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M A R C H 2 0 12 E D I T I O N

PLANNING THE NEXT CROP — AND BEYOND

WEED RESISTANCE WHERE WE’RE AT P. 14 WHAT THE FUTURE MIGHT HOLD P. 18

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE POST-CWB POOLING ............................................P. 26 PEAS AND CANOLA ...............................................P. 36 WHAT OVERLAP COSTS .........................................P. 38 Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240

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CROPs Guide march 2012

CONTENTS

FEATURES opinion 6 Guest Cigi head Earl Geddes on its new direction.

an you hear me? 22 CWho speaks for grain farmers in a post-CWB world?

26 What’s old is new

If you want to pool wheat and barley there’s one familiar name on the list.

alting evaluation 30 M How do breeders know what to develop? The answer is BMBRI.

eas and canola 36 PDecent prices are tempting canola growers to add a third crop to their canola/wheat rotation.

nveiling overlap 38 U What does machinery

overlap cost? Is it enough to justify autosteer?

helterbelts now and then 40 SThe days of the dust bowl are long gone — but not the need for shelterbelts.

story 42 SIt’sulphur one of the most

important — and hardest to manage — nutrients.

EVERY ISSUE note 4 IEditor’s feed myself.

Cover Story up 14 BIf atter weed resistance is like baseball, we’re in the seventh inning slump.

18 BOneigoftrouble your most troublesome weeds may be set to enter a dangerous new phase.

Gleanings 8 Notes from the grain industry. ore than 1,000 words 34 M How noodles are made. protection 44 CA rop crash course on surfactants. arkets 46 M What can the new CWB do for you?

Our commitment to your privacy: At Farm Business Communications we have a firm commitment to protecting your privacy and security as our customer. Farm Business Communications will only collect personal information if it is required for the proper functioning of our business. As part of our commitment to enhance customer service, we may share this personal information with other strategic business partners. For more information regarding our Customer Information Privacy Policy, write to: Information Protection Officer, Farm Business Communications, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1. Occasionally we make our list of subscribers available to other reputable firms whose products and services might be of interest to you. If you would prefer not to receive such offers, please contact us at the address in the preceding paragraph, or call 1-800-665-1362.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

EDITOR’S NOTE

YOUR GUIDE TO T HE L AT ES T IN CERE A L S, OIL SEEDS A ND PUL SE CRO P S

www.agcanada.com

I feed myself

much-respected editor of mine once observed, early in my career, that a story idea I was proposing was “unnecessarily churlish.” I’ve returned to those wise words more than once. There really is no point in wandering around sticking your thumb in someone’s eye, metaphorically speaking, just for the joy of it. However, the reality of writing editorials is that, occasionally, you just can’t avoid it. This issue there is a certain mindset I want to address that I’ve become all too familiar with. It can generally be expressed as a pithy little phrase suitable for a T-shirt or bumper sticker. Something along the lines of the ever-popular “Don’t complain about farmers when your mouth is full,” or “You eat because I farm.” I suppose that, strictly speaking, that’s true. But it won’t win over many urban allies. Let’s deconstruct it a bit. First, there’s the implication that farmers are, somehow, engaged in a gigantic charity undertaking, providing food for the urban masses from the goodness of their hearts. While experience tells me that there is plenty of charity in the hearts of farmers, reality also tells me that you’re running businesses. Average urbanites aren’t getting free food from farmers. They’re paying fair market value for it, plus the retailer markup, at the grocery store. While I was thinking about this editorial, one point that kept popping into my mind was that the only farmers who have ever given me free food were my parents — though that misses the fact that, for example, my Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Bill

were kind enough to let me put my feet under their dinner table many times. But the key point remains — most of my dinnertime transactions have been strictly economic ones. Buried a little deeper in this message is something I find more troubling. That’s the implied message that there are two kinds of work — the legitimate hard work of the farm community, and all that easy work in the city, complete with a nice paycheque. Taking the bus to work in the cubicle farm where someone is monitoring your every move or serving coffee for minimum wage, isn’t a life that appeals to many farmers. My final bone of contention is the implication urban consumers should somehow be “grateful” to farmers. I don’t genuflect to the good folks at Electrolux every time I vacuum my floors or the software engineers at Microsoft every time I fire up my computer. Yes, I can do without vacuums and computers but not without food. On the other hand, could farmers produce food without tractors and combines produced by people working in cities? Ultimately, we’re all in this together. Yes, I am thankful that I live in a place where food scarcity isn’t an issue and I have a job. But the bottom line is that I, and most urban Canadians, feed ourselves through our own work. Again, it’s a matter of good customer relations. City folks work hard for their money. Once they’ve earned it, they get to spend it as they see fit. One of the ways they spend it is on groceries. When they do, they’re supporting your businesses. ■

G O R D G I L M O U R gord.gilmour@fbcpublishing.com

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

EDITORIAL STAFF Editor: Gord Gilmour (204) 294-9195 Fax (204) 942-8463 Email: gord.gilmour@fbcpublishing.com REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS Brad Brinkworth Ron Friesen Warren Libby

Rhéal Cenerini Richard Kamchen Val Ominski

David Drozd Gord Leathers Jay Whetter

ADVERTISING SALES Cory Bourdeaud’hui (204) 954-1414 Cell (204) 227-5274 Email: cory@fbcpublishing.com Lillie Ann Morris (905) 838-2826 Email: lamorris@xplornet.com Head office: 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 Advertising Services Co-ordinator: Arlene Bomback (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Email: ads@fbcpublishing.com Publisher: Bob Willcox Email: bob.willcox@fbcpublishing.com Associate Publisher/Editorial Director: John Morriss Email: john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com Production Director: Shawna Gibson Email: shawna@fbcpublishing.com Director of Sales and Circulation: Lynda Tityk Email: lynda.tityk@fbcpublishing.com Circulation Manager: Heather Anderson Email: heather@fbcpublishing.com Art Director: Jenelle Jensen Contributing Photographer: Ryan Fennessy Contents of this publication are copyrighted and may be reproduced only with the permission of the editor. CROPS GUIDE is published by Farm Business Communications, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1. Head office: Winnipeg, Manitoba Printed by Transcontinental LGM-Coronet. CROPS GUIDE is published 7 times a year. Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240. Canadian Postmaster: Return undeliverable Canadian addresses (covers only) to: Circulation Dept, 1666 Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1. U.S. Postmaster: Send address changes and undeliverable addresses (covers only) to: Circulation Dept., 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1.

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CROPS GUIDE is printed with linseed oil-based inks. PRINTED IN CANADA Vol. 01 No. 03 website: www.agcanada.com The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to CROPS GUIDE and Farm Business Communications attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists, CROPS GUIDE and Farm Business Communications, cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and the editors as well as CROPS GUIDE and Farm Business Communications assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader for this publication based on any and all information provided.

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Guest opinion

Cigi: 40 and forward

By Earl Geddes Executive Director, Cigi

or the past 40 years Cigi (Canadian International Grains Institute) has earned a reputation as one of the top independent technical institutes in the world, working closely with the Canadian Wheat Board and a number of other marketers to promote Canadian field crops to customers globally. Cigi’s work with the CWB has involved positioning wheat, durum, and barley in the marketplace and to continually capture evolving markets on behalf of farmers. Now, after 40 years, with the current changes in marketing structure as a result of Bill C-18, the CWB will no longer be our single largest strategic partner. Cigi has consequently been preparing for these changes which in some cases are quite profound. Our mission to create profitable opportunities for Canadian field crops remains the same. What is changing is how we go about doing business and who is providing guidance to Cigi in this new environment. Farmers will now be funding Cigi’s market development work for wheat, durum and barley directly from a checkoff that is mandated in Bill C-18. This change also means farmers will have more direct input into the strategic direction that Cigi takes into the future. In this transition to a non-regulated wheat market the federal government has created five years of stability for both the Western Grains Research Foundation and Cigi through this checkoff. This period of stable funding gives the industry time to develop an overall organizational model to determine the future direction of the industry. With Cigi’s extensive knowledge of agricultural markets around the world and especially what customers of Canadian field crops require, we are committed to fostering connections with those customers. We are also committed to promoting Canadian wheat as the best in the world and are

moving forward into the new environment with programming that we feel is crucial to positioning Canadian field crops in this marketplace. To ensure we are doing what farmers want us to do, we’ve created a Cigi Program Advisory Committee made up of seven farmers from Western Canada who will advise us on programming until such time that the industry creates an oversight body or council that will provide guidance to Cigi. This advisory committee has met and agreed upon our programming for April through July 2012. More than ever, Cigi recognizes that we need to be responsive to farmers as they provide us funding for their market development and promotion work. In addition to a farmer advi-

crops are used around the world in food processing and industrial applications, we are currently looking at building strong relationships with customers in strategic areas of the world. We are working to establish research and development training agreements that will allow us to maintain a flow of information into Cigi and back out to the customer on the value of Canadian field crops. Cigi has had a great 40 years. Our experience has positioned us well for going forward as we anticipate working together with Canadian farmers and industry well into the future. n

Farmers will have more direct input into the strategic direction that Cigi takes into the future.

Program Advisory Committees to Direct Cigi

sory group, Cigi will also receive direction from marketers through a second program advisory group consisting of five grain marketers formed by the Western Grain Elevators Association. Cigi is building on a wealth of knowledge we have acquired over the last 40 years. We intend to use and further expand that knowledge to enhance profitability for farmers and industry members. Cigi’s knowledge and expertise is very applicable and relevant in a multiple-seller environment. As our working relationship changes from one core marketer to farmers and a group of marketers, the programming we do will also shift to reflect the needs of those groups. As Cigi goes forward with its knowledge of how Canadian field

Cigi has formed a Program Advisory Committee comprised of seven farmers from Western Canada to provide Cigi direction on its programming activities. This committee, as well as an advisory group of marketers formed by the Western Grain Elevators Association, will provide Cigi advice on the program approach and country focus ensuring activities that are useful for the promotion of western Canadian wheat, durum and barley. These advisory groups will remain in place until the cereal industry establishes a council or other structure to provide Cigi guidance on its activities and strategic direction. Farmers acting on the committee are Don Dewar, Dauphin, Man.; Matt Sawyer, Acme, Alta.; Phillip Hofer, Walsh, Alta.; LeRon Torrie, Grassy Lake. Alta.; Randy Johner, Estevan, Sask.; Russ Quiring, Waldheim, Sask.; and Rob Lobdell, Eston, Sask.

Do you have an opinion on a grain industry issue you would like to share with our readers? Contact us to discuss it at: gord.gilmour@fbcpublishing.com

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

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Gleanings g r a i n

i n d u s t r y

n e w s

Industry Notes CWB CEO: “We hope we will be profitable in first year.” manitoba co - operator — The Canadian Wheat Board will succeed in an open market, its CEO Ian White predicts. “I’ve got no doubt we can run a viable business,” White said in an interview in his office recently. “We hope it will be profitable in its first year. That’s what we’re targeting.” The board always said the single desk was its main advantage, but White listed several other factors that he said would give it an edge, including its long relationship with Prairie farmers and international grain buyers, its pooling experience, and governmentbacked initial payments and borrowings With the board’s 69-year-old sales monopoly due to end Aug. 1, unless the courts overturn government legislation, how can it now claim it can benefit farmers in an open market? “There’s no question in my mind that there was value in the single desk when you had a statutory environment,” White said. “In a commercial environment that doesn’t mean that you can’t actually have an effective business that operates for farmers in a

Ian White

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

different way… I think that’s entirely possible as we’re attempting to show now.” Reaching grain-handling agreements with Western Canada’s country and port terminal operators is key to the board’s success, and White said deals are expected soon. Given the uncertainty of the new open market, he predicted many farmers will pool some of their grain through the board. Meanwhile, grain companies wanting to maximize throughput will handle grain for the board, said White, adding he is seeking handling deals with all the companies so farmers anywhere in the West can easily sell to the board. The board will announce details of its wheat-, durum- and barley-marketing options this month. There will be short- and long-term pools, contracts linked to future prices and cash prices, White said. However, single-desk supporters aren’t convinced the future will be rosy. The board might work out suitable handling arrangements in the short term, but over time its grain company competitors will grab market share by offering less attractive terms to the board, former CWB director Bill Toews, a farmer at Kane, Man., predicts. “In the long run, the relationship (between the board and farmers) will get poorer because they just don’t have the leverage to provide something better than what the (grain) companies will provide,” he said. The board has professional, competent staff, including White, who will do their utmost to make a voluntary board succeed, Toews said but added the deck is stacked against it. Not so, according to White. Government guarantees of borrowings and initial payments for five years, plus working capital from the board’s contingency fund, will help a voluntary board get on its feet. “So it’s not as if we’re just being cut loose to survive without any advantages,” White said. “We have the advantage of a period of transition.”

Murad Al-Katib

Domestic pulse processing touted — Increased domestic processing capacity will help improve the long-term success of the pulse sector in Western Canada, said Murad Al-Katib, CEO of SaskCan Pulse/Alliance Grain Traders, which plans to build a processing plant in Saskatchewan. Speaking to the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers during Crop Week, Al-Katib stressed that the pulse sector should be focused on producing “food” rather than a “commodity,” and pointed to the growing demand for protein and healthy foods around the world. Giving the example of a corn processor in the U.S., producing everything from flour to starch to corn oil to high-fructose corn syrup, Al-Katib saw the same potential in pulses and said there were markets for the protein, starch and fibre components of the peas, lentils and other pulse crops grown in Western Canada. While there will always be a place in the Canadian industry for bulk seed exports, which account for most of Canada’s pulse industry currently, Al-Katib said domestic processing would serve to increase the overall price seen by producers, as importing nations would need to pay up to secure supplies. If value is created domestically, Canadian prices also become less dependent on production issues elsewhere, said Al-Katib. Consumers are showing interest in pulse-based food ingredients, but AlKatib said more research and development work was still needed in order to provide detailed evidence on the benefits and attributes of the product. Food companies, he said, are also reluctant to reformat their products without a scale of reliable supply, something more processing capacity in Western Canada would bring.

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GLEANINGS

Industry Notes

Port group to close as CWB monopoly ends

Higher ethanol blends would hit livestock sector: study

MGEX cleared for non-U.S. wheat on HRSW contract

— The 103-year-old organization that co-ordinates shipments through Canada’s two biggest grainshipping ports is winding down, saying it may not be needed once the Canadian Wheat Board loses its monopoly. The Winnipeg-based Canadian Ports Clearance Association (CPCA) will cease operations this summer on Aug. 31, one month after the wheat board loses control over Western Canada’s wheat and barley sales. The association, which has eight employees, co-ordinates the transfer of western grain from port terminals into vessels, and also sends daily notices to subscribers of ship lineups at Port Metro Vancouver, B.C. and Port of Thunder Bay, Ont. The role was deemed necessary under the monopoly system because the CWB, while responsible for western wheat and barley sales, does not own grain terminals or vessels. Even so, the organization had its start in 1909, decades before the CWB formed. The biggest Canadian grain handlers including Viterra, Richardson International and Cargill own much of the grain movement pipeline — from country elevators to port terminals — leaving the CPCA’s role less critical than it may have been during the monopoly era. “When it’s (direct) sales and I’m buying from you, I don’t know if we need a party in between us to tell me where to put my boat in,” said Doug Hilderman, president of the non-profit association, which is controlled by grain shippers and ship owners. “The core function they’ve had is essentially irrelevant now.” In any case, the CWB started arranging shipments directly with vessel owners a couple of years ago anyway, which weakened CPCA’s role, Hilderman said. A CWB spokeswoman declined to comment.

Policies designed to cut Canada’s emissions from fossil fuels have instead made the ethanol industry a “subsidized competitor” against the livestock sector, according to a new study from a well-known ag think-tank. The George Morris Centre at Guelph, Ont. recently released a report by senior market analyst Kevin Grier, senior research associate Al Mussell and analyst Irena Rajcan, urging the federal and provincial governments to reconsider their programs providing capital grants for additional ethanol plants and capacity. The policies and programs sustaining Canada’s ethanol industry must be “curtailed or eliminated,” the authors wrote, adding ethanol policy should not expand to require a 10 per cent national blend. “Governments must recognize the significance of the Canadian livestock and meat industry, and that it is vulnerable to expansions in ethanol policy,” the study authors wrote. “Government has demonstrated that in a short time, it can create a large ethanol industry. The same cannot be said for the livestock and meat industry.” Specifically, the study finds Canadian ethanol production increases the price of feed grains in Eastern Canada by about $15 to $20 per tonne, and in the West by $5 to $10 per tonne. That translates into tighter livestock feeding margins and/or increased losses for Canadian producers, totalling about $130 million per year, the study said. “We aren’t against high grain prices, but we want to compete on a level playing field,” said Travis Toews, president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, which along with the Canadian Pork Council and Canadian Meat Council co-funded the study. The cattle industry, Toews said, “fully appreciates how important a vibrant Canadian grain industry is to our sustainability,” but the association also calls for the removal of ethanol subsidies and tariffs and the ethanol-blending mandate. “This would let the market decide the best usage of feed grain in Canada,” he said in a separate release.

U.S. federal regulators have approved MGEX’s plan to remove U.S. origin as a condition of delivery on its hard red spring wheat (HRSW) contract. With the U.S. origin condition lifted, “spring wheat market participants from around the world can choose to deliver spring wheat in satisfaction of open MGEX HRSW futures positions,” the exchange said in a release. The removal of the U.S. origin requirement will take effect with the September 2012 contract month, MGEX said. MGEX said it has also added a deoxynivalenol (DON, or vomitoxin) specification to the HRSW contract, effective with the May 2013 contract month, for a maximum two parts per million (ppm) for spring wheat delivery. Vomitoxin levels above two ppm would be delivered with a 20-cent-per-bushel discount, while levels above three ppm vomitoxin “will not be deliverable on the HRSW contract,” MGEX said (all figures US$). The DON specification, MGEX said, “will continue to showcase the HRSW futures contract as the foremost quality wheat contract available to global market participants.” MGEX said it has also raised its storage rates for spring wheat delivery on the HRSW futures contract, up from the current five cents to seven cents per bushel per month, also effective with the May 2013 contract month. MGEX CEO Mark Bagan said the changes represent “a significant step in cementing the MGEX hard red spring wheat contract as the world’s premiumquality wheat contract.” It’s expected the majority of non-U.S. spring wheat delivered to the HRSW contract will come from Canada, pending the full effect of Canadian federal legislation that shuts down the Canadian Wheat Board’s single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley. Barring any successful court challenges of Bill C-18, the CWB’s single desk ends Aug. 1.

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Give us your input If you have a milestone you feel should be noted in our regular Gleanings column, please send the information, along with an electronic photo of any individual noted in the item, to Crops Guide editor Gord Gilmour at: gord.gilmour@fbcpublishing.com.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

Saskatchewan pledges $10 million to wheat research The Saskatchewan government will be putting up $10 million over five years in new funding for development work on better, hardier wheat varieties. The new support, to flow through the province’s Agriculture Development Fund (ADF), is meant to “accelerate” development of new varieties and help improve “yield, quality and tolerance to disease and extreme weather conditions.” The province said its funding is for a crop that had become “less profitable for producers to grow” in recent years compared to canola or pulses. Rising demand for food worldwide makes it “crucial that new investments be made in wheat research,” the province said. “Early varieties like Marquis made farming worthwhile in all but the most inhospitable parts of the Prairies. It allowed the Prairies to become the breadbasket of the British Empire for the next 100 years,” Premier Brad Wall said in announcing the funds. “It’s time to recapture that leadership, so Saskatchewan can help feed a hungry planet.” The wheat research money will be used to partner with both public and private research organizations, the province said.

Alberta’s WRAP names new president

Lynn Jacobson T:8”

Members of Alberta’s general farm organization have named one of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board as their new president. At their annual meeting earlier this winter in Edmonton, members of Wild Rose Agricultural Producers (WRAP) named Lynn Jacobson of Enchant, Alta. as the group’s new chief. Jacobson replaces Camrose farmer Humphrey Banack, who stays on WRAP’s executive as second vice-president. Keith Degenhardt of Hughenden was named first vicepresident, replacing Jacobson. Jacobson and his wife Elaine farm on 1,400 acres at Enchant, about 75 km northeast of Lethbridge, growing cereals, pulses, oilseeds and alfalfa and managing a cowcalf operation. His history of voluntarism in the grain industry includes stints as a delegate for Alberta Wheat Pool (1993-98) and Agricore (1998-2001) and as a board member with the Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission (2000-02). Jacobson was then named ASWPC president in 2002, and to the WRAP board in 2006.

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COVER STORY

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Baseball strategies might be your best bet for keeping weed resistance at bay By Rhéal Cenerini

sk Gary Martens about the state of herbicide resistance in Western Canada and he offers this assessment. “Since resistance first appeared in the 1970s, we’ve been in denial,” Martens says. He has been teaching in plant science at the University of Manitoba’s faculty of agriculture and food sciences on and off for the past 30 years. Over that period, he has seen what he calls “flawed and short-term management practices” put in place to deal with herbicide resistance. As a result, he says, we’re back to where we were when resistance to trifluralin was first observed in green foxtail. “We know it exists but we deny it in practice.” Dr. Hugh Beckie, the weed scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s research station in Saskatoon, has a comparable view. “We have fared quite similarly to other countries in how we’ve managed herbicide resistance,” he says. “I would probably give us a D. Generally speaking, producers don’t change their practices until herbicide resistance actually manifests itself in their fields. Being proactive just doesn’t seem to be in the cards.” In 2009, Beckie published a paper in the P rairie Soils & Crops Journal called Herbicide Resistance in Weeds: Influence of Farm Practices. In it, he presents the results of a series of weed surveys that were conducted across Western Canada over the course of the preceding decade. He concludes: “Weed resistance across the Prairies affects over 10 million acres.” Later on, he makes the equally troublesome comment that “(b)ecause over 95 per cent of farmers in the 2001-03 survey did not suspect or were unaware of herbicide resistance in weed populations in their surveyed field, herbicide-use practices generally were not aimed at controlling suspected or confirmed herbicide-resistant weed biotypes.” Sounds like we have some work to do… In Martens’ opinion, the battle against herbicide resistance is like a baseball game. “Weeds are up to bat,” he explains, “and farmers are on the mound. If the pitcher keeps throwing balls over the plate, it’s just a matter of time before the batter hits one out of the park. The only way to be successful over 14

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

the long term is to keep mixing things up so the hitter is always off balance. That’s what we have to do with weeds. We have to go into each growing season with a deliberate plan to reduce the weeds that are present.” The alternative, Martens says, is what we are seeing with weeds like wild oats, where multiple resistance to selective herbicides is becoming a serious problem: not only are certain herbicide treatments no longer controlling the weed, but certain crops can no longer be grown on a given field because there are no viable in-crop herbicide options. So what does a successful game plan to control weeds look like and how does it differ from what has been done so far? Sticking with the baseball analogy, here are a few pointers for success all the way into the ninth inning.

Have more than one ace in your rotation No matter how good he is, you can’t send the same pitcher to the mound every game. The same applies to herbicides. Rotating among various groups of herbicides has long been the first line of defence against herbicide resistance. The advent of glyphosate-resistant crops has added a tool to producers’ tool chests in many parts of Western Canada. But in areas such as the Red River Valley, where corn-soybean-canola rotations offer the tantalizing possibility of growing glyphosate-resistant crops two if not three years out of three, growers have to be careful not to wear out their ace’s arm. Beckie warns that glyphosate resistance has already been found among broadleaves in both Eastern and Western Canada. “Growers have to be cognizant of the potential for glyphosate resistance in their own fields,” he cautions. Avoiding it begins with a strong rotation where everyone gets two or three games between starts.

Bring in the closer Some of the most successful baseball managers of all time have been the quickest to give their starter Continued on page 16

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COVER STORY

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Continued from page 14 the hook and bring in help from the bullpen. The idea is simple enough: mix things up before the other team gets too familiar with what they’re seeing from your pitching staff. More and more, the weed control industry is turning to tank mixes that bring together chemicals with more than one mode of action. An example of this is a product like Velocity m3 which is a Group 2, 6 and 27 herbicide. Application of such products will typically slow down the development of weed resistance by using different chemicals with different modes of action in the same treatment.

Don’t always give ’em the high heat Martens recommends to his students at the University of Manitoba that they implement integrated pest management strategies as a long-term solution to their weed control problems. This includes taking the time to look at economic thresholds before deciding to apply a herbicide. If the cost of herbicide application is going to exceed the cost of the potential damage to the crop, producers, he believes, are better off leaving the sprayer in the shed. Not only does this make economic sense but it also reduces the selection pressure exercised by the application of herbicides.

“We know it exists but we deny it in practice.”

— Gary Martens, University of Manitoba

Martens suggests other integrated pest management practices for producers who want to reduce the amount of herbicide they are applying to their crops. “The temptation is there to reduce plant populations in crops like soybeans and canola because seed is so expensive,” he says. “But the drawback is that you get more open ground where weeds can germinate and grow. Going in with high seeding rates is one way to lessen weed populations and keep them below economic thresholds.” Martens also advises against routinely going into crops with a second application of products containing glufosinate ammonium or glyphosate which have become very economical to use. “Multiple applications of the same herbicide have the potential to hasten the development of resistance,” he warns. “And research has shown that the window of time during which the crop has to be clean in order to ensure optimal yield is actually quite short.” Fertilizer placement can have an impact on weed populations and vigour as well. “We have to feed the crop and not the weeds. When fertilizer is broadcast on the surface of the soil rather than banded where the crop needs it, we are giving the weeds the jump they need to get ahead of the crops.” Lastly, producers should consider the incorporation of forages into their rotations. “What forages do,” Martens explains, “is change the ecosystem in which the weeds have to survive. Instead of pushing ineffective herbicides on a field where there is a herbicide resistance problem, put it into forages and drain the weed population.” Beckie’s paper confirms the important role forages can play in avoiding resistance. “Those farmers who grew three or more crop types in their rotation (cereal, oilseed, pulse, specialty, perennial forage, fallow) had a reduced risk of weed resistance. Globally, herbicide-resistant weeds are often associated with cereal monocultures. However, 16

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this study suggests that even two crop types in the rotation — not including forage or fallow — may not be sufficient to reduce the risk of developing herbicide-resistant weeds.”

Make sure you work on the curve There is a saying that goes something like this: They still haven’t come up with a weed that’s resistant to iron. While no one questions the value of reduced tillage systems, there appears to be some correlation between less tillage and more herbicide-resistant weeds. Beckie’s paper states the following: “Based on the 2001-03 Prairie study, there was an association between weed resistance and tillage intensity. Herbicide-resistant weeds were more abundant in no-till and min-till systems. In addition, weed resistance was greater in low soil disturbance no-till than high soil disturbance systems (e.g. seeders using knife versus sweeps, respectively).” This section of the study goes on to state that “some degree of soil disturbance in the cropping system may reduce the risk of herbicide-resistant weeds, either by facilitating a reduction of herbicide use or slowing the rate of weed seed bank turnover.” Beckie then adds that “proponents of no-till cropping systems justifiably cite the sustainability of this tillage system in terms of soil and water conservation, carbon sequestration, and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. However, eliminating one element (mechanical) of integrated weed management may expose farmers to an increased risk of weed resistance.” For Martens, this merely confirms that it is absolutely crucial to keep weeds off balance. “Weeds establish themselves and strive in stable systems,” he says. “Strategic tillage and diversity of tillage, especially in combination with forages, can be very effective tools in the fight to keep resistance at bay.”

At some point, you have to rely on your smarts When the fastball drops below 90 m.p.h. and the curve no longer breaks as much, you either learn to keep hitters off balance with location and speed or they start roughing you up a little bit more and your earned-run average starts to climb. Soon, you’re wondering if you should hang up your jersey, your cleats and your glove… Martens believes we have reached that crossroads in our battle with herbicide-resistant weeds. “It’s not that I think that there is a catastrophe coming,” he explains. “It’s more of a creeping problem. And I don’t think that some new herbicide will come along to solve it either. There are very few new products that are in the pipeline and very few new modes of action. With glyphosate coming off patent, it is so cheap that it actually discourages the kind of major investment in herbicide technology that would be required to develop something completely new and completely different than what we already have. I think we’ll have to look at new methods of managing herbicide resistance in weeds. These methods may be cultural, mechanical or even biological in nature. Perhaps we’ve gotten a little lazy in our crop husbandry skills. It may be that we have to utilize more of our skills and expertise in meeting this challenge… This is good news for producers in general because whenever they find solutions within their own operations rather than importing it from the outside, they usually improve their farm’s profitability.” So, if Martens is right and there are parallels to be drawn between the game of baseball and the fight against herbicide resistance in weeds, then maybe there is reason for optimism. After all, good pitching, they say, always beats good hitting. n

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Big trouble Resistant wild oats the single biggest challenge

n open-source breeding program that’s been operating in Western Canada for several years may be on the verge of producing the next glyphosate-tolerant cereal grass. Avena fatua is perfectly adapted to our spring annual system and grows effectively with relatively few inputs. It’s robust and competitive, serves a niche market for breakfast foods and it’s a fine forage crop. It’s also the noxious weed we know as wild oats so there is no joy in Mudville if glyphosate no longer kills it. It’s official. Glyphosate resistance is back in the spotlight because it’s found its way into Canada, in Alberta and southern Ontario. Giant ragweed was the first to figure out the formula in a soybean patch near Windsor, Ont. Genetically malleable kochia was next and is now confirmed around Milk River, Alta. If farmers aren’t careful it could just be a matter of time before wild oats follows and that could be very serious. “It’s a spring annual weed and it matches exactly the life cycle of most of our crops,” says University of Manitoba staff agrologist Gary Martens. “So it can sit within our conventional system very well because it matures before we harvest our crop, the seed shatters and drops to the ground so they’re in place for the next cycle. They’ve got a very nice system going.”

So even with glyphosate’s high efficacy, lots and lots and lots of acres sprayed frequently gives you really high selection pressure. That leads to finding the needle in the haystack. — RENE VAN ACKER, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH Controlling wild oats eats up about 85 per cent of Prairie farmers’ herbicide budgets. To make matters worse, they’ve become tolerant to almost all groups of grass-killing herbicides. Pockets of them resist Group 1 herbicides, Group 2, Group 8, and Group 25, either individually or in combinations. Populations in Manitoba have even managed to stack all four together. The list of effective monocot weed killers is getting smaller while potential for trouble is getting bigger. Glyphosate is still the remaining big gun but is it possible that wild oats could follow kochia, palmer pigweed and Australian rigid ryegrass into the pantheon of resistance? The answer, according to a poster presented by Ag Canada weed scientist Hugh Beckie is “yes.” And 18

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BY GORD LEATHERS

though, as Beckie states, making predictions is a risky business, a little speculation is healthy. It gets us talking and puts us on the lookout for stands of weeds that have taken glyphosate on the jaw but remained standing. Although there are no records of glyphosate resistance in wild oats their high relative abundance, a life cycle that promotes resistance and our constant use of glyphosate make it a good bet. “It’s because there’s wild oats everywhere, there’s just large populations,” according to University of Guelph weed scientist Rene Van Acker. “It doesn’t have a particularly long-lived seed bank so the populations turn over relatively quickly, within a three- to 10-year period. That facilitates evolution of the population.” Another factor is its ability to outcross. Many of the grass species are self-pollinators and this is true of wild oats. Self-pollination restricts the genetic variability that you get in obligate outcrossers like kochia. Glyphosate resistance there came as no surprise. Still, wild oats are capable of outcrossing and do so between zero to 12 per cent of the time, according to a study done in Manitoba by weed scientist Bruce Murray. A large number of plants producing a large number of seeds with a capacity to outcross produces a variable population. The short population turnover takes the evolutionary dance and speeds it up. “So even with glyphosate’s high efficacy, lots and lots and lots of acres sprayed frequently gives you really high selection pressure,” Van Acker says. “That leads to finding the needle in the haystack.” There are a lot of needles out there and they’re breeding. It’s just a matter of time that the wild oat gene pool cracks the code. Again, wild oats are quite capable of stacking resistance and they already can shake off four different herbicides. If they can put that in a stack with glyphosate we could have a real superweed on our hands. Oddly enough, the great strength of wild oat, its ability to thrive and flourish under our spring annual system, is also its great weakness. It does poorly in a fall annual system with something like winter wheat or fall rye. “Rotating into a winter cereal is probably the easiest thing that most farmers can do,” Martens says. “The winter wheat or the fall rye has already started so it’s well established. The wild oats are these minuscule little things starting out with one leaf while the winter wheat plant has 20 leaves, five tillers and going gangbusters. So it just can’t compete. You very rarely spray for wild oats in the spring because they can’t compete.” If the winter annual crops move them out of their comfort zone then growing a perennial system really drops them, Van Acker says. Citing a rotation study out of Manitoba he explained how Martin Entz and Pam Ominski were able to decimate a population of

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wild oats by growing a few years of alfalfa at the University of Manitoba’s Glenlea Research Station. “With his Glenlea rotation he showed by doing that he knocked the stuffing out of the wild oat population because it had no chance for reseeding. They’re what we call a seed-limited species.” Annuals like wild oats are ecological opportunists who like disturbed ground. In a wild system, wild oats will drop seeds and they’ll sit for about four years waiting for an opportunity to germinate, grow, make seed, and die. Since the competition for space is fierce, very few of those seeds will germinate so opportunities are limited. In an agricultural system, those chances are greatly increased. These are the same conditions that crop species like because they’re cut from the same cloth. They’re also annual opportunists and they also like disturbed ground. Where our crops thrive so also will their weedy cousins. A perennial forage crop, however, is a real game changer so wild oats have a lot more trouble competing with an established perennial like alfalfa. Additionally, cutting the alfalfa three times a season removes the wild oats before they have a chance to seed. Over three or four years this depletes the seed bank so there are a lot fewer wild oat plants, simple population dynamics. Under the right conditions this could be a win-win situation. “Forages are certainly a good option for farmers where they have a fit in a cropping system,” Beckie says. There’s another side to that as well. Most of our livestock species find wild oats quite delicious, so any cuttings that get into a hay bale are put to good use. In some areas of California, they’ve even been grown for forage. No matter how genetically plastic wild oat may be, it’s met its match with the ruminant digestive system. That was the card the Australians played when they were faced with the same problem in rigid ryegrass. “They have rigid ryegrass with resistance to a whole bunch of herbicides including glyphosate,” Martens says. “What they’ve done is devise a rotation of wheat and sheep and that seems to work. We could work sheep into a rotation. People are making tons of money on sheep and there’re not enough sheep around. There’s a huge market for them. Or we could substitute cows.” These are a couple of things farmers can do if wild oats develop glyphosate tolerance. It’s also well known that they don’t have to wait until that happens. Integrating livestock, moving to winter cereal rotations or some strategic tillage are things farmers could do now to slow down and even prevent glyphosate tolerance. Ultimately, this is a game where we have to think two or three moves ahead. “Farmers know that message,” Van Acker concludes. “The challenge for them is how to act on that message with all the constraints that they have, scale, cash flow and such like. That’s what they have to work out.” n

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Can you hear me now? Clarity and volume of farmers’ voices post-single desk key question By Richard Kamchen

If and when funding shortfalls occur and the cost of ho speaks for and defends western defending trade and other challenges become prohibiCanadian wheat and barley farmers tive, farmers ask if Ottawa would be willing to lend a when the Canadian Wheat Board financial hand. loses its single-desk marketing power “It’s one thing to step up to the plate but it’s someand the clout that goes with it? thing else to consult and try to do it in a manner that’s That’s what many farmers have been asking themgoing to achieve the maximum benefit for the producselves and each other in the lead up to and since the ers,” says Connick. introduction of Bill C-18, the Marketing Freedom for Some, however, believe that Ottawa has already Grain Farmers Act. demonstrated it will come to farmers’ aid in picking “There will be a very big vacuum there, and that’s of up the slack, if not taking the lead. The WTO ruling on some considerable concern,” says Don Connick, viceCOOL is an example of a trade issue that needed advopresident of the Agricultural Producers Association cacy and industry pulled together with government of Saskatchewan (APAS). “The wheat board has had a support, agriculture analyst John De Pape says. very important role in terms of controlling freight rates, The government also was involved in dealing with level of service, trade disputes, and even assurance of the issues surrounding Triffid flax, as well as blackleg payment, important issues that they could deal with and salmonella in canola. because they were a large organization, had the monop“When there are issues like this, the government oly and had the funding and expertise to do it.” has stepped up to the plate in terms of addressing Funding the fights the CWB have engaged in will be them,” says Blair Rutter, executive director of the Westpivotal. Humphrey Banack, past president of Wild Rose ern Canadian Wheat Growers Association (WCWGA). Agricultural Producer (WRAP), notes millions came out “Whether it’s the industry or government, I’m quite of the pockets of Canadian livestock producers over the certain that there will be the capacity to deal with these WTO challenge of U.S. country-of-origin-labelling rules. issues if and when they arise.” Given the immense costs of legal battles, producer Many feel the Canola Council model is one that groups might need to pick and choose their battles. can address funding shortfalls while “KAP is a pretty stable organization speaking for western wheat and barfrom a membership point of view, but ley growers. With the council, farmers it’s still very costly to start getting into sit alongside grain companies, crushlegal trade challenges, and certainly ers and life science companies. beyond the means we would have cur“It’s a very effective group, it’s an rently,” says Keystone Agricultural Proindustry-wide group, everybody recducers president Doug Chorney, who ognizes that everybody in that indusbelieves priorities will need to be set. try needs to profit or else the whole Perpetuating the three general proindustry stumbles. So I think that’s vincial farm groups’ ongoing collab— Don Connick, an excellent model to look at,” says oration won’t be enough to address vice-president, APAS De Pape, who notes Pulse Canada is funding shortages. another ideal model. “We just don’t enjoy the level of WCWGA specifically favours the funding that the Canadian Wheat Board establishment of both a wheat and a barley council. “We had. If we don’t have the funding, then it certainly diminsee the success of the canola industry, having everyone ishes any clout that we have,” says Connick. around, the exporters, processors and farmers around What the industry lacks is an organization with the one table to deal with industry issues, especially on breadth of a Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, says University market access, trade issues,” says Rutter. of Saskatchewan’s Murray Fulton. The agricultural Although previous U.S. trade challenges against the economist points out that back in the early 1980s, the Western wheat industry targeted the CWB’s monopoly, Pool had 60 to 70 per cent of the market in SaskatchRutter believes other trade measures could still come from ewan, giving it the financial clout and wherewithal to our neighbours to the south. Nevertheless, he’s confident be able to take on numerous advocacy positions. Even an inclusive council would be able to weather that storm. under the best circumstances, that’s not going to exist “If we get a wheat council, I would think that they with the voluntary board. would take the lead on something like that, like Canola But Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) executive direcCouncil and Pulse Canada has taken the lead on those tor Richard Phillips stresses the CWB wasn’t alone in kind of trade access issues,” says Rutter. the trenches. When it came to railway issues, it was and GGC’s Phillips also advances the wheat council idea, will continue to be the Coalition of Rail Shippers at the and adds that he’d hope groups like his and the Canadian forefront. The group comprises 18 industry associations Agri-Food Trade Alliance would work closely with a volfrom various sectors that account for over 80 per cent of untary wheat board to identify potential trade problems. the major railways’ revenues. Connick, however, questions how united farmers will be Within the grain sector itself, it was Pulse Canada, the in an open market. Not only does deregulation create a more Canola Council of Canada, and the Grain Growers that competitive atmosphere between grain companies, but procarried the bulk of the load on the rail file, Phillips adds.

There will be a very big vacuum there, and that’s of some considerable concern.

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Whether it’s the industry or government, I’m quite certain that there will be the capacity to deal with these issues if and when they arise. — Blair Rutter, WCWGA

LIGHT YEARS AHEAD

case of R-CALF, the U.S. cattle producer group whose trade challenges have been a thorn in the side of the Canadian livestock industry. “If there’s a real opportunity, people can often put some of their own narrow selfinterest behind them,” says Fulton. What may keep western Canadian wheat and barley growers divided is leftover bad feelings related to the wheat board debate, says Fulton, who believes it might take five years or so before a group can truly speak for all producers.

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ducers as well, which could in turn make farmers’ voices something less than united. “It develops a sense of more self-interest than group interest and then when you develop that, political advocacy becomes more difficult… You lose this cohesion, and so then you lose your political clout as well, and it’s hard to organize any sort of advocacy or action resulting from that,” says Connick. Fulton, however, cautions that even more individualistic farmers can come together if they’re united on a certain front, like in the

“Given what I see out there, the level of rhetoric and animosity between the various sides on the board, that is not going to disappear overnight,” he says, but adds that outside forces like a trade challenge would certainly help unite farmers. “I think we will eventually get there, probably as a consequence of some sort of major threat to the industry where everybody can put old issues behind them and move on to a brand new issue.” “I urge all organizations and interested parties to be involved and recognize the void that’s here — we can’t be four or five years without strong advocacy for wheat farmers in Western Canada,” warns WRAP’s Banack. n

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READY OR NOT: COUNTDOWN TO AUGUST 1

WHAT’S OLD IS NEW CWB likely to be lone player in pool offerings — for now BY RICHARD KAMCHEN

‘‘W

hy should I sell your wheat?” Over 40 years after Pierre Trudeau irked farmers with that provocative rhetorical question, his polar opposite, Stephen Harper, made much the same statement — ironically on October 18, Trudeau’s birthday — with the introduction of Bill C-18, the Marketing Freedom Act. Now that the bill’s become law, the question has become: “Who is going to pool your wheat?” And just like when the single desk was the rule, it seems the Canadian Wheat Board will continue to monopolize that particular method of grain sales. Western Canadian farmers, for now at least, won’t be exposed to the numerous pooling options of their Australian counterparts. “Our pooling focus initially will be on wheat, durum and barley but we will be considering other crops as we move ahead,” says CWB spokeswoman Maureen Fitzhenry. The CWB is offering pre-harvest and harvest pools. The former calls for early delivery and spreads price

Just because you run a pool in Australia doesn’t mean you can immediately tag on western Canadian wheat to that pool. — LEN PENNER, PRESIDENT, CARGILL CANADA

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MARCH 2012

risk across several months and all markets. For the latter, farmers would deliver throughout the pooling period, and the pool would spread price risk across an entire marketing period and all markets. Cash flow for both pools would include initial payments followed by adjustment/final payments. Early payment options would also be available. The private grain companies appear willing to let the CWB go it alone on pooling. Richardson International “does not have any plans to run a voluntary pool at this time,” says its vice-president of corporate affairs, Jean-Marc Ruest. Viterra could not be reached for comment. And while Cargill last November said it might offer pooling options to farmers, it’s taken a step back since the CWB announced it would providing pooling programs. Cargill president Len Penner says the company has spoken to over 2,000 of its customers, and one of the messages that‘s emerged is farmers are looking to continue to use the CWB’s pooling option. Cargill recognizes the CWB’s experience and track record running a pool, but will continue to evaluate if farmers find the CWB offering to be effective. If not, Cargill might come forward with pooling options of its own. “Our intent was to make sure farmers had a pooling option. And at this point, we know that the board will be offering that,” says Penner. “We believe the board has Continued on page 28

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READY OR NOT: COUNTDOWN TO AUGUST 1

Continued from page 26 done a decent job in managing a pool, so why compete with someone that’s done it for quite a long time?” Nevertheless, Penner won’t commit to saying Cargill will not offer a pool for 2012-13. “We have a plan to proceed with other marketing options knowing farmers will have access to the Canadian Wheat Board’s pooling contract. If we don’t see that as being effective, we would consider coming out with one.” Could Cargill’s experiences pooling wheat in Australia come in handy in Western Canada? Penner says yes — to a degree. “There is no direct tie. Just because you run a pool in Australia doesn’t mean you can immediately tag on western Canadian wheat to that pool. But clearly what we learned from managing a pool is invaluable in setting up a new pool with western wheat.”

If it was a real good voluntary pool contract, we might recommend selling 20 per cent of clients’ crops into it every year — at the most — and the rest of it absolutely not. — BRENDA TJADEN LEPP, FARMLINK MARKETING SOLUTIONS

He thinks 20 to 30 per cent of total wheat going into pooling programs in 2012-13 is a likely, reasonable starting point. Former CWB head Adrian Measner says the CWB’s pool might handle 25 to 30 per cent of what it used to, but that those levels could get eroded if the board doesn’t offer strong value. “There’s fairly strong farmer support for the wheat board so I would think initially, there’d be support for an arrangement like that, but whether it’s long term is still up in the air,” he says, adding a large hurdle for the CWB’s competitiveness will be its reliance on competing grain companies’ facilities to move grain through the system. Brenda Tjaden Lepp of FarmLink Marketing Solutions also estimated around 20 to 30 per cent of the western crop going into pooling.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

“If it was a real good voluntary pool contract, we might recommend selling 20 per cent of clients’ crops into it every year — at the most — and the rest of it absolutely not. We’ll apply the tools of market analysis to make decisions about when is a good time to sell. Pooling is an average price strategy.” She says she‘s been surprised more companies haven’t come out with their own pooling options, but David Drozd, president and senior grain marketing analyst at Ag-Chieve, says he doesn’t expect private companies to offer a pool price option. “Costs for private companies to administer a pooling option for producers will be higher than a flat price system,” Drozd says. “Final price within a pool price system can and will be adjusted by any private trade company to provide for profit margins, which will erode expected benefits and will be hidden in the administration costs.” Most producers would prefer going for higher than average prices by selling in the open market, he says. Drozd says it’s difficult to judge how much wheat could be pooled for 2012-13, but points to Ontario’s example, where unrestricted direct marketing was introduced in 2003. Then, the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board purchased 17 per cent of Ontario’s wheat crop, with 12 per cent purchased through its cash bids and forward price contracts, and only five per cent through the pool account. As for canola pooling, Drozd feels it’s out of the question. For one thing, the initial price would be very low compared to the cash bids in order to allow for the higher volatility and wider price swings in canola futures versus, say, wheat markets. And for another, administrative costs would be higher than cash bid contract costs. And the CWB isn’t likely to offer canola pools as it lacks the expertise at this time to market canola. Finally, canola pooling is unnecessary simply because “this particular portion of the western Canadian grain industry is functioning well,” says Drozd, pointing out strong domestic crusher and export demand for canola. “The big disadvantage to any and all ‘pool’ pricing contracts is that the seller is willing to give up the responsibility to watch for pricing opportunities and manage their positions, and by handing off this responsibility, willing to pay extra costs to administer the pool. I do not see why a producer would settle for an average price,” Drozd concludes. ■

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malt barley update

Malting evaluation A valuable feedback loop from industry to researcher ensures usable malt varieties. By RhÉal Cenerini

hen it comes to developing new varieties of malt barley, the work of plant breeders naturally springs to mind, but how are these researchers to know just what the industry

is looking for? The answer to that question is the Winnipeg-based Brewing and Malting Barley Research Institute, an amalgam of maltsters and brewers who work together as members of this organization to fund and direct research in the sector. Aaron Beattie is a breeder and assistant professor in the barley and oat breeding program at the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. He is adamant about the value of the work that the BMBRI does on behalf of the malting industry. “The BMBRI plays a critical role,” he says, “during the final stages of the barley variety development process. They co-ordinate and analyze malting barley data on breeding lines which allows breeders, maltsters and brewers to make informed decisions on the potential of new introductions. The malting data collected is of particular relevance because it’s collected within commercial malt plants under their specific malting regimes. This exposes the lines to a range of malting conditions and allows potential users to gain insight and confidence in the quality of a line.” The person ultimately responsible for co-ordinating the collection and publication of this crucial data is Michael Brophy, the president and CEO of the BMBRI. From his office in the historic grain district at the corner of Portage and Main in Winnipeg, Brophy explains how the BMBRI fits in with all the other groups who have a hand in the assessment of new malting barley lines. “BMBRI has a very active technical committee which is comprised of experts from our member organizations. The members are represented on the Prairie Recommending Committee for Oats and Barley (PRCOB),” Brophy says. “The committee also includes expert representatives from other stakeholders across the barley value chain including growers, researchers, breeders, seed and grain companies. It operates under an umbrella group — the Prairie Grain Development Committee — which oversees the variety registration recommendation process for most new crop introductions in Western Canada.” As well, the PRCOB is made up of a series of three subcommittees (evaluation teams) that focus on different aspects of the new lines that are being evaluated. Aaron Beattie is a breeder and assistant professor in the There are subcommittees that barley and oat breeding program at the Crop Development look at the new varieties from the Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. 30

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

point of view of their resistance to disease, their yields and agronomic characteristics as well as their malting quality. A lot of the PRCOB’s work — in terms of deciding if a given variety is kept or dropped — is actually done at the sub-committee level, before a final recommendation is made at the overall PRCOB. When breeders decide to bring forward new malting barley lines, they are enrolled in the co-operative test trials that are run for the PRCOB at a variety of sites throughout Western Canada. After a first year of co-operative tests, the most promising lines are advanced for a second year of testing. This is where the BMBRI’s collaborative tests kick in. The BMBRI co-ordinates trials at eight or nine sites where the varieties are grown, under the BMBRI’s supervision, by various partners. In some cases, the trials are conducted at public facilities like the AAFC research station at Brandon, Man., Alberta Agriculture’s research centre in Lacombe, Alta., or the research plots at the University of Saskatchewan. The BMBRI also collaborates with private companies like Canterra Seeds and Viterra that test new lines on their own sites. After harvest, samples are collected and given to BMBRI members for malting in their own facilities. They are tested for such quality parameters as plumpness, germination rates, malt extract, alpha-amylase, beta-glucans and the relationship of soluble to total proteins, traits that are crucial to the malting and brewing process. That information is then complied into the BMBRI collaborative test report and made available to BMBRI members at the BMBRI technical committee. The report is also presented to the PRCOB as well as to the breeders themselves. Ultimately, it is the breeders who decide whether their lines show sufficient promise to request support for registration from the annual PRCOB meeting. How important is the data that breeders get through the collaborative tests that the BMBRI co-ordinates for the industry? Aaron Beattie says it is absolutely vital. “The more data breeders are able to obtain on a line, the better they are able to understand its potential. This allows them to make an informed decision as to which lines have value to the industry and are worth keeping and which lines should be abandoned.” If a breeder has submitted a request for registration report to the PRCOB, there are comments from the Evaluation Team on Barley Quality (ETBQ) that summarize a new variety’s performance, in both the co-operative trials as well as the BMBRI collaborative trials. These comments, together with those from the disease and agronomy evaluation teams are the basis for the final vote by PRCOB members on whether to support or reject the request from the breeder. The data itself is provided in a variety of formats. The new lines are described in absolute terms as well as in relation to the checks. For two-row varieties, that means looking at how they stack up against Metcalfe and Copeland. Continued on page 32

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BREAK the CYCLE

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Continued from page 30 In the case of six-row varieties, new lines are compared to Celebration and CDC Mayfair. The check varieties, it should be noted, can change from year to year. The data is subsequently charted and graphed by the BMBRI for easier comparison and use by industry members. Examples of the data are provided in Tables 1 and 2 below. Table 3 shows yield data from the co-operative tests.

The trial results are published early in the new year in advance of the annual PRCOB meetings that take place in February. The data from the 2011 co-operative and collaborative trials will be made available to breeders and industry representatives early in 2012. Information is also put into poster form and presented at international symposiums. Brophy compares the evaluation process leading up to variety registration to getting young hockey prospects drafted into the big leagues. Once the varieties have made it through the co-operative and collaborative tests and are registered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), they are ready for the next phase, which is focused on commercial market development. This is where the new varieties will be tested in the marketplace to see if they have what it takes to displace older, established players. This phase is assisted by other organizations such as the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC), in conjunction with private market development efforts. “We help get the new lines through to the NHL draft. But whether they become successful NHL starters or ride the bench depends on how they perform once the maltsters and brewers begin using them on a commercial scale in their customer products.” Examples of two new varieties that are now looking to make their mark in the major leagues of two-row malting barley are CDC Meredith and Bentley. It appears that Meredith, according to Brophy, may be able to satisfy some Metcalfe customers while delivering a significant yield improvement for barley growers. Bentley, on the other hand, is being looked at by some customers who may like a lower level of enzymes. New varieties such as CDC Meredith, Bentley and Merit 57 have all displayed lower protein compared to the checks in the registration data, a definite plus for malting barley. Aaron Beattie is also quite high on CDC Meredith, a line from the U of S breeding program. “CDC Meredith is generating a lot of talk among growers and maltsters,” he says. “It shows a nice yield improvement over currently popular varieties, such as CDC Copeland and AC Metcalfe, with a consistent one per cent lower grain protein content. The variety is also performing well in the malthouse — which is making the maltsters happy.” Whether or not Meredith, Bentley or one of the other new varieties presently in the system become the next Sidney Crosby of the brewing and malting industries remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the system in place — assisted by the proactive approach of the BMBRI — is one that ensures all parties are working towards a common goal, namely the development of barley varieties that will enhance the competitiveness of Canada’s malting industry, both now and for future generations of growers and processors. n

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CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

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MORE THAN 1,000 WORDS

hey say a picture is worth 1,000 words. To illustrate some of the behind-the-scenes activities within the grain industry we might not all be intimately familiar with, Crops Guide is working with Prairie photographers to create photo essays that document these processes.

When most of us think of products made from Prairie grains, bread wheat and flour milling springs to mind. But a sometimes overlooked but crucial market is noodle production, generally from bread wheat classes, much of it in key Asian markets like Japan and China. St. Francois Xavier, Man., photographer Ryan Fenessey visited Cigi’s noodle pilot plant this issue to show how noodles are made.



1 Much of the specialized equipment is sourced from Japan. The equipment Cigi uses is a muchscaled-down version of larger equipment that would typically be found in commercial plants, but it is still of a large enough scale to allow for meaningful product testing.

2 The starting point is all purpose bread wheat flour, water and salt mixed to form dough crumbs, unlike pasta where a damp dough is made from semolina — the coarse middlings from the grain-milling process primarily from durum wheat. Here Esey Assefaw, who heads up the Asian products and extrusion technology division of Cigi, makes the crucial mix.

3 This material is then fed through a series of rollers, producing a flat dough sheet. An even and consistent sheet is vitally important to ensure the consistency of further processing steps in the noodle line.

CROPS GUIDE

march 2012

4 The flat sheet is then machine cut into the recognizable noodles we can all buy at the grocery store.

5 These cut noodle sheets are then steam cooked and folded.

6 The cooked noodles are then cut into individual portion sizes and deep fried or hot air dried.

7 Individual portions are cooled.

8 The end result is the instantly recognizable ramen noodle portions. The next step in a commercial plant would be packaging. At Cigi the products either undergo further testing in house or are shipped to customers for evaluation.

9 Ramen noodles are

just one example of the Asian products that Cigi produces and tests. There are key differences to how the individual products are produced, but all use similar technology and processes.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

canola agronomy

Peas work in a canola rotation Looking for another crop for your canola-wheat rotation? Pea prices are good, and it could be a good rebound year for the crop. Here’s what to think about when growing peas immediately before or after canola B y J ay W h e t t e r

eas can be a profitable third leg in a canola-wheat rotation, especially at current prices. But why complicate a good thing, right? The two-crop rotation of canola and wheat is the most common canola rotation in Western Canada and it works well for most growers — so far, at least. If you feel you’re pushing canola rotations too hard, then putting peas on canola or wheat stubble can work well agronomically and possibly economically. “With $7 wheat and $9 peas, 2011 was a good year to have both in the rotation with canola. If prices hold, it will be worth looking at again for 2012,” says Greg Frey, agronomist and location manager with Cavalier Agrow in Meota, Sask. Pea production in Western Canada has dropped over the past four years, leaving peas in a tight carry-over position. This has helped prices. With generally lower costs of production compared to other crops, peas can provide a decent return — as long as prices hold until delivery and as long as the crop yields well and doesn’t give you too much harvest grief. Luke Seatter of Dapp, Alta., has been growing peas ahead of canola and ahead of wheat for the past three years. “It works well both ways. There is no rotation issue with canola after peas,” he says. “The biggest challenge with peas is getting consistent yields. We had amazing pea crops in 2009 and 2010 and then last year, we had too much rain early, so the peas grew thick and then went flat. Fungicide didn’t do

much to prevent disease, and we ended up with half the crop we expected.” In Frey’s area, pea growers use seed treatments to keep up plant counts and fungicides to control mycosphaerella disease. With these inputs, growers around Meota have been able to push pea yields above 60 bushels per acre with reduced lodging and improved harvestability. Peas can also spread out the harvest season, he adds. “Peas are usually combined earlier allowing growers with a pea-canola-wheat rotation to get harvesting earlier.” Spreading out the harvest season is an underappreciated benefit of a more diverse rotation, says Greg Sekulic, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada. “A harvest that’s spread over more months means that the capital cost of individual equipment can be spread over more acres, reducing fixed costs,” he says. “If you can get winter wheat into the rotation, that’s even better. Think how many acres a combine can do in a 14-day harvest of wheat and canola versus a two-month harvest of winter wheat, peas, spring wheat and canola.”

The nitrogen benefit A seven-location Agriculture and AgriFood Canada study led by research scientist John O’Donovan in Lacombe, Alta., compared canola on peas to canola on wheat and found that in almost every case, canola on peas outyielded canola on wheat. (Canola on canola was a distant third.) O’Donovan launched the study to see if a pulse before canola could reduce depen-

dence on inorganic nitrogen. This could be possible. O’Donovan compared yield results at different nitrogen fertilizer rates. In plots with no nitrogen fertilizer applied, canola yield on pulse stubble was often higher than canola yield on wheat stubble. That gap narrowed, in general, as nitrogen fertilizer rates increased. “You don’t want to cut nitrogen rates too much for canola on pea stubble,” says Murray Hartman, oilseed specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development. “Instead, keep fertility rates up and take advantage of the extra yield that higher nitrogen carry-over may provide.” Sekulic agrees. He also encourages growers to make sure to maintain fertility throughout the rotation. “Many pea growers don’t put any fertilizer down, or they only put down 20 pounds of phosphate per acre,” he says. “If adding peas to the rotation, make sure the crop leaves soil nutrient reserves in a better overall position, especially when following them with canola, which demands a lot of nutrients.” To get the greatest benefit from pea nitrogen fixing, Hartman actually gives a slight nod to the pea-wheat-canola rotation over pea-canola-wheat. “The nitrogen boost from the peas may benefit the wheat more than the canola, especially if the goal is high protein,” he says. “Then again, if you don’t want higher-protein wheat, you just want higher yields, this advantage may not be that strong.” O’Donovan’s study shows that canola after peas may also have higher protein and lower oil, but growers

Effect of different crop residues on canola seed yield (t/ha) gain or loss compared to wheat residue Crop residue

Beaverlogde

Lacombe

Lethbridge

Indian Head

Scott

Fababean(GM*)

0.63(<0.001)

Fababean(seed) Pea(seed)

1.32(<0.001)

0.58(0.002)

0.80(<0.001)

0.44(<0.001)

0.03(0.020)

0.74(<0.001)

-0.22(0.020)

-0.09(0.340)

0.07(0.579)

0.29(0.027)

0.19(0.080)

0.16(0.064)

—

0.14(0.035)

0.27(0.017)

0.15(0.026)

0.24(0.123)

0.32(0.006)

Lentil(seed)

0.18(0.051)

Canola(seed)

-0.17(0.001)

— 0.29(0.300)

Swift Current 0.27(0.098)

Brandon 0.47(0.004)

0.04(0.417)

0.61(0.005)

0.10(0.263)

0.24(0.075)

0.21(0.315)

-0.57(<0.001)

-0.05(0.397)

-0.04(0.872)

0.03(0.951)

-0.184(0.136)

*GM=green manure

This table summarizes O’Donovan’s Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada study. These are yield results for canola on various stubbles as they compare to canola on wheat. For example, canola on pea stubble at Beaverlodge, Alberta yielded 0.16 tonnes per hectare more than canola on wheat stubble for that location, averaged for all nitrogen treatments. This works out to a yield advantage of roughly three bushels per acre. Results in white are statistically neutral.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

The photo on the left is canola on canola with no nitrogen added. The photo on the right is canola on peas with no nitrogen added. These plots are from an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada study to look at pulses in a rotation with canola. The study looked at various nitrogen rates and found that, in general, canola on pea stubble yielded better than canola on wheat stubble and canola on canola stubble. Because of the high nitrogen demand of canola, cutting nitrogen rates for canola on pea stubble is not recommended, but with equal nitrogen rates, the study shows you can see higher yields for canola on pea stubble.

aren’t paid for oil content in canola, so this shouldn’t have a grading impact. Residue is another consideration when choosing a rotation sequence. Wheat may produce more tonnes of residue per acre, which may present a greater challenge for canola seed placement and stand establishment than canola in pea stubble. Peas also leave more bare ground that will warm up faster in the spring, which may be an advantage for canola. But pea vines, though lower in volume than wheat stubble, can bunch up in the drill. Seatter has had trouble with pea vines getting tangled in the drill and bunching up and Hartman has “seen some seeding messes” for canola after peas. This doesn’t help much with your sequence decision, so you may have to try both and see which works best for you.

Herbicide carry-over and disease You can’t grow LibertyLink or Roundup Ready canola in the year after an Odyssey application on peas (but you can grow Clearfield canola.) Imazethapyr carry-over presents too great a risk to establishment of non-Clearfield canola. To get around this, Seatter uses Viper in his peas, which is registered for use in the year before canola. Viper combines Group 2 imazamox (the active in Solo, one of the two actives in Odyssey, and in Clearfield wheat herbicides Adrenalin and Altitude FX) with Group 6 bentazon (the active in Basagran). Frey likes the overall weed control regime that the three-crop rotation offers. “You use Viper in peas, followed by Roundup Ready or LibertyLink canola, and then wheat with something other than straight Group 2. It’s a great weed control system,” he says. Clark Brenzil, weed management specialist with Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, offers one caution. Imazamox has a short to moderate soil life, but given the dry conditions last summer and fall in

parts of the Prairies, imazamox carry-over could be higher than expected on some fields. Canola and flax are very sensitive to imazamox. Most years there is enough soil moisture available to provide the moisture necessary for soil microbes to break down the molecule. “But producers need to be aware of the risk factors for potential carryover of herbicides in the imidazolinone (IMI) family with extreme dry conditions, lower organic matter and acid (low pH) soils,” Brenzil says. “When any or all of these factors are present, producers should contact the manufacturer to determine if they will support recropping of canola in this situation. “Producers can eliminate the risk of damage by growing Clearfield canola, but this sets up a cycle of Group 2 use that allows Group 2-resistant weeds to be selected for and increase in number,” Brenzil says. “Group 2-resistant weeds have advanced to the point where we need to reintroduce herbicides from groups other than Group 2 into Clearfield production systems for the technology to remain viable. Both herbicides in the mix must be able to control the target weed to be a viable resistance management strategy.” Viper is an example of this type of strategy. The other issue with back-to-back broadleaf crops is the potential for increased disease. Peas are a host for sclerotinia. The disease rarely causes any economic damage to peas, but peas can increase inoculum levels for canola, says Faye Dokken-Bouchard, provincial plant disease specialist with Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. She adds that some root rots will affect both canola and peas, but she doesn’t expect an increase in canola root rot damage compared to a cereal immediately prior, unless it was quite severe.

Other pulses Peas are the most common pulse crop grown in Western Canada, especially in

canola production regions, but you have other pulse crop options. O’Donovan’s study also showed good results for faba beans and lentils ahead of canola, although the canola yield results were generally more consistent on peas. However, the study’s results for Indian Head, Sask., found canola performed best on lentil residue. Greg Stamp, a seed grower on irrigation at Enchant, Alta., often grows faba beans ahead of canola. “Faba beans fix more nitrogen than peas,” he says. “You can usually depend on one pound of nitogen for each bushel of faba beans harvested, which is about 30 per cent more than peas.” He grows faba beans to sell as seed, and he says the export market is growing for faba beans and the feed market is an option as well. “Pea prices look great for this coming year, but if you can’t reliably grow goodquality peas, we think faba beans will be a nice option because of increasing export markets, easier harvestability and, so far, fewer disease issues,” he says. Stamp uses Solo and Basagran on faba beans, and will use a second shot of Basagran if volunteer canola is an issue. Whether you try peas or some other pulse in rotation with canola and wheat, be prepared for a few challenges with harvest. Peas do not harvest as easily as canola and wheat. But many pea growers overcome these challenges every year. The benefits are a nitrogen-fixing crop in the rotation that can, as the recent AAFC study shows, increase canola yields compared to canola seeded into wheat stubble, spread out harvest, and provide some valuable weed control options. And if all goes well with pricing, you can achieve these benefits and maintain whole farm profitability at the same time. n Jay Whetter is communications manager with the Canola Council of Canada.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

MACHINERY

Pulling back the curtain on overlap What does it really cost? By Brad Brinkworth, Meristem Media

hen it comes to Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and precision farming, there is no shortage of bells, whistles and possibilities to talk about. But for many producers, particularly those who have made the substantial investment to get into this next generation of farming, one phrase tends to stand out above the wall of chatter: “Show me the money!” Whether that’s an expression of skepticism, excitement or buyer’s anxiety depends on one’s perspective. But there’s no doubt people from all viewpoints on GPS would benefit from a better foundation of hard numbers to anchor the discussion. Now a key source of that information is emerging as results flow from an ongoing study on the hidden costs of overlap, led by the AgTech Centre in Lethbridge. While there is more to the GPS story than overlap, it is a big piece of the value equation as touted by industry for where the cost saving advantages of GPS are to be found. Based on the numbers now appearing, farmers who have invested in GPS can look forward to an added

boost of confidence, says Virginia Nelson, agricultural engineer with AgTech Centre. “What farmers would like to know is just how much they save in real dollars through precision farming,” she says. “Our study was designed to help answer that question. What we’re finding is that in most cases the potential savings of reduced overlap are quite substantial. The overlap savings alone would be enough on their own to justify a GPS investment, particularly if a producer is in it for the long term.”

Uncovering savings potential Giving farmers a look at the cost of overlap in seeding and spraying operations involved three steps. The first step was to calculate typical input costs for three common crops. The second was to calculate the amount of land surface overlap that occurred with various amounts of equipment overlap. The third was to combine those results to calculate the cost of overlap by crop on a quarter-section. The AgTech Centre calculated its overlap cost estimates based on input costs provided by the Crop Plan-

What overlap is costing farmers Crop-by-crop comparisons

These numbers from AgTech Centre trials tell the story. Table #1: The cost of seeding overlap

Table #2: The cost of spraying overlap

Cost of overlapping a quarter section ($)

Overlap (feet)

Canola

Durum

Feed Barley

Canola

Durum

Feed Barley

420.18

330.40

311.52

0.5

19.80

18.24

16.98

858.29

674.91

636.34

79.28

73.07

67.99

1,314.50

1,033.64

974.59

119.02

109.69

102.07

1,788.97

1,406.74

1,326.37

198.70

183.12

170.40

2,281.88

1,794.34

1,691.82

417.19

384.48

357.78

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Overlap (feet)

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CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

“ With the large scale of production more common today, it’s not hard to see how the costs can add up quickly. We’re really in a zone where precision is an absolute must for any production — Virginia Nelson, AgTech Centre operation of scale.” Guide 2011 — Dark Brown Soil Zone publication produced by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. For seeding, total costs per acre (including equipment, seed, nitrogen, phosphate, sulphur and other inputs) were estimated to be $150.24 for canola, $118.14 for durum, and $111.39 for feed barley. For spraying, per-acre costs were pegged at $32.65 for canola, $30.09 for durum, and $28 for feed barley. Farm machinery costs were taken from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development’s Farm Operation Cost Guide 2010. Diesel fuel was assumed to be 80 cents per litre, while both seeding and spraying equipment was assumed to have logged 400 annual hours of use. Overlap was determined by calculating factors such as effective equipment width (the equipment width minus overlap), number of passes and length of travel. “Producers need to keep in mind every situning

ation is different,” says Nelson. “But the way we structured the study should give them a pretty good idea of what could happen. If anything, we tried to be pretty conservative so the numbers here are quite realistic. I suspect in many cases they could be a notch or two higher.” The tables #1 and #2 show the results.

The seeding picture One aspect no surprise to producers is that the higher the investment required per crop, the higher the cost of overlap. This plays out quite clearly in the seeding numbers. Canola seeding carries the highest cost of overlap with a loss of $2,281.88 tied to five feet of overlap on a quarter section. The penalties for the same level of overlap are also substantial for the other crops — $1,794.34 for durum and $1,691.82 for feed barley.

The spraying picture Canola numbers are also highest among

the crops for spraying, where five feet of overlap per quarter section tallies in at a cost of $198.70. Durum overlap at the same level weighs in at a cost of $183.12, followed by $170.40 for feed barley.

Head-to-head differences by crop The tables show that even at much lower overlap levels of a half foot or a foot, the costs are significant, particularly when multiplied over a large number of acres. “With the large scale of production more common today, it’s not hard to see how the costs can add up quickly,” says Nelson. “We’re really in a zone where precision is an absolute must for any production operation of scale.” n Meristem is a Calgary-based communications firm that specializes in writing about western agriculture, food and land use. More articles at www.meristem.com.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

conservation

Shelterbelts: the trappings of success By Krista Simonson

ooming large on our stark landscape, shelterbelts are the ubiquitous presence of the Prairies. For more than a century, they’ve provided protection for farmyards, crops and livestock, increased crop yields, and conserved water and soil while intercepting dust, nutrients and chemicals. Thanks to an ever-evolving list of benefits, the shelterbelt remains an integral component of agricultural success. For 110 years, the Canadian government has championed the shelterbelt through an organization founded in Indian Head, Sask. Originally the Plains Tree Planting Program, best-known as the Prairie Farmland Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA), and now the Agroforestry Development Centre (ADC), this nursery and distribution plant has provided more than 600 million seedlings to producers across Western Canada. In 1903, the program distributed 6,000 trees to 44 famers across the Prairies. The need for trees has grown steadily over the decades, with dramatic upswings during the dust bowl of the ’30s and the droughts of the ’80s. Now, the ADC annually distributes more than four million seedlings to 7,000 landowners. Originally the organization provided trees to settlers as a means of survival: for the Prairie homesteader, the trees created the only barrier between gardens and crops and the vicious elements. Some settlers brought trees from their homelands or from Eastern Canada, but they weren’t hardy enough for Prairie conditions. “The PFRA provided them with native species to slow down soil erosion and to provide fuel, food and fibre. We have original letters from these settlers saying the only reason they were able to feed their families 40

CROPS GUIDE

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is because of those trees,” says Bruce Hesselink of ADC. A century later, the name change to Agroforestry Development Centre is more than semantics; it shows an evolution in intent. The ADC now considers one of its central mandates to be education: spreading the word that co-existing trees and crops offer a complex array of economic and environmental benefits. “Those historical reasons are still applicable, but the environmental issues now have more currency. We’re addressing nutrient capture, biodiversity and habitat, water quality and climate change,” says Hesselink. In the early decades, field belts of one long row of native trees, typically maples or conifers, were established. As the program evolved, so did its abilities: the ADC now maintains about 26 native trees and shrubs, some better suited as barriers to the elements, some as nutrient captors and carbon sequesters. More options also allow for more diversity in shelterbelts, providing better protection against disease and insects. Knowledge of best practices has evolved, too, keeping pace with agricultural practices. When soil erosion control is the main goal, a dense, single-row shrub like caragana planted one to two feet apart will provide best results. However, in a heavier soil, this may trap too much snow, causing seeding problems in the spring. In this case, a producer might consider a shelterbelt of a more porous species, such as green ash, at a wider spacing of up to eight or 10 feet. Maintenance plays a crucial role in the efficiency of a shelterbelt. Jim Pedersen farms about 3,000 acres, mainly corn and cereals, out of Carman, Man. He first collaborated with the ADC in the ’90s, and

again in 2006, planting about 2,500 green ash seedlings to create a field belt. “That first shelterbelt from the ’90s is about 20 years old now, and it’s become really efficient,” Pedersen says. “With these new trees, the first few years are crucial until they’re self-sufficient. You have to find the time to do a lot of pruning, to allow some wind through, and sometimes you have to do some replanting. Success is a shelterbelt without too many blanks.” Hesselink confirms that proper maintenance is a primary challenge to an effective shelterbelt. Ironically, while nutrient capture is one beneficial reason to create a shelterbelt, that same ability to retain chemical spray can be a challenge to its growing seedlings. Pedersen agrees. “When it comes to spraying, you’re watching for wind conditions that are favourable for your crops, but your trees are young and vulnerable, so there’s another set of factors at play. And then you have to hope your neighbours’ practices won’t affect your trees.” Modern challenges are nothing new to the ADC. Through the decades the organization has adapted the traditional shelterbelt to increase its benefits while maintaining a small footprint on the land. Alternative planting designs that work in conjunction with modern practices like direct seeding, minimum tillage, and larger equipment and fields are crucial to the survival of shelterbelts. Specialized placement along edges and field margins, and in areas that are difficult to farm, is a relatively new focus. Today’s efficient, resourceful shelterbelts can bring new crop options into focus. ADC’s Laura Poppy sees producers in the future choosing species for their shelterbelts

to meet demands from the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical worlds. Pedersen, too, can envision new crops on his land. “We’ve got a quarter section with two sides of shelterbelt and one down the middle, splitting it into two 80s. That not only tames the wind, but it creates a real hothouse effect. I’m not doing it in my lifetime,” laughs Pedersen, “but you could see something like onions or potatoes really thriving in there.” Maintaining the shelterbelt’s viability in modern agricultural practices keeps the

ADC looking to the future. While biodiversity, wildlife buffers and pollinator habitats are not inconsequential benefits, the producer’s bottom line remains the focus. “We’re trying to demonstrate you can have trees in your agricultural land that are a sustainable model. You don’t have to stand back and think they’re pretty, you can realize an economic profit,” says Hesselink, referring to the future of bioenergy. While the theory remains in the future for now, the ADC looks to a time when we’ll see profitable, sustainable shelterbelts. T:8”

These mixed-species shelterbelts will provide traditional protection while allowing producers to strategically harvest some of its trees, such as regenerating willows, for biomass to provide alternative fuel. “Bioenergy in the agricultural sector has not reached its full potential yet, obviously. But research suggests you can have an environmental safeguard that provides an economic profit,” says Hesselink. “Again, we’re educating ourselves and producers, and we’re coming full circle. This program has always been about trees and economics.” n

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C-61-02/12-BCS11088-E

CROPS GUIDE

SBC12001.TRILEX.11.indd

2-6-2012 1:12 PM CALMCL-DMX8127 Marsha Walters

Cyan,

Magenta,

Yellow,

Black

MARCH 2012

SBC12001.TRILEX.11 Crops Guide Insertion Date: March 21, 2012 Bayer Crop Science

nutrients What’s it do?

Sulphur story Sulphur is a critical and often misunderstood nutrient for some of the most profitable crops on the Prairies By Gord Leathers

he signs of sulphur deficiency can at times show up right on the surface of your fields — an off-yellow pall, with tinges of red on the undersides of soil clumps, which seems to show up more frequently following wet seasons. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada soil scientist Cindy Grant, of the Brandon Research Centre, says farmers should be on the lookout for these telltale signs this spring. In fact they should be keeping an eye peeled for it at all times, because recent research suggests sulphur deficiency is a larger problem than previously realized, because of some changes that are largely positive on the whole. “Internationally there’s a lot more interest in sulphur because deficiencies are becoming more and more common in different locations,” Grant said. “This is partly because of the success we’ve had in controlling air pollution and partly because more people are going to pure high analysis fertilizers that don’t contain the sulphur some of the older ones did as a contaminant.” While it might not get the attention of some of the other nutrients, sulphur is vital to all living things and this is true of our most important crops as well. We’ve been seeing deficiencies lately after a number of wet growing seasons because excess soil moisture will leach sulphur. Sulphur is necessary because it acts like a molecular rivet for shaping certain proteins and it’s crucial for wheat and alfalfa, especially alfalfa. With up to three cuttings a year, the plant has to produce a lot of tissue. But the real guzzler is canola, consuming almost triple the sulphur of most other crops. Canola has over the past several decades been a reliable bill payer for western Canadian farmers and that’s made it very popular out here. Increasing canola acreage has certainly increased the demand for soilbound sulphur and tighter canola rotations have upped the demand even more. With new hybrid lines making their way into the fields, more efficient plants are scavenging more nutrients and putting even greater pressure on the soil reserves. “Canola is, by far, the greatest remover of sulphur and the greatest likelihood of getting a response to sulphur occurs with canola,” Grant said. “Sulphur deficiency can severely reduce canola yield. It also affects seed set and that can be way, way, low so you need an adequate sulphur supply to avoid that deficiency.” 42

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It means we have to start putting more of it back and this may not be as straightforward as it sounds. “You have to be careful where you’re sampling for soil sulphur and sometimes you can’t believe the soil test because the supply will be highly variable across the field,” Grant said. “The other important thing to remember is that the sulphur supply also varies with depth and a lot of times you’ll have low levels of sulphur in the surface and you’ll have higher levels below.” As with nitrogen, there is a sulphur cycle although the input from the atmosphere is nowhere near as large. A lot of it is locked up in soil minerals as well as organic material from decaying plants. In its elemental form, it’s insoluble in water so the plants can’t get it. It takes a complex biological reaction involving a regular zoo of microbes to make that sulphur into a plant palatable sulphate. Commercial fertilizers are also available in both the elemental and sulphate chemistries. Plants use the sulphate form where an atom of sulphur is accompanied by four oxygens. Add two hydrogens to the mix and you have a little cocktail historically called oil of vitriol, better known by its modern title, sulphuric acid. Cook up a little of this, add a dash of ammonia and you have ammonium sulphate, a commercial fertilizer that provides both nitrogen and sulphur that’s plant ready and quickly available. “So when we look at the range of sulphur sources that are available, the sulphateproducing forms include ammonium sulphate, ammonium thiosulphate, gypsum and part of the MicroEssentials S15,” Grant said. “About half of the sulphur that’s in MicroEssentials S15 is in the sulphate form.” The advantage is immediate availability so it may be applied close to seeding or even as a rescue if the symptoms are quickly and easily recognizable. Still, the response will be best if applied at seeding. The other form is elemental sulphur and, since straight sulphur isn’t soluble-water, it has to find those oxygen atoms before it’s an effective fertilizer. This takes that community of microbes about two years to do, if the weather is favourable. They like it warm and not too wet. “Under Canadian Prairie conditions we really can’t rely on elemental sources to provide enough available sulphate on a deficient soil during the following crop year although they may be beneficial in very long-term planning,” Grant says. “Broadcast it rather than band it. Weathering on the soil

In the chemistry of life, sulphur, sometimes called brimstone by the clerics, is one of the big six: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur (CHNOPS). The funny thing is it doesn’t show up at all in carbohydrates and it’s completely absent from DNA. These molecules are the preserve of the first five. When you start sifting through the chemistry of organisms, sulphur finally shows up in those little building blocks we call amino acids and, even at that, only in two of them: cysteine and methionine. By weight, there is about 140 grams of sulphur in a 70-kilogram human body. By comparison there is almost 30 kilograms of carbon. Just what is it that sulphur does that makes so little of it so crucial? It bonds to another sulphur and the bond is fairly strong. The structure of DNA is pretty straightforward and we all know what that looks like. Carbohydrates can be like railroad tracks or the more complex ones go together like patio stones. Proteins, on the other hand, are vast and complex three-dimensional sculptures, composed of amino acids that are folded together in an elegant living, breathing origami. One of these amino acids is cysteine. As these collections of amino acids fold together, a cysteine will lie alongside another cysteine. When that happens, the sulphur in both of them drop their hydrogens and bond to each other instead. It’s a rigid bond and this bond helps to keep the protein in its proper shape. It’s almost like cranking up a tent trailer where everything unfolds as the carrying braces move into position. When everything is set, it latches together and the shape is maintained. Really tough tissue like fingernails, hair and feathers have a lot of these disulphide bonds, explaining the strong odour when they burn.

surface speeds the breakdown while band placement restricts it.” Gypsum, or calcium sulphate, is another form that’s being marketed fairly enthusiastically because it’s a waste product that people want to dispose of in an environmentally responsible and economically sustainable way. It can be used to moderate soil pH from either extreme, it will lower it in alkali soils and raise it in acidic environments but there are some important things to remember. The solubility is lower than that of ammonium sulphate and this is especially true if your soil is already high in calcium. It may also be difficult to handle because the formulations aren’t always easy to use. “So when you’re looking at sulphur management, most of the traditional principles still apply,” Grant says. “Plants take up sulphate, elemental has to convert to sulphate and the conversion of elemental is slow on Prairie soils.” n

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CROP PROTECTION

Crash course on surfactants B y W a r r e n L i bb y , s a v v y f a r m e r Warren Libby is president of Savvy Farmer, a web-based service for farmers and pesticide dealers. He previously held leadership positions with several crop protection companies and is a former chairman of CropLife Canada.

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

Photo credit: Amy Bailey Photography

ou don’t get much for 50 cents anymore. But that’s about what it costs per acre to add a top-notch surfactant to your spray tank. For herbicides that need the helping hand that surfactants provide, the difference in how they perform with a surfactant compared to when they are used alone is like night and day. To be effective, a post-emergent herbicide must (a) come in direct contact with the leaf surface, (b) remain on the surface long enough to penetrate the leaf, and (c) get inside the leaf cells to disrupt vital biological processes. The challenge with any postemergent herbicide is to get it inside the leaf. By nature, most weeds put up a good fight. Their leaf surface has a cuticle or outer layer composed mainly of wax. It may also be lined with fine hairs. Most water-based herbicides bead up on the waxy surface and run off, or sit atop the fine hairs. Either way, a very small amount of the herbicide droplet actually touches the leaf surface. And with postemergent herbicides, the greater the contact area with the leaf, the better they perform. That’s where surfactants — or wetting agents, as they are sometimes called — come in. They dramatically reduce the surface tension of the pesticide droplet so that it spreads out or “pancakes” across the leaf, instead of beading up. More of the herbicide is then in direct contact with the cuticle of the leaf. Once the spray droplet is in contact with the leaf surface, the next step is for it to make its way through the waxy cuticle and into

the underlying leaf cells. This takes time. Surfactants can help by delaying the drying process and reducing crystallization of the herbicide on the leaf. As a result, the herbicide has more time to do its job. Here is where surfactants really earn their keep: they help herbicides penetrate the waxy cuticle so they can be absorbed by the underlying leaf cells. Without a surfactant, many herbicides would never make it past the leaf surface. There are three main categories of surfactants used with herbicides: non-ionic surfactants, emulsified oils, and “others” — in other words, all the other products that don’t fall within the first two groupings.

Oil-based surfactants Chem Spray

Slam’R COC

Foothills Adjuvant

Steppe

MANA 8317

XA Oil Conc.

Score

Sure-Mix

Signal

Turbocharge

Most surfactants fall in the “non-ionic” category. They are typically a mixture of alcohols and fatty acids (soaps). As the name suggests, they have no electrical charge and therefore are “all-purpose” surfactants. These are the products that are most often used with glyphosate and sulfonyl-urea herbicides.

Non-ionic surfactants Ag-Surf

Liberate

Agral 90

Prosurf

Citowett Plus

Sidekick

Companion

Super Spreader

Hasten

Surf 92

LI 700

Enhance

While technically not surfactants, oils mixed with emulsifiers can often be called upon to play the same role. Traditionally, oils used as surfactants were petroleum based. More recently, however, they have been extracted

More money for ag research, Gates urges When it comes to solving the challenges of developing countries, computer maven Bill Gates believes agriculture has a vital role to play. In his annual letter for 2012, Gates, the founder of Microsoft and now a leading philanthropist, called for an increase in research for seven major crops, all of which are developing countries’ staples: cassava, corn, millet, sorghum, yam, rice and legumes.

The difference in how they perform with a surfactant compared to when they are used alone is like night and day. from soybeans or rapeseed. Oils are especially adept at breaking down the waxy cuticle on the leaf surface, thus facilitating herbicide absorption. Often, these oils are blended with surfactants to assist in spreading the herbicide across the leaf surface. Oilbased surfactants are often matched with specific herbicides and retailed together as a weed control product. The “other” category includes salts of fertilizers (in particular, ammonium sulphate), which can also serve as effective surfactants in certain situations. For example, they have been used with some glyphosate brands to reduce crystallization as well as antagonism with calcium in high-pH water. There are also several other surfactants which are derived from proprietary or secret formulas. Many of these are preformulated within the product, while others come prepacked with the herbicide, making it easy for the grower to use the appropriate surfactant in the right amount. One of the challenges when using surfactants is knowing how much to use. Normally, the rate of a surfactant is expressed as % v/v, or per cent to use, based on the volume of the surfactant and the volume of spray solution. The more spray solution you apply per acre, the more surfactant you must use to maintain the same surfactant ratio. It is extremely important to use the proper rate: too little surfactant and herbicide performance is likely to suffer; too much and the herbicide might just slide off the leaf before it has a chance to work. Even worse is the possibility of crop damage. The calculation for the correct amount of surfactant to add to the sprayer tank is: Litres of spray solution in sprayer tank x % v/v surfactant rate = volume of surfactant

Despite the seemingly significant amounts of money invested in innovation in North America, agricultural research on the seven staple crops for developing countries has declined, to the point where $3 billion is spent per year (all figures US$). That total includes $1.5 billion by governments, $1.2 billion by private companies and the remaining $300 million by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Gates pointed out that the $300 million from CGIAR was specifically focused on research for developing countries; very little of the other 90 per cent made it to the countries that need it most. Gates’ foundation has thus invested an additional $2 billion aimed at helping impoverished farm families to boost productivity in a sustainable manner, practise better land management and to make use of drip irrigation, and at finding ways for farmers to connect with viable markets. “Right now, just over one billion people — about 15 per cent of the people in the world — live in extreme poverty,” Gates wrote. “On most days, they worry about whether their family will have enough food to eat. There is an irony in this, since most of them live and work on farms. The problem is that their farms, which tend to be just a couple acres in size, don’t produce enough food for a family to live on.” It’s a well-accepted notion than farming in North America is carried out by less than two per cent of the population, so there is something of a blind spot in Canada and the U.S., one that accepts the level of research into improved traits or pest or disease control as “sufficient.”

For a 2,000 litre sprayer and a 0.2% v/v surfactant rate, use 2,000 x .002 = 4 litres of surfactant

Finally, here’s a word of caution: after reading this article you may be tempted to add a surfactant to any spray tank just to enhance the effectiveness of the treatment. Don’t do it. “Different surfactants do different things to different agrochemicals on different target species” (Stock and Holloway 1993). If the product label does not specify the need for a surfactant, don’t use one. And when a surfactant is required, the label will always specify which surfactant to use as well as the rate. It’s just another way to get the most bang for your post-emergent herbicide buck. n

New registrations Every month, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) approves the registration of new products or new uses for existing products. Here are some recent registrations to watch for in 2012: Cantus Fungicide — new Group 7 fungicide from BASF for fruits and vegetables Sierra 2.0 — Syngenta’s new liquid grass herbicide for wheat IPCO Vitaflo SP — IPCO’s version of the popular broad-spectrum seed treatment Nufarm Boost — Group 2 broadleaf weed herbicide for cereals BAS 516 F — seed treatment for canola and canola-quality Brassica juncea BAS 500 F — seed treatment for use in barley, corn (all types) and wheat Penncozeb 75 DF Raincoat — new formulation of the fungicide mancozeb from UPI

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

MARKETS

Choices, choices Wheat, durum and malting barley marketing options in an open market

By David Drozd Senior analyst and president, Ag-Chieve Corporation

he introduction of an open market in the coming crop year provides western Canadian farmers with more marketing choices for their wheat, durum and malting barley than they have ever had before. Farmers will still be able to market their crops through the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), but this year they will also have the option to shop their wheat, durum and malting barley around to private grain companies — and sell to the highest bidder. Private grain companies began offering deferred pricing contracts as soon as Bill C-18 was enacted. It is important for farmers to understand the terms of the contracts before signing them, as the details vary from one company to another. For example, one may be offering a base grade of No. 1, 13.5 per cent protein for red spring wheat and another company could be offering a base grade of No. 2, 13 per cent. Not be outdone in the new era, the CWB plans to offer grain marketing programs that include cash prices, futures contracts and pooling options. Specific details have yet to be released, but here is a look ahead to the programs the CWB is planning to have available for farmers in the 2012-13 crop year.

1) CWB pooling contracts: The CWB will offer pooling periods consisting of shorter and longer terms. Pre-harvest pools will offer early delivery and be of several months duration. Harvest pools will price grain over a longer period and offer deliveries throughout the term. Both pools will provide initial payments, adjustment payments and final payments. Early payment options will be made available with these pools.

2) CWB cash contracts: Cash contracts will provide farmers with an up-front price, which will allow them to choose

CROPS GUIDE

MARCH 2012

when they price and sell. Farmers can expect to receive full payment soon after delivery, with delivery opportunities offered in accordance with contract terms.

3) CWB Futures contracts: Farmers will have the opportunity to hedge wheat on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX), Kansas City Board of Trade (KCBT) and the grain exchanges in Chicago. These contracts will provide farmers with an opportunity to choose a delivery period and lock in a futures price in Canadian dollars. Farmers will also have the ability to choose a base grade of wheat. The CWB will make payment after the grain is delivered and the basis has been locked in. The CWB has said their representatives will assist farmers in building a marketing plan with whatever combination of programs makes the most sense for their own farm business plans. In the new open market environment, CWB finances will continue to be backed by the full guarantee of the Government of Canada. As long as the CWB offers a pooled program, we wouldn’t anticipate that private grain companies in Western Canada will offer a “pooled price” option for farmers. The costs for private companies to administer a pooling option will be higher than in a flat price system. The final price within a pooling price system can and will be adjusted by any private trade company to provide for profit margins, which will erode expected benefits and be hidden in the administration costs. Most farmers tell us they would rather sell in the open market with the intent of getting a higher price than an average price. The CWB will be offering a pool for those interested in using one, or farmers can create their own pool by making incremental sales throughout the year. The percentage of deliveries made to a voluntary CWB will depend on the amount of grain the CWB receives.

If we look to Ontario, when unrestricted direct marketing was introduced in 2003, whereby allowing farmers the opportunity to sell to any domestic or export market including the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board (OWPMB), 83 per cent of Ontario’s wheat crop was sold by direct marketing. The OWPMB purchased 17 per cent of Ontario’s two-million tonne wheat crop. Twelve per cent was purchased through its cash bids and forward price contracts and five per cent through their pool account. This exemplifies the fact, “wheat producers do not want to settle for an average price.” Some of the disadvantages of “pool” pricing programs include; the seller agrees to accept whatever the average price of wheat sales is for the given year, foregoing all higher pricing opportunities the market may present, as well as paying administration costs associated with operating the pool. One of the more positive benefits that emerged from the open market system in Ontario is the ability of private companies to ship wheat containing fusarium into the U.S. market. Cash prices may be more volatile in an open market system, but this volatility affords farmers the ability to take advantage of niche markets when prices are higher than a pool account price. The risk is, farmers could also end up with a price that is lower than the pool account, but farmers are risktakers — right from the moment the seed is placed in the ground. How well they sell their grain will depend on when they pull the trigger, but just as grain producers assume the risk of growing the crop, they also accept the risk of knowing when to sell their production. In this new open market era, grain producers have the opportunity to choose not only when to sell, but where to sell their wheat, durum and malting barley. This is a winning combination for farmers, as the CWB and the private trade compete for their share of the business. n

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Craig Goodmundson farms near Wynyard, SK. This is his experience. “We made the decision to try JumpStart on some of our crops for a two-year period and we liked the results… The seed that was treated with JumpStart seemed to have better emergence and do very well initially, and then on through the rest of the season… In my opinion it’s a good investment. We’ve used it faithfully here since our initial trials with it, and I just don’t see putting a crop in without it.” To put JumpStart to work on your farm, see your local retailer.

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Craig Gudmundson Wynyard, SK