the most common type of adjuvant. They’re used to improve performance, particularly of herbicides, in a variety of ways. They can ensure better coverage by increasing spreading on the leaf surfaces, improving

In This Issue

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adhesion properties and enhancing plant uptake.

Adding a surfactant to a herbicide formulation reduces the surface tension of the water and also improves its ability to mix with oily substances. This allows the herbicide to more effectively

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

Wheat & Chaff ..................

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Features ............................

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Crop Advisor’s Casebook

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Columns ........................... 27 Machinery & Shop ............ 32 Cattleman’s Corner .......... 38

Liquid fertilizer and melting urea

PATRICK FABIAN PAGE 8

Reinventing the combine

FarmLife ............................ 43

SCOTT GARVEY PAGE 34

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MARCH 11, 2013

Wheat & Chaff STAMPEDE

BY JERRY PALEN LEEANN MINOGUE

T

“

he #$@% thing took a #$%& run at me!”

My husband was okay, just a little shaken up.

ALL THAT BARKING

“Who cares if it’s snow and ice! Daylight savings is here and that means spring is coming.”

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Our dog had been barking at night — all night — for about two weeks. Loudly. On and on.

Just outside our bedroom window.

We’d get up, go to the window, look outside. Nothing there.

I was beginning to think the dog was kind of a jerk.

But finally we found the problem. There was a moose living in the yard.

It wasn’t a huge surprise. Quite a few moose live permanently in the slough about half a mile behind the yard. We all get along quite nicely under a “we won’t bother you if you don’t bother us” agreement. We kind of like having them out there.

We even went so far as to post some “hunting with permission only signs” to give the ungainly lunks a fair chance of making it through each fall.

But this young moose didn’t seem to know about our agreement. He’d been living rent-free just north of the trees for a couple of weeks before we figured him out.

Even then, we didn’t really mind having him around. Once we got used to the extra barking, it made us feel extra Canadian.

We might have given the guy a free pass for a longer stay, if he hadn’t decided to relocate a bit to the south, right into the middle of the yard.

Dogs aren’t wild about moose.

The young dog almost blew a lung barking. The old dog tried to help out too, but he’s not barking that well these days, and it came out as more of a huff.

Pretty soon the commotion got of out hand.

Brad was out in the tractor blowing snow that afternoon. He had to shut down the snowblower and hop out of the tractor to find out what was going on. By this time,

the dogs had the moose pretty worked up.

Here’s a tip: if you have two frenzied dogs and an over-excited moose, don’t add an angry farmer.

The moose got his hackles up (you can see them in the photo). Brad glared at the moose. The moose glared back. Brad (who is exceptionally brave) stopped to take a photo.

The moose charged.

Brad managed to hang onto the camera on the wild race to the cab.

“Good thing I wasn’t far from the tractor,” he said, after he drove the tractor 50 yards to the house and parked as close to the door as he could.

COME SEE THIS This is Canada. Most farmers have had a moose in their yard at one time or another. But it’s still a bit of a novelty.

My friend “Liz” was cleaning up her kitchen one evening when her husband “Keith” called to her from the bedroom. “Come in here and see this!”

“Forget it!” she shouted back, still drying dishes. “We’ve been married 15 years. Whatever you’ve got in there — I’ve already seen it.”

But Keith kept shouting, so finally she put down the dishtowel and trudged down the hall to see what he wanted. He’d turned all the lights out. “Look at this!”

Then he pointed to the window.

There was a moose right outside, chewing on their apple tree.

GO HOME ALREADY Back in our yard, we’d finished taking photos of the moose, and we realized that sharing the yard with him was going to get old, fast. We’d need to go outside to do things like cross country ski, play in the snow, walk out to the shop and put gas in the car. But was it safe?

There’s no doubt moose are dangerous on the roads, but will they hurt people?

They look pretty harmless, but, yes, they can lose their tempers and cause trouble. (The U.S. National Parks Service says, in Alaska, more people are injured every year by moose than by bears.) Moose aren’t naturally

aggressive, but if they feel threatened, they’ll do what they can.

(And really, an animal weighing in at more than 600 pounds can do whatever it wants.)

I don’t like my six-year old’s odds against a moose. Especially when he’s wearing his skis. (The boy. Not the moose. Obviously.)

Moose are nice to look at, but not ideal yard-mates. But how do you evict one?

When I texted Liz for tips, she got back to me right away.

“In the middle of the night,” she said, “Keith got up, turned on the living room lights, stood in the big window and yelled, made faces and jumped up and down.

The moose has not been seen since. Other methods may include just waiting until it’s done eating all your fruit trees and goes away on its own.”

Since the moose couldn’t see into our living room from his spot in the trees, we went with the second option.

We waited. And waited. Then we mixed it up with a little yelling, and the dog helped out with his irritating bark. And since the fruit tree selection is pretty limited in our yard, pretty soon the moose headed out. We haven’t seen him at all in the past 10 days.

We enjoyed a couple of bark-free nights. Now we need to get rid of the herd of deer that have moved in to take the moose’s place.

WEATHER LORE Farmers love to talk about the weather. Or read about the weather, watch the weather forecasts on TV, or check the current weather on their phones using the Grainews mobile app.

Shirley Byers is a Saskatchewan freelance writer who knows all about this. In fact, she’s written a whole book about weather.

In Shirley’s book, “Never Sell Your Hen on a Rainy Day,” she takes a quick look at more than 100 weather rhymes and sayings.

Starting in this issue, you’ll find an except from Shirley’s book on page 3 of every issue of Grainews. I hope you find these sayings and their meanings as interesting as I do.

Enjoy this issue.

Leeann

MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

Wheat & Chaff Weather Lore

Farm safety

Jackets for leprechauns Get with the plan

T

he positioning of clouds can be used to forecast the weather.

This old saying has been often quoted to children tired of being cooped up in the house and anxious to go outside and play after a long rain:

The weather will be clear when there is enough blue in the northwest to make a leprechaun a jacket.

Low pressure systems bringing snow or rain contain many layers of cloud. A hole in the lower layers usually exposes more of the same. If you see a patch of blue sky among

the clouds, particularly in the northwest, it means that the storm centre has passed and is moving to the east. † Shirley Byers’ book “Never Sell Your Hen on a Rainy Day” explores over 100 weather rhymes and sayings. It is available from McNally Robinson at: http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/home.

Soil moisture

Midwest soil could need time to recover

T

he Midwest suffered the worst drought in years last summer, and Midwest soil has been suffering from a drought since early 2010. Crops have wilted and farmers have fallen on hard times. Now, a University of Missouri researcher says that it may take at least two years for crops and soil to recover.

Randall Miles, associate professor of soil science at the University of Missouri School of Natural Resources, found that soil in the Midwest is dry down to as deep as five feet, where the roots of the crops absorb moisture and nutrients.

“I wouldn’t count on a full recovery of soil moisture any time soon,” Miles said. “Even if parts of the Midwest receive a lot of snowfall and rain this spring, it will take time for the moisture to move deeply into the soil where the driest conditions exist.”

In 2012, Miles found that some roots had to go down as much as eight feet to extract water. Typically, one foot of soil holds two inches of water.

To recharge completely, a fully depleted soil would require about 16 inches of water over normal precipitation amounts.

“The soil moisture will recharge with a hydrologic process where water moves downward from surface water and fills in the pore space found in the soil,”

Miles says that the soil is drought as far as five-feet deep. He predicts that this will hurt the upcoming growing season unless the Midwest experiences significant rain soon.

Miles said. “However, during the winter months it is important to remember that a foot of snowfall equals about an inch of rainfall, so the soil could take some time to recharge.”

Miles has been testing the depths of soil moisture around Missouri and found that parts of the state where Hurricane Isaac dropped extra rainfall were wet in the first few inches of soil, but dry below that level. While that moisture helps for a short while, Miles says the moisture will evaporate with just a few days of high winds.

“In order for the soil moisture to return to a normal state this year, the rain and snow would almost have to come continuously,” Miles said. “The weather would almost have to be like the

precipitation found in London, coming down light and slowly to minimize runoff.”

In addition to soil moisture being affected by the drought, Miles says that it could take two years of good rains for microbes and insects to recover, as well as barge traffic on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

“Until we start seeing normal rainfall, the water levels on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers are going to be low, affecting the number of barges that can pass on the rivers at one time,” Miles said.

Miles believes that it could be two to three years before farmers can expect bumper crops again. † News Bureau, University of Missouri.

photo contest

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT Kim Jo Bliss of Emo, Ontario sent in this photo. Kim’s farm is 15 minutes north of Emo, Ontario, near both the Manitoba and Minnesota borders Kim says, “I started farming with my grandma and spent my entire life working and learning from her,” Now, Kim is working on her great uncle’s farm, just up the road, and she told us: “I have a beef cow-calf operation. I was up to 50 cows but because if the drought and feed shortage I sold 10 cows last year. Up until two years ago I backgrounded my steer calves. I still feed a few animals for family and freezer beef sales. I have Hereford and Hereford Red Angus cows. I sold some of my purebred heifers to Russia a year ago. I love the farm life and work hard to promote agriculture in our community.”

Kim sent us this information by email, from her phone, from the barn while she was waiting for calf No.2 to arrive.

Thanks for sharing, Kim. If you’d like to see your photo on this page and receive $25, send your best shot to leeann.minogue@fbcpublishing.com. Please send only one or two photos at a time and include your name and address, the names of anyone in the photo, where the photo was taken and a bit about what was going on that day. A little write-up about your farm is welcome, too. Please ensure that images are of high resolution (1 MB is preferred), and if the image includes a person, we need to be able to see their face clearly.

— Leeann

I

f you have a day job and work the farm at night, or you’re working long hours during peak seasons, you’re probably struggling to get enough shut eye. That’s because farming after working off-farm or pulling long hours into the night is similar to shift work.

Farmers putting in these kinds of hours are often working the equivalent of a double-shift, or more. This can put sleep cycles into a tailspin, and put you and the safety of your farm at risk.

But there are strategies that can help, so read on.

The body normally follows a circadian rhythm. For most people, these rhythms are guided by natural cycles of light and dark. When the sun sets, the body gets ready to power down.

When the sun rises, the body becomes increasingly alert and ready to attack the challenges of the day.

Those working at night, or working long hours into the night during peak seasons, have to prepare themselves to be alert right when their body is getting ready to turn out the lights.

On days off, those who have been working late often revert back to a so-called “normal” schedule. All of this leads to circadian rhythm disruptions, which, when taken with working odd hours, can result in poor sleep, problems in family life, social isolation and mental health problems.

If you have to live with long hours or shift work, it’s imperative to pay extra special attention to your sleep environment in order to get the most out of your sleep.

Some other suggestions: • Develop pre-bedtime rituals that will help you unwind from your day. Working long hours in a time crunch can cause stress to rise, making it difficult to sleep when you do hit the pillow. Anything you can do to put your mind at ease will help.

• Make your sleep time sacred. Remind friends and family not to disturb you when it’s time for bed.

• Make sure your partner is behind you 100 per cent in enforcing your sleep strategies. If you sleep well, this will put less strain on the relationship and give you and your partner more breathing room to make the time you do spent together special.

• If you can, go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. It will help keep your body in a routine.

• Banish interruptions and sleep in a quiet, cool, dark room or wear an eye mask if you need to block out the daylight.

If you are trying to sleep in a noisy house, wear earplugs or purchase a white noise machine.

There are things you can do at work to manage your level of alertness: • When you are working at night, try to eat normal, healthy meals, including foods rich in potassium.

• Although it may be hard, avoid stimulants, nicotine, and sodium-rich foods after midnight. If you can, share driving.

• A long drive without a break might cause you to nod off. Take short breaks throughout your shift.

• Take naps, either before work or on a break. It will help improve alertness and reduce the likelihood of an injury.

• If you’ve been sitting, get up and walk around, and talk to co-workers if you can.

• If you have a tedious task to accomplish, do it earlier in the night when you are more likely to feel alert and less likely to get frustrated.

• Finally, if you are working with other people, watch for signs of fatigue and take measures to relieve anyone who looks like they need a break.

Working long hours during peak seasons, or working on and off the farm, can result in a significant sleep debt. Take extra measures to get more out of the sleep you do get. Your circadian rhythm will thank you, and you’ll probably feel better too. † From the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association — www.planfarmsafety.ca — with files from www.cchsa-ccsma.usask.ca.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Cover Stories CROP PROTECTION » CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 1 6 6 6 D U B L I N AV E N U E , WINNIPEG, MB R3H 0H1 w w w. g r a i n e w s . c a

ADDING ADJUVANTS

PUBLISHER

move through the cuticle — the waxy layer that covers the plant’s leaf surfaces and can inhibit absorption of the herbicide into the plant tissue.

The most common type of surfactants are non-ionic, which are usually alcohol based. There are also methylated seed oils derived from crops such as corn, soybean, sunflower and canola.

MAKING CLAIMS Adjuvants are probably one of the most highly researched products in agriculture. There are hundreds of companies worldwide seeking to improve the performance of various pesticides through the use of adjuvants.

Making claims about the efficacy of adjuvants is, however, something that is regulated quite differently in Canada than it is in the U.S. In the U.S. there are few regulatory requirements for adjuvants. As long as they contain ingredients which are known to be non-toxic they do not have to undergo any efficacy or toxicological testing. In Canada, on the other hand, the PMRA requires performance data.

“In other words if you make a claim on the label that says, ‘if you add this surfactant to a herbicide you improve performance by this much,’ PMRA wants to see the research data that proves it,” says Wolf.

As a result Canadian farmers don’t have access to the same number of adjuvant product lines that Americans do, but they can be reasonably assured that research has been done to support the claims made on the product labels.

PLANT-BASED TECHNOLOGY Loveland Products Inc. is one of the few companies in Canada selling after-market adjuvants for onfarm use. Loveland has developed a soybean-derived technology called Leci-Tech, which it employs in its LI700, Liberate and MSO (methylated seed oil) surfactants and in Valid, its drift reduction and deposition aid.

Bob Willcox ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

John Morriss

BEFORE Loveland says these photos show the effectiveness of its adjuvant L1700.

LI700 is the only adjuvant product in the Canadian marketplace that can currently make a number of claims on its label that relate to improving the efficiency of herbicides such as glyphosate.

An important claim that LI700 makes is its ability to help reduce spray drift. Independent studies in Canada and globally have generated data that demonstrates LI700’s Leci-Tech technology reduces the percentage of driftable fines in a herbicide application by 50 to 60 per cent when the product is used at the recommended rate and creates a more uniform spray droplet distribution.

LI700 also lowers (acidifies) the pH of the water — that enhances the uptake of some common herbicides like glyphosate.

Glyphosate is a negatively charged molecule that tends to have a hard time penetrating the cuticle or oily surfaces of plants. Lowering its pH can reduce the strength of the negative charge, which makes it makes it easier for the herbicide to cross these barriers.

Leci-Tech surfactants enhance adhesion by altering the physical properties of the spray mixture so it sticks to plant surfaces and has properties that enhance product penetration while reducing the risk of crop injury.

“Leci-Tech technology opens up the waxy cuticle to allow for at better and more rapid penetration into the plant,” says Ziprick. “Most penetrating surfactants physically alter the cuticle to open it up, stripping away that cuticle layer and opening up the leaf surface for penetration. They work great too, but there can be an appreciable risk of crop injury as a result.”

Currently LI 700, Liberate and MSO with Leci-Tech are available in a 2x10-litre case size. LI 700 will also have a new 4x3.78-litre case

More information

T

here’s still a certain amount of confusion among Canadian farmers about which adjuvants they should use in what circumstances; Canadian research to provide them with some advice has been extremely limited to date. North Dakota State University’s Extension Service has some general information about adjuvants on its website (see links below) and for more Canada specific information farmers can consult provincial guides to crop protection (see link below), or talk to the manufacturer’s representative or a local agronomist.

Sources: • MAFRI Guide to Crop Protection 2013: at www.gov.mb.ca/ agriculture, search “guide to crop protection” • NDSU Adjuvants Compendium 2012: at www.ndsu.edu, search for “adjuvant compendium” • Ponderings, Pontifications and Prognostications on Adjuvants by Rich Zollinger, NDSU: http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/ smgrains/Zollinger.pdf †

Angela Lovell

AFTER for 2013. The drift reduction and deposition aid Valid comes in a 3.7-litre jug size.

OTHER NEW TECHNOLOGY Syngenta Canada Inc. also has a new adjuvant that comes in the jug and claims to offer benefits for producers. The company’s Axial herbicide is now available in a new formulation with a built-in adjuvant for control of wild oats, green foxtail, yellow foxtail, barnyard grass, volunteer oats, volunteer canary seed and proso millet in spring wheat and barley.

According to the company’s recent press release, the new adjuvant has a unique action on pinoxaden — the active ingredient in Axial — which increases uptake versus standard crop oil concentrate (COC) or methylated seed oil (MSO) type adjuvants.

“This all-in-one Axial formulation makes it more convenient and easier to apply,” says Jon Habok, asset lead, cereal herbicides for Syngenta Canada in the release. “Growers will no longer need to mix products to get the effective grass weed control they are looking for in spring wheat and barley.”

The all-in-one formulation will be available in 2013 for western Canadian farmers. It will come in a 2x10-litre case, which treats 40 acres, an 80-litre drum, which treats 160 acres, or a 400-litre tote, which treats 800 acres.

AMMONIUM SULPHATE AS AN ADJUVENT Spray water quality is another critical factor that can influence the performance of some pesticides. These characteristics include pH, water hardness and the presence of bicarbonates. Much of the well water used in Western Canada is hard, which means it has an elevated concentration of the cations, mainly calcium and magnesium.

“Some herbicides are antagonized by hard water,” says Wolf.

“The calcium and magnesium will typically bind with a herbicide and render it inactive. But bicarbonate, iron, and water cleanliness also play a role — these are not measured by water hardness.”

Ziprick advises farmers to measure the hardness of the water they will be using for spray applications and understand how the chemicals they’re using may be susceptible to that water quality. “You then have a template to decide which pesticide and adjuvant to use depending on hard water levels, high pH or other spray quality factors,” he says. “It’s been well documented that any form of glyphosate can be compromised

EDITOR

Leeann Minogue FIELD EDITOR

by hard water. It’s just like conducting a soil test, if you don’t measure it you can’t manage it.”

In the U.S. it is common practice for farmers to use ammonium sulfate as an adjuvant for glyphosate and glufosinate herbicides. “It’s not on all labels and it may or may not show a benefit but many custom applicators put it in as a form of insurance [against hard water issues],” says Wolf. Farmers should be sure, he adds, to use the right form and not ammonium thiosulfate, which can form a precipitate in the tank, plugging nozzles.

Alternative water conditioning products do exist, like Loveland Products’ Choice Weathermaster, which also works to tie up positive cations and is added to the water prior to adding the herbicide.

Ziprick explains that calcium is generally the biggest cause of hard water found in most samples in Western Canada and ammonium sulfate does a very good job of addressing it, but magnesium. Iron can also be a concern, and iron especially can have a strong affect on glyphosate even at low concentrations. “Choice Weathermaster has chelating and sequestering agents that bind to all forms of cations, so if you aren’t sure of exactly what you are dealing with I see Choice Weathermaster as a better risk management tool to overcome all forms of cation concentrations in a water sample as a water conditioner,” he says.

ADJUVANTS FOR TANK CLEANING Just as there are adjuvants to help with the functionality and performance of pesticides there are also adjuvants that help clean them out of the tank after application.

There are two basic formulations of pesticides: water soluble and oil soluble. Oil-based pesticides can be particularly hard to clean out because they can stick to plastic walls and are difficult to wash off. “It’s really important to take the time and effort to clean [the sprayer] out properly,” says Ziprick. “The payoff is obvious when crop injury is prevented by a relatively simple task.”

Traditional tank cleaning products often have an ammonia base, which is effective against many herbicides, but not all, says Ziprick. “Our All Clear product contains surfactants as well as sequestering agents that do not allow for re-deposition and do a real good job of getting into the nooks and crannies and the corners of the entire spray application equipment.” † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www. angelalovell.ca.

At Farm Business Communications we have a firm commitment to protecting your privacy and security as our customer. Farm Business Communications will only collect personal information if it is required for the proper functioning of our business. As part of our commitment to enhance customer service, we may share this personal information with other strategic business partners. For more information regarding our Customer Information Privacy Policy, write to: Information Protection Officer, Farm Business Communications, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 Occasionally we make our list of subscribers available to other reputable firms whose products and services might be of interest to you. If you would prefer not to receive such offers, please contact us at the address in the preceding paragraph, or call 1-800-665-0502.

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The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Grainews and Farm Business Communications attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists and Grainews and Farm Business Communications, cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and the editors as well as Grainews and Farm Business Communications assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader for this publication based on any and all information provided.

MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

5

Features GRAIN STORAGE

When to run the fans Reports about the best times to run aeration plans have been conflicting, and sometimes confusing. Moisture sensor cables can bring all the information together

BY ANGELA LOVELL

F

armers can hardly be blamed for being a bit confused about using aeration to dry their grain in the bin. They are told to turn their fans off at night, or only run them at night or run them continuously until that grain is down to the moisture level they want.

Proponents of each method have plenty of evidence to support their theories, which on the face of it all seems contradictory.

But if you dig down a bit deeper into the information, especially that relating to using aeration to dry down and condition grain, there is probably one key message that they all agree on: careful monitoring is key.

Drying the grain in the bin isn’t really the number one concern; cooling it is. Drying occurs as the grain cools and as long as it’s kept at a constant temperature, once it’s cooled to a certain level, it should stay at the same moisture content. That’s the theory, but as every farmer can tell you, there always seem to be some circumstances where grain suddenly seems to heat up and moisture content increases.

at a temperature of around 3 C, which will eliminate microbial activity and render any pests in the grain inactive.

“One of the misconceptions out there with grain storage is that guys think if three degrees is good then minus 20 must be better,” says Calvin Boisjoli, director of grain management with Wall Grain Handling Systems Ltd. “Freezing will damage the shell of the grain kernel by creating micro stress fractures. Producers generally don’t notice this damage because much of the resulting

breakage (and shrink) blows away in the wind when loading the truck. The kernels can also stick together when frozen, especially if there are moisture pockets present, which can block the aeration.”

WHEN TO RUN THE FANS Misconceptions abound around when to turn aeration fans and heaters on and off. On-farm research by Dr. Don Palmer in Saskatchewan suggests that the

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There are a lot of misconceptions around when to turn fans on and off.

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Running fans continuously is the least effective (and most costly) option The issue often is that farmers aren’t aware of exactly what is going on in the bin, which is why monitoring is all important.

Up until a few years ago farmers could only monitor the temperature in the bin, which is still a crucial factor, but now they have the ability to also keep tabs on the moisture content.

Moisture sensor cables came onto the market a few years ago and, as part of an integrated monitoring system, can offer farmers both peace of mind and opportunities to capture the maximum profit potential from every bin.

Temperature, relative humidity (RH) and grain moisture levels are all important factors to maintain the quality of the grain in the bin.

How much water the air can hold is determined by temperature. The higher the temperature, the more water holding capacity it has. For example, air at 26 C can hold up to 4.3 kilograms of water; air at 15 C can hold a maximum of 2.25 kg of water. Relative humidity measures how much water is actually in the air — an RH of 50 per cent on a 15 C day means the air is holding around 1.12 kg of water (50 per cent of the 2.25 kg maximum).

Ideally, grain should be stored

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features » CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE best time to run aeration fans is at night, when the air is cooler.

But Palmer adds that fans should only be run when the outside temperature of the air is cooler than the grain temperature inside the bin, which would suggest that there are a lot of other factors governing when fans should actually be run.

Research by Dr. Chandra B. Singh and Ronald G. Larson of OPIsystems compared a number of different methods to determine which produced optimum results. Their research also found that running fans only at night was effective only when the grain temperature was warmer than the ambient air.

They also determined that once night time temperatures dipped below zero, no further drying occurred, suggesting that grain harvested late, and/or in cooler than usual fall conditions might not have the opportunity to dry to required levels by running fans only at night.

The two trials agree that running fans continuously is the least effective (and most costly) option to obtain optimum grain quality. Continuously running fans risks over-drying the grain.

Often, drying is not uniform throughout the bin, which can be compounded if heat is added to dry the grain quickly.

“If farmers have to move major moisture through the grain and they don’t have a lot of time to dry it they generally either use a dryer or some producers are using approximately a 100 F temperature rise in a heater that is in line with the fan,” says Boisjoli. “That dries the bottom out severely and at the top the grain is generally still wet. So the average moisture content may be

14 per cent but the producer has four per cent on the bottom and 18 per cent on the top. So when he is talking to a marketer he has to say here’s my average, will you give me an average price for the whole bin? Otherwise, the farmer has to find a way to blend the grain to achieve average target moisture content.”

DETERMINING FACTORS But the bigger message from this later study is that the operation of fans should be determined by many factors, such as: • the outside temperature; • the temperature of the grain; • the moisture level of the grain; and, the farmer’s goals in terms of grain quality, which vary from bin to bin, farm to farm and season to season.

“If you don’t know what you are doing to the grain you generally end up over-running your fans, constantly dehydrating and/ or rehydrating ten grain. There is really only a specific period of time during a 24 hour cycle that you should be running those fans,” says Boisjoli. “There’s no magical formula to control this stuff and you can never say run at specific times during the day or during the night, or for four hours, or from 10 to noon, or whatever.

You can’t really say you should run fans (or heaters) at any time until you know the ambient conditions and what it is going to do to that grain.”

Continuously monitoring all of these factors is really the only way that farmers can ensure they are optimizing the quality of their grain and not losing money whilst doing it. OPI-integris is the only fully integrated control system available in Canada that allows farmers to automate this process and monitor temperature and

moisture conditions in the bin and apply air with or without heat in response to changing conditions.

OPI-INTEGRIS SYSTEM Noel Flitton, who farms 11,000 acres of grain between Calgary and Lethbridge (Twin Valley Farms), installed the OPI-integris system to monitor his new 25,000 bushel and 35,000 bushel bins last fall. For him the biggest benefit so far is being able to remotely monitor exactly what’s going on in the bins, which are six miles away.

“I have been able to monitor my moisture and grain temperature from my office,” says Flitton.

“Normally in a bin you don’t really know what is going on in there. After having this system on the large bins, I at least want to put the monitoring cables in them too so I can check them on an ongoing basis.”

Flitton has some very dry grain in those bins, which he hopes to use the system to help re-hydrate as soon as the weather is conducive, but in the mean time he has the confidence of knowing that the system is maintaining his grain at a constant temperature and moisture level.

“The OPI-integris system minimizes the amount of over-drying on the bottom of the bin and maximizes drying by toggling the heater on and off, so we don’t just run the heater all the time,” says Boisjoli. “We run the heat based on the EMC (Equilibrium Moisture Content) of the air and if it is cool and wet we will run the heater for a while until it heats and dries the air and then we will turn it off, so that it always stays in the targeted EMC band. What we are trying to get is a good average air moisture

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This is what Noel Flitton of Twin Valley farms sees on the computer screens in his office, six miles away from the bins he’s monitoring.

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Equilibrium moisture content (EMC)

N

atural air grain drying is governed by the principle of Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC): the moisture content that grain will attain if exposed to air of a specific relative humidity and temperature for a long enough duration.

Each grain will have a different EMC based on the moisture of the outside air. For example the outside air today could have the potential to add 10 per cent moisture to wheat, but only seven per cent to canola.

From this a range can be determined at which optimum drying will occur.

If the EMC of the air delivered to the grain, including fan and heater warming, is lower than the grain EMC, moisture will be released from the grain to the surrounding air and drying will occur. If the EMC of the air delivered to the grain is greater than the grain EMC, the grain will absorb moisture, and re-hydrating will occur. † Angela Lovell

MARCH 11, 2013

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Features » CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE content and temperature which will change the grain to the target given enough aeration run-time.”

TOO LITTLE MOISTURE

MANAGEMENT STILL REQUIRE Grain storage has evolved over the years as technology has pro-

vided new tools to help farmers dry and condition their grain and maintain it at optimum quality.

But the biggest challenge remains education about the various factors that influence that process and how to use those tools most effectively.

The OPI-integris system does automate much of the actual process of drying, conditioning, maintaining and re-hydrating the grain, but it requires input from the farmer who needs to set the parameters depending on what he wants to achieve with

“It’s a matter of exposing the grain to specific moisture content of air” — Calvin Boisjoli

Recognizing that it’s a very com- his grain. This requires some plex issue and there is some confu- hands-on training at first, which sion among farmers, Wall Grain, Boisjoli and the grain managewhich markets OPIsystems products ment team deliver both on-farm across Western Canada gets heavily and through remote access to their system. involved in the education process B:8.125” “It’s a management tool,” says with farmers to help them optimize T:8.125” Boisjoli. “But you still need to grain management on their farm.

S:8.125”

know what you want to do with the grain, where your market opportunities are and what your goals are.”

But the system itself largely takes care of the rest, and is cost effective and efficient, says Gross. “You can set the parameters so it is optimum for energy efficiency to accomplish what you want to do with your grain,” he says. Based on historical data Gross feels that the system will save 25 to 30 per cent in energy costs, but adds the peace of mind it brings is almost as valuable. “Before, without the monitoring system and the cables you virtually had to sit there and watch the weather every hour and turn the fans off and on but this system is more hands-free, you don’t have to babysit it and it’s cost effective.” † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www.angelalovell.ca.

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Grain storage isn’t just about drying down grain to the desired moisture level. Equally often grain that goes in to the bin is too dry or is overdried once it’s in the bin.

In the past farmers basically had three options; try to re-hydrate it in the fall, sell it as dry grain to the elevator or wait for spring and try to re-hydrate it a few points.

All of these options have problems. Re-hydrating in the fall has to be done quickly before the ambient outside temperatures drop below a point where the air does not carry very much moisture. Farmers are penalized if the grain is too wet upon delivery, however they are not paid a premium when it is too dry. If the grain is delivered overly dry to the elevator it will be blended with wetter grain to bring the moisture content to the desired level.

Delivering grain that is either too wet or too dry takes profits directly out of the farmer’s pocket.

Trying to figure out when conditions in the spring are going to be perfect to begin re-hydration can be an art form and involve almost hourly trips outside to try and determine if air is consistently warm and wet enough to carry some moisture in into the grain, but not too wet, as this can create problems — saturating the grain in the bottom of the bin, which will block air flow.

The OPI-integris system, combined with Wall Grain’s management support, eliminates a lot of the uncertainty, work and time involved in re-hydrating grain and can allow a much wider window of opportunity to get that grain to the elevator faster and in optimum condition.

“We don’t allow the fans to run unless the EMC is in a specific range, so let’s say we are trying to rehydrate canola, which is at six per cent moisture. We would run air that was anything above six per cent and maybe up to 12 per cent EMC until the bottom of that grain started to rehydrate to a target of 10 per cent,” says Boisjoli.

“It’s a matter of exposing the grain to specific moisture content of air — that’s what EMC is all about, picking the right air and calculating the EMC based on the ambient and the monitoring that air in the plenum as it goes into the grain.”

Greenwood Colony near Fort Macleod, Alberta, installed the OPI-integris system last fall in its 42,000 bushel bins of canola

and wheat. Although it was late in the season by the time the system was up and running, in the remaining days where the weather was still conducive, they added three per cent moisture to around a third of the grain, which had gone into the bins drier than they had hoped.

The fans ran for about 150 hours total, says Walter Gross, who manages the system for the Colony, and adds a big benefit of the system is that it helps retain what moisture you already have in the bin. “If your object was to cool the grain because the moisture is at an optimum level and you want to cool it for longer term storage it will turn on the fans on when it is cooling but not drying, so it gives a double advantage there,” says Gross.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features Crop nutrition

Liquid fertilizer and melting urea Patrick Fabian found a new way to stretch his fertilizer dollar further and take his fertility management to the next level

By Patrick Fabian

E

very so often, while we’re trying to solve one problem, we stumble across something else that turns out to be a huge benefit to a bigger picture issue. That was my experience with liquid fertilizer and melting urea.

My seeding equipment consists of a 30-foot set of John Deere 9450 hoe drills. Up to this point we could only apply dry product in the seed row. We had to be careful how much granular fertilizer we applied, as the extremely high salt content burned the seed, especially in soybeans.

This meant either applying the extra product with a spin-spreader

(when one was available to rent), or figuring out some way I could band it in, as I don’t have the equipment to do that.

In 2009 my eyes were opened as to how much money I was wasting with this process. We had just finished spreading a $119-acre fertilizer blend, and were ready to seed the next morning. That night it started raining. The field didn’t dry up until weeks later when it was too late to plant a crop.

Next spring’s soil tests showed virtually zero nutrients remaining.

They either volatilized into the air, leached down past the root zone or got tied up in my high calcareous/high pH soil. So much for the concept of “building fertility levels in your soil.”

Switching to liquid?

Frustrated, I began to look for another way to fix my situation.

We could have seeded that field if I hadn’t been delayed by two days waiting to get a spreader.

I looked at using liquid fertilizer, but it just seemed too cumbersome to switch over and all the fertilizer experts on the speaking circuit were downplaying the liquid products, citing “too expensive,” “hard to handle,” “special equipment needed,” and even “snake oil.”

Yet the more I looked, the more liquid fertilizer seemed to satisfy what I was looking to do. In soybeans, for example, every pound of granular phosphorus laid down in the seed row reduced the plant stand by 0.5 per cent. That meant

20 pounds of phosphours would wipe out 10 per cent of my plant stand.

Liquid phosphorus in the form of 6-22-2 wasn’t like that. I could apply all I wanted into the seed row, and it was still seed-safe because of the extremely low salt index.

With nitrogen, we’ve been taught all these years that “more is better” to the point of having nitrogen toxicity in the root zone.

But if I was to switch over to liquid, how would I address the huge amounts of nitrogen that my fertilizer dealer was insisting needed to be placed in front of the seed?

It seemed that one solution only created yet another problem.

Then I stumbled across some

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research that permanently changed my mindset and my thinking about fertility.

Research trials There were some scientifically replicated trials done over a three year period by Dr. Bill Hamman that showed that foliar applied melted urea had a 4.2:1 efficiency factor as opposed to soil applied.

In other words, if I applied 10 pounds of actual nitrogen as a foliar application it had the same effect on the plant as 42 pounds dropped into the ground!

This had my attention, immediately. Think of the cost savings with just that alone!

Digging further, I found that University of California, Davis also did replicated trials and found that phosphorus intake efficiencies were even higher than for nitrogen, to the tune of 20:1! Why hadn’t this research been done years ago in Western Canada?

The problem was that back a number of years ago, most farms didn’t have sophisticated high clearance sprayers for this type of application, and liquid kits for cultivators and drills were very basic and crude at best.

Now, more and more farms have high clearance rigs, either selfpropelled or pull-type, so that has been addressed. Liquid kits for drills are also gaining rapid popularity as they not only are relatively simple to install, but are accurate. One liquid phosphorus company will even sell the kit to you and credit you back on the product you apply over the next two years, virtually making the entire kit cost-free to the farmer.

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Now, how do I deal with getting liquid nitrogen, as it is nowhere near as common as dry 46-0-0?

The answer is simple — make it at home! I did, and continue to do so.

With some help from Leo Lutz, Northern Alberta district sales manager with Alpine Plant Foods Corporation, I was given the recipe for melting dry 46-0-0 into a liquid form, which could be applied as a foliar to utilize the above efficiency numbers.

What was required for the process was quite basic: a cone bottom tank, a pump and an auger.

That’s it.

The formula was simple as well: 675 gallons of water and two metric tonnes of 46-0-0 produced 1,000 gallons of 18-0-0.

That was enough to do 200 acres with a 42 pounds per acre nitrogen equivalency. The entire process was not only simple but took less than a half hour to complete. My son and I even did up a video to chronicle the events of our first attempt — find it at www.fabianseedfarms. com/videos.html.

Fertility management One thing we realized with this new system is how it moved us to a whole new level in fertility

MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

Features FERTILITY MANAGEMENT One thing we realized with this new system is how it moved us to a whole new level in fertility management.

In the past, when we were dealing with dry fertilizer, it always frustrated me that we could never adequately address the issue of micronutrients due to the inability to apply 1.5 lbs. (a little over a handful) across 43,560 square feet where every plant would get it.

Most times, we were encouraged to “forget about the micros and just apply more nitrogen, because that is where you will see the difference.” So much for balanced fertility.

Using liquid makes a major difference. Now, when we know we are chronically deficient with a micronutrient in our field we can very easily address the problem by applying it right in the seed row as a liquid with our melted urea and liquid phosphorus. Every seed gets it, not just the chosen few.

If it turns out after taking a tissue test, we are still deficient in an element, we can easily apply it as a foliar by using a chelated micronutrient, in conjunction with the 6-22-2 liquid phosphorus as a carrier. This is done to facilitate the absorption of the micro, as by itself it may not be taken in by the plant. Our experience with liquid fertilizer is showing us that by balancing our nutrient requirements we can begin to reduce the amount of nitrogen we have been conditioned to put on in the past, without sacrificing yield, yet eliminating the buildup of an almost toxic band in the soil from all the front-end loaded nitrogen.

While everything we have is grown under irrigation, this technique would have an absolutely perfect fit in a dryland situation.

Rather than front-end load all your fertilizer hoping for lots of moisture, put some down with the seed. Then, if it is turning out to be a dry year you look like a genius to your banker because you haven’t gone overboard with inputs. If, however it looks like you are going to have a decent year moisture-wise, go out and foliar apply another shot of fertilizer. You will still look like a genius in your banker’s eyes, and you’ll probably sleep better at night as well!

If this concept interests you I would recommend seeking the advice of a knowledgeable agronomist who comprehends this type of a fertility regime. I have met many who tell me it can’t be done or I can’t do this for a host of reasons.

The biggest reason usually is that they aren’t comfortable with the concept — they don’t understand it because they weren’t schooled that way.

I certainly didn’t embark on this on my own knowledge alone.

I sought out someone who was familiar with the concept to guide me, and now rely on the expertise of Gerald Anderson, an Agri-Trend agri-coach, to ensure that what I am doing is correct. He has clients who have been doing this successfully for over eight years.

Sometimes it’s scary thinking outside the box and even more so to act on your thoughts. But if it enhances profitability, it might be worth a closer look. † Patrick Fabian is a pedigreed seed producer at Tilley Alberta. Find his email address on his website at www.fabianseedfarms.com, call him at 403-633-9999 or follow him on Twitter @ABSeedman.

Patrick Fabian believes that using liquid fertilizer lets him take fertility management to the next level.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features CROP PRODUCTION

HERBICIDE HEADACHE

CROP ADVISOR’S CASEBOOK

BY RAEANNE DENOMIE

I

t was during the early days of July when I first received a call from a farmer troubled about his canola fields. John — who operates a 3,000-acre farm just east of Wadena, Sask., consisting of mainly wheat and canola — had sprayed his five canola fields with glyphosate on June 8. Within two weeks he noticed the weeds had not been fully eradicated, and in some areas they were beginning to grow back. “It doesn’t appear that my herbicide worked, but I have no idea why,” John explained.

When I first arrived at John’s field, I could see that the weeds

were in fact coming back to life.

In some instances, the older leaves of the weeds had died, but the plants were still thriving. It was evident the glyphosate had not translocated within the weed.

Some of the most common causes for herbicide failure include incorrect mixing procedures, water usage, sprayer malfunction, or something wrong with the chemical batch.

However, none of these factors appeared to be the cause: no lot number complaints had been registered for that particular batch of glyphosate, records indicated the weather had been ideal for spraying that week, and John often used glyphosate

CROP ADVISOR’S SOLUTION

BY TESS STRAND

W

hen Ken, a local farmer who owns a 2,900-acre farm in Norquay, Sask., discovered darkened heads appearing throughout one of his wheat fields, he called me right away.

“It has to be some sort of disease, but I’ve never seen these particular symptoms before. I can’t seem to figure out what it is,” Ken explained to me over the phone. He told me about his management strategy on this particular field and it seemed he had conducted good management practices. For example, he had sprayed a fungicide at the flag leaf stage, the seed had been treated and he had a sound fertility program in place. I decided to have a look at the black wheat heads for myself.

When I arrived at Ken’s farm,

Tundra

I noticed the field was starting to turn and would soon be ready to desiccate. The infected heads were located in patches scattered randomly throughout the field. Some of the wheat heads were entirely affected and the most mature heads seemed to be hardest hit. Meanwhile, the younger green heads seemed to be unaffected.

Ken had been right to call me — these were strange symptoms. The first diseases that came to mind were smut, bunt and glume blotch.

However, there were no signs of false wheat kernels, the black growth was on the glumes but the glumes themselves were not discoloured and symptoms appeared only on the ripe heads, so those three diseases were ruled out.

I had an idea about what was causing the damage, but I took some pictures and sent them to an agronomy manager for confirmation.

on his farm and his tank mixing procedures all seemed in order.

In addition, other herbicides applied by the same sprayer on

The glyphosate had not translocated within the weed the same day had been effective, so mechanical error was also ruled out.

One interesting fact I learned from John was he had never

checked the quality of the water he used for pesticide application.

It was time to test John’s water.

What is the cause of herbicide failure in John’s field? Send your diagnosis to Grainews, Box 9800, Winnipeg, Man., R3C 3K7; email leeann.minogue@fbcpublishing. com or fax 204-944-5416 c/o Crop Advisor’s Casebook. Best suggestions will be pooled and one winner will be drawn for a chance to win a Grainews cap and a one-year subscription to the magazine. The best answer, along with the reasoning which solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop Advisor’s Solution. † Raeanne Denomie is a sales agronomist for Richardson Pioneer Ltd., at Wadena, Sask.

Raeanne Denomie

A SOOTY SITUATION Because the infection only appeared on prematurely ripened wheat heads, the fact that the tissue surfaces of the heads, kernels and glumes were not discoloured, and the feedback from the agronomy manager indicated that Ken’s wheat field had been infected with sooty mould.

Sooty mould is caused by saprophytic fungi that grow on dead tissue and is, therefore, not considered a true crop disease.

Sooty mould usually infects heads that are prematurely ripened due to an in-season disease such as fusarium head blight, root rot, take-all, or aster yellows. There is no method of treatment once sooty mould is present in a field.

Fusarium head blight had not been an issue on Ken’s farm and harvest samples didn’t show any levels of concern. However, aster yellows and root rot had been causing problems for producers

in Ken’s region. In fact, the hot and wet conditions that summer had caused many diseases to become issues for producers in the area.

In this case, however, the sooty mould was caused by multiple rains on the premature heads at the beginning of August. Aster yellows, take-all or root rot had probably prematurely ripened the heads, all of which was out of Ken’s control.

If the cause of the prematurely ripened heads had been fusarium head blight, a fungicide applied at flowering would have prevented the tissue from being killed early on and the plant’s ensuing susceptibility to sooty mould.

Even though a seed treatment was applied, the long, cool, wet spring allowed the infection of root rot to occur well into the summer, but the level of infection was likely reduced.

Sooty mould is not preventable, but the initial diseases that can make a crop more susceptible to it are, with the exception of plants prematurely ripened due to aster yellows.

Sooty mould can cause kernel discolouration if the infestation is severe. A high incidence of mould will also affect storage — the grain must be stored dry.

Although Ken had conducted good management practices and had taken every precaution, in future he must continue to scout and monitor for diseases such as fusarium head blight to ensure they do not cause prematurely ripened heads. In addition, this field’s grain will be more susceptible to spoilage due to the presence of mould and should be closely monitored during storage. † Tess Strand is a sales agronomist for Richardson Pioneer Ltd., at Canora, Sask.

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Features Transportation

End of an era Lisa Guenther takes a look at the closure of a Turtleford’s small capacity grain elevator

By Lisa Guenther

PART OF A TREND

ne of the last small capacity grain elevators in west-central Saskatchewan is closing, ending one town’s grain-handling era.

Turtleford’s Richardson Pioneer elevator stopped taking grain as of December 31, 2012. It was the only small elevator on the defunct North Battleford-Turtleford CNR line that survived after railway service halted in 2000.

The elevator’s grain buyer says flagging demand wasn’t the problem.

Each year elevator staff dump and ship about one million bushels, including canola and bin butts. They also source 1.8 million bushels for farm pickup.

“Now our business is three times what it was, but we can’t keep up to the safety codes,” says Roland Olson, grain buyer.

The elevator’s office needs a $50,000 investment to take care of mold and other issues. The rest of the facility needs a further $250,000 or so of work.

Elevator staff will be selling crop inputs out of the elevator this spring. In July 2013, the elevator will close completely.

“But we’re still going to do that.

I’m just going to work out of my house now, with a laptop and a truck,” says Olson.

With a capacity of just over 3,000 metric tonnes, the Turtleford elevator is one of the few small elevators left in the region. Other small elevators run in Shellbrook, Cutknife, and Rabbit Lake, though Olson says the Rabbit Lake elevator is set to close as well.

Millard wasn’t surprised when he heard Turtleford’s elevator was closing. “It was in the making for a long time.”

Olson says the trend of centralizing grain terminals to larger centres started in the mid-90s.

“None of the smaller elevators were making money and basically the whole business was geared towards large car spots,” says Olson.

The Richardson Pioneer elevator was built in 1981. A Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator was built in 1992, Olson says. But the Sask.

In 2011 and 2012, independent co-operators in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba put Nodulator® XL to the test in 54 field-scale

trials in peas and lentils. Crops inoculated with Nodulator® XL out-yielded crops inoculated with competitive products 82% of the time,

out-yielding our competitor’s product by an average of 1.5 bu./ac. or 3%.

45

2011/12 Nodulator® XL Performance Summary - Pea and Lentil

1.5 bu./ac. MORE

43

44

44.3

42.8

42

The elevator’s closure will mean a longer driver for the Turtleford farmers, along with farmers from St. Walburg and north. Large grain terminals at North Battleford and Lloydminster are both nearly 90 kilometres from Turtleford.

The shut-down will also affect farmers with partial loads.

“There’s one guy in Rapid View, he hauls about two, three ton loads a year. Just, again, what doesn’t fit in the semis. So now he’ll have to say to heck with it, or go to Battleford,” says Olson.

Jay Millard farms near Livelong, which is about 20 kilometres east of Turtleford. Millard hauls 75 to 100 loads of his own grain each year. He also runs a trucking business, hauling grain for other farmers.

Millard says he usually hauls to the terminals in Lloydminster or the Battlefords. He says farmers from as far north as Pierceland haul their grain to North Battleford, which is about 150 kilometres each way.

Some farmers say having fewer terminals is less efficient.

“It just creates so much congestion on the other end because you get so much funneled into such few spots. Line ups and waits,” says Millard.

The Richardson Pioneer elevator at Turtleford elevator will close completely in July, 2013.

41

Longer drives for farmers

Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.

Guenther@fbcpublishing.com.

WIN BIG! Yield (bu./ac.)

O

Wheat Pool elevator didn’t survive when CNR stopped service 13 years ago.

“Ninety-five per cent of the elevators closed when that happened. We were lucky. We were an hour from each terminal and the company wanted a presence in the community. We had a good business so they let us stay,” says Olson.

But Millard credits Olson for persuading Richardson Pioneer to keep the elevator open.

“He raised his family there. That was home. He didn’t want to go anywhere else. He was happy there and he stayed as long as he could.”

Olson has been working at the elevator for 37 years. He is only the fourth grain buyer to run the elevator since the early 1920’s.

Olson says the low turnover rate is almost unheard of. “That’s because of the community. Everybody likes it here,” says Olson. †

And 2012 grower experience is proving that when it comes to pea and lentil inoculants, nothing outperforms Nodulator® XL. Here’s a cross section of yield data, hot off the fields.

Mike Verbeurgt Ceylon, SK Lentil: 27 bu./ac.

Ben Hofer

Eli Wurz

Paul Hofer

Foremost, AB Pea: 55 bu./ac.

Lentil: 32 bu./ac.

New Dayton, AB Pea: 60 bu./ac.

Lentil: 35 bu./ac.

Lumsden, SK Pea: 55 bu./ac.

Lentil: 40 bu./ac.

Clinton Paysen

For complete trial data please visit nodulatorxl.com

www.nodulatorxl.com Nodulator® and XLerated Performance. Accelerated Yield.™ are trademarks or registered trademarks used under license by Becker Underwood Canada Ltd. The Becker Underwood logo is a trademark of Becker Underwood, Inc. and is licensed to Becker Underwood Canada Ltd.

Jeff Downey

Central Butte, SK Perdue, SK Lentil: 30 bu./ac. Pea: 52 - 54 bu./ac.

Miles Gerwin Kindersley, SK Pea: 40 bu./ac.

12

/ grainews.ca

MARCH 11, 2013

Features SEED PRODUCTION

Seed growers always working on next year Seed growers do their best to test new varieties on their own farms and stay ahead of the trends

BY LEE HART

W

h i l e We s t e r n Canadian farmers are still several weeks away from seeding the 2013 crop, most seed growers are already thinking about the 2014 season.

Seed growers, most who have commercial or commodity crops as well, are making plans on what to seed this coming spring — variety comparisons, new production practices, doing their own on-farm variety trials — all in a bid to have the most relevant varieties available for growers in their trading area a year from now.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan seed growers contacted for the March Farmer Panel say soybean trials top their list of variety trials, followed by new cereal and canola varieties, depending on the grower. In Alberta new cereal varieties will be evaluated this spring, along with some agronomic practices.

Most seed growers follow a philosophy that a variety has to do well on their own farm before they sell it to their customers.

Sorting that out usually involves conducting their own field scale, on-farm, side-by-side comparison trials measured by combine yield monitors, and often confirmed by weigh wagons. These trials often seem like a good idea at seeding in the spring, but the extra effort can make for some hectic days at harvest — espe-

cially late at night when there’s a panic to get a field finished before a storm moves in.

Here is what seed growers contacted for the March farmer panel have on the books for the 2013 growing season,

CRAIG RIDDELL RIDDELL SEED CO. WARREN, MAN. Some of the most in-depth trials on Craig Riddell’s farm in 2013 will evaluate the performance of new R2 soybean varieties.

Riddell, who farms at Warren, just northwest of Winnipeg, has been growing soybeans for the past dozen years. As early maturing and higher yielding varieties are developed the crop has literally been gaining ground in his area, especially after a series of hot, dry summers.

“More farmers are looking to soybeans as an alternative to canola,” says Riddell. “I think we will see more acres seeded displacing canola. Particularly in the last couple years, canola hasn’t done well in our area. We’ve been getting those high temperatures of +30 C right at flowering and it really blasts the flowers. Whereas with soybeans they just love the heat.” He expects canola acres to be down as much as 20 per cent, for a number of reasons, but their inability to handle heat is one of them.

R2 soybeans are the next generation of Roundup Ready

soybeans. This seed has a different mechanism for handling tolerance to glyphosate, which is intended to improve growth and yield.

According to company literature, “Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans contain in-plant tolerance to Roundup agricultural herbicides. This means you can spray Roundup agricultural herbicides in-crop from emergence through flowering for unsurpassed weed control, proven crop safety and maximum yield potential.” More pods per plant over other varieties, they say.

Riddell is involved in the

Greg Stamp’s father, Rick Stamp, from Stamp Select Seeds at Enchant, Alberta. They’ll be boosting seeding rates this year, and testing the results of different agronomic practices. vestability. To further demonstrate maturity, he takes a series of photos during the growing season, which provides a good visual record.

On the seed side of the farm, along with soybeans he also produces pedigreed spring and winter wheat and oats. This year he plans to evaluate a new general purpose wheat called Pasteur, licensed to Secan, which is a long-season, high yielding wheat

“More farmers are looking to soybeans as an alternative to canola” — Craig Riddell

Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Trials (MCVET), which involves small-scale research plots, and he also runs his own field-scale trials as he compares varieties. Fieldscale trials are seeded and harvested with conventional equipment, with yields confirmed with weigh wagons. While the yield figure is important, Riddell also rates soybeans for pod height, threshing ease and overall har-

with a good disease resistance package. And he may be looking at newer hard red spring wheat varieties such as AC Carberry and Cardale, which feature improved yield and improved disease resistance against fusarium head blight, but the last two dry growing seasons really haven’t presented a disease challenge.

There are a few new lines of winter wheat Riddell will be eval-

uating as a possible replacement to CDC Falcon.

BRAD HANMER HANMER SEEDS LTD. GOVAN, SASK. With the potential for soybeans to really take off in his farming area in south-central Saskatchewan, seed grower Brad Hanmer will be evaluating some of the newer, lower heat unit, triple zero (000) soybean varieties this spring.

“We are just on the cusp of having a sizeable soybean acreage in Saskatchewan,” says Hanmer, who farms with his family at Govan, about half way between Regina and Saskatoon. “So we will be looking at the new triple zero varieties versus some of the double zero varieties.”

Hanmer, who describes himself as a “schizophrenic” soybean grower — trying the crop “on and off for the past six years” — says there has been moderate success with the double zero varieties, so the triple zero varieties bred to perform well with fewer heat units may have slightly reduced maturity, making them even more appealing.

Along with soybeans, he will be re-evaluating sclerotinia-resistant canola varieties, shatter-resistant canola varieties, wheat midge-

Fusarium rolls across the land. Ugly and unstoppable.

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Client: BASFCAN

Publication: Grainews

MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

13

Features

For some seeding trials, Stamp pre-programs the seeding prescription on the air seeder to seed certain strips at higher rates. tolerant wheat varieties (such as AC Vesper), a new durum which may be an improvement over AC Strongfield, and new grain corn varieties as well. Among soft white wheats, Hanmer has grown the newer Sadash for a couple years along with AC Andrew.

The evaluation in 2013 will be to confirm whether Sadash is a good replacement for AC Andrew.

“Fortunately with a sizeable landbase we are able to do most of our trials on a field-scale basis,” says Hanmer. With soybeans for example, he plans to divide 640 acres in half, and working with two air drills seed the double zero and triple zero varieties side by side. Canola trials are seeded in plots the width of the seed drill and a half mile long.

“With new corn, soybean and wheat varieties we design field plots that are split half and half, while with canola we do more of the strip field trials,” he says.

“And sometimes we end up with trials we haven’t planned. We’re seeding one variety and run out of seed with 10 acres to go, so we’ll seed another variety and compare the two.”

All field trials are harvested with combines equipped with yield monitors, but yields are also confirmed with weigh grain carts. Canola trials are

measured using yield monitors and weigh wagons.

“Our plans for these trials are always good in the spring, but when it comes to harvest there may be the odd one that gets sacrificed,” says Hanmer. “When it’s 10:30 on a Sunday night and we’re pushing everything to get done before a storm moves in there may not be time. But the one policy we do have is to prove everything on our own farm. I won’t sell anything if we haven’t grown it ourselves. If it isn’t good enough for me, then it’s not good enough for you. We need to always be evaluating crops to maintain our credibility.

Greg Stamp Stamp Select Seeds Enchant, Alta.

Along with evaluating new varieties, Greg Stamp will also be monitoring the effects of new agronomic practices on his southern Alberta farm this year.

Stamp, who along with his family operate Stamp Select Seeds at Enchant, north of Lethbridge, says he will continue to boost seeding rates to determine the benefit on both yield and quality.

“Our seeding rates have been trending up across the board with most crops over the past few

years, and we will be increasing them again in 2013,” he says.

Stamp Select Seeds produces wheat, barley, flax, fababean, pea, canola and tillage raddish seed on their irrigated farm.

With wheat, Stamp will be targeting 36 plants per square foot, up from about 30 plants per square foot last year. Stamp determines seeding rates based on the 1,000 kernel seed weight. Their wheat works out to 39 grams per 1,000 seeds, which translates to about 139 pounds of seed per acre to achieve the 36 plants per square foot. (Calculate this by multiplying the desired plant population per square foot [36] by the weight of 1,000 seeds in grams [39]. Take this product, divide by the expected seedling survival rate [a percentage], then divide by 10. In this case, the answer assumes about 100 per cent seedling survival, and is 140.4 — about 139 pounds per acre.)

Stamp has some customers targeting 48 plants per square foot.

“With the higher seeding rate there is less tillering,” he says.

“Most of the seed is produced by the main stem and first tiller, so if we can reduce the amount of tillering that puts more energy into the main stem and it also reduces the number of tillers the root system has to support. So if we can reduce tillering that helps to increase yield,

and it produces an extremely even stand with even maturity.”

With flax they will be targeting 80 plants per square foot up from about 65 plants per square foot last year. “At these higher seeding rates the flax has done extremely well,” he says.

To better manage the wheat stand at higher seeding rates, Stamp will also be evaluating the effectiveness of a growth regulator this year. “To reduce the risk of lodging we apply the growth regulator that strengthens and shortens the stem,” he says. “A lot of farmers in irrigation districts and now with more moisture in the growing season even more dryland farmers are using growth regulators to reduce lodging.”

For the seeding rate trials, Stamp pre-programs the seeding prescription on air seeder to seed certain strips of the field at higher rates. “Once the prescription is written, the air seeder will adjust the seeding rate automatically, so it doesn’t matter who is seeding,” he says. In the fall, the yield monitor on the combine will show whether the higher rates have made a difference.

Stamp also plans to buy a weigh wagon in 2013 which will be used to weigh yields, and also to ensure the yield monitor on the combine is calibrated accurately.

One other new agronomic practice planned in 2013 involves seeding tillage radish with wheat.

“Research from the U.S. shows it does help to improve yields,” he says. The tillage radish, which produces a radish bulb along with a deep running taproot, works to raise nutrients that are deeper in the soil profile closer to the soil surface and also helps to open the soil structure. As the crop dies off in the fall, it leaves more organic matter in the soil, but the roots have created a channel to benefit moisture movement.

“I am trying it with wheat this year,” says Stamp. “I’ll seed a field of wheat, and then after the in-crop herbicide treatment I’ll come back with broadcast seeding equipment and seed the tillage radish. It will establish, but shouldn’t haven’t any effect on the wheat. Once the wheat is harvested, it will be released and grow producing this deep tap root, which should improve the movement of nutrients and moisture through the soil.”

Along with the agronomic practices, Stamp will also be evaluating new crop varieties.

Among wheats, for example, he’ll be comparing AC Carberry with a new line just in the multiplication stage, BW931 — a hard red spring developed at SPARC, the Agriculture Canada research station at Swift Current. It has been licensed to Alliance Seed.

“We grew some last year and it yielded just as well as a CPS variety so it is looking very good,” he says.

He’ll also be evaluating a Hard Red Spring, Cardale, developed

by Stephen Fox at the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg.

And he’ll be looking at two newer winter wheat varieties marketed

by Secan — AC Flourish a Hard Red Winter well suited for irrigation, and Moats, a Hard Red Winter wheat better suited for dryland farming.

“We have doubled our winter wheat seed production just because there seems to be more demand,” says Stamp. † Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com.

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14

/ grainews.ca

MARCH 11, 2013

Features Crop production

100-bushel soybean club This Missouri farmer has broken the world record, growing dryland soybeans that yielded 109.3 bushels per acre

By Lisa Guenther

C

harlie Hinkebein of Chaffee, Missouri is great at growing soybeans. In 2008, his dryland soybeans yielded 109.3 bushels per acre, breaking a world record. Hinkebein is a 100-Bushel Soybean Club member, an exclusive group that includes two other farmers.

Hinkebein’s success boils down to elbow grease and several management practices that protect yield. Farmers who don’t treat soybeans as a high-value crop won’t capture the high yields, Hinkebein says.

“They don’t look at it as one of the big bread winners, and that’s what you’ve got to do,” says Hinkebein.

“And a lot of people don’t worry about scouting. They don’t worry about anything other than putting it in the ground and hoping it’s going to make a crop on down the road. They spray once or twice, and that’s about it.”

Hinkebein and his son-in-law farm 2,700 acres. Each year they grow 1,200 to 1,300 acres of soybeans.

The United States Department of Agriculture estimates Missouri soybeans averaged 29.5 bushels per acre in 2012. Hinkebein says their beans sat through “some days of 100 degree temperatures.

And we still pulled out a 69 bushel average of beans.”

Soil conditions play into Hinkebein’s success. When Hinkebein started growing soybeans in 1993, he had his land precision graded.

“We’ve got every acre producing the same from one end of the field to the other.”

Hinkebein has built up his soil organic matter to four or five percent. Along with soybeans, wheat, and corn, he works milo into his rotations.

Milo produces a lot of trash, which builds up organic matter, Hinkebein says.

“Also, we quit using the anhydrous. It was killing our earthworms. You’ve got to have something to keep that ground loosened up and bring it up to the top.”

The right genetics also play into Hinkebein’s monster yields. He and his family run test plots every year to see which varieties work best on their farm. Testing varieties before they’re released commercially gives him a three-year head start over other farmers.

Controlling insects and disease Hinkebein says farmers in his area can really get hammered by insects and disease, and can lose 10 to 20 bushels per acre by not spraying.

“We start our fields out clean.

We stay clean. We plant treated seed. Everything we put in the ground is treated two times for fungicide, two times for insecticide. We put N-Hibit on it when we put it in the ground.”

Hinkebein says he doesn’t

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ATE IT • BE NO MORE • SMOKED • FINALLY GOT HIS TAB CALLED AT THE BAR BECAME A ROOT INSPECTOR • BELLY OF LIFE • FINISHED • FLATLINE • FLEW UP • BITE THE DUST • DECIMATED • THE COOP • FRAGGED • GATHERING BOUGHT THE FARM • BREATHE ONE’S THE ASPHALT • GAVE UP THE GHOST • LAST • BUMP OFF • WITHERED • GET YOUR WINGS • GO HOME IN A BOX BURIED • BUY A PINE CONDO • TO AN • GO OFF THE HOOKS • GO OUT LIKE END • CASH IN ONE’S CHIPS • CEASED THE SNUFF OF A CANDLE • GO TO DAVY TO BE • CHECKED OUT • CHECKING JONES’S LOCKER • GO TO MEET ONE’S OUT THE GRASS FROM UNDERNEATH • MAKER • GO TO ONE’S JUST REWARD • CARCASS • CROSSED OVER • CROSSED GO TO ONE’S REST • GO TO THE HAPPY THE RIVER STYX• CUT OFF • DANCE THE HUNTING GROUND • GO TO THE LAST LAST DANCE • DECEASED • DEFINITELY ROUNDUP • GO WEST • GOING TO THE DONE DANCING • DEFUNCT • DEMISED BIG BARLEY FIELD IN THE SKY • GONE • DEPARTED •DIRT NAP • DONE • DONE • GONER • GONE INTO THE WEST • GONE FOR • END ONE’S EARTHLY CAREER • TO A BETTER PLACE • GOT A ONE-WAY ERASED • STOPPED GROWING • EXPIRED TICKET • EXAMINING THE RADISHES • EXTINCT • FALLEN OFF THEIR PERCH • FROM BELOW • HE’S JUGGLING HALOS FEELING NO PAIN • FINAL CHAPTER • NOW • NOT COMING BACK • STAMPED FINAL CURTAIN CALL • FINALLY GOT RETURN TO SENDER • PASSED THE SELLHIS TAB CALLED AT THE BAR OF LIFE •

BY DATE • NOTHING LEFT • IMMORTALLY FINISHED • FLATLINE • FLEW THE COOP CHALLENGED • IN A BETTER PLACE • FRAGGED • GATHERING THE ASPHALT • • IN REPOSE • IN THE HORIZONTAL GAVE UP THE GHOST • GET YOUR WINGS PHONE BOOTH • IT WAS CURTAINS • • GO HOME IN A BOX • GO OFF THE HOOKS • GO OUT LIKE THE SNUFF OF A CANDLE • GO TO DAVY JONES’S LOCKER • GO TO MEET ONE’S MAKER • GO TO ONE’S JUST REWARD • GO TO ONE’S REST • GO TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND • GO TO THE LAST ROUNDUP • GO WEST • GOING TO THE BIG BARLEY FIELD IN THE SKY • GONE • GONER • GONE INTO THE WEST • GONE TO A BETTER PLACE • GOT A ONE-WAY TICKET • EXAMINING THE RADISHES FROM BELOW • HE’S JUGGLING HALOS NOW • NOT COMING BACK • STAMPED RETURN TO SENDER • PASSED THE SELL-BY DATE • NOTHING LEFT • IMMORTALLY CHALLENGED • IN A BETTER PLACE • IN REPOSE • IN THE HORIZONTAL PHONE BOOTH • IT WAS CURTAINS • JOINED THE CHOIR INVISIBLE • JOINED THE MAJORITY • KICKED OFF • KICKED THE BUCKET • KICKED THE OXYGEN HABIT • LATE • LEFT THE BUILDING • LIFELESS • LIGHTS OUT• LIQUIDATED • LIVING-IMPAIRED • LOST • MEET ONE’S END • MEET YOUR MAKER • MORTIFIED • MUMMIFIED • NO LONGER WITH US • NO MORE • NOT BLINKING ANYMORE • OFF THE TWIG • ON THE HEAVENLY SHORES • ON THE UNABLE TO BREATHE LIST • ONE’S HOUR IS COME • OUT OF HIS/HER MISERY • PAID CHARON’S FARE • PASSED AWAY • PAYING A DEBT TO NATURE • PERISHED • PERMANENTLY OUT OF PRINT • PICKING TURNIPS WITH A STEP LADDER • PUSHING UP THE DAISIES • PUT DOWN • CEMENT BOOTS • REACHED THE FINISH LINE • RESTING IN PEACE • RETURN TO THE GROUND • RETURNED TO DUST • RETURNED TO THE GO HOME IN A BOX • GO OFF THE HOOKS SOURCE • RIDING THE PERMA-PINE • • GO OUT LIKE THE SNUFF OF A CANDLE RUBBED OUT • RUN DOWN THE CURTAIN • GO TO DAVY JONES’S LOCKER • GO • SIX FEET UNDER • SEEN THE LIGHT TO MEET ONE’S MAKER • GO TO ONE’S SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES • SLIPPED JUST REWARD • GO TO ONE’S REST • AWAY QUIETLY • SNUFFED • SNUFFED GO TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND • OUT • SPROUTED WINGS • STIFF • STIFF GO TO THE LAST ROUNDUP • GO WEST AS A BOARD • SUCCUMBED • SWAN • GOING TO THE BIG BARLEY FIELD IN SONG • CLEANED UP • TAKEN OUT OF THE SKY • GONE • GONER • GONE INTO PRODUCTION • TAKING A DIRT NAP • THE WEST • GONE TO A BETTER PLACE TERMINATED • THAT GOOD NIGHT • THAT • GOT A ONE-WAY TICKET • EXAMINING WAS ALL SHE WROTE • THE BIG NAP • THE RADISHES FROM BELOW • HE’S THE LONE COUCH OF THIS EVERLASTING JUGGLING HALOS NOW • NOT COMING SLEEP • TOOK A HARP • TRADED TO BACK • STAMPED RETURN TO SENDER THE ANGELS • TURN ONE’S FACE TO • PASSED THE SELL-BY DATE • NOTHING THE WALL • TURN TO DUST • TURN UP LEFT • IMMORTALLY CHALLENGED • ONE’S TOES • TURNED THEIR TOES UP IN A BETTER PLACE • IN REPOSE • IN • TURNING UP DAISIES • WANDERING THE HORIZONTAL PHONE BOOTH • IT THE ELYSIAN FIELDS • WAS A GONER • WAS CURTAINS • JOINED THE CHOIR WINNING ONE FOR THE REAPER • WITH INVISIBLE • JOINED THE MAJORITY THE ANCESTORS • WITH THE ANGELS • KICKED OFF • KICKED THE BUCKET • YIELD ONE’S BREATH • YIELD UP • KICKED THE OXYGEN HABIT • LATE THE GHOST A RACE WELL RUN • NOT • LEFT THE BUILDING • LIFELESS • GOING TO PRODUCE SEED • WITHERED LIGHTS OUT• LIQUIDATED • LIVING• ATE IT • BE NO MORE • SMOKED IMPAIRED • LOST • MEET ONE’S END

BECAME A ROOT INSPECTOR • BELLY UP • BITE THE DUST • DECIMATED • BOUGHT THE FARM • BREATHE ONE’S LAST • BUMP OFF • WITHERED • BURIED • BUY A PINE CONDO • TO AN END • CASH IN ONE’S CHIPS • CEASED TO BE • CHECKED OUT • CHECKING OUT THE GRASS FROM UNDERNEATH • CARCASS • CROSSED OVER • CROSSED THE RIVER STYX• CUT OFF • DANCE THE LAST DANCE • DECEASED • DEFINITELY DONE DANCING • DEFUNCT • DEMISED • DEPARTED •DIRT NAP • DONE • DONE FOR • END ONE’S EARTHLY CAREER • ERASED • STOPPED GROWING • EXPIRED • EXTINCT • FALLEN OFF THEIR PERCH • FEELING NO PAIN • FINAL CHAPTER • FINAL CURTAIN CALL • FINALLY GOT HIS TAB CALLED AT THE BAR OF LIFE • FINISHED • FLATLINE • FLEW THE COOP • FRAGGED • GATHERING THE ASPHALT • GAVE UP THE GHOST • GET YOUR WINGS • GO HOME IN A BOX • GO OFF THE HOOKS • GO OUT LIKE THE SNUFF OF A CANDLE • GO TO DAVY JONES’S LOCKER • GO TO MEET ONE’S MAKER • GO TO ONE’S JUST REWARD • GO TO ONE’S REST • GO TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND • GO TO THE LAST ROUNDUP • GO WEST • GOING TO THE BIG BARLEY FIELD IN THE SKY • GONE • GONER • GONE INTO THE WEST • GONE TO A BETTER PLACE • GOT A ONEWAY TICKET • EXAMINING THE RADISHES FROM BELOW • HE’S JUGGLING HALOS NOW • NOT COMING BACK • STAMPED RETURN TO SENDER • PASSED THE SELLBY DATE • NOTHING LEFT • IMMORTALLY CHALLENGED • IN A BETTER PLACE • IN REPOSE • IN THE HORIZONTAL PHONE BOOTH • IT WAS CURTAINS • JOINED THE CHOIR INVISIBLE • JOINED THE MAJORITY • KICKED OFF • KICKED THE BUCKET • KICKED THE OXYGEN HABIT • LATE • LEFT THE BUILDING • LIFELESS • LIGHTS OUT• LIQUIDATED • LIVINGIMPAIRED • LOST • MEET ONE’S END • MEET YOUR MAKER • MORTIFIED • MUMMIFIED • NO LONGER WITH US • NO MORE • NOT BLINKING ANYMORE • OFF THE TWIG • ON THE HEAVENLY SHORES • ON THE UNABLE TO BREATHE LIST • ONE’S HOUR IS COME • OUT OF HIS/HER MISERY • PAID CHARON’S FARE • PASSED AWAY • PAYING A DEBT TO NATURE • PERISHED • PERMANENTLY OUT OF PRINT • PICKING TURNIPS WITH A STEP LADDER • PUSHING UP THE DAISIES • PUT DOWN • CEMENT BOOTS • REACHED THE FINISH LINE • RESTING IN PEACE • RETURN TO THE GROUND • RETURNED TO DUST • RETURNED TO THE SOURCE • RIDING THE PERMA-PINE

RUBBED OUT • RUN DOWN THE CURTAIN • SIX FEET UNDER • SEEN THE LIGHT - SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES • SLIPPED AWAY QUIETLY • SNUFFED • SNUFFED OUT • SPROUTED WINGS • STIFF • STIFF AS A BOARD • SUCCUMBED • SWAN SONG • CLEANED UP • TAKEN OUT OF PRODUCTION • TAKING A DIRT NAP • TERMINATED • THAT GOOD NIGHT • THAT WAS ALL SHE WROTE • THE BIG NAP • THE LONE COUCH OF THIS EVERLASTING SLEEP • TOOK A HARP • TRADED TO THE ANGELS • TURN ONE’S FACE TO THE WALL • TURN TO DUST • TURN UP ONE’S TOES • TURNED THEIR TOES UP • TURNING UP DAISIES • WANDERING THE ELYSIAN FIELDS • WAS A GONER • WINNING ONE FOR THE REAPER • WITH THE ANCESTORS • WITH THE ANGELS • YIELD ONE’S BREATH • YIELD UP THE GHOST A RACE WELL RUN • NOT GOING TO PRODUCE SEED • WITHERED • ATE IT • BE NO MORE • SMOKED • BECAME A ROOT INSPECTOR • BELLY UP • BITE THE DUST • DECIMATED • BOUGHT THE FARM • BREATHE ONE’S LAST • BUMP OFF • WITHERED • BURIED • BUY A PINE CONDO • TO AN END • CASH IN ONE’S CHIPS • CEASED TO BE • CHECKED OUT • CHECKING OUT THE GRASS FROM UNDERNEATH • CARCASS • CROSSED OVER • CROSSED THE RIVER STYX• CUT OFF • DANCE THE LAST DANCE • DECEASED • DEFINITELY DONE DANCING • DEFUNCT • DEMISED • DEPARTED •DIRT NAP • DONE • DONE FOR • END ONE’S EARTHLY CAREER • ERASED • STOPPED GROWING • EXPIRED • EXTINCT • FALLEN OFF THEIR PERCH • FEELING NO PAIN • FINAL CHAPTER • FINAL CURTAIN CALL • FINALLY GOT HIS TAB CALLED AT THE BAR OF LIFE • FINISHED • FLATLINE • FLEW THE COOP • FRAGGED • GATHERING THE ASPHALT • GAVE UP THE GHOST • GET YOUR WINGS • GO HOME IN A BOX • GO OFF THE HOOKS • GO OUT LIKE THE SNUFF OF A CANDLE • GO TO DAVY JONES’S LOCKER • GO TO MEET ONE’S MAKER • GO TO ONE’S JUST REWARD • GO TO ONE’S REST • GO TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND • GO TO THE LAST ROUNDUP • GO WEST • GOING TO THE BIG BARLEY FIELD IN THE SKY • GONE • GONER • GONE INTO THE WEST • GONE TO A BETTER PLACE • GOT A ONEWAY TICKET • EXAMINING THE RADISHES FROM BELOW • HE’S JUGGLING HALOS NOW • NOT COMING BACK • STAMPED RETURN TO SENDER • PASSED THE SELLBY DATE • NOTHING LEFT • IMMORTALLY CHALLENGED • IN A BETTER PLACE • IN REPOSE • IN THE HORIZONTAL PHONE BOOTH • IT WAS CURTAINS • JOINED THE CHOIR INVISIBLE • JOINED THE MAJORITY • KICKED OFF • KICKED THE BUCKET • KICKED THE OXYGEN HABIT • LATE • LEFT THE BUILDING • LIFELESS • LIGHTS OUT• LIQUIDATED • LIVINGIMPAIRED • LOST • MEET ONE’S END • MEET YOUR MAKER • MORTIFIED • MUMMIFIED • NO LONGER WITH US • NO MORE • NOT BLINKING ANYMORE • OFF THE TWIG • ON THE HEAVENLY SHORES • ON THE UNABLE TO BREATHE LIST • ONE’S HOUR IS COME • OUT OF HIS/HER MISERY • PAID CHARON’S FARE • PASSED AWAY • PAYING A DEBT TO NATURE • PERISHED • PERMANENTLY OUT OF PRINT • PICKING TURNIPS WITH A STEP LADDER • PUSHING UP THE DAISIES • PUT DOWN • CEMENT BOOTS • REACHED THE FINISH LINE • RESTING IN PEACE • RETURN TO THE GROUND • RETURNED TO DUST • RETURNED TO THE SOURCE • RIDING THE PERMA-PINE

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MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

15

Features

Sugar on soybeans

W

hen Grainews field editor Lisa Guenther interviewed Charlie Hinkebein for this article she was surprised by his comment about applying sugar. In fact she was so surprised she nearly cut if from the article.

But then we did a little more research, and found that Hinkebein is far from the only U.S. farmer applying sugar to his fields.

Lots of U.S. farmers talk about this practice in online ag chat rooms. One farmer from Kansas wrote, “I tank mixed with glyphosate and no problems.”

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has done some research into the ability of sucrose octanoate to control pests. Sucrose octanoate is derived from sugar and vegetable oil. The USDA studies seem to show that the product does work.

Many farmers applying sugar are using it to stimulate the growth of microorganisms in the soil, not to directly kill pests. One Pennsylvania

farmer claimed in a chat room to have mixed three gallons of molasses per 300 gallons of water, added zinc, and sprayed it at five gallons per acre. He said it performed better than a high-cost starter.

While it’s clear that farmers are doing this, it’s less clear that there’s an obvious benefit.

SUGAR RESEARCH Monsanto ran demonstrations of several treatments at its Learning Center near Monmouth, Illinois, in 2010. One treatment they included was applying two pounds of sugar per acre. Monsanto concluded, “The addition of foliar applied sugar is a practice of interest to many area soybean farmers.

However, this treatment showed no benefit in this trial.”

Dr. Shawn Conley, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Wisconsin was involved in another sugar evalu-

» CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE ation. Conley and other researchers ran soybean trials in four U.S. states, looking at four types of sugar; granulated cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup, molasses and blackstrap molasses. All types were applied at a rate of three pounds of sugar per acre, diluted in water and applied at growth stages chosen to coincide with common glyphosate application times.

Conley and his fellow researchers concluded that soybean yield was not influenced by foliar applications of sugar.

But when he published a paper describing this study, Conley says, “It sparked the most anger of anything I’ve written in 10 years as a professor.”

Conley says sugar is a very popular treatment among a certain group of soybean growers. Farmers apply sugar to increase biological activity and increase organic matter in the soil. “It’s cheap,” he says, and “it tells a good story.”

Meanwhile, another U.S. farmer joined the debate in the online chat room www. newagtalk.com. He said, “You guys are wasting your time with this hocus pocus sugar fetish.” † Leeann Minogue

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overspray, but he sprays at the right time. Once the beans are up, a crop duster applies fungicide and insecticide. Hinkebein also gets the crop duster to apply six to eight pounds of sugar on each crop every year.

He says the insects can’t digest the sugar, which sticks to the plants for a couple weeks longer than the pesticides.

“People laughed about it for a long time. But they started to see the effects. And I’ve got eight or 10 just in our area that started using it last year.”

Hinkebein scouts about three times a week. He typically gets up between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m., takes care of anything that needs to be done on the tractor, and then hunts for insects.

“If you get out there at three or four in the morning, the insects are working. They’re out there because they can’t take the heat.”

Cyst nematodes are a problem for some farmers, though products such as VOTiVO help.

Hinkebein says rotations keep nematode numbers down on his farm.

Hinkebein also cut his seeding rates down to between 125,000 and 130,000 seeds per acre. Lower plant populations allow the beans to capture more sunlight, and make the crop less hospitable to Dectes stem borers, Hinkebein says.

“The thicker the foliage, the more chance for that bug to stay alive. It can’t take sunlight.”

Hinkebein isn’t afraid to try out new ideas on his farm.

“We start our fields out clean. We stay clean”

— Charlie Hinkebein

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“I don’t ask many questions of people. I try it myself, and if it don’t work, I can’t blame anyone else for it.” Hinkebein looked to his father, now deceased, for a lot of farming information. He also exchanges notes with a few other farmers.

LONG-TERM VIEW OF AGRICULTURE Hinkebein has future generations in mind when he’s taking care of his land. His own grandson is determined to be a farmer.

“I told my grandson, before he starts, he’s going to have a college education when he gets on the farm. He can work through it, but he needs the education.”

Farmers new to growing soybeans aren’t likely to see the yields Hinkebein pulls in right away. He points out it took him 20 years to get to the place he’s at now.

“It will take a while. You’ve got to get your ground built up. I mean, I can go three years without putting any fertilizer on, other than nitrogen for corn.

And my ground’s built up high enough that I don’t need it.” † Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.

Guenther@fbcpublishing.com.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features CROP NUTRITION

Seed-placed phosphorus for canola and soybeans Seed-placed phosphorus can give plants an extra boost early in the season, but it’s important to think about your entire rotation

BY ANGELA LOVELL

S

eed-placed fertilizers give plants that extra boost early in the season and are especially useful to provide the phosphorus that plants need right from the get go. But with the introduction of new crops like soybeans into Prairie rotations, seedplacing phosphorus has become more complex.

Soybeans and canola are both highly sensitive to seed-placed fertilizers. Without the seed-placed fertilizers, it can be difficult to meet the nitrogen and phosphorus needs of these crops early in the growing season.

Although phosphorus placed with the seed isn’t toxic, the nitrogen that comes with it is toxic to the emerging seedling.

So, especially if canola or soybeans are grown continuously or are grown in rotation with each other, soil reserves of phosphorus can be depleted over time. The need to significantly reduce or eliminate seed placed fertilizers to avoid seedling damage can deplete phosphorus reserves and reduce yield potential over time.

THE ROLE OF PHOSPHORUS Phosphorus and nitrogen react differently in the soil. Surplus phosphorus is not likely to leave the soil in large amounts because it is not very mobile, which means that unless there are erosion losses or it moves dissolved in surface water it stays put where it’s placed for the most part. Although the amount of phosphorus that can be lost by erosion or run-off is usually minimal and doesn’t have a huge

impact agronomically, it can have detrimental environmental effects.

Phosphorus is essential to the energy functions of plants and is needed right from the beginning to establish plant growth. Because it’s not mobile in the soil there has to be an adequate supply of phosphorus close enough to the seed for the emerging roots to easily access. In order to meet the starter phosphorus needs of sensitive crops such as canola and soybean, using the commonly available monoammonium phosphate or ammonium polyphosphate fertilizers, too much nitrogen would need to be applied, which would cause significant seedling injury and reduce plant stands.

Tr a d i t i o n a l l y w h e n m o s t western Canadian farmers grew longer rotations that included cereals and other crops the uptake and removal rates of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus remained fairly balanced across the prairie landscape. In these rotations more fertilizer could be added to the cereal crops that would then remain available to subsequent crops like canola, where there wasn’t the same opportunity to use seed-placed fertilizer at the higher rates required.

But as more and more farmers switch to continuous canola and/ or canola and soybeans in tight rotations the balance of nutrients, particularly phosphorus is not being maintained because rates of seed placed fertilizer have been reduced to prevent seedling damage and soil phosphorus has been drawn down to make up the deficit. When that soil phosphorus isn’t replaced at the same rate of removal a phosphorus deficit occurs.

MANAGING PHOSPHORUS Increasingly soil scientists and agronomists are looking at the need to fertilize to meet the complete needs of a diverse rotation rather than just trying to meet the needs of a single year’s crop.

Balancing out the nutrients in this way ensures all crops in the rotation, over multiple years, get what they need and precious soil reserves, especially of phosphorus, are not seriously depleted over time.

There will often still be a need for starter phosphorus Cynthia Grant, a soil management and fertility scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food C a n a d a ’s B r a n d o n R e s e a rc h Facility has studied phosphorus depletion in soils over many years.

When there is an inadequate supply of phosphorus being added as starter fertilizer (as is the case with sensitive crops such as canola and soybeans) residual phosphorus in the soils will be depleted as the crops use it to meet their needs.

Over time, says Grant, if this process is repeated the phosphorus buffer in the soil can become so depleted that crop yields suffer.

Research by the University of Minnesota has shown that soils

which become too depleted of phosphorus will not attain full productivity, even when attempts are made to replenish phosphorus levels using starter phosphorus.

Maintaining soil phosphorus at reasonable levels through the entire rotation is crucial to balance out the nutrient needs of different crops and maintain adequate fertility over time. Ideally, the rotation should include a mix of crops like canola and cereals. In years where cereals are grown there is an opportunity to increase the amount of fertilizer applied and help make up for any phosphorus deficit that is created when little or no seed-placed fertilizer can be used on sensitive crops like canola.

Studies have confirmed that excess phosphorus applied on cereal crops to target optimum yield does remain available in the soil for subsequent crops.

Phosphorus does become less available over time as it’s tied up by calcium, magnesium or aluminium in the soil and becomes less soluble. Only around 30 per cent of phosphorus is used in the year of application. The remainder, as long as it’s not lost from the landscape in run-off or via erosion, will be converted back into a soluble form and recovered by the growing plants in subsequent seasons.

SOIL TESTING A number of long-term studies have shown that 80 to 100 per cent of applied phosphorus can be recovered over time. As long as farmers soil sample regularly to monitor the level of residual

phosphorus in the soil they can develop a strategy to replace phosphorus through the rotation and balance what they apply with what the crops remove over multiple years to maintain a balanced fertility program.

“Soil test phosphorus allows you to see a change in phosphorus over time by monitoring your phosphorus level to see if it’s going up or down,” said Grant. “You want to maintain reasonable phosphorus soil levels for optimum yields and to give a phosphorus buffer for crops like canola and soybeans in the rotation.”

There will often still be a need for starter phosphorus early in the growing season, in which case side banding is recommended. Manure provides a good source of phosphorus that is released slowly. The ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus in manure is 1:1 or below and plant uptake is generally 2:1 or 2.5:1.

Manure applied at a rate to meet the nitrogen requirements of the crop will provide enough P in soil reserves for several years.

“We need to maintain our soil phosphorus at reasonable levels,” says Grant. “Phosphorus deficits can reduce potential crop yields, particularly if you are reducing your seed-placed phosphorus to lower levels for sensitive crops and you don’t have any buffer of phosphorus in your soil to maintain the fertility over time. If you are putting on lower levels and the plant can’t find the phosphorus it needs in the soil you are going to drop your yields.” † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www.angelalovell.ca.

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MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

17

Features CROP NUTRITION

Recommended Phosphorus rates Find our why recommended rates vary so much from province to province

BY LINDSAY GRIFFITH

P

hosphorus is one of the macronutrients a plant requires to grow successfully, yet the phosphorus recommendations for a particular crop can vary, and a number of factors influence the amount and availability of phosphorus in the soil.

PROVINCIAL GUIDELINES The provincial guidelines for recommended fertilizer rates are based on local research completed within each province.

In some cases, such as with field peas, the phosphorus recommendations are markedly different. In Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, the safe amount of seed-placed phosphate is set at 30 lbs./ac., 15 lb./ac., and 20 lb./ac., respectively.

The trials which led to these recommendations likely focused on a narrow seedbed utilization, which is found by dividing the width of the spread of the seed and fertilizer by the row spacing, to mimic the practices of many farmers today; a seedbed utilization of around 10 per cent, for instance, would see seed applied with a one inch spread in nine inch row spacing. A

lower seedbed utilization means a greater concentration of seed and fertilizer, leading to lowered recommendations for the amount of fertilizer that can be safely placed with the seed.

According to Dr. Rigas Karamanos, manager of Agronomics Solutions with Viterra, the research generated in each province probably reflects different ecological conditions. “Some of the research done in Saskatchewan,” Karamanos points out, “was done in areas on the drier side.” However, research trials in Alberta, some of which Karamanos was involved in, saw no problem with placing up to 30 lb./ac. of phosphate with the seed. “If you put 30 pounds [down] in Saskatchewan,” Karamanos says, “you’re most likely going to kill the crop.”

Under wet conditions, it is possible to place slightly more phosphate with the seed due to reduced availability and mobility of phosphorus. Even so, the outcome of the provincial research is based on both the experimental and the agro-ecological conditions. There is always an element of conservatism when setting guidelines, so the lowest rate deemed ‘safe’ of all the provincial trials is going to be the official recommendation.

Dr. Jeff Schoenau, a professor in the Department of Soil Science

at the University of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture Chair in Soil Nutrient Management, notes that many factors influence a phosphorus recommendation. Both the plant itself and the soil in which it is grown play important roles. A crop’s phosphorus demand, for instance, “is a function of its physiology,” according to Schoenau.

High phosphorus users include high yielding cultivars of cereals and oilseeds, particularly canola, as well as forage legumes and C4 plants (like corn) with a high metabolism and growth rate.

A lack of phosphorus leads to overall reduced crop growth SOIL AND PHOSPHORUS RATES On the soil side, factors to consider include everything from soil microbiology to the pH of the soil solution. For phosphorus, “solubility and availability are pretty much synonymous,” says Karamanos, and when looking at

phosphorus solubility, “pH is the primary factor.” At a low or acidic pH, phosphorus reacts with aluminum or iron and precipitates out of the soil solution; at a high or alkaline pH, it reacts with calcium or magnesium.

Once phosphorus has precipitated out of solution, it is no longer in the plant available form of orthophosphate. Therefore, phosphorus availability is said to be maximized at a neutral pH, with an optimum range of pH 6.5 to pH 7.5.

While acidic soils are uncommon on the Canadian Prairies, alkaline or calcareous soils (basic soils with a high lime content) are not. Some crops such as legumes can be beneficial in improving phosphorus availability in these soils because they can acidify the rhizosphere, the area of the soil near the plant root.

Phosphorus, being a relatively immobile nutrient in the soil and moving anywhere from a few millimetres to a few centimetres in the growing season, needs to be near a plant’s roots to be effective.

Soil texture influences the mobility of phosphorus, with orthosphosphate moving more readily in light textured or sandy soils.

Consequently, additional starter phosphorus can be important in

heavy textured soils, namely clays, as well as in cold or wet soils.

PHOSPHORUS AND MICROORGANISMS The activity of soil microorganisms is reduced in cold soils, which can slow the cycling of organic phosphorus from these organisms into the soil. Soils rich in organic matter see more soil microorganisms, but their presence, particularly that of arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi, can be encouraged through particular farming practices.

According to Schoenau, “the formation of beneficial relationships like AM fungi on crop roots is beneficial in phosphorus availability.” This relationship can be encouraged through good crop rotations as well as through the reduction or elimination of tillage to preserve the AM fungal network in the soil.

Long-term land management, therefore, influences phosphorus a v a i l a b i l i t y. A n y t h i n g t h a t maintains soil moisture, from high cut stubble to catch snow in the winter to leaving the crop residue on the land (as opposed to bailing or burning), will help

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features APP QUEST

Fertilizer calculator

The Wilde Brothers Farms Ltd. fertilizer app can help you calculate costs JAY PETERSON

W

hen you’re on the go during the seeding season or even sitting in your office during the winter planning for the upcoming year, it’s nice to have a fertilizer calculator to help you make more efficient seeding decisions.

The app starts out with either editing a current blend or adding a new blend to your app. The blends can be done in either liquid or dry format. Then the desired blend in pounds per acre is selected for each one of the fertilizer elements. Next the product to be used can be selected.

This takes you to a different menu where you can select your product. It

» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

RECOMMENDED PHOSPHORUS RATES because moisture is important for phosphorus to move by diffusion and ensure available phosphorus. It is also possible to build up phosphorus in the soil. Soil conservation practices like zero till build organic matter over time and therefore build the phosphorus supplying power of that soil.

NUTRIENT TIMING A soil which has seen repeated applications of phosphorus fertilizer in the past can, in a year where the price is high, have a reduced requirement of phosphorus fertilizer necessary to maximize yield. Such nutrient mining, Karamanos cautions, cannot be maintained indefinitely.

“People who have been fertilizing with phosphorus probably have a very good labile pool,” which consists of phosphorous adsorbed onto minerals and soil particles and the available phosphorus maintained in the soil solution which is replenished throughout the year by phosphorus in the solid phase, “and can afford for three or four or five years to discount it.”

However, even when fertilizer is put down with the crop, a phosphorus deficit can be incurred because higher yielding crops require more phosphorus than is typically seed placed or side-banded.

PHOSPHORUS DEFICIENCY Signs of a phosphorus deficiency are not as clear in plants as with other nutrients like nitrogen. “We call [it] a hidden hunger,” Schoenau says, noting that a lack of phosphorus leads to overall reduced crop growth, reduced head size, and reduced number of seeds. In some cases, there will be purpling or a

is pre-loaded with the generic fertilizer standbys such as 46-0-0-0 nitrogen or 0-0-60-0 potassium. You can enter in, add, or edit these products also adding in the dollar per metric tonne factor as well.

The app automatically recognizes the highest element in the blend and places it under that element in the product listing. One or multiple products can be used in each blend. Acres and load size are the last inputs needed for the calculation.

Once you press “calculate,” it goes to the calculation results page. It gives you all the basics such as the net elements and percentage breakdown of the elements.

The app also calculates the acres per load, as well as how many pounds will be in that load.

Cost per ton is used to show the cost per acre, total cost and the total tons for the blend needed. The app also shows the total metric tonnage needed to fertilize your inputted acreage.

One thing I don’t like about this app

bluish-green colour developing along the leaf margins; because phosphorus is mobile in the plant and can be reallocated to younger leaves, these symptoms would be found on the bottom parts of the plant, among the older leaves. However, the discolouration “is not something you’ll always see in a field, even with yield reductions.”

It is unlikely that any farmer is over-applying phosphorus when only using commercial fertilizer. With repeated applications of animal manures, however, it could be a different story.

Manure has a low nitrogen to phosphorus ratio, meaning the relative amounts of each nutrient are about the same, which can be problematic as plants require more nitrogen than phosphorus.

“When we apply manure solely to satisfy the nitrogen requirement,” Schoenau points out, “[we] end up applying more phosphorus than what we can use over time.” While Prairie soils have a good ability to adsorb phosphorus, repeated applications can lead to saturated adsorption sites and the phosphorus will stay in the soil solution.

During the spring melt period or heavy rains, this phosphorus can be moved off the field and into nearby water bodies, causing problems with water quality.

While each field has a different management history and soil makeup and each crop a different phosphorus requirement, the general guidelines given by the various provinces are good rules of thumb. When Karamanos was asked if he agreed with the provincial recommendations, he noted that it is important to look at the research and cited an incident where a farmer exceeded the provincial recommendations, saying, “it didn’t work very well.” †

is that it assumes an application rate of 100 pounds per acre which cannot be changed. Also the app does not do well with pre-blends. It works much better if you work from all the elemental blends first to create the nutrient levels you are

looking for. But for $5 this is a nice little app that can give you quick fertilizer answers while you’re on the go.

Price: $5.00 † Jay Peterson farms near Frontier, Sask.

elevate your performance.

Lindsay Griffith is a U. of Sask. M.Sc. crop science student, freelance writer, and farmer at Bangor, Sask. She can be reached at miss. lindsay.griffith@gmail.com.

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Features FARM PLANNING

Climate change and your farm In this three-part series on climate change, Angela Lovell takes a look at what our Prairie farms might look like in 30 years

BY ANGELA LOVELL

T

his is the first in a threepart series on how climate change might impact agriculture on the Canadian

Prairies.

If, as climate scientists predict, Canada’s Prairie region is significantly warmer in 30 years than it is now, the farm could have a very different mix of crops and livestock, some new agronomic practices, a few new challenges and expanded economic opportunities.

It’s very likely that farmers will be growing more warm season crops, such as corn and soybeans and fewer cool season crops such as canola. In areas where crops currently rely heavily on irrigation, tightening groundwater supplies will necessitate a switch to crops that are naturally more heat tolerant and water use efficient.

Livestock producers could have

more upland cattle breeds such as Dexter or Highland, which are better adapted to convert low quality forages, and some sheep or goats

survivability than they used to, thanks to earlier springs, longer falls and milder winters.

Challenges caused by more fre-

doesn’t hit the Prairies with one of her much more intense and frequent extreme weather events.

HOW LIKELY IS THIS SCENARIO?

Some areas are likely to see increased crop yields and others will see them fall grazing with them to help maintain the species diversity of the forage and pastureland.

There will almost certainly be some new weeds, insects and diseases to deal with, which have moved their range northwards, as well as some familiar ones, some of which have become resistant to existing pesticides and have better

quent droughts, heat waves and/or floods in other major agricultural regions such as the southern U.S., Russia, South America and Europe, could ramp up demand for crops produced in the longer growing season of the Canadian Prairies.

Market opportunities and prices could increase and provide better returns, as long as Mother Nature

Researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the University of Concordia recently published a research report which concludes Canada’s climate will inevitably warm by a least two degrees over the next decade, and that’s if all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ceased today. Due to GHG emissions to date the world’s temperature has already warmed by 1.5 C since the beginning of the industrial era.

The study shows that eliminating all emissions would still lead to an additional short-term warming over the next decade of 0.25 to 0.5 C because of the concentration of long-lived GHG’s such as carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere.

“One to 1.5 C of global warming may not seem like a great deal,” says report co-author, Dr. Kirsten Zickfeld, an assistant professor of geography at SFU in a press release from March 2012. “But we need to realize that the warming would not be distributed equally over the globe, with mid- to high-latitude regions such as Canada, Alaska, northeastern Europe, Russia and northern China being most strongly affected. Our research shows that as a result of past emissions, a warming of at least 2 C will be unavoidable in those regions.”

Two degrees may seem pretty insignificant, but to put it in perspective, Zickfeld adds, the global temperature was only five degrees colder than today’s during the last ice age.

The above scenario does not venture into the realm of GHG emissions continuing to rise at current rates, which is a much more likely scenario, and which is leading many scientists to predict increases in overall global temperatures anywhere in the range of 2.5 C to 6 C degrees by 2100. There’s no quick fix to the problem of climate change. Thirtythree per cent of all fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions remain in the air after 100 years and 19 per cent are still there after 1,000 years.

When you add in the multiplier effects of other feedback processes (such as melting polar ice caps and

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rises in global mean sea level), it’s almost impossible to predict the extent to which localized weather patterns in many areas will be affected by climate change and in what way they will be affected.

Because plant and animal responses are so dependent upon temperature, water availability and carbon dioxide concentrations, and these will vary widely across the planet, it’s also hard to predict the agricultural impacts of climate change. Some areas are likely to see increased crop yields and others will see them fall. What is grown will change as drought, temperature shifts and water availability define the areas where certain crops can be grown and the areas where they cannot.

Extensive research and review of scientific literature to date has led Dr. David Lobell and Sharon M. Gourdji of Stanford University to conclude that global warming from 1981 to 2002 has likely already had a negative impact on some crop yields worldwide, but that impact has been more than compensated for by technological advances and increases in carbon dioxide concentrations, which overall have increased yields and masked the effect of rising temperatures.

“The results from a global-scale study, which estimated impacts for the 1980-2008 period,” say Lobell & Gourdji in their 2011 paper, The influence of climate change on global crop productivity, “[indicate that] warming trends were estimated to have lowered wheat and maize yields by roughly six and four per cent, respectively, over the 29 year period, with relatively small impacts of [precipitation] trends. Global soybean and rice yields were deemed to be relatively unaffected by changes so far. Yields for barley, maize, and wheat all increased substantially since 1980, but not as much as they would have if climate had remained stable.”

The Prairies already have one of the world’s most variable climates, which has, on occasion, had significant economic impacts. It is estimated that the drought of 2001-02 caused an approximate $3.6 billion drop in agricultural production.

In its 2008 report, From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate, Natural Resources Canada predicts that climate change in the Prairie region will result in increased water scarcity, greater frequency of dry years, more land and aquatic invasive species, new pests and diseases and more frequent extreme weather events bringing increased precipitation and flooding. “Extreme events, and an expanded range of yearto-year departures from climate norms, represent greater risks to the economy of the Prairies than a simple shift in mean conditions,” says the report.

In the next instalment: How increasing carbon dioxide could have a positive (but short timer) impact on the growth of plants — and weeds. † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www.angelalovell.ca.

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Features FARM PROGRAMS

Alberta targets ag emissions Alberta farmers might find it worth their while to take the time to complete the paperwork required by the Nitrous Oxide Emissions Program

BY JULIENNE ISAACS

C

arbon offset programs are not a new concept to many Canadians.

Individuals and organizations have been purchasing carbon credits to mitigate their own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for years, and the use of carbon offset programs by major industrial emitters is an accepted business practice.

But carbon offset programs have become more relevant to agricultural producers in Alberta, with the introduction of the Nitrate Oxide Emissions Reduction Program (NERP).

In 2007, Alberta created a market for carbon offsets through its Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, which requires regulated facilities to reduce their annual emission intensity by 12 per cent, based on their 2003 to 2005 baseline. One way the managers of these facilities can comply with these regulations is to purchase credits under the NERP guidelines.

THE NERP PROTOCOL “The NERP protocol supports an important model of improved use of nitrogen fertilizer that is based on sound science, is above and beyond business as usual, and is verifiable using on-farm records,” explains Sheilah Nolan, climate change specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, which assisted with the protocol review of NERP. “This means that farmers have an opportunity to get paid for onfarm practices that reduce GHG emissions, based on government approved carbon offset protocols.”

of soil scientists, provincial and federal governments and research staff, and the farming community.

Key to NERP is nitrogen stewardship under the 4R management plan (“Right Source, Right Rate, Right Place, Right Time”) but the protocol is arranged into three levels — beginner, intermediate and advanced, which offer different levels of requirements for farmers hoping to sign up.

“The basic level is based on some fairly routine best management practices which I think a lot of growers could get to,” says Graham. “The record-keeping can seem to be a bit daunting but I think it’s the initial entry that takes a bit of time. Once growers do it, it becomes fairly routine as part of their practices.”

THE BASICS OF NERP How does NERP work, and who is involved?

Farmers first submit documentation to a developer, then work with an Accredited Professional Adviser to create a 4R management plan. The plan is submitted to the developer, who collects several farmers’ plans and submits them to a verifier.

Ultimately, says Graham, “the offset projects are commercial/ financial arrangements between the aggregator, the farmer and the customer who buys the offset. …The NERP sets out the general rules about how things should be done, but how they are done is a business decision between the various parties in the transaction.”

According to Graham, there are many benefits for farmers looking to employ NERP. One of the key benefits is improved management

of it in terms of getting paid to learn about record keeping and to make improvements. It’s not big money but it builds on the other co-benefits,” says Nolan.

“I think that it would be worth every grower’s while to have a look at the program and see if it would meet their needs,” says Graham. “It may look a little complex at first blush but I think any grower working with a professional advisor who has an interest in improving their fertilizer value but also wants to do something good for the environment should explore the NERP and see if it would work for them.”

PROTOCOLS IN ACTION The government of Alberta views carbon offsets as a means of helping all Albertans, including farmers, address the issue of climate change, according to Nolan. “We’re very encouraged to see the NERP

Tougher.

bought by regulated companies and used to meet 20 per cent of their reduction requirements,” says Nolan, adding that the tillage protocol was revised in 2012 to reflect even more stringent verification standards which apply to all of the protocols, not simply those that are relevant to the agricultural sector.

Interest in agricultural offset programs is growing across Canada.

The government of Saskatchewan is looking at implementation of NERP, and CFI, according to Graham, is having ongoing discussions with the governments of Ontario and Manitoba about the program. “These things always take longer than you hope but we do think that in this season and the years ahead this will accelerate and become more widely adopted,” he says. † Julienne Isaacs is a Winnipeg-based freelance writer and editor. Contact her at julienne. isaacs@gmail.com.

EAsiER. In TandemTm.

“It would be worth every grower’s while to have a look at the program” — Clyde Graham

Developed by the Canadian Fertilizer Institute (CFI), the International Plant Nutrition Institute and Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, among others, NERP aims to “optimize yield in the context of social, economic, and environmental sustainability,” and “focus on comprehensive, precise, and landscapedirected management of nutrients” in an agricultural context.

According to Clyde Graham, vice-president of Strategy and Alliances with CFI, the institute’s involvement with NERP started from the ground up. CFI funded and coordinated the technical work of designing the protocol, “and our ongoing role is to provide training that’s required for people to approve the projects,” Graham explains. “The other aspect is that we’re providing ongoing scientific research to support and refine the coefficients for reductions under NERP.” NERP also had the input

protocol, and others like it, being used by the agricultural industry to create offsets,” she says. “The government sees opportunity for innovation here by encouraging people to make new management improvements.”

Nolan says there are 10 approved protocols in Alberta that could be applied to the agricultural sector, including those related to biomass, biofuel and tillage.

The Tillage System Management Protocol, according to Alberta’s Environment and Sustainable Resource Development website, “is written for generating carbon offsets that arise from the direct and indirect reductions of GHG emissions through implementing no-till and reduced till systems on agricultural lands.”

The tillage protocol has been used in Alberta since 2007. “Since 2007, agricultural offsets using the tillage protocol have been being

practices, he says, but the value doesn’t stop there.

“At the heart of the NERP is the creation of more nitrogen efficiency, so really the farmer should be getting better value for every dollar he spends on fertilizer,” says Graham. “There’s an associated benefit in record-keeping and management that is required by NERP, which will help farmers become more profitable generally.”

Nolan adds other benefits, particularly increased efficiency — “for example, greater yield with better use of nitrogen fertilizer” — and feed savings for the livestock sector. But she also says record-keeping will help build farmers’ awareness of the types of records required to access other environmental markets, such as carbon footprinting and water footprinting. “Agriculture is a diffuse source of GHG emissions, so the payments aren’t huge, but it makes sense when you think 19446-01UP DAS_Tandem 13.1667X9.indd 1

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Features SPRAYING

PinPoint lives up to its name The PinPoint spraying system allows farmers to keep spray pressure constant, even while turning corners

BY ANGELA LOVELL

P

inPoint is a recently released spraying system that is generating a lot of interest among farmers, because of some advanced features that they haven’t seen before, such as individual nozzle shut off and turn compensation.

Farmers have been using other products like Aim Command and Sharpshooter for a while, and these popular sprayer control systems have allowed them greater flexibility by maintaining a constant spray pressure at varying speeds.

Both products use Capstan Ag Systems Inc.’s patented PulseWidth Modulation technology, which allows the operator to select a pressure for the faster speed that he can achieve on a straight run and still be able to slow down for the corners without the pressure changing. Aim Command is pre-

installed on Case IH SPX sprayers and Sharpshooter is an after-market product that can be adapted to fit any make of sprayer.

PINPOINT Similarly, PinPoint can also be installed on any manufacturer’s spray equipment and it too uses the Pulse-Width Modulation technology, but integrates it with individual nozzle control. Farmers can turn each individual nozzle on and off as required to give more accuracy and help reduce overlap.

Controlling individual nozzles could offer a lot of potential for row crops too or any application where farmers may want to increase or decrease the volume of a nozzle or any group of nozzles such as wheel tracks or boom ends.

What’s generating the most interest, says Curtis Kuchinka, Capstan Ag’s field marketer for

Western Canada, is the PinPoint turn compensation feature. “If you consider a sprayer putting out a specific rate per acre across the full width of the boom, when you make a turn too much product is

This reduces the risk of overapplication of pesticides and resulting crop injury on the slow side of the boom as it turns and ensures that adequate chemical is applied to the fast side to ensure a lethal

“If you’re going to buy a sprayer to do the job of applying chemical you may as well do it right” — Colin Rosengren

applied on the slow side and not enough is applied on the fast side,” says Kuchinka. “PinPoint technology will compensate for that, so it diminishes the volume on the slow side and increases the volume on the fast side of the boom.”

dose and kill weeds. “Making sure that the weed has been eradicated is going to contribute towards avoiding herbicide tolerance in those plants,” says Kuchinka.

Turn compensation was definitely the selling feature for Colin Rosengren, who farms 5,000 acres of grain near Midale, Saskatchewan.

“The main thing to me is the turn compensation,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of obstacles in the field and when you have got a 120-foot boom it seems like I’m never driving in a straight line. When you figure out the geometry of turning around this and turning around that, pretty soon you’re applying four times the rate on the inside boom and a quarter of the rate on the outside, and that’s on a moderate corner. So to me it just seemed ridiculous to spend $300,000 on a sprayer and go out and do a terrible job of application.”

The PinPoint system is fully automated and works in conjunction with the rate controller on the sprayer and the GPS mapping system, so basically the operator simply pushes the start button and the system does the rest. “What producers have told me is it makes operation easier,” says Kuchinka.

Rosengren’s PinPoint system works with the Raven Viper controller in his sprayer, and the display, he says, shows the pulse frequency of each nozzle. As he turns he can see that the outside boom is spraying more and the inside is spraying less. “You just turn it on and operate the monitor as normal, set your rates as you always would, so you’re operating the same thing but it does a better job,” he says.

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It also saves them money by reducing overlap. The more challenging are the features of the land they are spraying, the more savings they get.

“There are two different gallon counters on the system and we keep track of the volume that the rate controller thinks it’s applying and also keep track of the amount of volume that is actually being applied,” says Kuchinka. “On a 1,000 gallon tank that [difference] might be 10 gallons or 50 gallons, it depends on how many obstacles and turning the producer is exposed to. The uglier the terrain the more turn compensation is engaged and the more savings can be realised.”

Rosengren has calculated that he is saving money on his chemical bill, through reduction of overlap. “The system measures the usage with individual nozzle shut off versus the usage if you had section control and it’s consistently between 3-1/2 to four per cent depending on the field and the obstacles and so on and that’s just savings from overlap,” he says.

The PinPoint system performs a continual diagnostic of the solenoid valves on each nozzle body, so if there is an electrical fault in any of the nozzles it will alert the operator immediately, so it can be fixed.

PinPoint retails for around $32,000 installed, so it is more expensive than other systems like Sharpshooter, which costs around $20,000, but generally, says Kuchinka, producers consider the value of turn compensation in terms of reduced crop damage.

“When producers think about damage to the host crop they realise there are many situations where they are mis-applying in a turn,” says Kuchinka, “and this system prevents that from happening.”

“The cost of a sprayer is getting a bit outrageous, but the additional cost of this system is what makes the whole thing function the way it’s supposed to — you’re actually applying things the way you mean to,” says Rosengren. “If you’re going to buy a sprayer to do the job of applying chemical you may as well do it right.” † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www.angelalovell.ca.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features PEST CONTROL

Control soybean aphids Soybean aphids aren’t an annual problem in Manitoba, but lessons from Ontario may be helpful on your farm

BY REBECA KUROPATWA

O

“

ver 2.6 million acres of soybeans were grown in Ontario in 2012, making them Ontario largest row crop,” said Horst Bohner, Soybean Specialist, Crop Technology Branch, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).

“As soybeans are considered a warm-season crop and were originally a sub-tropical plant, the length of their growing season is a major restriction to growing them in many parts of Canada.”

According to Bohner, in Ontario, glyphosphate-tolerant soybean varieties make up about two-thirds of the crop, while about one-third is non-GMO (genetically modified organisms).

“The demand for specialty soybeans with identity preservation (i.e. food grade, non-GMO, organic, etc.) has created marketing opportunities for Ontario beyond the traditional end-use of soybeans for oil production and livestock feed.”

SOYBEAN APHIDS Soybean aphids originated in Asia. They were first discovered in North America in 2000 and in Ontario in 2001. The aphids have two hosts that complete their life cycle.

“Soybean aphids (aphis glycines) are small, pinhead-sized, pale yellow aphids with black cornicles (“tailpipes”) and a pale yellow tail,” said Bohner. “Adult soybean aphids can be either winged or wingless. Nymphs are smaller than adults and are wingless. Eggs on buckthorn are small, footballshaped and yellow when first laid but turn a dark brown similar to the colour of the buckthorn branch. Eggs are usually laid along the seams of the buckthorn bud.

“Soybean aphids survive as eggs on the twigs of buckthorn species. In the spring, nymphs hatch from these eggs, and the aphids undergo two generations as wingless females on the buckthorn.

The third generation develops into winged adults that migrate to soybean plants.

“The aphids then continue producing wingless generations until soybean plants become crowded with aphids and the plants experience reduced quality.

Once crowded, winged forms are produced which disperse to less crowded soybean plants.”

According to Bohner, there can be as many as 18 generations of aphids on soybeans annually.

“Like most aphids, soybean aphids are all female, born pregnant, and give birth to live nymphs. Males are only born in the fall, so the females and males can mate to produce the egg on buckthorn.

“Lower populations of aphids can live and feed on soybeans without causing yield loss. Once populations reach threshold levels, especially in dry years when the plants are stressed, aphids can cause the plants to abort flowers and become stunted, reducing pod and seed production and quality.”

Bohner says soybean losses from aphids are greatest when soybeans are in the early reproductive stages (R1-R2). At these stages, flowers can abort and impact pod establishment.

During the third reproductive stage (R3), the pod-fill stage, peak infestations of aphids can lead to smaller seed size and a reduction in seed quality.

“Aphids also excrete a sticky substance called ‘honeydew,’” says Bohner. Grey, sooty mould can develop in this substance.

Aphids can also spread the soybean mosaic virus.

FIGHTING APHIDS So how can soybean growers combat aphids? “There are several natural enemies, including the lady beetles (ladybugs), minute pirate bugs, syrphid fly larvae, and parasitic wasps that are helpful in controlling this pest,” said Bohner.

Bohner says, unless the populations are above 250 aphids per plant, natural enemies can manage the problem. In this case, it’s not necessary to use an insecticide, “as it will kill the natural enemies and enable the aphid population to increase above threshold levels.”

Bohner also recommends scouting for spieder mites before applying insecticides to control aphids.

If spider mites are present, make sure you chose an insecticide that will control both, so you won’t have a spider mite problem after the insecticide application.

As for Manitoba, Dr. John Gavloski, extension entomologist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI), said, “We’ve had years where the soybean aphid populations start to climb, and in some fields approached the economic threshold, then the aphid population quite rapidly, naturally declined. Predators and parasitoids are the main reasons for this.

According to Gavloski, “The insect population or level of damage where the dollar value of yield or quality loss equals the costs of control is called the “economic injury level.”

“Economic thresholds and injury levels depend upon the cost of controlling the insects, the yield potential and market value of the crop, and, for economic thresholds, the time delay between scouting and application,” Gavloski says.

For aphids, a recent study calculated the economic threshold for applying insecticide to be 273 aphids per plant. Earlier studies had established an economic threshold of 250 aphids per plant, with more than 80 per cent of plants infested. This threshold was developed through consensus after prior soybean aphid outbreaks. † Rebeca Kuropatwa is a professional writer in Winnipeg, Man.

Horst Bohner, OMAFRA.

Built for

BaRLey.

“Aphids can cause the plants to abort flowers and become stunted” — Horst Bohner

“Studies in the U.S. have shown that beneficial fungi can also cause very significant declines in soybean aphid populations. In one such study, Pandora neoaphididis caused 84 per cent infection in an outbreak of soybean aphid population in 2003, after which the aphid population crashed.

“As far as is known, soybean aphids don’t over-winter in Manitoba. It’s an occasional problem for soybean growers in Manitoba, but not an annual one.

“Soybean aphids were an economical concern for many soybean growers in Manitoba in 2006, but by 2007, populations were extremely low and not concerning.”

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23

Features Farm profile

Unique marketing plan Bob Mastin got into seed distribution to increase the use of pedigreed seed

By Shirley Byers

B

ob Mastin had a Valentine’s Day deadline this year that many would envy.

On February 6, the award winning Sundre seed grower was invited to take part in an Alberta feed barley trade mission to Japan and Korea. He had eight days to prepare a PowerPoint presentation, so it could be translated and ready for when the contingent left Alberta on March 5.

“I’ll probably talk about my background,” he said. “How I got into the business, my company philosophy, the advantages and challenges of growing pedigreed seed where I live.”

Going to seed Mastin grew up on the family farm on the banks of the Red Deer River, where the lush farmland of

Mountain View county rolls into Alberta’s breathtakingly beautiful ranch country. After high school he attended Olds College. In the Field Crops program he learned enough about the seed industry to make him wonder if seed production might be the way to increase per acre revenue.

“In economics class, I did a case study on seed oat production and I soon realized there was a bit of a premium with seed oats because of all the land that’s contaminated with wild oats. …I was like, wow! You can afford to buy land and pay for it as long as you don’t have too many crop failures.”

He harvested his first crop of pedigreed seed oats in 1978. In the years since he hasn’t had too many crop failures, he’s built a successful business and he’s won an awful lot of awards. They include Pedigree Oats Title at the Calgary Seed Fair and Hay Show (10 times); two wins, one sec-

ond and one third place in the span of four years at the Seager Wheeler Seed Show; and, possibly his favourite, in 2008 his family was selected as Mountain View County’s outstanding farm family at the Calgary Stampede.

Sundre barley In 2006 Mastin acquired the rights to be the sole distributor for Sundre barley from the Field Crop Development Centre at Lacombe, Alberta. “You submit a bid,” he explained. “You have a marketing proposal, and they grade you on how you’ll promote the variety, as well as on how much you’re going to pay them.”

It was his marketing plan, he said, rather than the royalties he was prepared to pay that won the bid. His unique proposal was to offer the research station lower royalties on sales, so that he would be able to sell the seed at a lower

Bob Mastin harvested his first crop of pedigreed seed oats in 1978. price. He believed lower prices would mean that farmers would buy more seed. Revenues lost on lower prices would be more than regained on increased sales. “The marketing plan was what saved me,” he said “Another (much bigger) company offered more money but they liked my plan.”

“I don’t think people realize,” he explained. “On average, in cereal grain, only 15 per cent of the seed put in the ground is pedigreed. One reason pedigreed has such a low market share is the market cost and a lot of that is attributed to royalties. If I offer you half the royalty but we get five times the distribution you’re going to have two and a half times the money. I explained it in detail and they bought into it.”

Since then he’s acquired distribution rights for 13 more varieties.

Showing off Sundre In his PowerPoint presentation,

he’ll show pictures of the area, including shots of the legendary wild horses of Sundre and other wildlife. “And, I’ll show a picture of my Sundre barley when there’s 20 head of elk going through it,” he said with a chuckle. “This is where I farm. It’s beautiful, but there are some challenges.”

His location on the edge of ranch country means he can maintain genetic purity of the varieties.

Dry, cold winters are another plus when it comes to seed storage.

Hail storms that can flatten acres of crop in minutes are a challenge.

And finally, he’ll tell his listeners in Japan and Korea why he got into seed distribution: to try to increase pedigreed seed use from 15 per cent to 80 or 85 per cent, to make pedigreed seed readily available to farmers. “If more farmers are using top quality pedigreed seed they should be producing a more consistent product that the end user in Asia would be buying.” † Shirley Byers is a freelance writer based in Sasktachewan.

Bob Mastin grew this crop of Pintail winter wheat in 2012. Pintail is a new winter wheat variety that should be available in limited quantities in 2013.

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his collection of facts about Bob Mastin may or may not make it into his PowerPoint presentation.

• In 1996, he won a gold medal for taekwondo at the Pan Am Games in Los Angeles.

• In 2009, he organized Sundre Barley tours. Tourists could pick up a map at tourist centres and see fields of Sundre barley as well as historical landmarks in the area. The tours were

so popular he couldn’t keep up with the demand for maps.

• In 2012, after seeing for himself how cash strapped Canadian athletes are, he decided to sponsor four athletes for the London Olympics. If Sundre barley goes into Japan for barley tea, Mastin reckons he could probably retire.

But would he? “Maybe, if I had something to do that was fun in retirement — it would have to be more fun than what I’m doing,” he said. †

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features Crop production

Producing drought-resistant crops Growing deep-rooted prairie plants can create soil with better drainage and a better ability to provide plant-available water

By Rebeca Kuropatwa

R

econstructed native prairies may offer an ideal crop for biofuel feedstock. Prairie plants could be grown alone or in rotation with row crops — allowing farmers to enjoy the benefits of either system.

Deep-rooted prairie plants create healthier soil, rich in organic matter, with plenty of aeration, good infiltration, stable structure and active nutrient cycling. These organic-rich soils hold more water and create a reservoir plants can draw from in times of drought.

Drought resistance Growing up in a rural farming area in Panama, University of Alberta soil scientist Guillermo Hernandez become very well versed in the principles of drought resistance, in particular, environmental factors driving water use efficiency in plants.

“Adaptation is key to designing and implementing successful biomass production systems for the present and future,” said Hernandez. “As plant species are more resistant or tolerant to

USDA soil scientist Tom Sauer says biofuel crops could be managed to reduce runoff and erosion. drought effects that occur in water deficit regions of North America, they’re likely to prosper under extreme weather fluctuations, including erratic rainfall patterns.”

Hernandez believes harvesting native prairie plants for bio-energy has many potential advantages, but also some possible downside.

For one thing, “We don’t know what long-term biomass removal will do to wildlife that will depend on these reconstructed prairie ecosystems.”

Hernandez says more studies

examining all potential ecosystem services are needed. “Renewable energy and carbon neutrality are great advantages of biofuel systems, but we still need to focus on several aspects of how to sustainably manage these systems.”

Soil structure “Soils with good structure will B:11.5” drain excess water more easily and T:11” store more plant-available water,” says Tom Sauer,S:10.25” a soil scientist with the United States Department of

Agriculture (USDA). “Tillage and erosion tend to destroy soil structure and reduce the amount of soil organic matter.

“This results in many of our cultivated soils now having poor natural drainage and less ability to supply water to crops. To make our cropping systems more resilient and less susceptible to drought we need to reverse decades-long practices of excessive tillage and erosion.”

Sauer sees a clear solution.

By restoring good structure and increasing soil organic matter, we can make our soils much more efficient in supplying water to crops.

Besides restoring soil structure, some crops can benefit the soil surface.

“Bio-fuel crops in semiarid areas that are perennials and provide ground cover to protect the soil surface may be able to be managed to reduce runoff and erosion, saving more water for plant uptake.”

Growing these crops would eliminate the need for tillage, reversing soil degradation and improving soil quality. Sauer says, “The soils would then become better at not only reducing runoff but also at removing contaminants that infiltrate with the water.”

A c c o r d i n g t o S a u e r, s o m e

changes in surface hydrology may occur, “Especially reduced stream flow if these crops use more water than the current land use and have less runoff and less percolation through the root zone.

“Such perennial systems are likely to be much more resilient to climate change and to potentially greatly improve soil quality, especially of degraded soils.”

These patterns should be considered when designing new land uses as, for instance, rainfall amounts and distribution could be different one or two decades into the future. If we can anticipate these trends we can initiate a cropping system that’s better adapted to the changing future climate.”

Sauer said this may be the most challenging part of changing land use. “To maximize the benefits of a return to prairie, one can’t rotate crops in using tillage, as the disturbance will undo much of the improvements in soil quality derived from the prairie.

“It may be possible to use no-till crop production practices in rotation with prairie, but establishing and maintaining prairie is expensive.” † Rebeca Kuropatwa is a professional writer in Winnipeg, Man.

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MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

25

Features SEEDING

Wide range of seed weights Before you set your seeding rates, look at these relationships between seeding rate, seed size and seedling survival Seed Survival (%) = 20% Thousand Seed Weight (grams) 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

3 2.5 2.1 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.3 1.1 1.0

Seeding Rates (lb./ac.)

4 5 6 7 3.3 4.2 5.0 5.8 2.8 3.5 4.2 4.9 2.4 3.0 3.6 4.2 2.1 2.6 3.1 3.6 1.9 2.3 2.8 3.2 1.7 2.1 2.5 2.9 1.5 1.9 2.3 2.7 1.4 1.7 2.1 2.4

BY THE CANOLA COUNCIL OF CANADA

8 6.7 5.6 4.8 4.2 3.7 3.3 3.0 2.8

Seed Survival (%) = 30% Thousand Seed Weight (grams) 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

3 3.8 3.1 2.7 2.3 2.1 1.9 1.7 1.6

Seeding Rates (lb./ac.)

4 5 6 7 5.0 6.3 7.5 8.8 4.2 5.2 6.3 7.3 3.6 4.5 5.4 6.3 3.1 3.9 4.7 5.5 2.8 3.5 4.2 4.9 2.5 3.1 3.8 4.4 2.3 2.8 3.4 4.0 2.1 2.6 3.1 3.6

8 10.0 8.3 7.1 6.3 5.6 5.0 4.5 4.2

Seed Survival (%) = 40% Thousand Seed Weight (grams)

2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

Seeding Rates (lb./ac.)

3 5.0 4.2 3.6 3.1 2.8 2.5 2.3 2.1

4 6.7 5.6 4.8 4.2 3.7 3.3 3.0 2.8

5 8.3 6.9 6.0 5.2 4.6 4.2 3.8 3.5

6 10.0 8.3 7.1 6.3 5.6 5.0 4.5 4.2

7 11.7 9.7 8.3 7.3 6.5 5.8 5.3 4.9

8 13.3 11.1 9.5 8.3 7.4 6.7 6.1 5.6

Seeding Rates (lb./ac.)

4 5 6 7 10.0 12.5 15.0 17.5 8.3 10.4 12.5 14.6 7.1 8.9 10.7 12.5 6.3 7.8 9.4 10.9 5.6 6.9 8.3 9.7 5.0 6.3 7.5 8.8 4.5 5.7 6.8 8.0 4.2 5.2 6.3 7.3

8 20.0 16.7 14.3 12.5 11.1 10.0 9.1 8.3

Seeding Rates (lb./ac.)

4 5 6 7 11.7 14.6 17.5 20.4 9.7 12.2 14.6 17.0 8.3 10.4 12.5 14.6 7.3 9.1 10.9 12.8 6.5 8.1 9.7 11.3 5.8 7.3 8.8 10.2 5.3 6.6 8.0 9.3 4.9 6.1 7.3 8.5

8 23.3 19.5 16.7 14.6 13.0 11.7 10.6 9.7

Seeding Rates (lb./ac.)

4 5 6 7 13.3 16.7 20.0 23.3 11.1 13.9 16.7 19.5 9.5 11.9 14.3 16.7 8.3 10.4 12.5 14.6 7.4 9.3 11.1 13.0 6.7 8.3 10.0 11.7 6.1 7.6 9.1 10.6 5.6 6.9 8.3 9.7

8 26.7 22.2 19.1 16.7 14.8 13.3 12.1 11.1

Editor’s note: In last week’s “Grainews,” an article on thousand kernel weight went through the math of using seed weights to calculate seeding rates. This article from the Canola Council shows the relationships between seed size, seed rates and seedling survival in canola. housand kernel weight (TKW) for canola seed can vary from less than three grams to more than six grams. Last spring there were reports of wide ranges in seed size, even among seed lots of the same variety. Look at the TKW for each seed lot, and calibrate the drill to achieve your target plant population for each seed lot.

Seed each seed lot separately.

Mark the field where you change lots. Keep a sample of each lot.

If you plan to seed at five pounds per acre regardless of seed size, know the risks. Large-size seed planted at five pounds per acre may not achieve the safe minimum plant stand of seven plants per square foot.

A six-gram hybrid seeded at five lb./ac. works out to 8.7 seeds per square foot. At 60 per cent seedling survival, which is at the high end for average conditions, those 8.7 seeds only produce 5.2 plants per square foot. At rates below five lb./ac., the plant stand drops accord-

T

ingly. The combination of lower seeding rates and large seed size can lead to disappointing plant populations and a significant drop in yield potential.

With at least seven plants per square foot, you have some margin for losses to insects and disease.

HIGHER SEEDLING SURVIVAL Farmers can take extra precaution to increase seedling survival.

Such as: Seed into warm soils: This will increase seed survivability, especially if you have a heavy seed lot which will result in fewer seeds per pound going into the ground. Seed one-half to one inch deep. Shallow seeding is recommended for all canola because it increases seedling survival.

Keep seed-placed fertilizer at a safe level.

Bulking agents: Most drill tanks sold in Western Canada are made to handle small seeds such as canola and deliver relatively uniform seed counts to each row. For a drill that cannot accurately meter small seeds and low flow rates, bulking agents such as elemental sulphur, seed-sized starter fertilizer prills, or cracked oat groats may help.

However, the Canola Council of Canada ran trials in 2001 and 2002 to evaluate pelletized elemental sulphur at 22.5 kg/ha (20 lb./ac.) as a seed-bulking agent.

This research found no consistent

stand establishment or yield benefit when using the bulking agent, since the treatments without bulking agent generally produced more than adequate plant populations. Bulking agents are likely not necessary unless your drill is quite ineffective at delivering low rates of small seed. If using a bulking agent, ensure seed and bulking agent stay uniformly mixed throughout the seeding operation.

THREE-WAY RELATIONSHIP The charts to the left show the three-way relationship between seeding rate, seed size and estimated seed survival.

For example, if you hope to get 60 per cent seed survival, go to the chart with 60 per cent at the top. If your seed size is five grams per 1,000 kernels and you want to seed at five lb./ac., you can expect 6.3 plants per square foot.

The ideal plant stand for yield potential and uniform growth, with some cushion for plant loss to insects and disease, is seven to 14 plants per square foot.

The minimum before you face a higher risk of yield loss is five plants per square foot. All cells in white in the charts are this high risk zone.

This article originally ran in the April 25, 2012 issue of “Canola Watch.” Find “Canola Watch” online at www.canolawatch.org. † Canola Council of Canada.

Seed Survival (%) = 60% Thousand Seed Weight (grams) 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

3 7.5 6.3 5.4 4.7 4.2 3.8 3.4 3.1

Seed Survival (%) = 70% Thousand Seed Weight (grams) 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

3 8.8 7.3 6.3 5.5 4.9 4.4 4.0 3.6

Seed Survival (%) = 80% Thousand Seed Weight (grams) 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

3 10.0 8.3 7.1 6.3 5.6 5.0 4.5 4.2

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“We also noticed quicker emergence and the plant count was significantly higher in our wheat treated with Awaken ST than without. There were about three or four more plants per square foot.

“Awaken ST is a good product. It definitely helps. For anyone who hasn’t used it before, I would recommend trying a couple jugs. Put it on a few acres and see the results for yourself. Especially if the season is cold and conditions aren’t ideal for germination. Awaken will give your crop the extra boost it needs and you will see a huge increase.

Gregoire Seed Farms Ltd. “We will definitely be using Awaken ST Rory Gregoire again next year.”

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MARCH 11, 2013

Features FARM MANAGEMENT

When farmers fight All kinds of situations can lead to heated conflict between farming neighbours.Talking things over is often the best solution

BY SHIRLEY BYERS

I

t began the summer Grant’s pigs started running through David’s wheat and into his vegetable garden.

There were a half dozen of the little porkers, razor backs with nary a streak in their bacon but they could wreak more havoc than a herd of buffalo, David muttered. If he chased them out of his cabbages once he chased them out a hundred times.

This was in the days before the Line Fence Act and the Stray Animals Act, not that far from a time when livestock roamed free around homesteads scattered across the Prairies, which may have accounted for Grant’s laissez faire attitude or it may have been that the pigs didn’t run through David’s crop a 100 times a year. Maybe it was more like 50, or 20 or five.

But it was around this time that Grant stopped speaking to David. He stopped dropping in for coffee and a chat. He changed from a chummy pal into a dour man who wouldn’t acknowledge his former friend’s presence if they were the last two humans dividing the last bean on the last day of the planet. At first David tried to laugh it off. He tried to jolly Grant back into the easy, neighbourly rapport they’d both enjoyed. But Grant was having none of it. After a while David stopped referring to Grant with any hint of a smile on his face or in his voice.

Many summers passed.

Eventually Grant went out of pigs and David’s cabbages flourished. Then late one summer David got sick. He got awful sick, awful fast, and when the towering maples in the shelter belt he’d planted as a young man shivered, leafless, into the last days of October, he was gone.

At the funeral, the Legion formed an honour guard. One by one the WWII vets, stiff with age, marched up to the casket and saluted — including Grant.

Sadly, David and Grant’s story is not unique. Like any other people, farmers do not always live peaceably with their neighbours.

They may disagree over stray animals, chemical drift, property lines, the proximity of livestock and a variety of other issues.

IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME Sometimes the obvious issue is not the real issue, or at least, not the only issue. Farming is a challenging occupation. In other businesses, sellers can set their prices, but in most instances, farmers are forced to be price takers. A single weather event or a livestock disease can wipe out a year’s profit. Unfortunately, having more than their fair share of stress in the workplace doesn’t exempt farmers from many of the same stresses that their urban counterparts deal with. And accumulated stress has its own effects.

“When people are stressed they react differently than they would normally,” says Kathy

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Daviduk, resource agent with the Saskatchewan Farm Stress Line at the Agricultural Knowledge Centre at Moose Jaw, Sask. “In a lot of situations, the conflict with another farmer will be one more thing to handle but there are already a lot of things going on with that individual which makes them less tolerant.

There could be relationship issues.

There could be financial issues.

ices at the Agriculture Knowledge Centre at Moose Jaw, Sask. “This is the first thing that needs to happen. It may end up being a legal situation but number one is discussion with each other.”

Some conflicts are common enough to have already been addressed in legislation. When it comes to stray animals, at least two provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, have provincial legislation which lays out procedures to be followed.

Saskatchewan and Alberta’s Line Fence Acts deal with conflict over a shared fence line.

Who pays for it? Who maintains it? Where do we go to settle disputes over it? Ontario also has similar legislation, the Line Fences Act. All three outline spe-

Sometimes the obvious issue is not the real issue, or at least, not the only issue There could be family issues that are causing a lot of stress and this is just one more complication.”

LET’S TALK Sometimes, like Grant, we stop talking to people we’re having a disagreement with but we don’t stop thinking about it, turning the situation over in our heads.

Sometimes we assume things that may or may not be true.

Counsellors at the Stress Line encourage callers to talk to the person they’re having the dispute with. “I think the first thing you try is have people talk because sometimes they just haven’t sat down with each other, and maybe they don’t know what the other guy is thinking.” says Rick Bjorge, assistant director of regional serv-

cific steps to be taken to resolve these issues.

Other fairly common disputes include: Disagreements over custom work or land rental payments. Ideally people should have these things sorted out on paper, Bjorge says, but that doesn’t always happen and disputes arise. Farm management agrologists or farm business management specialists can be helpful in clearing up these situations. Lack of information can result in hurt feelings and a misplaced sense of being wronged.

“People may have ideas that don’t reflect what is happening in the industry. A neutral party can give an objective view.”

Disputes involving pesticides.

For disputes involving chemical sprays between neighbour and

neighbour or between farmer and applicator such as spray drift, look for a provincial pesticide investigator with your provincial ministry of agriculture.

Disputes involving drainage.

Bjorge and Daviduk advise talking to your local municipal office and also the Watershed Authority or Watershed Management officials in your province.

MEDIATION MAY BE THE ANSWER In Saskatchewan the Dispute Resolution Office is not a free service but it can be helpful if other methods fail. Check with your provincial Stress Line to find out if mediation for farm disputes is available in your province.

And some conflicts will require the services of a lawyer.

“We won’t recommend anyone specifically,” says Daviduk, “but sometimes we do say, maybe you do require some legal advice.”

After emphasizing again the importance of at least attempting to talk to the other individual involved in the dispute, Daviduk and Bjorge offered some general guidelines for farmers dealing with conflicts with other farmers.

Ask yourself these questions.

How much stress is this causing you? What can you control? What can’t you control? What is important to you? How big of an issue is this? Are you able to get what you need, versus what you want?

Weigh the positives and the negatives of different solutions.

Try to set some priorities. In some situations the resolution you can get may not be the ideal resolution. Not everything works out exactly as you’d like it to work out.

But, can you live with it?

Editor’s note: this article originally ran in “Small Farm Canada.” It is reprinted here with permission. † Shirley Byers is a freelance writer based in Sask.

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MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

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Columns FARM FINANCIAL PLANNER

Transferring the farm Structure for tax exemptions, let the son buy in at a good price and make sure there’s enough cash left to retire

BY ANDREW ALLENTUCK

A

t their ages of 62 and 56, a couple we’ll call Max and Daphne want to wrap up their life’s work farming in southern Manitoba.

They own 1,120 acres of which 700 are planted to various crops, 300 in hay, and 120 in pasture.

Their three children, all men in their 30s, will be part of their plans, though only one, Joel, is involved with the farm. Max and Daphne want to sell the farm to Joel in a way that allows Joel to carry it on as a viable operation.

Max and Daphne went to Don Forbes, a farm financial planner who heads Don Forbes & Associates/Armstrong & Quaile Associates Inc. of Carberry, Manitoba, to develop a plan for the transition. The goals: keep the farm intact and profitable, generate a retirement income for the parents and be fair to the nonfarming siblings.

THE PROBLEM The problem in financial terms is that most of the capital Max and Daphne have built up is in the farm operation. They will have to sell some land for cash just to finance their retirement. Their goal is to have $50,000 per year in pre-tax retirement income and buy a house in town.

If they sell 640 acres of cropland and pasture to any interested buyer, they would still have another 460 acres that could be sold to Joel on favourable terms.

The land sold to an outsider would fund an investment account.

The best plan: restructure the farm as a partnership with Daphne, who is currently Max’s employee. This will make Daphne eligible for the $750,000 farm land capital gains tax exemption, giving Daphne and Max a combined total exemption of $1.5 million.

This exemption will minimize any additional tax burden from sale.

An alternative is to have Joel (the farming son), or even all three sons buy out the parents. To make this work, Max and Daphne would need to guarantee the loans the sons would obtain from a bank or other financial institution. This would put the plan in peril and be unduly complex.

Transitioning to the farmBY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

ing partnership to obtain the $750,000 per person capital gains exemption) will require that Max and Daphne carry on for two more years. That will generate the required two years of farm income statements. The income generated should be held in accounts to pay off remaining debts — really just $16,000 of loans — and to maximize RRSP contributions.

Two years from now, the remaining farm operations will be prepared for sale or transfer to their farming son. That would require sale of four quarters of land at a fair market value of $1,000 per acre. That would bring in $640,000. $300,000 of this could be reserved for purchase of a house in town. The remaining $340,000 would produce $17,000 per year if invested to generate a five per cent annual return.

After that, Daphne and Max could sell as much as the remaining three quarters of land to Joel for a reduced price or at fair market value. They would still be able to stay under the $1.5 million combined limit of the farmland capital gains tax exemption. Land that is not sold can be kept for cash rental, Forbes suggests.

THE FINANCES Max and Daphne should contribute $9,000 each to their RRSPs and make $5,000 contributions each to Tax-Free Savings Accounts, which they have never used, every year from now until Max is 65 in the three years after they begin selling their land. Then they will have $322,471 in non-registered and TFSA accounts, and $253,467 in RRSPs. Max and Daphne can accelerate growth of registered assets by ensuring that they do not wait until the end of the 60-day grace period each year, thus making use of potential growth within the year. Their annual contribution limit is the lesser of 18 per cent of gross earned income or $23,820 in 2013. By making RRSP contributions every month or every quarter Max and Daphne will in effect be cost averaging over 14 months (the year plus the two-month grace period) and thus avoiding the peaks and valleys of the stock and bond markets.

At Max’s age 66, the first year after he has retired, the accounts

BY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

will support monthly income as follows: Max will have Canada Pension Plan payment benefits of $8,040 per year and Old Age Security benefits of $6,720 per year. He will be able to make $7,200 annual withdrawals from his Registered Retirement Savings Plan. And they will have $17,000 per year investment return from cash not used to buy a new house in town. Their pre-tax retirement income would be $38,960.

Daphne can add $7,200 from her

Tax Act allows the intergenerational transfer of land to be priced at anything between fair market value of the land and book value. The current market value pricing would allow the transfer to be tax-free in the parents’ hands. The son would have a higher cost base and would thus be exempt from more capital gains tax in future if he were to sell, Forbes explains.

Investing to obtain a secure and consistent five per cent annual return would be achieved by use

Most of the capital that Max and Daphne have built up is in the farm operation own RRSP for total income before tax of $46,160. They can supplement this income with rent from any land not sold, pushing up total pre-tax income to their $50,000 goal.

At her age 65 Daphne can receive $4,800 in annual CPP benefits. She can add $6,720 per year from OAS, which will have risen with inflation. Their income at this point would be $57,680. After tax at a 12 per cent average rate on what amounts to split and averaged incomes, they would have $4,230 to spend each month.

It should be noted that the Income

of 10-year investment grade corporate bonds with returns of 4.5 per cent, rate reset bank bonds that are constructed to pay three to four per cent over specified interest rates such as the Bank of Canada overnight rate, and shares of large cap Canadian corporations — telecom companies, banks and pipelines, for example, that have not failed to pay dividends for 10 or more years and that have raised dividends at least every two to three years. No sector should hold more than a fourth of the total capital and the various stocks should be rebalanced every couple

of years so that no single stock is more than 10 per cent of the portfolio.

The chore of stock and bond selection can be made much easier by use of exchange traded funds that hold so-called dividend aristocrats, that is, stocks that have secure and rising dividends, and laddered one- to 10-year corporate bonds.

Laddered bond funds’ cash yields can rise as interest rates go up. The effect of rising interest rates on existing bonds, making them less appealing and so cutting their prices, is compensated by holdings of short bonds reverting to cash in a few years. Fees for both types of ETFs are in the range of three- to five-tenths of one per cent per year. If Max and Daphne buy the funds through on-line discount brokerages, shrinkage due to sales commissions would be trivial, Forbes notes.

This plan will turn a family farm into a secure retirement income for Max and Daphne and enable one son to continue farming. Joel could rent the land the couple will have to sell and, if fortune smiles, eventually repurchase some or all of it.

The interests of all three sons can be protected by having all three inherit an equal share of the retirement home Max and Daphne will buy. As well, any money left in their various investment accounts, which are likely to grow in value over time beyond Max and Daphne’s requirements, can go to the sons.

“This is an equitable and efficient plan for Max and Daphne and their children,” Forbes says.

“If they follow the suggestions, it should be easy to implement and easy to maintain.” † Andrew Allentuck’s latest book, “When Can I Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work,” was published in 2011 by Penguin Canada.

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Benefits of Awaken ST: • Promotes quicker seedling emergence • Provides a larger, more extensive root system • Improves overall plant health and vigour • Increases potential yields and ROI Awaken ST on HRS Wheat Awaken ST UTC 40

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Always read and follow all label directions. Awaken is a registered trademark of Loveland Products Inc. UAP Canada is a member of CropLife Canada. 01.13 13003

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ON THE

SEED

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/ grainews.ca

MARCH 11, 2013

Columns UNDERSTANDING MARKET BULLS AND BEARS

Learning from S&Ds Supply and demand charts can give you some useful insight into future crop prices. Learn how to read them

SAMPLE S&D CHART

BY BRIAN WITTAL

B

eside day-to-day commodity prices, there are other types of information that you should pay attention to. Some of these are supply and demand, carry forward stocks and stocks to use ratio.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND CHARTS Supply and demand charts (S&Ds) are kept for every commodity imaginable by many different groups and organizations around the world — government, corporate or private individuals.

The S&Ds that are most commonly referenced when talking about North American grain markets are the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) or Statistics Canada reports that come out at regular intervals through out the year.

S&D charts show how much grain analysts expect to be produced and consumed year over year, and how much will be left over at the end of the year to carry forward into the next year. This information helps the grain trade to establish a fair market price for each grain based on supply versus demand.

The information found in these reports is very useful to buyers, sellers and speculators. It gives them an idea as to what the supply of a

After seeding, acres can be predicted more accurately, but weather situations throughout the growing season will impact acres harvested and yields.

After harvest a more accurate number for yields and production can be determined. This may have changed dramatically from early estimates due to harvest issues such as drought, too much rain or high levels of disease infestation.

CANADIAN FIELD PEAS SUPPLY AND DEMAND 000 tonnes

08-09

09-10

10-11

Acres, 000’s (Seed)

3,995

37,760

3,450

Acres, 000’s (Harv)

3,910

3,675

3,267

Yield (bu./acre)

33.6

33.8

32.2

Carry in

255

445

795

Production

3,571

3,379

2,862

Total Supply

3,841

3,879

3,707

Seed

256

235

250

FWD

315

672

400

Exports Grain

2,825

2,178

2,850

Total Demand

3,396

3,085

3,450

Ending Stocks

445

795

257

SUPPLY

ADJUSTMENTS AND ACCURACY

DEMAND

particular grain is or will be based on assumptions and the use of historical data such as yields.

The numbers in these charts are at best a calculated guess. They are based on past years’ numbers, phoning polls conducted with farmers, actual field tours and various other methods.

Although these numbers are not 100 per cent accurate they have been compiled, tracked and monitored for enough years that the grain trade takes them as fac-

tual. These numbers can and will change market sentiment and influence futures markets.

S&D REPORTS: TIMING S&D reports come out at various times throughout the year, so analysts’ predictions can be as accurate as possible based on everchanging data. Prior to seeding they are predicting seeded acreage and yields, based on historical data and surveys.

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Sometimes historical numbers, such as last year’s seeded acres or yield, are adjusted in new reports.

These changes can have a real impact on the current situation.

Any adjustment will impact the carry forward stocks — changing the total supply and projected end stocks for the current year.

Sometimes, changes can be significant. All of a sudden total supplies for the coming year are tight, and prices start to rise because of this adjustment.

Some speculate that these changes are made at times when markets are either too high or too low, and analysts are trying to bring markets back to a more normal pricing range by adjusting old numbers, which are very hard to substantiate or dispute one way or the other.

Quite often you will see adjustments to S&D charts for grains grown in other countries around the world well after the fact.

Information gathered in some countries is not nearly as reliable or accurate as the information gathered for our local S&Ds. Often analysts will rely on information from an outside government source to estimate stocks on hand, seeded acres or expected yields. Any of these

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numbers may be guarded and adjusted to meet other countries’ own marketing needs.

If a country is a major importer (buyer) of grains, they won’t the world to know they are short on their grain production as it will push prices higher, making their grain purchases more expensive.

Visa versa for exporting (selling) countries.

There is speculation as to the accuracy of foreign countries S&Ds. This speculation is also present within the North American grain industry when it comes to USDA and StatsCan reports, because of these same market pressures.

As I said earlier these reports are taken to be factual, but not necessarily accurate! Everyone in

These reports are taken to be factual, but not necessarily accurate the grain industry has an opinion on S&Ds. Carry forward stocks, is a simple math equation of total stocks less total demand for a balance left over (end stocks). These “end stocks” are then carried forward into the next years S&Ds and become part of the total stocks for that year.

Watching the end stocks from year to year will help you to see if stocks are building up year over year or are falling, which could have a real impact on price going forward.

STOCKS TO USE The “stocks to use ratio” tells you what percentage end stocks are in relation to total demand.

For example in the pea chart, ending stocks at the end of 2010-11 are 257 tonnes, and total demand for 2010-11 is 3,450 tonnes. Divide 257 by 3,450 and you get a stocks to use ratio of 7.34 per cent.

That tells you that there is less than one month’s supply of peas available in the market to meet next year’s demand, assuming the demand stays constant during the year. (If demand was constant during the year, 8.33 per cent of the total demand would be consumed each month.)

If there is any kind of a production glitch in the coming year, there may not be enough peas to meet demand. This would be considered a “tight” stocks to use ratio — it should help to keep prices high in an effort to ration demand and stretch out the life of the available supply until new crop production is available for sale and consumption.

I hope this helps you to better understand S&Ds. † Brian Wittal has 30 years of grain industry experience, and currently offers market planning and marketing advice to farmers through his company Pro Com Marketing Ltd. www.procommarketingltd.com.

10623A_MON_GEN_stewardship_legal_grainnews.indd 8/20/12 2:47 1 PM

MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

29

Columns CAN’T TAKE THE FARM FROM THE BOY

Making the seeding decisions Toban and his father are deciding what they’re going to put in the ground this spring — Toban’s first year back home on the farm TOBAN DYCK

S

eeding. The word alone fills me with nervous excitement. Nervous, because it’s what seeing your work in print is to the farming world. The big show. No turning back. What’s done is done.

This is what it’s all about, seeding and harvest. Excitement, because it’s the beginning of a new season, and it’s a tangible consequence of the seed-choosing process. You made a decision, ordered the seed and will soon be planting that seed, of a certain variety, at a certain depth, in a very uncertain market, exposing it to uncertain weather conditions.

SOYBEANS FOR SUCCESS “What to plant” is not decided in a vacuum. This year’s crop was certainly not decided by me, an ag newbie. But my father did include me in the decision-making process, at least a little. I’m 32 and have been back at the farm for

only six months; he’s used to planning without me.

Wheat is for crop rotation, soybeans, sunflowers and edibles are for profit and canola is for purposes I don’t yet know. This is what I knew of the seed-deciding process before spending quality time on the farm, so for about three decades. Now, what I know is more or less the same, only in varying shades of grey.

Seed companies are pouring lots of research and development dollars into soybeans, a crop that as far as I can tell is going nowhere but up, in popularity, in price and in acres seeded. The plant is kind to the land it’s planted in, allowing it to be seeded multiple years in a row with minimal to no risk.

Suddenly the need to have default, less lucrative crop rotation options is not as important. And, this is to say nothing of the plant’s ability to withstand dry or unusually wet conditions. We have been growing soybeans for many years, and will continue to for the foreseeable future.

I went to a bean seminar in the fall of last year, in hopes of learning a few things and for free pulled-pork sandwiches (my Achilles heel). I learned

that the world wants soybeans, bean companies want you to buy their beans, and the market will welcome your beans with open arms. Perfect.

growing on our farm that are as resilient and profitable as soys, but their influence has not yet reached these parts. Farmers plant what they’re familiar with, as a

2013 will be my first entire season as a mentoring farmer I may be green, but I’ve already worked out that soys are a good seeding decision, but, when I drive west across the Prairies through huge swaths of Saskatchewan and Alberta, I don’t see much evidence of this soybean dominance. This I don’t have an answer for, at least not a convincing one. Most farmers grow crops, you still with me, but that doesn’t mean every crop available to a grower stands out as an option to him or her. A builder specializing in stairs won’t switch to constructing elevators overnight, B:11.5” and not without extensive research.

Each crop has T:11” its own learning curve, a fact I am coming to S:10.25” appreciate more and more. There are, I’m sure, crops we could be

general rule, which is not so much a criticism as a comment on how everyone makes decisions.

CUTTING THE CANOLA Canola is on the chopping block for us this year, for its weakness to weather extremes and volatile market presence. This, however, is an unfamiliar practice, as cutting canola from the roster means we would only be planting two crops.

And, I’ve gleaned from diligent eavesdropping that crop diversity is an important consideration.

What would happen if the market was saturated with soybeans and wheat prices plummeted? In part, this hypothetical illustrates

the gravity of the decision, but in a more substantial way, it illustrates why diversity is important.

Allowing the market to turn its head on your one product is too big a risk for most farms, unless you have quota on your side or your farm is a major supplier to specific, large-scale clients. If you can, however, offer a few options the chances of kind market reception increases. This is why the decision is not certain on our end.

I may not be entirely sure of all the farm’s decisions but I am certain wheat will make the team. Its recent high selling price has made it a favourable option, and wheat is something this farm is used to growing, a true stalwart crop of the Prairie farm.

Whatever crops are going into our farm’s land this year, I am looking forward to being around for it. 2013 will be my first entire season as a mentoring farmer, from seeding to harvest. I am scouring the classifieds in my area looking for land to rent, so that I too can make these decisions under the duress of uncertainty and excitement of possibility. † Toban Dyck is a freelance writer and a new farmer on an old farm. Follow him on Twitter @tobandyck or email tobandyck@gmail.com.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Columns OFF-FARM INCOME

Stocks, spreads and the 10-day moving average Try these five tax tips to save money on your 2012 tax bill.

Then read Andy Sirski’s stock update ANDY SIRSKI

L

ots has gone on during the first two months of 2013. First, I want to mention just a few tax tips that you or your family might be able to use.

FIVE TAX TIPS 1. Moving expenses: If you move to take on a new job, remember to keep records.

When you move to a job that is more than 40 kilometres away, you and your family can claim mileage (the rate is around 49 cents a kilometre and changes from province to province). You’ll need to document your old and the new address.

You can also claim $17 per meal up to $51 per day from the day you leave the old address for a reasonable travel time, plus 14 days of meals at the new address.

If you travel by plane, bus or train you can claim the actual cost, plus cab fare.

Along the way, if you stay at a hotel or motel, you can claim the cost of overnight stays but you’ll need receipts. If you need to stay in a hotel temporarily at your new place, you can claim the cost of hotels with receipts for two weeks and meals at $51 per day.

Some miscellaneous costs might be allowed (like phone calls), but they’ll need to be reasonable and documented. If you stay overnight with friends, you can still claim $17 per meal.

Of course if the new employer pays travel costs, no tax claims are allowed.

2. Medical trips: If you, your spouse, or your child needs to travel for medical care, keep track of the mileage. The Canadian Revenue Agencay (CRA) is getting a little stickier than they used to be and might disallow a medical trip if you drive past a local doctor to go to your favourite doctor. If long distance travel is needed to see a specialist CRA might need a letter to explain why you drove past a local doctor.

If you travel more than 40 kilometres each way, you can claim transportation costs. If you travel more than 80 km each way to get to the appointment, you can also claim accommodation, meals and parking expenses. Again the cost of $17 per meal up to three meals a day is usually allowed without receipts. Most of the time expenses can also be claimed for a travel companion.

Generally, trips to see chiropractors, eye specialists, specialists and physiotherapists are allowed as medical trips.

If you buy private medical insurance the premiums are tax deductible as farm expenses. If you aren’t faming those costs

can be added to your total medical costs, but you will need to deduct three per cent of your net income before you claim the medical cost.

Of course your costs of pills, glasses and dental bills are usually eligible medical expenses.

3. Inventory provision: Most cattle producers have faced some tough years since 2003. If you were one of them and you and your farm lost money, I hope your accountant set up an inventory provision that brought in paper income to cover all farm losses including full capital cost allowance.

If farming was your only source of income then the income from the inventory provision can be raised to cover your personal exemption and your spouse’s exemption if that fits too.

I’ve been writing about the inventory provision since about 1980, maybe earlier, and I’m amazed that some tax preparers still don’t use this handy way of offsetting farm losses. It is a clean way to carry forward losses into the future, so they can be used to offset future income.

If your accountant has not carried an inventory provision number to cover your farm losses, think about amending past returns to put the inventory provision on record. This might take some thinking and some work, but it might be worth your time.

4. Split farm sale: Most of the time it pays to split farm income over two or three years if you’re selling a farm and related items.

One little known tax tip goes as follows if you sell out a herd. If you do the sale through a registered auction business, you can set up a promissory note with the auction house for at least part of the income from selling the herd and have the promissory note mature five or six months into the next year.

If you sell to a farmer, most of the time that split is not possible, unless you actually don’t get paid for the cattle in the year you sold out. That split on the cash basis takes a bit of negotiation and trust ahead of time.

It often pays to sell cattle and grain in one year and machinery in another so any recaptured capital cost allowance goes into the next year.

Of course most farmland carries a capital gains exception so the gains on the farm might be tax free. But you might lose your supplement income in the year you sell the farm. If the capital gain is high enough, you might have your old age pension clawed back, even though you don’t actually pay other income tax on the gains.

5. Incorporation: If your farm is large enough, it might pay to incorporate a couple of years before you retire. Farm income will be taxed at a low corporate rate, and your company can pay

you a salary and or dividends in the years ahead.

STOCK UPDATE: First Majestic (FR:TSE) Since January 2012 I’ve been working with a few thousand shares of FR. They cost around $18. I sold calls for July for around $2.40, paid 35 cents to buy them back, sold calls for $1.60 for October, paid $3 to buy them back and then sold a call for April for $4.50 and paid 90 cents to $1.05 to buy them back. That was all at a strike price of $18.

Those numbers add up to just over $5. The shares ranged from about $14 to $23, but most investors would likely sell closer to $14 because they find it hard to sell near tops. As you can see I got $5 in cash in my account and the shares are down 50 cents from my cost one year ago.

The shares dropped this past week for two reasons. One is that the price of silver dipped below

$30 and ounce. But this is likely the bigger reason share prices dropped: Back in December 2012 FR put in an offer to buy Orko Silver Corp.

(OK:TSX Venture), for shares. The deal would have diluted future earnings and could have set a precedent for future deals. Then along came Coeur D’Alene Mines Corporation (CDE:NYSE) with a richer offer, but according to the agreement signed by FR and OK, FR had five business days to amend its original offer.

FR decided not to raise its bid.

FR will collect a breakup fee of $11.6 million from OK and the market seemed to like this. In afterhours trading on February 19, FR was up 76 cents or 4.4 per cent.

I have a few thousand shares of FR with no calls on them. Now it will be time to see if I can collect another two bucks or so from the next covered call, bringing my total cash income to $7 or so on an $18 stock in a year and a half.

10-DAY MOVING AVERAGE (10 DMA) The month of February can often be mean to some shareholders. This year it looks like February is picking on resource stocks.

Why can February be a bad month for some stocks? If shares have gone up a lot in the two or three months before, they might be ready for a bit of a downturn. Also, China takes a week off to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Markets are closed and minds and traders are thinking of celebrating, not stocks.

This year, the U.S. dollar went up because the Euro was getting pricy. This helped to drop the price of gold in U.S. dollars.

In the past, I’ve written about how it often pays to sell when stock prices go below the 10-day moving average. Let’s look at how prices moved through the 10 dma average for some of my commodities and stocks.

The pattern I’ve seen goes as follows: shares are in season, the price goes up significantly and then some catalyst causes price to flatten.

Many investors start selling when the price stops going up — it doesn’t take long for the daily price to cross the 10 dma going down, and the drop starts feeding on itself.

Gold ($gold on Stockcharts.com) dropped through the 10 dma in early October at around $1,780

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MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

31

Columns MANAGEMENT MINUTE

14 per cent return on assets — wow!

Farmers who rent a large portion of their land base can generate large annual returns. These high returns come with risks that must be managed ANDREW DERUYCK

MARK SLOANE

W

e recently did some work for a young client, Curtis Makiteezy. Curtis had a very interesting operation that caught our eye and made us do a double check.

There are very few farming models that surprise us any more however this one was worth noting. The operator was a young fellow operating a midsize grain farm with a net worth of $1,300,000. What was unique about this operation was that after we completed his projection his return on assets was an incredible 14 per cent. A typical return on assets for a grain farm has historically been between two and five per cent!

IT WAS NO MISTAKE We began looking for a mistake that we had made while entering in numbers, looking at gross income per acre, operating expenses, machinery investment and every other factor that generally leads us to finding some error. After spending almost an entire day we finally came to the conclusion that there was no mistake. The operation was just capitalized very well, the machinery was matched almost perfectly to the size of the operation and the operation was being run very efficiently.

The one thing that we did identify as somewhat abnormal for the area was that the operation only owned 10 per cent of the acres farmed and the balance of the acres were rented.

Owning that small of a percentage of the land base is generally considered rare. This led us to ask a different set of questions relating to risk in the operation and also led us to a different approach as to how to go about mitigating this risk.

However, the fact remained that the operation was projected to have a return on assets of 14 per

cent. The operation’s projected net income was over $350,000!

In an a geographical area where the focus is typically on how can we afford the next land purchase, this situation was a nice reminder to separate land ownership from the farm business.

RISKS TO MANAGE Curtis’s decision to leverage his equity into growth in operations as opposed to land ownership has paid tremendous dividends in the past few years with strong

potential risk can be mitigated through developing strong land lord relationships, creating unique rental terms and staggering lease renewal dates.

2. Limited ability to term out operating losses, should they occur.

Operating with a limited land base offers creditors little opportunity to extend amortizations. This risk can be mitigated through maintaining strong liquidity.

3. High machinery utilization. In a normal season the machinery on this operation is matched perfectly with the land base. However,

A typical return on assets for a grain farm has historically been between two and five per cent commodity prices. This is a great reminder that allocating the operation’s resources or capital to the areas of greatest opportunity can generate impressive returns.

This business model is not without risk. We identified five risks that needed to be managed.

1. Loss of rented land. This

should adverse weather conditions arise (yeah right — when does this happen!) field operations may not be completed on a timely basis.

This can be mitigated through access to custom operators or developing a strong relationship with a machinery dealer.

4. Grain storage. This operation

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and has used its 10 dma mostly as a ceiling ever since. The price was under $1,600 for a short time on Friday, February 15, and then had a long tail under the candlestick which might end up bullish. Still the price is down almost $200 an ounce since the price dropped through the 10 dma.

Silver ($silver on Stockcharts. com) dropped through the 10 dma at $34.50 about the same time as gold. It has gone down more than up ever since — the price is under $30 as I write on February 16.

Will these prices stay down? I don’t think.

If I had looked closely I could have sold those calls for days on end at with an $18 strike price for $2.30.

Now I could buy them back for 90 cents less. That would have added to my overall gains on selling calls.

The tough part about selling as the price drops through the 10 dma is to believe the price will drop more.

Thompson Creek Metals (TCM): I had 7,000 shares of TCM at cost of $3, and 5,000 shares of naked puts that we sold for $1.10. The shares crossed the 10 dma going down at around $4.20. I sold the shares and bought back the puts for 31 cents; I did well.

I recently bought 3,000 shares of TCM at just over $4 and sold calls for July with a strike price of $4 — collecting 58 cents per share or 14 per cent for half a year.

Bombardier (BBD.B): is piling up orders for its new regional jet, but needed money last fall to pay for parts and labor. The company wanted to float a loan and the risk was that money would be hard to come by or expensive. Shares dropped to under $3.50.

As things turned out, Bombardier was able to borrow twice what it actually wanted to borrow at a very

was extremely short of grain storage. This risk can be mitigated through proactive marketing, buying grain bags renting bins, and developing strong relationships with grain merchants.

5. Lack of diversification. For the same reason the operation is so profitable right now, its greatest strength can also be its greatest weakness. This risk can be mitigated by proactive planning in marketing and financial management.

The moral of Makiteezy’s story is that profit can be achieved in many ways regardless of the size of the farm. Efficient allocation of resources to seize opportunity can yield tremendous return on assets. This doesn’t come without risk. “The first step in the risk management process is to acknowledge the reality of risk.

Denial is a common tactic that substitutes deliberate ignorance for thoughtful planning.” † Andrew DeRuyck and Mark Sloane manage two farming operations in southern Manitoba and are partners in Right Choice Management Consulting.

With over 25 years of cumulative experience, they offer support in farm management, financial management, strategic planning and mediation services. They can be reached at andrewd@ goinet.ca and sloanefarms@hotmail.com or 204825-7392 and 204-825-8443.

nice rate so shares went to $4 very quickly.

I bought 1,000 shares at just around $4 and will likely buy more. Calls for July with a strike price of $4 are paying around eight per cent for five months, and the dividend pays 2.5 per cent per year. I can make this work.

Sherritt (S): has been slipping from its high of $6.20. My cost is $5.63 — the price has touched down to that level three or four times over the last few months, this could be a floor.

Estimated earnings don’t look so great, but it’s a nickel mine in Madagascar that started up last fall, which should improve cash flow and earnings.

The shares pay a dividend of just over 2.5 per cent, and I could sell calls for July with a strike price of $6 and collect 25 cents per share.

This would be 4.4 per cent on my cost and almost double the dividend. Sherritt has a very informative website at www.sherritt.com.

Yamana Gold (YRI): was a favourite a few years ago when shares were $11 to $12 and selling calls paid for a lot of holiday trips to football games in Eastern Canada while my son Nick played for the Golden Gayles in Kingston, Ont. These shares have traded as high as $20.50 and now trade at just over $15. The call for a strike price of $15 for January, 2014 is paying around $2 or $1.74 net — that’s 11 per cent for 10 months. The company has the gold, decent cost of mining and gets nice reviews on BNN. I don’t own this stock, but it is tempting.

On the afternoon of March 6, I will hold a free hands-on workshop in Steinbach, Man. Call 1-204-2686094 to pre-register. † Andy is mostly retired. He plays with his granddaughters, gardens and manages his own portfolio. He also publishes an electronic newsletter called StocksTalk. Read it free for a month by emailing Andy at sirski@mts.net.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Machinery & Shop AG CONNECT EXPO COVERAGE

Harvest grain and corn with one header Flexxifinger of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, introduced its Corn Harvest Pans, which allow Draper headers to cut corn SCOTT GARVEY

A

s new grain corn hybrids pop out of the ground in Western farm fields with increasing frequency, more producers are taking a look at the feasibility of incorporating that crop into their operations.

For many, though, the added cost of new machinery investment has been a big impediment to making the leap.

Flexxifinger of Assiniboia, Sask., has a product that will go a long way toward solving that problem. Company reps were on hand at Ag Connect Expo in Kansas City in January to introduce their new Corn Harvest Pans. When installed on a small-grains Draper header on a combine, they allow it

to effectively harvest standing corn. That helps make multicropping financially feasible, especially for farmers working on a smaller scale.

“We’ll release about 100 or 130 sets this year,” says Dave Dietrich, owner of Flexxifinger, noting interest among western Canadian farmers is growing. “It makes it (corn) a crop a guy can try. If he can do it with his existing header and run it through his combine, it makes it possible.”

PHOTO: SCOTT GARVEY

Flexxifinger of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, showed its new Corn Harvest Pans at Ag Connect Expo in Kansas City. The pans allow a regular draper header to be used for harvesting corn crops.

PRICING AND EFFICIENCY Purchasing a set of Corn Harvest Pans for a conventional Draper grain header allows it to do dou-

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ble duty at a budget price. “Our price strategy is 10 per cent of a corn header,” says Ron Wheeler, product support specialist at Flexxifinger.

But with a year of field trials under their belts, Corn Harvest Pans are showing they are more than just a cheap alternative to a dedicated corn head, according to Wheeler. They may actually be a better choice for farmers growing both small grains and corn. “We’re able to handle corn stalks easier than wheat,” he says.

Combines equipped with Corn Harvest Pans showed a marked efficiency improvement over those using regular corn headers during the trials. The benefit comes from the reels pulling the corn plants into the header as they get cut by the knife, any dropped cobs fall on the Draper belts rather than onto the ground, as often happens with a corn header.

“Because of the shape of the deflector, stalks don’t angle forward like on a corn header,” explains Wheeler. “Then the reel is able to take it in. You don’t drop nearly as many cobs. Our estimate is 10 to 15 per cent better than a corn head. ” Wheeler says running the combine through the crop at a 15° to 30° angle to the rows is best. “A 15° to 30° angle is really nice,” he explains. And that means a combine can harvest corn seeded at any row spacing, adding to cropping flexibility.

Early in the development process engineers had a problem with corn stalks getting trapped underneath the Draper belts and stopping them. That problem was solved by elevating the Corn Harvest Pans four inches above the knife. It also allowed all of the sections on the knife to be used. “By raising them, it frees up the whole cutter bar,” says Wheeler.

Using the Corn Harvest Pans in the field didn’t necessitate any change to a combine’s ground speed. Wheeler says the Draper headers effectively fed corn into the combines at 4.5 to five miles per hour.

And corn crops can go down in bad weather, just like cereals. If that happens, Flexxifinger’s standard crop lifters can be attached to the front of the Corn Harvest Pans to help lift the broken stalks up and get them feeding into the combine.

For more information, visit www.flexxifinger.com. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing. com.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Machinery & Shop AG CONNECT EXPO COVERAGE

Reinventing the combine An Indiana farmer-inventor presents his own vision of what a combine should be

BY SCOTT GARVEY

“

PHOTOS: SCOTT GARVEY

The result of the fusion of a modified Gleaner S77 combine and a 1,000-bushel grain cart, the Tribine represents a radical new vision of an efficient harvesting machine.

T

his is the fourth generation of machines that can carry much more clean grain,” says Ben Dillon, general manager of Tribine Industries, as he stands beside his latest prototype combine, which has a 1,000-bushel grain tank capacity. “The first generation was just based on pulling a grain cart around. But I quickly learned the rear axle had to be powered and it

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had to be steerable. It (the Tribine) has evolved from there. We’ve been working on this since 1997.”

BEN DILLON’S TRIBINE Dillon’s Tribine, a machine created out of the merger of a transverse rotary combine and a highcapacity grain cart, was stopping show goers in their tracks at a display inside Ag Connect Expo in Kansas City in January. It is the result of Dillon’s long-term efforts to improve the efficiency of combines working on his own Indiana corn and soybean farm.

Dillon says each successive generation of the Tribine incorporated improvements as he fine-tuned the concept. “Each generation has improved,” he says. “This is the first one we feel is robust enough that you can give it to the full spectrum of customers and it’s going to last and work.”

“If you look at new combines, it’s the same basic architecture that Massey-Harris developed in Brantford in the 1940s,” he goes on. “Big front axle; small rear axle; grain tank on top.” Dillon’s Tribine turns that traditional combine design on its head. But it doesn’t change the way grain is actually threshed, something most rotary combines can do with roughly 97 per cent efficiency. So there was no need to mess with that end of things.

“It’s feasible to eliminate the tractor, the operator and the grain cart” — Ben Dillon

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The front half of the Tribine is a modified version of a Gleaner S77 transverse rotary combine.

Dillon chose that model as the basis for his Tribine because the Gleaner is the lightest combine on the market, and that helps keep the Tribine’s weight down.

The Transverse rotor configuration also keeps the front section short. To make the Tribine even more compact, Dillon moved the engine forward to where the grain tank would sit on a standard S77.

Another aspect of the Gleaner combine which lent itself to easy modification was the belt drive, because it made repositioning the AGCO Power diesel engine much simpler than it would have been on a gear drive design.

To help minimize soil compaction, the Tribine’s rear wheels can track exactly behind the front.

To accomplish that, the machine needed to steer not only at its articulation point, but it had to have steerable hubs on the rear axle. The steering mode can also

MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

35

Machinery & Shop

The rear axle is steerable and hydraulically driven, giving the Tribine fourwheel drive.

Ben Dillon, inventor of the Tribine.

The Tribine relies on articulation and a steerable rear axle A television monitor at the Tribine display showed Spreaders on the forward part of the rear section blow straw and chaff, for manoeuvrability. the machine operating in corn crops. which comes out of the threshing mechanism in the front half of the Tribine. be set to crab steering for stability on hillsides.

The hopper, which makes up the rear half of the Tribine, is essentially a 1,000-bushel grain cart with a powered axle underneath. The massive unloading auger can empty the tank in roughly two minutes, which helps improve the Tribine’s efficiency by getting it back to work quickly. “You carry a lot of grain, unload it fast and minimize compaction,” he says.

For a combine with so much carrying capacity, it’s remarkably compact. It has a transport width of just under 12 feet (3.7 metres).

Overall length is just 35 feet (10.7 metres). And by distributing its weight over four equalsized, single tires the Tribine only creates two wheel tracks down a field, instead of four as on a regular combine equipped with dual wheels — or six with triples.

Dillon says the Tribine is really all about generating efficiencies.

EFFICIENCIES “For operations that have been using a grain cart, It’s feasible to eliminate the tractor, the operator and the grain cart, which saves capital, reduces diesel fuel, saves labour. In a huge operation with multiple combines, it also allows you to serve more combines with fewer grain carts, because the grain cart never has to go to the other end of the field.

In Canadian wheat, for instance, we could go over four kilometres before dumping the grain tank.

So, you can go down and back in a big field by yourself.”

Dillion nods at a group of farmers milling around the Tribine display both. “The reaction on the internet has overwhelmed me,” he says. “We’ve been getting thousands and thousands of visits to the website (tribine.com) per day.”

I didn’t expect that.” Most of those visits have been from people in the U.S., Canada and Germany.

It will be a while before famers can take delivery of a Tribine.

Dillon doesn’t want to manufacture it. He wants to attract the attention of an established manufacturer. “We’re here to show grain producers, custom cutters, the industry as a whole and the media the concept of the Tribine for the first time,” he explains. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Machinery & Shop AG CONNECT EXPO COVERAGE

Eaton’s LifeSense predicts hose failure A new product from Eaton can provide real-time information on the condition and remaining service life of a machine’s hydraulic hoses

BY SCOTT GARVEY

H

ow many trips have you made to town just to get a hydraulic hose repaired? How many hours have your machines sat idle in the field while you did that?

And what do you think all of that cost your operation?

Engineers at Eaton just introduced new technology they believe can go a long way toward minimizing those losses. It’s the company’s new LifeSense system, which monitors hydraulic hose condition and provides an estimate of the number of service hours remaining before a failure.

“People have no idea when a hose is going to fail,” says Subhasis Chatterjee, director, agriculture and forestry segment at Eaton.

“They don’t want it to fail on the line (at work). With this system you know exactly when the hose is going to fail.”

Chatterjee was manning Eaton’s display booth at Ag Connect Expo in Kansas City this past January to show LifeSense to both farmers and equipment manufacturers.

ELECTRONIC MONITORING Not surprisingly, electronics are at the heart of LifeSense. A sensor attached to one end of the hydraulic line sends a current through the braided-steel hose.

Based on the amount of resistance detected, LifeSense calculates the time remaining before the hose will suffer a complete failure. “It’s basically measuring resistance across the length of the hose,” Chatterjee adds. “You cannot put it in everywhere, but you can use it with hoses that are critical to the application.”

One of the key benefits of LifeSense is it doesn’t just alert an operator to an imminent failure, it provides a continuous analysis of the remaining life of a hose. With each system able to monitor up to 11 separate hoses, its capable of keeping track of several machine systems at once. Armed with that information, operators or mechanics will know well ahead of time when to bring a machine in for repairs. That makes it possible to plan hose replacements during regular scheduled maintenance, which could eliminate a lot of downtime.

“It can measure deterioration over a period of time,” Chatterjee continues. “It’s not just telling you this is going to fail, but it tells you this is going to fail in another so many hours. It’s very precise.”

LifeSense can also send the data wirelessly to a smart phone, providing farm managers with one more piece of digital information to help him or her keep tabs on an equipment fleet.

Any fluid systems, especially those that carry corrosive compounds or chemicals which are very hard on hoses, can be monitored by LifeSense. That can be particularly useful in preventing

the potential loss of high-value fluids or avoiding contamination of soils.

But before farmers ever see any machine equipped with Eaton’s LifeSense, Chatterjee has to convince the manufacturers to integrate the system into their machines. It won’t be readily available through the aftermarket for retrofits onto existing equipment.

By showing LifeSense at Ag Connect Expo, Eaton was trying

to create some buzz for it. By giving both farmers and manufacturers a look at it and explaining the potential benefits, the company hopes it can convince some brands to build LifeSense into the design of future machines.

“This is a product that has brought in a lot of accolades for Eaton,” says Chatterjee. “We’re trying to show how we can make it better for farmers, the endusers.” † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

Eaton’s LifeSense hose sensor system, on display at Ag Connect Expo, is designed to monitor hydraulic hoses and calculate the amount of service life remaining before they fail, preventing fluid loss and machinery downtime in the field.

MARCH 11, 2013

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Machinery & Shop EQUIPMENT NEWS

Bourgault updates its seeding line A new 7000 Series air cart and a floatation option for 3320 PHD and 3710 ICD drills are among the new features announced

BY SCOTT GARVEY

L

ast June at Canada’s Farm Progress Show in Regina, Bourgault debuted its new, wider, 86-foot 3320 PHD drill with an improved floatation feature that included 800/65R32 tires mounted on a steerable front axle and dual 16.5x16.1 tires at the rear. For those farmers who took the time to give it a once over, many had

one question: will that floatation feature be available on other sizes of 3320 PHDs too?

The answer came in a recent press release, and it turns out it’s yes. Bourgault will now include that option on the 60-, 66-, and 76-foot versions of the 3320 PHD along with the 60-foot 3710 Independent Coulter Drill. Just like the 86-foot version of the 3320, 800/65R32 tires will be incorporated on

the mainframe and 540/65R24 single casters will be utilized on the wings. But you’ll have to wait for the 2014 model year to take delivery of one.

AN AIR CART TOO The company also had other news to talk about: it’s adding another air cart to its 7000 Series, which so far has only included the high-capacity 7950. That cart now

PHOTO: BOURGAULT

The new 700-bushel 7700 air cart replaces the previous 6700 and gets the same option list as the larger 7950. gets a little brother with the introduction of the 700-bushel 7700.

The 7700 replaces the 6700 and gets all the same upgraded features as the larger 7950. It is available in a three or four compartment configuration, which includes the company’s FLEX bin feature. Product placed in the 60-bushel, non-metred tank can be directed to the meter used by either of two other compartments (with 295- and 105-bushel

sizes) to provide some flexibility with product capacities.

A 40-bushel canola saddle tank is available. For convenience, a platform next to it is designed to store a pallet of additional bagged seed.

Because a loaded 7700 represents a lot of weight, it can be ordered with optional hydraulic brakes controlled by the tractor’s brake pedal or a separate controller. These carts also get the new PDM Pro (Positive Displacement Metering) meter that is more resistant to build up when used with sticky product.

To control them, 7700s get X30 monitors, which have 12.1inch screens. An additional, stand-alone, 7-inch monitor comes with the optional camera system. Four views can be displayed on the screen at once.

It’s linked to cameras in each compartment so operators can keep an eye on the product as it meters out. A rear-view camera allows operators to see traffic approaching from behind during road transport.

The new carts ride on 710/70R42 front tires and 850/80R38 single rears, which have a ground pressure rating of 17 p.s.i., front and rear. Or buyers can select the 710/70R42 rear dual option. That drops the p.s.i. rating at the back to 12.

To load or unload, the 7700s offer a choice of a remote controlled 12-inch auger or a conveyor with a 15-inch belt. There is a hydraulic bag lift option, except when the cart is equipped with a saddle tank.

Bourgault also reported that its work on developing a section control feature is progressing well. It will have a few units undergoing field trials again this year. But as yet, no official release date has been set. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

You’ve come to trust Meridian for the best SmoothWall hopper bins in the industry… as of 2013, we’ve merged Meridian, Behlen and Sakundiak brands all under MERIDIAN. Combined, these well established and trusted industry leaders have over 180 years of experience manufacturing innovative, high quality products for customers across North America and around the world. Insist on Meridian for all your Storage and Handling needs.

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The large-tire, floatation feature introduced on the 86-foot version of the 3320 PHD drill last June will be available on smaller versions of the 3320 and the 60-foot 3710 drill for the 2014 season.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Cattleman’s Corner ON-FARM RESEARCH — PART 1

Figuring the cost of winter-feeding options

BY SEAN MCGRATH

W

e run a research farm.

We are definitely not a “funded” organization, but we always have a series of experiments on the go. Our goal is always to find things that work for us to either reduce costs or add value. I think our track record has been pretty decent, but we have had a few busts as well.

Our experimentation does not always have to be current or leading edge, and a lot of times the experiments are testing things that are already in production on other farms to see if they work here. Sometimes our experimental designs come strictly from the fact that I like frugality and often think I can do more for less. Sometimes they are just driven out of sheer curiosity. I thought it might be interesting to walk through a few of the projects we have on the go over the next couple of articles and maybe spawn some ideas and discussion.

The first rule of experimentation around here is to not put all of your eggs in one basket. To give a couple of examples, we did not switch to winter corn grazing 100 per cent when we tried it, and we do not restrict access to water when we test a new solar pump.

The second rule and where we lose a lot of folks is to write stuff down. For us this includes things like dates, time spent on construction/deployment, cost recording and in some cases actual results.

Trial and error (mostly error) has shown us that writing things down helps to identify the success or failure of the result as well as remembering the experiment in the first place.

The third and final rule is to look for co-operation. We have been able to find fantastic partners that are looking for a place to conduct research. We always wind up with

photo: sean mcgrath

“On-farm research can involve trying out some tried and true production practices to see how they work on your farm, and how much it costs. skin in the game, but more than any cost savings, the opportunity to have experts “on staff” to interpret what is going on is invaluable.

WINTER FEEDING I wrote about our rake-bunching experiment a bit last winter. It was an idea I was turned onto through a friend that worked for Alberta Environmentally Sustainable Agriculture (AESA). We basically pulled an old steel wheel dump rake out of our bush and used it to put hay up into piles. The idea is that the piles provide easier access to the hay over the winter and preserve the quality better than a swath. We restricted access to the piles using electric cross fence.

Last year, which was a strange and open winter, we ran all of our replacement heifers on these bunches. After all of our costs were accounted for at custom rates (cutting/raking) and I charged out my winter labour and mineral we ran $0.25 per day to winter our heifers. I thought this was wrong, but when I double-checked my math it was spot on and it included the

1/2 can of WD40 it took to get our rake running. This was after we had already grazed approximately 60 animal-unit grazing days on the area before cutting and bunching.

I still have a lot of questions about rake bunching and am not prepared to rely on it 100 per cent for my winter feed supply, but the results were exciting enough that we did some more last summer.

This winter will be a real test as we have over two feet of snow on the ground as I write this preChristmas. We are not as far along in our winter grazing as using the bunches yet, other than a few bulls for a bit in October, but it could be an interesting solution to using perennial forages more intensively in a winter-grazing scenario.

BALE GRAZING Bale grazing is not really a cutting-edge solution anymore. A lot of folks have used bale grazing for a long time. We had previously set out to bale graze and then through other forage resources wound up not using our set-up bales. Two years ago this bit us in the butt

and we wound up feeding cows for 90 days in deep snow.

While still well below the average for our area, this was extremely traumatic for us. The credo of “never again” was sworn and last year we implemented a strategic bale-grazing plan to complement our stockpiled grass and swath grazing.

At the same time AESB (formerly PFRA) was looking to replicate some work done in Manitoba on bale grazing and were looking for co-operators. I love co-operation.

The logical location for us to bale graze was the absolutely most abused piece of ground we own.

I would term it a “convenience pasture.” It is convenient during calving, convenient to turn cows out after branding, conveniently located for summer processing, and conveniently located for weaning calves. With this not-recommended no-rest rotation this small pasture looked like a golf green.

AESB has done survey work, soil tests, feed tests, soil temperature and moisture monitoring, soil biology and now are working on a project to track nutrient flows to develop recommendations for grazing near water bodies. This is fantastically exciting to me as it lets us do things better going forward, and provides some valuable information for other producers.

The exciting results are that the areas we bale grazed with no additional inputs saw fantastic increases in yield and an improvement in species mix. Rough equivalent increases in production compared to control areas were in excess of 9,000 pounds of dry matter per acre. The neat thing about the in-depth work being done is that the yield is being collected in a grid pattern around the bales and additional environmental data, so there is additional information coming to light about ideal spacing of bales, setbacks, nutrient losses, and the list goes on.

Needless to say, this is a program that is continuing here.

We don’t background calves in the corral anymore and we start the tractor to push snow out of the driveway. Last winter it took 6-1/2 hours to place all of our bales and almost exactly 20 gallons of diesel. Feeding nearly 300 head for the winter took approximately 2-1/2 hours a week and did not require starting a tractor.

While it is hard to gauge what you did not spend or depreciate, my cost estimates showed a savings of over $15,000 for our operation compared to more traditional methods.

WATER WORKS The saying that one thing leads to another is certainly true for us, and once we became engaged in our bale-grazing project, the folks at AESB were investigating some other issues that our terrain was pretty suitable for. As we are curious and we had developed a good working partnership, last fall they showed up with a drilling rig and put several shallow wells of varying depths in place to test nutrient movement from bale grazing through the soil profile, the water table and other various and sundry pathways. Our soil is generally pretty high in clay content, so we don’t think that the water moves much, but it is certainly going to be interesting to see.

One site is a bale grazing location near a slough that we think may discharge into a seep in a coulee bottom about one-eighth of a mile away. It will be interesting to learn the results as they go.

In the next article I will walk through a few summer-related projects we have been working on. † Sean McGrath is a rancher and consultant from Vermilion, Alta. He can be reached at sean@ranchingsystems.com or (780)8539673. For additional information visit www. ranchingsystems.com.

FORAGE MANAGEMENT

Improved sanfoin in the pipeline One more tool in a bid to develop bloat-free grazing of legumes

I

t’s a marriage made in cattle heaven. Scientists have developed a new variety of sainfoin that when paired with alfalfa in a mixed stand offers the holy grail of bloat-free alfalfa pasture grazing for cattle.

Development of the new cultivar, tested as LRC 3902, was led by Dr. Surya Acharya of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Lethbridge. With a proposed name of Mountainview, it offers cattle producers a brand new ‘king’ to pair with ‘queen of forages’ alfalfa, to provide innovative new options and many superior benefits. The new variety still in the seed multiplication stage, will be commercially available in 2015.

“This new sainfoin cultivar is truly one-of-a-kind and represents an exciting new opportunity for cattle producers,” says Acharya, a long-time forage breeder and

recipient of the 2012 Canadian Plant Breeding and Genetics Award. “It is the first sainfoin cultivar that will survive in alfalfa pasture and grow back at the same rate after cutting or grazing. It will prevent bloat in mixed stands to provide producers with their first real, economically viable option to allow for highly productive, bloatfree alfalfa pasture grazing.”

Sainfoin is a high quality forage legume crop that features a condensed tannin concentration.

This is very effective at preventing deadly pasture bloat in ruminants.

However, until now, sainfoin cultivars have not survived well in alfalfa pasture or grown back after the first cut.

TWO KEY FEATURES The new cultivar was bred to overcome those two hurdles and

Up-and-coming Mountainview sanfoin an important bloat-management tool.

field trials show it represents a great success. It was derived from parental clones selected for improved forage yield in mixed stands with alfalfa and regrowth after cutting. When grown under irrigated and rainfed conditions of Western Canada, LRC 3902 out yielded Nova, the check variety, by 22 to 42 per cent in pure stands and 30 to 39 per cent in mixed stands with alfalfa. It also showed strong regrowth.

“The Mountainview cultivar achieves what we set out to accomplish with our sainfoin improvement program,” says Acharya. “It grows very well and fits all the criteria cattle producers have required to have a solid,

reliable option to support bloatfree alfalfa grazing. This cultivar is well suited for preventing bloat in mixed alfalfa stands without loss in animal productivity.”

Moutainview promises to live up to its name by delivering results at the peak of forage performance.

Though four years of testing at different locations in Western Canada it proved a consistent leader in yield, maturity, seed weight, disease resistance and winterhardiness. Mountainview reaches flowering 10 days earlier than Nova and has a seed weight with pod of 20-24 g per 1,000 compared to 18-22 g for Nova.

“Mountainview’s rapid regrowth

photo: surya acharya

after cutting is very different from Nova and is one of its greatest benefits,” says Acharya. “I think cattle producers will find a lot to like in this new cultivar.”

That sentiment is echoed by Doug Wray, Wray Ranch, Irricana, Alta., Chair of the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association.

“Legumes are vital to the productivity and sustainability of our tame pastures,” says Wray.

“Mountainview sainfoin offers exciting potential to increase the carrying capacity of our ranch.”

More information is available at www.albertaforages.ca. † Article courtesy Meristem Land and Science.

BUILDING TRUST IN CANADIAN BEEF

Cattleman’s Corner

New equipment drives beef on-farm progress

U

Producer installations improve working conditions and performance

pgrades to equipment on farms and ranches across Canada are getting marks for significant on-the-ground management improvements in cattle operations. That’s the result of producer feedback about new equipment installations made possible under the federal provincial Growing Forward program over the past several years.

“There are significant advancements in cattle-handling equipment these days but these are not always feasible farm additions economically for all producers,” says Terry Grajczyk, national manager for the Verified Beef Production (VBP) program.

“Support under this program has allowed many producers to install equipment they

selling means producers make more informed marketing decisions and understand the effect on incomes before they sell.

One of the biggest impacts has been from the installation of neck extenders in cattle chutes. These significantly reduce animal head and animal movement in the chute, giving Food safety impact There are clear benefits in improved food producers more control over their treatment safety. “VBP recommends producers admin- efforts. “Some people say neck extenders are ister injections in the neck, a low-value cut the best improvement in chute design in many destined for hamburger, and that they focus on years,” she says, “although there are some difeliminating the risk of breaking needles,” says ferences of opinion on various models.”

Record systems evolve Grajczyk. “New equipment helps with that.”

A cornerstone of the VBP effort is recordBetter equipment has also improved harmony in the handling area. Anyone who has keeping, and new software that meets the worked with cattle in a handling area knows basic needs of VBP has been installed on it can be challenging to work together in some operations. On a related note, some those situations. “A number of producers tell producers have purchased electronic therus that the new squeeze chutes have made it mometers that link with animal health softeasier to work together or on your own more ware and assist in treatment determination. safely,” says Alberta VBP program manager, Software helps producers capitalize on RFID Eileen Leslie. “More than one has said it tags for herd management, shipping withmade enough of a difference to allow them to drawal checks, sorting and culling. stay in the cattle business for more years.”

Future strength

may not have otherwise been able to afford.

And the feedback through VBP channels provincially and nationally from that effort gives us a look at the benefits to producers of these improvements.”

Here are some of the things learned.

“A strong industry in the future depends New scale installations give producers more on producers focused and able to react to control over their business. Knowing animal opportunity,” says, Grajczyk. “It’s clear weights makes dosage for animal health prod- that this new equipment has helped a numucts more accurate so product is not wasted or ber of producers to do that. That’s good for enough is used to make treatments most effec- them, their industry and our beef consumer tive, says Leslie. And knowing weights before customers.”

Scales provide control

Updated handling equipment helps producers treat animals properly and on time.

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Every Ralgro implant has the potential to add up to 23 extra pounds* to a suckling calf.

The profitable weigh. *Data on file. **Rate of return may vary depending on market conditions. ® Registered trademark of Schering-Plough Animal Health Corporation. Used under license.

Merck Animal Health, operating in Canada as Intervet Canada Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. MERCK is a trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. Copyright © 2011 Intervet International B.V., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. All rights reserved.

Ralgro Alberta Beef -YAP.indd 1

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MARCH 11, 2013

Cattleman’s Corner PASTURE MANAGEMENT

Controlling costs a key part of profitability Producer takes advantage of a wide range of sometimes small but sustainable grazing opportunities

BY ANGELA LOVELL

Part 1 of 3 Editor’s note: If you put three cattle producers in a room and ask what they consider is important to the future viability of their ranch you will probably get three different stories.

That’s what farmers heard as a three-producer panel at the Manitoba Rancher’s Forum shared details of how they had made their ranches more profitable and sustainable. ordon Beddome, who operates Waggle Springs Ranch near Douglas, Manitoba, says reducing costs wherever possible is key to the sustainability of his ranch. He runs 300 cowcalf pairs, 50 yearlings and 150 Boer meat-goats on 5,000 acres of grazing land and uses every available resource he can to keep production costs down.

For starters, he uses creative ways to keep land costs down.

Beddome only owns about 75 per cent of his grazing land.

He also has access to another 13 quarter sections, seven of which are owned by the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and six are provincial Crown land, which is leased back to NCC on the condition it continues to be grazed. Beddome manages the land as part of a co-operative grazing program with NCC and Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI).

The NCC/Crown land is as good as owning land, says Beddome. Under the arrangement he has a 100-year lease with no capital investment in land ownership. He also rents additional pasture from retirees in the area who no longer farm and he sometimes can run cattle on free corn stover available from a neighbour.

brush control, and goats to control weeds. It all works to control costs and optimize production.

FIRE AS A TOOL

G

Gordon Beddome looks for every opportunity he can to reduce grazing costs and make use of all forages available.

(THE PRICE IS RIGHT Also by placing cattle on relatively small parcels of land that otherwise might not be used, he is able to make use of the feed and also use cattle to control weeds. For example, the grassed perimeters around nearby gravel pits provide additional no-cost grazing space and the gravel company is only too happy to have Beddome’s animals keep the weeds in check. In another case, a neighbour’s pivot irrigation system doesn’t quite reach the corners, leaving small areas of about five acres each, which are hard to access with spray equipment.

The owner of the land allows Beddome to use those areas as spring pasture. In return the cows

take care of the grasses and weeds the irrigation farmer might otherwise have to manage.

Beddome has developed his grazing strategy as part of a steering committee that includes Jane Thornton, MAFRI’s pasture and rangeland specialist and representatives from NCC and Crown Lands. Together they have come up with some innovative ways to make use of every acre — even low-productivity areas.

The co-operative grazing program has helped him gain a better understanding of native grass management. By adopting a holistic management system he says he has increased the profitability of his operation. He uses tools such as prescribed burning of treed and brush areas, high stock density for

About 200 acres of the Crown land pasture was not suitable for grazing because it was largely overgrown with aspen. Beddome experimented with controlled burning of the aspen and found he can now carry 90 cow-calf pairs on those 200 acres for a month in early summer. “If you kill a poplar tree with fire it sends up about 10 suckers,” says Beddome. (These suckers are) “very nutritious for the cattle and once you remove the tree canopy you get vetch (and other native plants) appearing.” Most are well suited for grazing.

He also burned another area infested with ground junipers, which was only providing about 500 lbs./acre of useful forage. The resulting re-growth meant that forage production doubled in the second year after the burn and by the third year was up to 1,598 lbs./acre.

Beddome says the biggest cost saving has been achieved by extending his grazing season. He now gets around 200 days of grazing from his land, which has a wide range of habitats from sand hills to marshes. He manages the different types of native vegetation to obtain maximum productivity.

He cross-fences the prairie bush pasture land and aims for 50 per cent utilization of forages to get maximum plant regrowth. The native pastures are divided into paddocks and cattle are rotated through as quickly as possible.

They clip only the top 10 per cent of the grass before being moved to the next paddock. “By August we have been through all

the pastures once, but we can go back through pastures again into the fall because the grass has recovered quickly by not grazing it down too much during the first pass,” he says.

BIOLOGICAL WEED CONTROL Even the once “unproductive” leafy spurge areas on his property have been converted from a nuisance into a resource. After spraying the leafy spurge for 20 years and not really getting anywhere, Beddome started grazing goats on it. Goat grazing hasn’t eradicated the weed, but has certainly kept it under control and the weed provides nutritious feed for the goats. “Goats love the leafy spurge,” says Beddome. “It’s superior to alfalfa for goats and it comes early in the spring. There is less regrowth from grazing it and it’s now co-inhabiting with my other grazing plants, so it’s become more of an asset than a cost now.”

Multi-species grazing has helped Beddome get the most from all the varied native forages, weeds and shrubs. “It works well because the cows always eat the grass and the goats prefer bushes so they don’t compete,” says Beddome.

Beddome has seen economic ups and downs over his farming career, having run both PMU and hatchery operations in the past. But now, even though beef production has its market cycles, he feels working with Mother Nature, being open to innovative ideas and focusing on controlling costs has helped increase production and will help him ride future market waves. † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer based in Manitou, Man.

DAIRY CORNER

MUN test a good measure of dietary efficiency PETER VITTI

T

he milk urea nitrogen (MUN) test is a still an effective management tool for improving dietary efficiency in dairy cows.

Routine bulk-tank MUNs should not be used by themselves. Rather, milk samples should be taken and their results reviewed with other milk and component data, forage/diet analysis and reproduction records to get an overall picture. Therefore if necessary, quick and effective changes can be made to the diet and/or other management.

Testing milk urea nitrogen (MUN) gives the producers an actual tool to evaluate whether the proteins in rations are efficiently being converted into body function, tissues and milk.

Although often MUN bulk tank testing is preferred over individual cow testing, the underlying idea

of MUN is the ruminal microbes are digesting feed proteins into ammonia. Ammonia that does not get used in microbial protein synthesis is quickly absorbed through the ruminal wall, transported to the liver, where it is converted into urea. This urea is spilled back into the bloodstream.

As the blood flows into the udder, some of this urea quickly diffuses into milk.

TARGET RANGE A general range of 11 to 16 mg/100 ml milk is considered to be acceptable MUN levels in bulk-tank milk tests, although there are no actual official MUN standards. Its general acceptance among producers and nutritionists is based upon information derived from university and extension field studies.

For example, some European studies have shown a broad linear relationship between MUN and the amount of protein formulated in the diet. These and other researchers have shown as ration protein for lactating cows

increase, MUN values increase, urinary nitrogen increases and the efficiency of protein utilization by the rumen microbe population decreases.

Excessive MUN values are usually explained as a reflection of too much soluble protein (lush alfalfa protein) or not enough readily available starch-energy (grain) in the diet. Dietary imbalances are thought to prevent ruminal microorganisms from turning ammonia into microbial protein that helps cows meet their protein requirements.

Other smaller contributors to high MUN values are pH imbalances or a poor rumen environment for good fermentation of the diet.

MUN values taken from individual animals on a farm can be affected by a number of non-protein factors such as size of the cows, stage of lactation, herd health status, dry matter intake and water consumption. Variation in individual animal MUN tests is one of the main reasons that bulk-tank MUN testing is often preferred.

TEST INDICATES WASTED PROTEIN Despite bulk-tank or individual MUN tests, there is much agreement that high MUN tests could be a sign of wasting dietary protein in the barn. It is also coupled with the belief that excessive MUN values are a link to a possible cause of poor reproduction in cows.

Cornell University (1996) showed that a concentration of MUN greater than 19 mg/100 ml in the milk of early lactation cows was associated with a 20 per cent decrease in pregnancy rates. They explained high MUN values are associated with an increased energy demand in the cow’s body to detoxify ammonia in the bloodstream and convert it into MUN. Associated high ammonia levels in the uterus (originating from the bloodstream) may cause unfavorable conditions, which often leads to early embryonic deaths.

Although, there is a lot of focus upon the MUN values that exceed the normal 11 to 16 mg/100 ml milk, producers are advised to develop their own MUN baseline

that is normal for their herd. When this personal baseline changes by more than two to three points; look for dietary or animal changes in one’s own herd. It is finally advisable to record and review weekly averages rather than large day to day variations.

CORRECTING MUN Producers might notice large/ subtle trends or out-of-range changes over significant time in their herds’ MUN bulk-tank tests.

To adjust and return to more modest MUN levels, they might look into the following areas: 1. Diet formulation. Review the total protein content of the ration as well as the rumen degradable protein (RDP), dietary soluble protein levels (SP) and available non-fibre carbohydrate (NSC) levels. It is also a good idea to know the rumen undegradable protein (RUP) levels; too much RUP versus RDP might lead to too-low MUN levels.

2. Adequate effective forage

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

Les Johnston knows his beef a lot better now - thanks to BIXS.

So, What’s Your Beef?

Here’s just a few reasons why Johnston reckons BIXS is the best thing to come along in years to help his ranch business.

“I need accurate carcass data on my cattle so I can effectively market them to buyers. BIXS delivers the information I need to take my marketing program to the next level, especially for branded beef programs…

I figure I pay for those RFID tags so why not pocket some payback from that by registering them onto BIXS and getting good information in return like detailed carcass and grade data. And as an added bonus I age verify them through BIXS, which helps us tap into cull cow premiums...

In just a short time on BIXS I’m confident that now I can guarantee to a buyer that 60 percent of my animals will grade AAA with high yields. Before BIXS I lacked confidence in that kind of claim, I didn’t have the data to back it up…

How can I improve something I’m not measuring? BIXS is my measuring tool. Some folks may be leery of the information BIXS provides on their cattle, but they mislead themselves in my opinion. To me it’s all about mapping my cowherd genetics and the specifics on the beef I produce so I can take control and manage my business and future and provide my consumers with a positive eating experience….”

- Les Johnston, Nisku Land & Cattle Co., Filmore, Sask.

The power of individual animal and carcass data is just a click away.

For more information and to register onto BIXS visit the website at www.bixs.cattle.ca For quick registration go to www.bixs.cattle.ca/go To advertise on the BIXS website and database portal e-mail us at: bixs@cattle.ca

Funding for this project has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Flexibility Fund, as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

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MARCH 11, 2013

Cattleman’s Corner HERD MANAGEMENT

Retained placenta usually corrects itself HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

M

ost cows “clean” soon after calving, shedding the placental membranes within two to 12 hours. The uterus is shrinking up after being greatly stretched to accommodate the full-term fetus. Contractions (which help the placenta work loose from its attachments) actually continue for several days, although in decreasing frequency and intensity.

These contractions help the uterus return to normal pre-pregnancy size and aid the flushing of fluids and tissue debris. The cervix constricts, often very rapidly. Within 10 to 12 hours after a normal calving, after the placental membranes have usually been shed, it becomes difficult to insert a hand through the cervix if you were to then try to check the birth canal. Retained placenta is a common complication after calving; if the cow doesn’t shed those membranes within about 12 hours, it’s considered to be “retained.”

THE PROBLEM Factors that lead to a retained placenta can include anything that interferes with the “unbuttoning” of the cotyledons that attach the placenta to the uterus, or anything that hinders or limits uterine contractions, since these contractions help cause physical

separation by distorting the shape of the placentomes (the attachment areas where the cotyledons of the placenta hook into the maternal caruncles on the uterus).

If a cow does not shed her placenta with 36 hours following birth of her calf, there’s a good chance she won’t shed it for a week to 10 days, since uterine contractions have ceased. After that point in time, the coming loose will depend more on the shrinking of the uterus and disintegration of the attachments.

COMMON CAUSES Dr. Robert J. Callan, professor, and service head of Livestock Medicine and Surgery Section at Colorado State University, says the most common reason for retained placentas where he grew up in Oregon was selenium deficiency.

“You also see retained placentas in beef cattle due to dystocia and a hard calving,” says Callan.

“Body condition of cows at calving can also be a factor in retained placenta, and may also lead to dystocia, since a cow that’s too thin or too fat may have more trouble calving.

“Cows that give birth to twins are also prone to retained placenta.

It may be partly due to the fact that twins tend to come a little early. Cows that calve prematurely are more likely to retain the placenta,” says Callan.

Abortion or any cause of premature calving can lead to retained placenta. This would include pine needle abortion, as well as viral infections like BVD or IBR. One reason for retained placenta in some of these instances is that

when the fetus dies, it doesn’t send the signal for maturation of the placental attachments so they can come loose when the cow goes into labour.

SOLUTIONS In earlier times, stockmen felt they needed to treat every cow that retained her placenta, and that these membranes should be removed. We now know that trying to remove the placenta may do more harm than good.

“Cows with retained placenta mainly just need time for the membrane to rot away from the attachments and come loose,” says Callan. It will always come loose after awhile (though it may take seven to 10 days), and the cow will usually be fine, unless it develops an infection that invades the uterine tissue (causing metritis) or the bloodstream (septicemia).

“So the main thing is to monitor the cow and make sure she is still eating and feeling good,” he says. “ If there’s any concern that she may be sick, check her body temperature. If it’s elevated (more than 103 F), treat her with an antibiotic. The choices may include penicillin, oxytetracycline, or ceftioluf (Naxcel or Excenel). These are all fairly effective for treating a septic retained placenta, in which a resultant metritis has led to septicemia.”

DON’T FORCE IT Callan doesn’t recommend reaching into the uterus to manually remove the retained membranes. There’s always some

PHOTO: HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

A retained placenta will usually look after itself without intervention, provided the cow appears healthy. risk of leaving pieces in there.

Studies have also shown manual removal causes more damage to the uterine wall and compromises future fertility.

You can, however, grab hold of the external portion of the placenta that’s hanging out, and put gentle traction on it. If it does come out without tearing, this is fine. Just don’t pull very hard. If you feel it start to tear, stop. Try and pull it a little bit again the next day.

“You may be able to tease it out a little at a time,” says Callan.

“Another thing I often do is take hold of those membranes while wearing a rectal palpation sleeve, and start pulling on it to see how much comes out. If it’s stuck and won’t come easily, I stop and while

still holding the placenta I’ll invert the rectal sleeve over it.

“Now the portion of the placenta that’s outside the cow is inside the plastic sleeve (and not dragging around on the ground) and I’ll whip that around and tie it in a knot. This keeps it cleaner, and shortens it up so it won’t be inadvertently stepped on and torn, and keeps a little weight on it, for gravity to help ease it on out.”

If the cow does not develop a serious infection following the retained placenta, her uterus eventually clears the local infection and inflammation and she will rebreed successfully. Most cows have no further problems. †

» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 40

MUN tests). Sorting by milk cows could lead to a similar situation. In contrast, excessive mixing of the ration could cause effective fibre breakdown, SARA conditions, and excessive MUN tests.

5. Sampling and analytical errors. An automatic infrared instrument is used to measure MUN. Organic molecules such as protein, fat and urea molecules in normal cow’s milk have a unique spectrum when heated and analyzed for accurate results. Very high fat and protein component levels in milk as well as high somatic cell counts have been shown to produce erroneous MUN results.

While there may be occasional blips in MUN tests, there is no need to panic. Even long-term MUN values can be adjusted. It is a matter of noting undesirable MUN in the lactation herd and taking corrective action as needed. †

MUN TEST A GOOD MEASURE OF DIETARY EFICIENCY fibre. Cows not receiving enough effective forage fibre can lead to subclinical acidosis (SARA). When rumen acidosis occurs, resident microbe function is often inhibited, which could lead to not enough ammonia being turned into microbial protein, thus contribute to high MUN values.

3. Ration changes. Using a new bag of lush alfalfa haylage at the same significant level as a more grass-based alfalfa silage may cause a dramatic rise in MUN values.

It is a good idea to test all forages, know their nutrient analysis, before implementation.

4. Poor feed mixing and sorting. Inadequate mixing could lead to technical erratic MUN levels in the milk of individual cows (which might not be shown in bulk-tank

Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact her at 208-756-2841.

Peter Vitti is an independent livestock nutritionist and consultant based in Winnipeg. To reach him call 204-254-7497 or by email at vitti@mts.net.

CONTACT US

Write, E-mail or Fax Contact Cattleman’s Corner with comments, ideas or suggestions for and on stories by mail, email, phone or fax.

Phone Lee Hart at 403-592-1964 Fax to 403-288-3162 E-mail lee@fbcpublishing.com Write to CATTLEMAN’S CORNER, PO Box 71141 Silver Springs RPO, Calgary, Alta. T3B 5K2

MARCH 11, 2013

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Home Quarter Farm Life SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Boundaries principles for farm families Live with good boundaries and enjoy a happier family ELAINE FROESE

B

y mid-March I am peeking at the garden to see if any black patches have managed to poke through. Spring arrives officially next week, and with that the hope that a good growing season lies ahead, and a great time of working together as a family.

This winter I addressed the Midwest Ag Women’s Conference in Indiana about living an intentional life. Funny thing is, I have been writing and speaking about a so-called balanced life since l987. “We teach what we need to learn,” is my mantra, and I guess since I am still sharing my life issues, I am still learning. In fact, one of my strengths is that I am a lifelong learner.

Dr. Henry Cloud is my favourite mentor about boundaries, and his One Life Solution Workbook engages us to seek out an audit of our time, our weak spots which he calls holes in the fences of our boundaries. I have summarized his 10 laws of boundaries with my spin for farms.

1. Sowing and reaping. We reap what we sow. This should be fairly obvious to all the grain farmers and gardeners, but how do we put this into practice?

If we make certain choices or do good behaviours, we should like the outcomes or the natural consequences of our actions.

My mom had a magnet on her fridge that said, “You can’t soar with the eagles in the morning if you hoot with the owls all night!” Are you happy with the things you are sowing and reaping in your farm team relationships? Without the gardener, there is no garden.

2. Responsible to and for.

Sometimes as type A parents we do too much for our adult children, whose life task is to become independent and responsible members of society. Are you guilty of doing too much to rescue a child, causing a hole in your boundary fence? Ask yourself this question: “What do others on this farm need to learn to do for themselves?” For some reason, laundry springs to mind!

3. Power to choose. My essential message as a farm coach is that it is “Your farm. Your family. Your choice.” Some farmers in transition are blown away by the thought that they actually have choices in the way they live their lives. They can choose to say “no, not at this time,” they can ask for what they need, and they can ask others, “What would you like me to do differently?”

4. Respect. When you respect yourself you do not allow bad

behaviours or things that suck the emotional energy out of you.

Cloud calls these actions “power drains.” Why have you let go of your self-control and self-respect and given power to someone else to control your decisions? I have very little patience for families who are into the “blame game” or “poor me victim roles.” Are you giving others on your farm the respect that you crave for? Whom have you let take away your personal power?

5. Motivation.

When I felt too fat to get a decent dress for our son’s wedding, I hit the good nutrition and exercise path, once again.

I got results instead of tears, and was highly motivated to stay on track. If you are only motivated by the size of your farm, and the number of zeros on your balance sheet, I think you might lose your motivation when weather issues hit, and your family doesn’t recognize you at the family gatherings.

What is it that you cheerfully are driven to do on your farm?

What is it that you are doing when you lose all track of time?

Know what your good drivers of success are, and accept that fact that your sons and daughters may have different motivation than you do. “Different is not wrong, it is just different.”

BY DAN PIRARO

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6. Evaluation of Pain.

Livestock handlers need to have that sixth sense to figure out what is bothering an animal in pain. Do we take the same sensitivity with people to figure out whether our directness of communication with them has caused a justified offence,

the things you do to prevent bad stuff from happening on your farm, like shovelling the excess snow this winter off your outbuildings to prevent collapse.

Be able to anticipate the things you need to do for farm safety on the physical side, and be a good listener to antici-

We need to be emotionally strong enough to check out what the effect of our words and actions has been or something else? We do not intend to cause harm to others on our team intentionally, but everyone has a different perspective on what conflict issues are. We need to be emotionally strong enough to check out what the effect of our words and actions has been. Make quick repair of true hurt that you cause. Some folks are gifted at huge drama and the pain caused may be out of proportion to what the current reality is.

7. Proactivity. There is a popular acne medication called ProActive for zits. Think about

pate how your farm team needs encouragement for the busy season ahead. Put some deposits in the emotional bank account before the withdrawal times of machinery breakdowns, and the rush to get the crop in.

8. Envy. When we desire what someone else has, it becomes envy. Don’t worry about what the neighbours appear to have, get rid of your root of bitterness.

Good desire stems from ownership and responsibility to create the outcomes you earn. I pray for all farm families that God would give them the

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Elaine Froese celebrates her 18th year writing this column, this week. Seek out her encouragement by signing up for her monthly e-newsletters at www.elainefroese. com. “Like” her on Facebook and share your “intentional life” success with her at elaine@ elainefroese.com. Book her for your next interactive farm group event for the fall of 2013. Go to www.cafanet.com to find a great farm adviser to help you live your principles and create healthier boundaries.

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BY DAN PIRARO

desires of their heart. I also pray that they would understand that “the sluggard craves and gets nothing, the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied” (Proverbs 13:4). Have a family business meeting this week!

9. Activity. My husband is highly task oriented which is a great blessing to our marriage because things get done in a timely fashion with family affairs and the farm business. I am a doer also. The law of physics states that action begets action.

Stop whining about what is not done, and start moving toward completing the tasks that you need to do. If the priorities are aligned with your values, you likely will be much happier than if you are being “forced” to work out someone else’s agenda.

10. Exposure is about having others know where you stand.

Your boundaries, wishes and values are very clear because no one needs to read your mind to find out what you stand for. The highest compliment for me is to be affirmed for congruent behaviour and integrity. In our family and businesses we have zero tolerance for dishonesty.

Have a great spring season practising the above principles on your farm. Good neighbours keep good fences. Don’t let the holes in your fences go without repair.

Live with great boundaries.

Enjoy a happier family. †

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MARCH 11, 2013

Home Quarter Farm Life POSTCARDS FROM THE PRAIRIES

Life’s secrets, according to you…

People of the world, tell me this — what is your biggest regret?

And have you done something about it? Part 1 JANITA VAN DE VELDE

T

he official definition of regret, as outlined in Webster’s dictionary, is as follows: “The emotion arising from a wish that some matter or situation would be different from what it is.

The emotion may be accompanied by sadness, remorse, disappointment and dissatisfaction and may arise from something done or said or from some failure to do or say something.” My definition? It’s a little shorter.

It’s those moments I wish I could take back.

There are times when I wish I would have been a different me… the me who knows more now, not the me blinded by my insecurities, or the blitheness of youth. The me who would have done things differently and made better choices. We all struggle with the meaning of having choices, and the potential pitfalls of this incredible gift called free will. For this reason, we need to be intelligent in our choices, be intelligent with our words and intelligent through our actions. Before we say or do anything, we always need to picture the next scene.

Who will it impact? What will

it bring? What are the potential consequences of our actions?

And most importantly, are we prepared to live with them?

Here forthwith, is Part 1 of your biggest regrets: Not taking care of my body.

I should have learned how to say no sooner.

Not taking the time for a proper honeymoon. You only get one shot at this so take it, don’t put it off. You don’t get that excitement back.

Wasting valuable time in university in a relationship, when I should have been enjoying being young and learning more about myself.

Not spending more time with my grandparents.

Deleting emails my dad sent to me when we were on our honeymoon… he died right at the end of that. So I never got any more emails from him. I’ve tried to stay grounded to his tone in my day-to-day goingson, but I also find myself latching on to other father figures who share his tenor.

In 1994, I was in Switzerland and I wanted to buy a Swatch watch (it was the ’90’s… what

can I say?). But by this point in my travels, I was on a super-tight budget and figured I couldn’t afford it. So I walked out of the shop without my watch and I have always regretted it. Always.

It was such a little thing that would’ve been paid off 100 times since then. Once I got home, I was kicking myself and I realized that opportunities are presented so I can take advantage of them (in one way, shape or form). Now, when I’m travelling and see something I can tie a memory to, I’ll buy it, doesn’t matter the cost (this is why God created LOCs). I’ll always be able to make money to pay it off. I haven’t been back to Switzerland since, but I will go back and get my watch.

Not going to journalism school. I regret it but wouldn’t change any of the decisions I’ve made along the way. I’ve found ways to explore that creative side and develop my writing skills.

And I know that I will have time to do more when I’m ready.

Not spending more time with my second son, who was troubled and I didn’t understand.

Yes, I have found common interests with him and I learned to understand his difficulties.

Coming home at the end of a work day and having my beautiful children to see the worst

We all struggle with the meaning of having choices, and the potential pitfalls of this incredible gift called free will of me — the tired, stressed-out mom. I rearranged my life and priorities with much help — my illness was definitely a catalyst for change but not everything. I’ve since apologized to my kids for those times.

sister’s funeral instead of the music she loved; the songs from our childhood — songs of meaning in her life. No redo on that one, unfortunately.

Being consumed by jealousy and low self-confidence. I have overcome these emotions but I feel like I wasted the best times of my life, back in my 20s.

My biggest regret is not asking him out back when I was younger.

Yes, I’ve done something about it — but it probably wasn’t the right thing to do.

Not believing in myself. I have finally come to realize my own self-worth after many years, but wish it could have come much earlier in life.

Not standing up for myself. I somehow always believed that if I didn’t pick a fight, those around me would simply “realize” they were hurting me. They never did.

It’s a work in progress, but I try to be brave enough to say it out loud when I feel wronged. It doesn’t seem to change others’ behaviour, but at least they can no longer pretend they don’t see what they’re doing.

Not being more patient with the hormonal teen I parent.

I can’t think of anything, so I must say I haven’t been dwelling on it. I do wish I didn’t worry so much. I suspect worrying is a waste of time for most things.

Playing church music at my

BY DAN PIRARO

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Not sure.

Not pursuing a profession in the medical field. I have not done anything about that.

Not drinking until I was 21… seriously, I didn’t realize how fun it can be. Have I done something about it? Yup, started drinking.

FITS MY

Not telling the b@%#h of a softball coach in Grade 5 that I did have the right to play softball. If I ever run into her, I will tell her now!

Gary Arnst

Worrying too much about getting ahead and keeping my house clean, instead of spending more time with our daughters when they were still at home. I’m now trying to spend as much time with them as possible — probably driving them crazy!

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Not going on more hot winter vacations when we were younger.

BY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

Not continuing with my writing career. Every once in a while I make a half-assed foray back, but find I can’t summon the determination to keep it up as a living.

Not talking to my dad the day before he passed away.

To be continued.

†

Janita Van de Velde grew up on a farm near Mariapolis, Man. She holds a bachelor of science degree in agricultural economics from the University of Manitoba, and has worked for a financial institution since graduating. She lives in Regina, Sask., with her husband Roddy and their children Jack, Isla and James. Her first novel, Postcards Never Written, was the recipient of the Saskatchewan Reader’s Choice Award and also listed by CBC as one of the top funny books in 2009. She donates a portion of proceeds from the sale of her book to World Vision to help those less fortunate. For more information, or to order her book, visit her website at www.janita.ca.

MARCH 11, 2013

grainews.ca /

45

Home Quarter Farm Life

New beginnings on the Prairies Artist discovers the beauty around her Saskatchewan ranch

W

hen artist Ramona Swift-Thiessen moved from the Okanagan to a ranch near Waldheim, Saskatchewan she initially wondered what subject matter she should paint. She was used to the majestic mountain scenery, fast-flowing rivers and picturesque lakes and woodlands of British Columbia. But it wasn’t long before her artist’s eye began to appreciate the beauty all around her here on the vast Prairies.

“Saskatchewan has such a diversity of scenic areas, from the northern forests to the parklands, grain fields and the grasslands farther south. I observed the golden heads of wheat and the intricacies of the kernels of oats — they look like little pearls. I’m also excited to own horses now — I’m often out there sketching and getting to know each of their personalities.

And there are barn kittens every spring and of course flowers are everywhere,” she says.

Swift-Thiessen grew up on a farm near Valleyview, Alberta.

Her mother was a professional puppeteer, and she had relatives who were photographers and artists, so art was in her genes.

The Okanagan Valley in B.C. where she lived for 15 years prior to moving to Saskatchewan was an ideal location for her. “There are artists, workshops and classes all over the place. That’s what I plugged into there,” she says.

A turning point came when Swift-Thiessen picked up a copy of a wildlife art magazine and noticed Terry Isaac was conducting workshops in Montana. “He’s a wildlife artist who does beautiful detailed realism of songbirds, wild cats and other animals. I’d always been a fan of his work but didn’t know he taught classes. I knew I had to go.”

The week-long workshop gave students plenty of time to not only paint and watch their instructor, but to also learn from other students, many full-time, successful artists.

“I remember feeling like I was way out of my league, but I knew that was where I wanted to belong one day. It motivated me to work hard,” she says.

Two years later she went back for another session and in 2004 held her first public show in Winfield, B.C. “It’s pretty exciting selling work for the first time — when it’s not friends and relatives buying your work, but strangers who think it’s good enough to spend money on,” she said.

Since that first show, SwiftThiessen has participated in numerous others and sold many paintings, during times in her life when she was struggling with personal issues and an uncertain future. It was the encouragement and validation she needed to continue painting, knowing she was on the right path.

Swift-Thiessen began focusing on the little things in nature and enlarging them, realizing that you need to take a close look to see how intricate and beau-

tiful they are. “I like to make little things spectacular. I want people to see the beauty. If they miss it outdoors, they can enjoy it inside, five times larger than life,” she says.

Swift-Thiessen works primarily in acrylics, and describes her work as realism, but she likes to play with abstract backgrounds occasionally. Her work is vibrant, bright, peaceful and joyful. “I hope it evokes positive moods and makes people smile.”

In the future, she would like to participate in more shows such as the Calgary Stampede and Women Artists of the West, of which she is a member. She also wants to open her farm studio to tours and shows.

As well as in many private col-

lections, Swift-Thiessen’s work is in several health-care facilities in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan; bed and breakfast outlets; and oilfield equipment rental lobbies. Her greatest satisfaction as an artist is when she knows her art is making a difference in the lives of those who purchase it.

“I’m very spiritual. I don’t just paint to make a lot of money.

It’s bigger than that. When I do what’s meaningful and pour my heart into it, trying to connect with people, I know the rest will take care of itself.”

For more information, visit www.swiftfox.ca or call Ramona Swift-Thiessen at (306) 3617963. † Edna Manning writes from Saskatoon, Sask.

Ramona Swift-Thiessen with some of her art.

PHOTO: EDNA MANNING

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BY EDNA MANNING

46

/ grainews.ca

MARCH 11, 2013

Home Quarter Farm Life SINGING GARDENER

Plant for a problem area, tomatoes, and much more Plus, more tips and comments from readers TED MESEYTON

T

o the folks who “vade mecum” (Latin “travel with me”) thank you for visiting my Grainews Singing Gardener page. Please — allow me to say how much I deeply appreciate your letters, emails and phone calls, some of which I’ll share today. Hearing from so many of you confirms the existence of a deep bond and willingness to connect among gardeners everywhere throughout this vast nation.

GRAINEWS FOUNDER (October 29, 1931 — January 18, 2013) You may have already read about John Fredrick Clark, in the February 4, 2013 Grainews issue under “Wheat & Chaff” on page 3 by editorial director John Morriss.

Among his many gifts, Mr. Clark was founder and creator of Grainews The first issue was published back in October 1975 and now, 38 years later, Grainews is still going strong. I, Ted, never had the opportunity to meet Mr. Clark, but one thing in his obituary passage that really caught my eye said this: “He was a passionate gardener.

His gentle hands nurtured tender begonia bulbs and impatiens seedlings to create magnificent flower beds wherever he was.”

THERE’S USEFULNESS FOR OLD CDS ... in the garden, but not for music to grow plants by. You may be surprised at another task they perform. The following comes in a letter received in early February from a reader who has been gardening with deer around the farm for many years.

Hello Ted! Enjoy your articles in

SUE ARMSTRONG

Grainews. I subscribe to the paper for that precious page of yours!!

Just because you’re in that paper.

I have many pages torn out of Grainews. (Ted says: If my face could blush, I would.)

I have had great luck with old CDs hanging in trees and on anything that allows CDs to twirl free. They need to be fairly high to catch morning/evening sun, allowing CDs to send their reflection around and around onto the ground. Nylon twine works best.

It doesn’t break away after many days of twirling. I use about one to 1-1/2 feet of twine. Any longer and the CD gets hung up in the trees. Move each CD occasionally to change the pattern. So easy, so amazing to watch! I also have my dogs with me in the garden and give them a good rubdown daily to leave fresh dog hair behind in the garden. Works for me and my dogs. I have seen deer tracks through the garden but have not ever lost any plants. Yours truly, Loreen Lyman, Morden, Man. Ted’s comments: Just like many of us, Loreen told me in February that her hands are itchy to get into the ground already. I like her catchphrase, “When you get tired of listening to the music; hang it up.” She mentioned that twirling CDs also help to keep the pigeons moving. “It’s that light in the evening and light in the morning flashing around on the ground that does the trick. Let the sun do its thing. The light from the sun alarms them. I’ve had good luck.”

Gardeners can collect freshly cut human hair at barber shops and dog hair from pet groomers.

Spread it along garden rows near plants. Another option is to put human hair or fresh brushed dog hair inside net or mesh bags and hang on tree limbs, long poles or whatever is available near vulnerable plants subject to attack from foraging deer and rabbits. Hair loses its repelling effect and needs to be replaced with fresh batches.

Loreen mentioned buying a tomato plant last year called Ball Beefsteak “with a little bit of acid kick.” She got it from Foothills Greenhouse at Winkler, Man.

O IT MUST BE THE TOMATOES

LOVE HEARING FROM YOU Do you have a story about a farm or home-based business?

How about some household management tips? Does someone in the family have a special-diet need? Share some of your meal ideas.

Send them to FarmLife, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1. Phone 1-800665-0502 or email susan@ fbcpublishing.com. Please remember we can no longer return photos or material.

— Sue

… is the title of my “famous tomato song” that I’ve been singing during personal appearances.

The long and the short of it is: gardeners simply never tire of talking about growing and eating tomatoes and I, Ted, never tire of singing about my love for tomatoes either.

Are you into making salsa and Mexican cooking using green tomatoes? Vicky, at Early’s Garden Centre in Saskatoon has a real good one called Tomatillo Toma Verde that produces early-maturing, (60 days after setting out transplants) large, flat-round green fruits. If you opt for a red-fleshed, firm and meaty tomato for salsa and sauces, then high-yielding Mama Mia will

do your recipes proud. For fresh eating at the meal table, then take notice of Defiant PhR hybrid tomato. As the name suggests, it defies and resists late blight. Fruits averaged six to eight ounces each and demonstrate a deep, rewarding, internal and exterior red colour when ripe. Lots of other tomato varieties are available too from Early’s including Long Keeper, noted for storage ability and lowacid, rosy-pink Oxheart.

Annual and perennial flower seeds are in plentiful supply at Early’s too. One of Vicky’s favourites is Indian Summer rudbeckia, an annual that’s capable of self-seeding.

Sturdy plants are 90 cm (three feet) tall and wind resistant. Single and semi-double golden-yellow flowers are 15 to 22 cm (six to nine inches) across. That’s an almost unbelievable size. All rudbeckia — and there are numerous named varieties — are long lasting in bouquets.

In addition to the above, Early’s has professional turf and specialpurpose grasses and cool-season turf grasses for Western Canada and a whole lot more. You can get in touch with Early’s Town & Country Garden Centre in Saskatoon by phoning 1-800-6671159 where a friendly receptionist is always happy to greet you, or go online at www.earlysgarden. com and check out their complete inventory.

SAVE SOME OF THOSE PENNIES … that will one day be in short supply. A gardener mentioned that dropping a copper penny (although harder to find these days) into a vase of water extends the life of fresh-cut flowers. Other options are a generous pinch of baking soda or some sea salt (not too much now) stirred into the water first. Then there’s this suggestion. Put a piece of charcoal or a few charcoal granules available at garden centres and pet supply stores into vase water. ’Tis said cut flowers won’t develop a bad odour even if stems get soft and slimy. Changing the water frequently helps.

SNOW ON THE MOUNTAIN Here in my home province we’ve got place names such as Riding Mountain National Park, Duck Mountain Provincial Park and small settlements Riding Mountain and Stony Mountain.

The two highest-altitude points I’m aware of are Baldy Mountain at 881.2 metres and Hart Mountain at 823.0 metres. But don’t tell anybody from Alberta or B.C. there are mountains in Manitoba. Ah — but we do grow a plant called “Snow on the Mountain” and you can grow some too pretty well anywhere.

GOT A TROUBLED SPOT … where nothing wants to grow? Here’s an annual that I, Ted,

PHOTO: STOKES SEEDS

No nearby mountain is required to grow Euphorbia, commonly called “Snow on the Mountain.” It grows anywhere, even in poorest soil, heat and drought. Ted tells where to get seeds.

PHOTO: COURTESY

Mike Zolinski of Arborg, Manitoba sent this picture to the Singing Gardener. Ted tells why Mike calls them “No Name tomatoes.” recommend. Euphorbia variegata marginata, commonly known as Snow on the Mountain will grow anywhere, even in the poorest site, regardless of soil type. Plants mature at 60 cm (24 inches) and are tolerant to heat and drought.

Bicoloured leaves have a green centre with white picotee edges but no flowers. The foliage becomes remarkably attractive once late August arrives and days gets shorter with cooler nights.

Snow on the Mountain and other annuals can be started in the greenhouse during the following best dates according to the moon. They are: March 14, 15 and 16 or March 19, 20 and 21 and March 26, 27 and 28, 2013. If desired, Snow on the Mountain can also be direct seeded outdoors along with flowers such as lavatera, poppies and zinnias, leafy greens and vegetables that produce their yield above the ground during May 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24, 2013. Snow on the Mountain seeds are available from Early’s in Saskatoon mentioned earlier herein and from Stokes Seeds Ltd., Thorold, Ont., phone 1-800-396-9238 or go to www.StokeSeeds.com.

to grow different kinds of tomatoes” is how Mike expressed it “and last year we had 35 fivegallon pails of tomatoes. We make tomato juice, tomato pickles, stewed tomatoes… you name it.”

When he was first married, Mike recalled growing a prize tomato named Valiant that produced very smooth and very tasty, round, red fruits weighing about a pound each, but as he said “somehow seeds seemed to have disappeared.” Mike, now 74, is a retired farmer after 27 years of farming. At one time he had 149 cows and wisely, Mike told me “I married a farm girl.”

In season, Mike tills some gardens, cuts grass and as he said, “I talk to people about gardening. I just always loved gardening. It’s right up my alley.” †

NO NAME TOMATO That’s what Mike Zolinski of Arborg, Manitoba calls his favourite tomato. “This little old lady gave me tomato seeds about 15 years ago and I’ve been growing them every year since.” (I, Ted, recall when Toni, my yodelling teacher taught me the Bavarian way to yodel a stanza based on those very words: little old lady.)

According to Mike, yields are great from the 2-1/2 foot and longer vines. Bright-red fruits are “hefty” (i.e. nice and heavy) and can be over three pounds. “I love

This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie, Man. There are many reasons to grow caraway and here’s one whether you agree or not. Ancient Old World herbal lore states any article sprinkled with a few caraway seeds would be protected from thieves. Are you asking: Does that include vehicles? Sprinkle a few on the floorboards or tie some caraway seeds in a cloth pouch and place it under the seat. Perhaps these poetic sage words will encourage gardeners to grow some. Sage tea soothes nerves and stills the trembling hand, and even the sharpest fever flies away at its command. My email address is singinggardener@mts.net.

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