2017 03 14 by Farm Business Communications

feature

safety

Learning at CanoLAB

It’s Canadian ag safety week

Lisa Guenther gets a close look at canola pests and disease 12

Shanyn Silinski wants you to make safety a year-round priority 34

Volume 43 · number 07 marh 14, 2017 · $4.25 Practical production tips for the prairie farmer www.grainews.ca

On-farm material handling

photo: scott garvey

MERLO RETOOLS The telehandler company is going through a major update of its product line and manufacturing facility See merlo retools on Page 5 

Publications Mail Agreement #40069240

PLUS

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In honour of her irish grandmother, Amy Jo Ehman shares a traditional potato recipe 54

CONTENTS 3 | COLUMNS 25 | CATTLEMAN’S CORNER 41

You can’t change the weather. But you can be ready for it.

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The farmer’s forecasT Toolbox

wheat & chaff

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

CONTENTS

Living the “Life Out Here” Leeann Minogue

leeann.minougue@fbcpublishing.com

A What’s under your feet? Rancher Sean McGrath digs deep down to learn more about soil health 41

OH&S: it’s the law If you have an employee, occupational health and safety laws apply on your farm. Learn more 14

Letter from Europe Marianne Stamm visits Syngenta’s Swiss cropprotection plant 20

Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Crop Advisor’s Casebook.18 Columns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Machinery & Shop . . . . . . 42 Cattleman’s Corner . . . . . . 47 FarmLife. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

fter they enjoyed Connect Ag, a large-scale conference in Saskatoon celebrating women in agriculture, some of the women in the town where I grew up decided to create something similar a little closer to home. And so the latest annual get-together for women was born. This February, the Lacadena Area Women (the LAW, as they like to be called,) held their first annual “Life Out Here” conference. When I tell you that there were 95 women at this afternoon event, you might not be impressed. Until I tell you that Lacadena, a small town north of Swift Current, Sask., has a population of five. To fill the hall, the LAW attracted all of the nearby farm women, and brought in more by bus from towns 25 miles in every direction. The point of the day was to give everyone a chance to relax, talk to their neighbours, hear some speakers and generally go home feeling uplifted and inspired. A chocolate fountain, wine, hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and some sort of wine-based jello shooters definitely helped with all of those things. My cousin-in-law, Erin Minogue, was part of the organizing committee (she’s also one of the five people left in Lacadena). I was both proud and confused when she asked me to come and speak at the event. My confusion came from the fact that, if you’re looking for a motivational speaker, I am not your first choice. I tend more toward sarcasm than uplift-i-ness. So I used my time at the podium to tell my story. Farmers in Lacadena had a rough harvest last fall. I’m no technical expert on farm stress, but after our three years of flood, disease and hail from 2011 to 2013 in the southeast, I did feel qualified to tell them exactly what life was like here during that disaster, and to offer a few tips on surviving a bad year (or three). I didn’t have enough material to fill all the time I was allowed, so I wrote a short funny

play about farm stress, and asked seven of the women in the audience to come up and read it. There are probably some places where you couldn’t be sure of finding seven women with enough confidence and community spirit to make that work, but in Lacadena, of course it did. And they had the audience laughing as much at their adlibbed lines as at the script. If their goal was to make sure everyone had a good time, a chance to think about their roles on the farm and in the community, and time to get together and even pass around some of the small babies, the LAW got what they wanted. If you’re thinking about planning an event like this in your own town and would like to talk to someone from the LAW about costs and logistics, let me know and I’ll put you in touch. And now, some answers to your questions: 1. Yes, the LAW members do wear yellow name tags shaped just like sheriff’s badges. 2. No, I didn’t try the wine-jello shooters. I wasn’t taking a bus. 3. Yes, I did point out in my presentation that we’ve had fusarium here in the southeast for years with very little fuss, but now that it has hit west-central Saskatchewan, fusarium’s at the top of all of the conference agendas and everyone is acting like their hair is on fire. 4. No, I didn’t let the actors practise in advance. Yes, some are probably irritated. 5. No, things in Lacadena rarely go exactly to plan. During this event, the cistern ran dry, so before we could use the bathroom, three women had to move their SUVs so one of the LAW member’s husbands could get a water truck through the parking lot. 6. And finally, yes, I do appreciate how lucky I am to come from a community that would host this kind of event when times are rough, the kind of place where you can show up and ask seven women to get up on stage and read a play they’ve never seen before, and know that they’ll turn the whole thing into a good time.

Leeann

GET IN TOUCH SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (CST) call 1-800-665-0502 U.S. subscribers call 1-204-944-5568 or email: subscription@fbcpublishing.com

STORY IDEAS & SUBMISSIONS If you have story ideas, call us. You can write the article and we’ll pay you – or we can write it. Phone Leeann Minogue at (306) 861-2678 Fax: (204) 944-5416 Email: leeann@fbcpublishing.com Write to: Grainews, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK photo: Leeann Minogue

Grainews has a Facebook page. Find, read and comment on posts easily and with a thumbs up!

FIND US ON TWITTER Leeann Minogue is @grainmuse Lisa Guenther is @LtoG Lee Hart is @hartattacks Scott Garvey is @machineryeditor The women in and around Lacadena, Sask., held their first annual “Life Out Here” conference in February.

wheat & chaff

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

farm safety

We’re an

#AgSafeFamily

AgSafe

FAMILY

I think we all understand this. So who wants to teach our owner?

I take my play farming very seriously.

agsafetyweek.ca

MARCH 12-18, 2017

March 12 - 18 is Canadian Agricultural Safety week. The Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA) and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) have launched a three-year campaign entitled ‘Be an Ag Safe Family’ to help farm families like yours stay safe.

I don’t think you can be too protected.

I’ll let them down when the floor is dry enough.

agronomy tips… from the field

Give us your best shot!

Plan in advance to harvest good trial data When a rep approaches you to be involved in a company trial, it’s typically because they see you as having good practices that will help provide strong trial data at the end of the season. Company trials can be a great opportunity for you to “test drive” precommercial varieties or products, and get a clean look at how they will perform in your soil type and geography. But if not given the proper care and attention, company trials can become a frustrating experience for everyone involved — especially if you haven’t sat down with your rep and set expectations. One of the most important things you can do is ask questions and work up a clear set of plans, and end-goals for the trial. For example, if you’re working with a new seed variety, is the company looking for raw yield data, or a side-by-side comparison with other varieties? Another thing that can ruin many trials is when they’re placed out-ofsight and out-of-mind on a back corner of a field. Instead, establish how much work needs to be done with the trial plot — e.g., applying different rate, or how much access the company would need. Then, set up the trial close to your home quarter so that it’s accessible, visible and easy to maintain throughout the season. GN

Tylor Hunt, agronomic service representative, Syngenta Canada.

Adriane Salter took this photo of Anna. Adriane and her husband Matthew live on a farm near Ituna, Sask. Adriane wrote, “It was the first nice day after a 10-day stretch of -30 C and lower in January 2017. We had wind chills up to -52 C. Our daughter, 20 months old, was so happy to finally get the chance to get out of the house and play outside. She just loves the chickens and picking eggs. Even though it was -18 C, she still wanted to stay outside and enjoy the ‘nice’ weather.” Send your best shot by email to leeann@fbcpublishing.com or through Twitter at @GrainMuse. Please send only one or two photos at a time, and also send along some information about where and when you took the photo, or even something about your farm. Photos with larger file sizes look better in the paper. — Leeann

cover stories

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

On-farm material handling 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1 www.grainews.ca Publisher Lynda Tityk Editorial director Laura Rance Editor Leeann Minogue Field Editor Lisa Guenther

Merlo Retools

The telehandler company is going through a major update of its product line and manufacturing facility

Cattleman’s Corner Editor Lee Hart Farmlife Editor Sue Armstrong Machinery Editor Scott Garvey Production Director Shawna Gibson Designers Steven Cote, Ron White Marketing/Circulation Director Lynda Tityk Circulation Manager Heather Anderson President Glacier Farmmedia LP Bob Willcox Head Office 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1 Phone: (204) 944-5568 Fax: (204) 944-5562 Sales Director Cory Bourdeaud’hui Phone: (204) 954-1414 Fax: (204) 944-5562 Email: cory@fbcpublishing.com National Advertising Sales Kevin Yaworsky Phone: 250-869-5326 Email: kyaworsky@farmmedia.com Advertising Services Co-ordinator Arlene Bomback Phone: (204) 944-5765 Fax: (204) 944-5562 Email: ads@fbcpublishing.com

 merlo retools from Page 1

By Scott Garvey

s he stood in front of a group of Canadian dealers and customers at his Cuneo, Italy, facility, Amilcare Merlo, owner of the company that produces Merlo telehandlers, explained that his firm was in the midst of a 150 million Euro (C$208 million) reinvestment project. It’s aimed not only at updating the brand’s manufacturing facility, but its product line as well. “We are investing in tools and machinery in a process that will take two or three years,” he explained.

“We’re completely changing the organization (of the assembly plant). I hope we can show a factory at the top of technology.” The Cuneo telehandler factory, which sits at the foot of the Italian Alps, will get a major upgrade that includes an increase in automated processes, such as a robot that can hold an entire telehandler chassis and drill all the necessary holes at one station with repeatable precision. “We think this will be a kind of warranty (on the quality machines produced),” Merlo added. “Today you can see the investments in terms of products and production,” added his son Paolo Merlo, who is also a senior execu-

tive in the firm, as the dealer group was about to head out for a walk through the assembly plant. A new modular chassis design to be built in the updated plant will allow for a simpler manufacturing process and permit similar systems configurations across all model ranges as part of that major investment. “We’re renewing all the product range,” explains Fabio Garino, one of the brand’s marketers. Roughly 87 per cent of the telehandlers built in the Cuneo plant are shipped out of Italy, so export markets are critical to the company. But only about six per cent of those exports are sold in Canada. That’s something the brand’s executives believe will change.

They see Canada and the U.S. as major market opportunities for telehandlers. And they think farmers here will eventually be counted among their biggest customers. Telehandlers have been extremely popular with European farmers, but so far they haven’t caught on in the same way with producers on this continent. To help drive that demand, Merlo now produces two models specifically designed for farm use: the Turbofarmer, which is available in nine different variations, and the Multifarmer, which has four versions, although not all models are yet available in Canada. Continued on Page 6 

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A side-mounted engine and low boom position allow for improved vision around the machines from the driver’s seat.

The Turbofarmer has an available rear PTO but not a three-point hitch. The Multifarmer models offer both.

The front and rear drive axles are an in-house design.

All Merlo machines get an updated interior layout for 2017.

Grainews is printed on recyclable paper with linseed oil-based inks. Published 18 times a year. Subscription inquiries: Call toll free 1-800-665-0502 U.S. subscribers call 1-204-944-5568 or email: subscription@glacierfarmmedia.com Your next issue! You can expect your next issue in your mailbox about March 28, 2017

At Glacier FarmMedia LP we are committed to protecting your privacy. Glacier FarmMedia LP will only collect personal information if it is required for reasonable purposes related to our business operations. As part of our commitment to enhance customer service, we may also share personal information with our affiliates or strategic business partners. For more information regarding how we collect, use and disclose personal information, please refer to our Privacy Policy at http:// farmmedia.com/privacy-policy, or write to: Privacy Officer, Glacier FarmMedia, P.O. Box 9800, Station Main, Winnipeg, MB R3C 3K7. 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.

photos: scott garvey

The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Grainews and Glacier FarmMedia LP attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists, Grainews and Glacier FarmMedia LP cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication. Use or non-use of any information is at the reader’s sole risk, and we assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader of this publication based on any and all information provided.

Merlo: a company snapshot With all of its manufacturing based in Cuneo, Italy, Merlo sells its range of telehandlers and rough-terrain construction trucks through a network of 600 dealers worldwide. In Canada, it has a blend of corporately and privately owned dealerships across the country. Altogether, it employs over 1,100 people. In 2016 more than 5,000 telehandlers rolled off the assembly line in its Cuneo factory.

cover stories

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

On-farm material handling

The Multifarmers, available with 115- to 156-horsepower, fourcylinder diesel engines, are capable of doing the work of a utility tractor. They come equipped with a mechanically driven rear 540- and 1,000-r.p.m. PTO, which has a modulated engagement feature that eases clutch activation in response to the implement’s inertia. It also gets a Category 3 threepoint hitch and rear SCVs connected to either an open- or closed-centre hydraulic system. The Multifarmers also have fourwheel drive. Altogether, those features let it handle a variety of field chores that would be assigned to a typical farm utility tractor. But the Multifarmer models also do something utility tractors can’t. They offer a maximum lift capacity of 4,000 kg, and they can raise that load up to nine metres. A standard suspended cab adds to the operator comfort, with an updated interior layout. To keep lifted loads stable, a standard chassis tilt adjustment feature can compensate for uneven ground. The company owner hinted that 4,000 kg load limit might soon be boosted to 5,000 kg in a new model set to debut later this year. With power routed through the brand’s hydrostatic transmission, the Multifarmers are rated for towing up to 20 tonnes at 40 km/h and have optional rear air-overhydraulic trailer brake connections.

photo: merlo

 Continued from Page 5

The company is increasing the number of robots and automated processes in a major upgrade of its assembly plant.

The turbofarmer is also designed for ag work and offers an available rear PTO. But unlike the Multifarmer, it cannot be ordered with a three-point hitch, which isn’t a problem for many western Canadian farmers. It does, however, offer a feature that makes loading large

round or square bales onto trucks much easier. A chassis shift system allows the operator to move the chassis laterally on the axles to make precise lateral boom position adjustments possible. The company is proud of the fact it designs and produces a high per-

centage of the components built into each machine, including the axle assemblies. “We’re not just a component assembler,” pointed out one of the marketing staff. And when factory upgrades are complete, the brand expects to increase that in-house percentage.

“Many brands spend money to move production to India or China,” said Merlo. “We prefer to invest in technology.” GN Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublihsing.com.

news bits

AAC CHIFFON • HIGH YIELDING SOFT WHEAT • LARGE KERNELS • GOOD STRAW STRENGTH • SHATTER RESISTANT

Merlo: a timeline By Scott Garvey 1914: Opening a machine shop, the Merlo family began building various steel components to order for a wide range of customers. 1964: The Merlo brand was founded when the firm began producing its own line of light construction equipment. 1981: Merlo began mass-producing its first telehandler model. 1987: Moving the engine to the side modified the original telehandler design. That lowered the centre of gravity and provided for even weight distribution along with improved vision for the operator. 1996: The first Turbofarmer was introduced.

AAC LACOMBE

2000: The Multifarmer with PTO and three-point hitch was released.

Dealers across western Canada

www.seednet.ca 403-715-9771 @seednetca

photo: scott garvey

• SEmI-LEAFLESS, HIGH YIELDING YELLOW pEA WITH mILDEW RESISTANcE • ONE OF THE bEST IN STANDAbILITY IN THE 2017 ALbERTA SEED GuIDE!

The main entrance to offices at the company’s current assembly plant.

For a video look at the Merlo telehandlers, go online to grainews.ca and click on the e-QuipTV tab under the videos link.

FEATURES

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Source: Courtesy John O’Donovan

Crop production

AC Metcalfe is one of the most popular malt barley varieties. It has good agronomics which appeals to farmers, and it produces a high quality malt which masters like. However, producers should always check with malting companies for their preferred list of barley varieties.

Tips for hitting malt barley grade It’s pretty hard to argue with the experience of growers as well as researchers

om Hewson admits while there is always room for improving agronomic practices, his track record for producing malt barley has been quite respectable. Hewson, who farms with family members at Langbank, in southeast Saskatchewan, says he has grown malting barley for many years. “I estimate on average about two-thirds of the years, about two-thirds of the crop will make malt quality,” he says. “Weather always seems to be the big factor, but 60 to 70 per cent of the time we’re able to market it for malt.” Hewson, who grows AC Metcalfe malt barley in rotation with winter wheat, spring wheat and canola, says he aims to seed barley first — usually about May 1 — and he likes to seed it on canola stubble. “I know we should do a 1,000 kernel count when it comes to determining seeding rate,” he says. “But it has always worked well for me just to seed at 1-1/2 bushels per acre, so I stick with that. We do use good quality seed, with good germination, seed at a proper depth into moisture and most years have a very decent stand of barley.” Following a soil test recommendation every year, Hewson aims to have about 100 lbs. of total nitrogen available to the barley crop (that includes the soil-

available nitrogen as well as added nitrogen). He doesn’t want to over fertilize it, but he does like to see the odd patch of lodged barley “that tells me we are just pushing it a bit to optimize yields, but not too hard to affect protein,” says Hewson. Along with a pre-seeding or pre-emergent burnoff with a glyphosate product, he also applies recommended in-crop herbicide treatments for both grassy and broadleaf weeds. And particularly during the past 10 years with more (and sometimes excessive) growing-season moisture he always applies a fungicide for disease control. “We just figure on applying the fungicide because we’re expecting leaf diseases and hopefully it helps with fusarium headblight as well,” says Hewson. Also in recent seasons, they also put harvested barley in aeration bins. “We take it off as early as we can, often we’re combining the first or second week of August,” says Hewson. “Depending on the year or field some may be swathed and some straight cut, and then we put it into aeration bins. If the barley is a bit tough that helps to dry it down.” Hewson says the one drawback of combining barley so early, is that it can overlap with the winter wheat harvest and “we try to avoid going back and forth between the two crops,” he says. “If it works, it is nice to do one and then the other.”

CLOSE TO RECOMMENDED PRACTICES While Hewson may have to stay after school for not doing a 1,000seed weight calculation to determine and actual seeding rate, his long-time malt barley production practices fit pretty closely with the recommended advice of crop specialists and researchers. Seed early, have an optimum (not too light, not too dense) plant stand, and applying moderate fertility are among the key recommended agronomic tips for barley growers. Most researchers recommend for barley — in fact most cereal crop production —keep the seeding rate up, aiming for 22 to 25 to 30 and perhaps even 40 plants per square foot. That might be considered a heavy seeding rate/high plant count but a denser plant stand will help the crop compete with weeds, and also help achieve more even crop maturity. John O’Donovan, a long-time research scientist now retired from Agriculture Canada in Lacombe, Alta. says the results of 21 site years of research looking at malt barley seeding rates show that targeting 300 seeds per square metre (about 30 seeds per square foot) appears to be the optimum rate for malt barley yield and quality. “One of the issues has been that maltsters are looking for kernel plumpness, so many farmers were using lower seeding rates to increase plumpness,” says O’Donovan. “But

we found if the seeding rate was too low, bad things happened.” Lower seeding rates, and a thinner plant stand can lead to more tillering of the crop. That can lead to delayed and uneven maturity and that can contribute to more non-uniform kernels. The more uniform the kernels, the more malt quality is improved.

HIGHER SEEDING RATE “Overall we found that by going from 200 seeds per square metre to 300 seeds per square metre, we achieved higher yields, more uniform kernels, and improved malt quality,” says O’Donovan. “There was a slight reduction in kernel plumpness, but we felt the uniformity of the seed was more important.” The research also showed that at the 300 seed rate, protein was slightly lower which is more desirable in malt barley. And by going from a seeding rate of 200 seeds per square metre to 300 seeds per square metre, crops matured two to three days sooner. “Which can make a huge difference when quality is the key and frost can quickly damage a crop.” O’Donovan’s barley plots were direct seeded with an air seeding system calibrated for 300 seeds per square metre. They figured on 70 per cent emergence or about 220 to 230 viable plants per square metre (about 22 to 23 plants per square foot). Continued on Page 8 

Source: File Photo

By Lee Hart

Long-time Agriculture Canada researcher, John O’Donovan says it is up to the brewing companies to make great beer, but the challenge for producers is to supply the high quality malting barley that makes that possible. O’Donovan’s research shows best practices include seeding early, at a higher seeding rate to ensure a proper plant stand in the field, and fertilize but don’t overdo the nitrogen.

FEATURES

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Ross McKenzie, an agronomy researcher in Southern Alberta says for optimum yield and quality, producers should target 17 to 24 malt barley plants per square foot under irrigation, feed barley should be in the 19 to 33 plants per square foot range, under dry land farming wheat should be in the 21 to 28 plants per square foot range, and CPS wheat in 20 to 25 plant per square foot range.

Source: File Photo

 Continued from Page 7

“So if you have a seeding system where you are expecting 95 per cent emergence for example, then you would need to adjust your seeding rate so you end up with about 220 to 230 plants per square metre,” he says. More isn’t better with barley seeding rates, however, says O’Donovan. The 300 seeds per square metre rate seems optimum. A 400 and 500 seeds per square metre rate significantly reduced yield, likely due to lodging, and the economics of higher costs associated with the higher rate didn’t pencil out. In southern Alberta, Ross McKenzie, Grainews columnist and

I am a Smart Grower. I still get up early the way my grandfather used to. As a farmer I’ve always had to find new and smarter ways of getting the job done, to work the land regardless of the weather or the economy. Today, I’ve got access to precision tools and in-field expertise that allow me to grow my crops with much greater confidence. Data and soil testing and satellite imagery can tell me exactly where I should apply crop protection and nutrition products so I maximize yield. At the end of the day, it’s my job to adapt and try new things – to be a smart grower. ESN® SMART NITROGEN® is an important tool on my farm – it’s a controlled-release nitrogen. Its unique technology means that it adapts to growing conditions and releases nitrogen when my plant needs it. I’m not held hostage waiting for the perfect weather because ESN does the work for me. Plants get the nitrogen they need, when they need it most, boosting my yields and minimizing N loss to the environment. Bigger yields and improved nitrogen use

EARLY SEEDING IS IMPORTANT

efficiency makes sense for my bottom line and for the

Along with the seeding rate, McKenzie says another important factor for farmers to consider is the seeding date. Generally researchers and crop specialists recommend an early seeding date is better than a late seeding date. “Obviously you can’t seed every crop on the same day,” says McKenzie. “But, research shows yield is reduced by about one per cent per day (ranging from .6 to 1.7 per cent) for each day the crop is seeded after May 1.” His research showed flax was the least affected by delayed seeding, losing about .6 per cent yield per day after May 1, while canola was the most affected losing nearly two per cent or 1.7 per cent of yield for each day seeding was delayed after May 1. Most of the cereal crops were in the one to 1.3 per cent per day range. “The earlier you can get your crop seeded, without risk of damage, the better,” says McKenzie. “You may not want to seed canola on April 15 due to the risk of frost, but you may want to consider get-

air, water and soil we rely on to make a living. The tools we use in farming will always evolve, but the purpose behind our work hasn’t changed in a hundred years. I respect the land and work hard to grow quality food the same as my grandfather and my dad. I’m proud to make a living off the land.

So yeah, I still get up early. Increase Net Return. Minimize Loss. Maximize Crop Yield. Find out more at SmartNitrogen.com

47222-01_ESN_2017_SmartGrower-Spring_7_875x10.indd 1

long-time Alberta Agriculture research scientist now retired, says his research with crops produced under irrigation showed the optimum seeding rate for malt barley was 17 to 24 plants for square foot (he targeted 180 to 250 seeds per square metre). For feed barley under irrigation it was slightly higher at 19 to 33 plants per square foot (200 to 350 seeds per square metre). And for hard red spring wheat under irrigation, 19 to 28 plants per square foot (200 to 300 seeds per square metre). McKenzie says while every seeding system is different, he figures on an average emergence of between 60 and 80 per cent. “With most seeding systems if you are targeting a one-inch seeding depth, for example, you’re going to get some seeds at half-inch depth and some at two inches,” says McKenzie. “So you have to adjust the actual number of seeds planted to achieve the targeted viable plant count.” Looking at wheat production in dryland farming, McKenzie says research shows the optimum seeding rate for soft white wheat in the all soil zones was 300 to 400 seeds per square metre (roughly 30 to 40 seeds per square foot) which should translate into about 21 to 28 actual plants per square foot. With Canada Prairie Spring (CPS) wheat on dryland seeding rates ranged from 275 to 350 seeds per square metre (28 to 35 seeds per square metre) or a plant count of 20 to 25 plants per square foot in the dark brown soil zone, up to about 350 to 450 seeds per square metre or 25 to 32 plants per square foot in the black soil zone. His research papers entitled: “Optimum Seeding Date and Rates for Irrigated Grain and Oilseed Crops” and “Dryland Agronomic Management of Soft White Spring Wheat and Canada Prairie Spring Wheat in Alberta” can both be found on the Alberta Agriculture website (www. agric.gov.ab.ca).

02/17-47222-01

2017-02-15 9:40 AM

FEATURES

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

news bits

Contracts a good idea with malt barley By Lee Hart

Lee Hart is a field editor with Grainews based in Calgary. Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com.

“You don’t want to be seeding into dle of May produced the best results.” damp soil that is only 1 C,” he says. And O’Donovan attributed that sim“You can loose a lot of seed to rot ply to cooler growing conditions in under those conditions. the Peace region earlier in the year. “As a minimum, soil needs to be “For most of the Prairies, except 5 C or better at time of seeding. If for the Peace region, earlier seedyou can seed into a warm, moist ing of malt barley produced higher seedbed, and seed shallow, that yields, improved quality characcrop has an excellent chance of teristics and lower protein,” he getting off to a good start. You says. “With later seedings the promight be able to seed peas at 4 C, tein increased.” Reduce fertility. but overall it is best to wait for at DON’T OVERDO FERTILITY least 5 C before seeding.” John O’Donovan had similar rec- Too much fertility can be a disadvanommendations for malt barley. “In tage with malt barley. While yield and most areas we found that seeding kernel weight might increase, higher early — seeding before the middle of fertility also increases protein and negMay — produced the better yields,” atively affects nearly all other aspects he says. “The exception to that might of malting barley quality, including reductions in fine extract levels— be the Peace River Region where T:7.875” waiting a bit later until after the mid- which are very important to maltsters.

For best results, O’Donovan recommends applying 60 to 70 per cent of nitrogen listed in a soil test recommendation. Some of the newer malt barley varieties can handle a bit more nitrogen, but again, don’t overdo it. And he recommends following a proper rotation. Seeding barleyon-barley generally reduces yield and quality, and increases disease as compared to planting barley on canola or field peas. Barley yields are highest (without significantly increasing the protein levels) when planted on field pea residue. GN Lee Hart is a field editor with Grainews based in Calgary. Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com.

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Any farmers planning to grow barley for malting purposes, should try and line up contracts before they seed and know the barley specifications malting companies are looking for, says a grain procurement specialist. For most malting programs a high yielding, high quality barley with plump kernels, 13 per cent seed moisture, with a 95 per cent or higher germination rate, with a lower 11 to 12 per cent protein content, is welcome by most buyers, says Kevin Sich with Rahr Malting in Alix, Alberta. “Malt barley has essentially become a specialty crop,” says Sich. “There are a number of malting companies looking for high quality malt barley to supply their various contracts. Some have specific requirements. It is a competitive market and maltsters like to know they are dealing with producers with potential be consistent suppliers and a track record of producing quality malting barley.” Sich says only about 25 per cent of the barley seeded for malting purposes, actually makes malt quality. But growing the crop on spec, in hopes of finding a buyer once it is combined, can be risky and disappointing. So it is important to line up a marketing contract well before seeding. January is a good time to be checking market opportunities. Contracting also helps farmers with variety selection. There are several malting barley varieties on the market, but maltsters do have their favourites, says Sich. AC Metcalfe, for example, is a popular, long-standing two-row malting barley variety favoured in many export markets; CDC Copeland has become a popular two-row variety; and AAC Syngery is a newer, high yielding, two-row variety. CDC Meredith was a very popular variety at one time — great from an agronomic standpoint, but it was found to deliver inconsistent and undesirable results in the malting process. Malsters and a growing number of microbreweries today are often looking for very specific malt barley requirements, so it pays to do some homework long before you seed to make sure you are producing a variety the market is interested in.

ting your peas, wheat and barley seeded in late April if conditions are suitable.” McKenzie says farmers should look to get their highest value crops seeded first (to protect yield potential) and then schedule the rest of the crops later. “If you can’t seed until May 1 and canola is your highest value crop then it would be best to seed canola first,” says McKeznie. “Then follow that with wheat and then barley. Since flax, for example, has the least potential for yield loss due to later seeding you could seed it last.” Harry Brook, crop specialist with Alberta Agriculture says temperature is an important factor when it comes to seeding early.

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Grain marketing

Farmers a hit on international crop missions Buyers of Canadian grains had some questions that only actual producers could answer By Angela Lovell

f you want to know about Canadian agriculture you ask a farmer. That was the simple reality that farmers who accompanied industry experts on the 2016 Canadian Wheat New Crop Missions learned fast. “Meeting a producer, and seeing and hearing how the wheat they are buying is grown, stored and delivered are essential parts of our customers’ need for information in a competitive

global marketplace — one where consumers are increasingly demanding more information about where their food comes from,” said Alberta farmer, Kevin Bender in a blog post he wrote for the Alberta Wheat Commission’s (AWC) website. Bender, who is also Vice-Chair of AWC, attended the South Asia/Mid-East/West Africa leg of the new crop missions last December, visiting the Philippines, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria. Cereals Canada led the crop mis-

sions, which included stakeholders from all segments of the Canadian wheat industry — including farmers, exporters, the Canadian International Grains Institute (Cigi) and the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC). The missions ran for seven weeks in total, kicking off with sessions for Canadian millers, then visiting customers in 17 different countries in Asia, Latin America, Europe, North Africa and West Africa. The new crop missions are important for a number of reasons says Cam

Dahl, President of Cereals Canada. “We are providing customer support for our long-time customers in their decision to purchase Canadian wheat,” he says. “It’s important to have exporters there to answer questions around logistics and supply. Farmers get questions on how they make their cropping decisions and why they’re choosing to grow the crops they grow. Increasingly, we’re getting questions around how they make decisions around pesticide use and what they’re doing to ensure that

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we’re meeting international Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs), so the ‘team’ part of Team Canada is really important.”

Blown Away by the Value Saskatchewan farmer, Lane Stockbrugger visited Algeria, England, Italy and Morocco as part of the new crop missions and he admits that after he attended a couple of the sessions, he did a “complete 180” in his thinking about whether it was valuable to have all these different industry players along on the missions. “I was blown away by the value that was there. During the sessions often one of us would get a question and there would be two or three of who would answer it, because we each have a different perspective. So, if the question was to the exporter, I would also explain what it looks like to me as a farmer before my grain gets to the export market, and the CGC would talk about how it related from a grading perspective. The value was in having all of those pieces of the value chain truly working together, and it would be hard to send one or two people to represent all of us, and really have a well rounded view or perspective.” The questions varied depending on the country they visited, but they ran the whole gamut — everything from basic production questions about the pH of Canadian soils, and pre-harvest herbicide applications, to grading and DON (vomitoxin) levels in wheat. Some of them surprised Stockbrugger. “I was surprised how intrigued they were when I talked about things like maintaining the temperature sensors that we have on all of our grain bins,” says Stockbrugger. “They assumed that once we harvest the crop it immediately goes off to export. I had to explain to them that there are times when our grain will sit in bins for upwards of a year at a time, and we have to make sure that we protect that investment, just as we protected it at its seedling stages.” Stockbrugger also found he had often to explain how Canadian crop rotations work. “When I first talked about crop rotation they didn’t quite understand what I was getting at, so I explained that on our farm would have five different crops that we plants in any given year, and all of those crops have different acreage amounts based on short term marketability and longterm decisions, and they hadn’t thought about that. In places like Algeria or Morocco they would go from wheat to wheat to wheat, so our system was totally different to theirs and they were curious about that.”

Curious about Prairie Agriculture Bender says he realized how important it was for a producer to be on the missions when he saw how intently focused the attendees were when he showed them pictures of his family and farm, some of the machinery he uses, a GPS map from his combine and snow. “They were interested to see an aeration fan and floor, and hear

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about how below zero temperatures can be effective in preserving and maintaining wheat quality. They heard how crop rotations benefit both soil and wheat quality along with minimizing levels of pathogens such as DON and ergot,” says Bender. “They saw a picture of my soil probe and heard about soil tests that guide us in applying only the right nutrients and the right amount of nutrients to grow an optimal and high-quality wheat crop. They heard about reduced tillage and direct seeding that has resulted in significantly less soil erosion from both water and wind along with increased soil organic matter. Then they asked an array of questions such as, ‘What is the capacity of a 13-inch auger?’ ‘What percentage of my crops are wheat?’ ‘How do I decide which variety to plant and do I bin different varieties of the same class of wheat separately and sell them as such?’” The team saw a lot of different production systems as they passed through the various countries, and Stockbrugger raised a few eyebrows in some countries when he explained that he and his brother managed their entire 4,000 acre farm with only one or two part time employees. “They were blown away by that,” he says. “In Algeria, for example, we saw instances where on a couple of acres there were more than 10 employees working. It was so interesting to see the differences between our agriculture and theirs.”

priorities that are based on not necessarily what we did 10 years ago, but what our customers are going to be demanding in the future. Connecting with people who are actually selling grain on a day-to-day basis and linking that back to our research priorities is critically important.”

Good and bad news At every location, says Stockbrugger, people were well aware of the wet conditions farmers had dealt with over last summer, and the early October snowfall across the Prairies. Nobody tried to hide the fact that the cool, wet summer experienced by much of the Prairies was an ideal environment for the growth of fusarium fungi. Although this year fusarium has had minimal effect on the milling, baking, and pasta and noo-

dle-making properties of wheat and durum, it also produces the mycotoxin DON (deoxynivalenol). Most markets have strict limits on DON because of food safety concerns. Farmers also had the opportunity to speak about how they are applying good business practices, and adopting technology to reduce energy consumption, sequester carbon, reduce erosion and improve soil health, to ensure they remain competitive, productive and sustainable. “As a farmer, I was honoured to represent western Canadian producers, and our role is ever important on these missions, to tell our story,” says Stockbrugger. “It was the opportunity to speak about our independent approach to running our businesses and how we make decisions on our farms that are in the interest of the family business, for

today and looking toward the future. I spoke of our focus on technological advancements to help farmers in Canada be as productive as possible while ensuring that we are growing crops in a sustainable manner.”

Keep it Clean “Questions about glyphosate and how we use it on the farm were valuable to hear and even more importantly to have the ability to respond firsthand and explain how we use herbicides, pesticides and fungicides to produce the quality product customers have come to expect from Canada,” says Stockbrugger. “These discussions during the missions help build new business relationships and strengthen existing ones, which is ever important if we intend to maintain and grow our position in these markets.”

One message driven home to Stockbrugger and other farmers on the crop missions is just how credible farmers are in the eyes of not just others in the industry, but the public as well. A lot of responsibility comes along with that, and it’s vitally important to be transparent and available to answer questions, and not take for granted the trust in Canadian grain production and quality that has taken many years to earn. “What we do as farmers makes a difference, but we can't rest on our laurels in this competitive landscape,” says Stockbrugger. “We have to be out there telling our story.” GN Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www.angelalovell.ca.

Connecting to Customers Stockbrugger says the crop missions were a great experience and he wishes more Canadian farmers had the opportunity to see where their grain ends up and understand the questions that people who use Canadian grain have. “As farmers we often produce the crop and ship it to the elevator and its gone, so to have the ability to see it in action, to be at the pasta and the couscous factory and see our durum wheat come right off in the form of a packaged product was pretty neat,” says Stockbrugger. “I think sometimes as farmers we need to do more to understand where our production goes and how it’s being used. These missions are a great opportunity to do that.” The crop missions are vital from a marketing perspective, to keep Canadian wheat front and centre and maintain its reputation as a quality product. “We can’t take these markets for granted,” says Stockbrugger. “There is competition nipping at our heels. There is other good quality wheat out there. We need to be at the forefront and establish those contact points where our customers can reach out to us and ask questions, and be able to sit down with them and understand the challenges they have with our product, and bring that first-hand knowledge back to share with the industry.” Bringing feedback from international customers back to the Canadian value chain is another vital aspect of the new crop missions. “We are ensuring that the messages from customers are communicated to farmers and to the Canadian research community,” says Dahl. “That’s partially done through a research priority setting process that’s chaired by Cereals Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with the goal of setting national research

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Crop production

Learning at CanoLAB Farmers at CanoLAB had a hands-on look at canola pests and problems

By Lisa Guenther

Beetles are just one type of beneficial insect often found in farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; fields. These pinned specimens belong to the Carabid family. They prey on larvae and adult crop pests.

Farmers can buy or make their own beneficial insect trap, to get an idea of how many beneficial beetles are crawling in their fields. Pictured are the components of both a professional and home-made trap.

Lining up the beneficial beetles from an insect trap. These are melanarius beetles, which are ground beetles that belong to the carabid family. Some beetle species found in Western Canada can live up to four years.

Patty Reid of AAFC shows CanoLAB participants the ins and outs of trapping and counting beneficial beetles.

Amara beetles hunt and chew on cutworms at CanoLAB in Vermilion. Amara beetles belong to the Carabid family.

Vincent Hervet of Alberta Agriculture and Forestry talks about beneficial wasps, spiders, and various other insects.

A parisitoid wasp. Wasps can be very small and look similar to flies. But wasps have four wings, while flies have two wings.

Ian Epp of the Canola Council walks CanoLAB participants through soil residual herbicide injuries.

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Canola seedlings suffering from soil herbicide injury. Herbicide injuries are difficult to diagnose at the seedling stage as symptoms such as purpling or yelllowing can mimic other problems. Poor emergence is also an issue with residual soil herbicide injuries.

Group 2 (Odyssey) injury in canola. Researchers mimicked a drift injury in the greenhouse. Herbicide injury symptoms, such as purpling and thickened stems, can mimic other issues.

Group 22 injury (Regalone) causing necrosis in canola.

Drift injury caused by a Group 4 herbicide (Heat).

Group 9 injury (glyphosate) mimicking herbicide drift on susceptible canola.

“Halo effect” on canola seedlings looks like Cleanstart damage. But it’s probably from the seed treatment, says Dan Orchard of the Canola Council. Larger seeds ended up with excessive seed treatment in this plant stand establishment demo at CanoLAB.

news bits

Hands-on Learning Leeann Minogue Grainews field editor Lisa Guenther attended the Canola Council of Canada’a annual learning event CanoLAB at Lakeland College in Vermillion on February 22. CanoLab offers a chance to see live plants and insects up close, while they talk with Western Canada’s top researchers and extension workers about current production issues. Watch the Canola Council’s event listing so you don’t miss this one-day learning event in 2018.

Leaf lesions on a plant infected with sclerotinia.

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Farm management

On-farm occupational health and safety Some of these rules apply to your farm. Find out what you need to know

regulations touch on almost all aspects of the workplace,” says Meyer, from things like first aid to training to proper exposure to chemicals and more. Saskatchewan’s Work Safe Saskatchewan has “mission zero” as its mandate. This means a goal of zero safety incidents, making sure that

all employees go home safely each night. Work Safe Saskatchewan also has information and educational tools online, as well as training courses for employers. As an employer, it is your responsibility to report any incidents to the occupational health and safety departments for your province; you can be fined if you don’t. “Under the act and regulations, we call them dangerous occurrences. If something happens that could have caused the death or hospitalization of a worker for 72 hours or more, that’s considered a reportable incident,” says Meyer. This means if you have a close call on your farm, you are legally obligated to report it. Saskatchewan’s regulations include a list, says Meyer, of things that fall into this category, including electrical contact, chemical exposure and overturning of equipment. You must know that you can be prosecuted for failure to report incidents, says Meyer. The Saskatchewan Employment Act includes a fee structure, with a range of under and over $4,000, depending on the offence. However, but the department doesn’t automatically fine employers that aren’t in compliance, says Meyer. That’s a decision the Ministry of Justice makes on a caseby-case basis.

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f you employ anyone other than family on your farm, you need to know that provincial occupational health and safety rules apply to you. Some farmers believe that they are exempt from these rules if they aren’t enrolled in Workers Compensation, or if they are purely a family farm with one or two employees. This is generally not the case. In Manitoba, a “family farm, where there is no formal employeremployee relationship is treated differently, we don’t get too involved in that,” says Michael Van Kats, of the Workplace Safety and Health of the province of Manitoba. “But if it is a corporation where employers are being paid, or a small farm where employees are being paid, we treat them no differently than any other employer in the province.” The same goes in Saskatchewan and Alberta. As long as you are paying employees you are an employer and are subject to the occupational health and safety rules of your province (see the proviso about Alberta below). “The number of employees isn’t a factor,” if you have one or 40 employees you now have an employer-employee relationship

If you have an employee on your family farm, provincial occupational health and safety legislation will apply on your farm. Make sure you known the rules.

and the act applies to your operation,” says Van Kats. Many small operation farmers do not realize this likely means to them.

Mission Zero in Saskatchewan “In Saskatchewan, there is legislation and an act that covers occupa-

tional health and safety,” says Kim Meyer, of the Occupational Health and Safety Division of the Government of Saskatchewan. Employers and employees both have duties and responsibilities (though employers hold most of the responsibility because they control the worksite). “Occupational health and safety

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Safe Manitoba

Present-day Alberta

In Manitoba, Workers Compensation and Workplace Safety and Health work together closely, says Van Kats, through Safe Manitoba (safemanitoba.com). Safe Manitoba helps employers remain in compliance with provincial legislation. On Safe Manitoba’s website, you can click on the “Agriculture” link to find information specific to farm businesses. You’ll read a lot of information on farm safety, including a bulletin on flowing grain entrapment, which has caused injury and death on Manitoba farms. You can also get “Danger” decals from Safe Manitoba to show people that there is hazardous potential, make sure that people required to enter the bin use “a body harness connected to a lifeline, secured to the outside of the bin,” and much more. The website also includes information about Manitoba legislation requiring that any tractor “manufactured after Dec. 31, 2000 and used exclusively for agricultural work” be equipped with a roll-over protection structure, a seat and a seat belt. Safe Manitoba says that while “you may be tempted to build it yourself,” they advise against that because it wouldn’t be engineered and tested properly, and there could be legal consequences if it doesn’t work and someone is injured or killed. These are just a few examples of keeping your farm safe. The onus to know about and follow these rules falls on employers.

In Alberta, farming and ranching operations used to be exempt from Occupational Health and Safety laws but as of January 2016, farming and ranching operations are included under the Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act, says Lauren Welsh, communications officer for Alberta Labour. This means “waged, non-family farm and ranch workers” are now covered under the act, bringing “Alberta in line with other Canadian jurisdictions.” These changes brought a lot of media attention to farm safety regulations in Alberta. “Alberta was the last province to extend basic workplace health and safety protections,” Welsh says. You can be fined in Alberta just like in the other provinces, and if a

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serious injury or fatality occurs, Alberta Justice may become involved and could “consider laying changes,” says Welsh. Alberta farm employers are responsible for taking steps to ensure a healthy and safe workplace. Workers can refuse unsafe work. In Alberta, OHS staff can investigate serious injuries and can inspect your workplace after a compliant has been made. Alberta has created technical working groups; these groups are making recommendations about how occupational health and safety standards can be applied in the agricultural sector. Until this process is finalized, the OHS Code as it exists today will not apply to farmers, says Welsh. But it is still up to you to know what is required. Look to Farm

Safe Alberta and farmandranch. alberta.ca for more information.

Across the prairies The legislation in the three Prairie provinces is in place to ensure safer workplaces. This can include, for example, proper training for workers. If something was lacking in that training “we would issue an improvement order, which would compel the employer to set up a training program and ensure workers are properly trained so they can safely work with that machinery,” says Van Kats. In cases where an imminent risk is perceived, “we could issue a stop work order” until the issue is resolved (for example, until training is completed or until machinery is guarded properly, until the underlying issue is address). Farmers that are uncooperative, for

example not addressing a problem that has arisen, can be fined, and ultimately prosecuted under the act, though, “fortunately, that’s very rare here for farmers so far,” says Van Kats about Manitoba. In Manitoba, “penalties range from $1,000 to $5,000 and are reserved for cases of willful, severe, or repeated non-compliance,” according to the government’s website. “The more information we can get out the better,” says Meyer. “It’s awful if you find out the rules after the fact when we’re doing an inspection.” Remember it’s up to you as an employer to be well informed. Look up your province’s specific act and make sure your farm is a safe working environment for everyone. GN Dilia Narduzzi is a freelance writer in Dundas, Ont.

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Farm management

Five need-to-know facts about OH&S laws Make sure you now what to expect from the legislation in your province 1. This means you

f you have employees, your farm falls under the provincial occupational health and safety legislation for your province. Each province has slightly different rules, but this is the law and if you are not in compliance you can be fined. You could even be sued, though that would come from the individual employee rather than the government. “The most important thing to

know for farmers is that this does apply to them,” says Kim Meyer of the Occupational Health and Safety Division in the Government of Saskatchewan. And, in Saskatchewan, these laws apply to family members if they are getting paid. 2. There may be inspections Occupational health and safety workers do “proactive inspections” says Michael Van Kats,

with Workplace Safety and Health in the province of Manitoba. That’s the same in Saskatchewan and Alberta. This means, similar to the restaurant industry when regulators can do spot check visits to make sure a restaurant is working in compliance with food safety rules, farms where there are employees may get a visit from a regulator checking out farm safety protocols. These regulators do not just respond to calls of non-compliance.

In Alberta, the rules are still being worked out since the inclusion of farming and ranching is new, so at this point “officers will only visit a farm or ranch if they are responding to a complaint or investigating an incident,” says Lauren Welsh, communications officer for Alberta Labour. This may change. 3. Incidents mean investigations It isn’t just spot checks. Occupa-

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tional health and safety officers also respond to serious incidents in the workplace, says Van Kats. If a complaint is registered on your farm, or an accident happens, regulators will visit and assess the situation. The provincial offices receive phone calls and emails about unsafe work conditions and will respond to those calls. In Saskatchewan, “we have a program of targeted employers,” says Meyer. They will visit employers who might have been flagged due to injury rates. 4. It’s for a good cause The main goal of the occupational health and safety departments is to help ensure that all workers go home safely at night, says Meyer. On the “Farm Safety” section of the government of Saskatchewan website, some facts about farm safety are outlined, noting that “on average, 13 people are killed on Saskatchewan farms each year,” and more are injured. Seventy-five per cent of those injuries “involve machinery such as grain trucks, semis, tractors, and combines.” Youth are often involved. As an employer, you are responsible for providing a safe work environment. There is much that goes into this. Some starter information can be found at Farm Safety Guide on the government of Saskatchewan’s website (saskatchewan.ca/farmsafety). 5. Training is available Usually some segment of the province or another group, like Safe Manitoba, will offer workshops to help you understand your responsibilities. For example, Safe Manitoba offers “Prevention Basics” as a starter. It outlines the 11 required elements of a safety and health program in the workplace. The Saskatchewan Safety Council has OATS (Online Agricultural Training System) that talks about safety on the farm. Work Safe Sask also provides training programs for supervisors, which can provide a good overview of regulations. Industry organizations also have safety groups that offer educational opportunities. Farm Safe Alberta is a good starting point for Albertans. “It’s incumbent on the employer to know and learn the laws that are in place,” says Meyer. You can look to the legislation online, and you can call the provincial offices and duty officers can answer specific questions. The training sessions would also be helpful as a starting place. GN Dilia Narduzzi

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crop advisor’s casebook

What’s got this farmer seeing red? By Alan Mittelstadt

R Alan Mittelstadt: Alan Mittelstadt works for Richardson Pioneer Ltd. in Hussar, Alta.

Casebook winner The winner for this issue of Casebook is Paul Entz from the Roseglen Colony near Hilda, Alberta. Thanks for reading, and thanks for entering! You could be a winner too. If you know the answer to this issue of Casebook, email me at Leeann@fbcpublishing.com. Leeann Minogue

ick grows wheat, canola, peas and malt barley west of Hussar, Alta. On July 6, last year, he placed a call to the office after he noticed his pea plants were yellowing and browning off, not just in low-lying areas, but in random patches across the field. He thought there were a few stressors at work on his crop. “The crop may be drowning, but there’s something else going on, too — perhaps insect or disease pressure,” he told me. When I examined Rick’s pea crop, which was in the early flowering stage, I found plants dying off in random areas of the field. Because the crop stand was thinner in the brown patches than the healthy-looking areas, I knew some plants had died earlier in the growing season. In addition, the plants’ roots were rotting. Affected roots ranged from yellowish-brown to medium brown in colour. When I examined the roots of healthy-looking plants, these were also brown and dying off. In both affected and unaffected areas, I noticed some small, dark lesions on the plants’ lower leaves, indicating a minor mycosphaerella blight infection. The plants’ leaves were also turning yellow from the bottom of the plant upwards, and they appeared to be curling slightly downward. Also, I couldn’t find nodules on any plant roots. I knew it was a matter of time before the entire crop died. Because there was so much going on here, it was important to examine the history of both crop and field. With respect to the field, no peas had been planted for at least seven years,

Rick told me. There had been an issue in the past, he said, but he couldn’t remember the exact reason for the long rotation between pea crops. That season, Rick applied a pre-seed burnoff using Group 14 and 9 herbicides for broadleaf weed and grass control. Prior to seeding, 50 pounds of anhydrous ammonia (41 pounds of actual nitrogen) was also applied, as adding nitrogen in the spring had been a routine practice on this farm for years; however, no soil tests were performed. In addition, no phosphate fertilizer was used. The soil type was loamy clay. Rick experienced minor issues when he applied inoculant — some clumping occurred due to absorption of air moisture, so the product may not have been distributed uniformly. The pea crop was seeded on canola stubble. Rick’s neighbour planted seed from the same seed lot and had not experienced any problems, so we knew the seed was not the issue. The seed was treated with a Group 7 fungicide for disease control and a Group 4 insecticide for control of pests, such as pea leaf weevil. Rick applied a herbicide with Groups 1 and 2 modes of action, to control broadleaf weeds and grasses, the first week of June. A broad-spectrum fungicide (Groups 7 and 11) was applied the last week of June. Rick noticed the brown plant patches shortly after fungicide application. The region’s growing conditions, so far, included above-average precipitation, with regular rainfall since midJune. Four days prior to my visit, the crop was irrigated with two to three inches of water. This was followed by three to four inches of precipitation and a minor hail

I noticed some small, dark lesions on the plants’ lower leaves.

event, which didn’t affect the crop, two days prior to my arrival. In fact, when I scouted the field that first week of July, the soil was very wet, including the slopes. Although the moisture was excessive, the crop didn’t appear to be drowning — lowlying areas were not particularly affected and brown patches were randomly dispersed, including the slopes and hill tops. We knew we were dealing with something that affected plant roots, such as an abiotic stress, like nutrient burn or excess moisture, or a fungal disease. Perhaps a lack of phosphate had contributed to the weak roots, and plants were less able to take up and use the excess moisture. Or, possibly, the addition of nitrogen impaired nodulation, which, at this stage, would cause a deficiency of the nutrient, and weakened roots, overall. And, we had favourable disease conditions: a warm, moist environment and a susceptible host, but which pathogen were we dealing with? I scraped the root’s surface of an affected plant. The revealed vascular tissue was orange-red in colour. That settled it for me. If you think you can untangle Rick’s perplexing pea problem, send your diagnosis to Grainews, Box 9800, Winnipeg, Man., R3C 3K7; email leeann@ fbcpublishing.com or fax 204-94495416 c/o Crop Advisor’s Casebook. The 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 answer, along with reasoning that solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop Advisor’s Solution File. GN Alan Mittelstadt works for Richardson Pioneer Ltd. in Hussar, Alta.

Rick’s pea plants were yellowing and browning off in random patches across the field.

I couldn’t find nodules on any plant roots. I knew it was a matter of time before the entire crop died.

Four days prior to my visit, the crop was irrigated with two to three inches of water.

When I scraped the root’s surface, the vascular tissue was orange-red in colour.

Crop advisor’s solution

Avoid seeding durum near WSMV-infected winter wheat By Bethany Wyatt Although it’s an easy assumption to make, leaf yellowing, or chlorosis, following herbicide application should not automatically by attributed to accidental chemical injury, as one southern Saskatchewan farmer discovered last June. Don, who owns a mixed farming operation south of Weyburn, Sask., asked me to look at his durum wheat crop after he found patches of yellowing plants in his field. He was concerned his crop had suffered a herbicide injury. Don had sprayed the wheat crop at the three-leaf stage with a tank mix of Groups 1, 2 and 4 herbicides, to control grasses and broadleaf weeds. Now, two weeks later, while checking for herbicide efficacy, Don found

the wheat plants’ leaf margins were yellowing, and a small number had a reddish-purple tinge. When I arrived, I noticed the yellowing wheat plants occurred in patches, which were scattered throughout the field, with injured plant patches next to healthy ones. I estimated approximately 10 per cent of his durum crop was affected, while the rest of the plants were healthy. Since the plant symptoms occurred in random patches, and because only a small percentage of the crop was affected, I knew the damage wasn’t the result of herbicide injury. “Are there any winter wheat fields neighbouring this one?” I asked Don. “Just west of here,” he answered. That clinched it. The symptoms presented in Don’s durum wheat crop were caused by wheat streak mosaic, which is a viral disease of wheat. It

was coincidence Don checked his wheat field for herbicide efficacy at the onset of wheat streak mosaic disease symptoms, which, at that stage, looked like herbicide injury. The wheat streak mosaic virus is transmitted by the wheat curl mite. The mite is small enough to be blown from one field to another by wind. The mite and the virus need living plant material to survive, and winter wheat is one of their favourite hosts for overwintering. They can also survive through the winter on volunteer cereals and perennial grasses. The virus enters the plant through the leaves, destroying chlorophyll. Often, the chlorosis caused by the virus results in light green or yellow streaks in the plant leaves. The virus spreads to all plant parts. And the earlier the infection, the greater the plant damage. In the spring, surviving mites multiply

rapidly and are blown by the wind to neighbouring fields of spring wheat, again providing living hosts for both mites and viruses. If winter wheat is sown near fields infected with the disease, mites can carry the virus to the winter wheat crop, completing the disease cycle. To confirm wheat streak mosaic virus in Don’s field, I sent plant samples to the Crop Protection Laboratory in Regina. Lab results indicated the virus was present in the plants. I also knew there were several confirmed cases in the area. Currently, there are no pesticides for mite control, and no form of chemical control for the wheat streak mosaic virus. In Don’s case, because the percentage of infected durum wheat plants was low, yield loss was minimal. However, planting spring wheat near

infected winter wheat puts the crop at greater risk of infection. Thus, avoid seeding cereals near an infected winter wheat crop. In addition, it is important to control volunteer cereals in the fall and spring prior to planting to reduce the risk of infection. Ultimately, a green bridge is the biggest contributing factor to increased infection risk. Eliminating green bridges, even by a week or two, helps lower the risk of infection because mites and viruses can’t survive without living hosts. Early seeding of cereals also decreases the risk of infection as mite populations only increase with rising temperatures in the spring. Therefore, early seeding also helps prevent early viral infection and greater yield losses. Bethany Wyatt works for Richardson Pioneer Ltd. in Weyburn, Sask.

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Farm management

Data management options from Farmers Edge Leeann Minogue You probably know that Farmers Edge started in Manitoba, and that they offer variable rate technology solutions. You might not know that

they now operate in the U.S., Brazil, Australia and Russia. If variable rate technology isn’t for you, of if you have your own VR solution, you might still be interested in the Farmers Edge data management product.

The Farmers Edge FarmCommand platform provides data management and weather stations. You can use the FarmCommand to integrate yield and spraying maps from your own equipment into one platform. “We aren’t tied to any other T:9.875 in company,”

says Chris Evenson, Farmers Edge customer relationship manager. Your data is your own, he says, meaning you can take it with you if you no longer want to be a customer. They do, however, use your data internally, “to develop more products.” Farmers Edge offers its Smart Solution foundation package (including data management, weather information, and

FarmCommand) for $2/acre. The catch: you must sign up every tilled acre on your farm. Once you have this package, you can choose to pay more to add on their variable rate technology, soil sampling and other services. “Turning data from pretty maps into something that actually makes them money, that’s what we’re all about,” Evenson says.

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Letter from Europe By Marianne Stamm

RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND DISCUSSION Researchers develop crop protection products, regulators limit use and consumers worry

Syngenta’s Willy Ruegg explains some of the processes required to produce a new crop protection product.

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yngenta is a household name for farmers so I was quite excited at the opportunity to visit its Crop Protection plant in Stein, AG, Switzerland, this January with the Swiss Farm Writers Association. The Stein plant is the third largest globally and concentrates on research and development of fungicide and insecticide products. Less than three per cent of products are sold in Switzerland. Most are developed for and sold in the rest of the world, to small-scale farmers, large commercial farms and everything in between. We journalists peered into hundreds of lab samples of new Crop Protection Products (CPP), some still crawling with tiny insects. We peeked into one of many chambers which simulate the climate of a country a product is being developed for; stopped by a greenhouse full of blooming canola plants. Rice trials for aphid control products were growing in six-inch cylinders on a table. Everywhere there were big signs on the doors with watering instructions. The scientists can do everything right but if the watering doesn’t comply, the trial is useless. Willy Ruegg, head of bio research of the plant, told us it’s a constant balance between science and speed. “Do we really need a whole greenhouse of canola plants?” Ruegg said what he needs is brains — data processing more than data production. Did you know that 100 kilos of wheat (about 250 pounds) has a surface of 80 square metres, treated by only 200 millilitres of liquid? And that the dust tolerance of seed treatments is smaller than that of M&Ms? I came out of the tour with respect for the lengthy complicated process to bring a new chemical product on the market. Agriculture chemicals take longer to develop than pharmaceutical products. Each country has its own specific problems in climate and pests, and also its own set of regulations.

Crop protection products The event was more than just a tour of the facility. I was just as interested in the panel discussion, which centered on the new Swiss action plan for crop protection products (CPP). The Swiss government asked several departments, including the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment to put together an action plan for the reduction of emissions of CPP. All stakeholders had an opportunity for feedback over the last six months. Not surprisingly, the responses went from far too regulated to not nearly enough, depending on the interests of the stakeholders. Taking part in the panel discussion was Olivier Felix from the Department of Agriculture who presented the main points in the action plan; Joel Meier, technical head at Syngenta; Thomas Wyssa, President of the Swiss vegetable farmers and representative of farmers using chemical products for plant protection; and Andreas Bosshard, director of Vision Landwirtschaft, a green agriculture society. The action plan aims to reduce emissions from CPP in Switzerland by 50 per cent by 2050. It’s an ambitious plan, considering that tests for CPP residues in Swiss plant prod-

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

photos: Marianne Stamm

ucts are consistently below or far below recommended rates. The action plan paper states as much, adding that this fact still doesn’t make the consumer feel safer, despite repeated media articles. As Willy Ruegg told me, science doesn’t sell. Emotion does. (Sounds like politics!) It made me wonder how much of this action plan is catering to the consumer’s perceived beliefs and how much to real issues about CPP emissions.

Panel comments Meier, of Syngenta advised caution in deciphering statistics and numbers. For every new active CPP agent released for use in the EU, four are banned. The less active agents we have available in the crop protection palette, the more risk of resistance to the products we have, he said. Ruegg too is quite concerned about resistance. Product cost and consumer/government reactions cause many farmers to spray less than recommended rates. Ruegg says that’s like taking only half the antibiotic prescription the doctor gave you. “We don’t need higher yields,” Bosshart of Vision Landwirtschaft insisted. “We need more efficient production and distribution.” He spoke of growing food with less energy calories, i.e. growing crops for human consumption instead of for cattle feed. Bosshard cited the dairy industry as a gross misuse of energy calories. He says the amount of imported calories for dairy cattle feed in Switzerland would feed two million people. Bosshard does have a point about being more efficient with what we have. There is the food waste between the field and the store. (I’ve seen that in Zambia, where tonnes of corn don’t make it to the market due to corrupt or inefficient supply chains.) We hear a lot in Switzerland of the enormous waste of food after purchase. Much could be done here, Bosshard says, while drastically lowering the overall use of pesticides. Bosshard himself is part owner of an organic farm. They successfully produce apples for sale without pesticides, by planting resistant varieties. The consumer wants healthy vegetables without blemish yet produced without chemicals. That’s an oxymoron, said Wyss, himself a large-scale vegetable farmer. Wyss would like to see more real dialogue between all stakeholders, not more regulation; research projects that all take part in together. He cites the high criteria to sell vegetable products. If his produce doesn’t meet it, it is destroyed. If he misses a single CPP pass on his onions, the whole field can be damaged and he loses the whole profit. The panel discussion showed me again how difficult it is to find a consensus between parties. I liked Wyss’ point, of working together more instead of each funding their own research and then working against each other. That takes an ability to truly listen and hear what the other is saying. I’ll admit I had to stop the voices in my head while listening to Bosshard speak of a pesticide-free Switzerland. Then I could admit he had some very valid points! GN Marianne Stamm is a freelance farm writer. Email her at marerobster@ gmail.com.

Syngenta’s Willy Ruegg in a greenhouse full of canola plants.

Swiss Ag journalists tour the Seed Care Institute (seed treatment R & D) of Syngenta, Stein, Switzerland.

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Crop nutrition

Most common fertility questions Rigas Karamonos answers the fertilizer questions he’s hearing from farmers By Leeann Minogue

t CropConnect in Manitoba in February, Dr. Rigas Karamanos gave his 868th presentation to farmers. He’s been counting. And, he said, it’s the 35th time he’s been asked to give a talk on “contemporary fertility issues.” He used his time on the CropConnect agenda to talk about the issues he hears farmers raising.

Fertilizing for higher yields Farmers want to know if fertilizing for higher grain protein makes sense. First, Karamanos says, you have to make sure it’s both economically and agronomically viable. “If so, what would be the appropriate rates, time of application and nitrogen products?” Without the right weather and soil test conditions, additional nitrogen won’t contribute much to increased yield. Based on research Karamanos published in 2005, he said, “We found soil test and growing season precipitation explain 78 per cent of the yield increase due to nitrogen application.” However, nitrogen is important when it comes to protein. “The nitrogen fertility contributes 70 per cent, and the cultivar, only three per cent towards it,” Karamanos said. Applying nitrogen at the right time can make the difference between increasing yield or increasing protein. “If you’re going after yield, you have to attempt to apply before what is called the ‘first node being visible’ in wheat.” “Any nitrogen you start applying later on is going to go to protein. Of course you’re got to look at the price of the premium… Most of the time it doesn’t pay to do that.”

When plants need nutrients In experiments done by Karamanos when he worked for Westco Fertilizer, “No matter when we seeded,” he said, “maximum utilization of nitrogen occurred at the six-leaf stage of canola.” During that time, he said, “the crop was picking up anywhere between 6.9 and nine pounds of nitrogen per acre per day.” When you multiply that rate by seven

days in a week, that’s 42 to 54 pounds per week. “That’s a lot of nitrogen taken up in that particular week.” The table shows average plant nutrient uptake for canola, wheat and barley, six to seven weeks after seeding. If you are going to top-dress, “it has to occur prior to the sixleaf stage.” “It’s not really something I would recommend as a practice, but if you are in a situation and the sky has opened, well, then, you have a chance to go back and make up for that extra yield potential.” If it remains dry, you’ve saved yourself some fertilizer. “But that’s not the way someone should be planning to farm.”

2. Build and maintain: In this case, “the strategy is to maintain the soil test at a certain level.” With this strategy, “to build phosphorus by one pound you need anywhere between 12 and 28 pounds per acre of P2O5. So you better have a good phosphorus program.” To build potassium by one pound, he says, “you need eight to 16 pounds per acre of K2O.” While this strategy will enhance your soil and build your soil tests for future years, “build and maintain is not a cheap proposition.”

Corn as an exception Corn is an exception in terms of top-dressing. “When it comes to corn, there are three stages that are critical in terms of nitrogen uptake.” These are: the first 40 days; mid-season; and late season, which is also important for high yields. “Side banding is something that is critical to apply fertilizer for corn.” It doesn’t make economic or environmental sense to apply all of the nitrogen required for corn at seeding.

“ I think there is a lot of wasteful uses of boron.” Boron on canola Karamanos has spoken about boron at several farm meetings lately. “I think there is a lot of wasteful uses of boron.” While there are times when boron is needed, such as on sandy soils, or in alfalfa, Karamanos thinks it is often overrated. While he has heard farmers say that boron works like Viagra to give crops strength, most of the time, Karamanos doesn’t see benefits.

Fertilizer strategies Karamanos outlined three fertilizer strategies.

FOLIAR NUTRIENT UPTAKE PER ACRE, PER DAY, SIX TO SEVEN WEEKS AFTER SEEDING Nutrient

Canola

Wheat

Barley

7.5 lbs.

2.8 lbs.

3.0 lbs.

0.8 lb.

0.35 lb.

0.5 lb.

1.3 grams

2 grams

1.5 grams

17.5 grams

7.4 grams

13.1 grams

Yield

47 bu./ac.

38 bu./ac.

86 bu./ac.

Source: Rigas Karamanos

1. Sufficiency: Farmers using this strategy “fertilize only when there is a good chance for a yield response.”

NEW

3. BCSR: This is the base-cation saturation ratio. This method was developed back in the 40s. Karamanos explained that proponents believe an “ideal” soil needs an ideal ratio of cations. Karamanos believes that the initial experiments behind this method “were neither well-designed, nor wellinterpreted by today’s standards.” Karamanos told participants that the BCSR method is based on faulty methodology that would cause producers to strive for an artificially high level of calcium in the soil and an artificially low level of potassium. “Using this system will mean that you apply a heck of a lot more potassium that

you need, with a low probability of getting a higher yield.”

Ground speed These days, he said, “people want to go faster.” With more acres and better equipment, “they want to be going 15 miles as hour. Not 4.5 or five.” Karamanos has heard from farmers who are raising their mid-row banders from 2.5 to three inches in the soil to higher levels so they can increase ground speed and decrease wear and tear. Obviously, this is not ideal. “Deep banding,” he said, “still remains the gold standard.” GN Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews.

FEATURES

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Farm management

Save your 2016 seed money

Let the CRA tax experts help you reap the most from what you sow By Heidi Hofstad

photo: cra

F If your farming is considered a hobby (for example, you only raise a few farm animals or have a plot to grow food for your own table), you can’t deduct any expenses or losses.

armers of all types, from dairy to fruit to livestock, contribute to the economy and to the healthy lives of Canadians. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) wants to help make filing your income tax and benefit return easier so you can save your time and energy for the harvest. If your farming is considered a hobby (for example, you only raise a few farm animals or have a plot to grow food for your own table), you can’t deduct any expenses or losses. In comparison, you’re likely carrying on a farming business if your farming activities are more substantial and

4:30 a.m. It’s 2° outside. Dance recital at three. It’s GO time.

carried out in a business-like manner (for example you spend most of your time raising animals or growing crops and running the operation). Keep in mind that farming income does not include money earned from working as an employee on a farm or from trapping. For more information, including the types of farming income and deductions and tax credits available to farmers, go to cra.gc. ca/farming, or read the CRA’s Income Tax Folio S4-F11-C1, Meaning of Farming and Farming Business.

Claiming expenses Farmers can generally deduct any reasonable current expense from farming income, including interest on loans and losses, and the cost of fertilizer, feed, veterinary fees and materials to pack and ship goods. Other eligible expenses are machinery rental, electricity, insurance, and motor vehicle expenses. To find out more, go to cra.gc.ca/smallbusiness and click on “Report business or professional income and expenses.” When it’s time to harvest your crops, you may need a helping hand (or two) out in the field and if you do hire someone, the cost may be claimed as an expense. If the person you hire is a qualified Red Seal trade apprentice, like an agricultural equipment technician, you may also be able to claim the apprenticeship job creation tax credit. This nonrefundable investment tax credit is 10 per cent of the apprentice’s salary or wages. The maximum credit an employer can claim is $2,000 per year for each eligible apprentice. For more information about the apprenticeship job creation tax credit, go to cra.gc.ca/smallbusiness and click on “Investment tax credit (line 412),” and then on “Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit (AJCTC).”

Reporting income or loss

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As with any business, not every year will be profitable. When your farming business expenses are more than your farming business income in a year, you have a net loss. You can transfer a farm loss amount back to any of the preceding three years or forward to any of the next 20 years to deduct the loss from income for another year. For more information on farm losses and how to calculate and apply them, see Chapter 6 of CRA Guide T4003, Farming and Fishing Income. Eligible farmers who dispose of breeding livestock in a tax year because of drought or flood can exclude part of the sale proceeds from their income until the next tax year, under the livestock tax deferral provision. This provision also covers breeding horses over 12 months of age and certain breeding bees. For more information, see Chapter 2 of Guide T4003. To avoid the stress of ploughing through countless invoices and receipts, stay on top of your record keeping during the year. Records of your business-related expenses will support your claims. These records

need the same constant and conscientious care as your crops. Without supporting documents, the CRA may not allow a credit or deduction. To learn more, go to cra.gc.ca/records.

Completing your return The legislated deadline for most Canadians to file their income tax and benefit return is April 30. Since that date is a Sunday in 2017, the CRA will consider your return as filed on time and your payment to be made if the CRA receives your submission or it is postmarked no later than May 1. Self-employed individuals and their spouses or common-law partners have until June 15 to file their returns. However, if those persons have a balance owing to the CRA, that amount is due no later than May 1. If you’re facing cash flow problems and can’t pay your tax balance owing in full, you may be able to pay off your tax debt in more than one payment. You can set up a preauthorized debit payment agreement through the CRA’s My Business Account or My Account service or by calling 1-888-863-8657. To learn more about your payment options, go to cra.gc.ca/payments. This year, you can file your return online as early as February 20. The CRA has a list of certified tax preparation software on its website, including some software that is free. Last year, more than 84 per cent of individuals filed their tax return online. File online, so you can spend less time working on your return and more time doing the things you love. To find out more, go to cra.gc.ca/netfile. When filing online, you can save valuable time by using the CRA’s auto-fill my return feature. This feature automatically fills in parts of your return. For more information, go to cra.gc.ca/auto-fill. If you sign up for online mail, you can find out the status of your return immediately after you file your return and receive your notice of assessment the next day. For more information, go to cra.gc.ca/express-noa.

Protect yourself! When it comes time to file your return, don’t risk your reputation and your business by intentionally underreporting your income. If you get caught evading tax, you may face fines, penalties, or even jail time. It’s not worth the risk. Don’t participate in the underground economy. For more information, go to cra.gc.ca/ undergroundeconomy. If you make a mistake or omission, the CRA offers you a chance to set things right under the Voluntary Disclosures Program. If you make a valid disclosure before you know about compliance action taken against you by the CRA, you may only have to pay the tax owing plus interest. You can get more information about the program at cra-arc. gc.ca/voluntarydisclosures. Stay on top of the latest CRA news and tax tips by following @ CanRevAgency on Twitter. GN Heidi Hofstad, CRA spokesperson.

FEATURES

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Grain varieties

Elgin ND wheat meets sellers’ claims This Canadian northern hard red wheat gave growers high yields and better returns By Lisa Guenther

lgin ND promises high yields and better returns. Do those claims hold up in farmers’ fields? Two growers who tried out the new variety last year share their experience. North Dakota State University plant breeders developed Elgin ND as a high-yielding milling variety. They first distributed it south of the border in 2013. In Canada, Elgin falls into the Canadian northern hard red class. FP Genetics is the Canadian retailer. Jason Friesen grew about 800 acres of Elgin last year on his farm near Watson, Sask. He says most of the questions he gets from other farmers are about price differences, where the market is, and whether he felt it was worth growing. “We got a positive return on it for sure,” he says. Haydon Rice of Asquith, Sask, says the biggest questions in his mind revolved around the new wheat class, elevator and mill acceptance. He says there’s still market development needed with mills, but elevator acceptance was good. “I only see it going up from here,” says Rice.

Elgin has an Intermediate resistance rating for fusarium head blight, similar to Faller, Prosper, or AC Barrie. “We definitely have a problem with fusarium head blight,” says Friesen. “I think (Elgin) handled it as well or better than our other wheat did. We spray everything. We’ve had to for quite a few years now. But even with spraying there was some fusarium damage in some of the other wheat.” Rice also applies fungicide to all

his wheat. He says the Elgin held up much better than the soft white last year. Rice and Friesen treated the Elgin like other wheats when it came to fertility. Rice has had other varieties go down with his fertility program. But he had no lodging issues with Elgin ND. Both Friesen and Rice found Elgin easier to harvest than some other hard reds. Rice says with some hard reds he’s had to set the concaves as tight as possible and the rotors as

fast as possible. He’d use awning plates and blanking plates, and still have white caps, he says. Elgin ND, Rice says, was “pretty easy to set and go, and it all thrashed out pretty easy.” Like many farmers last year, Rice was harvesting late in the fall. His Elgin wheat was still standing after the October snow, and he ended up swathing and combining it in midNovember. The quality, he says, is “so-so.” He can’t say for sure whether that’s a varietal issue or

Fighting fusarium Fusarium head blight has become a chronic problem on many farms.

Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Follow her on Twitter @LtoG.

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We got a positive return on it Rice has several companies bidding on his Elgin. “The price is at a bit of a discount to the standard hard red spring wheat varieties. But I can see the yield is definitely outweighing the discount on the price.” Friesen had to shop around a little for the best deal for his farm’s Elgin. There were definitely places that would take it, but at a significant discount compared to a hard red, he says. But the high protein levels allowed him to sell directly to a flour mill at a decent price. Both Rice and Friesen were happy with protein levels. Rice figures the Elgin sits at 14 to 14.5 per cent protein, which is average to good for his land. He didn’t have other hard reds to compare it to last year. Friesen says the protein levels in Elgin were consistently higher than other hard reds. The biggest benefit compared to other hard reds was the yield, Friesen says. The Elgin yielded significantly more than other hard reds on the Friesen farm. Rice grew soft white spring wheat last year, and he expected it to outyield the Elgin. But he says “the Elgin ended up yielding more and being worth more. So I was happy on that end of things.”

“the terrible weather it sat through in the field.” Still, Rice is happy with the variety overall. “It’s a good variety and I would definitely grow it again.” Friesen says they’re cutting back their wheat acres “big time” next year. “But we’re maintaining our Elgin wheat and we’re putting in less hard red.” GN

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Hart Attacks

How good or bad is that unharvested crop? Farmers and processors won’t really know until quality is tested By Lee Hart

am sensing a muffled drum roll in parts of Western Canada right now as a few thousand farmers across central and northern B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan are waiting to see what this unharvested crop looks like, when they do have a chance to get it combined. There were several thousand acres — about 10 to 20 per cent of the crop — in B.C.’s Peace River Region, and

another one to 1.5 million acres each in Alberta and Saskatchewan caught by October snow. Is there anything there worth saving? How much is it worth? Is canola going to have any oil or meal value? How much mouse poop are we looking at? I recently talked to Barry Follensbee who farms at Rolla in the B.C. Peace River region for his take on the situation. He has about 20 per cent of his crop still unharvested and no fall field work done, he’s not sure how everything will play out this seeding season.

“It will get sorted out somehow,” he says. “But it is an unusual situation. We haven’t been caught with unharvested crop since maybe 1996 and I have never in my farming years not been able to get some or all field work done in the fall. This year there isn’t one pound of fertilizer down yet.” Follensbee who crops about 3,500 acres of wheat, canola, malt barley and peas, says he and many farmers in the region use the postharvest period to get anhydrous

ammonia applied. That didn’t happen this year. He did get about 80 per cent of his crop combined, but then it snowed Oct. 1 “and it never left.” In his area there was no November window to continue working on harvest. “I went to the November farm show in Red Deer and was a little annoyed to see combines running in central Alberta,” he says jokingly. “I didn’t have that option.” Follensbee says he has swathed canola, wheat and barley to be har-

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vested. He’s hoping the canola will still have a reasonable value and the cereals will probably be feed grade. “All I can do now is hope for an early spring,” he says. Aside from the scheduling problems in dealing with the “spring harvest,” the other concern is crop quality. Freeze and thaw conditions will affect canola seed oil content and quality. Rodent excrement is a wild card. Some parts of central and northern Alberta were reporting high mouse populations to begin with. With crop laying out under snow all winter, the little beggars no doubt had a field day, leaving plenty of calling cards behind. Can it be cleaned or kept out of oil and meal products?

How bad is it? That’s what Canadian canola processors are waiting to find out, says Chris Vervaet, executive director of the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association (COPA). “We’re just in a wait and see situation,” says Vervaet. “Our members have had a lot of discussion about it, and we really don’t know what to expect. For now the door is open. We just have to see what quality is like.” Oilseed processors will be interested in learning what the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) learns through its sampling of these snowedin canola crops As part of a research project the CGC is asking farmers with unharvested crops to send in samples as soon as they are able to combine. Since it fortunately doesn’t happen very often, “the impact of snow on canola quality has not been studied,” says Veronique Barthet, research scientist. The Canadian Grain Commission wants to assess the impact of snowed-in and over-wintered canola on the quality of the 2016 crop. Barthet says farmers can obtain sample envelopes from the Canadian Grain Commission. They can just call or email and the sample envelopes will be sent out. “Conditions can change from one field to another, perhaps there was more rodent pressure in one field than another — those types of differences,” says Barthet. “So if a farmer has two or three fields for example, we’d like a representative sample from each field.” GN Lee Hart is a field editor with Grainews based in Calgary. Contact him at 403-592-1964 or lee@fbcpublishing.com.

To participate in this study and receive information about the quality of your canola crop, send an email to Dr. Veronique Barthet or Twylla McKendry. Participants will receive an envelope for their canola sample and a consent card by mail. You can reach Veronique Barthet by email: veronique. barthet@grainscanada.gc.ca or Twylla McKendrye by email: twylla.mcKendry @grainscanada.gc.ca

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Agronomy management

Maximum versus optimum economic yield Often, aiming for maximum yield doesn’t give you the maximum bottom line profit Ross McKenzie

s your farm most profitable when you achieve maximum yield or optimum economic yield? There can be substantial differences in the amount of inputs needed for maximum crop yield compared to the economic optimum yield. Applying a higher level of inputs may give you maximum yield but often won’t provide the greatest profit per acre. I am far more interested in achieving maximum profit per acre versus maximum yield per acre. Many farmers struggle to decide which inputs are essential versus “might be needed.” When input suppliers promote micronutrient fertilizers and crop protection products, often the probability of economical response information is lacking. The agronomist might think it is a good idea, but will the extra input give an economic yield increase? Nitrogen (N) fertilizer is frequently needed for your cereal and oilseed crops. But, what is the optimum economic rate? The graph shows a generalized N crop fertilizer response curve. The maximum yield is at 130 pounds of N per acre. However, the optimum economic yield would occur at 100 lbs./ac. of N. Spending a little less money on would give a higher economic return per acre. Fertilizing to maximum yield can have negative economic and environment results. From an environmental standpoint, the reduced crop recovery of N fertilizer at rates in excess of optimum yield can result in a greater potential N losses. Many agronomists use target crop yields and nutrient removal to estimate crop N fertilizer requirements. But developing best N fertilizer recommendations is not always that simple! Soil test N level, soil mineralization rate of N, stored soil moisture conditions and N fertilizer uptake efficiency all must be considered. I also want to consider N fertilizer price and crop value at harvest. This becomes an even greater problem for farmers using variable rate fertilizer application. Considerable time, effort and money is spent to develop different fertilizer management zones for each field. But how do you then determine the economical optimum N fertilizer rate for each fertilizer management zone? Ideally, I prefer estimating N fertilizer requirements by using up-todate regional N fertilizer response curves, if available, for your region. When N fertilizer rate trials are conducted with the newest crop varieties, response curves to N fertilizer can be developed. Crop yield response curves that are developed on typical soils in your region are ideally the best way to estimate N fertilizer needed. Up-to-date

curves take into account soil mineralization, efficiency of fertilizer application and moisture conditions. Over several years, good average curves can be developed. The big benefit is you can then do economic analysis.

Optimum versus Maximum yield

Looking at the numbers There has been research across Alberta in the past to develop and update N response curves in the various soil and climatic regions of the province. The table shows irrigated spring wheat yield increase, with increasing rates of N fertilizer. This work was done by Alberta Agriculture from 2006 to 2011 at about 20 irrigated locations. The second table uses this information to calculate the economic return when soil test nitrogen is 40 lbs./ac. in the zero- to 24-inch depth. Rather than look at a predicted yield, this method looks at predicted yield increase with increasing N fertilizer rates. The second row in Table 2 shows the estimated yield increase with 10 lbs./ac. increments of N fertilizer. As N rate increases, the incremental increase in yield gradually decreases. In Scenario 1, assume N fertilizer costs 65¢/lb. or $6.50 for each 10 lbs./ac. increment of N fertilizer, and wheat is worth $8/bu. The 2:1 ratio of crop value to fertilizer cost occurs between 140 and 150 lbs./ac. of N. This means for the last dollar spent on N fertilizer, the yield increase returns about two dollars. Scenario 2 assumes a N cost of 80¢/lb. or $8 for each 10 lbs./ac. increment of fertilizer and a lower wheat value, $5/bu. The 2:1 ratio of crop value to fertilizer cost is between 100 and 110 lbs./ac. of N. In Scenario 1 about 140 to 150 lbs./ac. of N would be economical and in Scenario 2 about 100 to 110 lbs./ac. of N would be economical. In both scenarios, the soil test N level is the same and the same crop is grown — the difference in N fertilizer required is based on N fertilizer price and value of the crop. We don’t worry about estimating soil N mineralization or fertilizer efficiency, as this is built into the N fertilizer response curve information. Ideally, I prefer to use this method to determine N fertilizer rates versus using a calculated method, provided you have access to up-to-date N fertilizer response curves for the crops grown in your region.

Building your own tables Using up-to-date regional N yield increase information to economically determine the optimum N fertilizer required is ideally the best approach. However, many areas of the Prairies do not have current, up-to-date response information. Unfortunately, this type of research just isn’t being done. Many farmers must deter-

Fertilizing for optimum economic yield requires less fertilizer than fertilizing for maximum yield.

Table 1: Nitrogen fertilizer response

Source: Alberta Agriculture Agdex FS 100/541-1 Fertilizer requirements of irrigated grain and oilseed crops. 2013

This table shows predicted yield for irrigated hard red spring wheat in southern Alberta. TABLE 2: ECONOMIC VALUES OF INCREASED N N (lb/ac)

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

Est’d

147

142

Yield (bu./ac.)

110

104

108

111

114

116

118

119

120

Add’l N cost at 65¢/lb.

$6.50

Add’l Crop value $8/bu.

$32

$24

$16

Add’l N 80¢/lb.

Add’l Crop value $5/bu.

$20

$15

$10

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Source: Les Henry

The first and second row of this table show estimated spring wheat yields with increasing amounts of N applied (based on a soil test N level of 40 lbs./ac.). The third row shows the expected yield increase achieved with an additional 10 pounds of N. In scenario No. 1, the assumed fertilizer cost is 65¢/lb. or $6.50 for each 10 lbs./ac. increment of fertilizer. The price of wheat is $8/bu. To achieve a 2:1 ratio of crop value to fertilizer cost, you would need to apply between 140 and 150 lbs./ac. of N. In scenario No. 2, the assumed fertilizer cost is 80¢/lb. or $8 for each 10 lbs./ac. increment of fertilizer. The wheat value is $5/bu. The 2:1 ratio of crop value to fertilizer cost is between 100 and 110 lbs./ac. of N.

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

mine N fertilizer requirements using a simplistic calculation method that may not be the economic optimum. One option is to develop your own information using on-farm trialing. On your farm, you could have five N fertilizer rates applied in adjacent long narrow strips to measure increasing yield benefit on your important crops. For example, you could apply zero, 25, 50, 75 and

100 lbs. N/ac. on your wheat to measure the yield and yield increase with increasing N rates to develop your own response information. If you do this in several fields every year, you can develop your own onfarm information to fine-tune and optimize economical N fertilizer application. For Alberta farmers, a computer program called Alberta Farm Fertilizer Information Recommendation

Manager (AFFIRM) was developed with all available N fertilizer response curves for the various agro-ecological areas of Alberta. Unfortunately, the program was last updated in 2007. Sadly, Alberta Agriculture has not been very supportive to maintain this excellent fertilizer management tool. New calibration curves for a number of irrigated crops and for T:9.875 in dryland wheat, barley and canola

for all Alberta soil zones is being updated in the program. Hopefully, Alberta Agriculture will update the program and have available for free download from their web site. This would be the preferred method to economically determine optimum N fertilizer rates and can be used for other nutrients as well. The big unknown every year is environmental conditions, particularly moisture, that will occur

during the growing season, after most or all of the N fertilizer is applied. We don’t know ahead of time if we will have a wetter, drier or near normal year. I usually suggest being cautious and fertilize for economic optimum. GN Ross H. McKenzie, PhD, P. Ag., is a former agronomy research scientist. He conducted soil, crop and irrigation research with Alberta Agriculture for 38 years.

T:11.4286 in

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Reporters Notebook

The need for better record keeping It’s not one of agronomy’s most exciting issues, but it’s a need that’s not going away Lisa Guenther

t CanolaLAB in Vermilion in February, record-keeping kept popping up during the agronomy sessions. Murray Hartman of Alberta Agriculture and the Canola Council’s Dan Orchard facilitated an interesting session on plant stand establishment. Target plant stand

recommendations have dropped a That’s too bad, because knowing little, but before farmers cut seed- seed survivability is the key to ing rates, they need to know how tweaking practices that ensure a many plants are emerging and sur- good plant stand. Some farmers viving. might even be able to cut their Knowing a five-year average for seeding rates a little, if they knew canola stand establishment would how many plants they were startbe ideal. But Orchard and Hartman ing with. were both doubtful that most Field history records come in farmers have that data. I asked handy other times, too. If you’re whether it was a matter of not trying to diagnose plants that counting emerged plants after might have been injured by herbiT:7.875” seeding, or not keeping records. cide drift or residue, knowing what Probably both, Orchard said. happened on that field last year is

important. Are phosphorus levels at a critically low level on your farm? Soil test, fertilization, and yield records can all help you figure that out. The canola industry has agreed on new labels for blackleg-resistant varieties (although it’s up to each seed company to decide when to start using those labels). The new labels will still include the current ratings from the co-op trials. But they’ll also include major gene groupings, which correspond

to a specific blackleg race. For example, Resistance Group B is effective against the Rlm2 blackleg race. The idea is that a farmer will be able to switch to a variety with a different resistance group if he has a blackleg wreck. But how do you know which blackleg races you have in your fields? There isn’t a commercial test available (yet). It may come down to good record-keeping. Collecting, keeping, and analyzing data is probably one of the biggest obstacles when doing on-farm research. That’s not the least bit surprising when you think of how much record keeping is involved in field and greenhouse experiments. Farmers asked about all kinds of things throughout the day, from seeding date to herbicide application rate to seed size. That kind of detail is important in ag research.

Keeping the data Of course, it’s no mystery why more farmers aren’t keeping detailed records. It’s a lot of work, and much of the data collection needs to happen during the busiest times of year. Orchard and Hartman saw plant stand counting as a service an agronomist could offer. Ag retailers and other ag business are offering more and more data collection and analysis services. There are also apps and computer software these days — some free and some not — geared towards farms. Each farm will probably track different things, and have different ways of doing it. My friend’s mother tracked the daily precipitation on their farm for years with pen and paper. If you find the thought of record-keeping overwhelming (or if you, like me, sometimes bite off way more than you can chew), it probably makes sense to start small. Do a couple of plant stand counts through the year to see if you’re hitting the recommended target, and whether that target works for your farm. See which apps or programs work best for that kind of data. Or ask your agronomist what it would cost to have her do it for you. It’s unlikely that the need for record-keeping is going to diminish on farms anytime soon, especially with the growing calls for transparency from the public and food industry. If you aren’t doing it already, you might as well get started. Even better, you might as well figure out how you can use it to improve your agronomy and bottom line. GN

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Can’t take the farm from the boy

The power of saying yes to opportunities

Agreeing to try something new, just saying “yes” can bring many benefits — personal and professional Toban Dyck

tobandyck@gmail.com

n March of 2016, I said yes to something I knew very little about, something that would take me off the farm. I was reticent at first. I wanted to remain committed to the farm, and I did not want my working away from the yard leave more work for others. I’ve been at Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers for a year now, and I haven’t looked back. So, here’s a light-hearted toast to you, Grainews readers, and the ag industry, in general. And here’s to being less averse to risk and saying yes when it hurts to do so. Ask my wife, Jamie. When I asked her if we should move back to the farm in 2012, her first response was, “hell no.” But, in May of 2012 that changed to yes, and in August we moved. It was CropConnect time. I was staying at the Victoria Inn in Winnipeg, the hotel hosting the conference. I was attending for work, though I probably would have attended as a farmer. I had two columns to write during the days I was there: one for Grainews (this one) and one for the Financial Post. This wasn’t going to be a problem. Writing is what evenings are for. Wrong. Evenings, it turns out, are for something else, entirely. Because I said yes I met a plant breeder who blew my mind, and 999 other, amazing people. Because I said yes, I’ve had a second, maybe third-row seat to the complex and interesting mechanism that is agriculture in Canada. And, because I said yes, I went go-karting with a bunch of people from Manitoba Corn Growers, Manitoba Canola Growers and Alberta Canola Growers. I lost, miserably. I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t walk 10 feet in that hotel without running into someone I now know or at least recognize. Writing did not happen those evenings. This column was submitted a week late. Working in the agriculture industry, as a columnist and as a communicator, has been an invaluable experience. I have never felt more at-home in an industry than I do in agriculture. I’m a fatalist, so I often find myself evaluating moments as though they’ll be my last. “That was a great experience. If I lose the farm and my job today, I’ll always have that experience. No one can take that away from me.” It seems dark, and it is, but it’s not as bad as you think. When I started this column in 2012, readers were interested in what I was doing. I can say this because they would email me, saying things like, “congratulations, “love your column,” “if you ever have any questions, let me know.”

I’ve written for a few publications in my career, but you guys, Grainews readers, are the most engaged. My wife, Jamie, would agree. I’ve received valuable information from some of you. One reader even took the time to compile his ag degree notes for me to draw from. I still have that file. It’s useful. But it’s also nostalgic. And last winter, when I missed a string of Grainews columns, a concerned reader took the time to contact me to make sure I was okay. All of these things have enriched my experience on the

farm. I have learned a lot since 2012, and farming has changed along the way. What’s next? That is the question, the fear, and the fun. I had no idea what would happen next when I said yes last March, when Jamie said yes in 2012, and all the little yeses in between. And I have no idea what will happen five years from now. Our farm will no doubt look different in 2022. Heck, so will I. (I was stopped by a reader the other day who told me that I looked nothing like my column picture.)

Perhaps we’ll have some tiledrained acres by then. Perhaps we’ll have more land. Perhaps not. The point is this: between now and some time in the future, I will have said yes to a few more things. You will have, too. Mistake or not, all of those things will have changed you. All of those things will have been experiences no one can take from you. It’s these things, these experiences, that add to what it means to be a person in this world. And while this is an ag column, it’s also a column about me, a person who farms.

I can be quite critical, so touting “yes” as the thing to say without throwing in at least one caveat seems like a disservice to all those philosophy courses I took years ago. It’s good to know your limits. I have said yes to a lot of things, and when all those things have deadlines on the same day, life gets a little frenzied. Life is great. Use your head. Say yes to things. And have a great growing season. GN Toban Dyck is a freelance writer and a new farmer on an old farm. Follow him on Twitter @tobandyck.

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Guarding wealth

Long-term investing is a sure thing There are short-term risks, but inflation and survivor bias make long-term bets winners By Andrew Allentuck

et’s have a heart to heart talk about the fundamentals of investing on the farm and off the farm and, for that matter, investing in education for a career or a used car. Every investment has character, whether it’s a tech stock and you have to bet on a new trend or product on the Internet, or a bland government bond that rises and falls with inflation and interest rate forecasts. But behind the unique characteristics of the asset you are considering are the fundamental odds of winning and losing. Investing is all about risk. Take out the words about one thing or another and there is nothing but risk! Let’s take an example. If a trade or an investment in anything has a $10 gain to be had and a probability of working out profitably 99.9 per cent of the time, but can generate a $5,000 loss the other or 0.1 per cent of the time, then it has a positive expected value. The payoff would be $9.99 and the potential loss $5. But if the $5,000 loss has a 0.2 per cent chance of occurrence, a $10 potential loss, then the trade or investment has approximately zero value. And, if the same bet has a chance of 0.3 per cent of the time, a $30 potential loss, it has a negative expected value. The example has two parts, both vital to the foundation of investing: what are the odds of winning and how much do you want to bet? The way the example is set up, the odds are dramatic and not really characteristic of the market. Few investments are 99.9% sure to win and most have much more than a 1/10 of one per cent chance of losing.

Inflation and survivor bias Now let’s look at the reality of investments. As you will see, time is on the side of the patient investor and dramatically improves the odds of winning. You can make stocks, well, almost, win over periods of decades based on two key observations: 1. Inflation: Inflation pushes up asset prices. The price tags on steel girders, oranges at the store, a ton of potash fertilizer and a combine all rise over time. They do not rise evenly, but if you are diversified, you will gain in the end. Corporate earnings fattened by higher prices

for the things or services they sell will rise. The real value of earnings after inflation may not be higher, but the bottom line will be fatter. Inflation creates nominal gains for most businesses. 2. Survivor bias: Survivor bias kills off losers. Survivor bias, the phenomenon that any diversified index automatically drops the losers and the bankrupt and adds the winners that qualify for inclusion, means that there is an upward bias in the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and, for that matter, indices of German pharmaceutical makers and Japanese steel makers. The survivors are always the winners and the losers that drag down averages vanish. So any broad index has survivor bias working for it. The key word is “broad.” Playing survivor bias to the max means ensuring that winners keep pulling up the index. But winners are winners for only so long. In the 1950s there was a list of supposedly sure thing winners called the Nifty Fifty. They were the biggest stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. The list included Eastman Kodak. The film biz fizzled in the age of digital photography. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012, then emerged as an operating company in 2013. If you want an index, buy a broad one. Narrow indexes defeat the concept of having the winners rescue the averages even if some firms or sectors are flops. Does this always work? Well, no. If the downdraft is strong enough, as it was in 1987 when the New York Stock Exchange dropped 22.6 per cent on Oct. 19 and, the same day, Hong Kong shares fell 45.8 per cent, diversification alone will not help. You had to wait for recovery, which did happen. It also goes the other way. The bond market has ended a remarkable 33-year bull run driven by annual interest rates that fell from double digits per year for 10-year government bonds to low single digits in 2016 when some government bonds, especially in Europe, offered negative returns. But the broad bond market, which includes high yield or junk bonds, having had lots of ups and downs in the last three decades, is still going strong. The point: the wider your diversification, the more secure your wealth both in financial markets and in the vast world of stocks and bonds and real estate

and, for that matter, wheat and flax and eggs. Collectively they rise with inflation and cross stimulation.

Index fluctuations Each index has its own distinctive responses to economic conditions, volatility and sensitivity to underlying currency changes. The complexity of the indices and their interrelationships implies that one should buy not just one but perhaps a few with relatively little covariance. The idea is that they should not dance together. Thus the Dow 30, which is heavily American (though companies do have global businesses) and the EuroStoxx 50 are less interrelated than the Dow 30 and the Russell 2000, each a sample of the U.S. market.

Asset category diversification is a basic method of putting at least some money out of harm’s way when markets plunge. The other way is the simple process of rebalancing, that is, selling stocks that have done very well and buying those that have not. The argument against this kind of asset rebalancing is that many stocks are long-term winners. Followers would have sold off much of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most successful conglomerates of all time, and missed out on its extraordinary internal growth from US$20 a share in 1967 to a recent value of US$246,250 per share. However, rebalancing at a fixed time of the year, say quarterly or annually, does reduce risk and maintain growth.

A LIST OF BROAD INDICES Index

Asset Base

Currency

2016 Inflation

S&P/TSX

Cdn. Stocks

1.50%

Dow 30

U.S. mega caps

US$

2.10%

23 markets, 54% U.S.

US$

n/a

Russell 2000

U.S. small caps

US$

2.10%

EuroStoxx 50

Europe megacaps

Euro, US$, C$

n/a

Cdn Bond Index

60% gov./40% corp.

2.10%

MSCI EAFE

US$ Hedged, 25% Japan, 20% U.K.

US$

n/a

MSCI World

Note: This list if for information only. Be sure to do your own due diligence and discuss investments with your financial advisor.

52330-1 DAS_Simplicity_FullRate_12-8419x9.indd 1

So we come back to the idea that all investing is just risk management. You could say it’s one idea with many flavours. If you concentrate risk in one company or one industry, you are betting that you know the winner to be. It’s a tough call. If you spread the risk to a market, as the S&P/TSX does for public companies in Canada, you reduce your risk and buy safety at the price of not being 100 per cent in winners or, of course, 100 per cent in the losers. Indices that automatically shear off losers and boost their performance with inflation almost guarantee long term gains. GN Andrew Allentuck is author of “When Can I Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work” (Penguin, 2011).

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Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Soils and crops

Simplifying phosphorus

Experts’ opinion on P fertilizer have changed over time, and are still changing now Les Henry

n the early days of fertilizer use on the Canadian Prairies phosphorus was the only game in town- mostly 11-48-0. “If in doubt use 11-48,” was the chant. Much work was done to find the amounts to use for various crops and soils and the best way to put it on. We thought we knew it all. But, as so often happens we really had it all wrong and a major change in thinking has happened in the past few years. We did articles on some of the new ideas in March and April, 2015,

Figure 2: The new style: 4 simple P pools

SOIL TEST P Readily available and extractable P

Immediately available P on soil solution

Pool 2

Pool 1

Plant-available P as determined be well-tested methods used in routine soil analysis

Source: “Better Crops,” Vol. 98, Page 22 with notes by Les Henry.

with the seed. Countless experiments were done to find the most economic rate for each crop and soil situation. Eventually soil testing came along so more accurate recommendations were possible. The old story was that “a little dab’ll do ya” and phosphorus

issues of Grainews for those who care to look back. In this piece we will try to sum it all up and look to the future.

The Old Story The early work showed clearly that the only way to apply P was to put it

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Loss readily available and extractable P

Much less readily available and extractable P

Pool 3

Pool 4

AGRONOMIC TIME

GEOLOGIC TIME

should be placed with the seed. High tech experiments using radioactively labelled P32 fertilizer showed clearly that only about 30 per cent of the actual fertilizer P ended up in the crop. The old story said that the other 70 per cent of the fertilizer P got “sucked up” by the soil, never more to be accessed by a plant root. Phosphorus fertilizer does not “gas off” and leaching is usually not an issue so it must be sucked up in stubborn soil minerals that hang on to it all. So, on and on we went with more on more experiments. Why was flax so dumb that it would not respond much to P fertilizer? Endless laboratory fractionations were made and complicated mathematical models derived so we could get to the bottom of what was going on. Conceptual models like the one shown here were used and combined with detailed laboratory fractionations. The idea was to use mathematical models so the entire picture of how Mother Nature operated could be deduced. Good luck! In the process, several very good field experiments were done in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota with very large rates of onetime broadcast applications of P. Those experiments showed clearly that residual responses were real. But work continued to refine the model so every situation could be dealt with. Many papers were published and many conferences were held to deal with ever more minute details of “the model.” But what about the farmer?

The new story? The new story for me started just a few years ago when Renaud Lemke of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Swift Current took the simple long term N/P experiments from

Swift Current and did some simple arithmetic. His math showed that 98 per cent of the fertilizer P that had been added over the years could be accounted for by the extra P in the wheat the farmer hauled off to the elevator. The icing on the cake was a piece by Johnny Johnston and Paul Poulton of the famous Rothamsted Research Center near London, U.K., and Paul Fixen of the International Plant Nutrient Institute working in the U.S. “Better Crops with Plant Food. Vol. 98, 2014, Pages 22-24. They came up with the simple Four Pool concept as shown in Figure 2. This direct quote from the above piece says it all: “Data from vastly different soils located on two continents, and from both controlled experiments in England and derived state-wide aggregated data in the U.S., were merged to evaluate P use efficiency. The data suggest that there is an underlying “simple rule” for the behaviour of plant-available soil P in these soils, which can be related to a four-pools concept of inorganic soil P.” I have added a few notes to Figure 2 to explain how it works. Pool 1 is very small and interacts on a shortterm basis with Pool 2. Pools 1 and 2 together are what we measure when a sample is sent of to a lab to get “available P.” It is the current account in a money analogy. Pool 3 is the operative savings account, which transfers to the current account in agronomic time. The fourth Pool is the basic soil P minerals that react in geologic time. So, the conceptual model can be made much simpler and can be used to give the farmer what is needed. Continued on Page 32 

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Source: Sadler, J.M. and Stewart, J.W.,“Residual Fertilizer Phosphorus in Western Canadian soils: A Review,” Saskatchewan Insistute of Pedology, Publ. No. R136, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Sask. 1974.

2017-01-05 1:06 PM

columns

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

The Future

 Continued from Page 31

It all boils down to simple math. Take off more P than you add and the soil test level goes down and so does crop yield. Add more P than you take off and the soil test P goes up and so do future crop yields. The soil test is what will keep us honest. The P soil test is to a farmer as the Hemoglobin A1C blood test is to a diabetic.

Manitoba has taken the lead in applying the new story and have worked out the numbers for the P that is taken off the field with various crops. John Heard from Manitoba Agriculture, Don Flaten from the University of Manitoba, and Cindy Grant from AAFC Brandon (now retired) were the folks that put it together into new recommendations for fertilizer P.

What is needed now is a good summary table of all the various P soil tests that are in common use and what the numbers are for very low, low, medium, high and very high for each of those tests. It is possible to apply one large P rate to last several years, and broadcast is OK as long as it does not wash off the surface in a big rain. Banding is OK, but rates with seed T:9.875” are limited. New information is

coming out on that front also. Sideor mid-row band at higher rates is good but at very wide spacing the distribution can be a problem, and a problem for future soil samples. Soil test P varies greatly on rolling land and hilltops (eroded knolls) are notoriously deficient. Variable rate should fit the bill for P provided you can get the right soil samples to get the right answer for each zone in a field. GN

J.L.(Les) Henry is a former professor and extension specialist at the University of Saskatchewan. He farms at Dundurn, Sask. His book, “Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water,” mixes the basics and practical aspects of soil, fertilizer and farming. To order a signed copy, send a cheque for $50 (includes shipping and GST) to Henry Perspectives, 143 Tucker Cres, Saskatoon, Sask., S7H 3H7.

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columns

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Understanding market bulls and bears

Selling your spring-threshed grain Brian Wittal has talked to potential buyers of those cereal crops still out in the field Brian Wittal

bfwittal@procommarketingltd.com

nother warm spell has some producers who face the unenviable task of spring combining calling to ask what they’ll be able to do with the grain they harvest in the spring. Farmers are wondering where they can sell it and what it will be worth. Some are wondering if they should even bother trying to combine it, or just turn it under or burn it off. These are some very good questions. I really didn’t have any good answers, other than “it depends on the quality of the grain once it is harvested, and the amount of similar quality grain in the market.” Since 2016 was likely the worst Prairie harvest year I’ve seen in my 35 years working in the ag industry, I figured I should make some calls to end users and get the information right from the buyers and find out: • Are they going to buy springthreshed grains (STG) or not? • What grading parameters will they use if they are buying STG? • What are their main concerns with STG?

Feed mills The wheat, barley and oats that are left out are going to be, at best, feed grain. At worst, they’ll be unsalable, depending on quality or contamination issues. Representatives from various feed mill companies with facilities across the Prairies tell me they will not be buying any STG this spring or any time later in the year. There are plenty of good-quality feed grains available across the Prairies. STG pose too much of a risk when it comes to meeting quality specifications for feed blends. Their biggest concerns are with contamination, be it excreta, mould, or dirt and rocks in the grain. Secondarily they are concerned about the inconsistent quality of the grain as far as weight and protein levels, which causes a real problem when they are trying to meet minimum standards in customer blends. Current Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulations include very specific guidelines and standards that feed mills must meet when preparing feed for animal consumption in regards to product consistency and limits or restrictions on foreign materials and potentially harmful substances including ergot, excreta, and mould. For feed mills, buying STG is not work the risk. One representative said, “Even if we got it for free it is not worth the risk or hassle to try to blend and use that grain because we just can’t guarantee the quality of the end product to our customers and we could lose our license.” Grain brokers and larger feedlots are, for the most part, not interested in buying STG either, because of the extra risk and hassles of blending the

grain out slowly to ensure they don’t use too much of it at one time and make some animals sick or dead. However, they did say if the STG is light weight with no contaminates and has a decent protein and moisture levels, they would buy STG, but they would need to see good representative samples before they would commit to taking anything. As for the price, they say it will depend on the market at the time and the amount of grain of similar quality available.

Brokers and ethanol Brokers who specialize in lowquality or damanged grains tell me that there is a small market for low-quality feed grain. It may take a couple of years to move all of the STG taken off this spring. They have clients who are smaller feeders that can handle poorer quality grains but don’t need big volumes, so it will take a long time for them to slowly blend out STG. They advise making sure the grain is as close to dry as possible it could

end up sitting in a bin for a year or two or three. They will also take grain that has some excreta or dirt and run it through a cleaner to improve the quality, but that will add costs. As they said, “You either have something you can’t sell, or you clean it and you have something you can sell for a dollar or two a bushel.” I also called a couple of facilities that use grain to produce ethanol. They said they would need to see grain samples to see if there is

enough value left in the grain that they can extract anything. Again, they have plenty of good feed grain stocks available so they really don’t need to buy lower-quality grain. In the next issue, I will relay what I found out about potential markets for spring-threshed canola. GN 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).

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FARM SAFETY WEEK

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Avoid fires on grain farms

Fires are a serious farm hazard. Be prepared, and assess the risks of fire on your farm By Shanyn Silinksi

ire is a constant hazard. From a welding fire in the shop, to a wiring fire in a piece of equipment to an ignition of grain dust in the grain dryer. Understanding the fire hazards on a farm can be overwhelming. There are just so many fuel sources, so many ways they can ignite. Fire fighters are not always equipped to handle some fires on farm, and the response time is typically longer than for an urban fire crew. What is the best way to address the dangers of fire on a farm? For any farm the first thing to do is assess your most dangerous areas. Then account for your methods of suppression (water truck, water tank, hoses, fire extinguishers, soil for smothering). View your hazardous areas with a critical eye — what additional hazards exist there? Are fire trucks able to reach your vulnerable

areas? What chances are there for spreading or an explosion? Many fire departments will come and help producers do a fire risk assessment. This is an excellent opportunity for them to become familiar with your farm and how best to deploy their fire fighters and equipment. It is a great time for a producer to see where they have vulnerabilities and where they have assets to reduce the risk of fire starting or spreading.

Fire types The variety of fires which can occur on a farming operation have filled books and training courses. For this article let’s touch upon the fires that grain farms can be most vulnerable to. Heating of stored grains is a big enough fire risk that the Canadian Grain Commission has created a downloadable manual. (Find it on the CGC website at www.grainscanada. gc.ca by searching for “fire.” You’ll find links to documents on “Spoilage and heating of stored

agricultural products.) Heating of stored forage and bedding is also cause for fires. The biggest steps to mitigating the risks for both these products is proper storage, monitoring for heating and ensuring they are not near other combustibles. Drying grain has a number of risks. There are the obvious ones such as the dryer catching on fire or the grain dust igniting as well as others, which are both safety risks and secondary hazards. A recent grain dryer fire illustrated this very well. A dryer full of canola ignited. The local fire department didn’t have the capability to reach the top of the dryer to cool it from the top with their available water. The dryer was also located very close to a transformer. Transformers can explode when exposed to fire and heat. The proximity to the main power and natural gas lines also made the possibilities of turning those utilities off somewhat risky. The primary fire started in the grain dryer. Spilled burning grain

could have (but didn’t) cause a secondary fire. Either scenario could have impacted power, gas and a transformer. An assessment of the fire risk would have identified these risks, which would have changed the approach to the fire by the manager and staff. Responders would have known what to expect prior to arriving on scene. Grain bins can be victims of fire that impact them, or they can be the origin of the fire from heating grains. In either case the handling of a hot bin, the moving of any dust producing grain and the suppression of fire all have specific hazards that should be handled by trained professionals. The best way to address grain fires is to prevent them. GN Shanyn Silinski is a writer, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agriculture advocate. She loves working in agriculture, agriculture safety and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

Farm safety for tweens and teens They’re no longer children, but they’re not fully-matured adults yet By Shanyn Silinski

one are the days here where the number of hands determined the success of the farm, regardless of the age of those hands. We no longer have to ask children to risk their health and education to ensure the family farm makes a profit. That does not lessen the desire for our young people to join in the work of the farm, and that is great news for agriculture’s future. We need their enthusiasm, their energy and their love of agriculture. But we need to remember that we have a responsibility to our young people to teach them the safe ways to do jobs on the farm, and to ensure they are doing jobs that are suitable for their physical and mental maturity. It is an awesome sight to see a young person riding a pen, running a tractor, opening gates or helping in the shop. There is nothing like it to teach ingenuity, work ethic and to strengthen that connection to the land and the animals. There is nothing more horrifying than to see a youngster involved in a farming accident. Just because a teen or tween desperately wants to help doesn’t mean they are ready

to. The old argument of “well I started young” or “My granddad was doing more than that” at that age doesn’t lessen the danger, or our responsibility.

Tweens & Teens Tweens are at that awkward age between a child and a teenager — body is maturing, mind is growing, independence is taking a stronger voice. Gone too often is the eager watcher that you see in younger children. Where just being with you while you do the jobs is enough. They see what you do and dream of the day they too can do it. Tweens are at the age where they truly are starting to think they are ready to start doing work with you. Teens are those almostadults who are as tall, or taller, than you, but are still maturing, still growing. More independence and responsibility comes with age — learner’s or even driver’s licenses, being able to stay alone and likely tackle tasks on their own. They look and sound like some of your younger adult farm crew. Regardless of their experience and maturity (physical and mental) planning for their safety is different than for your regular hired hands. Tweens and teens are still developing their decision

making skills, their ability to discern the difference between a quick finish and a proper one. They also have a “10 foot tall and bullet proof” mentality where risk taking is a thrill, and a close call is reason to brag rather than consider behaviour change. Physical changes at this age can leave some teens and tweens less than graceful, and their reflexes in situations of high stress can be deadly. They may think they have the skills to handle equipment at a higher speed than is safe. Or think that they can get to a gate quicker than an animal. They may think they can do multiple tasks at one time, safely. Many hazards teens and tweens face will be new to them, especially if they are just starting to do jobs as workers rather than as observers. They are an age where listening to instructions they feel are unnecessary may cause friction with the adults around them. They think they know it, and want to prove it. Find safe ways for them to do so. Discuss near misses and why they are important learning tools. Ensuring teens and tweens are safe doesn’t mean an overhaul of your safety plan. It does mean some special consider-

ations for their abilities. They are physically and mentally not adults. Do not have the same expectations of them as you do an adult worker, but apply the same rules. Have clear rules about phones (calls and texting), safety equipment, when and where they can work independently and when they need someone to supervise. Also be clear on who will be supervising — this is on-the-job training, not babysitting. Be clear about their adherence to the safety plan you hold your staff accountable for. Have them offer input when developing safety plans, show them the importance of working safe. Let them take first aid, send them to training sessions. Most importantly model the actions of safety. They will hear your actions louder than your words. If they see you being safe they will model that. Share with us how you model safety and teach your teens and tweens to be safe partners in agriculture. GN Shanyn Silinski is a writer, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agriculture advocate. She loves working in agriculture, agriculture safety and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

Equipment first aid kits By Shanyn Silinski A number of years ago Alberta producer Gerald Oloske injured his hand during harvest while working on a combine. It was in that moment of crisis that he realized his equipment didn’t have first aid kits. While he was feeling shock coming on, he resolved to create kits for all his equipment. Over the years he has refined the kits to suit each farm task. Oloske’s rule of thumb is to have a kit in every piece of equipment that you get into and to ensure you have enough supplies in each kit to treat your crew. He strives to have a nine to 10 person kit in each piece of equipment. He’s also taken time to print up stickers that show the equipment has a first aid kit inside. “If you hurt something, like cutting your finger, and there isn’t anything clean in the cab for a bandage, just oily or dirty rags, you leave yourself open for an infection.” Oloske says. With the amount of chemicals, lubricants, dirt and debris you find working on a farm of any type, proper treatment of a wound right after the injury happens is very important. A proper and accessible first aid kit is the best thing to have. Oloske usually uses pre-made first aid kits from industrial safety companies and then adds his own farm specific touches. Things like an eyewash bottle for the sprayer; welding gloves for combines. Each kit should also have a first aid tip card. Many field operations are done alone, so having a contact card in the kits is important. Oloske keeps more than the number for 911 on the contact cards in his kits — he includes the local dealership main and after hours numbers, any neighbors who could come and help, the local fire/ambulance hall number and family member numbers. It is very important to know what items are in your first aid kit and how to use them. Restocking and assessing your kits on a regular basis ensures they have what you might need for the jobs you’re doing. Keep an inventory card in your kit, and put your kits inside a large zipper bag to keep them clean. By putting the stickers on the windows you let everyone know there is a kit inside the cab if one is needed. First aid training has become more accessible. At least one person on a crew should have first aid and CPR training. Producers can, of course, build their own kits. Keep in mind that although a first aid kit may seem expensive, if you have to put it together piece by piece you may not see a big cost savings. The importance of having kits in all your equipment is huge. It means you or your workers will have access to items that can help them if they are injured. If you would like information on Oloske’s kids, call Gerald at 780-920-4868. Shanyn Silinski

FARM SAFETY WEEK

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Farm safety: lights, camera, action!

These three movie set words are more than just stage directions. They also apply on the farm By Shanyn Silinski

echnology is cool. I think anyone who has been to an ag show would agree. We have apps and high tech add-ons for our equipment. Things like monitors and cameras, sensors and remote alerting. We also add on low-tech devices to ensure efficiency and improve safety.

Lights! A farm manager I know who takes care of a large grain farm with around a dozen employees in season is always assessing to see where improvements can be made. He has found the biggest improvements have come with better lighting. Better lighting makes working in dark and poorly light areas easier and safer. Choosing the right lights can be intimidating — there are so many choices are available. Making a site map can help determine the strength and type of lighting you need and where to put it. Before you run down and buy a

bunch of lights on sale consider your lighting plan. And also consider how you can incorporate other safety measures such as cameras and reflectors in your overall plan. Three main areas of lighting are important to map out. Stationary sites: grain bins, loading areas, service and parking areas. Movable equipment: augers, sweeps, baggers and extractors, seeders and tanks. Operator-driven equipment: tractors, trucks, combines, sprayers, etc. Stationary sites pose placement challenges. Not every yard has poles or high enough points for overhead lighting and it truly can be a challenge to reach the tops of many high bins with any type of light not attached to them. The areas of safety concern for stationary sites are travel areas, moving equipment (belts, augers, motors) and areas where workers will be climbing or walking. Travel areas should have clear sight lines for travel paths making it easy for equipment and

trucks to move to the different areas. These lights should not be such that they blind the operator but illuminate the area in which they will be working. Reducing glare and shadows ensures people and equipment are as visible as possible for safety. Movable equipment is often used in travel areas but not always. The lighting required for them should be specific to the task at hand. Directional lighting for augers as well as general lighting for safe operations. Some lights mount on the auger to illuminate and others are directional and can be mounted on the roof of a truck or tractor. These are especially handy when they come with a remote control for changing direction and angle. Service trucks, extractors and baggers have similar lighting needs. General lighting for operators, and specific target lighting for alignment. Operator-driven equipment should have the right amount of lights for the job. Being visible and

illuminating blind spots when an operator is outside of their cab is especially important for safety in low light and night operations. Lighting should be adjustable and enough lights used to provide clear safe access to equipment. Un-mounted lights such as magnetic flashlights and capmounted lights increase the operator’s view and visibility. Many jackets and hats come with reflective stripes already in the fabric wearing these adds to a worker’s visibility.

Camera! Generally cameras are used to check on equipment, guide equipment or monitor. They also can be excellent tools for safety. Being able to see behind or beside gives operators an extra opportunity to check for ground workers and safety hazards. Cameras for equipment have day and night capabilities, which allow for greater vision. By learning to look at what the monitors show in a critical way, operators can learn to identify hazards.

However there is a challenge to using cameras and lights when working — they are only tools towards working safely. There will still be blind spots and shadows, equipment operators and ground workers should be aware of blind spots and stay away from them.

Action! Before anything is engaged, moved or turned on all personnel should be visually accounted for. Letting everyone on the crew know the expectation of being accounted for shows your investment in their safety. Let your operators know where the ground crew will gather, set an all clear signal and get back to work. GN Shanyn Silinski is a writer, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agriculture advocate. She loves working in agriculture, agriculture safety and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

Safety on your farm: it’s not hard

Building a safe farm operation may seem overwhelming; it’s just a change of attitude By Shanyn Silinksi

aving a safe farming operation is not as hard as it seems. It starts with a change of attitude — letting go of old traditions and habits. Considering how serious our work is, how seriously we should take the safety of our workers and family, and how seriously we need to take the impressions we leave with business partners, consumers and the public. How do we do this? We do this by making jobs safer. The push back in some areas against legis-

lation and the reluctance to engage in the safety conversation has to stop. I have heard time and time again how safe people believe our farms to be. How they don’t need anyone telling them how to be safe. How they want to be left alone to do their jobs. My reply is “Show me the data.” Prove your safety record. As we tell every kid in every math class, show your work. Farming is time sensitive. We have small windows for in season work. We have one chance to make the pay day happen. None of those statements are untrue.

But none of them invalidate the need for a safety culture and language. None of those statements prove we are safer than other industries. How many farms track and post their number of “Incident Free Days” or “Days Lost Due to Injury?” Maybe we should. Count those small injuries. Those near misses that often become legend at coffee time have a place on the Safety Triangle. The essence of the Safety Triangle is this: the biggest influence on safety for any industry is people and their actions. The second biggest influence is the ratio of

near misses to injury incidents to serious or fatal incidents. We can use experience and research from other industries to make agriculture safer for everyone. Why don’t we? Agriculture is a highly dangerous field of work, stressful and with hazards many people cannot even comprehend. What we need is a change of language to one where investing the time to be proactive and safe is not only encouraged, but expected. This language needs to be used at a peer level, where managers talk about how the near misses have dropped, how the training is making the bottom line

stronger. Potential new hires need to see us caring for their health and safety. Make safety a part of your day and make Farm Safety Week a time when we can share our successes. Make it a zero incident day, month, year. Celebrate that. GN Shanyn Silinski is a writer, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agriculture advocate. She loves working in agriculture, agriculture safety and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @ MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

A note about the author of these safety features You’ve been reading my safety articles for Grainews for the past few years, but you may not know why I am so passionate about farm safety, as a mom, a farm wife and as a communicator. I was the kid who wanted playgrounds, field trips and classrooms to be safe. I did my own accident reports on playground incidents. Yeah, that kid. But then I became a fire fighter, a captain and a training officer. Safety became a professional goal, a responsibility to a community and my crew, and to bystanders and other responders.

My passion for safety and sharing knowledge led me to work for a federal R&D project on animal emergency response. Over seven years we worked with an international working group to find ways to train responders, owners and transporters about planning, response and prevention. I have embraced social media and continued to write since I was literally a kid on a newspaper. Writing for research, reassessing and writing emergency planning documents, creating documents and assessing materials for other organiza-

tions led me to write for PetMatchMaker. com about safety and emergency planning, along with blogging as a guest writer and on my own blogs. That also led me to write forGrainews. Working on and having a spouse managing many types of farms, and spending time with Aggies (U of M) honed my understanding of farm safety expectations and the reality. There are variables in farming, in agriculture, that change daily, hourly or even minute-by-minute. Our dedication to being safe, to having an active safety culture does not.

My perspective on safety is so very simple: make it part of the daily conversation. With your family. With your workers. With your community. While Farm Safety Week comes around only once a year, it is a daily consideration for my family. Not just because I am a complete safety geek, but because it is good for our family, good for our farms and good for business. If you have topics you’d like to learn more about, share them with me. If you know of someone doing something in moving farm safety to the next level I’d love to talk to them. Shanyn Silinski

machinery & shop

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Machine safety

U of M holds first tractor safety day Pilot project aims to teach ag students about on-farm machinery safety By Scott Garvey

photo: scott garvey

ast weekend I found myself sitting in the local Tim Hortons having coffee with a retired farmer. He was missing some fingers on his left hand from an amputation. And it made me think of how many retired — and current — farmers I know just in this area that have similar injuries from a life on the farm. Maybe I paid more attention to that injury than I normally would have, because only a couple of days before that, on January 26th, I was invited to the University of Manitoba’s Glenlea Research Farm near Winnipeg to observe the first-ever Tractor Safety Day. It was a pilot project aimed at introducing structured machinery safety training into the university’s ag certificate program. Why teach students, who are mostly farm kids anyway, about machinery safety when many of them have already logged dozens or hundreds of hours on machines? The farm accident statistics say it all. A study titled “Agricultural Fatalities in Canada, 1990-2008” provides some alarming information. In the 19 years looked at in the study, there were an astonishing 1,975 deaths from farm accidents; that’s an average of 104 per year, which makes farming one of the most dangerous occupations in the country. 70 per cent of those incidents were machinery related, involving rollovers, runovers and entanglements. What’s perhaps even more

Students in the U. of M. ag certificate program took part in a pilot project that added a machinery safety-training day to their course.

disturbing is 14 per cent of those killed were farm children. One of the instructors at the training day was Morag Marjerison, who is now a farm safety consultant, but she’s had experience as a farm accident investigator in both the U.K. and Canada. She’s been a long-time proponent of improving PTO safety, having investigated many deaths from shaft entanglement. “I hear all the standard excuses,” she told students. “On the day it happens, someone says, ‘it’s never happened before’.” She made the point that every accident ends up involving other members of the family, who will be

forever scarred by finding a loved one mangled, often beyond recognition, at the site of the death. “One wife said she couldn’t even tell if it was her husband,” Marjerison said of a previous investigation. “For the vast majority of you, if you do get wrapped around a PTO shaft, it’s going to be a member of your family that finds you.” In another classroom session, Roy Vust, a retired farmer from Portage la Prairie, recounted the farm accident that left him with burns to most of his body and facing months of painful recovery. “I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I was upside-down,” he

said telling how his tractor rolled over and spilled fuel caught fire. “You don’t have time to run away.” His message was every tractor should have a rollover protective structure. And wearing a seatbelt is a critical part of preventing injuries in those types of accidents. “It (a seatbelt) is a critical aspect of the rollover structure,” confirmed Lorne Grieger an engineer from PAMI, who also spoke in the session. And preventing rollovers comes

down to operator judgement, particularly when working on steep inclines. Asking students to look through sample tractor operators’ manuals, Grieger demonstrated that none provide a specific angle that is safe. “That’s the challenge (for operators),” he said. “What’s safe and what’s not?" GN Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

Industry quote: “Buddy seats (in a machine) are for training, not babysitting,” Thea Green, instructor and co-ordinator of farm safety projects at the University of Manitoba’s School of Agriculture.

news bits

As a group of students were clustered around and under a tractor, another student in the cab looked out to try and see them. It was all part of the University of Manitoba’s first tractor safety training day. The point of the exercise was to show a class of ag students how many bind spots there are around today’s large tractors. In the end, nearly a dozen students remained out of sight from their cohort in the cab, even as he tried to spot them from the operator’s seat. That’s a problem at the heart of the ag industry’s persistent runover accident statistics. The training day was designed to identify common contributing factors, like the visibility limitations around machines, that figure prominently in on-farm accidents in the hope students will be safer farm operators after they graduate. “We’re hoping to be able to offer this to ag students every year,” explained Thea Green, instructor and coordinator of farm safety projects at the U. of M.’s School of Agriculture. “We’d also like to be able to make this available to producers.” As they returned to their chairs from their hide-and-seek exercise, Green asked students how they might overcome the risk of running over unseen persons who might be standing near or working on a large machine. “Walk around the tractor before starting it,” was their clear conclusion. Wearing high visibility vests also made it easier to spot people partially hidden by the machine, noted the student in the cab. But with pressure on producers to get work done within a short time window, safety procedures like that, even if people are aware of the need for them, often get ignored. And even with the myriad of safety features built into today’s equipment, machinery-related injuries and deaths continue to happen. “Farmers have a tendency to bypass the engineering,” said Green, sadly. “That’s why we need the education component.”

photo: scott garvey

U of M hopes to expand machine safety training

During a training exercise, students hid around a tractor while another student in the cab tried to spot them, most remained unseen. That highlighted the need to do a walk around before starting machinery.

machinery & shop

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Machine safety

Safely extricate a stuck machine Replace those chains with tow straps and think safety

f you have a pile of old chains in your workshop ready to use when your tractor or combine gets stuck, just leave them there was the message instructors gave students during a lesson on how to extricate stuck heavy trucks and machines. The January classroom session was part of the University of Manitoba’s first Tractor Safety Day seminar. “From a safety perspective, a recovery strap is by far your best bet,” said Devin Pouteau, a U. of M. instructor and one of the presenters. “Chains are not recommended for extrications.” Chains are not only more dangerous to use, they are much more expensive to buy when compared to recovery straps. A comparison shown by instructors of a chain and strap with the same load rating provided a good example of that. The strap cost $90, compared to $726 for the chain. Many farms still have an ample supply of very old chain on hand, which will have an unknown load rating. Sitting on a table at the front of the classroom was an example of a chain found on a farm that wouldn’t be safe for anything, because it had stretched and welded links, making its safe working load unpredictable at best. Recovery straps also offer other advantages that make them a better tool for the job. “They’re made out of nylon,” added Pouteau. “It actually stores energy in the strap when it stretches.” That helps add energy during the pull and reduces the risk of damage to machines if there is a sudden jerk — unlike a chain, which has no give in it. Recovery straps should be used alone, whenever possible. Hooking a chain or heavy steel shackle to the end of it creates a big hazard. “If that strap ever breaks, you now have 50 or 75 pounds on the end of a very long slingshot,” explained Ron Krahn, another presenter. He noted that sometimes making an effective hook up to a machine with just a recovery strap could be difficult. “But a chain is still your last resort,” he added. And just like damaged chains, frayed straps should be discarded. Damage to their fibres can compromise them and create a failure hazard. Straps with knots in them should also not be used. Their minimum breaking strength rating should be three times the weight of the machine they are being used to pull. And bigger isn’t always better. It’s important to match the strap size to the job at hand. “Sizing a strap is really important,” said Pouteau. “Recovery straps need weight behind them to make them stretch.” Straps that are too heavy won’t stretch under light loads, and that forfeits their advantage. Good communication between everyone involved in the extrication process is crucial to get a machine out safely. That means being organized

and having people placed in the correct spot to manage the pull. Twoway radios could be a real benefit. “We actually prefer to have three people,” noted Krahn about operations on his farm. And whenever possible reducing the load is something producers should consider before trying to extricate a heavy machine. Emptying a loaded grain truck before trying to pull it out can prevent damage and minimize the stress on equipment. A picture of a loaded semi-trailer truck

stuck in a field with its front axle pulled off was shown to students to drive home that point. “Semis are the most difficult (to connect to),” said Krahn. “They really weren’t meant to convey a lot of force through the (front of) the tractor.” And operators should know when to give up when they get a machine stuck. “Sitting there and spinning for a long time usually isn’t going to get you anywhere,” said Krahn. And with the size and weight of

today’s machines, operators should first evaluate whether the job of extricating a stuck unit is something they can realistically handle with the equipment they have available on the farm. “Sometimes it’s beyond the scope of what you can do,” said Krahn. “Are you going to call in professional help?” GN Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

photo: scott garvey

By Scott Garvey

Ron Krahn shows students a damaged recovery strap that is no longer safe to use.

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machinery & shop

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Shop class

How to build a custom toolbox, Part 2 It’s time to build the box portion and finish off this custom toolbox project

n the last issue we took the hood from a 1960 Ford truck and used it as the basis for a completely customized workshop toolbox. Now with all the fabrication work done on the hood, which will be the box lid, we know the required build dimensions the lower box section that will fit to it. We wanted to follow the side contours of the hood as closely as possible when creating the box portion. But with that many bends to make, it amounted to a pretty complex shape. The simplest way to build it was to use several smaller sections and weld them together. In all, the box portion was made out of 12 separate pieces. (Yes. It was that complex.) The first step was to create the sides that wrapped around to the front. These pieces, like all the others, were cut out of flat 18-gauge steel. Enough extra material was left on them to create a one-inch flange on the top and bottom. Most of the pieces were too long for our metal brake to bend those flanges, so we just clamped them to the edge of a welding table and formed the bends with a hammer and block. It’s not the best way to do this job, but it works. So in true Grainews style, we did the best we could with what we had.

Once the top and bottom flanges were formed, a metal shrinkerstretcher tool was used to form the correct shape into them. (See the associated article for more on that.) The flat front centre section was made the same way. It didn’t need bending, but we decided to create an oval inset to place the hood trim piece from the truck into. The shrinker-stretcher was again used to create the rounded ends after bending 90 angles into the pieces. But it took seven small pieces to create that feature. Once the side pieces were formed, the hood was placed upside-down and the sides were clamped into place on top of it in order to begin welding them together. That ensured the box exactly matched the hood shape. After the sides were welded together, the whole assembly was placed on another sheet of 18-gauge steel so the bottom shape could be traced out and cut to correctly match what was already built. The two vent openings in the hood were closed off by welding more 18-gauge into them.

After sanding all the surfaces down to bare metal, including getting the surface rust off the new steel, the entire box was given a coat of primer. Some body filler was needed to fill in small imperfections and create a smooth surface for painting. A door handle from the truck along with the original hood latch were altered to work together as a lid locking mechanism. A piano-style hinge that runs almost the entire width of the box was riveted to back, allowing the lid to open. Applying a two-tone paint job and putting some adhesive-backed weather stripping between the lid and box were the final touches. The result, we think, is a pretty cool, one-off piece. Of course it would have been possible to buy a toolbox for only slightly more than the cost of our materials. But it wouldn’t be any different than what everyone else has. GN

The completed storage box.

Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at Scott.Garvey@ fbcpublishing.com.

Have you built something unique in your workshop? If so, let us know about it and we may feature it in an upcoming issue of “Grainews.” You may even earn yourself a free subscription, if we publish it.

The project started with this original hood from a 1960 Ford truck.

Using the hood-turned-lid as a template, it was place upside-down and box side sections were clamped in place on top of it to prepare for welding.

photos: scott garvey

By Scott Garvey

Once the sides were welded in, the entire piece was set on top of a sheet of metal to trace out the cut lines for the bottom section.

machinery & shop

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

It may not be a standard piece of farm workshop equipment, but for anyone who needs to do a little metal fabrication occasionally, a shrinker-stretcher can be a pretty useful tool. It came in very handy on the Grainews workshop toolbox project. The metal shrinker-stretcher basically does exactly what its name implies: shrink or stretch metal. It does this with two sets of jaws. As each one clamps down it also either compresses the metal or pulls it apart, which creates the shrinking or stretching action. In this way, the tool actually changes the thickness of the steel, which makes part of the piece longer or shorter depending on which jaw set is used. The dimensions of the unworked section remain the same, so the lengthened or shortened sections created by the tool cause the metal to deform into a curved shape. It’s useful for creating curved corner pieces of sheet metal. The pictures demonstrate what the shrinker-stretcher does to a flat piece of steel with a single 90° bend in it. By using the “stretch” jaws, the outside of the flange is lengthened, creating a curved shape. Using the shrinker side of the tool would cause the metal to “shrink,” forming an arc in the opposite direction.

photos: scott garvey

How to use a metal shrinker-stretcher tool

Starting with a flat piece of metal with a single 90° bend.

The flange is placed in the tool’s “stretcher” jaw, which causes the metal to deform into a curved shape.

The original flat piece of metal now has a curved shape. The curve radius can be increased by working it through the jaws multiple times.

Jaws squeeze together

Steel

Jaw

Stretching force as jaws spread part after clamping

How it works. The four sections in each jaw on the tool clamp down then move laterally, away from each other to “stretch” or toward each other to “shrink” the steel.

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machinery & shop

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Future technology

Electric shock: battery power it back J

ust as we’d got used to the idea that hydrogen is the fuel of the future for electrically-driven tractors — according to New Holland’s agenda at least — up pops John Deere with a prototype that puts battery power back in the frame. The people behind the project say it’s the first fully electric batterypowered high-performance tractor providing comprehensive functionality for agricultural applications. Inevitably, the prototype tractor is identified by an acronym: SESAM — Sustainable Energy Supply for Agricultural Machinery. It’s the result of a research project carried out in co-operation with the Kaiserlautern technical research university located 60 km west of John Deere’s European tractor factory in Mannheim, and a Munich-based energy research consultancy. The project has received financial support from the German government. The prototype is based on a Mannheim-built John Deere 6R Series tractor. Beneath the hood, where a diesel engine normally resides, is a 130 kWh, 670V Li-ion battery system. Power control electronics and a battery management system are installed where the exhaust and emissions control technologies are normally located. The battery powers a pair of 150 kW (200 hp) electric motors coupled to the tractor’s regular DirectDrive 24-speed powershift transmission. The motors can be linked to temporarily increase the power of the drivetrain up to 300 kW (400 hp), either for transport or for PTO and hydraulic work. But in standard operating mode, one motor is used for traction, delivering 130 kW of continuous power,

while the other drives the hydraulic pumps and power take-off. One of the attractions of using electric motors in this way is the ability to reduce the speed of the auxiliary drives in partial load conditions. Also, being able to vary the power take-off speed continuously and independently of the driving speed could be useful in saving energy and fine-tuning seedbed quality when using a tiller or power harrow. At present, one battery charge lasts up to four operating hours in typical mixed applications or for around 55 km of transport. Charging time for the battery, which is designed to last for 3,100 charging cycles, is about three hours. As battery technology development accelerates as all the major auto manufacturers pile into the electric cars market, power duration and charging time are both likely to be substantially improved. As it is, the system on the SESAM tractor has reverse-charging capability, so braking energy is recovered — with more than 90 per cent efficiency, say researchers. And, of course, an electric tractor can stand idle cost-free, unlike a diesel tractor. Like New Holland, the SESAM project collaborators envisage battery-powered electric tractors being part of a whole-farm energy concept that includes electricity generation from renewable sources, not only for on-farm consumption but also as a paying enterprise in its own right. They also highlight potential for reduced operating costs from tractors optimised to exploit the high efficiency of electric power and the number of maintenance- and wearfree drivetrain components involved. The technology is certainly evolving fast. As electric drive in road vehicles becomes more widespread

Lifting the lid on the John Deere battery-powered electric tractor — one 150kW (200 hp) motor drives the transmission, a second powers the PTO, hydraulics and auxiliary systems. But they can also work together to deliver up to 300 kW (400 hp) for non-draft applications.

so the cost of batteries and other components will come down. But there are still barriers to the adoption of electric tractors; not least the investment in diesel engine production infrastructure that most major manufacturers possess, and the likely lack of used equipment outlets for early adopters. Nonetheless, the Deere SESAM tractor looks to be a practical precursor to a commercial product. Future tractor drivers will surely have to forego the macho bark of a six-cylinder diesel in favour of the wimpish whine of electric motors. GN Peter Hill is a freelance machinery journalist based in the U.K.

Photos: John Deere

By Peter Hill

Photos: John Deere

John Deere unveils a prototype electric battery-powered tractor in Europe

The 130 kWh, 670V Li-ion battery system comfortably fills the space vacated by the diesel engine.

news bits

By Peter Hill Previous tractor electrification projects have focused on diesel-electric hybrids or the inclusion of electricity-generating capability on an otherwise standard diesel-engined tractor to power auxiliary systems and implements. Swiss manufacturer RigiTrac produced a research hybrid of its four-wheel drive tractor, powered by a 91 kW (126 hp) Deutz engine and with a 650V DC, 85 kW generator driving individual wheel motors. Autonomous Tractor Corporation — the company behind the Spirit self-driving tractor — offers the 400 hp eDrive diesel-electric conversion for John Deere articulated tractors. In 2009, Belarus tractor maker MTZ unveiled a 295 hp tractor with 172 kW of DC electrical power for auxiliaries and the front power take-off, while at the same

Agritechnica show in Germany, Deere revealed its E-Premium tractors with generating capacity for implement drives. Fendt has also explored this approach through its X Concept tractor with 130 kW of electrical power transmitted to implements as a 700V DC supply. And OEMs can buy this facility off the shelf in the shape of ZF’s Terramatic semi-powershift transaxle incorporating the Terra+ generator package. But there are already manufacturers pursuing the battery vehicle drive route commercially, including Kremer Energie of France with its 80 kW (110 bhp) straddle tractor. German manufacturer Meyer has introduced a Siloking battery-powered selfpropelled feed mixer, and wheeled loader makers Avant Tecno, Weidemann and Kramer all now have electrically-powered machines with zero emissions, minimal noise and smooth driving characteristics.

photo:Kramer

Diesel electric versus battery power

There are manufacturers pursuing the battery vehicle drive route commercially, including Kremer Energie of France.

cattleman's corner

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

land stewardship

Are you a (soil) health nut? BY SEAN MCGRATH

was eternally blessed to enter the University of Saskatchewan while Les Henry was still teaching at a time when we were “forced” to take at least an introductory soil science course. I learned a lot in that introductory course; mostly about how much I didn’t know (and how much Dr. Henry did). But more importantly Les’s teaching style and the lab work created an interest and appreciation for what goes on below our feet. Over the last several years there has been an emerging and energetic movement to better understand soil health. There has been a spike in interest in cover crops and soil microbiology and really understanding what drives the underground biology that makes agricultural systems tick. In some ways, this move is not too surprising as we look to increase productivity or enhance sustainability. The exciting part to me is the systems-type approach to the issue and looking at biology in addition to physics and chemistry. By this I mean that soil health is more than identifying a substrate and soil type (physics) and a cation/anion reading or fertilizer test (chemistry). It is really about working with physical and chemical tools and optimizing the soil microflora to create a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

A LOOK AT THE BENEFITS Some of the benefits of soil health are fairly straightforward and predictable, including enhanced nutrient availability, increased water infiltration, reduced erosion and improved resiliency. Additionally, in the world of carbon sequestration and taxation, understanding our soil health at a deeper level may provide tools for improved carbon storage and much-needed ammunition to make our case as stewards of the land and of the atmosphere. If you are interested in history at all, you can track the rise and fall of many civilizations and parallel it with the state of their soil health. As a simple place to start, soil is built from substrate or inorganic particles. Whether these are small clay particles or large grains of sand is a bit beyond our control as farmers and ranchers, but it is the basic structure that we must deal on our own land bases. How we build on this substrate is our role as managers, since we are unlikely to remove our layer of topsoil and truck in a replacement. Everything we do in the top few inches of soil and above ground will eventually be reflected in the soil underground. This gives us both a tremendous power but also a tremendous responsibility as soil managers.

I truly began to appreciate the role of biology beyond the plant component this fall when I took a soils course from Nicole Masters. What I learned in spades is that the underground food chain is both interesting and a bit scary. Perhaps the hardest part to come to grips with in the human mind is the immense power that trillions of microscopic bugs can have per acre. The influence and impact of these soil microbiota is scales of magnitude larger than the impact that several tons of steel can have on that same acre. Think about that for November 2016 | www.beefnews.com a minute and it is somewhat staggering. Facilitating the function of the microbiology underground, or debilitating the function of that same microbiology will have more impact on our soil health and productivity than a $1 million investment in equipment.

IT’S A JUNGLE DOWN THERE If we start above ground, plants are largely responsible for sending sunshine underground and feeding the soil biology. Photosynthesis creates soluble sugars which are sent down the plant to the roots. In return for some of the sugar, mycorrhizae fungi help to extract, mobilize and horse-trade various minerals and molecules from the soil that the plant needs to make proteins and other items. The fungi can represent a larger part of the root function for a plant than the actual plant roots do. Other soil bacteria are also especially adept at extracting nutrients or creating them out of thin air, such as those associated with nodulation of legumes. However these bacteria are greedy and don’t like to let nutrients go for plants to use. Fortunately, voracious protozoa eat bacteria and free up these nutrients from the bacteria. Add a few worms, some different fungal types and a lot of bacterial diversity and it is a jungle underground. When we consider all of the variety and the actual underground biomass, it is a lot bigger system in a lot of ways than what is actually going on with the crop that we see. It is complex enough that it would probably take a thousand issues of Grainews filled cover to cover to even begin to understand or explain a percentage of the complexities and interactions. What is important to understand is that as managers we can either shift things toward or away from a healthy system. Certainly, many of the practices we follow including fertilization, cultivation and weed control have agronomic merit and situations where the benefit outweighs the cost, but all of these practices have an impact on the underground world. A couple of examples include the addition of fertilizers which contain salts. These salts can greatly impact the growth of soil microbiota

and affect fungal:bacterial ratios in particular. Cultivation is another practice that has some merit, but we need to be aware of the effect it has on soil mycorrhizae in particular. Cultivation breaks up these fungal bodies that help to extend the rooting power of our plants. Many of the biological pathways that we exploit for weed control, are also present in our soil life, so sometimes the chemicals that may be applied for weed control can have broad ranging and unintended consequences underground.

START DIGGING HOLES

lines on native prairie 17 McGrath and helpers dig some soil pits along transect BEEF

The basic take-home message is that what we do above ground as managers will eventually be reflected in our soils. Building organic matter and taking care of our soil resource has positive results for our farms and ranches, even if we make a few mistakes along the way. Soil can be a highly forgiving ecosystem, and soil microflora have incredible reproductive powers. As managers, this means that there is some resiliency and coverage in the system for all those times we screw up. It also means that impoverished soils can be renewed and regenerated at a rate that is surprisingly fast. We need to feed our soils, and there are a lot of recent developments on an industry scale, including cover and green manure crops, micronutrient management and tools to increase organic matter. As well, the ability of GPS and other computer technologies to manage on a more site-specific basis are quite exciting. One of the best things we can probably do, and I myself do not do enough of it, is to start digging holes. Take a shovel and dig down. Some aspects of soil health such as tilth, colour, root and mycorrhizae mass, moisture infiltration and structural integrity are readily apparent if you dig a few holes. Invest some money in both nutrient and biological soil testing. We will continue to see soils emerging as a field of extreme interest, in part because they offer a large part of the solution to climate change and provide a huge and living carbon-storage facility. If you are truly interested in soils I would also suggest that you read Les Henry’s columns and start building your below-ground level understanding. GN Sean McGrath is a rancher and consultant from Vermilion, Alta. He can be reached at sean@ranchingsystems.com or (780)853-9673. For additional information visit www.ranchingsystems.com. Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series on soil health. Part two will talk more about sequestering carbon in the soil.

pasture that is part of Round Rock Ranching to establish some baselines through nutrient and biological soil testing.

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photo: Sean McGrath

Any treatments applied above ground will eventually affect what happens below your feet

cattleman's corner

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Keepers and Culls

2017 bull sale off to good start Plenty of good events ahead involving people, animals and machinery

Photo courtesy Wildwood Photography & Design – Chantelle Bowman.

Ringmen take bids at Lazy S Ranch sale.

BY LEE HART

tewart Ainsworth has no complaints after their 48th annual bull sale at the ranch earlier this winter. Ainsworth, who along with family members is part of Lazy S Ranch at Mayerthorpe, Alberta, just northwest of Edmonton, says it wasn’t a record year, “but still we were very pleased with the results” ... considering the year, and the beef industry economics, the Lazy S crew was happy. Lazy S has been producing and marketing Simmental and Angus cattle for 48 years. Stewart says they started out with the traditional white and tan Simmentals in 1969 and later

moved into the red and black Simmental and Angus genetics. While they sell purebred red and black Simmental and Angus bulls, they also have good customer demand for crossbred bulls they call Red and Black Beefmaker cattle. So here’s how the 48th annual sale at the ranch stacked up: Red Simmental averaged $6,108 Black Simmental averaged $5,841 Red Beefmaker – (SimAngus) averaged $6,108 Black Beefmaker – (SimAngus) averaged $4,929 Black Angus averaged $5,103 Red Angus averaged $5,844 A total of 233 lots grossed $1,328,700 for an overall average of $5,703.

Volume buyers this year included: Coldstream Ranch, 14 head, Rolling N Ranching, eight head and Osadczuk Cattle Co., eight head. Keeping everything running there at Lazy S Ranch are Stewart and Doreen along with their son Grant and his sons, Carson and Jace; son Greg and his wife Tracy and son Jade; and daughter Donna and her husband Larry and their children Shaylyn and Lindsay. Their daughter-in-law Claire runs the local veterinary clinic in Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt.

COMING EVENTS LIVESTOCK CARE next WEEK If you’re in the Leduc, Alta. area next week, there is probably a chance you can still find a chair at the 2017 Livestock Care Conference sponsored by Alberta Farm Animal Care. The event runs March 21 and 22 at the Best Western Denham Inn in Leduc. There is a great lineup of speakers from Canada and the U.S. all related to safe, proper and humane treatment and care of farm animals, whether it be beef, dairy, hogs, poultry and even rodeo stock. For more details on the event visit their website at: http://www.afac.ab. ca/2017.

UCVM BEEF CATTLE CONFERENCE Set aside a couple days in late June to attend the 2017 Beef Cattle Conference hosted by the University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine school. This two-day event — June 22 and 23 is developed around the theme Raising Healthy Beef Cattle in a Changing World. For more details and to register visit the conference website at: http://www.vet.ucalgary.ca/beef/. The first morning of the conference will be held at the vet school Spyhill campus in N.W. Calgary for some hands on sessions with Eugene Janzen and Carolyn Legge talking about feedlot pathology and disease and sickness diagnoses. On the cow-calf side Claire Windeyer and Karen Schmid will be talking about the how, when and why of body condition scoring. After lunch that first day, the conference moves to the Deerfoot Inn and Casino conference centre in southeast Calgary for the remainder of presentations on a wide range of animal health related topics. Speakers this year include experts from Nantes Atlantic College of Veterinary Medicine, Lethbridge Research Centre, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of

Saskatchewan, University of Calgary (UCVM), veterinary practitioners and beef industry leaders. The program also allows for plenty of time for networking and interaction with conference presenters and beef industry stakeholders. Workshop: Body Condition Scoring: How, When and Why? Body Condition Scoring isn’t just something nutritionist Peter Vitti talks about in his regular Grainews column. Dr. Claire Windeyer, at UCVM and Dr. Claire Windeyer Karin Schmid with Alberta Beef Producers will get into the details about why BCS is an important component of a health management strategy to optimize productivity of your cow-calf herd. This workshop will involve hands-on training on how to perform the scoring, a discussion about when and why it should be conducted, and an interactive demonstration of the impacts of varying condition of cow productivity and profitability.

LIVESTOCK MARKET ASSOC. CONFERENCE President Scott Anderson and the board of directors of the Livestock

The Markets

Understanding risk for feeder cattle Don’t buy unless the basis is favourable for a profit THE FINAL POINT MARKET UPDATE Jerry Klassen

his is the third article in the ‘Understanding risk for feeder cattle’ series. I started by explaining the feeder cattle futures market and basic theory of hedging. The second column focused on average basis levels and using these basis levels to forecast an expected selling price. I analyzed the risk and reward of backgrounding 550-pound steer calves and selling 850-pound steers over the past 10 years. That program had an average return of $24 per head with a standard deviation of $158/head. If a backgrounding operation bought 550 calves and sold 850 steers every month, one could expect to make or lose $134 or $182 per head approximately 68 per cent of the time. The other 32 per cent of the time, the gains or losses were more extreme. Finally, in the previous article, I said if the operation hedged production on every round of feeding, the average return marginally improved and the standard deviation dropped by $10/head. I also described three behavioural characteristics of the cash and futures markets.

This brings us to the final article in the series. I don’t pretend this is the holy grail of risk management, but it will definitely help improve the rewards and lower the risk in the long run. To start, I want to focus on the average and standard deviation of the basis. Over the 10 years from Jan. 1, 2007 to Dec. 31, 2016, the average basis and standard deviation was as follows using monthly data for Manitoba. Notice that the standard deviation for 550-pound steers is nearly twice that of 850-pound steers. Producers are buying in a high-risk basis market and selling in a significantly lower-risk basis environment. I also want to emphasize the purchase price is within the control of the producer. When selling cattle, the producer is basically a price taker but the producer can control the bids they give to the order buyer. Buying your feeder cattle at the right price and the right basis is the most important aspect of risk management. Consider the following example. In this case study, the feeder cattle futures are currently priced at Cdn$182 while 550-pound steers are trading for $220. If we use a costper-pound gain of $0.80/pound, we

can say that the cost of the feeder is $1,210 plus the cost to put on 300 pounds of $240, which equates to a total cost of $1,450. Under the 850pound steer column, I’ve shown the total sale of $1,453 (850 pounds times $171/pound equals $1,453) Remember, the basis equals the futures price minus the cash price. In the case study, the basis is -$38, which means the basis is above the futures price. ($182 minus $220 equals -$38). If the basis purchase is at -$38, the basis sale needs to be $11. In essence, the producer is becoming a basis trader. Since the standard deviation is wider on the 550-pound calves, the key is to make the purchase at the right basis levels. The producer needs to calculate the current basis of 850-pound feeders. Then calculate back into the 550-pound calf price and basis that is needed to be profitable. Once the purchase basis comes in line so that you can buy the feeders and be profitable, the producer buys the feeders and places the hedge on the futures. We can take this one step further. Since we know the standard deviation on the selling price is $10, the producer can add this on the current basis of the 850-pound steers and this will further enhance the profitability. If the current basis on 850pound steers is $11, then use a basis

AVERAGE BASIS AND STANDARD DEVIATION Average Basis (Cdn$)

Standard Deviation

550-lb. steers

-10

19.00

850-lb. steers

20.00

10.00

(For 550-pound steers, the basis is -$10 so the cash price was above the futures price in Canadian dollars) THE FEEDER CATTLE FUTURES ARE CURRENTLY PRICED 550 steers

850 steers

difference

Price

$220

$171

$49

Total

$1,450

$1,453

Basis Purchase

-$38

of $21 in the calculation to back into the purchase price needed to be profitable on the 550-pound calves. This may sound a bit convoluted at first but producers should just pencil it out or use a simple spreadsheet. In time it will become second nature. If you can’t buy the feeders at the right basis level to be profitable, then don’t buy the feeders. Be patient and the market will eventually provide an opportunity. In the previous issue I provided three behavioural characteristics of the cash and futures markets so that producers are aware of the market dynamics in relation their current analysis. My dad always said that cattle feeding is not for the “lazy

Basis sale

$11

$49

mind” and the market easily weeds out the non-thinkers. GN Jerry Klassen is manager of the Canadian office for Swiss-based grain trader GAP SA Grains and Products Ltd. With a strong farming background, he is also president and founder of Resilient Capital — a specialist in commodity futures trading and commodity market analysis. He can be reached at 204 504 8339. Editor’s Note: This is Part 3 of a three-part series on the basics of feeder cattle marketing. Part 2 appeared in the Feb. 21 issue

cattleman's corner

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

Market Association of Canada are pleased to announce the 2017 annual meeting, convention and auctioneering championships will be held at Lethbridge, Alberta, May 11 to 14. Not only is it the LMAC annual conference, the event being held for the first time in the Lethbridge area, will also help the well known Perlich Bros. Auction celebrate it’s 50th anniversary in business. The event will also mark the 20th anniversary of the LMAC Auctioneering Championship. It is an excellent opportunity to meet and network with the auctioneers, market operators and industry partners from across Canada. The Awards Banquet will be held on Saturday evening, at which time the new inductee to the LMAC Hall of Fame will be recognized, and the winners of the various competitions will be announced. The LMAC convention is a great place to combine business with pleasure. All events are open to LMAC members and industry partners; pre-registration is required. For more information contact LMAC executive secretary Rick Wright at 204-748-7676 or email rickwright.lmac@gmail.com or the LMAC website at lmacmarkets.ca.

TWO GREAT CONFERENCES IN ONE Coming up in early December, plan to attend the joint sessions of the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and the Western Canadian Grazing Conference being held in Edmonton, Dec. 5-7. Nora Paulovich, manager of North Peace Applied Research Association (NPARA) and conference chair says it has been confirmed that Gabe Brown will be speaking at the newly combined conference. Brown is a soil health practitioner and producer from Bismarck ND. “Gabe is really able to bring soil health and ag production into focus,” says Paulovich. “People like to hear what he knows and what he has done.” Brown, who is a major proponent of producing forage or pasture blends — not only good for grazing cattle, but for soil health— fits well with the conference theme “Profit Above and Wealth Below.” Attendees will have the opportunity to attend two great conferences in one being staged at the Radisson Hotel Edmonton South. “Some seats have been added, but interest is high and registrations may go quickly” cautions Paulovich. Registration information, agenda and speakers are being finalized and will be announced in the coming weeks. Current information is available at npara.ca. or contact Tom Fromme by email at: tom@npara.ca or Nora Paulovich at nora@npara.ca or the research association website at: www.npara.ca.

your arms over your chest, and rub your chin with one hand and try saying things like ‘yes, I see,’ and ‘yes, go on,’ and ‘I understand.’” The new priest crosses his arms, rubs his chin with one hand and repeats all the suggested remarks to the old priest. The old priest says, “Now, don’t you think that’s a little better than slapping your knee and saying, ‘Holy crap, what happened next?’”

MACHINERY, CROPS AND MORE There are two big summer shows coming up that will allow you to kick all the machinery tires you can handle, and learn more about crop and livestock production. The 40th Canada's Farm Progress Show will be opening its

doors in Regina, Sask. June 21 to 23 at the Regina exhibition grounds. Farm Progress attracts more than 40,000 visitors from more than 50 countries, as it promotes innovation, education, collaboration and growth in the agriculture industry. The show covers over 1.9 million sq. ft. of space with everything from the latest in equipment and software technology to industry-leading keynote speakers and lifestyle products. For more information visit their website: http://www. myfarmshow.com/. And if you want to see how equipment actually works in the field, plan to attend the 3rd annual Ag In Motion farm show July 18 to 20 at Langham, Sask, just north of Saskatoon. Located on 160 acres, Ag in Motion is the first and only

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agricultural trade show in Western Canada that provides an outdoor venue for progressive farmers that want to see and feel the latest agricultural innovations — all in one place. The event features interactive exhibits and live field and crop plot demonstrations. The Expo was created to empower farmers by pro-

viding the knowledge they need to make informed decisions. For more information visit AIM website at: http://aginmotion.ca/. GN  Lee Hart is editor of Cattleman’s Corner based in Calgary. Contact him   at 403-592-1964 or by email at   lee@fbcpublishing.com.

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A LITTLE DECORUM A new priest, born and raised in Texas, comes to serve in a city parish and is nervous about hearing confessions, so he asks the older priest to sit in on his sessions. The new priest hears a couple of confessions, then the old priest asks him to step out of the confessional for a few suggestions. The old priest suggests, “Cross

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cattleman's corner

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

GRAZING MANAGEMENT

The profit potential of selective grazing High stocking density, short-duration grazing helps put carbon back into the soil BY ANGELA LOVELL

LINKING ENERGY AND MONEY Optimizing beef production and profitability is a combination of timing, stock density and grazing management, he says. “Energy is money, money is

photo: angela lovell

o matter where he speaks in the world, Ian MitchellInnes carries a message to beef producers about achieving optimal animal performance, reducing costs, and ultimately becoming more profitable. Animals instinctively know where they can get the highest level of energy — from the top third of the plant, Mitchell-Innes, a South African rancher, told producers at a 2016 grazing workshop at Lenore, Man. “If left to select, cattle will always eat the high-energy top third of growth first, and will only graze the plant further when left too long on the pasture,” says Mitchell-Innes. “It’s selective grazing. If we can manipulate that grazing, and manage the timing and stock density, we can ensure the animals receive the highest-energy feed, gain the most weight and make us enough money to do what we want to do.”

Ian Mitchell-Innes, centre, talks to Manitoba producers about how to use selective grazing to improve soil health and productivity during a three-day workshop in Manitoba last year.

energy, time is money and water is money. They are all interrelated. Animal performance is the money part of the equation and energy is the elusive part of the equation that you need to achieve animal performance. We need to maximize the amount of energy we capture from the sun and we do that by putting carbon into the soil to create natural fertility by stimulating the soil biology.” Mitchell-Innes says that when carbon (plant material) is trampled

into the soil, it feeds the soil microbes and improves soil quality and health. The more plant material left behind after grazing, the quicker the soil regenerates. Mitchell-Innes says livestock need to be managed to make sure the ground is covered at all times with either a diversity of growing plants or trampled vegetation. This keeps the soil temperature more constant, helps retain moisture and continuously feeds soil life. He advocates a high stock density

 calving ease  grass-based  strong maternal  longevity  moderate frame

on smaller paddocks, with short grazing periods, frequent moves and long recovery periods to allow grass to regrow. “These are the key ingredients in a grazing plan that will provide higher forage productivity and animal performance,” says MitchellInnes. “The bigger the herd, the better animals do and the quicker the soil is restored.” In fact, he warns that once producers adopt a system like his, they’ll be riding a “bucking horse” because it will work so well they will find themselves with more grass than their animals can use. That means producers will have to decide between buying more cows, or slowing the process down until they grow their herds naturally.

My goal is to rebuild the soil to generate healthier grass that can extend our grazing season and shorten our winter feeding program.” Robin Taylor

Shellmouth, MB 204-564-2540

2 yr old bulls sold private treaty off the ranch!

www.nerbasbrosangus.com

Mitchell-Innes has been practicing holistic management for 17 years on his ranch in South Africa, and travels the world teaching about high stock density grazing and soil health. About 50 producers from across Manitoba attended the three-day workshop, organized through the Manitoba Grazing Clubs, with funding provided by Ducks Unlimited Canada.

PUTTING GRAZING THEORIES INTO PRACTICE The second workshop day included a pasture tour looking at some of Mitchell-Innes’ theories in practice on the farm of Robin Taylor near Oak Lake. Taylor has been working

to rejuvenate some pastures which were grazed conventionally for many years. “Our previous management program was slowly degrading our soil and depleting our grass supply,” says Taylor. “My goal is to rebuild the soil to generate healthier grass that can extend our grazing season and shorten our winter feeding program.” Producers compared two sites in the same field; the first was grazed rotationally and bale grazed in the winter, and the second was grazed conventionally. At the first site there was good growth, more plant diversity and hardly any bare soil visible. “What grows on the soil is a mirror image of what is in the soil,” said Mitchell-Innes. “And what is in the soil will change what’s on the soil.” Taylor’s biggest challenge in adopting this new management system was accepting that trampled, excess grass is not wasted grass. “Plus, hay bales that are not totally cleaned up is not wasted feed,” says Taylor. “There has to be something left to feed the soil.”

COMPARING SOIL Soil at the second site was lighter in colour, indicating less carbon content. Cow dung on the surface was not being broken down because of a lack of soil life. Taylor says he hopes to either roll out hay bales on the site to cover the ground and stimulate the microbes to begin working, or he may try an ‘inclusion zone.’ This is where a large number of animals is confined in a very small, narrow strip for a short time — maybe an hour or two — to maximize the trampling effect and supercharge the system. Taylor is only one season into his new management system, but already he has seen benefits. “We started in April (2016) and already we have lengthened our grazing period by two months and shortened our winter program,” he says. “We have less hay to bale because the cows will graze stockpiled grass in the winter. We are also seeing fewer flies and parasite problems, and less stress for the cows and us. The benefits are exceptionally fat cattle, with fresh grass every day.” Mitchell-Innes says the key to making it work is sequestrating carbon and putting carbon into the soil. “It all relates back to what you want to do. The quality of life you want, the production you want, and what you want the future resource to look like. If you use non-selective grazing you will need to put money in to get animal performance. With a selective grazing system you may have to supplement it to start with, but over time when you have carbon in the soil you will have plenty of energy and be able to make a good living without spending money.” GN Angela Lovell is a freelance writer based in Manitou, Manitoba.

cattleman's corner

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

HORSE CARE

Horse foot care — keep it simple Each animal is different, try to maintain a natural lifestyle By Heather Smith Thomas

“

o foot, no horse” is the old saying. A horse is only as sound as its feet. Care and management of feet will depend on the individual horse, its conformation and hoof structure, environment (including climate), and use. Whether or not the horse needs to be shod will also hinge on these factors. A shod horse should be reshod at regular intervals so the feet don’t get too long. It’s important to keep a barefoot horse’s feet tidy and not overlong, with no rough edges to split or chip. Horse owners can do this themselves by rasping away superficial cracks and keeping the hoof edges smooth. White line disease and other types of hoof infections can’t get started if there are no openings to allow pathogens into the foot. Periodic rasping around the edges can prevent or eliminate cracks and flares, but the sole should usually be left alone. It needs a thick callus to prevent stone bruises. Leave the barefoot horse with a slightly longer hoof wall than a foot you’d put a shoe on, but keep it very smooth, rasping whenever it becomes ragged.

whole diet and make sure you aren’t doubling up selenium supplements in feeds, mineral-salt blocks, and vitamin-mineral products.

KEEP THEM MOVING Exercise is also important for healthy feet. Blood circulation in the foot is better if the horse is moving. When you confine a horse in a stall or small pen, his legs may stock up (swell) because of decreased circulation. The legs are gravity-fed by blood, and unless the horse is moving, to push

blood back up to the heart, legs tend to swell. Ranch horses at pasture are generally healthier than horses in stalls. No matter how clean a stall is, the horse is still standing in ammonia and bacteria and not getting enough exercise. Look at the whole picture to decide whether a certain horse needs a supplement, a topical hoof medication or shoes. There are no guidelines that fit every horse. You could have two horses of similar breeding, in the same environment, eating the same feed, doing the same work, and their feet

may be different. Conformation and hoof structure may be different. Some have a longer pastern/shoulder angle, with different stresses on the toe. Some horses have harder or softer feet, or more brittle and prone to cracking. There are no set rules about what to do about certain problems, because they vary with the individual horse. It’s often trial and error, to find how best to care for a certain horse’s feet. Basic foot care consists of keeping things as simple as possible, however, keeping

the horse in as natural an environment as possible and trying to think how Mother Nature took care of horses. Proper care involves natural feeds (grass and hay) and plenty of exercise. The most important thing is to look at the individual situation, the individual horse, and what works best for that horse. GN Heather Smith Thomas is a longtime Grainews columnist who ranches with her husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact her at 208-756-2841.

SEE Technology TOUCH Innovation BE Empowered

CHECK FEET PERIODICALLY It’s not necessary to clean out the feet regularly if the horse is at pasture (rather than standing in a stall or muddy corral). Any dirt that packs into the feet helps provide foot support, to protect and cushion the foot. However, you should periodically look at the feet to make sure there are no cracks or problems. The material that packs into the foot will fly out when the horse exercises. Horses in the wild travel on abrasive terrain, which keeps their feet trimmed and smooth, and travel many miles as they graze and go to water. No one cleans or trims their feet. Environmental influences play a role in what’s needed for hoof care. A horse that lives in dry conditions will have healthier feet than a horse living in a marsh. Feet become hard when dry, soft when wet. Hard, dry, rocky footing is best for horses. If the horse has good hoof conformation and hard, dry feet, he won’t need shoes unless he is being ridden a lot in rocky terrain. Some people put dressings on the hoof wall to try to correct too-dry feet, but if a horse’s feet are cracking it’s important to figure out why, rather than just trying to treat the symptom. Cracking may be due to inadequate diet. Horses on green pasture usually have healthy hooves. Poor hoof walls can be due to too much (or not enough) selenium. There may be a trace mineral imbalance, or lack of physical balance — putting too much stress on one area of the foot. Oral hoof supplements are often used, but the horse’s environment has more influence over the foot than anything we can put in the horse’s gut. If a horse has a well-balanced diet he won’t need hoof supplements. Most hoof supplements contain selenium, methionine and biotin. Evaluate the

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cattleman's corner

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

FEED MANAGEMENT

Watch out for ergot in grains

Another wet growing and harvest season in 2016 is increasing the level of toxins in some feeds BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

rgot is a fungus that can grow on certain grasses and grain plants when moisture conditions are just right. Ergot becomes a problem mainly after a wet season, rarely during dry conditions. The fungus replaces seed in the seed head with a dark-brown/black mass and produces toxic alkaloids. One or more of the kernels in the seed head are replaced with this dark, hard “ergot body.” There are various types of alkaloids in ergot that affect cattle in different ways. One response is due to effects on the nervous system, resulting in muscle spasms in the hind legs, incoordination, loss of balance, and sometimes a temporary paralysis. Perhaps more commonly the toxic alkaloids impair blood circulation to the extremities (due to constricting of blood vessels), which can result in loss of ears, tail or feet. Mild cases of ergot poisoning may simply show up as poor animal performance (lower weight gain, drop in milk production, inability to handle hot or cold weather, reproductive problems, or abortion). The alkaloids tend to restrict blood flow and milk flow.

GRAINS ARE SUSCEPTIBLE Ergot is most common in grains, but can also infect wheatgrass, brome, wild rye and a number of other wild

Barry Yaremcio, beef and forage specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry.

Ergot on seeds

Ergot on wheat

grasses. An ergot fungus that grows mainly on rye produces a condition called ‘ryegrass staggers’ in cattle. Another type of ergot infects barley and creates another class of toxins. Often the signs of ergot poisoning are similar to those of fescue toxicosis, with a rise in body temperature, reduced milk production, reduced growth rate, and poor circulation to the extremities. Barry Yaremcio, beef and forage specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, says the ergot and alkaloids produced by the fungi vary considerably around the world. There are also some major differences found, even in North America. “A lot of research is being done right now in Saskatchewan on ergot,” says Yaremcio. “They are looking at how it develops, and how long it takes for that ergot body to start putting the

10,000 kernels. The Animal Nutrition Association of Canada has hired Brian Doig, who recently retired from Saskatchewan Agriculture, to co-ordinate all the information. “Researchers and nutritionists are trying to get the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to readjust the recommendations and actually put forth some limits and regulations, rather than just guidelines for feed,” says Yaremcio. “Many people know if they have ergot in the feed they will have problems in cattle with tails and hooves sloughing off, but unfortunately that's one of the last symptoms to show up, just before these animals die.” Cattle don’t find ergot infected feeds very palatable. “One of the first symptoms, particularly in heavily infected feed is seeing cattle will back off feed within two or three days,” he

says. “They may reduce their intake of that feed by 60 to 70 per cent. This is your warning sign.” Yaremcio says if the infected feed isn’t removed or replaced, the health of cattle will be adversely affected. “You’ll see problems with many of the diseases that we normally associate with stress, such as at weaning and shipping,” he says. “That includes IBR, shipping fever, pneumonia, and other respiratory problems. These tend to show up in cattle that have been affected by ergot.” He also says some ranchers in Western Canada have lost cows, due to ergot contamination in pellets. GN

alkaloids into the seed. Feeding trials are being done at the University of Saskatchewan to determine the threshold before producers see reduced performance in the animals caused by alkaloids in ergot contaminated feeds.” Research over the past couple years at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine has identified certain strains in Western Canada that are two to four times more virulent and harmful than strains seen in Texas, Oklahoma and Florida, for example.

RULES HAVE CHANGED

“The old rules of thumb for safety levels (one kernel in 1,000, or about 10 ergot bodies per litre of grain) are completely invalid in these cases,” says Yaremcio. Due to the high toxicity, tolerances for ergot are very tight, and should be more like one ergot body per

Heather Smith Thomas is a long time Grainews columnist who ranches with her husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact her at 208-756-2841.

better bunks and pastures

Old school nutrition works after calving It doesn't have to cost a lot to maintain proper body condition Peter Vitti

lready, I know a few producers have had a couple of sleepless nights checking cows at calving. Most have told me all has gone well, because their cows came through the winter in good shape and were well-prepared for this year’s calving season. Moving forward, they now feed their calved-out beef cows diets which contain a higher plane of nutrition than diets they fed during gestation. These post-partum diets help cows produce lots of milk for new spring calves and return cows to good reproductive performance. Post-partum beef cows require about 60 to 62 per cent TDN (total digestible nutrients) and about 11 to 12 per cent crude protein in their diet, by the time they are milking at their highest levels (re: 10 litres per day). First-calf heifers do not eat nor milk as well as older cows, but their dietary concentrations are

similar, because they need extra nutrients for growth. It’s also important to keep in mind all cows that calving February to April might use 20 to 30 per cent more dietary energy just to keep warm, which supersedes milk production and reproductive requirements. Essential cattle minerals (and A, D and E vitamins) should also be provided in post-partum cow diets, such as calcium, phosphorus and other essential macro-minerals. They complement whatever mineral levels found in forages. Also trace mineral requirements of beef cows nearly doubles since the start of the winter season. Bio-available sources of copper, zinc, manganese, iodine, cobalt, and selenium must be fed.

MANITOBA EXPERIENCE With these nutrient guidelines in mind, I asked a friend who runs a 150-beef cow operation in the Interlake region of Manitoba, how he specifically feeds and manages his cow herd after they calve in mid-March. First, he tells me his main goal after calving is to maintain the

calving body condition score of cows at 2.7-3.0 (1 = thin to 5 = obese) for the next 80-90 days. It’s his foundation in order to have cows milk well, repair their reproductive tracts and almost assure cows and heifers have at least one strong heat cycle before the start of this year’s breeding season. His subsequent post-partum feeding program is what he calls “old school nutrition.” Back in the early December, he segregated his 1,200-1,400 lb. hay bales. Near the south side of an old barn, he stores bales of gestation hay; mostly fair-quality grass hay. Across the road in a tree-lined field, he stores lactation bales; better quality hay (1/3 alfalfa and 2/3 timothy hay) for main cows and replacement heifers after calving. My friend rolls out the lactation bales at the rate of 30-40 lbs. of hay per cow on a daily basis. He will supplement with three to four pounds of ground barley, when the weather gets really cold. In contrast, he is a big advocate of putting out loose “breeder cattle mineral” (with organic/chelated trace minerals and

fortified levels of vitamins A, D and E) at the rate of two to four ounces per head per day in tire-mounted mineral feeders along with blue cobalt-iodized salt blocks. As a cost-conscious beef producer, he likes to budget feeding programs for his cattle. For example, this is his investment for this year’s post-calving diet: • 35 lbs. forage @ $40 per 1,200-lb. bale = $1.17 • 3 lbs. of barley @ $3.75 per bushel = $0.23 • 4 oz. of Breeder mineral @ $40 per 25-kg bag = $0.18 Total cost per head ................. ......................... = $1.58 For roughly $1.60 per head per day, my friend successfully maintains the BCS of his cow herd from calving to the breeding season. His cow herd’s conception rate by mid-June has consistently been around 95 per cent in a 70-day calving/breeding season. Several university studies have confirmed my friend’s commitment of maintaining BCS from

calving to the breeding season. Case in point: a two-year Oklahoma State University study illustrates two polarized BCS situations; beef cows that were fed to maintain body condition from calving until the beginning of the breeding season averaged 94 per cent pregnant, while those that calved in similar body condition but lost nearly a full condition score were 73 per cent rebred. Regardless of my friend’s “old school nutrition” or the latter well-run university study, a good feeding program for cows after calving comes down to meeting their essential nutrient requirements, so they milk well and are ready for the upcoming breeding season. Success of these feeding efforts is measured with this year’s growing calves and the cows getting pregnant with another new calf. GN 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.

home quarter farm life

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017

SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

DEALING WITH ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR ON YOUR FARM You have to be proactive rather than reactive to bad behaviour Elaine Froese

www.elainefroese.com

soaked up the seminar “Dealing with Abusive Behaviour at work,” led by Dave McNaughton an HR specialist from Winnipeg. Dave referred to Dr. Stephen Hart’s video from the Proactive Resolutions company, www.proactive-resolutions. com. (You have to love the idea of being proactive rather than reactive to bad behaviour in the workplace.) Give everyone a safe environment to work in. Gossiping is an abrasive behaviour. As a farm family coach I encourage families to stop talking about each other, creating gossip triangles. Instead, go directly to speak to the person who you have the issue with.

How do you manage abrasive behaviour? Abrasive is the process of wearing down or rubbing away by means of friction. “Wearing down means… rubbing folks the wrong way, for example, the co-workers down. Here are the top five behaviours that abrasive employees display: 1. Overreacts; 2. Overcontrols; 3. Threatens; 4. Public humiliation; 5. Condescension. If abrasive behaviour is not stopped then it gets worse. The fallout from ongoing abusive behaviour has a huge negative impact on farms with lower morale and productivity, legal cases, retaliation, sabotage and homicide.

Symptoms of chronic abrasion One symptom is continuing complaints (negative perceptions) brought on by employees. Who likes to work with a bunch of whiners? Do you have a complaint system on your farm, for informal/formal complaints? Comments like, “don’t get on their bad side or you will pay if you do,” are symptoms of chronic abrasion. Are you devoting excessive managerial time to address employee distress? Leadership loses credibility when there is a failure to intervene. Don’t see intervention as weakness. Do not condone abrasive behaviour? If you do, you’ll be dealing with people leaving (increased attrition) and more sick time. Here are the assumptions of abrasive people: • Fully aware. They are fully aware of what they are doing to the workplace culture. I don’t think this is true as some highly conflicted families see daily fighting and abrasiveness as “normal.” This is not good. • Intent to cause harm. What is the true intent of the bully with nasty behaviour? • Means through aggression/ intimidation. These bad actors thrive on intimidation as the pattern that is their daily mode of operation. It is all they know. • Behaviour will not change. Yikes. This is serious, if you really don’t think the abrasive person can change to more workable, kind behaviour, then what are you going to do about the person who is making your farm a toxic place to be?

Farm families need to build awareness to create change. The good news is that abrasive behaviour is coachable. The bad news is that the abrasive behaviour may be a long-term pattern of a founder parent. Are you ready to stand up to your parent? The nasty folks need coaching, mentoring and supporting.

Projection: “He’s got difficult employees.” Minimizing: “You’re making too much of this.” Procrastination: “It won’t be long before she retires.” I think procrastination is killing many good decision opportunities on farms in 2017!

Here’s what good managers do

Managers don’t intervene for fear of being harmed or doing harm. They fear or recall past intervention efforts that have not gone well. They believe that people cannot change. They see the only option as termination.

They see a problem, explore the cause, assess if employee is unable or unwilling to change. Address the problem: provide resources, training, set limits and consequences. Then you have to follow up! Abrasive managers see an abrasive problem and say: “you’ll pay if you get in their way.” Their business is survival, and they just want to go about their business. They defend against threats to their survival with aggression. Threat, anxiety then defence is the pattern. You can choose “fight or flight”… or choose to walk through the threatening issue rationally. McNaughton says to make sure that you “document everything.” Abrasive folks fear loss of connection with abandonment anxiety, (physical, personal, mental, work relationship or loss of life with loss of credibility.

Work through it Intervene: focus on the evidence versus negative perceptions, get to the root of the problem, change the behaviour.

Defence tactics “Nobody’s perfect” rationalization, so you keep accepting bad behaviour.

Failure to address bad behaviour actually promotes more bad behaviour. I have often said, “You get the behaviour that you accept.”

Differentiate performance versus conduct Performance is the execution of the technical requirement of one’s job. How to intervene? Make them see the impact of their behaviour. “Do you see what your behaviour is doing to us? Focus on evidence versus negative perceptions. What is the documentation? “We need to have you turn this around Charlie!” Make them care enough to want to change. Offer help and training. Your perceptions are your reality! Perceptions are powerful, so you need guidelines and consequences… List the direct and indirect perceptions. What have you observed? What has to change — they have to buy into changing. “People need to be treated with respect.” Are you ready to take control and be a manager?

Make them care enough to change Prepare yourself to conduct the interview: What are the threats posed to you, others, and the farm by intervening? What are your anxieties? What is the worst-case scenario? Explain why you are meeting, and make them see the negative perceptions. Make them care enough to want to change. Offer help. Monitor for improvement. Describe the individual’s value to you. Explain that you owe them information. Explain that the behaviour is the problem — negative perceptions about their style of interacting with others is the problem. Say, “I observed…” Avoid generalities. Describe their impact… e.g. people felt intimidated. Set limits and consequences.

Solutions Internal mentoring. You’ll need to be a proactive leader on your farm team. Employee assistance programs for stress-related issues. External specializing coaching (anger management, personal issues etc.). Stick to your guns, don’t get into a war of words. Stick to your objectives. GN Elaine Froese helps farm families communicate better and resolve conflict. Visit www.elainefroese.com/ blog for more tools. Be kind and gracious to all you work with, and make your farm an amazing fun workplace! Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all my Irish friends and family!

Interest Rate Planning It is likely that today’s rate environment will not exist forever. How can you manage your farm finances with this prospect in mind? First, get your spreadsheet and do a sensitivity analysis. Take a look at a modest increase and a medium-term increase. At the extreme, conduct a shock test of what would happen to your cash flow if interest rates were to rise to 5 percent. How does it impact margin and your ability to service debt? Do you have working capital reserves or cash to cover your expenses and debt-service obligations if interest rates rise? Is the prospect of rising interest rates keeping you awake at night? If it is, keeping rates variable may be against your risk tolerance level, or that of your spouse or your business partner. You might consider using a combination of fixed and floating rates or you could look at a strategy known as laddering which can reduce the influence of interest rate changes on your cash flow and interest costs. Laddering involves staggering the interest maturity dates of your loans so that only a portion of your loans are locked in for the same length of time. You may also want to have a disciplined strategy around hedging rates as well. This is more complex and something that you should explore with your financial advisor. The bottom line is, whether you are borrowing or investing, rates are likely to rise. It is better to take a proactive stance in managing your interest rate risk. The more information you have and the more you manage those risks, the better positioned you are for the future. What’s your next move? At RBC®, we’re ready to help. Talk to one of our agriculture banking specialists today.

Visit rbc.com/agriadvice to find the agriculture banking specialist nearest you.

®/™ Trademark(s) of Royal Bank of Canada. RBC and Royal Bank are registered trademarks of Royal Bank of Canada. Agriculture lending products are offered by Royal Bank of Canada and are subject to its standard lending criteria. The strategies and advice in this publication are provided for general guidance only and is not intended to provide specific financial, investment, tax, legal, accounting or other advice for you, and should not be relied upon in that regard. Readers should consult their own professional advisor when planning to implement a strategy to ensure that individual circumstances have been considered properly and it is based on the latest available information.

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2017-02-21 11:18 AM

home quarter farm life

Grainews.ca / march 14, 2017 Colcannon

PRAIRIE PALATE

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Amy Jo Ehman

ince St. Patrick’s Day is nigh upon us, I dedicate today’s musings to my grandmother, Josephine O’Hara. Or, as I knew her best, Grandma Jo. Grandma Jo was proud of her Irish heritage. So proud, that dinner on St. Patrick’s Day was akin to Christmas or Easter. In other words, a feast. There would be St. Patrick’s Day decorations, St. Patrick’s Day cards and even St. Patrick’s Day gifts. And, of course, the good china. (She might even serve wine, though she hated the insinuation that the Irish drank too much. Green beer turned her nose.) Grandma Jo’s maiden name was McNulty, which means she was so Irish she even married one. Both the McNultys and O’Haras emigrated from Ireland to Ontario in the 1840s, the era of the Great Potato Famine, and from there came west early last century. It’s a path followed by many Canadians of Irish descent.

Grandma Jo did not have a special Irish menu for St. Patrick’s Day. All her fancy dinners included roast beef or turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade buns and a cooked vegetable such as carrots or corn. However, she would end the meal with green sugar cookies or green cupcakes with green icing and sprinkles on top, at least when we kids were young. (She taught me the useful culinary skill of vigorously shaking together a drop of food colouring and half a cup of sugar, the lesson being that we need not buy sprinkles when we can make our own.) It is interesting that the Irish never lost their love of potatoes, even though — and perhaps because — the Great Potato Famine was caused by a lack of them. In 1884 and 1885, a devastating blight swept through Europe, wiping out potato crops and rotting potatoes in the bin. In most places, the loss of the potato was mitigated by other locally grown foods. But in Ireland, the potato was the only food sustaining millions of rural families, three meals a day. Why was Ireland so reliant on the potato? The population of Ireland

had grown so great, and the land laws were so oppressive, that large rural families had to eke out their living on small plots of land. Acre per acre, potatoes produce more food than most other vegetables. Pound for pound, potatoes provide three times more calories than wheat. It was a monoculture, by necessity. Unable to pay rent, many tenant farm families were booted off the land, compounding the devastation. By 1855, more than one million Irish had died of starvation and as many as two million had left the country, the McNultys and O’Haras among them. I am grateful they came to Canada, though I know not the hardship and heartache they faced in leaving their Emerald Isle. So, in honour of everyone who celebrates St. Paddy’s Day (green beer and green sprinkles included) here’s a traditional Irish recipe in praise of the potato. GN Amy Jo Ehman is the author of Prairie Feast: A Writer’s Journey Home for Dinner, and, Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens. She hails from Craik, Saskatchewan.

photo: amy jo ehman

In honour of my Irish grandmother here’s a traditional potato recipe

2 lbs. potatoes (3 large) 2 tbsp. butter 1/2 c. warm milk 4 c. shredded cabbage

3-4 slices thick-cut bacon, diced 1/2 c. chopped onion or leek 3/4 tsp. salt and a pinch of pepper Parsley or green onion to garnish

Peel, quarter and cook potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain. Mash potatoes with butter and milk, adding more milk if needed to make a smooth purée. Keep warm. Meanwhile, cook cabbage in boiling water for 10 minutes and drain. Cook bacon in a large skillet until soft. Add onion and cook until bacon is done. Stir in cabbage and cook a few minutes longer, seasoning with salt and pepper. Blend cabbage into the warm mashed potatoes. Garnish with chopped parsley or green onion. Serve warm.

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