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CROPs Guide october 2012

CONTENTS

EVERY ISSUE

FEATURES

4

18

Editor’s note

A few choice words from our readers.

6

Gleanings

10

Machinery

28

More than 1,000 words

32 34

Notable events from the grain industry.

Not your father’s air drill.

All the hard work behind those insect maps.

WGRF research update Fusarium may be much more widespread in oats than first thought.

Markets

Will the new ICE futures take flight?

The other pests

No two ways about it — those rodents have to go.

20

Heading north

22

Milling school

Do American wheat varieties have a place on this side of 49?

Saudi millers are in Winnipeg this winter learning how to better use your products.

24

Satellite startup

30

ot canola has more H storage risk

Cover Story open market update hat next?

12 w The new CWB is a wholly owned government entity again — but likely not for long.

oving on 14 m Will the new CWB ultimately be a viable business, or are the hurdles simply too high?

NASA’s pending soil moisture satellite may be as big as GPS in time.

Getting that bin cool fast should be your storage priority this fall.

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.

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CROPS GUIDE

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OCTOBER 2012

3

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

Letters, we get letters

I

EDITORIAL STAFF

love letters to the editor, and not just because my fragile ego requires constant shoring up.

In fact, if that’s what I was looking for, I’d ignore them entirely, since most people can’t be bothered to put pen to paper unless they’re convinced I was a) wrong, b) clinically insane, c) too stupid to be left unattended or d) some combination of all of the above.

That’s not entirely true, I do get the occasional one that’s positive, and I always say when the letters and calls run roughly 50/50 love/hate, I must have gotten close to impartiality.

Why do I enjoy them? Because they’re the most direct form of feedback I get, they prove someone’s actually reading my work and sometimes they’re quite funny — and the most pointed serve to keep me honest.

As we enter our second season producing CROPS GUIDE, I’d like to take the opportunity to share a few views that were sparked by things I wrote. Unfortunately, I can’t share the names of the writers for a few reasons. In some cases they never included them. In some cases they were obvious pen names. But in the majority of cases it’s because the original emails were lost due to an email service changeover.

I’m a bit too young to remember the bitter fights in Saskatchewan over daylight time. If I were able to recall them I might have reconsidered ever writing about it at all.

A gentleman from Brandon was quick to inform me that all his friends in Saskatchewan hate not having daylight time, since they don’t have enough time to do anything in the evening, like sneak in a round of golf. Since I’m a subscriber to the Mark Twain school of thought on golf — a good walk ruined — I’ll concede I’d never considered that view.

Another writer, however, pointed out an error that both I and the earlier correspondent were guilty of a common misconception about Saskatchewan’s unique time system. We assumed that the province was on Central Standard Time, and never went on daylight time, when in fact the province is officially part of the Mountain time zone, and was technically always on daylight time.

This led me to comb the Internet for a bit more information on this topic and I quickly found out he was right. My bad, wish I could say it will never happen again, but as a carbon-based life form, I share the universal trait of fallibility. I

will say this however — if your jurisdiction has a time-keeping system so far from the norm that it has it’s very own Wikipedia entry, you’re clearly marching to the beat of your own drummer.

While I appreciated these views, I’m going to go on record here to state that my original objections haven’t changed. I’m of an age where losing an hour’s sleep is a big deal and it makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the head by a mule for days. I don’t much care if Manitoba goes on daylight time and stays there forever or never goes on it — this is a case where Saskatchewan has it right.

Surprise reaction Another editorial that generated a slew of calls and letters was my stance that I didn’t think farmers should play the sympathy card over and over again, since they’re running businesses.

By this I mean I’ve slowly over the years lost patience with bumper stickers like “You eat because I farm,” since I pay my own grocery bill.

It showed a fundamental lack of respect for anyone who doesn’t farm, I suggested, and somehow treated their work as illegitimate.

I was waiting — almost gleefully a couple of colleagues suggested — for a response, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. I was however a bit surprised, since the responses were overwhelmingly — I would guesstimate about 3:1 — positive. I had a number of very good telephone conversations with thoughtful farmers who basically said these things have always bothered them a bit too, and failed to recognize that folks off the farm face challenges and insecurities too.

That’s not to say everyone liked this piece. In fact it earned a number of negative responses, including one anonymous note that basically said I needed to pull my head out of whatever orifice I had it jammed into if I’d just now noticed that farms were for-profit businesses.

If that’s the impression the reader was left with, I can only say that I didn’t make my case clear enough and that is a PEBCAK error as the IT techies say (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard) that I must accept responsibility for. I can, however, assure the letter writer that I’ll at least try to refrain from sniffing glue before writing any more articles, as they suggested.

Again, thanks to everyone who took the time to write or call, especially those who didn’t care for what I had to say. It’s always a pleasure to hear from our readers. ■

G O R D G I L M O U R gord.gilmour@fbcpublishing.com 4

CROPS GUIDE

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OCTOBER 2012

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

David Drozd Rebeca Kuropatwa Val Ominski

Ron Friesen 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: Sharon Komoski (204) 944-5758 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.

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PRINTED IN CANADA Vol. 01 No. 05 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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GLEANINGS G R A I N

I N D U S T R Y

N E W S

INDUSTRY NOTES PRAIRIE WHEAT HIGH IN PROTEIN, BUT SUPPLIES PLENTIFUL

PASSAGES FAMED WHEAT BREEDER BARRIE CAMPBELL Barrie Campbell, whose namesake variety AC Barrie still makes up an important part of Prairie wheat acreage, passed away in Winnipeg July 16 at age 89.

When Campbell retired in 1988 after 39 years as a wheat breeder at the Agriculture Canada research station in Winnipeg, his varieties accounted for more than 70 per cent of the red spring wheat acres in Western Canada.

During his career, Campbell registered nine wheat varieties, including Manitou, Pembina, Benito, Canthatch, Columbus, Napayo, Katepwa, Roblin, and Neepawa, the latter one of the most successful varieties ever. In 1987, it replaced the long-standing Marquis as the quality standard for all new varieties to meet for registration in Western Canada.

In an interview with the MANITOBA COOPERATOR ’s Allan Dawson in 1993, Campbell said that he came close to throwing out Neepawa before it reached the co-op testing trials. “I thought it might be too good to throw away and took another look. It was borderline. Sometimes there is only one chance, and if it didn’t make it, it’s dead.”

Ron DePauw, the pre-eminent Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada wheat breeder who developed AC Barrie, has high praise for Campbell. “It was an outstanding contribution that Barrie made over the years,” he said from the Swift Current research station July 30. “He contributed tremendously to benefit western Canadian agriculture. To this day Neepawa is still resistant to stem rust.”

AC Barrie, registered in 1993, was named to not only honour Campbell’s work, but also to recognize that three of Campbell’s varieties — Neepawa, Columbus and BW90 — are part of AC Barrie’s lineage. It was a fitting tribute. AC Barrie dominated western Canadian wheat acres for 10 years and was one of the most popular varieties in Manitoba for even longer. Between 2000 and 2002 AC Barrie accounted for more than 50 per cent of Manitoba’s red spring wheat acres, falling to a third of them from 2003 to 2006. It wasn’t until 2009 that Kane replaced AC Barrie as the most popular wheat variety in Manitoba.

Campbell and his Agriculture Canada

6

CROPS GUIDE

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OCTOBER 2012

colleagues also helped western farmers by developing wheats resistant to stem rust, DePauw said. “There has not been any significant stem rust losses on wheat in Canada and that’s really the function of the work that people like Barrie Campbell and (others) did way back in the ’50s and ’60s. We’ve been able to maintain it but the foundation was really laid by those scientists during that time period.”

The son of a Court of Queen’s Bench judge in Winnipeg, Campbell said he had no driving ambition to be a plant breeder. “I sort of drifted into it,” he said.

Campbell graduated in agriculture at the University of Manitoba in 1944, earning a master ’s degree from the same university in 1948 and a PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1954. He was appointed senior plant breeder the same year, holding the position until his retirement.

Campbell was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1989 and received an honorary degree of doctor of science from the University of Manitoba in 1992.

The Reuters wire service reports that Prairie farmers have plenty of high-protein wheat — likely too much to command much of the usual premium due to abundant supplies.

After two years of flooding, Western Canada is set to produce its second-biggest all-wheat crop in 16 years.

Growing conditions have been mostly favourable, but stress caused by midsummer heat helped boost protein content by shrinking kernels and reducing their starch production.

“It’s high, and in some cases, e x t re m e l y h i g h , ” s a i d J o n a t h o n Driedger, market analyst for FarmLink Marketing Solutions in Winnipeg.

“There’s no shortage of protein.”

The United States is the biggest importer of Canadian wheat, but its winter wheat crop was also relatively high in protein this year, Driedger said, and the northern Plains’ spring wheat production this year is expected to be larger than last year.

The premium of nearby Minneapolis spring wheat futures to Chicago soft red winter wheat was around 73 cents per bushel in early September, recovering somewhat after hitting its lowest level in late August since October 2010.

A year ago, the Minneapolis spring wheat premium was more than three times the current level.

The loss of traditional premium levels for high protein are unlikely to dampen farmers’ mood much, however, with big crops being harvested across much of the Prairies and prices high, due to drought harming corn in the U.S. Midwest, and pulling up other crop prices, said Chuck Penner, analyst at LeftField Commodity Research in Winnipeg.

Canada is the biggest exporter of spring wheat, used for baking.

Western Canadian spring wheat averaged protein content of 13.1 per cent last year across all milling grades, down from the previous 10-year average of 13.7 per cent, according to the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC).

This year ’s average spring wheat protein content is 14.2 per cent so far, based on 420 samples of all grades.

Protein levels are important to the fermentation process in making bread, said Nancy Edwards, program manager of bread wheat research for the CGC.

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The Profitability Calculator is a tool that automates calculations of values and is precise only to the extent of accuracy of all inputted values. Yield data is based on mid and long season testing only. Values shown are an example only. Values of inputs such as the costs of seed and crop protection products (including application rates and frequency) will vary over time, location and crop conditions. This tool may be unable to reflect the details of every user’s experience and in such cases the resulting calculation may be invalid as a comparison of profitability for any particular individual.

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110200659_CLC_CG_AG_v1.indd 1

12-08-30 2:29 PM

GLEANINGS

Industry Notes

Oat and all-wheat commissions reality in Alberta

Weed resistance found growing to 2,4-D — As U.S. farmers struggle to control the rise of “superweeds” choking key cropland, a leading herbicide that’s shown good weed control for decades appears to be losing its effectiveness, a report from a science journal said recently.

Chemical makers have been racing to find an answer to resistance that has built up against the broadly used glyphosate Roundup, and they had hoped 2,4-D was at least a partial answer to the problem of how to stop weeds that can reach over six feet tall and decimate crop production.

Dow AgroSciences is seeking federal regulatory approval to roll out corn, soybeans and cotton that are genetically altered to tolerate treatments of glyphosate and a 2,4-D-based herbicide, Enlist.

The aim is to wipe out weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate alone. Many critics have protested Dow’s plans, citing fears of increasing weed resistance along with other environmental concerns.

But Dow has said its new herbicide and 2,4-D cropping system is needed to fight back the weeds that have taken over millions of acres of key U.S. farmland.

Dow officials did not immediately respond to questions about the journal report.

But the journal W eed S cience , issued by scientists at the Weed Science Society of America, said 2,4-D-resistant waterhemp has been discovered in Nebraska.

Although scarce 30 years ago, waterhemp is now a major problem for crop production in the U.S. Midwest.

reuters

Alberta’s wheat and oat producers now have commissions established under the Marketing of Agricultural Products Act. The commissions can now collect refundable checkoffs to fund research, marketing and promotion. They began operations on Aug. 1.

The Alberta Wheat Commission will represent the interests of 11,000 wheat producers of all seven classes of wheat grown in Alberta, and is the first allwheat commission in Canada.

The commission’s revenue will be generated by a mandatory but refundable checkoff of $0.70/tonne on commercial wheat sales in Alberta.

The estimated $3.5-million annual revenue raised through the service charge will fund research, market development activities, policy and advocacy initiatives, as well as educational opportunities.

Operations officially began on Aug. 1 under an interim appointed board until director elections can be held this fall in each of the commission’s five regions.

An interim board will also lead the new Alberta Oat Growers Commission until direction elections expected to be complete by spring 2013.

A refundable service charge of $0.50/tonne for oats, raising an estimated $140,000 per year, will allow the commission to fund oat research, market development and advocacy initiatives for oat-related issues.

It is expected that the newly formed Alberta Oat Growers Commission will join the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA), which had successfully organized oat grower associations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

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.

8

CROPS GUIDE

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OCTOBER 2012

In Canada, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service classifies the non-resistant biotype as “present” in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba.

The NRCS also lists the non-resistant waterhemp as present in all U.S. states sharing borders with Canada, except Montana and Alaska.

After 10 years of treatment with 2,4-D, waterhemp was no longer effectively controlled in a Nebraska native-grass seed production field, the report said.

The highest doses of 2,4-D that were used in an on-site field study were insufficient to control 50 per cent of the waterhemp population.

Researchers gathered waterhemp seeds from this field and performed greenhouse testing against a susceptible waterhemp variety.

Twenty-eight days after treatment with the herbicide, visual observation and dry weight values showed a tenfold resistance in the affected sample.

Farmers routinely use 2,4-D to control weeds in grassland and crop production. Its effectiveness has largely held despite worldwide use since the 1940s, with only 17 weeds previously known to be resistant to it, the report said.

Some weed scientists, farmers and others fear that development of crops that tolerate direct spraying of 2,4-D will increase the use of the herbicide markedly, which in turn will increase weed resistance as was the case with Roundup.

Where Roundup once killed weeds easily, experts say that now, even heavy use of the herbicide often fails.

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AgSolutions is a registered trade-mark of BASF Corporation; ARES is a trade-mark, and Clearfield and the unique Clearfield symbol are registered trade-marks of BASF Agrochemical Products B.V.; all used with permission by BASF Canada Inc. © 2012 BASF Canada Inc.

110200494_ARES_CropsGuide_v2.indd 1

12-08-15 12:19 PM

MACHINERY

Not your father’s air drill Carbon is a key question on the new drills as farmers and their industry look to ramp up efficiency and cut energy costs

By Brad Brinkworth, Meristem Media

I

f you missed the last couple years in air drills, you missed a lot.

Air drills just got super-sized. The new ones are typically 50 to 70 feet wide, rather than 30 to 50 feet.

And the openers on these big drill units are a whole new ball game — state-of-the-art, precision tools, miles ahead in evolution from the older generation.

These openers have parallel linkage movement and use the trailing packer to control the depth. They also usually place nitrogen at a shallower depth.

There’s lots to like, and lots of promise around the productivity gains these drills can bring to farmers.

For the crew at the Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) AgTech Centre in Lethbridge, however, one of the big questions to answer isn’t one that’s likely top of mind for most producers: “How much power does it take to pull that air drill?”

Agricultural engineer Lawrence Papworth leads the team looking into this question and he says there’s an important reason for doing it — carbon.

As producers across the country are hearing more and more often, carbon is fast becoming the big measuring stick of efficient — a.k.a. sustainable — crop production.

Keep it low and lean and with today’s energy costs you’re likely not only keeping a low environmental footprint but also a healthy bottom line.

“There’s no question farmers hear a lot more about carbon today from a number of sources,” says Papworth.

“From the standpoint of machinery use, it’s really about common sense. It’s about operating machinery as efficiently as you can.”

Some parts of the energy puzzle are easy to see, says Papworth. For example, if a farmer can minimize the number of passes needed on a field, that’s straight savings. But other pieces aren’t as clear – such as knowing what’s the optimal travel speed for a specific task.

Power summary Narrow row 9 to 10 in.

(23 to 25 cm)

Wide row 12 in.

(30 cm)

Double Shoot Shank Precision Seeder – N placed ≤ 0.5 in. (13 mm) below seed

3.2 (7.8)

3.4 (8.3)

Double Shoot Shank Precision Seeder – N placed 0.75 to 1.5 in. (19 to 38 mm) below seed

4.8 (11.8)

—

Double Shoot Shank Opener – N placed ≤ 0.5 in.

(13 mm) below seed

—

3.2 (7.8)

Double Shoot Shank Opener – N placed 0.75 to 1.5 in. (19 to 38 mm) below seed

3.9 (9.6)

—

Single Shoot Shank Opener

3.4 (8.3)

—

—

—

Seeder categories

Single Shoot Double Disk Opener Single Shoot Angle Disk Opener Shank Opener with Mid Row Banding System Disk Opener with Mid Row Banding System

—

—

4.4 (10.8)

—

4.1 (10)

—

Figues show power use in hp/ft (kW/m) for seeder categories based on 5 mph (8 km/h).

10

CROPS GUIDE

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OCTOBER 2012

Boot camp for air drills That’s why Papworth and crew are looking into the carbon question on the new air drills. Over the past two years, they’ve taken several different types of the new air drills from the major manufacturers and put these tools through their paces at a number of fields across Alberta.

While many features of the latest drills are impressive, the focus of these tests is broader than performance and, indeed, very specific — how much power, and related fuel, does it take to pull them?

“A large portion of the land in Western Canada is now seeded with these newer types of drills,” says Papworth.

“But accurate power requirements for them just doesn’t exist.”

Alberta-wide field tests The approach has been straightforward and practical, says Papworth. “Our thought process has been that the best way to know what these drills require is to actually take them in the field and use them under commercial conditions. So we’ve partnered with producers across Alberta to do this testing.”

The aim has been to use the drills and measure the power requirements in a range of different operations and types of cropping systems, to get a balanced range of data.

The expectation going in was that the new air drills would use more power on a straight comparison basis, says Papworth. However, because they can accomplish more in less time, the real benchmark for efficiency is fuel use per acres seeded or bushel of crop produced — the answer to which was anybody’s guess.

Supports new farm carbon calculator The testing effort is tied to an ARD project aimed at developing an “Alberta Farm Energy Carbon Calculator.”

Along with ARD, partners in the calculator effort include Climate Change Central and the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA.).

The concept behind the calculator is to provide growers with a tool they can use to identify the net greenhouse gas emissions of their operations. The ability to measure this “carbon footprint” fits a number of opportunities ranging from incentive and marketing programs to emerging carbon offset markets. It also helps farmers get a handle on how much energy they are using, which can lead toward management strategies to improve energy efficiency.

“The calculator will allow producers to enter information about the acres they are managing and the type of equipment they are using, to get an accurate, customized measurement,” says Papworth. “It will have information on the energy used by the different types of equipment, which will be used in the calculation.”

Part of the plans for the calculator are to potentially use it as a tool in an energy assessment program ARD has developed with Climate Change Central, which started as a pilot program for dairy, swine and poultry facilities and is now being expanded toward a “whole farm” effort that can also be used for assessing field operations.

“The results of the assessments give producers infor-

mation on how their operation uses energy and ways to save energy,” says Papworth.

“The program also verifies energy savings on each farm.”

While the calculator will help producers identify and reduce their energy use, it can also help industry do the same thing at a broader level, providing an important measuring stick as agriculture looks for ways to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Practical tool for farmers At the current stage of development, the calculator has a good depth of information related to most equipment used on a farm, including power requirements and fuel use.

This includes data from the Nebraska Tractor Test as well as from past evaluations done on a range of farm equipment by AgTech Centre, the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute and the former Alberta Farm Machinery Research Centre. However one major gap has been information on how much power it takes to pull the newer, wider air drills.

To measure the power requirements, Papworth and colleagues designed an approach using a self-contained power measurement device, which is placed between the power unit and hitch of the air drill.

The format for the calculator is an Excelbased spreadsheet that works on a field basis.

“A producer goes into the calculator and puts in his field information, and then starts selecting the operations they did to that field.

You can pick a specific tractor and then you can pick a specific implement, and add other details.”

Using this information, the calculator will determine, under ideal conditions how much fuel the producer should have used. Among other things, the farmer can compare this information with actual fuel use to see if his results are generally on track or if there may be a potential issue.

“For example, we’re hoping that if there’s a big gap between projected and actual fuel use, a producer would go back and look at what might have caused that,” says Papworth. “Maybe his tractor isn’t set up properly, or maybe his tractor is too big or too small for the implement. Maybe the tires have too much pressure — things like that.”

The calculator includes worksheets to determine specific estimates for variables such as how much ballast and pressure the producer should have under specific conditions. ■ Meristem is a Calgary-based communications firm that specializes in writing about western agriculture, food and land use. More articles at www.meristem.com.

The results: Pinpointing power requirements The air drills study has uncovered several main factors that affect the power required to pull this equipment. These factors include: operating depth, opener width, row spacing and number of openers. An increase in operating depth, opener width and the number of openers will increase the power required. An increase in row spacing will reduce the number of openers resulting in a reduction of power required.

“The conventional wisdom going in was that the newer air drills would use more power on a straight comparison basis,” says Lawrence Papworth of the AgTech Centre. “The results after two years show similar results to date between the newer and older drills. However even small differences provide important information that can lead to large improvements and savings when they are used as part of precision approaches over a large number of acres.”

The chart on page 10 summarizes the key findings to date. “This information will feed into the Alberta Farm Carbon Calculator effort, with accuracy improving as more field data is added to the database,” says Papworth.

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CROPS GUIDE

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11

open market

What next?

CWB transformation incomplete, more changes ahead

File photo

By Richard Kamchen

T

he Canadian Wheat Board has gone from Crown corporation to farmer-elected joint governance organization before reverting back to Ottawa run, all in under 15 years, and even more changes lie ahead.

The CWB now operates as a for-profit corporation, like any other grain company, with the only difference being that it runs a pool and that farmers who participate in it receive all the revenue from the sale of their grain, less a pool management fee.

In recognition of its post-single-desk era, the board has developed a bright new logo and taken to using only its acronym “CWB” in public communications. The organization’s official legal and corporate name, though, remains Canadian Wheat Board, ostensibly because that name has come to be associated with a reputation for quality and service among its overseas customers.

CWB president and CEO Ian White says while the board is government owned, the feds don’t consider it a Crown corporation.

But whatever it is, it has up to five years to transition into something else.

White says the CWB’s board is considering its options and wishes to speak to farmers and Ottawa before making any decisions. At this stage, he doesn’t want to speculate on any potential models.

“We do anticipate farmers will be part of the shareholding of the CWB, but we really do have to work out what the real future requirements of the organization are,” particularly regarding the level of capital necessary for it to be a viable and useful player in the market.

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The rumours Murray Fulton has heard suggest there would be a sale of the CWB, either to farmers or a corporation, depending on the objective of the government.

“If their interest is in maximizing the amount of return that they can get from selling it, then they would want to have it in a position that a private firm could take it over. One would expect that generally they would be willing to pay more for it,” says the University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist.

The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association has strongly suggested the CWB be converted into a farmer-owned company.

“I think that the shares should be distributed to farmers on the basis of past deliveries,” WCWGA executive director Blair Rutter says. “The wheat growers recommended the UGG model be used to transform the wheat board — based on deliveries. That would establish your initial capital base, and then farmers could purchase additional shares.”

Brian Hayward headed up United Grain Growers during its transition from faltering co-operative to public entity. After some digging in obscure, century-old Manitoba legislation on who gets what if a co-operative goes bust and sells its assets, UGG decided on dividing its shares in proportion to the amount of business farmers had done with the co-op. He says the CWB’s eventual change will be a fascinating, yet unclear process.

“This is going to be an exercise not unlike what Saskatchewan Wheat Pool did or United Grain Growers did,” says Hayward.

The UGG and SaskPool experiences,

This is going to be an exercise not unlike what Saskatchewan Wheat Pool did or United Grain Growers did.

— Brian Hayward, former CEO Agricore United though, faced numerous difficulties, Fulton notes.

“Shares were traded on the TSE at the time, but the control remained with farmers.

That model worked better at UGG than it did at the Pool, but in both cases, I don’t think it was a stellar success.”

In the corporate world, dual share structures where one group has control and another doesn’t are sometimes successful, but often aren’t.

“There’s just too much conflict. The people who want higher rates of return have no way of being able to actually get to the board and hire the CEO that they want, position the company in the direction that they think it should be going,” Fulton says.

He also questions just what exactly the CWB has to sell. Elevators at port or countryside would be most valuable, but the CWB has no such assets. One can, however, sell goodwill, if there’s a sense that management and the general thrust of the organization will continue.

“It’s got a very solid reputation, and don’t take that for granted in the grain industry,”

Canadian Marketing 100 Yonge Street, 6th Floor Toronto, ON M5C 2W1

That model worked better at UGG than it did at the Pool, but in both cases, I don’t think it was a stellar success.

File Name: Comm_AD_Agri_5.25x11.5 Trim: 5.25” x 11.5" Colours: CMYK

Pub: Crops Guide Material Deadline: September 4, 2012 Insertion Dates: October 3, 2012

This ground supports your farm’s growth.

And so do we.

— Murray Fulton, University of Saskatchewan says former CWB president and CEO Adrian Measner. “There’s many companies operating out there in Canada and elsewhere that probably don’t have that type of reputation.”

Fulton, however, says that past experiences with takeovers of co-ops reveal the dangers of buying member commitment and then changing pricing practices. By becoming more aggressive and less competitive, goodwill can disappear.

“I think in this particular case, that goodwill, at least publicly, is fairly fleeting. So I’m not sure that that can be sold,” Fulton says.

Given the length and financial details of the CWB’s agreements with grain companies are unknown might present another problem.

“At best they could sell a contract to continue these delivery agencies for whatever period of time is still left on those contracts, if any. We don’t know if they’re just one-year contracts or multiple-year contracts. That isn’t much to sell,” says Fulton.

White agrees potential shareholders would want to know about the terms of the CWB’s contracts with grain companies and the future plans of the organization. Those details will be part of an information package put together for farmers when the time comes.

A starting balance sheet, good relationships with farmers and substantial customer base are other items in the CWB’s credit column. The CWB has net equity, a substantial part of which is its contingency fund, which has well over $100 million to date. Its other assets are two laker vessels that are being constructed and will be completed in the latter half of 2013.

It’s also far more streamlined. After losing its monopoly, the CWB began significantly cutting its workforce, which is down to 220 from 430. By next year, it should be down to 100.

“It has a clean slate, assets and financial guarantee,” Rutter points out. “So it’s got every opportunity to succeed, to transform itself into a private company and provide value to farmers.” n

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CROPS GUIDE

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OCTOBER 2012 13 12-01-27 10:52 AM

open market

Moving on New CWB’s viability no sure thing

By Richard Kamchen

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Photo : Allan Dawson

B

y reaching handling agreements with all western Canadian grain companies, the Canadian Wheat Board’s survival is guaranteed, right?

Not so fast.

Yes, the CWB sounded jubilant about its viability after reporting it reached deals to allow farmers to deliver the wheat, durum and barley they contracted with the CWB to any Prairie elevator, as well as an agreement to access port terminal handling at the Alliance Grain Terminal in Vancouver.

“The future is bright for CWB and the farmers we serve,” CWB president and CEO Ian White stated at the time. “We now have the necessary business arrangements in place to operate in the new grain-marketing environment.”

Adrian Measner, a former CWB chief and current head of Mission Terminal, says what’s in place gives the CWB the infrastructure necessary to allow it to be successful.

But those agreements don’t necessarily ensure the CWB’s viability in the years ahead. The terms of the contracts are unknown, so as far as anyone not in the know is concerned, the length of the deals and the prices the CWB will be paying for access could be almost anything.

University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Murray Fulton asks if the CWB can now undertake long-term planning, or if it will need to turn around and start negotiating next year’s agreements. Right now, the board isn’t releasing any details.

And will grain companies feel as compelled to come to future agreements, especially if the CWB is successful? Moreover, if they do renew their deals with a successful board, will the price of access rise significantly, conceivably to prohibitive levels?

“I think they all realized that if they didn’t (reach deals), they could be accused of sabotaging the whole move to an open market to their advantage. That political imperative becomes less and less important over time, and even by next year at this time, that could have largely disappeared,” Fulton says.

“These companies may be willing, almost as a public relations exercise, to have an agreement with the board, as long as the board doesn’t really cut into their sales. But they become much more aggressive with their pricing if the board is in fact successful.”

Another vital element the CWB’s success (or failure) hinges on is farmer support, and White has admitted the same. But he’s hopeful.

“We have had indications from a lot of

We now have the necessary business arrangements in place to operate in the new grainmarketing environment.

— Ian White, CEO, CWB farmers that once they get their crop off and assess what they’re going to do with it, they would certainly contract a part of their crop with the CWB,” White told Crops Guide.

Urging farmers to put at least part of their total production into the pool, White says pools are an excellent risk-management tool for ensuring solid returns in a high-priced but volatile commodity market.

The CWB has hopes of procuring approximately a third of the western wheat crop, and

analysts believe the board’s pool is its strongest value proposition for farmers.

“To create a pooling system, a lot of private companies just will not want to do that.

It’s complicated, it’s difficult to manage the risk,” says Brian Hayward, former CEO of Agricore United.

What could hurt the CWB in the coming years is if this year’s pool return comes in below market values. In a way, this year’s bullish markets couldn’t come at a worse time for the board.

“We know that pools can do particularly poorly during rising markets and this may be what we have right now,” says Fulton.

“It’s got a real challenge this year, depending on how prices pan out,” adds Derek Brewin of the University of Manitoba’s agribusiness and agricultural economics department. “If the price stays high right now and they had any sales booked at lower prices,

Continued on page 16

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Continued from page 14 then the pool’s going to look lower than the market price for most of the year.”

Should prices drop, though, those early sales might actually make the pool look better for most of the year, Brewin says.

White, however, claims the CWB wasn’t pricing the pools until it got substantial signups, and farmers only started doing so into July.

“The pools are going to be able to capture all of this current rally,” he says. “There’s no question there’s very good cash prices, but the beauty of it this year is the pools are going to be very competitive because they don’t have any of the lower prices in them.”

What bullish markets do is give farmers more cash flow up front, and if they can lock in a record price, they may be more inclined to do that than take a chance on the pool, says Measner.

“But those record prices may not be there months down the road; 2008 should be fresh in everybody’s mind — these things can change very quickly,” Measner warns, while stressing the prudence of committing a portion of one’s crop to the pool. “Invariably, there will be some quality issues or shipment issues, and probably putting some in the pool is the right thing to do because you then are ensured movement and somebody else is worrying about all those issues.”

Few believe the single desk in this current rally would have benefited farmers. White suggests the single desk likely would have returned lower values because the CWB would have been making sales prior to the market rally.

“You have to remember that if the singledesk pools had been in operation this year, they would have been pricing this year ’s crop for a much longer period,” White says.

Measner, however, says it’s wrong to assume the old CWB would have had a number of sales on the books at lower prices because they wouldn’t have started selling until around the start of the new crop year.

The fact wheat rallies were driven by corn, though, certainly would have limited the single desk’s ability to extract premiums, says Brewin. If wheat markets had been driven by world wheat supply concern issues, the single-desk board might have been able to achieve even better-than-market prices, although even then, its ability to jack up values would have been limited to some degree.

“They were selling into an export market where there were quite a few suppliers… If they really pushed the price, people would switch to hard red winter in the U.S. or Australian hard springs. You didn’t have that much room to use your market power,” Brewin says.

CWB Marketing expansion Besides pools for traditional board crops, the CWB is getting into canola as well. The CWB has begun trading in canola and will 16

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be offering a canola pool, the value of which will be like that for its other pools, namely risk management and solid returns.

White doesn’t expect the canola pool to be very large, but does anticipate the CWB handling some hundreds of thousands of tonnes.

“We really don’t have a percentage of the crop in mind, but something in the order of 10 per cent of the crop would be quite useful as a quantity to market,” White says. “We’re just looking to break into that market this first year, so we’ve had enough of an indication from farmers that there’s some tonnage out there for us that gives us some confidence to go forward.”

For end-use customers, the CWB’s canola endeavour offers them another source of supply and perhaps allows them to accumulate some tonnage that they may not have otherwise.

“I’m sure there were customers that they had that they were selling wheat to who would also have liked to have bought some

they have a good customer list and a reputation of supplying these customers with good-quality grain,” says Rutter. “If they can capitalize on that goodwill and continue to meet customer needs, then they have the ability to be a player longer term.”

“It’s individuals and the company that they know and trust, and if they contract with them, they know that they’re going to get good service and get their contract executed,” adds Measner.

The CWB, however, is at a much greater disadvantage now given it can’t compel farmers to deliver grain into the system to meet that demand, and are forced to use competing grain companies to help meet supply, Brewin says.

The fact companies like Glencore, Richardson and Cargill can now also access grains from a wide base area — in other words, do a comparable job to the one the CWB previously did — may be the greatest threat to the CWB.

These companies may be willing, almost as a public relations exercise, to have an agreement with the board, as long as the board doesn’t really cut into their sales.

But they become much more aggressive with their pricing if the board is in fact successful.

— Murray Fulton, University of Saskatchewan canola at the same time,” says Blair Rutter, executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.

Risk management specialist John De Pape, however, thinks the CWB adds nothing for canola farmers and end-users. Half of the crop is sold domestically, and crushers buy a fair amount of canola directly from farmers. The other half of the crop is exported, and buyers have “rock solid relationships” with those they’ve traditionally bought from.

“When I was at Cargill, we had specific clients that we dealt with all the time. And if it was a particular crusher buying, we were supplying them. I don’t know how the wheat board would break into that and provide value there,” De Pape says.

The CWB is also considering marketing other crops, focusing for now on peas on its list of potential commodities. White adds: “We’ll try to get into the pea market if we can this year.”

CWB customer base support Brewin believes it’s important to farmers that the CWB survives.

“It’s pretty important that at least the transition from the old wheat board to a new wheat market doesn’t destroy any of our current market chains.”

As much as the CWB needs farmers, it also needs the support of end-users like flour millers, maltsters and, now, oilseed crushers.

“They have an opportunity here because

“What the customer is going to have to determine is who’s the most up front in their discussions, and who can provide the best service, delivery and the whole package of goods that goes with it,” says Measner.

The CWB’s value comes from the terminal spout and beyond, not the country, De Pape says.

“I think where they add value is on the relationship with the clients and that’s where they should focus… I think it’s got a good relationship with customers. As long as it can provide them with competitive deals and good terms, they’ll continue to be able to participate there.”

But Fulton questions end-user loyalty to the CWB. Armed with a single desk, customers like the Japanese were interested in dealing with them as the board could choose from grain all over Western Canada, meet specs at any given time, and guarantee those supplies would arrive at a particular point in time.

“The board no longer has that relative to the other grain traders,” Fulton points out.

“This is one of the reasons that scale is so important in the grain business — you have to be able to pull something at any point in time, and the board has no advantage over the other companies, and may be at a disadvantage if they can’t get the sales.”

Should the CWB ever start to slip in its ability to meet customers’ needs, it could turn off end-users, who’ll just go looking elsewhere. n

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THE OTHER PESTS Rodents of all kinds can take an outsized portion off your crop — here’s how to stop them

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BY WARREN LIBBY, SAVVY FARMER

W

hen most of us think about crop pests, we think bugs, weeds and diseases — hardly surprising since they’re always ready to take a big bite out of your bottom line, given the chance.

But there’s another set of hungry mouths that grain farmers might not be paying enough attention to — the four-legged mammalian variety.

Mice and rats eat many times their weight in grain, contaminate 10 times that amount with urine and droppings, and cause considerable structural damage. After all there aren’t that many bugs out there who could chew a hole right through the concrete pad

under a bin, but there are plenty of tales of rodents accomplishing just that.

A well-designed and -executed control strategy will pay big dividends and rid your operation of these unsightly pests — and with today’s higher grain prices, there’s now even more economic rationale behind this decision.

How many ways are there to control rats and mice? Not counting a baseball bat, about 71.

That’s the number of registered rodenticide products in Canada. But with so many brands on the shelves, deciding which to buy can be a bewildering task. In this short article, we’ll try to simplify that decision.

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18

CROPS GUIDE

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OCTOBER 2012

second-generation anti-coagulants, and nonanti-coagulants.

So, which rodenticide should you choose?

It might be wise to lay down a couple different brands and to switch it up now and then. Rodents may prefer one formulation more than another, and just like people, may become bored when offered the same thing over and over again.

In general, the second-generation products are more powerful than first generation and have the ability to kill rodents with just one feeding. However this single-feed advantage comes with the higher risk that a pet or bird could become poisoned. Where there is a high risk that non-target species could access the bait, consider using a firstgeneration product or put bait in a tamperresistant bait station, or both. In fact, many baits must only be used in bait stations.

Fortunately the labels that accompany rodent control products are short and easy to read, eliminating any excuse for not taking a few minutes to review the directions. In general though, the keys to successful rodent control are: 1. Use fresh product and remove stale product from bait stations.

2. Keep an ample supply of product available at each station for an extended period.

3. Use plenty of bait stations and place them where the rodents frequent.

4. Rotate rodenticide types and formulations to maintain good rodent acceptance.

5. Ensure pets, birds, and non-target animals cannot access the bait.

Follow these simple guidelines and you should be on your way to becoming rodent free this season.

If you do have any concerns, there’s a chance your county, rural municipality or province have resources available.

In Saskatchewan for example, the province has a rat abatement program which has provided grants to RMs. There’s also a site management aspect to controlling this pest problem. Rodents like rats require a few things to survive, such as access to food and water and a spot suitable for tunnelling. Keeping yards free of rubbish and debris is an excellent start and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture guidelines suggest paying particular attention to certain spots like bale stacks, granaries, and rock piles. ■

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varietal development

Heading North U.S. varieties can be grown in Canada — but whether it’s worth it is up for debate

By Rebeca Kuropatwa

W

estern Canadian wheat growers, especially those near the U.S. border, are weighing the idea of importing unregistered U.S. seed varieties.

Some Canadian farmers feel that higheryielding wheat varieties currently being grown in Montana and North Dakota can prove worthwhile for western Canadian farms situated near the border — maintaining that some American wheat varieties yield a considerable advantage over those currently available in Canada.

According to Daryl Beswitherick, program manager for quality assurance at Winnipeg’s Canadian Grain Commission (CGC), “A producer may grow unregistered varieties providing they declare the grain as unregistered when delivering it to a primary elevator.”

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), under the Canada Seeds Act, is responsible for the registration process.

“The CGC is part of the recommending body that recommends new varieties to be registered if they meet the guidelines set forth by the Prairie Grain Development committees (PGDC),” said Beswitherick. “Once registered, the CGC will grade the varieties according to the class of wheat they were registered as.

“If new U.S. varieties go through the registration process and meet the requirements, they may be eligible for registration. We don’t know how many varieties may be presented at the PGDC AGM.” Suzi Beck, media relations co-ordinator for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said, “The CFIA encourages innovation and protects biodiversity while ensuring the health and safety of Canada’s food production. The variety registration system is intended to allow new and improved varieties to enter the marketplace. Whether new wheat varieties are developed in Canada or elsewhere they have to follow the same requirements to meet agronomic, quality, and disease performance criteria. Access to improved, proven varieties is beneficial for producers, processors, and consumers.”

According to Beck, before a new variety of wheat can be registered in Western Canada, it must undergo at least two years of Canadian field trials and must meet guidelines determined by an industry recommending committee [for wheat in Western Canada, this is done by the Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye, and Triticale (PRCWRT)].

“Guidelines for registration are based on agronomic and disease requirements as well as numerous quality parameters for end-use requirements,” said Beck. “After a variety is recommended to the CFIA’s Variety Registration Office (VRO), an application for variety registration must be submitted. If the variety qualifies for registration, a certificate is issued and the variety is eligible to be sold in Canada.

“There is no difference in the process for wheat varieties developed in Canada versus varieties developed in foreign countries. The VRO has registered many U.S.-developed varieties that have qualified for the Canadian system. The CFIA will continue to register wheat varieties for sale in Canada, regardless of origin, if they meet the requirements of the Canadian variety registration system.”

Richard Friesen of Rosenort, Morris manages a 6,000-acre cereal, canola, and soybean farm, along with his brother.

The way Friesen sees it, “Bringing American varieties into Western Canada will add bushels to the crops we grow, but the disease resistance of those varieties is different — in most cases, not as strong.

“Over the years, we’ve tried American wheat varieties and they’ve all been replaced, mostly due to disappointments in yield and disease susceptibility.”

Besides managing the farm, Friesen and his brother also own Fri20

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esen Seeds Ltd. “Most of the cereal acres we grow on our farm are for seed purpose,” he said. “So, as a seed business, we’re careful to produce seed from registered varieties.

“The one variety that originated in the U.S. that’s working well is Glenn. This is an HRSW that has been successfully grown on the Prairies and is well accepted because of its straw strength, good yield, and strong disease package.”

Darlingford, Man. farmer, Jim Wilson, sees things a little differently, noting, “I don’t see that bringing American wheat varieties to Canada within our current variety registration system will have a negative impact.”

At his 3,000-acre southern Manitoba farm, Wilson grows wheat, canola, barley, and soybeans.

“If producers choose to grow varieties that give them a better economic return as non-CWRS wheat than current CWRS wheat, then they should be able to make that economic decision for their farm.”

Where problems arise though, heeded Wilson, is “when producers misrepresent non-CWRS wheat as CWRS, and, in the process, can dilute the quality characteristics of the CWRS class.

“The seed business is global. Seed and technology have been transferred between countries and breeders, both private and public. So the idea that American varieties are coming to Canada is not new. In some form or other, this has been happening for a long time in the plantbreeding world.”

Wilson has grown U.S. varieties, through the Canadian variety registration system, the mostly widely used of which being the Glenn variety. “The varieties offered certain disease and quality characteristics that weren’t then available in Canadian varieties.”

As far as Wilson is concerned, the variety registration system has served the Canadian industry very well. “It (the system) has evolved over time and will continue to evolve to meet end-user and producer requirements. It would seem at this point in time as the world wheat trade evolves and Canada’s competitive position in that chain changes, the variety registration system needs to find some flexibility if Canadian producers are going to be competitive with producers around the world.”

Although Wilson does not foresee a wave of new U.S. varieties being registered in Canada, he said, “These varieties will continue to be put through our registration system to ensure they meet the

necessary needs of our industry. There have been varieties from the U.S. and other countries tested in Canada and this will likely increase in the future.

“In the end, the market will determine what quality characteristics it desires and Canadian producers need to have access to the latest technology to be competitive. The largest portion of world wheat trade isn’t in the high-quality CWRS class. However there is demand for that consistent quality that the CWRS class in Canada can deliver.

“We need to find flexibility in our registration system that will maintain the necessary safeguards for the current CWRS class for that portion of the market that demands it, while allowing varieties to be registered that have an end-use demand and that give producers an improved economic return.

“Canada has many different geographic areas and producers have different business models. Our system needs to reflect this to its best ability.”

Norm Dreger, head of cereals at lifescience giant Syngenta, is originally from Morris, Manitoba, and has been involved in agriculture his whole life.

“Many varieties from the U.S. have exceptional characteristics that would benefit both growers and end-users,” said Dreger. “However, it’s common that many of these varieties

A producer may grow unregistered varieties providing they declare the grain as unregistered when delivering it to a primary elevator.

— DARYL BESWITHERICK, CANADIAN GRAIN COMMISSION may not meet the criteria of the Canadian variety registration system, so aren’t brought here without further breeding.

“Syngenta supports growers’ desire to bring the best genetics and technology to Canada, whether it’s from the U.S. or other countries. We’re currently working on bringing a number of varieties that have been commercialized in the U.S. to Canada.”

Although Syngenta is an international company, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, it has extensive operations in Canada, including a wheat-breeding program based in Morden, Man. “Syngenta operates on a global platform for its wheat-breeding efforts, so the sharing of germplasm across diverse geographies is common,” said Dreger. “We’re able to determine which wheat varieties might be advantageous for the Canadian grower and marketplace. Syngenta is committed to continue serving the Canadian grower and utilizing our global platform of both our wheat varieties and our crop protection products to

maximize performance and support sustainable production.

“We believe in abiding by the wheat breeders’ code of ethics, which is in place to strengthen all wheat-breeding efforts to help ensure the health of the Canadian wheat industry. Syngenta has been actively bringing wheat varieties to the market in the U.S. for nearly 80 years and in Canada for 50 years. The ability to operate successfully across North America has allowed us to bring new technology and varieties to Canadian growers for a long time.”

In short, Dreger said, “Syngenta believes the current variety registration system has made Canadian wheat synonymous with high quality, however, it could be made more flexible.

“Canada can become more competitive by working with the grain trade and end-users to match the grain delivered to end-user specifications and maximize value for the whole value chain. This market responsiveness will allow for a nimble system that can capture value in a diversity of markets.” ■

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MARKET DEVELOPMENT

Cigi’s milling training for Saudis a potential plus for wheat exports, producers

BY ELLEN GOODMAN, CIGI

A

six-month training course in milling currently being held at the Canadian International Grains Institute in Winnipeg for 12 industry participants from Saudi Arabia is one of many Cigi programs that can see spinoff benefits for Canadian farmers in the future, according to organizers.

“Because Saudi Arabia is a large importer of wheat for milling purposes this is an opportunity for us to ensure they understand the quality of Canadian wheat, its milling characteristics, and how to deal with various milling issues or problems,” says Rick Morgan, manager of business development. “The program also offers baking with Canadian flour and making pasta and noodles, so this is positive for marketing Canadian grain.”

This is the second group from the Grain Silos and Flour Milling Organization to take the program in the past year. GSFMO is a major government agency responsible for Saudi Arabia’s wheat procurement and milling industry. The organization — which operates grain silos and flour/feed mills throughout the country — selected millers, lab technicians, electricians and mechanical personnel to attend the Cigi program. The participants are studying subjects directly related to their areas of work as well as all major aspects of milling and end-use applications.

“GSFMO pays for this training which of course benefits Cigi overall in our work to promote the value of Canadian grain on behalf of farmers,” Morgan said. “Like many other government organizations they use a tendering process, so we are happy that we were successful in this bid and have submitted another bid for a third program. Our working relationship with GSFMO may benefit producers through continued or increased sales of Canadian wheat into Saudi Arabia, and the training and use of Cigi’s facilities provides us with a source of revenue.”

Ashok Sarkar, head of Cigi Milling Technology, says Cigi usually offers short-term courses and this type of program requires more extensive and intensive use of Cigi resources which benefits both the participants and the milling staff. “Programs usually focus on wheat quality and end uses, not on mechanical maintenance and electrical work, so we will bring in others to teach certain aspects which also helps expand our wealth of knowledge for other programs and missions overseas.”

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The Saudis have bought large amounts of Canadian wheat (and barley) in recent years although imports fluctuate as they may purchase from other wheat-producing countries, some of which are in closer proximity, Sarkar said. “They were once our competitors as they grew enough wheat for domestic use as well as for export but the cost of production was high so they scaled back and turned more to importing wheat, sometimes very high volumes.”

Saudi Arabia wheat imports from Canada totalled 445,500 tonnes in 2010-11, 619,400 tonnes in 2009-10, and 804,900 tonnes in 2008-09, according to Canadian Grain Commission export statistics.

Morgan adds that this program reflects

Saudi technician Abdullah Ali Almoaina is in Winnipeg on a Cigi training course.

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We’re learning about how to deal with Canadian wheat, how to mill and bake it.

— ABDULLAH ALI ALMOAINA, LABORATORY TECHNICIAN, GSFMO

The program aims to familiarize participants with how Canadian wheat works in milling operations.

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Cigi’s goal to make sure the world is informed of the quality of the Canadian crop and customers understand how to make their end products using Canadian wheat, and how to deal with any potential issues. “It’s also important for us to do this because we’re competing with other countries that do various things to market their crop. Some like Ukraine and Kazakhstan are much closer to Saudi Arabia than we are so we have to make an extra effort to make sure that they understand the quality of Canadian grain.”

Participant Abdullah Ali Almoaina, a laboratory technician at a GSFMO flour mill, says he wants to learn everything he can about lab technology to improve his work and more about the milling process because he has goals he would like to achieve.

“We’re learning about how to deal with Canadian wheat, how to mill it and bake it.

And that’s good because in our country we mix hard red spring with other soft wheat to get the flour we need. Maybe in future we’ll get Canadian wheat without mixing it with other wheats. Before I came here I thought Canadian wheat was the best, and now I know why, because they take care of it, like grading it and cleaning it before exporting it. That’s a great thing because some countries don’t.”

Customers become dedicated because of what remains with them after being here, how they were treated, and what they learn about processing Canadian wheat, Sarkar said. “We teach them how to optimize the process right here, not after the fact, which helps give us an edge. And producers benefit from any exposure a customer has who’s involved in milling the raw material they are selling.”

Earl Geddes, Cigi executive director, and Sarkar will be travelling to Saudi Arabia this December en route to an International Association of Operative Millers conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE, to meet with GSFMO representatives to learn more about the Saudi flour-milling and feed-manufacturing industry.

“As the relationship between Cigi and GSFMO expands we want to be certain that we understand what this important client has in mind for long-term training and technical support,” Geddes said. “The best way to do this is to visit their flour mills, feed mills and customers’ bakeries to gain a greater understanding of the Saudi industry’s needs.”

For more information on Cigi’s activities, go to www.cigi.ca. ■ CROPS GUIDE

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23

technology

Satellite startup The single most important input any farmer has ever applied to the family holdings is knowledge — and a slated 2014 NASA satellite launch may change that calculation forever

By Gord Leathers

S

eth Chazanoff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California was a long way from home this summer. His mobile office is NASA’s Bigfoot, a De Havilland twin otter with a bank of electronic equipment in the body connected to an oddly shaped bump on the belly, and this year it was flying out of Manitoba, where Crops Guide had the opportunity to meet him and get an explanation of his work.

As the engines revved up and the Bigfoot rolled down the runway, lifting into the air and banking west toward Lake Manitoba, Chazanoff hunched over his computer and prepared for another day’s run over a stretch of land between Portage la Prairie, and Carman where a checkerboard topography of farmland and forest overlies a cornucopia of soil types and vegetal biomes.

Here the plane will turn and make a series of tightly controlled passes as that strange lump on the Otter’s belly beeps out pulses of microwave energy and collects what comes back.

“We have an antenna that collects data to find out the moisture content of the soil.

We’re covering an area about eight by 40 nautical miles roughly northwest to southeast,” he explained. “Ultimately what we want to be able to do is to find out the moisture content of the soil all over the world.”

This may sound like a tall order for an antenna housed in a small airplane but what they’re really doing is testing both the antenna and the software before it hits the big time. While Bigfoot flies the antenna over the circuit there’s a large crew of people on the ground taking detailed measurements of soil moisture. Once the computer can crunch the data and come up with the same moisture values as the ground crews are getting, the next phase may begin.

October of 2014 will see the working prototype of that antenna attached to a satellite and tucked into the payload fairing of a rocket. This time it lifts off from Vandenberg Airforce Base near Lompoc, California and rides into orbit. Once deployed, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite will begin its new life, circling the planet and collecting continuous soil moisture data. Then we’ll see the global picture.

Soil moisture may be more important than we realize. When we think of soil moisture, the first thing that comes to mind is how it affects a crop. Plants need it in just the right measure to thrive and the quality of a crop is 24

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NASA’s airplane-mounted soil moisture sensor (inset) is the final step before a satellite launch next year.

profoundly affected by the amount of available water and what time of the season it’s available. We don’t always consider other aspects of soil moisture, such as how it affects the surrounding environment.

Farmers west of Portage la Prairie became painfully aware of that in the spring of 2011 when saturated soil and a large snowmelt led to some of the worst flooding ever seen in the Assiniboine Valley. Many of the usually small and docile rivers in the area engorged with melt water flooded thousands of acres of farm fields and damaged townsites. On the flip side, farmers in the American Midwest saw one of the worst droughts in decades this summer.

In addition to that, there are other things soil moisture may be doing by influencing soil mechanics as well as local weather and climate. That being the case, people from NASA, Environment Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada think a better understanding of soil moisture may help the world’s weather offices make better predictions, governments make better policy and farmers make better decisions.

“We’re looking at it for things like improved weather forecasting, improved flood forecasting and looking at where risks such as flooding could be emerging,” said Heather McNairn of AAFC. “Or, at the other end, where we may be moving into risks of drought.”

We sometimes forget what a complex system soil is, a vast community of different organisms living in a dynamic balance within a highly variable mixture of different materials with different textures. The amount of water in the soil is also dynamic, constantly moving in through precipitation or out through straight evaporation or transpiration by the carpet of plants that covers it. To understand it regionally requires huge amounts of information pouring in at dizzying speed. To collect this much information requires an overencompassing, high-tech view, and that’s a job for a satellite.

“Satellites are the only way that you can make global measurements and that’s the big objective of our mission,” according to Dr. Eni Njoku supervisor of the Carbon and

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30/08/12 2:32 PM

Continued from page 24 Water Cycles Group of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We’re not just making soil moisture measurements in one small region or moment in time but providing global maps of soil moisture and how it changes every two to three days.”

To make these measurements the SMAP satellite uses microwaves, both active and passive. SMAP has both a sensor and an emitter sitting under the dish antenna. The emitter fires microwaves into the dish. The dish is a parabola so it focuses the beam and sends it to Earth. The dish also does the reverse by collecting microwaves coming from the Earth, both active and passive, and focusing the incoming waves into the sensor. The active waves are reflections from the Earth of the ones emitted by the satellite.

The passive waves are microwaves naturally emitted by the Earth.

“The reason we use microwaves is that they’re very sensitive to soil moisture so that’s the frequency best suited for collecting soil moisture data,” McNairn explained. “The other advantage of microwaves is that they’re long enough that they penetrate through cloud so a day that’s very overcast is no problem for the microwaves.”

The satellite consists of a main body with a bank of solar panels to provide the power.

There’s a shaft at the top connected to a bent arm. The dish antenna sits on this bent arm giving the appearance of a satellite “tipping

its hat.” This arm will rotate around an axis located on the body so the dish will pirouette as the satellite flies. Consequently the beam will draw microwave circles on the Earth, about 1,000 kilometres wide.

The satellite will follow a “low polar sun synchronous” orbit. One thing this does is it allows the satellite to follow the zone on the Earth where the daylight meets the dark. As it ascends from the South Pole it’s timed to cross the equator at 6 p.m. local time. As it descends from the North Pole headed south it crosses the equator at 6 a.m.

“The orbit is designed to be just at the boundary, or transition zone, between the dark and illuminated sides of the Earth,” Njoku says. “That’s just what 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. crossings are — the boundary times between day and night. SMAP was designed for 6 a.m./6 p.m. since that is when the Earth’s surface is in rough thermodynamic equilibrium with the atmosphere and the measurements of soil moisture are most accurate.”

As the satellite flies the Earth spins so with each pass SMAP will be over a different portion of the planet. Every three days we’ll have new soil moisture data and this is important. Since the map the satellite draws will be updated constantly we’ll be able to see how soil moisture changes over time. Consequently we’ll be able to see the patterns of change and how this affects weather and climate. It should make weather prediction more accurate because an important piece of the weather puzzle will now be in place.

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Some weather basics Weather and climate are driven by heat and how the atmosphere distributes it. If you want to consult with an expert you may want to talk to an African vulture, but talk to him in the morning before his shift starts. He spends the morning with his buddies, waiting for the thermals to kick in.

When your next meal is somebody else’s last one you have to rely on a keen eye and a lofty vantage point. If you’re the size of a vulture, and they’re not small birds, it takes a lot of energy to lift yourself to 5,000 metres, so what the vulture does is wait for the sun to warm a convenient patch of rock.

The rock absorbs the short-wave radiation, the sunlight that cuts through the atmosphere, and this actually starts the rock’s molecules vibrating. Those frenzied molecules start emitting long-wave radiation, what we perceive as heat, so the rock starts warming the surrounding air.

The faster the molecules vibrate, the warmer the rock.

Since the rock radiates more heat than the soil around it, the warmer air over the rock rises faster than the cooler air over the soil.

What results is a column of air that the vulture can use like an elevator. A good vulture knows when to slip into the column and let that rising air do the work so he can effortlessly spiral up to altitude to see what’s on today’s menu.

On a much larger scale, the air near the equator is warmer so it rises and moves to the poles where it cools, drops and heads back to the equator. What results is a huge conveyor belt that moves the heat away from the equator.

If you really want to complicate the system, add water. Water vapour does all kinds of strange things to air temperature and this is one of the reasons we’re interested in how soil moisture affects local weather.

For example, if you have moist air pushed up against a set of mountains it will rise and, as it rises, it cools. The rate at which it cools is called the Moist Adiabatic Lapse Rate. As it cools it loses its capacity to hold the moisture so it drops it in the form of rain or snow. Then it rolls over the mountain top and down the other side. As it drops it warms again but, since it’s lost its moisture, it warms at the Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate and this is much higher. Consequently, even though it’s the same air, it’s really hot, really dry and really thirsty when it hits the bottom.

If you’ve ever been in Calgary during a chinook, this is what’s happening. That’s why a cold Calgary day can suddenly turn really warm and, within a few hours, all the drifted snow simply disappears.

Planning and launching a satellite is very expensive so there should be very good reasons for doing it. SMAP is a new tool that will give new information in greater detail. It should be noted that the satellite data isn’t tailored to the field level but to a larger regional perspective. It will, however, compliment the suite of other satellites we already have.

It won’t happen overnight either, this kind of technology is for long-term, long-game analysis. The first six months is a break-in period of making sure all the systems are working and the instruments are reliable.

During the next six months to a year, the data is collected, tested and its reliability is determined. Then the real work begins.

“It’s a very long span of research and analysis that will take place for several years after the mission,” Njoku says. “Sometimes some of the most important and interesting results come three to five years later, once we look at all these subtle effects that are going on everywhere.”

Ten years after the launch, when researchers have had the time to see how the Earth deals with soil moisture they’ll have a better understanding of how these systems work and what it means to farmers. There will be a better understanding of weather, so risk can be assessed better, and there will be more data for more detailed climate mod-

Seth Chazanoff, Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

els, giving a better idea of what to expect in the future. It will also aid understanding of soil saturation better and allow for better action against floods and droughts. It will also allow a better understanding of cropping conditions in other parts of the world and how that might affect the markets.

Are you looking for…

“It’s a lot of money that taxpayers are putting into these instruments and, as scientists, we really need to make sure we’re yielding back the discoveries and new knowledge that makes it worthwhile,” Njoku said. “So that’s our task and I think everyone is very excited about it.” ■

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This voluntary check-off of $0.48/tonne of wheat and $0.56/tonne of barley will be shown as a Deduction of Levy on your Cash Purchase Ticket upon grain delivery at a Canadian Grain Commission licensed company.

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These funds will be delivered to three important groups that work together to support your farm’s future. Visit their websites to learn more:

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27

MORE THAN 1,000 WORDS

T 1

hey say a picture is worth 1,000 words. As part of our ongoing effort to give our readers a peek behind the scenes of various agricultural endeavours, Crops Guide contributor Gord Leathers accompanied Manitoba provincial entomologist John Gavloski to illustrate all the hard work that goes into composing those vital insect maps and forecasts every growing season.

3

1. Manitoba provincial entomologist John Gavloski peers into a microscope to identify an insect. While most of us only pay attention to these creatures when they’re causing a problem, Gavloski’s in charge of keeping an eye on them full time – and letting growers know when a problem is brewing so they can take action.

2. The first step is catching and counting the pests, here using a sweep net in a canola field in southern Manitoba.

2

3. All the insects trapped in the



net are carefully counted and catalogued, which form the basis of a forecast and activity report. Stationary traps, as well as other methods of gathering samples, are also employed.

4. A simple catch pan can also

4

be employed to capture pests that are shaken from the plants and random areas, which allows for pest population estimates. Another capture method is using sticky cards to trap small, fast-flying pests like wheat midge.

5. Occasionally something that requires identification pops up, so Gavloski employs an aspirator to draw the material into a small bottle for storage and transportation. In this case the item was an aphid mummy that was evidence of parasitic activity by wasp larvae.

28

CROPS GUIDE | OCTOBER 2012

5

6 6. Close examination of any plant damage — either in the field or later in the lab — can also determine what pests are present.

7

8 7. Insects come in two basic flavours. Harmful, like the aphid on the right above, or beneficial like the lacewing on the left, which can devour the aphids.

8. Less hands on, but of equal importance, is the crunching of the data back at the office, which turns a large data set into a simple map and forecast.

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29

STORAGE

Hot canola has more storage risk Even if binned dry, canola harvested during those hot days in August and September should be cooled for safe long-term storage. Canola — especially if stored in high-capacity bins — will hold its heat for months. Pockets of dockage within that hot bin increase the spoilage risk B y J a y W h etter , C a n o l a C o u n c i l o f C a n a d a

A

ll canola should be put on aeration immediately after harvest to cool for safe long-term storage. Canola can maintain a high respiration rate — it sweats moisture — for up to six weeks after harvest, producing humidity that can feed moulds and create hot spots. High heat just adds to that risk.

“The suggested target for cooling is 15 C or lower throughout the bin,” says Angela Brackenreed, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada (CCC). “But keep checking periodically throughout the winter to make sure it’s not creeping back up.” If temperatures inside the bin plateau or start to rise while outside air cools through the winter, this is often a sign that spoilage has started. “It only takes one small hot spot to start a chain reaction that can ruin a whole bin,” she says.

Factors that increase spoilage risk Heat. Enzymatic and biological activity tends to increase with higher temperatures.

This activity creates the hot spots that lead to spoilage. As outside temperatures decrease relative to the grain temperature inside the bin, this widening temperature difference will increase airflow within the canola grain mass.

This airflow tends to concentrate moisture at the top of the central core, creating new highmoisture zones for mould development and spoilage.

Moisture. Moisture also raises enzymatic and biological activity that leads to mould growth. Canola with moisture above eight per cent is more likely to spoil within the first five months of storage, especially if heat is also above 20 C. A lot of canola came off very dry this year.

The safe storage graph in the Canola Growers Manual suggests that canola at six per cent moisture is at very low risk of spoilage, even if binned at 30-40 C. However, canola storage experts still recommend that hot canola be put on aeration for cooling — no matter the moisture level.

“There is still likely going to be convection currents and some moisture movement. Condensation at night could also add moisture,” says Noel White, grain storage research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada 30

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Air movement in winter Air movement within a bin changes with the seasons. In winter when outside air is colder than air inside the bin, air currents in the grain tend to concentrate moisture at the top of the central core. In spring when outside air is warmer than air inside the bin, air currents in the grain tend to concentrate moisture at the bottom of the central core. This is why canola that seemed safe in the winter can start to spoil in the spring.

in Winnipeg. “It would be best to cool it by aeration,” Digvir Jayas, grain storage specialist and vice-president of research at the University of Manitoba, agrees. “It is good to cool hot canola to maintain uniform temperature and avoid moisture migration,” Jayas says.

Aeration will also even out the temperature and moisture throughout the bin, preventing these hot spots from occurring.

“The risk is even higher with larger bins,” Brackenreed says. With larger bins, there is generally less surface area relative to the volume, meaning natural cooling takes longer.

The core will hold that heat longer if not aerated. Larger bins also take more loads to fill them so there is a greater chance a load or two might be over eight per cent. These spots would not necessarily be safe if temperatures are over 25 C. When using aeration to cool canola that is very dry, fans can be shut off during the day and turned on at night when air is cooler. If growers feel conditioning is unnecessary, then monitoring frequently is critical during the first six weeks or so when warm seed may be respiring rapidly. They need to ensure that temperatures throughout the bin are at least stable or hopefully falling over time, especially once outside temperatures cool off in late fall and early winter.

Dockage. Chaff, weed seeds and insect parts often have moisture levels three to four percentage points higher than canola seed.

Chaff in particular tends to flow differently

Bin-monitoring cables provide temperature readings through the grain mass so growers can check bins quickly from ground level. Cables are now available to monitor moisture as well as temperature.

than seed when filling bins, leading to pockets in the bin with higher levels of this plant material. These concentrations provide a start point for mould growth that can lead to heating and spoilage of canola.

“Some regions are reporting higher levels of dockage this year,” Brackenreed says.

“Some canola has high levels of weed seed dockage, which may not be as mature and thus have higher moisture than the canola.

Some canola may have higher levels of plant parts. When disease or lack of moisture causes plants to dry quickly, the brittle plants break apart more in the combine, creating a greater amount of small chaff or bits of stem that are more challenging to separate.”

High oil content. The more oil in a seed, the less meal and moisture is concentrated in the meal. Therefore canola seed containing more oil may need to have lower overall moisture — as a percentage of total mass — for safe long-term storage. Research is looking into the effect of higher oil content on stored canola under western Canadian conditions.

However, research from Australia shows that for every 1.0 percentage point increase in oil content, canola should have 0.1 percentage point lower moisture for safe long-term storage. For example, if canola with 40 per cent oil is safe at 8.5 per cent moisture, then canola with 45 per cent oil should be stored at eight per cent moisture.

A hot, dry finish to the season or anything else that causes plants to senesce prematurely will tend to reduce seed oil content. Higher oil content tends to occur when canola experiences cooler, wetter weather right through to full maturity. Growers who want to know the oil content of canola in their bins can send a representative sample to the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC). For more information on the free program, go to www.grainscanada. gc.ca and click on “Harvest Sample Program” under the heading “Current” on the right.

High green. The CGC’s harvest sample

program will also give a chlorophyll measurement. Elevated chlorophyll levels in canola seed will increase the storage risk — even if the canola is dry and cool. Canola with high green seed content should be thoroughly conditioned, closely monitored and delivered as soon as possible after harvest to prevent additional price discounts from spoilage.

Bin size. This was mentioned earlier in the section on moisture, but bin size alone can be a factor. Bigger bins mean increased compaction of stored canola, particularly when bins are tall and relatively narrow. More compaction reduces airflow. The aeration system and fan horsepower have to be adequate for the volume and configuration of canola storage.

Also remember that the small size and round shape of canola seed leaves fewer air pockets relative to wheat and other larger grains. This adds to the aeration capacity requirement. For example, a 2,000-bushel hopper bottom bin may require only a three-hp fan for wheat but will need a five-hp fan to effectively condition canola.

To conclude, all canola should be conditioned to bring cool air into the bin, even out moisture levels, and remove any respired moisture that may be concentrating in hot spots. High harvest temperatures and high

How to monitor stored canola Growers have three main methods to check bins.

1. Move grain. Taking canola out of the bin is the best way to check temperature and odour for signs of heating. This can also allow some cooling and disrupt moisture migration. If using this method, move a minimum one-third of the bin. Bins tend to empty the central core first, where typical moisture cycles often lead to heating. But if green count or dockage is high, heating can start anywhere. If you have a sense that the bin is at risk, transfer the whole bin. If spoilage has started, look for immediate delivery opportunities.

2. Use properly anchored bin-monitoring cables. These add to the cost of storage but make monitoring easier. One cable has a coverage diameter of 20 to 24 feet. Bins with a diameter greater than 24 feet will need at least three cables to adequately monitor grain temperature. More cables provide extra assurance because grain never conditions or dries consistently throughout the mass. Temperature fluctuations are normal based on erratic airflow patterns.

3. Probes. Probing through doors or roof hatches may uncover hot spots near the bottom and top of the bin, but cannot show canola condition through the central core and all sides. Be careful and consider your own safety when climbing bins to probe grain. Reduce your risk of falling by using appropriate safety equipment such as a harness.

In 2012 Savvy Farmer will bring users even more valuable information. To learn more, please visit

www.savvyfarmer.com

dockage are key risk-increasing factors this fall. “You never want to lose a canola bin to heating so why take the chance,” Brackenreed says. “Especially this year with these prices.” n Jay Whetter is communications manager with the Canola Council of Canada. He’s also editor of the CCC’s free Canola Watch agronomy newsletter.

Go to www.canolawatch.org and find the signup box down the right column.

Trait Stewardship Responsibilities

Notice to Farmers

Monsanto Company is a member of Excellence Through Stewardship® (ETS).

Monsanto products are commercialized in accordance with ETS Product Launch Stewardship Guidance, and in compliance with Monsanto’s Policy for Commercialization of Biotechnology-Derived Plant Products in Commodity Crops. This product has been approved for import into key export markets with functioning regulatory systems. Any crop or material produced from this product can only be exported to, or used, processed or sold in countries where all necessary regulatory approvals have been granted. It is a violation of national and international law to move material containing biotech traits across boundaries into nations where import is not permitted. Growers should talk to their grain handler or product purchaser to confirm their buying position for this product. Excellence Through Stewardship® is a registered trademark of Excellence Through Stewardship.

ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS. Roundup Ready® crops contain genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup® brand agricultural herbicides. Roundup® brand agricultural herbicides will kill crops that are not tolerant to glyphosate. Genuity and Design®, Genuity Icons, Genuity®, Roundup Ready®, and Roundup® are trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC. Used under license.

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CROPS GUIDE

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WGRF RESEARCH UPDATE Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) is a farmer-funded and -directed non-profit organization investing primarily in wheat and barley variety development to the benefit of western Canadian producers. Through investments of over $57 million, WGRF has assisted in the development and release of more than 100 new wheat and barley varieties over the past decade and a half, many of which are today seeded to large portions of the cropland in Western Canada. WGRF also invests in research on other western Canadian crops through the Endowment Fund. In fact, since 1981 the WGRF Endowment Fund has supported a wealth of innovation across Western Canada, providing over $26 million in funding for over 230 diverse research projects such as this one:

New tool developed to detect FHB in oats

BY RON FRIESEN

S

cientists at the University of Saskatchewan have developed a new tool to help the oat industry in its ongoing fight against fusarium head blight (FHB).

Called a quantitative assay, it’s a kind of molecular measuring stick to determine the amount of fusarium fungus in a mixture of oat kernels.

It could become a significant aid in selecting suitable lines for use in breeding programs to develop fusarium-resistant oat varieties, scientists say.

“It allows you to quantify how much fusarium is on a plant,” says Aaron Beattie, a barley and oat breeder at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre.

“It basically allows you to tell which lines are more resistant and which ones are less resistant.”

The research project headed by Beattie is funded by the Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF). Based in Saskatoon, the WGRF is a farmer-funded and -directed non-profit organization investing primarily in wheat and barley variety development to benefit western Canadian producers. WGRF also invests in research on other western Canadian crops through its Endowment Fund. Since 1981 the fund has provided more than $26 million in funding for over 230 research projects.

Currently, scientists use the agar plate method to test for the presence of FHB in grain. An agar plate is a Petri dish containing a growth medium used to culture microorganisms. Researchers sterilize the surface of kernels from samples they’ve collected. Then they culture them to grow out and identify the different fusarium species present and to determine the proportion of kernels infected.

Beattie’s assay does not use agar. Instead, it’s a molecular approach which uses genetic markers to identify fusarium DNA from different species.

Beattie says the assay is more sensitive than the agar plate method because it can detect DNA at picogram (one trillionth of a gram) levels from a few oat kernels. Results can be achieved in a matter of hours, compared to waiting several days for organisms

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It allows you to quantify how much fusarium is on a plant.

— AARON BEATTIE, CROP DEVELOPMENT CENTRE to grow on an agar plate. The assay may even be cheaper to use when hundreds of samples are analyzed.

Finally, says Beattie, the assay is more accurate because there’s no room for misinterpreting the results. Some fusarium species grown on agar are hard to differentiate. You don’t have that problem with the assay, he says.

But perhaps the most significant thing about the assay is that it finds fusarium in oats more frequently than the regular agar test does.

The project sampled oats from 415 commercial fields in Saskatchewan over three years. It detected fusarium in virtually all of those fields.

That may be surprising to a layperson but it’s not to a scientist. FHB is difficult to detect visually in oats, unlike wheat and barley, where the orange discolouration and shrivelled white kernels are easy to recognize.

Credit the reason to a difference in plant

architecture. Wheat and barley both have a spike head, which is compact and the kernels grow close together. Oats has a panicle head in which the kernels are much farther apart, making it more difficult for the disease to spread among them.

With wheat, if one floret becomes infected, the disease can migrate from one floret to the next and much of the head can become infected. In oats, florets are infected individually. The chance of the disease spreading to other florets is less because the fungus has a longer distance to move through the plant tissue.

Ever since the mid-1990s, when FHB became widespread in Western Canada, many assumed that, since you couldn’t see it in oats, it wasn’t a problem, says Dennis Galbraith, an oat miller with Viterra in Portage la Prairie, Man. “The thinking at the time was that, since we were seeing little visual impact on oats, fusarium head blight was not a significant issue,” Galbraith says.

“As it turned out, oats was more susceptible than all of us had realized.”

Now that tests have demonstrated that FHB is more common in oats than previously thought, the question becomes: how serious is that?

Some might argue, not very.

For one thing, there are at least five separate fusarium species. The one most affecting wheat and barley in Western Canada is F. graminearum, which produces the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON). The most common fusarium species in oats is F. poae, which tends to produce little or no DON. Also, oat millers remove the hull before processing the groat. Toxins predominantly reside in the hull, not the groat, so dehulling would likely prevent toxins from entering the food chain.

Galbraith adds that, even if millers did receive a shipment of fusarium-infected oats, it wouldn’t survive the screening process. By the time a field is infected severely enough to damage kernels, they would be shrunken, shrivelled and have a low test weight.

“So the severely damaged fields are automatically eliminated from the milling process

because they just wouldn’t make our quality standard,” Galbraith says.

So, on the face of it, FHB does not appear to be a huge problem in oats. The disease does not spread through oats the way it does in wheat and barley. F. poae, the most common fusarium species found in oats, doesn’t produce the mycotoxin DON. And even if it did, the milling process would eliminate it anyway. But recent developments suggest that, just because FHB isn’t a huge threat to food and feed quality in oats, doesn’t mean it couldn’t be.

Andy Tekauz, an Agriculture and AgriFood Canada plant pathologist in Winnipeg, says a shift in DON chemotypes within F. graminearum in wheat and barley could mean the disease is evolving in a worrisome manner.

Some 20 years ago, a chemotype called 15-ADON predominated on wheat in Western Canada. Now, says Tekauz, a chemotype referred to as 3-ADON, which produces more total DON under the same conditions, is beginning to take hold.

In Manitoba, the ratio between the two in wheat is roughly 50-50. But in Prince Edward Island, nearly all of the F. graminearum is of the 3-ADON chemotype.

The very presence of DON in FHB-affected WGRF Crops Guide Ad_halfpagefullbleed.pdf 1 11-12-19 10:42 PM on edge. wheat and barley has the industry

As a mycotoxin, DON is potentially harmful both to animals and humans.

So far, F. graminearum, the principal producer of DON, is not the dominant species in oats. But could it be? And could it bring the more toxic 3-ADON chemotype along with it? Or could other fusarium species such as F. poae, which is more common in oats, also evolve into more dangerous chemotypes?

Tekauz, who edits the cereal chapter of the annual CANADIAN PLANT DISEASE SURVEY, says it’s not impossible.

“Fusarium graminearum is there and I don’t think that it’s particularly sensitive to the crop it’s affecting or coming from,” he says. “I would suspect the same thing could happen in oats.”

Right now, the risk seems remote. But the possibility that fusarium mycotoxins could eventually become a problem in oats is worrisome to Western Canada’s 15,000 oat farmers, whose industry depends heavily on sales to the United States.

According to the Prairie Oat Growers Association, about 90 per cent of all Canadian oats are grown in the West. About 95 per cent of oat exports go to the United States. In 2011, according to Statistics Canada, exports to the U.S. totalled 1.3 million tonnes of oats (excluding seed) and 598,000 tonnes of oat products.

The image of oats as a health food is bolstered by Health Canada’s 2010 claim that eating oat fibre can help reduce cholesterol, a risk factor in heart disease.

With a positive image of oats as a health food and the U.S. such an important market, the last thing growers need is the risk of toxins in their product, says Bill Wilton, POGA president.

“We Canadian oat producers are the suppliers for the oat-milling market in North America. Period. There’s no discussion about it,” says Wilton, who farms near Isle de Chenes, Man. “Anything that impacts our Canadian oat crop impacts the market.”

Which makes research projects on FHB in oats, such as the one funded by WGRF, all the more important, says Galbraith.

“Just because it appears not to be a huge problem right now doesn’t mean to say we shouldn’t keep ahead of the curve in terms of identifying and researching it.”

Beattie says his assay to determine the presence of fusarium is a first step. The next one is to develop a tool to tell how much DON may be produced.

“We’re hoping to develop another assay that measures the fusarium genes responsible for mycotoxin production. ■

Farmer Funded Farmer Directed Research

To find out more, visit www.westerngrains.com

MARKETs

Are wheat futures prices relevant to cash prices in Western Canada?

I

CE Futures Canada launched new futures contracts for milling wheat, durum wheat and barley on January 23, 2012.

Having followed these futures markets since their inception, I’d conclude that even though the open interest has been slow in picking up, there is relevance between these futures contracts and the underlying cash markets, as the cash price certainly moves in tandem to the fluctuations in the corresponding futures market.

To illustrate this, I’ve referenced ICE December 2012 durum wheat futures in the accompanying chart and durum open-market cash prices in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Prior to January 23, 2012, farmers could base their durum marketing decisions using the Pool Return Outlook at the Canadian Wheat Board, but the introduction of the ICE durum wheat contract provides farmers with an additional resource for anticipating the future price of durum. After all, price discovery begins with the futures market, plus or minus the basis, which results in the cash price.

The new milling wheat, durum wheat and barley contracts have been designed after the popular canola contract offered by ICE Futures Canada, as farmers and merchants in Canada are familiar with this contract and use it regularly.

These new contracts became available as a result of the Government of Canada’s passing of Bill C-18 to create a new voluntary CWB, thus ending the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly on sales and marketing of Canadian wheat and barley.

The voluntary CWB, as the Canadian Wheat Board has branded itself for the new era, began competing with private grain companies on August 1, 2012.

Milling wheat and barley contracts are no stranger to farmers and merchants as they have used them in the past, but the new durum wheat contract is the first of its kind — the only exchange for durum in the world.

On August 22, 2012 there were 72 contracts of open interest in durum wheat futures and 112 in the new milling wheat futures at the ICE. This pales in comparison to the 230,474 open interest in ICE’s highly success-

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

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ful canola contract or the 40,372 contracts of open interest of hard red spring wheat futures at the MGEX. However, given some time I’m optimistic the open interest will improve, as we are only three weeks into the 2012-13 crop year.

For the open interest to improve, these futures contracts will need to be embraced by both the commercial hedgers and speculators who provide the necessary liquidity for hedgers to execute their transactions.

Before it became mandatory for farmers in Western Canada to market their wheat through the Canadian Wheat Board in 1943, there were more wheat contracts traded at the Winnipeg exchange than in Chicago.

As of August 1, 2012 farmers now have the opportunity to choose where they market their milling wheat, durum wheat and barley just as they have been doing with other crops their entire farming career.

Farmers now have the best of both worlds — they can either sell their wheat and barley to the CWB or directly to a grain company in the open market.

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest exporter of wheat and the largest supplier of durum wheat, which is in part why ICE has developed the new futures contracts for milling and durum wheat.

One of the biggest challenges ICE

faces with the new milling wheat contract is to be competitive with the prominent wheat contracts in the U.S.: Minneapolis (hard red spring wheat), Kansas (hard red winter wheat), and Chicago (soft red winter wheat).

Chicago has the most open interest in the world, the most liquidity and is the most widely traded wheat contract, but it reflects the smallest class of wheat grown in the United States, so it may not be reflective of the majority of the wheat grown on the Prairies.

Kansas is the benchmark for winter wheat grown in Western Canada, and Minneapolis has been representative of spring wheat, which is the most popular wheat produced in Canada.

The ICE milling wheat contract better reflects the delivery points and export locations for spring wheat grown on the Prairies and the price is quoted in Canadian dollars per tonne, which can be seen as one of the benefits of using the contract for risk management.

It may take at least a year or two before ICE finds success with its new milling and durum wheat contracts, but it will need the active participation of hedgers and speculators before the new ICE futures contracts will flourish in this new open-market era. n

Durum Wheat

(Chart as of August 23, 2012) $9.50

$9.00

ICE Dec Futures MB Cash Price

$8.50

$8.00

SK Cash Price AB Cash Price

$7.50

$7.00

$6.50

$6.00 1/23/2012

2/23/2012

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8/23/2012

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12-08-31 11:15 AM