Grainews - Jan. 9, 2011 by Farm Business Communications

Volume 38, Number 01 | January 9, 2012

$4.25

PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER

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Three uses for forage radish Looking for a way to combat hardpan? A grazing opportunity? Increased soil fertility? Consider tillage radish as an option for your farm BY KEVIN ELMY

hen Columbus left the safety and comfort of his home to find the New World, people thought he was crazy; everyone knew the world was flat. Instead of finding India, Columbus found North America. Not what he was looking for, but a remarkable discovery. What does Columbus have to do with agriculture? Products that were developed for one market can be a remarkable solution for a different problem. Tillage radish is one of those products. In 2001 Steve Groff and Dr. Ray Weil from the University of Maryland started developing tillage radish as a cover crop to improve soil health, break up soil hardpans and control weeds. After years of experimenting, fine tuning, and local agronomic development, Cover Crop Solutions now markets tillage radish as a wonder plant with many uses, widely adapted to different climates.

COVER CROPS A cover crop is planted to cover the soil. This practice can manage soil fertility and quality, control pests, create a disease and insect break, control erosion and nutrient loss and provide a grazing opportunity. Cover crops are not common in Western Canada but are used indirectly. Greenfeed crops, annuals used for grazing and green manure crops can be referred to as cover crops. In most cases cover crops are a monoculture, or sometimes two or three crops mixed together. These work, but a true cover crop is made up of multiple species grown together to get the best effect. Multi-species mixes will include both monocot and dicot (grass and broadleaf) species. Of the broadleaf types, most mixes will try to include pulses and, warm season and cool season types. The idea is to mimic nature by creating diversity in the stand. This diversity ensures that different

parts of the soil will be used, that the stand will be made up of plants that grow to different heights at different times under different conditions, and that there are a variety of effects on the soil. Pulses will fix some nitrogen, cereals add fibre, and brassicas will scavenge nutrients. But most of these species’ roots tend to colonize only the top six inches of the soil. Enter the tillage radish.

TILLAGE RADISH Of all the forage radish line, tillage radish has been selected based on top growth and a straight root that produces good loosening action deep into the soil. Oilseed radishes produce roots similar to canola. The tillage radish produces a “super carrot” type of root, driving down two to four feet and creating root pressure measured at 290 psi. Aggressive top growth allows the plant to smother the ground and choke out weeds. Tillage radish can be seeded almost at any time after June 20. Seeding after the summer solstice allows the plant to produce more root mass and more vegetative mass. (Corn responds the same way when seeded later than normal for grain production.) For root growth, researchers recommend allowing 40 to 60 days of growth before a killing frost, three consecutive nights of -8 C. One common concern is seeding into cover crop residue. Because

The tillage radish produces a ‘super carrot’ type of root, driving down two to four feet and creating root pressure measured at 290 psi. carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. This results in a quick rot in the spring. The roots will dry up, and the root channels left by the rotting tubers will have the appearance of a major

radish. This is released to the next year’s crop as it rots. Next year’s soil will have a lower pH and nutrients will be released slowly, resulting in higher yields.

HARDPAN

Once it’s growing, the tillage radish will drive its root down. If it encounters a hardpan, it will send out root hairs. cover crop species should be picked based on compatibility to spring breakdown, most species are well rotted by spring. Tillage radish leaves are mostly basal with high moisture and high protein, leaving a tight

gopher infestation. These channels will reduce compaction and allow the soil to warm up quicker. Cover Crop Solutions’ research has shown significant nitrogen and phosphate accumulation in the root of tillage

Once it’s growing, the tillage radish will drive its root down. If it encounters a hardpan, it will send out root hairs. When a root hair finds a crack, it will develop into a root, cracking the hardpan open. Since the Prairies have seen well above average moisture and not much soil frost, there is a lot of hardpan in the soils, limiting crop development and moisture infiltration. Tillage and seeding operations will accelerate hardpan development.

In This Issue

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If the goal is to break up hardpan with a pure stand of tillage radish, researchers recommend using seven to 10 pounds of seed per acre. Higher seeding rates are used on heavy soils with good moisture. The goal is to produce lots of small roots to break up as much of the hardpan as possible. For grazing, a mixture of species is a must. Tillage radish has high feed values, and is high in protein. It’s best to mix in 50 to 60 per cent grass, along with pulses and potentially other brassica species, rates depending on plans for next year’s crop and the animals grazing the mix. On our farm we saw production of nine to 17 wet tonnes per acre from our tillage radish, » CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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

Weather .............................

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

Columns ........................... 12 Crop Advisor’s Casebook

Machinery & Shop ............ 19

Four ways to identify hardpan ANGELA LOVELL

PAGE 8

Agritechnica coverage — new machinery on display SCOTT GARVEY PAGE 19

Cattleman’s Corner .......... 25 FarmLife ............................ 34

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JANUARY 9, 2012

Wheat & Chaff LYNDSEY SMITH

A VERY NEW CROP YEAR

“All I said was, ‘nice rain Flo.’”

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This issue of Grainews went to press just days after Bill C-18, the bill removing the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly powers, received royal assent and became law. As I write, the dust is still settling on the court case brought by the nowformer eight CWB directors trying to stop the bill. The initial ruling appears to have gone against them; any ruling would be applicable only in Manitoba anyway (see the Wheat and Chaff item on the topic on page 3). To sum up, the CWB as farmers have known it is dead and the CWB 2.0 remains. As I’ve watched this all unfold, the question I always had for the CWB was “How are you preparing to conduct business if and when this all goes through?” There never seemed to be an answer for that, so I was rather relieved to finally hear CWB president and CEO Ian White speak up after the bill received royal assent and outline the CWB’s plan for surviving in an open market. Because, yes, they do in fact have a plan. According to the website, White says, “The passage of Bill C-18 into law heralds significant change for the CWB and for Prairie farmers. The CWB has been preparing for this change for many months, developing both pool and cash programs for farmers for the upcoming crop year. Details about new 2012-13 programs will be announced soon.” Grain companies have already started offering contracts for after the August 1 “new year.” Not all have, as of writing, but it’s only a matter of time, as the Manitobabased court case to stop the bill isn’t likely to go in the monopolysupporters’ favour. There are those that have been in this business far longer than I’ve even been alive, and even to me witnessing this bill pass has been an almost surreal experience. This is a very new year, indeed. My question now is, how will this really change how farmers do business? The decades of arguments for and against the monopoly will finally be tested. Realistically, it’ll

be more than a few years before one side can gloat about being right about the rise or fall of prices, if they so wish, but for the most part it’ll be the pundits that still bicker over this. Farmers will just be busy doing what they’ve always done — running the farm the best way they know how.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF TILLAGE This first issue of the year is dedicated to tillage and equipment. Tillage is a topic I struggle with, as I’m a firm believer in the benefits of no-till, but I grew up in Manitoba’s Red River Valley, a place where some tillage is just plain necessary. Instead of taking the most typical look at tillage offerings (there’s some of that in the machinery section if that’s your thing), I asked Kevin Elmy, a seed grower and farmer at Saltcoats, Sask., to share his experience with using forage radish as both a source of feed for cattle and an all-natural way to break up soil compaction, increase soil water infiltration and out-compete weeds. Tillage radish, as it’s called, is really quite an amazing plant, and one that you can grow in conjunction with other crops, so it’s not like you lose a year of income as is the case with some other cover crops. Angela Lovell has also outlined several issues with hardpan (see page 8), an often misdiagnosed soil condition for much of the Prairies. The rub with hardpan is that it’s quite possible to contend with both mechanically-induced compaction issues and a chemical “hardpan” condition in solonetzic soils. Lovell’s feature walks you through how to tell the difference and what to do about it. Lee Hart has also detailed one farmer’s experience with deep tillage (page 20) and Scott runs down some new tillage options on page 22. For metal heads, as machinery editor Scott Garvey likes to be called, Germany’s Agritechnica is like Christmas, but even more rare as it only comes once every two years. Scott spent nearly a week at the show (he would have been there all week if not for some unfortunate airline mixups) earlier this winter getting details about all that is new, shiny and exciting for farm equipment. Coverage starts on page 19, including a look at a tractor that will forever have its very own Grainews mark.

PLANNING FOR THE YEAR AHEAD How much planning do you do for your farm — for finances, crop rotations, marketing or otherwise? How far ahead do you look? For many, planning anything more than a few months at a time can seem overwhelming or maybe even useless when you try and account for all the variables that come into play. Our favourite Management Minute types, Andrew DeRuyck and Mark Sloane, outline two types of planners in this issue’s column on page 14. It’s a great example of why it’s important to plan but to also be realistic — you’d never actually DO anything if you tried to account for every eventuality. At the same time, doing a little planning, whether before buying a bit more land or organizing storage for the year, can not only make you more money (especially with marketing), but it could also help to set up the farm for a smooth succession or a major expansion long before it’s really in the works. As editor, I tend to use agronomy conferences as a leaping off point for much of the story planning I do for the year. Interestingly, as I toured around the many conferences earlier this winter, even the experts seemed somewhat conflicted on what to discuss — should we tackle dealing with excess moisture, like most of the provinces had prior to July, or should we talk about herbicide carryover due to the lack of rain we had after the end of June? Take weed control, for example. I wonder if specialists have ever had to talk about curled dock and drought-loving weeds in the same year? It certainly makes weed control and crop rotation planning just a little more challenging. This issue marks my last as editor for at least a little while, as it’s about time to welcome my second baby. That means it’s time to leave this magazine in the capable hands of Leeann Minogue, based at Griffin, Sask. For planning purposes, it’d be great if you could zip her an email and let her know what types of agronomy stories you want tackled in the coming months. Her email address is leeann.minogue@ fbcpublishing.com. Here’s to a fantastic 2012! Lyndsey

CANOLA MARKETS

ADM plans for new biodiesel plant, adds Act of God clause

our Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) oilseed crushing plants in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota have added “Act of God” coverage on farmer contracts for high-oleic Nexera canola in 2012. To qualify for the premiums and coverage, farmers must first sign the contract and then buy the Nexera canola seed from a “specified local seed retailer,” says ADM. Farmers’ contracted production is then covered 100 per cent with multiplepricing options, including a base contract with coverage “dependent upon the region.” These contracts will be offered at plants in Watson, Sask.,

Carberry, Man., Velva, N.D., and Enderlin, N.D. ADM plans to build a 265million-litre capacity plant next door to its canola crushing plant at Lloydminster, Alta. Construction is expected to start next spring for completion in the fourth quarter of 2013. In March 2011 ADM announced plans to add five more storage bins at the Lloydminster site, doubling its storage capacity to 100,000 tonnes, and to add a second receiving system with additional conveyors and other equipment. The new plant is expected

to increase ADM’s own North American biodiesel production capacity by 50 per cent, and to help Canada fulfill its mandate for renewable diesel fuel. A mandatory minimum took effect in July requiring two per cent biodiesel in all diesel sold in Canada. “A robust Canadian biodiesel industry diversifies the fuel supply, provides environmental benefits and fosters increased local demand for canola, which creates value for rural communities,” says J.P. Montalvo, commercial manager at ADM’s Lloydminster facility. † AgCanada.com

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Wheat & Chaff Farm safety

Grain marketing

Think about getting hitched — safely!

isplaced the operator manual to your triedand-true old tractor? Wondering how to safely tow an older implement with your new high-speed tractor? You’ll find the answers to these and other farm equipment hitching questions in a new guidebook, Safe Implement Hitching. Jim Wassermann, an engineer with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) in Saskatchewan, is a member of the team of farmers, engineers and machinery experts that produced the guidebook. He says, “Over the years, PAMI received so many questions from farmers who wanted to hitch up their older equipment safely that we decided to put all the answers into a new guide.” Wa s s e r m a n n e n c o u r a g e s farmers to obtain a copy to use as a supplement for their tractor and implement operator manuals. The 42-page guidebook is farmer-friendly and features

color photos, illustrations and tables of data. Featured hitching connections are: drawbars, three-point hitches, power-take-offs (PTOs), hydraulic and electrical. And there’s a safe way to do them all based on knowledge of the equipment being connected, an understanding of the procedures required for a safe tractor-to-implement connection, operator skill and respect for personal and public safety. The guidebook provides a checklist of all these safety concerns. In general, before hitching a tractor to any implement, check the safe hitching guide’s hazard assessment and safety plan. You’ll find a list of questions. Answer them and you will be able to identify, estimate and evaluate risks and develop a safety plan. Here are a couple of the questions: Does the operator have sufficient knowledge and skill? What are the potential risks to the operator, bystander, public, equipment, property? What severity is asso-

ciated with the risks? Slot the answers into a safety plan and you’re ready to get hitched! The information in the guidebook is all practical and useful. Not surprising because it’s based on information from farmers and engineers as well as the Canadian Standards Association (www.csa.ca), the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (www. asabe.org), the American National Standards Institute (www.ansi.org), Occupational Safety and Health Association (www.osha.gov), and the International Organization for Standardization (www.iso.org). Safe Implement Hitching is available as a free, downloadable PDF. Go to www.planfarmsafety. ca and type ‘hitch’ in the search box. Safe Implement Hitching was produced with financial support from the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA) and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). † From the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, www.planfarmsafety.ca

Variety Selection

New canola performance data available

omparative data on canola seed varieties is now available to farmers from the new Canola Performance Trials (CPT) 2011 that replaced the PCV trails axed in 2010. The CPT 2011 represents the next generation in variety evaluation for western Canadian canola growers. The three Prairie canola grower groups – the Alberta Canola Producers Commission, the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission (Sask-Canola) and the Manitoba Canola Growers Association — fund the program. Seed trade companies that participated paid entry fees. The B.C. Grain Producers Association conducted trials in the Peace as their means of participation. Participants in the small plot trials consisted of line companies, independent retailers and seed companies

including Viterra, Bayer CropScience, Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, Cargill, Canterra Seeds, BrettYoung Seeds, FP Genetics and SeCan. The CPT 2011 includes results from 23 small plots. Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, Canterra Seeds and Dow AgroSciences also participated in a total of 108 audited field scale trials. Results are organized by short, medium and long season zones. The results booklet is available now online at canolaperformancetrials.ca. The three Prairie grower groups will be posting it as well. This month, an online selection tool will be available at the same website, highlighting the contribution margin calculator. A printed booklet version of the results will be available shortly at Prairie ag retail outlets. †

Crop Protection

New fungicide option for canola

uPont Canada’s crop protection arm has announced a new Group 7 chemical for use on canola, pulses and sunflowers. The crop fungicide Vertisan includes penthiopyrad, a new active ingredient. Dave Kloppenburg, DuPont Canada’s fungicide launch manager, describes Vertisan’s active

ingredient as “a brand new molecule that locks onto the fungus to stop disease in its tracks.” Vertisan is registered for use against sclerotinia in canola, as well as against ascochyta blight, grey mould and rust in pulse crops, early blight and rhizoctonia in potatoes, and sclerotinia head rot in sunflowers. Vertisan is one of the first fungicides on the market to show effec-

photo contest

tiveness against sclerotinia head rot in sunflowers. The product is described as “a balanced fungicide with residual, preventative and postinfection action,” providing “translaminar and locally systemic protection and excellent rainfastness.” † AgCanada.com

CWB stripped of monopoly powers

n mid December, Canada’s Governor General signed into law Bill C-18 which orders sweeping changes to the marketing of Western Canada’s wheat and barley. Bill C-18, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz’s Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, passed third and final reading in the Senate December 15 by a vote of 51-33, after the Conservatives invoked closure to halt debate and order the final votes. Bill C-18 is a package of legislative amendments that will strip the CWB of its single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley and eventually repeal the CWB Act, to allow the board to be either privatized or wound down. The bill also allows for Prairie farmers to immediately begin forward contracting of wheat and barley sales for delivery after Aug. 1, 2012, and for the immediate buying and selling of futures contracts for Prairie wheat and barley with delivery after that date. The bill’s passage comes in the wake of a court challenge filed by the CWB’s eight remaining farmer-elected directors, asking that C-18 be invalidated. Once

the bill received royal assent, the CWB dropped the challenge, however the eight former directors continued with it. As of late December, Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench rejected a request to immediately suspend implementation of the law. Judge Shane Perlmutter set new hearings for January 17 and 18, 2012, on whether to suspend the law while he decides on the broader question of whether to strike the law down. Perlmutter declined a request to suspend the law until this month’s hearings. Until Aug. 1, 2012, the government continues to prohibit deliveries of board wheat or barley for export or human consumption to anyone other than the CWB. Only the CWB, or those with CWB export licenses, may export board wheat or barley until then. After Aug. 1, 2012, however, export licenses will no longer be required and Prairie growers will be able to directly arrange deliveries with, and deliver wheat or barley to, any domestic or export buyer. † AgCanada.com

Grain Marketing

Cargill may run wheat pool in 2012

argill may run a pool for western Canadian farmers’ spring wheat in 2012 and will also be ready to offer farmers forward price contracts for their grains in an open market. Grain handlers will be able to immediately offer farmers contracts to buy next year’s harvest once the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) no longer has a governmentmandated monopoly. “We have considered all of those particular (pricing) approaches,” says Cargill president Len Penner. “Part of what we need to assess is what role will (the CWB) play on the pooling side versus what other competitors will choose to do.” Penner says he thinks farmers will want to pool wheat, as they have in Australia after it ended its own wheat marketing monopoly

in 2008.The number of pooling options Cargill may offer depends on how much demand there is for them, Penner says. Pooling options come in different styles and can allow farmers to capture the average price of a commodity over a period of time, or simply turn a combined grain volume over to a company for marketing during a year. Cargill, the third-largest grain handler in Canada after Viterra and Richardson International, is also “very prepared” to offer farmers forward price contracts for next autumn’s harvest, Penner said. In a given year, farmers may sell about one-quarter of yearly production of other crops through forward contracts, and the signup for wheat might be slower, Penner says. † AgCanada.com

Coming events

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT Proud great-grandma Veryl Wiebe sent in this photo of two-year-old Nevaeh Sorenson enjoying some quality time at the farm, just north of Livelong, Sask. Great-grandma says Neveah would spend all her time in the chicken house if she were allowed (the chickens seem glad she’s not allowed to stay). Thank you for sending in the photo. There’s a cheque for $25 on its way to you. If you’d like to submit a photo, please email it to leeann. minogue@fbcpublishing.com. Please send only one or two photos at a time and include your name and address, the names of anyone in the photo, where the photo was taken and a bit about what was going on that day. A little write-up about your farm is welcome, too. Please ensure that images are of high resolution (one MB is preferred), and if the image includes a person, we need to be able to see their face clearly. — Leeann

Say Yes! To Agriculture 2012

he Saskatchewan Yo u n g A g - E n t r e preneurs are hosting the Yes! To Agriculture 2012 event February 9 and 10 at the Delta Hotel, in Regina, Sask. Speakers include Calvin Boisjoli, Dr. John G. Fast, Richard Phillips, Lance Stockbrugger and more. For more information and for the final agenda, visit www.saskyoungag.ca, call 306.874.2025 or email sya@saskyoungag.ca. †

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JANUARY 9, 2012

Cover Stories SOIL MANAGEMENT yields when seeded with two to three pounds of tillage radish; a 10 per cent yield bump in soybeans after tillage radish; and, an 11 per cent increase for corn. Lots of places aerial broadcast tillage radish into five to six foot corn. Farmer testimonials seem to support yield increases even under drought conditions. Tillage radish has potential for grazing, soil improvement, nutrient recovery, weed control, grazing, and erosion control. There is also a human consumption market. Overall, Tillage radish is a management tool with potential for both grain and livestock producers. On our farm, we’ll continue to trial innovative ways to use Tillage radish, helping to improve the soil, increase plant health, and net us more dollars while we reduce our risk and input costs. †

» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Three uses for forage radish seeded at four to 10 pounds per acre on August 1. Root production ranged from five to nine wet tonnes per acre (97,000 to 157,000 roots per acre). We also had a trial where we broadcast seeded Tillage radish into our standing corn crop after we had a plugged run. We broadcast with a hand-held lawn seeder with no incorporation. The plants covered the ground by freeze-up. Grazing showed fantastic results, and the cows thanked me for doing it!

YIELD INCREASE Research in the U.S. has shown significant yield increases in the years following radish. All published yield reports (from the U.S.) show a five to 12 bushel per acre increase in winter wheat

Kevin Elmy operates Friendly Acres Seed Farm, along with his wife, Christina, and parents, Robert and Verene, near Saltcoats, Sask. Contact him at 306-744-2779, or visit www.friendlyacres.sk.ca

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Editor

Lyndsey Smith (on leave) Cattleman’s Corner Editor

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Steven Cote MARKETING/CI RCULATION Director

Tillage radish has high feed values, and is high in protein. Grazing showed fantastic results.

Lynda Tityk

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Tillage radish leaves are mostly basal with high moisture and high protein.

Holes left behind when tillage radish is seeded with a precision planter.

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EXTENDED OUTLOOK FOR THE PRAIRIES Weather Forecast for the period of January 15 to February 11, 2012

Southern Alberta

Peace River Region

Saskatchewan

Manitoba

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Jan. 15 - 21 Cold and clear on many days, but slight warming brings light snow on two days.

Jan. 15 - 21 Cold and clear on many days, but slight warming in the south brings light snow.

Jan. 15 - 21 Settled and cold on most days. Minor warming brings snow, drifting to the south.

Jan. 15 - 21 Settled other than scattered snow and drifting on two or three occasions. Higher windchills.

Jan. 22 - 28 Cold air dominates on most days under generally fair skies. Snow and drifting on a couple of days. Mostly clear and cold in the north.

Jan. 22 - 28 Cold air dominates on most days under generally fair skies. Snow and drifting on a couple of occasions in the south will bring higher windchills.

Jan. 22 - 28 Cold temperatures on many days this week with higher windchills. Some snow and blowing in southern and central areas.

Jan. 22 - 28 Fair and cold on most days but systems bring some snow and blowing on two or three days. Higher windchills. Cold and clear in the north.

Subscription prices: For Canadian farmers, $46.20 per year or $72.45 for 2 years (includes GST). Man. residents add 7% PST to above prices. U.S: $43.00 per year (U.S. Funds). Outside Canada & U.S.: $79 per year. ISSN 0229-8090. Call 1-800-665-0502 for subscriptions. Fax (204) 954-1422.

Jan. 29 - Feb. 4 Variable conditions as disturbances move through causing snow and drifting on two or three occasions. Chance of heavy snow in the south. Cold temperatures.

Jan. 29 - Feb. 4 Temperatures vary but trend to the cold side. Snow falls on a couple of days in the south. Expect blowing and a chance of heavy snow.

Jan. 29 - Feb. 4 Cold temperatures with blustery winds. Expect some snow on a couple of days. Chance of heavy snow in places in the south.

Canadian Postmaster: Send address changes and undeliverable copies (covers only) to PO Box 9800, Winnipeg, Man. R3C 3K7.

Feb. 5 - 11 Unsettled on a few days in the south with some snow, possibly heavy in places. On settled days look for bright skies and cold temperatures. .

Feb. 5 - 11 Bright skies and cold temperatures will alternate with minor warming along with snow and blowing snow. Blustery. Higher windchills.

Feb. 5 - 11 Fair skies and cold temperatures alternate with milder air and occasional snow. Windy at times with blowing snow and higher windchills.

U.S. Postmaster: Send address changes and undeliverable copies (covers only) to 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1.

Jan. 29 - Feb. 4 Variable conditions as disturbances move through causing snow and drifting on two or three occasions. Blustery and quite cold. Feb. 5 - 11 Unsettled on a few days with some snow, possibly heavy in places. On settled days look for bright skies. Very cold in the north.

-21 / -10 Grande Prairie 32.7 mms

Precipitation Forecast -20 / -9 Edmonton 23.3 mms

-16 / -6 Jasper

31.1 mms

-23 / -12 North Battleford

ABOVE NORMAL

-15 / -5

31.0 mms

-27 / -16 The Pas

-26 / -14 Prince Albert 18.4 mms

-19 / -8 Red Deer 20.7 mms

-23 / -12 Saskatoon 15.9 mms

18.0 mms NEAR NORMAL

-24/ -13 Yorkton

-24 / -13 Dauphin

-26 / -15 -23 / -13 21.2 mms 19.3 mms -21 / -10 Regina Gimli -16 / -4 -20 / -10 Moose Jaw 25.1 mms Calgary 14.7 mms Swift 17.7 mms -22 / -12 12.2 mms -16 / -5 -25 / -14 Current Portage -24 / -13 -21 / -12 Medicine Hat Brandon 23.8 mms Winnipeg 20.0 mms Weyburn 19 cms 18.4 mms Lethbridge 17.3mms 19.3 mms 17.2 mms -21 / -11 20.3 mms 26 cms -14 / -3 Estevan Melita -25 / -12

Banff

Forecasts should be 80% accurate, but expect variations by a day or two because of changeable speed of weather systems.

18.8 mms

19.2 mms

Published 18 times a year.

BELOW NORMAL

15.4 mms

Grainews is printed on recyclable paper with linseed oil-based inks.

Precipitation Outlook For January Much Above Normal Below Much above normal normal below normal normal

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Your next issue! You can expect your next issue in your mailbox about January 23, 2012

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

JANUARY 9, 2012

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Features GRAIN HANDLING EQUIPMENT

Three ways grain baggers add flexibility

om Eppinga says one of the key features of the Neeralta Grain Bagger that appealed to him is the overall longer length of the machine, which helps make each of his 300-foot bags of stored grain, canola or peas much straighter. The Edmonton-area farmer says straight bag lines not only look neater, is easier for unloading bags and makes better use of the area where bags are being filled. The Neeralta bagger is 27.5 feet long from ball hitch to the bag attachment in the rear. Part of the length is due to the design, which includes an attached swing auger at the front of the machine. Eppinga, who farms near Gibbons, just north of Edmonton, used a Neeralta bagger for the first time in 2010, but has been researching grain bagging for several years. “We started out five or six years ago storing grain with silage bagging equipment,” says Eppinga, who crops about 6,000 acres of wheat, canola, peas and malt barley. The Neeralta machine, manufactured by Neeralta Welding at Neerlandia, northwest of Edmonton, is the third brand of bagger he’s used on the farm. The two other makes worked “okay” but he really liked some of the features of the Neeralta Grain Bagger. As the bagger and tractor are pushed or creep ahead as the bag is being filled, he’s found it tracks a very straight line. He also says the company has a very convenient strap system for attaching the bag, and designed the machine so there is no back flow of grain when the bag is being attached.

REDUCE TRANSPORT Eppinga has used the bagging system for all commodities. While he has quite of bit of bin storage on the farm, he started bagging crops in fields which were further from his permanent bins. Rather than haul grain, he put the bagger in the field. “That’s why we started, but even last year (2010) I bagged some grain right in the yard,” he says. “Depending on the situation and the condition of the crop being harvested, the bag gives you some options and flexibility. Personally, I think even if a farmer does have bin storage, the grain bagger is a tool that can have a fit at harvest.” While bagging grain in the field is one option, Eppinga says the fact that the bags are sealed, with no oxygen, allows farmers some latitude at harvest.

“If you get in a pickle at harvest where you have to harvest canola at 12 to 13 per cent moisture, you can combine and bag it and deal with it later,” he says. “That is what we did in 2010. We bagged some 13 per cent moisture canola, sealed it up and came back three months later and it was exactly the same quality as when we combined. Then you have time to get it aerated or dried down.” Eppinga says he wouldn’t put 100 per cent of his crops in bags, but likes having the option. In the field, they operate with three combines and a grain cart. With the bagger at the edge of the field, the cart or a combine can run to the edge and unload grain and keep going. Because the Neeralta bagger tracks a straight line, Eppinga says they just leave the tractor on the bagger running at about half throttle. The cart operator can pickup grain from the combine, drive to the bagger, unload into the large 8'6" x 10 foot loading/receiving hopper on the bagger, and the cart driver doesn’t even have to get off his tractor.

EXPAND BLENDING OPTIONS Another option he has used with the bagger is for blending dry and damp grain. He can pull up on one side of the bagger with a grain cart with damp grain, for example, and bring in a Super B with dry grain on the other side. The damp grain goes from the cart into the loading hopper and the dry grain empties from the Super B into the swing auger hopper and everything gets blended 50/50 as it goes into the bag. “The machine is built with a large diameter auger (14 inch) which is really gentle on peas, too,” he says. “We used it for peas last year and had a loss of about half of a per cent of cracks, compared to other machines where the per cent of cracks was double or triple that.” Grain bagging isn’t a perfect solution, says Eppinga. They had a lot of snow in 2010, and it was deep and packed when it came time to empty some bags later in the season. He borrowed a neighbour’s three-point-hitch snow blower which worked well in clearing a path to the bags. Also, deer walking on bags can damage the plastic so they will bag some in the yard to avoid placing the bags in areas where deer might be problem. And he also advises “don’t cheap out” on light plastic. Go for the heavy material — nine mm or better — to protect grain quality.

Attached swing auger and heavy-duty construction appeal to farmers. “Grain bags do take some management, but at the same time, it is another tool for grain storage,” he says. While the Neeralta bagger, complete with swing auger, and large hopper costs $38,700, Eppinga says it is about the same as buying a large bin and it affords a lot of flexibility. He has a neighbour with a grain bagger and they share the cost of a bag unloader between the two farms. Eppinga figures, aside from the machine itself, cost of storage in the plastic tubes is five to six cents per bushel.

CUSTOMIZE FOR NEED Neeralta Welding made their first grain bagger in 2008, says John Wierenga who along with his brother Rob, operate the long time business, which was started in 1984 by their father Bert Wierenga. They do a wide range of welding and fabrication work. Wierenga says the common feed back from farmers is they like the fact the machine is extremely well built, and it comes with a permanently attached swing auger. Fact is the brackets for holding the swing auger are permanent but it can be removed quite quickly if the producer wants to use it elsewhere. Both the swing auger and large loading hopper are options. “If a farmer is only going to use the bagger with a grain truck he may not want the big hopper,” says Wierenga. “Or if they only plan to use it in the field with a grain cart, then they may not want the swing auger. But our basic model comes with both features.” The 20 foot long, hydraulic swing auger has a 14-inch diameter auger, which can handle 130 bushels of grain per minute, unloading a Super B truck

in about 15 minutes. The large hopper at the back of the bagging machine has been outfitted with three windows so the operator can see what is happening inside the hopper. There is also an optional roll back cover for the hopper to protect if from the weather. The complete machine weighs about 7,000 pounds, and can be driven by an 80 horsepower tractor, with 20 gallons per minute hydraulic capacity. “One nice feature farmers like too is that it is a direct drive PTO,” says Wierenga. “There are no gears or reduction drives. There are only three bearings and those are all standard or imperial measure. The machine hasn’t needed a lot of maintenance, but if you do need a new bearing, you can get one at any farm supply store, pop it in and you are ready to go.” The swing auger folds back in against the side of machine for easy road transport. It has a 1,500 pound hitch weight making it easy to pull with any pickup. Wierenga says it is stable and can travel at regular highway speed when being moved. The machine was also designed with a removable panel or window in the housing where the bag attaches, so when in transport the pickup driver can actually see the road behind the unit through the rear view mirror. The current Neeralta Grain Bagger accommodates a 10 foot diameter grain bag, but the prototype of a 12 foot diameter bagger is already in the shop. The company hopes to offer the larger size in this year. For more information on the Neeralta Grain Bagger visit the company website at: www. neeraltawelding.com. †

www.pioneer.com

BY LEE HART

Grain bags take some management, but can have a fit to reduce hauling costs and can also preserve tough grain until you have time to deal with it

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

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JANUARY 9, 2012

Features Farmer panel

Tillage creeps back in to repair water damage Wet conditions have driven farmers with zero-till operations back to tillage to dry out fields and repair damage caused by standing water By Lee Hart

armers haven’t gone wild buying new equipment for the 2012 cropping season, according to those contacted for this January farmer panel. There have been some new purchases to improve farm efficiencies. And depending on the success of the 2011 crop, some purchases have been delayed, or are still under consideration. But all farmers contacted have had to use some degree of tillage to repair damage caused to fields during two or three successive years of wet seeding and growing conditions. One farmer was able to get back to conventional full-tillage treatments as fields dried out, and a long-time zero-till farmer had to drag long-retired tillage equipment out to the field to repair damaged caused by standing water. Here’s what the farmer panel members had to say:

Edward Cook Dugald, Man. With an overall below average crop in 2011, Edward Cook shelved plans to upgrade one of the tractors on his Manitoba farm this past fall. The volatile weather over the past growing seasons emphasized the need for tillage. “I don’t know if we did anything different, tillage wise. All we did was more of it,” says Cook, who farms at Dugald, Man., east of Winnipeg. “It was actually dry enough this fall that we could get our tillage done. In the past two or three years it’s been so wet in the fall that we haven’t done as much as we’d like.” Cook, who farms in an area where moisture creates a different kind of problem than many other parts of the prairies, says their main goal with tillage is to get rid of as much moisture as possible. “I would love to be able to direct seed my crop. I’m sure my fuel bill would change drastically,” says Cook who produces grains, oilseeds, pulse crops and corn. “But in this area there’s almost a 90 per cent certainty that if you left standing stubble over winter, that would be a field you couldn’t seed next spring.” Cook’s usual practice is to make two deep tillage passes and one heavy harrow pass after harvest to work in crop residue and help soil dry out. In a couple of previous years, field conditions were such that often only one tillage pass was possible. “We weren’t able to get the fields worked the way they should have been those years,” he says. “The 2011 spring started out wet, and then it turned dry — it just stopped raining. I don’t think the crop ever ran out of moisture. In fact in midAugust the surface was dry, but there was plenty of moisture just four inches down.” The dry conditions allowed him to work fields with a John Deere 680 deep tillage tool, on 12-inch spacings, which can be outfitted with anywhere from four- to 12-inch wide shovels, depending on soil type and the job. “We wanted to dry out the soil and level things up,” he says. “On our soybean fields, for example, it was too wet to get them rolled in the spring so the field had

all these two-inch deep pockets where mud had balled up during seeding operations. We wanted to level those all out.” And on some timothy grass seed land he broke up, it took seven tillage passes to get the field ready for seeding and level out some 12-inch deep ruts that had been created over the past couple of seasons. Cook wrapped up the 2011 cropping season with 45 per cent of his land already seeded to winter wheat and fall rye. He usually grows some winter wheat but hasn’t had fall rye in rotation for some time. He planted it on spring wheat stubble because it is less susceptible to fusarium head blight. Seeding winter crops helps spread out his risk.

Brad Crammond Sidney, Man. Brad Crammond did some tillage on his southern Manitoba farm this past fall. “Not because we wanted to,” but because it was necessary to clean up weeds in some wet areas that didn’t get seeded last spring, and he has a new air seeding system on his wish list for later in 2012. Crammond, who crops about 1,200 acres east of Brandon, says switching to the new air seeding system will move him into a direct seeding operation and away from the minimum till system he has now. “With our current system we knife in anhydrous ammonia in the fall,” says Crammond. “We try

to minimize the soil disturbance but there is some. I think over the next couple years I’ll also be cropping more acres as family members retire, so I want to move to a onepass system that’s more efficient and easier to manage.” Unlike farmers in some parts of Manitoba, most years Crammond’s limiting factor on yields is the lack of moisture, so anything he can do to conserve moisture is a benefit. “We’re usually dry here, but the last three years have been really wet. The other reason I want to go to a one-pass seeding system is because in these wet years, I feel we’ve had an unacceptable amount of nitrogen loss due to leaching. So with a one-pass system, using a granular herbicide,

everything goes on with the seed, reducing the risk of nitrogen leaching in the fall and winter.” He’s looking for a new air seeding system either with mid-row banders or fertilizer sidebanding, that is also equipped with variable rate fertilizer and seeding technology. “I do my own version of variable rate fertilizer application now just by adjusting the controller when applying anhydrous ammonia,” he says. “It’s not very accurate but I apply more or less where I think it will do the most good. It certainly doesn’t give you the confidence you’d get with an actual computer controlled prescription. “I farm just on the edge of a potato growing region. Those guys have been using variable rate for

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JANUARY 9, 2012

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Features the past six or seven years and it is a no-brainer. I believe in the value of variable rate application. It may not save you fertilizer dollars but it should improve yields. Why put 80 pounds of nitrogen on an area of a field you know will only produce 20 bushels of wheat? The idea is to put the fertilizer where it will do the most good.” Crammond plans to use his Bourgault air seeding system one more season this spring. And he still has some anhydrous ammonia to apply this spring on flax fields that were just too dry and hard for fertilizer application last fall.

Craig Shaw Lacombe, Alta.

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Even though he is a long time direct seeding operator, Craig Shaw had to pull out some tillage equipment this fall to repair ruts in several of his fields after another wet growing season. And he also applied anhydrous ammonia this fall to fields that will

be seeded to canola next spring, for a couple of reasons. On one hand, it takes some of the pressure off the spring seeding window, which seems to have been getting narrower the last few years. And that soil disturbance in the fall blackens a bit of the soil, and helps it warm up a little faster in the spring. “We seem to be having more open falls and cooler springs, which means seeding is running a bit later in recent years,” says Shaw. “So we felt if we got some of the fertilizer on in the fall it lightens up the spring workload and prepares the soil a bit.” He is considering a new seeding system, which could get him back to a one-pass seeding operation, particularly for canola and perhaps pulses. “I’ve been grappling with the idea of getting a corn planter for canola,” says Shaw. “I have talked to some farmers who have used them and along with being very accurate in seed placement, they can really help to reduce seeding costs.”

Shaw says with the accuracy of a corn planter, he’s heard the canola seeding rate can be reduced to two pounds per acre, on 15-inch row spacing. With a more conventional precision placement air seeder, that rate might be 3.5 pounds per acre, and with a conventional air seeding system like he has, it is more like five pounds per acre. “If canola seed is $10 per pound, and you can cut the seeding rate by three pounds per acre, that’s a $30 savings per acre, which can quickly cover the cost of the planter,” he says. “With the accuracy of planting and better germination, I’ve heard even at the lower rate you can get a four to six bushel yield advantage too. “It is something I have to investigate further, but the numbers make it sound worth considering.” While Shaw would use the corn planter primarily for canola, it could also be used to seed pulse crops such as peas and fababeans, and there may also be an opportunity to rent it out or do custom corn seeding.

Not only is Shaw interested in the efficiencies of a zero-till seeding system, he’s also keen on reducing soil compaction on his farm. In 2011 he participated in the first year of a three-year provincial study looking at the benefits of controlled traffic farming (CTF). He has devoted 160 acres of his farm as a CTF research plot — half of the land is farmed with all field traffic for seeding, spraying and harvesting restricted to the same wheel marks (tramlines) on 30-foot spacing, and the other 80 acres of the field being farmed conventionally. “That is the study area, but since we already had equipment configured on 10-foot wheel centres and 30-foot wide increments in width, we decided we might as well use it other fields too,” he says. So he is farming another 350 acres of his 2,600 acre farm with the CTF method as well. The idea is to restrict all field operations to the same wheel tramlines. The tractor and drill have a 10-foot wide wheel base, the drill

is 30-feet wide, the combine has a 30-foot header and 10-foot wheel base, and the sprayer has a 10-foot wheel base and a 90-foot boom. He uses the same wheel tracks for each operation and at harvest, the combine empties into trucks at the headlands. The idea of restricting traffic to these tramlines is to reduce the soil compaction caused by random traffic over a field. And, the hard surface of the tramline tracks improves operation efficiency. “One year is not enough to draw firm conclusions, but I could certainly tell in a year like this when field conditions were so wet, that on those fields where we were using CTF we were creating the ruts like we did on other parts of the farm,” says Shaw.

Dallas Leduc Glentworth, Sask.

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Dallas Leduc upgraded his seeding equipment in 2011 with a new Seed Master air drill which nearly doubled the width of his previous drill, and last fall he bought a pull-type land leveler blade to help repair erosion damage on his southcentral Saskatchewan farm. Leduc switched from a 48-foot wide Seed Hawk drill to a 70-foot Seed Master drill with one-half inch wide, low disturbance openers. “We’re farming more acres and I needed more capacity,” says Leduc. “Price was one factor, but I also liked the ultra-pro canola metering system, which is very accurate. I can reduce my seeding rate by 1.5 pounds per acre which is about a $15 per acre savings.” He is using the 16-foot wide leveler blade to repair erosion ditches which have appeared in some fields on his 7,000 acre farm over the past couple years. “We are a zero-till operation and we leave all stubble on the field, but some of this land just can’t handle 40 inches of rain over a couple years, especially when you get three to four inches over a few days,” says Leduc. “The worst seemed to happen right after seeding, before the crop really got growing. We would even double seed these areas just to ensure there would be a good root system to hold the soil. But then we’d get these heavy downpours and there would be a small stretch of erosion, but then with each heavy rain it got worse.” Leduc says he has several fields where the erosion trenches are about one foot wide and two feet deep and they stretch for about half a mile. The trenches are too deep to work through. He plans to use the leveler to fill the washouts and contour the land and get it re-seeded. He also added a third semi to the operation for hauling grain and other chores. Particularly at seeding, the third truck comes in handy as a water service truck for the field sprayer. “We have two semis already but I find they are kept busy hauling seed and fertilizer to the field, so the third truck carries a tank and hauls water for the field spraying,” he says. During the wet 2011 seeding season he only managed to get 5,300 acres seeded, with the remaining 1,700 acres unseeded and chemfallowed during the year. Field conditions have dried out this fall, so he is hoping to be able to get everything seeded in 2012. †

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

/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Features SOIL MANAGEMENT

Four ways to identify hardpan Wet weather and soil compaction can cause hardpan. Before deciding on an action plan, it’s important to recognize the difference between farmer-made soil compaction and Solonetzic soils BY ANGELA LOVELL

rue man-made hardpan — a compacted layer of soil just below the soil surface — is rare in the Prairies, but it does happen. Far more common, but equally troubling, is hardpan caused by soil composition, such as is the case when dealing with Solonetzic soils. In Saskatchewan and Alberta, soil specialists tend to refer to hardpan as a soil condition specific to Solonetzic soils. These soils have a dense soil layer, high in clay or sodium, which inhibits air and water infiltration and the movement of plant nutrients and roots through the soil. This hard, dry Solonetzic layer can extend anywhere from 10 cm to 75 cm below the surface. The layer restricts rooting volume and water movement, resulting in poor topsoil quality, crusting problems and soil erosion. It’s a pretty large problem — there are 4.5 million acres of Solonetzic soils in Saskatchewan, occurring primarily in the Brown and Dark Brown soil zones. Solonetzic soils often occur in patches in fields that contain otherwise non-Solonetzic soils. They are a localized problem, occurring in areas of the field where a high amount of sodium is present. These areas are much harder than surrounding soils, even if the non-Solonetzic areas in the field are also compacted. Topsoil depth will vary across the field, deeper in better growth areas, which contributes

Online resources

Ty p e t h e s e a r c h t e r m “hardpan” on provincial government agriculture websites for more information on causes and management of hardpan. Alberta: http://www. agric.gov.ab.ca; Saskatchewan: http://www.agriculture.gov. sk.ca; or Manitoba www.gov. mb.ca/agriculture

to a wavy growth pattern of crops in these fields. In some of these soils, leaching forms an acidic, white colored soil horizon, which can be seen above the hardpan layer. In other areas with heavier, clay soils, such as the Red River Valley region of Manitoba, hardpan or “plow pan” is used to refer to subsurface compaction and is generally caused by in-season field operations such as seeding, spraying and harvesting, and can become especially pronounced when traffic on the fields coincides with wet conditions. “When soil has significant amounts of clay, even small amounts of clay, it will become rigid when dried, like this year. But that is not necessarily compaction, nor is anything that you can manage without adding water,” says David A. Lobb, senior research chair of the Watershed Systems Research Program at the University of Manitoba. “Any true hardpan that may develop over the course of a year is likely to be effectively broken up by cracking and/or heaving. The only place where we see significant, prolonged compaction at the surface is where severe erosion has exposed the subsoil and there is excessive traffic.”

SOIL COMPACTION There are various forms of soil compaction. Crusting at or slightly below the soil surface is largely caused by tillage and precipitation or irrigation droplets. Deeper, traffic-induced compaction by farm equipment is much more common in Prairie soils than true hardpan. These types of compaction can usually be remediated by changes in management practices or by Mother Nature. “In most of Western Canada we experience regular wettingdrying cycles as well as freezethaw cycles, which results in fairly mellow soils,” says Ken Panchuk, provincial soil specialist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. “Also we are adding organic matter back into our soils, so we rely on our

natural systems to get the soil structure back in place by the next cropping season. If you use good flotation on your equipment, manage your time in the seeding and harvesting windows and keep heavy equipment off the field if you don’t need to be there, everything will be fine.”

HOW TO IDENTIFY HARDPAN Hardpan can be identified through visual and mechanical clues. Water ponding in the field following rainfall or snowmelt, uneven crop growth, poor penetration of tillage equipment and plant roots growing horizontally

Chen, professor of biosystems engineering at the University of Manitoba. “Especially in clay soils, if the roots are growing horizontally and there is standing water in the area, I would suspect they have compaction problems,” she says. Other methods involve digging a small hole (the width of a shovel extending down to 60 cm) and pushing a knife blade into the side of the pit at various depths. A hardpan layer will make it difficult to push the knife blade into the soil. The blade will stick when removed. Soil samples can be sent to a testing laboratory to

Tillage is often seen as a fix for compaction problems, but in some cases it can exacerbate the problem at a certain depth in the soil are all indications of subsurface compaction. Under normal circumstances the repeated wettingdrying and freeze-thaw cycles of a prairie winter and spring will mitigate most surface or near surface compaction issues, but they will be ineffective in breaking up true hardpans, which will persist over many growing seasons. Measuring resistance with a device called a soil penetrometer is one way to determine the degree of soil compaction or hardpan. A soil penetrometer consists of a 30° steel cone at the end of a steel shaft with a pressure gauge on the other end which reads in pounds per square inch (p.s.i.). The penetrometer is pushed into the soil at a rate of one inch per second. Readings of 400 to 500 p.s.i. indicate potential soil compaction; the higher the reading the more the soil is compacted. For farmers who don’t have access to equipment like this, a simple shovel is a lower tech solution. It’s important for farmers to dig out a cross section of the compacted area and inspect the roots, says Dr. Ying

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confirm whether or not the soil is Solonetzic. A good homemade probe to check for compaction is the subsoil moisture probe used by many farmers to determine subsoil moisture recharge in the fall before freeze-up or in the spring just prior to seeding. This probe is a 3/4-inch steel ball welded on a 4.5 ft. rod with a handle welded across the top. The moisture probe is pushed into moist soil (after fall rains or spring snowmelt), and stops when the ball end hits dry soil or a compacted layer. Dry soil or a true hardpan will stop the probe, Panchuk says.

MANAGING HARDPAN Soils naturally become denser at lower depths because there is less organic matter present, and more minerals. Dense soils can be maintained through careful crop rotation and management practices that avoid using heavy equipment when soils are most vulnerable to compaction, such as during very wet conditions. “If soils are maintained in a mix of forages and crops and

we retain root channels, cracks or earthworm channels, we can have quite a dense soil and still get good movement of air, water and roots and that’s really all we care about. And that’s what the plant cares about too,” says John Heard, provincial soil specialist with Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives. It’s important that the rotation includes a mix of taproots (from crops such as canola, chickpeas or sunflowers, and forages like alfalfa and sweet clover) as well as fibrous roots (from grass forage crops and cereal grains). This ensures that roots penetrate into different levels of the soil profile, and facilitates sufficient water and air infiltration to maintain healthy, productive soils. Management practices play another huge part in avoiding serious soil compaction problems. “Many of our cropping systems are harvested in the dry time of year so we don’t do the damage that is seen in some other areas,” says Heard. “So we avoid a lot of the problems if we already have good management.” In a wet year, however, heavy equipment (such as tractors, seed carts, combines, trucks and manure spreaders) compresses soil particles into smaller volumes, which provides less space for air and water to move through the soil. With larger equipment, wheel traffic compaction can occur to a considerable depth within the root zone, and becomes deeper as soil moisture content increases. In compacted soils, plant emergence can be reduced because of surface crusting. Plant roots are limited in their ability to take up required moisture and nutrients, and yields can suffer as a result.

DEEP TILLAGE Soil tillage is often seen as a fix for compaction problems, but in some cases it can exacerbate the problem. Tillage can remove the protective residue from the soil surface, leaving it vulnerable to erosion and environmental fac-

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Features tors like excess moisture or heat. Excessive tillage can lead to soil crusting at the surface and tillage implements can cause soil compaction below the depth of tillage, especially when soils are wet. Most farmers see deep tilling, subsoiling or deep ripping as a last resort to deal with heavily compacted soils, says Chen, because it is expensive, energy intensive and can cause damage to the soil. When it is necessary in clay soils, Chen advises using deep rippers, which have edge-on shanks for lower draft requirement. They loosen subsoil, but cause little soil mixing. Under most conditions deep rippers will break out a slot of soil that is slightly wider than the tool point, causing less soil disturbance and allowing more residue to remain on the surface to conserve moisture. Chen’s research has shown that it is only necessary to subsoil once every three years. “We measured the soil resistance in soils that had been subsoiled annually and every two and three years

Tips for avoiding soil compaction Best management practices for avoiding compaction: 1. Use direct seeding practices to increase soil organic matter content and optimize soil structure. 2. Reduce the potential for the development of compacted soils by eliminating cultivation and reducing traffic in fields, which will increase crop water use efficiency and crop yield potential. 3. Take advantage of the natural soil processes of ‘wetting-drying’ and ‘freeze-thaw’ cycles to minimize the effects of soil compaction. For irrigated areas, fall irrigation may ensure sufficient water for the freeze-thaw effects. 4. Use a combination of fibrous and taprooted crops in a rotation to penetrate soils, develop deep root channels and add organic matter to soil. Tips for avoiding wheelinduced compaction 1. Minimize traffic on fields when subsoil is wet. 2. Minimize axle loads by increasing the number of tires on an axle on an implement. 3. Use the lowest acceptable tire pressure. 4. Tracked vehicles give better weight distribution versus implements with tires, but care is needed to minimize track slippage, which could cause increased surface soil problems. 5. Use headlands for heavier equipment and traffic. Where possible, try to unload and load on the headlands to avoid driving carts and loaded trucks through the field. This practice will help limit the compaction areas to just the headland areas. For more information, visit the Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development website (www.agric.gov.ab.ca), and type ‘soil compaction’ in the search box you’ll see at the top of the page.

we found the results were the same,” she says. “So subsoiling is still having an effect after three years.” Tillage every three years also seems to fit the economic realities researched by Alberta Agriculture, which estimates that an average pay-back period of four years is needed to recover the costs involved with deep tillage, assuming a yield increase of 8.5 bushels per acre of wheat valued at $4 per bushel. The pay-back period for subsoiling was 2.1 years based on a yield increase of five bu./ac. at the same value.

SOLONETZIC SOILS A lot of research into Solonetzic soils has been done in Alberta, where there are more Solonetzic soils that any other province, and these soils affect 30 per cent of the arable land. Improving surface drainage, trying to prepare the seedbed dur-

ing dry and cool conditions, avoiding too much spring tillage and fertilizing only at rates that correspond to lower yield potential are all important first steps. Also, including forage crops in the rotation and returning crop residues to the soil helps build organic matter and improves soil structure and tilth. While not all Solonetzic soils are suitable for deep tilling, in some cases deep tillage becomes necessary to try and open up soil channels so that moisture can penetrate into the soil layers. But there are many drawbacks. Deep tillage or subsoiling can seriously disturb the soil and make the surface uneven and lumpy, meaning additional tillage may be necessary to prepare for seeding. If excessive moisture is received immediately after deep tillage the broken soil can quickly become waterlogged and unworkable. In areas where salts have accumulated on the soil surface, deep

tillage can mix soil layers and speed up salinization by bringing more salts to the surface. Crop response to deep tillage seems to vary depending on location, soil type and environmental conditions. Research in Alberta has shown that yield responses are greater in areas of higher precipitation than in drier regions and depend on crop type, rotation and management. Meanwhile ongoing research at the University of Saskatchewan is looking at the effects of using a subsoiling implement called a para-plow, which loosens the hardpan layer by lifting up the soil and lowering it again in a wave-like motion, resulting in very little soil mixing. The research has mainly been done on irrigated land, which often tends to have more problems with soil compaction. The effect on yields of wheat, canola and flax across different soil types, has been inconclusive. “From our work we have observed that

the kind of soil loosening that we get with the para-plow unit has produced measurable decreases in the density of the soil,” says Dr. Jeff Schoenau, professor of soil science at the University of Saskatchewan. “And it has increased the infiltration rate of water. But we really haven’t seen it translate into much of a yield benefit.” Many soil specialists fear the issue of compaction may be oversold, and that farmers may be tempted to take a step backwards in terms of soil health. “Saying that tillage is an immediate solution is not correct,” says Panchuk. “Mitigation of soil compaction is a slow process and with reduced tillage systems we are building organic matter and soils are becoming more productive and healthier than when we were under major tillage. Compaction generally isn’t a Prairie-wide issue.” † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist in Manitoba

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JANUARY 9, 2012

Features Soil management

Management tips for a wet spring When wet spring conditions left nearly 10 millions acres unseeded in Western Canada, farmers made quick decisions to deal with the wet soil. Find out what they learned the hard way By Harry Siemens

cott Day, diversification specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI), didn’t seed an acre on his own farm in 2011 at Deloraine, Man. He wasn’t alone. Many others in southwest Manitoba didn’t seed many acres, and many of those who did manage to get a few acres in the ground under wet conditions wished they hadn’t, because it wasn’t worth the effort. “(It was) one of those years that the lessons we learned, we hope we’ll never have to use again,” says Day. “It was an exceptional year through this part of North America because many farmers in North Dakota went through the same ordeal we did and certainly in southeast Saskatchewan, too.”

Weed Control Day says one of the first things farmers discovered was weeds. Lots of them. They were a stark reminder that the weed seed bank never disappears. “If a weed seed can fly like a dandelion or a thistle or this Northern willow herb that has become a real problem, it’s most likely found in an unseeded field in a fallow situation,” says Day. “You have to re-think weed control. If you’re going to have weeds anyway, it may not hurt to leave a few weeds once in a while because the seed bank is there anyway.” Day and his neighbours also

found that it took extra effort to kill some of the unfamiliar weeds that showed up on their unseeded acres. One weed in particular that hadn’t been seen before was a Northern willow herb. This little shrub was very difficult to kill. “We learned it’s necessary to mix something with your glyphosate to make it work well,” Day says. “Some of the products used in the past were not very effective when you had Roundup Ready canola volunteers flowering, or hard to kill weeds unfamiliar to us until this last year.” Mixing a half litre of 2,4-D in with the glyphosate worked the best for killing Roundup Ready, hard to kill plants. These are normally easy to kill when they are small, but not when they’re large and flowering. Once farmers realized seeding season would be a total loss, the next question, Day says, was what to do next. “Do you let the weeds grow? Or try and keep them under control? In the end, people who let things grow and suck up moisture and maybe build up a little bit of organic matter, were just as well off as people that sprayed by plane. It was well into July before farmers had sprayed most of the land for the first time, and lots of the weeds had flowered or even gone to seed. The weed kill was excellent because the growing conditions were good for the chemical to work well.” For most farmers who took that approach, it took only two

Many farmers found using a vertical tillage piece of equipment worked well in fields with incredible weed growth. sprays and the land was clean for winter. “In the future we would be more patient and let those weeds grow if it is exceptionally wet because they weren’t really doing any harm to the land,” says Day. In fact, they helped suck up some of the moisture.

Tillage The second lesson has to do with when to work the fields. In 2011, once the water disappeared,

the weeds appeared and seeding deadlines came and went. “If you can’t get on the field to harrow it, you shouldn’t be doing anything with it, is lesson two,” says Day. “The way things turned out, the land remained totally saturated and some could float on seed or by plane. It was still too wet to get on with the harrow, then the crop was a loss anyway.” Day says when it’s too wet for any sort of light harrowing or travelling across the field, farmers

should wait. There’s no getting around it. Many farmers found using a vertical tillage piece of equipment worked exceptionally well in some of these fields with incredible weed growth. No cultivator would go through it, but a vertical till system worked quite well. The most effective vertical till unit was the one with the straight up and down coulter units. Farmers using these are

» continued on next page

Unseeded acres may need more nitrogen Bob Deutsch, president of Agvise Laboratories at Northwood, N.D, says it’s imperative that farmers who had unseeded acres or drowned-out fields in 2011 test their soils before putting in a crop for 2012. “The nitrogen on the unseeded acres will be very variable depending on how the land has been treated, whether worked, whether the weeds grew up on it, or Roundup was applied to kill the weeds,” says Deutsch. “For those fields not worked through August and even September,

the weeds will have used most of the carry-over nitrogen in that field.” Deutsch says farmers may have fertilized some of the drowned-out areas, but much of these acres don’t have a lot of nitrogen left because of denitrification where the saturated soils lose the nitrogen to the atmosphere. “Drowned out acres can test a lot lower than cropped acres,” he says. “The nitrogen in the drowned out area was lost to the atmosphere.”

photo: scott day

Scott Day of Deloraine, Man. took these photos on Sept 11, 2011, showing a solid mat of Northern willow herb, that he’d sprayed with a good dose of 2,4-D and glyphosate. He seeded winter wheat into this field, about six days earlier. You can see the winter wheat just poking through the ground.

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Features NEW VARIETIES » CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE not tilling to control weeds, simply disturbing the land to help dry it out and chop up residue. “You’d have volunteer crop along with buckwheat and curl dock, cattails. You’d kill it with the glyphosate, and go through it with the vertical till unit,” Day says. “Cut it up in one direction and then the second pass, at a right angle to the previous pass, would chop it up nicely into four to six-inch chunks. It was amazing how well it prepared the land for next year’s seeding.” A Tandem disc worked well too, but these use much more power and leave the field much rougher. Farmers found it next to impossible to use the cultivator in most fields.

SHARING EQUIPMENT In the unprecedented wet weather of 2011 farmers and resource people alike worked in uncharted territory. Farmers shared some of the equipment and expenses to work the fields as they best they could. On November 7, the soil was still wet. Day says, “Do you light it on fire and burn it off? Do you tandem disc it twice? There was no set example or rules on how to deal with this and get it ready for next year.” So, many farmers shared equipment, buying some in partnership because they don’t anticipate needing it a lot in the future, and didn’t want to invest too much in new tillage equipment, specifically for these extreme conditions. “There was a lot shared equipment because sprayers needed duals with a tremendous amount of flotation to get through some of these fields.” As well, Day says, “Companies renting equipment came in very handy.”

Update on wheat, corn and soybean varieties BY LEE HART

nformation on a few new wheat, corn and soybean varieties was either missed or not available for earlier fall issues of Grainews, so here is an update on what else is coming along for 2012.

CANADIAN WESTERN RED SPRING WHEAT FP Genetics, based in Regina, Sask., is launching two new CWRS wheat varieties for 2012. CDC Utmost VB is the highest yielding variety out of the University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre program to date. Key features include high yield, 20 per cent higher than Lillian; strong straw; great disease package; and midge tolerant.

AC Muchmore is a semi-dwarf CWRS variety. Key features include four per cent higher yield than Superb; strong straw; excellent disease package; and great colour retention. For more information call 1-877791-1045 or visit their website: www.fpgenetics.ca .

SOYBEAN And from Syngenta seeds, one new soybean variety S01-K8, is a GENRR2Y (Genuity, Roundup Ready) variety, rated at 2500 CHU. Variety highlights include excellent yields in early maturity zones; above-average standability and sclerotinia white mould tolerance, well suited for early planting in well-drained soils; good emergence; and performs well in narrow row widths.

excellent drydown; good stress tolerance for drought-prone soils; strong emergence for early planting; and excellent staygreen and late-season intactness. For more information on Syngenta varieties call 1-800-7567333 or visit their website at www. nkcanada.com.

CORN And Syngenta has three new corn hybrid varieties for 2012. N04F is an Agrisure 3000GT and AgrisureGT variety, with a 2150 CHU rating. Variety highlights include consistent performance across different environments and seasons; excellent test weight combined with drydown; strong roots and stalks; and dependable lateseason standability. N09T is an AgrisureViptera 3111 variety, with a 2300 CHU rating. Variety highlights include great yield potential for this maturity; excellent emergence well suited for early planting; excellent test weight; and great choice for continuous corn acres. N12R is an Agrisure 3000GT, with a 2400 CHU rating. Variety highlights include high yields with

SECAN BARLEY VARIETIES To correct a reporting error made in the October 4 issue of Grainews, SeCan (and not Canterra) is marketing two new high performing barley varieties — CDC Meredith and CDC Austenson. For more information contact SeCan at 1-800-764-5487 or visit their website at www.secan.com. Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com

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WINTER WHEAT Day has never seen so many acres of winter wheat go in the ground. In his area, a lot was planted into unseeded land, some with not much stubble to protect it. “It got off to a great start with all the crops looking very good. Hopefully we’ll have the right snow cover to keep it through the winter despite inadequate stubble or trash cover,” Day says. “On our farm, we had a lot of volunteer canola that didn’t die the first time around. The second time around it made for an excellent winter wheat habitat.” †

BrettYoung’s highest yielding hybrid, 6060 RR, out-yielded commercial checks by 2.6 bu/ac (106%). Providing impressive yields, 6060 RR is a leader in its class. For proven consistent performance with yields equal to the commercial checks and better standability and harvestability, turn to 6040 RR. 6060 RR and 6040 RR come complete with the unparalleled weed control offered by the genuity Roundup Ready system. In the end, it all comes down to performance, and BrettYoung brings a new standard of excellence to the field.

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Harry Siemens is a farm journalist, freelance writer, speaker and broadcaster living in Winkler, Man. Read his blog at www. siemenssays.com, or email Harry at harry@ siemenssays.com

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JANUARY 9, 2012

Columns Guarding wealth

Canadian bonds hold up as European bonds tumble These are turbulent economic times. Here’s why some Canadian corporate bonds can add stability and security to your portfolio By Andrew Allentuck

ead any major newspaper and you’ll find a plethora of worrisome stories: European bond yields hitting new highs as banks and others sell off their Greek, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and Italian bonds; the decline of the value of the Euro against other currencies; and stocks tumbling on either side of the Atlantic. You could be driven to the conclusion that global finance is due to tumble into a bottomless abyss. For now, the European bank and national debt crisis looks like a game of whack-a-mole. Bash any one problem into place and another pops up. Yet after all the tragedies play out, there will still be currencies

that measure prices, there will still be land supporting crops and rents, and there will still be manufacturers turning out things for which people are willing to pay. The problems of the Euro are structural, for in creating the currency and the European Central Bank to manage monetary policy, the European Union (EU) devised an abnormal regional economy. No country since ancient times — the Roman empire is a good example — has run without some sort of tax policy. The policies may have been predatory, corrupt, badly administered or even the foundations for revolution, but they served the needs of the state at the moment. States want money to pay their bills. And the EU has no tax policy worthy of the name. It has no way

to pay its bills as a regional entity. So the Euro is supported by a central bank with a single mandate to fight inflation — not even to manage stimulus programs — and a nonexistent regional tax authority. This is more than odd, more than a diversion from history. It is nuts.

The Euro in jeopardy Europe faces the loss of its currency if Greece pulls out and Germany declines to pay the rising costs of keeping Spain, Portugal and maybe Italy in the currency group. Without the Euro, the smaller economies of Europe would have a hard time floating their bonds at maybe even single digit interest rates. Their currencies would depreciate against those of Germany and

France, perhaps the Netherlands and, of course, the United Kingdom which is part of the EU but not a Euro-user. Without the Euro, the peripheral states would find it far more costly to sell bonds to finance national debt. If it’s tough now, it would be far harder to work global bond markets post-Euro. Companies with the scale and heft to be able to sell bonds in non-Euro countries would find their borrowing rates up and the costs of selling stocks even higher. Without the ease of trade that a single currency makes possible, companies in countries that go off the Euro would have to pay a good deal more interest. There are alternatives to the dissolution of the Euro. A country, say

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Italy, could peg its currency, call it the New Lira, to the British pound or the new German Mark. The country could set a value and lock in terms of trade with the country whose currency is the anchor for the peg. That would make it a snap for wine merchants in London to price Italian chiantis and a cinch to pay for them. But outside of trade with the U.K., the problem of variable pricing would be as bad as with no Euro at all. If the single peg did not work well, as it would not for a nation like France that sells large parts of its mainly agricultural products in many nations, then trade could be priced in a basket of currencies — perhaps rubles and pounds, American dollars and Japanese yen. For daily trade and international shipping, it would be tough, though spot prices would be generated and doubtless available on the web every day. But how about pricing an insurance contract? Would today’s currency mix reflect the cost of university education for an insured’s children a decade or two after his death? Banks could add currency insurance to their prices and would doubtless love to do so. That would drive up the cost of trade, of insurance, and even the cost of a bushel of wheat to be delivered to another country. Another solution: satisfy creditors by selling them national assets. Land, for example, could be priced and sold to a creditor. A think tank in Athens, the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies, has offered the opinion that the national government of Greece could sell up to $280 billion worth of land and buildings (that’s in Canadian dollars). There is precedent for such a move, notes a recent edition of The Economist, the British financial weekly. One of the most famous was the U.S. purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 for $15 million ($312 million in 2011 dollars). That chunk, 2.14 million square kilometres, includes most of the central United States. Selling off Greek Islands that would become German or Chinese would probably doom the government that tried it. But selling not sovereignty, just title, might do. And private parties that cannot buy sovereignty but would be happy to have title to their own little islands might go for it. The result in balance of payments cash transfers and debt alleviation would be the same. The costs of abandoning the simple idea of a single currency are so large, the alternatives so peculiar and the costs of replacement so large, that the wise minds of European finance are bound to find a solution to their difficulties. The only remaining question is how long it will take.

The road to stabilization The European debt crisis will find a stability point when Germany and France, with the potential assistance of China, inject enough money into afflicted national economies to stabilize them. What governments may not do, individual investors could do. After all, if it’s possible to buy, say, a Greek shipping line for a fraction of its real worth, you can

» continued on next page

JANUARY 9, 2012

Columns AGRI-COACH CORNER

Magnesium matters Magnesium is a major driver in energy production in plants. It’s also integral for plants to fight off stress BY ELSTON SOLBERG

agnesium (Mg) is an essential nutrient for all living things. In plants, it holds the central position in the all-important chlorophyll molecule, which transforms sunlight’s energy into plant-usable energy or ATP (adenosine triphosphate). In animals and humans, a large part of magnesium’s essentiality comes from its combination with ATP. This Mg-ATP complex is required for the cells’ energy-producing structures, or mitochondria, to produce ATP. The mitochondria break down food energy (glucose and fat) into water, carbon dioxide and energy. Therefore, magnesium is central to the very batteries of life on earth. How can farmers use any of this unique information in a practical way in Western Canada? Here are a few thoughts in a checklist. 1. Check your soil samples and make sure you have per cent base saturation Mg levels between 10 and 20 per cent. Per cent base saturation Mg below 10 per cent likely means significant deficiency, while greater than 20 per cent means you have “tight” soils that negatively affect root growth, which affects water use efficiency and nutrient use efficiency. There are several strategies to attack both issues. 2. Look at early season tissue samples from the past years. If you don’t have (m)any, then get a few this year. You will learn tons about what your crop is dealing with, or dealing without. If early season Mg tissue levels are low, then the plant is telling you that its photosynthetic capacity is compromised. The magnesium atom is central to the chlorophyll molecule. Chlorophyll is the energy hub of your crop. If this system is compromised early in

the season, then your yield potentials are as well. Research suggests 28 bushel per acre (bu./ac.) canola yield increases from soil applied Mg (56 bu./ac. to 84 bu./ac.) and longterm 8.8 bu./ac. wheat yield increases from foliar applications. These kinds of numbers excite me.They especially excite me because I know that more than 80 per cent of the tissue samples I look at every year are low to borderline for Mg content. Magnesium levels in the soil and the crop deserve your attention. 3. Start learning about abiotic stress and its influence on your crops. Every year we spend millions of dollars on fighting biotic stress (soil and seed borne diseases, weeds and insects and foliar diseases) and pay little heed to the much bigger yield losses associated with abiotic stress (cold, hot, too bright, salinity, wind, drought, too wet, etc.). It turns out that Mg is a serious abiotic stress fighter in all living things. Again, this deserves attention. 4. If you have tissue samples coming back low in Mg, consider playing with some Mg fertilizers to see if you can get crop responses. Remember that solubility rules when it comes to the effectiveness of Mg fertilizers. Put out simple strips across a few fields. Take tissues after, watch the crop, connect some dots and learn for today but mostly for the future. In the next 40 years, we will have to grow the equivalent of all of the food grown in the last 10,000 years. We will not achieve this goal using the tools and the thinking we use today. As an industry we must think deeper, try new things and learn constantly so that our children and grandchildren may flourish. † Elston Solberg is president of Agri-Trend Agrology. Contact him at esolberg@agritrend.com

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MANA FUNGicides » CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE bet it will happen. Even long term conditions of instability breed the foundations of return to stability. The process of a return to stabilized interest rates will take months, perhaps the better part of a year. In the meantime, there will be deleveraging of industrial economies as output falls in the face of higher financing costs. Inflation will decline. We may see lower energy prices as the world economy contracts. Food prices could soften or even decline. Those forces will set the stage for a return to normalcy in bonds. That will bring down interest rates.

GOOD DEALS AND SECURITY Is it time to start buying Spanish and Italian state bonds at seven per cent yields? That’s worth a look. How about senior bonds from giant American investment banks at similar rates? Greek bonds at yields of 120

per cent? Probably not, for the problems apparent may worsen before they get better. But some bonds still offer good deals and security. Canadian corporate bonds from major regulated utilities in the single A to BBB+ ratings range offer returns of three to five percent for 10 years. That is a good return with a predictable return of principal. Bond repayments and recognition of return can be timed to the day. There is no currency risk in a Canadian corporate bond payable in loonies. Finally, provincial regulation of issuing utilities ensures that the companies will be able to pay their dividends. Canadian corporate bonds have largely been ignored by the rest of the world, but they are relatively safe, easy to buy, easy to trade, and easy to follow. That’s a pretty good security blanket in a period of global bond turmoil. † Andrew Allentuck’s latest book, When Can I Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work, was published by Penguin Canada in 2011

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JANUARY 9, 2012

Columns MANAGEMENT MINUTE

The true power of planning Planning for every possible outcome is missing the point ANDREW DERUYCK AND MARK SLOANE

ow much time do you take to plan in the winter? There are varying degrees of planning and preparation in a business, and the effectiveness of that planning is directly correlated with long term success. Let’s consider two scenarios. Peter Planzalot is a moderate to large grain farmer who doesn’t enjoy surprises. He starts planning as soon as the shed doors close in the fall. He begins with a production budget by estimating costs of production and potential contribution margins for each commodity. Based on these calculations and his rotations, he decides

exactly where and how much of each crop he will grow. Often he will consider two potential yields: his long term crop insurance average, and the expected yield for which he fertilizes. Then Planzalot projects his income and expenses. He knows he will sell most of his old crop and typically forward sells a portion of his new crop for fall cash flow and to turn his bins. Expenses are determined using historical expenses from past financial statements and minor adjustments. For instance, since Planzalot will be doing more tillage this next season and marketing his wheat further from home than he normally does, he’s increased his projected fuel expense from $20/ac. up to $24.50.

Planzalot is 58. Although he often talks about slowing down, he thinks one of his children may be interested in farming, and he loves what he does so he holds on to a desire to grow by five per cent each year. This year he plans on approaching a neighbour to see whether a rental agreement could be worked out. Based on his anticipated growth, Planzalot works through a capital purchase plan. He plans to purchase more storage when the programs come on in January. Planzalaot also considers his human resources. He operates with one full time employee and up to three more seasonally. He needs to know how to encourage them to return, and to make sure

he’ll have enough help given his expansion plans. Then he rolls all of these plans into a projected monthly cash flow, and adds loan payments and income tax into the equation. At this point, Planzalot needs to consider whether he can prepay long term debt, make sure he’s paying the lowest possible tax rate, and check that he has access to any financing he might need. Now, let’s visit Fred Flibideseatofmypantz. Fred’s also a moderate to large farmer, but he lives by Sir John Harvey-Jones’s words, “Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than

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being preceded by a period of worry and depression.” Flibideseatofmypantz intuitively knows which crops make him more money. But his brother’s wife doesn’t, and she owns 25 per cent of the farm. He works hard to buy inputs as cheap as possible and sell crop as high as possible, which usually works out OK. Sometimes he holds off paying some bills if the pre-bought fertilizer bill is big, or he quickly sells some canola or corn to generate cash. He’d like to take on more land, but last year was wet and he knows that he is further into his operating line that he normally is; expansion probably isn’t the best idea right now. Flibideseatofmypantz usually hires some part-time help at the last minute, and, if he can’t, he and his brother put their heads down and work harder and longer, another feature of his management that does not sit well with his sister-in-law. He’d like to bring in his son but really doesn’t understand where he might fit into their farm. His plan is to let his son use their machinery to get started, but Fred isn’t sure his son can afford it or if they can spare the time. Flibideseatofmypantz has settled into buying most of his inputs before year-end and deferring grain tickets from October on but isn’t quite sure what to do next to manage tax. His brother trusts him and has enjoyed working with him but isn’t sure what Fred does in the financial management of the farm and his wife is starting to ask a lot of hard questions. The Flibideseatofmypantz farm may be headed for some heated discussion or hard feelings. You may ask yourself, in a business such as farming how can I estimate yield when it is so largely dependent on weather? How can I guess where the market will be in my next production cycle given world markets and uncertainty? How do I know if I will be able to expand, or forced to contract? All valid questions and you are correct in your uncertainty, however the merit in planning isn’t being exact in your predictions but rather to clearly understand the expected outcome given a set of circumstances. This plan is a framework for effective communication within your ownership and management team as well as people integral to your operation such as accountants, creditors, landlords, and input dealers. This plan ensures that everyone is singing from the same songbook. Imagine a hockey team where strategy and positioning was never discussed. How would that look compared to the team that knew what the plan and strategy was and was working together to achieve it, all with the same common goal in mind? If you have a strong plan, when circumstances change, you and your management team will understand the implications of those changes and recognize whether the impact is something that needs to be dealt with immediately or something that will not significantly impact the plan. This process is not simple. If there are parts of it that you find difficult, utilize a consulting business such as ours, your accountant, or even your creditor. † Andrew DeRuyck and Mark Sloane manage two farming operations in southern Manitoba and are partners in Right Choice Management Consulting. They can be reached at andrewd@ goinet.ca and sloanefarms@hotmail.com or 204-825-7392 and 204-825-8443

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Columns SOILS AND CROPS

Wanted: A combine for canola It’s tempting to push your combine speed and get that crop in the bin LES HENRY

or me, a highlight of the production year is spending some time running the combine. I’ve done it every year since I was 15. The 2011 harvest was a special time on my son-in-law’s farm at Annaheim. The combination of superior soil, good management and absolute cooperation from Mother Nature brought a once in a lifetime result. On a couple of days during the wheat harvest I saw the combine yield monitor showing 70 bushels per acre and better. I was happy to be called back for a second tour of duty when the canola harvest started. Gerald Dauk and his brother Murray had discovered that slowing down (a lot) left a lot more canola in the hopper. A neighbour with engineering experience did “catch” tests to confirm that slowing down would work the grain cart harder. So, I started out on 36 foot swaths, straight as a ruler — cut with autosteer — and with strict instructions to keep the speed to 1.5 miles per hour. The combine did not have autosteer, but if I could get the combine tires in the swather tracks,

row at 1.3 m.p.h. and went on the return row at 2.5 m.p.h. (each row was one acre, according to the combine). The result was scary. At 1.3 mph, I put 73 bushels in the tank. On the way back, at the faster speed, I put in only 57 bushels. Being a scientist, I know that two numbers can always show a difference. But is it repeatable? So I did a second repetition. Same result. Going slower, I put 15 bushels more in the tank than at the faster speed. I thought about trying more repetitions, and switching the direction of travel in case there was a slope I couldn’t recognize. In my experience in hilly land at Dundurn, yield monitors give

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Les Henry in the combine, fall 2011.

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little steering was needed. At 1.5 m.p.h. with autosteer and straight swaths, keeping awake would be a problem. If a recorder was available I could have easily penned a Grainews column at the same time. It was easy to have lunch — including pouring coffee — on the run. At one point I was given a piece of land flat as a board with quarter mile strips, so each swath was close to one acre. On the first ten swaths the monitor bounced from 68 to 72 bushels per acre at 1.3 m.p.h. It was a very uniform piece of land and crop. I had to see for myself, so every once in a while I goosed it all the way up to 3 m.p.h. and watched the monitor settle back to about 55 bushels per acre. I finally decided to do a test for myself. This test was not pre-authorized by the boss, so I risked getting fired! The combine records the bushels in the tank, and that number has been checked against weight and found to be accurate. So I swathed one

a very low result when going uphill and a very high result when going downhill. But if my results were real, each repetition was costing about $175 so I left it at that. Now, I’m not an engineer and there could be fundamental problems with using monitors in this way but it is what I found, for what it’s worth. Rather unbelievable, and I’m sure many could knock holes in the actual numbers. But there is no getting away from differences that are not acceptable. The dry, hot conditions would result in a fine mat on the sieves and many suggestions for

/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Features Crop production

Crop Advisor’s Casebook

WILD OATS CAN’T BE TAMED

ast July, while sitting in his tractor cab all set to apply an in-crop fungicide to his durum field, Peter was surprised to see wild oat heads popping out of his crop canopy. To make matters worse, while swathing his canola, he found small patches of wild oats growing in that field as well. Later that season, Peter and I took a ride in his combine to investigate the appearance of the wild oats in his fields. Peter produces 5,000 acres of wheat, canola and lentils near Rouleau, Sask. “I don’t think the herbicide I applied earlier this year is working — my wild oats aren’t being controlled,” he said. “I need some options for next year.” From the cab, I could see small patches of wild oats located randomly throughout Peter’s durum crop. We also found small patches of wild oats where they had taken over in Peter’s canola crop after it had been swathed. Could Peter have missed areas of his fields with his sprayer during herbicide application, or had there been an equipment failure of some kind? Or, perhaps environmental conditions at the time of spraying had decreased the efficacy of the in-crop herbicides Peter had applied to those fields. According to the sprayer monitor, Peter had not missed any areas

Heather Krahn with the herbicide on either field. Because the wild oats were appearing in random patches in his fields and not in rows or strips, the problem was likely not a plugged nozzle or boom. Together, we also checked weather records and environmental conditions at the time of spraying, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Peter had applied a Group 1 herbicide to both fields. He had used clethodim on his canola crop and clodinafop-propargyl on his durum. “They’ve worked fine every other year I’ve used them,” he said. We examined his durum field more closely. Here and there, random patches of wild oats dotted the field; after a thorough scout, however, I noticed that all other areas in the

Random patches of wild oats dotted the field. field were showing good control of the wild oats. Peter had a growing problem in his fields, one he’d nurtured for the past few years, but like many farmers in Western Canada, he didn’t know it. “Your in-crop herbicide is working,” I said. “But getting rid of the wild oats in your fields is going to take forethought and planning.”

Tundra

I traveled to John’s farm in Cardston, Alta., that afternoon to see the strips for myself. There were six in total; the plants inside the strips were a height of 24 to 26 inches, while the surrounding plants were 12 to 14 inches tall. The weeds inside the strips were taller too, especially the grassy ones. John told me all of the barley plants had been the same height before the herbicide application. By measuring the distance between the recent tracks in the field and using the sprayer width, we confirmed the strips in John’s field were areas the sprayer had missed. The rest of the field appeared to have suffered an herbicide injury, but I did not believe the Group 1 herbicide and tankmix partner for broadleaf control I recommended could have caused the damage because they

Advisor’s Casebook. Best suggestions will be pooled and one winner will be drawn for a chance to win a Grainews cap and a one-year subscription to the magazine. The best answer, along with the reasoning which solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop Advisor’s Solution File. † Heather Krahn is a sales agronomist at Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Corinne, Sask.

TANK MIX-UP

Crop Advisor’s Solution ast June, while driving past his silage barley field, John noticed distinct strips forming in his crop. When he stopped to investigate further, he saw the barley plants inside the strips were healthier looking and taller by a foot than those in the surrounding areas, which were paler in colour and tinged with yellow. He thought the herbicide I recommended had caused an injury to his crop. “The herbicide you recommended has severely damaged my silage barley,” he told me over the phone that same day. I had recommended a Group 1 herbicide to take care of his wild oats and grassy weeds, and an appropriate tank-mix partner for broadleaf weed control. His sprayer operator had applied the herbicide tank-mix three weeks earlier.

Why are some of the wild oats in Peter’s field growing through the Group 1 in-crop herbicide he had applied earlier in the growing season? What can he do to get rid of the wild oats in his canola and wheat fields? Send your diagnosis to Grainews, Box 9800, Winnipeg, MB, R3C 3K7; email leeann.minogue@fbcpublishing. com or fax 204-944-5416 c/o Crop

were completely safe for use on barley. Upon further inspection of the sprayed areas of the field, I found the level of control on the targeted weed species was less than expected. In particular, the annual grass weed Persian darnel as well as some broadleaf weed species had escaped control. Meanwhile, it appeared other grassy weeds that I did not expect, such as downy brome, were being controlled. Further examination and comparison of sprayer records, acres treated, product purchased, and planned use of product per acre confirmed what had caused the damage to the crop. The sprayer operator had not added the correct tank-mix partner to the Group 1 herbicide. The sprayer operator added a Group 2 herbicide that targets wild oats and some broadleaf weeds, but was not a registered

Tundra

tank-mix partner with the Group 1 herbicide, and acted antagonistically to the Group 1, diminishing its efficacy and reducing its control on the Persian darnel. The Group 2 herbicide was also not registered or recommended for use on barley, and had injured the crop after its application. This was also the reason why the downy brome was controlled — it was a targeted weed species of the Group 2 herbicide. John thought the sprayer operator may not have read or understood the instructions for herbicide application on this field. Unfortunately, the operator also had not understood the agronomic implications of spraying that particular Group 2 herbicide on barley or the effects of mixing it with the Group 1. To avoid such a mix-up in the future, I recommended stronger

training for John’s sprayer operators in order to increase their knowledge of products and tankmix partners. I also suggested that he make resource information readily available by listing contact numbers at mixing sites and placing more crop protection guides in key locations. Additional organization when storing products, whereby products intended for each field are stored together and not on a mixed pallet, would also decrease tank-mix errors. John’s strong fertility plan, as well as the half-inch of rain that fell on the crop the day after the herbicide application, enabled the barley plants to grow and still produce sizeable heads. At harvest, John had a substantial grain yield, despite the injury early on. † Trent Jensen is an area marketing representative at Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Magrath, Alta.

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Columns Rise aBove gRassy weeds look no FuRtheR than

laddeR

Les Henry (right) and his son-in-law Gerald Dauk.

» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

WANTED: A COMBINE FOR CANOLA settings could be offered, but much tinkering with settings had been done. On September 22, 2011, Gerald obtained a weigh wagon help from the local Co-op, and two more combines came along and each did a 2.2 acre swath. At 1.2 m.p.h. Gerald’s result was 70.1 bushels per acre and other results varied from 69.3 to 60.3 bushels per acre depending on the colour of machine and speed. The neighbours’ combines went at speeds ranging from 3.9 to 5.5 m.p.h. It was definitely worth the effort to combine the canola at such a snail’s pace this year, with nothing but good weather in view. But it is not a long term solution. The point of this article is to raise awareness and get more people experimenting. In the June 2010 issue of Grainews, Scott Garvey explained how to measure and calculate losses and set loss monitors. His opening salvo was “it is impossible to measure grain losses through a chopper.” Any experience I have had at

catching seed in a pan has left me with little confidence in the result, and dropping the chopper is not common. The comment was made that our modern combines are really designed for corn and larger grains. The fine seeds are a challenge in separation. When my Dad talked about the era of stationery harvest he called the machine a separator, not a threshing machine. With canola, separation is the challenge. As I watch the canola going into the combine, it’s mostly thrashed before it hits the feeder chain and I’m sure it’s all thrashed before it ever hits the rotor. I’m sure many will have other thoughts and may think my results are crazy, but that is what I observed. I hope this stirs up interest in bigger and better experiments to get better results. † J.L.(Les) Henry is a former professor and extension specialist at the University of Saskatchewan. He farms at Dundurn, Sask. He recently finished a second printing of “Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water”, a book that mixes the basics and practical aspects of soil, fertilizer and farming. Les will cover the shipping and GST for Grainews readers. Simply send a cheque for $50 to Henry Perspectives, 143 Tucker Crescent, Saskatoon, SK, S7H 3H7, and he will dispatch a signed book post-haste

The first combine I ran was an Oliver 30 pull type complete with 28-inch rub bar cylinder and a drum pickup. Those combines were made for straight cutting, and the grain laid down on canvas and fed into cross conveyor nicely. But a swath, especially in wheat, came through the cross-conveyer in a thin strip that used only part of the 28 inches. Very slow. We have no pictures of that combine. Many thanks to Reid Thompson of Olds, Alberta, who kindly sent me this photo of his father, Hugh Thompson, on the John Deere tractor in October 1954. Note the mud on the tractor wheels and the horses beside the tractor. It was too wet for a truck in the field so the horses were pressed into duty. Our recent problems with wet fields are not something that hasn’t been experienced before. I do believe in some areas this time was worse, but the 1950s were wet years. That old Oliver combine had a 35-bushel hopper. The big Massey at my son-in-law’s farm could fill a hopper that size with oats in two minutes of combining.

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/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Columns OFF-FARM INVESTING

Make your money work for you With today’s low interest rates, compound interest won’t amount to much. Here’s how you can take action and use the stock market to imitate the miracle of compound interest ANDY SIRSKI

ears ago, when interest rates were paying us seven to 10 per cent, a common topic was how the magic of compound interest could grow your nest egg. Take the number 72 and divide it by the current interest rate. That’s the number of years it will take for you to double your money using compound interest. With seven per cent interest, you can double your money in roughly 10 years (72 divided by 7). As you know, most money isn’t earning anywhere near seven per cent these days. When interest rates are two per cent per year, it will take you 36 years to double your money. A 20-yearold would be a middle-aged person before his or her first $1,000 doubled. This could drive almost anyone to say, “Why save and why invest?” As you know, I like stocks. I like resource stocks because they pay premiums almost too good to be true when we sell covered calls on them. However, those resource stocks go up and down like a roller-coaster, which often scares people away. We’ve learned to live with that volatility and we usually make money with it. However, that is not for everybody. I’ve been looking for stocks that can bring us a good combination of income from dividends, some capital gain and some money from selling covered calls. I’m trying this out myself. You might want to just

watch for a while or you might want to stick your toe in the water and practise. Or, for less than what it would cost you to seed another quarter section of crop next spring, you could get started and learn as you go.

THERE ARE RISKS There are risks with stocks, as you know. So I looked for stocks that might reduce our risk. We can’t eliminate risk, but maybe we can choose stocks that reduce it. From what I can see, Microsoft, Intel and Oracle could be a set of stocks that fit that thinking. I mentioned these and a few others in my last article, where I called them dominator stocks. We might call stocks like Enbridge, Fortis, Russel Steel and TransCanada Pipeline Canadian dominators. U.S. stocks have at least one disadvantage — the currency risk. Although with an exchange rate near par, I don’t think the currency risk is all that bad. The advantage of these dominator stocks is that the bid-ask spread is only a few pennies, while Canadian stocks often have bid-ask spreads of 10, 20 or even 30 cents. That eats into profits and sometimes discourages me from doing things like buying back my calls so I can sell more. Making trades like selling calls, buying them back, and selling more sometimes works to our advantage. If it works properly our “cows” can have 15 or more “calves” per year. In other words, we might make money several times a month simply because a stock goes up and down enough to let us buy one call back and sell another one, RBC Dominion Securities Inc.

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bringing in more cash than just selling calls once every month or every two months. After some thinking, pondering, reading charts and trying to get past the summer lows, I decided to try out my thinking with shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). Ever ybody knows Microsoft. Odds are we use something made by Microsoft every week. That’s why Microsoft has $47 billion of cash and makes a couple billion a month. A few years ago the company decided to start paying dividends, which attracted buyers that only buy stocks that pay dividends. This summer Microsoft raised its dividend from 64 cents per year to

the Red River to play for Chicago Black Hawks. He scored a hat trick in 21 seconds flat which likely still is the record. The Kubosonics have a song about Billy; they sing that Billy “used a combination of speed, skill and luck.” I think anyone who wants to use resource stocks will need that same combination speed, skill and luck. Those stocks can change 10 to 20 per cent in a couple of days, especially going down. If we aren’t watching we can be hurt. There’s lots of money to be made but it takes extra effort. Microsoft might make us less money but doesn’t need nearly as much speed, skill and luck.

Yes, there may be several potholes along the way, such as a bad market. But don’t tell me you won’t have potholes in the grain or cattle business, or with a job. 80 cents, a 25 per cent jump. Normally a company will not increase dividend payments like that unless it believes it has the money, and will have the money to keep on raising the dividend. Future increases might not be 25 per cent, but even seven or 10 per cent increases will add up. That will attract and hold new investors.

PROJECTING NUMBERS I am going to project some numbers for the next five years. They might be close to reality and they might not. But this is the strategy I’ve found that comes closest to the idea of making the magic of compounding work, with what I believe is low downside risk. Other stocks might make more money, and our resource stocks have a good chance of beating Microsoft, but resource stocks go up and down a lot, and need some knowledge and skill. Remember Billy Mosianko, the hockey player from north Winnipeg? He left hockey on BY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

Starting on October 12, 2011 we owned 3,600 Microsoft shares. I sold calls on all of them. I bought some calls back when it made sense and sold them again and so on. In fact, I was able to buy another 200 shares with profits I picked up from Microsoft since October 12. The magic of compounding starts to kick in when we buy more shares with profits. As of the week of December 5, 2011, I had made 21 transactions on three batches of Microsoft shares. This is more transactions than I normally make, but I did it without being rushed. It didn’t matter much if I did a transaction on Monday or Wednesday as long as I did it. We started with 3,400 shares, but 900 were sold on November 14, when the call options were exercised the day before the exdividend date. The ex-dividend date is the date that ownership of the stock is recorded — the owner of the stock on the ex-dividend date gets the dividend payment, even if the stocks have a new owner by the time the dividend is paid. So I missed the dividend payment on 900 shares, but I did get the dividend payment on the other 2,500. Then I bought another 1,100 shares — 900 to replace the shares that got exercised and another 200 because I could see more profits coming. Between 2011 and December 6, 2011 I made several transactions — buying and selling calls, and reinvesting in stock, as I’ve mentioned. My total income over the period was $6,195, and I invested a total of $97,692. This is a 6.3 per cent return, and I still have $3,600 shares. I figure about 4,000 shares could bring in between $15,000 to $18,000 annually, which is

more than my Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Pension pay, even after I worked for 50 years.

REINVEST EARNINGS To make the magic of compounding kick in, I need to use my $6,195 profit to buy shares. At about $27 per share, I could buy over 200 shares. So I did. With simple numbers, and allowing a bit of slack, I should be able to buy 200 shares over every two-month period, which will mean a total of 1,200 shares by November 2012. We also expect Microsoft to raise dividends. That might help to keep a floor under the share price, but I think the overall compression of price earnings ratios will also keep a ceiling on the price of shares. So if we buy 1,200 Microsoft shares by November 2012, 1,400 by 2013, 1,600 by 2014, 1,800 shares by 2015 and 2,000 more shares by the end of 2017, that will be a total of 8,000 shares that we’ve bought with our profits. We started with 3,400 shares on October 12, 2011; after five years, we’d have 11,400 by the end of 2017. At today’s price, 11,500 Microsoft shares would be worth $302,000. The original 3,400 shares cost us around $92,000. That could be a gain of 328 per cent, or more than triple in five years. Or, to be more conservative, imagine growing the portfolio by buying only 100 shares every two months or 600 shares, 800, 1000 and so on over the next five years. Yes, there may be several potholes along the way, such as a bad market. But don’t tell me you won’t have potholes in the grain or cattle business, or with a job. Farmers borrow money for all kinds of things. Some ventures make money and some cost money. And if shares went up just $1 per year, the whole set of numbers would look much different. We’d own fewer shares but they’d be worth more. There are no guarantees. And if central banks raise interest rates in the coming years, stocks could drop in price and stay low. But then we could buy more shares with our earnings. The key here is to find stocks that don’t drop much or have low downside risk. While the money we make per month might not be as large with Microsoft as we might make with, say, Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW), Silver Wheaton can go up and down $10 two or three times a year and pays a low dividend. Microsoft might go up and down $3 two or three times a year but it’s paying a hefty dividend that will likely increase over the coming years. † Andy is mostly retired. He publishes a newsletter called StocksTalk where he explains how he manages stocks. If you want to read it free for a month, find it by searching StocksTalk.net on Google. Click on “free month” and submit. Or, email Andy at sirski@ msts.net and he will sign you up

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Machinery & Shop FARM SHOWS

Touring Agritechnica 2011 A look at some of the most eye-catching displays at the world’s largest farm machinery show at Hanover, Germany BY SCOTT GARVEY

very second November the German Agricultural Society (DLG) holds Agritechnica, a farm machinery exhibition. With 2,748 exhibitors from 48 countries showing up this year, the demand for floor space filled all the available pavilions on the gigantic Hanover fair ground. In just 14 years, it now claims the title of world’s largest farm equipment fair. Gate attendance hit a record high this year with about 415,000 people walking through the doors. To put things into perspective, that’s roughly 10 times the number of gate admissions at the Western Canada Farm Progress show in Regina. What attracts all those people are the spectacular displays and the chance to talk to manufacturers’ reps about the newest and best products on the market, anywhere in the world. You can even get a look at a few future technologies. According to DLG, the world comes here to make deals as well, making this one of the primary global meeting spots for manufacturers and end users of farm equipmen. One of the sure things any visitor to this show can expect is a look at some very entertaining and spectacular displays, and Grainews was there again this year to take a look at some other very eye-catching sights. There will be more articles with details on many

of the show’s highlights in this and other issues, but in the meantime, here’s our choice for the most memorable displays.

NEW N SERIES VALTRA Everyone wants to leave their mark in life, and this year AGCO gave show goers a chance to do that with their fingers. To help emphasize the fact you can customize one of their new N Series Valtra tractors to exactly match your needs, anyone could dip their thumb in some paint and put a fingerprint on the display tractor, then sign underneath it. After the show closes, a clear top coat will be applied; it will then be put up for auction at a time and location yet to be determined. The funds raised from the sale will be put toward funding an agricultural development project in Africa. If you ever see this tractor, take a look at the right, front rim. You’ll find my thumb print, name and “Grainews.” The N Series offers a redesigned hood and optional, integrated front-end loader, which brings the bucket closer to the front of the tractor for improved stability. The cab interior has been upgraded including a new control armrest and display screen. The new programmable headland management system offers more preset features. N Series tractors will be available by May, according to product reps.

CHALLENGER’S PYTHON The Challenger section of AGCO’s display also had a lot to look at, but the belted tractor painted with python graphics really stood out. No, this wasn’t a tribute to the end of the Harry Potter movie series, it was a celebration of 25 years of belted tractor production. “We wanted to impress,” says Luca Cattani, product marketing manager. That, they did. But Cattani says the graphic design wasn’t a random selection, management sees similarities between the belted tractor and the giant snake. “Both are big, efficient and powerful,” he adds. “A python can go for a long time without food. The Challenger is very fuel efficient. Neither leaves any deep tracks. You can hardly tell where a python or a Challenger have been.

LAVERDA HILLSIDE COMBINE You couldn’t help but stop and take a closer look at the Laverda display. This is one serious sidehill combine, capable of levelling itself out on grades of up to 40 per cent. It can also level itself in a fore-aft direction, allowing it to go straight up or down steep grades with the same threshing efficiency. But on grades that steep, the ability of this combine to adjust its stance is as much about keeping the shiny side up as maximizing threshing efficiency. Laverda was born in Italy where hillside farming is much more common than

Call to see why Western Canadian farmers are choosing Alpine

here, and the grades there can be very steep. Last year AGCO acquired majority ownership of the firm, so Laverda combines now use AGCO’s own SISU diesel engines. Laverda combines use a unique triple-cylinder threshing design, which has been standard on their machines for a while, according to product reps. The first cylinder operates in the normal way and threshes about 70 per cent of the crop. A smaller beater moves the material mat forward into a third threshing cylinder that improves final separation and forms a major part of what the company calls an “active straw walker system”. In very dry conditions the concave on the final cylinder can be moved up and out of contact with the material to improve straw quality and minimize crop damage.

NEW HOLLAND’S NH2 TRACTOR New Holland first introduced its prototype NH2 Hydrogenpowered tractor at the SIMA farm equipment show in Paris, France two years ago, making it the first model ever publicly shown by a major brand that used hydrogen fuel-cell technology. Two years later, the project is still progressing and the second-generation prototype was at the company’s main display. Engineers have made a lot of changes based on their experience with the original model. It’s seen a lot of driveline changes. Hydrogen storage technology has been steadily improving since the

original prototype was built and this tractor takes advantage of that with three new fuel cells that offer 340 litres of combined capacity. The previous design only included two. Unfortunately, the effective working range is still limited to about two to three hours. Separate electric motors are used to drive the transmission and PTO, which can run independently of each other. Beginning next season, this tractor will undergo field trials on a working farm near Turin, Italy. That farm produces grains, livestock and has a bio-gas facility, so hydrogen to fuel the tractor will be made right on site. After the season ends, engineers will evaluate the tractor’s performance and decide how to build their thirdgeneration version.

AGRIFAC CONDOR CLEARANCE PLUS While high-clearance sprayers are pretty common in Canada, the Europeans have really taken the concept to new heights —literally. Agritechnica once again had a dizzying variety of spraying equipment on display; some, like this Agrifac Condor, offer an adjustable ground clearance of up to two metres. Compare that, for example, to the 1.27 to 1.52 metre clearance offered on John Deere’s North American line-up. Why so much? According to the Agrifac representatives manning their display, the need to frequently make late season applications of crop protection products in corn and sunflowers is the reason. The condor offers two tank capacity options, 3,400 or 4,000 litres, and boom widths from 24 to 48 metres. Boom height is adjustable from 50 to 375 centimetres. For power, it relies on a six-cylinder, turbocharged Deutz diesel putting out 196 horsepower. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com

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/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Machinery & Shop TILLAGE

Deep tillage can be too effective Loose, moist soil presents challenges for getting a crop seeded and sprayed BY LEE HART

deep tillage treatment on his Alberta Peace River region farm did what it was supposed to do, but Gary Sanocki wondered at times this past growing season if it might have worked too well. Sanocki, who crops about 1,800 acres of grains, oilseeds and pulses near Eaglesham says the tillage in the fall of 2010 did loosen the soil profile, but then it was too soft for some field operations come the spring of 2011. “It did present some challenges both at seeding and in field spraying operations,” says Sanocki. “In those fields where we had done the deep tillage it was a definitely a challenge to seed canola. We have a parallel

link drill and we had to completely reset all the depths because the ground was so loose there was no support… there was definitely a lot of dirt moving around.” The biggest challenge was in managing depth control to seed canola shallow. “Part of it was due to the fact it was the first season after the tillage treatment and we also had some heavy rains when it came time for spraying,” he says. Sanocki, who farms along with his wife Fiona Love, treated about 700 acres in late 2010 with a 17-shank AgrowPlow deep tillage tool. Pulled by a 380 horsepower track tractor, the shanks were set on 13-inch spacing and he set them to till to a depth of about 12 inches. The shanks have a narrow opener, designed so they fracture the soil

profile downward but create very little soil disturbance and little soil mixing. Sanocki has been producing crops every year, but he has been somewhat disappointed with their performance in recent years. His area did have a drought for two or three years, which complicated things, but even when there was reasonable moisture, crops weren’t doing as well as he expected, despite proper nutrients. “And I noticed in particular the roots of canola plants would grow straight for a few inches and then turn and go sideways, so I figured there was a compaction issue,” he says. He and some neighbours also investigated, slicing into the soil

profile with a backhoe. “There seemed to be a layer in the nine to 13 inch range the roots couldn’t penetrate” he says. Subsoiling is a slow and somewhat expensive process, he says. His wife did most of the work and drove at about 3.5 miles per hour, and that tool bar was at times all the 380 hp tractor could handle, especially when the tillage tool hit areas like an old lease road or trail where there had been repeat traffic. He estimates tillage cost in the $45 to $50 per acre range. The soil was dry the fall of 2010. “Just about every 80 acres we’d have to stop and rebuild the tips on the shanks,” he said. “So there was a lot of maintenance in that respect.” He did a bit more deep tillage in the fall of 2011, after a wet growing season

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and it was a completely different story, as far as wear and tear on the machine was concerned. Tips didn’t wear nearly as much and the shanks didn’t over heat. Sanocki says he could see a difference after deep tillage, during the winter that followed the first 2010 treatments and long before he started seeding. “The winter of 2010-11 we had snow cover and then a big thaw in January,” he says. “Where we had done the tillage all the water disappeared down and on fields we didn’t till it either ran off or just sat there and pooled up.” After several dry seasons it was good to see the moisture, but the combination of moisture and loose soil made seeding in 2011 difficult. It turned dry after seeding and then they got 13 inches of rain in a three-week period in late June and July. That excessive moisture made it more difficult to travel on the tilled fields with the sprayer. There was no standing water but the ground was soft.

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Heavy rains just before harvest complicated harvesting of (untreated) check strips he’d left with each crop, so it was difficult to get an accurate measure with a yield monitor. “Overall with canola I couldn’t say there was a big yield difference — maybe one or two bushels more,” says Sanocki. He had an excellent stand of wheat on the treated fields, but again wasn’t able to properly harvest the check strips. He estimates wheat on deep tilled fields yielded about 10 bushels more per acre. There was quite a dramatic difference in pea crop however. Where he hadn’t deep tilled the crop stood about four feet tall and looked good, but where he had deep tilled it went down and laid flat. “I was a bit concerned, but when it came time to combine it was a different story,” he says. “The crop that stayed standing had lots of growth but not that many pods and they didn’t fill as much. On the deep tilled fields the crop went down because it had lots of pods and they were full. So overall on the peas I had at least a 10 bushel per acre yield increase on fields that were deep tilled.” Sanocki has a few observations after one year’s experience with deep tillage. Especially when working in dry conditions he would like to see more durable tips on the shanks, and he feels the overall machine could be a bit better built as it experienced a few bent shanks. It is difficult to tell just by eyeballing where you think the deep tillage will do the most good. On some of his “better” fields the deep tillage produced more benefit than on other fields he thought really needed it. Make sure you contact utility and pipeline companies to locate lines before you till. The Alberta One Call service did find abandoned pipelines at 16 inches of depth and he was working at 12 to 13 inches, so there wasn’t much leeway. † Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews at Calgary. Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com

10/24/11 2:40 PM

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Machinery & Shop New equipment

MFWD tractors bulk up Manufacturers push the horsepower ratings of rigid-frame tractors to new highs By Scott Garvey

his summer Case IH announced the pending introduction of its most powerful Magnum tractor yet, the 370 CVT. Rated at 370 engine horsepower, the new Magnum will probably be the most powerful rigid-frame tractor on the North American market when it’s released in late 2012. Despite the pending introduction of that big Magnum, which will dominate a stable of large Mechanical Front-Wheel Drive (MFWD) models introduced in recent years by competing brands, the emerging trend among Canadian and U.S. farmers looking to maximize muscle in rowcrop applications is to switch to lower-horsepower, articulated four-wheel drive tractors. As a result, the major manufacturers are now offering options packages on four-wheel drives designed to give them broader market appeal, especially in roles that have traditionally been dominated by large MFWD tractors. The trend in Europe, however, is to bulk up the rigid-frame design to meet farmers’ need for more power. That more compact style of tractor dominates the European marketplace for a variety of reasons. And at least two manufacturers used Agritechnica, the world’s largest farm machinery exhibition, in Hanover, Germany to stake their claim on the very high-horsepower, rigid-frame market. Germany-based Claas introduced their new Axion 900 Series tractors. The largest model, the 950, will rival the 370 Magnum for the crown as most powerful MFWD on the market. The 950 is rated at 416 maximum horsepower (the Magnum boasts a maximum rating of 419). Those comparable ratings are no coincidence. Under the hoods of both tractors, things look remarkably similar. Just like the Magnum, the Claas uses an FPT (Fiat Powertrain Technologies) Cursor 9, 8.7 litre diesel. And the Axion 950 will also get a CVT transmission (Continuously Variable Transmission), which Claas calls the CMATIC. It is built by a company called ZF, a provider of transmissions to several brands. European farmers will get to take delivery of Axion 900s this spring, which means the Claas tractors will be available well before the Case IH Magnum 370 is scheduled to appear at dealerships. But by late 2013, neither of these tractors may be a contender for the highesthorsepower MFWD title. That may have to be handed over to a Deutz Fahr, one of the brands in the Same-Deutz Fahr group, headquartered in Italy. To begin a marketing campaign and generate interest in a project tractor that doesn’t officially exist yet, Deutz Fahr chose to use Agritechnica 2011 to publicize the start of their official countdown to the launch of a 440 horsepower

model, which is slated to make its first public appearance in November, 2013. There is another unusual spin to the Deutz Fahr countdown strategy. Enthusiasts can log onto the tractor project’s website, www.440Hp.com, and keep up to date on the announced specifications and even provide input into the tractor’s final design. So far, the company has announced the tractor will have a rated engine output of 402 horsepower, which gets a boost up to a maximum of 440 under load. That power will also flow through a ZF, CVT transmission, and it will provide a maximum travel speed of 60 km/h, outpacing the Claas by 10 km/h.

While neither the Axion 950 nor the big Deutz Fahr may make it to North American shores anytime soon, Claas did display its two new rigid-frame Xerion four-wheel drive models at Agritechnica. The company has been offering these tractors in Canada for a while now. The two new models, the 4500 and 5000, with 483 and 524 horsepower respectively, bump up the horsepower rating in this model line, too. They are finally scheduled to hit the market this spring, even though they were first introduced to farmers at the 2009 Agritechnica show. †

photo: scott garvey

Rivalling the 370 Case IH Magnum for most powerful rigid-frame MFWD tractor, the Claas Axion 950 has similar specifications and components. It will, however, hit the market first.

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

FarmTech 2012

Global Perspectives... Local Knowledge

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FarmTech 2012 Speakers General Rick Hillier Former Chief of the Defence Staff Canadian Forces

Glen Hodgson Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist Conference Board of Canada

John Shmorhun President & CEO - Harmelia Holdings 73,000 ha farm in the Ukraine

James Peck Managing Director & Nuffield Scholar P.X. Farms Ltd. Contract farming agri-business in England

Gerry Dee Award Winning Comedian FarmTech 2012 Banquet

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FarmTech 2012 promises to be bigger and better than ever. The Edmonton EXPO Centre is allowing FarmTech to grow to meet the demand: more participants, more educational sessions, bigger meeting rooms, and a bigger tradeshow. The new agenda has expanded to include 60 concurrent sessions covering the latest in technology, environment, agronomy and farm business management.

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/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Machinery & Shop NEW EQUIPMENT

A double take on tandem discs New models from AGCO and growth in the Versatile equipment line mean there are some new discs available for 2012 BY SCOTT GARVEY

fter its $14.5 million purchase of Alberta-based Ezee-On Manufacturing, Buhler Industries has added the former Ezee-On tillage equipment it acquired with the company to its Versatile and Farm King-branded lines. “The acquisition of Ezee-On is another step in the process of becoming a full-line equipment manufacturer,” said Dmitry Lyubimov, President of Buhler Industries, when the purchase was announced back in February. The former Ezee-On tandem and off-set discs will now wear Versatile and Farm King names, but they will still be built at the same plant in Vegreville, Alberta. The discs, along with the former Ezee-On’s cultivator designs, now give these brands a respectable tillage component. “We have been very open about our intention to have Versatile offer a product line that caters to the large-acre farmers, and these implements are a major part of that strategy,” adds Lyubimov. The company says the bearings used on their line of discs are the heaviest in the industry. As a result, it offers a three or seven-year war-

ranty on them, depending on the component size. To further improve durability, the disc gangs are torqued to 3,200 foot-pounds. Steel fabricated full spools and interlocking half spools ensure they stay tight. The tandem discs are designed for the farmer who wants a tool capable of handling trash and incorporating residue. Their full-floating hitch helps create a smooth field finish and minimizes disc damage from striking rocks or other field hazards. To add an additional level of protection against stone damage, an optional C-shaped, flex hanger can be ordered, which reduces shock loads on the gangs. Tandem models are available in 500, 600 or 700 pounds-per-foot configurations. Blade diameters run from 22 to 30 inches. The tandem discs models can be purchased in working widths from 12 to 42.5 feet. The offset discs are available in weight classes of 550, 650 or an industrial-scale 1,050 pounds per working foot. Blade sizes range from 24 to 30 inches across the models, and they are available in notched or smooth styles. Gang angles are adjustable. The offset designs are available in widths ranging from six to 20 feet.

SUNFLOWER DISCS BY AGCO AGCO, too, has new models in the tandem and offset disc category. At its official product launch in Kansas City, Missouri in August, the company introduced its all-new 1800 Series tandem disc harrows and 1700 Series offset discs. The 1800 Series is available in two different models, the 1810 and 1830; both come in a variety of configurations. Working widths for the 1810 models range from 14 feet, four inches to 17 feet. The wider, 1830 designs extend up to 39 feet. Weight per blade ranges from 333 to 523 pounds in the narrower 1810s, and 402 to 635 in the 1830s. “Professional producers looking for a durable machine that can break through hard-packed soils and thick crop residue need not look any further than the Sunflower 1800 Series Tandem Disc Harrows,” says Larry Kuster, senior product specialist for Sunflower tillage equipment. “These machines are designed to efficiently incorporate heavy residue into the soil.” AGCO is now using 5/16-inchthick boron blades on both series. The new boron alloy is more durable than what the company had

PHOTO: AGCO

The all-new 1800 Series Sunflower tandem discs from AGCO are available in wide variety of configurations with options to suit most farmers’ needs. been using to manufacture disc blades for previous models, giving them a longer life. “Since we started using boron blades, breakage has been significantly reduced,” adds Kuster. Disc blades are available in 28- or 30-inch diameters in notched or plain styles. The 1800 models also offer protection from rock damage with spring-cushion mounted gangs. The 1700 Series Sunflower offset discs are available in two models as well, the 1710 rigid frame and 1730 flexible frames. The 1710 is for farmers looking for primary

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tillage capability in a smaller-sized implement. They are available in working widths from 11 to 17 feet, 11 inches. Weight-per-blade ratings run from 299 to 441 pounds. The 1730 models range from 21 feet, five inches to 24 feet. The gang angle is also adjustable. “With two styles to choose from within the 1700 Series, producers are certain to have no trouble finding a machine tailored to any size farming operation and varying soil conditions,” says Kuster. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Machinery & Shop NEW EQUIPMENT

The Super 7 hybrid harrow Manitoba-based Elmer’s Manufacturing recently won an Innovations Award for its Super 7 harrow BY SCOTT GARVEY

hen Elmer’s Manufacturing of Altona, Man., showed its relatively new Super 7 harrow bar to farmers at last summer’s Western Canada Farm Progress Show, it got noticed. Show organizers awarded the company a Sterling Standard Innovations Award for its engineering efforts. According to Eric Braun, the company’s sales and marketing rep., the Super 7 fits somewhere in between typical midand heavy-duty harrow designs. “We call this one a hybrid or super-mid harrow,” he says. “Most guys are not happy with the mid because it’s too light and they’re not happy with the heavy because it’s too heavy. So we decided there was a market for something in the middle.” With the company’s harrow sales jumping about 170 percent this year, according to Braun, the decision to go with the hybrid design seems to have been a good one. The Super 7 uses a 1/2-inchthick spring tine rather than the much thicker type usually found on a heavy harrow. And with seven rows of them, rather than the four or five on other brands, it’s capable of doing about 40 per cent more work per pass. “It’s a huge fuel savings and you’re getting a really nice, fine field finish with lots of levelling happening,” adds Braun. “In the spring it’s really giving you the loose soil you need to work with air seeders or disc drills. In the fall you’re incorporating a lot more product and moving more straw around.” The seven-row harrow sections are connected to the bar using a parallel linkage system that keeps all tines in contact with the ground as they move over uneven terrain. With a standard hinge arrangement, harrow sections tend to lift up at the rear when clearing an obstruction, which can leave clumps of straw or debris. The parallel system is designed to minimize or eliminate that problem. “(This) allows our harrow to run completely even, keeping all tines on the ground at the same pressure and not dropping straw in ditches or low spots,” says Braun. The Super 7 also features a unique hydraulic system. “We call it a double-acting phasing system,” he says. “You’re exchanging oil from one section to another. You get a much more accurate angle from one end of the harrow to other, so it doesn’t drift or fade. Tine angle, section angle and down pressure are all adjusted hydraulically.” The tractor operator can fine tune those settings on the go, right from the cab. The harrow tines are adjustable from 45 to 90 degrees, which gives the Super 7 flexibility to deal with a variety of field conditions and still create the

desired finish. The three-section main frame is made of quarter inch thick, eight inch square tubing. And moving it across a field will require about three to five horsepower per foot of working width. The Super 7 is available in 50, 70 and 90 foot widths. According to Braun, a 50-foot model has a typical retail price of about $39,000, while a 90-foot model lists for about $58,000. For more information, visit the company’s website at www. elmersmfg.mb.ca. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com

PHOTOS: SCOTT GARVEY

Elmer’s main: The Super 7 hybrid harrow from Elmer’s Manufacturing of Altona, Man., won a Sterling The parallel linkage system is designed to keep all seven Standard Innovation Award at the 2011 Western rows of spring tines in contact with ground, eliminating Canada Farm Progress Show. straw clumping and creating an even field surface.

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/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Machinery & Shop SEEDING EQUIPMENT

Improved shank design deals with trash Along with improved shank design, Morris is building a better sectional control system BY LEE HART

orris Industries has introduced a new shank design for its Contour drill. The Contour drill features ultra-precise seed and fertilizer placement over changing field landscapes. The new shank design improves trash clearance through the heaviest crop residues. The Contour 2, the next generation of the seeding system, offers all the great features of the original Contour drill, but now has a 60 per cent improvement in opener clearance, says Randy Ellis, director of marketing. “With the new shank design, farmers can work through the heaviest straw and stubble with

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much less chance of trash getting caught and bunching up,” says Ellis. “We have done extensive testing of the new design in both Canada and Australia and it handles all trash conditions very well.” The company has made two major changes to the shank design to improve trash flow. The distance to the lowest trash catch point from the ground was increased from 13.5 to 21 inches, and the angle of the shank has been reclined 12 degrees. (See accompanying diagram which shows the original Contour drill design in blue and the new Contour 2 design in red.) “So there is 60 per cent more height or clearance between the ground and the lowest catch point on the shank, and with the reclining shank, trash moves up and off the shank much faster,” says Ellis. Also as part of the redesign, the opener cam has been positioned higher, near the top of the shank, for easier adjustment. While farmers in Western Canada have generally been seen as doing a good job of crop residue management, the new shank design with improved trash clearance has a good fit in traditional high production areas, as well in the so-called dryer areas, which in recent years have received higher growing season precipitation and higher yielding crops with more crop residue. The Contour 2 drill still features the one-to-one parallel linkage system for maintaining constant opener angle relative to the soil. The system offers constant opener depth relative

The company has made two major changes to the shank design to improve trash flow to the packer wheel, which has 17 inches of travel range as it follows the ground. The opener can contour 10 inches up and seven inches down. Morris also plans to re-launch a much improved sectional control system for its seeding equipment. The company had earlier introduced a couple of prototype shut-off systems that used slides over the meter rollers to start and stop the flow of seed and fertilizer. Recognizing that the mechanism was too slow to achieve the best efficiencies of a sectional shut-off, the company has now developed a mechanical gear drive system. The new system uses a small hydraulic control to instantly disengage or engage a gear on the meter roller. Ellis says with final testing early in 2012, the company plans to reintroduce an improved sectional control for 2013 models. † Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews at Calgary. Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Cattleman’s Corner FORAGE PRODUCTION

Testing the waters with a “Polycrop” forage blend While a single forage type can be productive, farmers are also looking at what a diverse seed mix can do for soil and feed

ith both extremely wet and dry conditions happening in the same growing season, it is not a stretch to call 2011 a strange year in Manitoba, but it has helped prove the effectiveness of perennial and annual forage seed blends known as “polycrops” in dealing with extremes of weather. “One thing that became very clear this year is that having something green and growing in the spring takes moisture out of the soil,” says Oliver Joslin, who farms near Rossburn, Manitoba. “I saw for myself how much better the soil is for having something growing on it as opposed to nothing at all.” And that applies even if it’s only weeds. Joslin made a post-harvest kill of thistles on some of his land in the fall of 2010, but with the very wet spring in 2011 he wasn’t able to get the tractor into other areas. However, he was able to seed the unsprayed areas where the volunteers had already begun to grow. Although 2011’s fickle weather was tough on yields in many places, it’s provided a unique opportunity to really understand what happens under both conditions.

SEED BLEND Joslin experimented with a polycrop for the first time on 25 acres and was one of two farmers who hosted summer field tours organized by the Manitoba Forage Council, Manitoba Grazing Clubs and Ducks Unlimited Canada in association with local holistic management clubs. Polycrops are a mix of different crops sown together to improve soil health. They can be used for

silage or grazing and depending on the blend help improve soil fertility and structure in order to lessen their dependence on farm inputs. Initial work shows that plant diversity improved emergence and production of the polycrops. In addition, customized blends were created to address various soil issues. For example, use of radish and turnip helped break down soil compaction and till layers. Polycrops in Manitoba are being explored to improve native pasture by providing complementary grazing, improve cattle gain and lengthen the grazing season.

MULTIPLE USES “Cover crops improve soil health, increase organic matter and encourage microorganism activity that enhances nutrient cycling and the availability of nutrients for plant growth,” says Mike Thiele, Manitoba Grazing Club co-ordinator. Polycrops can be used as greenfeed, be grazed or left for ground cover to help trap snow and maintain rainfall on the land instead of losing it to leaching, evaporation or runoff. They are also very useful for building organic matter in the soil, and the diversity of species means that the crop is more resilient to changing weather conditions. The mix can be adapted to suit specific growing areas and soil types, making them a versatile addition to the grazing plan. On his Rossburn-area farm, Joslin’s polycrop blend included 30 lbs. of oats, 50 lbs. of peas, one lb of turnips, one lb. of forage radish and one lb. of hairy vetch seeded directly into oat stubble the first weekend in June. No

fertilizer was added apart from a starter mix at seeding. The crop received a light rainfall after seeding but then remained dry until late summer. Despite low growing-season moisture, the crop was lush and weeds were few. Aside from providing good ground cover and using subsurface moisture, the polycrop also produced a valuable forage stand. Joslin’s option included strip grazing the field in the fall, baling the crop as feed, or harvesting what he estimated would be about 3,500 lbs. of silage per acre. Cost for the seed was around $250 for the 25 acres, which is fairly reasonable, says Thiele. “A polycrop doesn’t have to be expensive,” he says, adding overall input costs shouldn’t exceed $20 to $25 an acre and the seed mix can actually be any combination of seed a farmer may have lying around. “The more diversity the better,” says Thiele. “The idea is to have lots of different species so the odds of getting good germination of some of them are better whatever the conditions.”

SEVERAL BENEFITS Diversity of plant species also helps prevent insect problems by discouraging the over-predominance of any one type of pest that typically occurs in a monoculture. Diverse root types help improve the water infiltration ability of soils. “Using turnips and radishes in the mix, for example, is useful as each have different root types and they each occupy a different part of the soil profile,” says Thiele. “So it helps to break up hardpan and allow moisture to penetrate

and move through the soil profile.” The root vegetables stay in the ground and decompose to also help build organic matter. The concept of seeding a mixedblend polycrop has crept into Manitoba from North Dakota, says Ducks Unlimited agronomist Ken Gross. Gabe Brown, a beef producer near Bismarck North Dakota, developed the concept of a polycrop as part of his strategy to save his mixed farming operation after hail wiped out his grain crops in the mid-90s. Brown says that when his lender pulled the ripcord after annual crops failed, he decided he might survive financially without cash cropping so he embarked on a wild venture to harvest everything with his cattle. His farm made a recovery that is nothing short of miraculous, now involving a rotation that encompasses crops purely for grazing, crops taken for silage or hay, and a few crops for grain again. Brown’s grazing techniques are also highly advanced, using cells for super-efficient “harvesting” by the cattle, as well as stimulating growth of the perennials species used. The response of his soils and crop yields has been phenomenal, yet Brown experiments with scads of “crazy” new ideas all the time. “We try to fail on at least one thing every year,” he says. Gross says while the concept of a diverse mixed stand makes sense, the challenge may be to find a combination of crops that do well in the Manitoba climate. “One advantage they have in North Dakota is a longer growing season than we have here in Manitoba,” says Gross. “Some of the cooler season crops like annual cereals do well, but some other species such as

PHOTO: ANGELA LOVELL

Rossburn-area farmer Oliver Joslin answers questions from producers about his polycrop duirng a summer farm tour hosted by the local grazing club, the Manitoba Forage Council and Ducks Unlimited Canada. hairy vetch are warm season crops that may not work every year.” The crop blend can be designed to address specific objectives on each farm. It can be tailored to use up excessive moisture, include plants with root systems that help break up hardpan or compaction layers, help fix nitrogen in the soil, and contribute to improving soil organic matter. While all this is happening to benefit soil structure and productivity, the crops also produce a valuable forage crop. “The main interest of Ducks Unlimited is similar to most ranchers — water and grass,” says Gross. “We are supportive of any practices that help make farmers more productive and sustainable and the concept of polycrops might be one more strategy that fits in their overall farm management.” † Article courtesy of Manitoba Forage Council and Ducks Unlimited Canada

THE MARKETS

Beef production to increase in 2012 Expected to be shortages of feeder cattle as the cow herd builds JERRY KLASSEN MARKET UPDATE

ed cattle prices softened over the holiday season but the market is expected to percolate higher during the first quarter of 2012. Alberta packers were buying slaughter cattle in the range of $114/cwt to $117 during the last half of December, which was down from the highs of $121 in late November. Fed cattle in Nebraska sold for $119/cwt on a live basis while dressed trades were quoted at $194/cwt. The U.S. fed cattle market reached a high of $128 in early December but the highs were short lived as demand failed to sustain the higher price structure. Throughout 2011, the increase in retail prices outpaced consumer income. However, athome food expenditures and restaurant traffic are projected to increase throughout first quarter of 2012. Cattle-on-feed supplies

continue to exceed year-ago levels and higher prices have encouraged cow-calf producers to sell cattle sooner than normal. Canadian beef production will continue to run below year-ago levels as the industry feels the effects of the lower calf crops. Feeder cattle imports into Alberta have increased, but not enough to alter the market. For 2012, U.S. and Canadian cow-calf producers will be in full-fledged expansion thereby shrinking available supplies in the feeder cattle pool.

U.S. PLACEMENTS A SURPRISE U.S. cattle on feed numbers as of December 1 totalled 12.081 million head, up four per cent from December 1, 2010. November placements came in at 2.039, also up four per cent over last year while fed cattle marketings were 1.770 million head, basically the same as November of 2010. The placement number was a surprise to the trade and many analysts are questioning where all these feeder cattle are coming from. During the summer of 2010, placements of light weight feeder

cattle surged in drought stricken Texas along with parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. Higher placements in summer and early fall would result in lower feeder supplies during the winter. At some point during the first quarter of 2012, placements are expected to drop sharply, thereby lowering the production in the summer and fall periods. Despite the larger on-feed numbers, the U.S. weekly slaughter pace has been running below year-ago levels in November and December. Carcass weights are also under year ago levels so the USDA continues to project lower beef production for the first quarter of 2012. Cattle on feed in Alberta and Saskatchewan were reported at 1.034 million head, up six per cent from December 1, 2010. November placements were 0.301 million head, up four per cent over last year while marketings were 0.132 million head, up two per cent over November 2010. There was no surprise on this report. Western Canadian feeder cattle basis levels improved in November thereby increasing imports from the U.S. Cow-calf producers also took advantage of

the higher prices with 500- to 600pound steer values up as much as 26 per cent over November of 2010. The cost-per-pound gains are also more competitive in Western Canada relative to the U.S. so the stronger feeder market in Alberta has offset lower input costs. U.S. domestic demand seasonally strengthens in the first quarter and then slightly declines in the second quarter. However, there is potential for counter-seasonal consumptive patterns given the economic environment. Keep in mind a one per cent increase in consumer spending generally equates to a one per cent increase in beef consumption. Therefore, improving GDP numbers and higher consumer confidence should bode well for retail and restaurant beef movement.

BULLISH SIGNALS Equity markets have digested the European financial crisis and despite the projections for a EU recession, the media appears to be blowing this out of proportion. The U.S. economy is now on track to move into a full-fledged business-expansion

period, which should cause cattle prices to stay very strong. There is always a surge in restaurant spending from February to March. The U.S. was a net exporter of beef during 2011, the first time in 40 years. This was largely currency related as the weaker U.S. dollar stimulated exports and made imports more expensive. However, the U.S. dollar will likely strengthen in the latter half of 2012 which should temper the strength in the Canadian dollar and support cattle prices in Western Canada. Feeder cattle prices are also expected to trend higher in the first quarter of 2012. The major factor driving bred cow, bred heifer and feeder prices over the next three months will be the buying activity of producers in the U.S. Southern Plains. The drought area is shrinking and Texas and Kansas cattle producers who liquidated cows and feeder cattle earlier in summer are now back in the market looking to rebuild their herds. I continue to project a larger increase in heifer retention across all regions of the U.S. and Canada, which will further shrink the feeder cattle pool. † Gerald Klassen analyzes cattle and hog markets in Winnipeg and also maintains an interest in the family feedlot in Southern Alberta. For comments or speaking engagements, he can be reached at jkci@mts.net or 204 287 8268

/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Keepers & Culls Send in your good tips and ideas LEE HART

askatchewan beef producer Albert Woelk would like to see more useful producer tips in Cattleman’s Corner. What a good idea, I should have thought of that! Actually, Albert called the other day to say it is all well and good to have regular columns on a bunch of stuff, but what about good everyday production tips and stories about what producers are doing that work for them? Albert runs a small beef herd north of Herbert, Sask. in the Gouldtown area (I remember being up that way one winter and took the stupid ice road across Lake Diefenbaker on my way to Outlook. It cut off a lot of miles, but let’s just say it was a tense drive). Albert made a good point. He’s not particularly interested in information on growing canola

and peas, but he would like to see more articles on farm inventions and any tips on how to save time and money. That sounds like a lot of work to me, but as any good editor I will delegate this job in part, to 30,000-some potential writers I have across Western Canada — you the reader. I am asking you to send in any and all good ideas you have that help make raising livestock easier, more efficient, more profitable, more fun or whatever. This could be anything from a better gate latch, to gopher control, to grazing efficiency, to calving ease, to fencing tips, to better handling facilities, beefbreeding tips, or making a quick and satisfying lunch, whatever… Whether it is a big or little idea that works for you, I’d like to hear about it. And this is no time to get all shy and humble and think “nobody wants to hear about my idea.” This isn’t about you. This is about rest of the readers who may find your idea helpful in saving a few dollars or a few minutes in their day.

WRITE, E-MAIL

FAX

CONTACT CATTLEMAN’S CORNER WITH COMMENTS, ON STORIES BY MAIL, E-MAIL, PHONE OR FAX. PHONE LEE HART FAX

E-MAIL

IDEAS OR SUGGESTIONS FOR AND

403-592-1964

403-288-3162 LEE@FBCPUBLISHING.COM

WRITE TO CATTLEMAN’S CORNER, 5111 NORTHLAND DR. NW, BOX 67211, CALGARY, AB, T2L 2L2

My contact information is posted on this page. So you can either write, or email or even call to let me know. Jot down a couple paragraphs explaining your idea, send a diagram or a photo to go with it, if applicable, and include your phone number or email address in case I have any questions. That’s your assignment. And don’t do it for me. Do it for guys like Albert Woelk who feeds cattle at night during winter, and gets up every day at 5 a.m. in his March/ April calving season and walks a 40-acre winter feeding and calving pasture before he heads to work. Anything tips that help shorten the day would be appreciated.

MANITOBA MOMENT Bob and Frank, two Manitoba beef producers had put in a long day of meetings and headed to the Fort Garry Hotel for a drink. Bob pointed to two old farts sitting across the bar from them and said: “Frank, that’s us in 10 years.” Frank stared at him for a second and said: “That’s a mirror, dough head! Have another beer.”

LOOK AFTER HORSES Les Burwash has a question for all horse owners: are you ready for the winter? The manager of horse programs for Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development suggests owners should be prepared by now. He refers to adequate feed

“Looks like some politics are goin’ on down there...” and water supplies, body conditioning and shelter. “In general, horses are going to require somewhere in the vicinity of two to two-and-a-half per cent of their body weight in good-quality forage or hay to maintain their body condition. If we assume that we are probably going to need to feed for approximately five months that means that buying your feed supply now would require about two tons for the average mature horse of 1,100 pounds.” Burwash says an economical way to maintain horses during the winter is through grazing. Owners need to be cognizant of what’s happening in the field. He suggests there should be at least four to six inches of forage covering the field and as the winter progresses to be sure the snow doesn’t get too deep. For anyone living in areas where there may be occasional thaws, when it freezes again the crust may be too

hard for the horses to paw down to the feed supply. Ideally, points out Burwash, horses should have body condition scores of five or six on the ninepoint scale going into winter. “The question always arises: do horses require water? The answer to that is yes. In general terms, horses require about three pounds of water for every pound of dry feed. Therefore, the average horse is going to need six to seven gallons of water a day. It is physically impossible for the horse to meet its needs by eating snow. For the health and welfare of the horse it is preferable to have access to water with a temperature warmed to four to five degrees.” Shelter is important. Burwash says that unless horses are being used, they will be healthier when they’re maintained outside. “Horses can

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Conference SASKATCHEWAN’S PREMIER BEEF EVENT

“Weathering Change and Forecasting Opportunity” Beef & Forage Symposium Tradeshow Industry Meetings THAT SILLY DOUG

January 18-20, 2012

I know I will never be accused of being “too” organized. I had asked last year for people to send me some wacky or weird photos of livestock and Hazel Paton of Oxbow, Saskatchewan did just that. Trouble is, Hazel sent the photo in April and I didn’t find the envelope and open it until December 1. My desk isn’t that bad, but somehow this letter got mixed in with a file that I keep in a cabinet and look at only occasionally. I’d blame the kids but they haven’t lived here in years. Anyway, I did find the photo and it is a good one. As Hazel

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explains: “Here is a picture of a registered polled Hereford bull, Doug, that we had when we were raising beef cattle. He’d been given his grain in this old washer tub for quite some time and had no problem. “However, even though he had no horns to hook on, he managed to get stuck! “He seemed quite resigned to this fate. Even when the tub was removed he didn’t get upset or turn furious as one might have expected him to do.” Thanks for the photo Hazel, and my apologies for the delay. (Hazel and her husband are both in their 90s and no longer raising beef, but pictures like that of Doug the Bull, keep memories fresh). The picture was returned by mail.

BUILDING TRUST IN CANADIAN BEEF

Cattleman’s Corner

Show the world we use drugs responsibly VBP builds our reputation and your industry

ew topics today receive the interest that the use of animal health products in food animal production does. How drugs are managed in livestock operations is part of everything from food safety concerns related to drug withdrawal, to market access, to the growing discussion around antimicrobial resistance. The bottom line in all of these situations is the responsible use of these products by producers. Not only do Canadian beef producers need to manage these products properly, they need to be able to prove they are doing what they say they are doing. The goal is simple — to minimize the use of drugs to preserve effectiveness while maintaining animal care. Overuse of drugs can contribute to resistance in your herd which may have implications for herd health down the road. Our industry uses veterinarians as advisers for a reason. They are educated in proper drug use. The target strategy is to use drugs for the shortest time period required. Antimicrobials that specifically target the pathogen are favoured over broad-spectrum drugs. And the need for drugs is regularly assessed.

How VBP can help The Verified Beef Production (VBP) program can help. Many of the practices in the VBP manual are related to the prudent use of animal health products. The most important of these is adhering to label directions. Next most important is keeping records to prove it. Consumers and the general public are increasingly concerned about drug use and antimicrobial resistance. While the beef industry is only one player in this whole area of drug use, we must be prepared to do our part. Review your records and ask your veterinarian if any changes should be made. Keeping track of what you do is key to assessing success. VBP workshops Consider becoming involved in the VBP program. The first step is participating in a workshop or taking the online version of this. That effort demonstrates your interest in responsible drug use. The collective participation is important for our beef industry dealing with policy and market access issues. VBP workshops are about two hours in length and are available across the coun-

Get a copy of the VBP pocket book — an easy way to keep important records.

try. Alternatively, the online version is free and easy to complete using dial-up Internet access. For either option, contact the VBP representative in your area from the list below. Your operation and your industry will benefit.

CONTACT YOUR PROVINCIAL VBP REPRESENTATIVE Alberta — Eileen Leslie 1-866-242-7404 eileen@beefsafety.ab.ca

Manitoba — Betty Green 204-372-6492 blgreen@xplornet.com

Ontario — DanFerguson 905-375-8551 dan@qualitystartshere.on.ca

Saskatchewan — Jodie Horvath 1-888-675-6177 jhorvath@sasktel.net

British Columbia — Annette Moore 1-866-398-2848 ext 2 VBP@cattlemen.bc.ca

Québec — Nathalie Côté 450-679-0530 poste 8460 ncote@upa.qc.ca

Atlantic provinces — Amanda Tweedy 902-368-2229 vbp@peicattleproducers.com

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/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Cattleman’s Corner BETTER BUNKS AND PASTURES

Skinny cows have more calving issues PETER VITTI

ith the exception of a few days, autumn in Western Canada was amazing. We enjoyed days of warm weather, which compared to other years about the same time was simply balmy. This year, many beef cows were kept out on pasture longer and remained in decent shape once they were brought home. Maintaining this precious body condition with a proper overwinter feed program is essential to a successful calving season. It really becomes of matter of retaining the cows’ relative fat cover or energy reserves in winter,

which is needed at critical times such as calving. Field trials at various research stations around North America consistently prove that overwintered mature cows and replacement heifers that calve at a target body condition score (BCS) of 2.5 to 3.0 (scale of 1 = emaciation to 5 = obese) have a greater chance of a successful calving season compared to freshened skinny cows. Clear advantages of such optimum BCS in beef cows at calving are: an easier time at calving, nurse a more vigorous/healthier calf, show estrus/quicker to be rebred and pregnant in order to maintain a 365-day calving internal. Although, there is no one scientific protocol to judge BCS in beef cows, one can use visual parameters and/or palpation techniques and start at the rear end of the cow. Look for and

feel the magnitude of fat cover on the pin-bones, tail-head, hip bones, backbone and finally the ribs. A thin cow (BCS below 2.0) should look skinny with sharp and angular shapes, while an over-conditioned or fat cow’s bone structures are hidden. A cow with an optimum BCS of 2.5 -3.0 should have a good overall appearance without the look of being “too thin or too fleshy.” Fat still covers her hips, but they are still visible and moderate pressure on them can still identify some bone structure.

NUTRIENT DEMAND CHANGES Retaining such optimum body condition in pregnant cows until calving is an “easier said than done” exercise, because a dramatic rise in the nutrient requirements during late gestation takes place

for two main reasons: a growing unborn calf and oncoming cold winter weather. First, during the start of winter, the cow’s fetus is small and its demand for essential nutrients remains relatively low until its dam enters her last 60 to 90 days of late gestation. From this point forward demands for total nutrients in the beef cow really start to accelerate. Her unborn calf gains about 60 per cent of its final birth weight during this time, and this fetal growth combined with its developing placenta and accumulating ammonic fluids makes the late gestating cow gain one-half to three-quarters kilo per day. In addition, about a month prior to calving, antibody-enriched colostrum or the first milk for the newborn calf is being manufactured in the cow’s udder. Unseen to the

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naked eye, the cow’s reproductive system is already getting prepared to resume estrus after she calves. To meet these nutritional challenges of late gestation, an increase in the plane of nutrition is necessary. Dietary energy and protein in the diet should be increase by 25 to 30 per cent and 15 to 20 per cent, respectively. Second, cows that calve between mid January until the end of March should also be put on a higher nutritional plane to account for an energy requirement increase by 25 to 50 per cent during periods of bitter cold weather.

TEMPERATURE RULE OF THUMB A cold-weather rule of thumb is for every 1 C drop in temperature below 0 C, the beef cows’ TDN energy maintenance requirements are increased by about two per cent. When the thermometer drops, metabolic triggers in the cow stimulates her feed intake, but they will only increase dry matter consumption at the very most by 30 per cent, often limited by physical constraints of the rumen and a reversal in feed digestibility. Since pre-calving cows can eat only so much feed during very cold weather, it is wise to increase the energy density of their rations by using high-energy and lowerfibre feeds. Consequently, the existing body condition of cows (including replacement heifers), their calving date and current feeding program should dovetail with a more suitable late-gestation diet. For example: an adequate quality grass hay or mixed grass-alfalfa mixtures with an energy TDN of 55 to 60 per cent TDN and protein level of 11 to 12 per cent make excellent pre-calving ration. If this forage TDN is energy shy, then 0.5 to 1.0 kg of grain such as barley can be supplemented. As mentioned, cold weather in January and February can further increase energy demands for cows trying to keep warm. Therefore, an additional 0.5 to 1.0 kg of grain might be provided. It is also important to purchase a commercial beef mineral with complimentary levels of calcium and phosphorus, fortified with essential trace minerals and vitamins A, D, and E.

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES One might want to implement some good management practices while providing these well-balanced diets to late-gestation beef cows. One suggestion warrants that thin cows and first-calf heifers be segregated from the rest of the main herd and fed as a separate group. They often do not compete well against older, more mature cows. Splitting off the younger and under-conditioned animals might also be an opportunity to feed them more nutritious pre-calving diets (higher-quality forages, or energy/protein supplements) due additional nutrient demands for growth or building back precious body condition, respectively. † Peter Vitti is an independent livestock nutritionist and consultant based in Winnipeg. To reach him call 204-254-7497 or by email at vitti@mts.net

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/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Cattleman’s Corner RANCHER’S DIARY

Bit of a rodeo while fencing

With 12 inches of frost in the ground it was a challenge setting some of the posts HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

NOVEMBER 26

ynn and Michael have been setting posts for the new fence boundary on our 160-acre pasture, hoping to get as many set as possible before the ground freezes more. Monday they hauled steel posts up there in Michael’s pickup and got 40 set that day. I sent a lunch with them. Tuesday Michael and Carolyn drove to Helena to convoy home with young Heather (coming home from college for Thanksgiving holiday) and hauled home the three horses they loaned to the HAB program for the fall semester. Andrea is still moving, getting the rest of her furniture and other items out of the old rental house in town, putting some things in the new house and storing the rest in the old trailer house until the carpenters are finished. The building inspector came this week and gave a temporary “occupancy” permit so she can start moving in. The kids were sleeping on the floor in the old house in town and Andrea was bringing them out here for supper. She needed to get everything out of the old house so she can thoroughly clean it before the end of the month. Sam wasn’t feeling well (with fever and sore throat) for a few days, so she stayed here with me instead of going to school. Wednesday, Andrea took Sam to the doctor. Lynn and Michael hauled more posts to the 160, and got 40 more set, after hauling some up the fence line with their four-wheelers. Thursday was Thanksgiving, and we had dinner at Andrea’s new house, even though she’s not moved in yet. She cooked the turkey and potatoes, and Lynn’s sister and sisterin-law and I brought the rest of the food. It was a “housewarming” celebration for the new house. Yesterday it snowed. The weather cleared by afternoon, and Michael was able to haul wood posts (for braces) and barbed wire to the fence project. Andrea and Rick brought more things out BY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

from town (including their dogs and cats) and worked until late at night cleaning the old house. They’ve spent several late nights cleaning it. Today I rode with Michael and young Heather to pack wood posts and barbed wire up to the top of the fence where it’s too steep to take a vehicle. Michael came with the trailer to haul Ed to the upper place, saving time so I wouldn’t have to ride three miles up there and back. He put packsaddles on two of their horses and we rode another mile up into the 160-acre pasture, where he’d left the wood posts and rolls of wire. I held the extra horses while Heather helped PHOTOS: HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

» CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

After a bit of an incident first time around, horses carrying posts and wire are led along the fence line.

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For eight years we advised our customers to “lay in the weeds and wait” and to own as many cattle as they could. It was never pretty, but it was survivable. Now we have a lean profitable, well founded cow business destined to “ROAR” for years. The market fundamentals are perfect. Clear thinking hard nosed cattlemen figured out how to “let a cow be a cow” and take advantage of what she can do cheaply.... We’ll all make more this time around because no one will spend as much as we used to. Unlike a lot of bull producers, we’ve paid for our ranch and cows with our cows. We’re “rooted deep in the commercial reality of this business.” We’ve built a big good cowherd over time producing bulls strictly for commercial cowmen. Traditional purebred guys sell dreams…we sell reality. In 20 years our cow herd has produced in excess of 20 million dollars worth of bulls. No “smoke and mirrors”, no “trendy numbers”, no unproven sires, just the real deal. Our bulls are good quality, all of them, well culled, they’re easy keeping, good looking, durable bulls that sire those “fancy calves the order buyers keep talking about.” Our bulls are older fall and summer born twos (22-26 months when you need them), old enough to be tough and not give trouble. Our bulls can all be left with us till spring, you don’t want new bulls around till you need them, so let us look after them. Our bulls are all delivered absolutely free in Western Canada and cost shared in the East. Our bulls can be purchased sight unseen, in fact about half always are. We help select your bulls and they’re guaranteed to be what you want…”true satisfaction on arrival”. Our customers trust and confidence in us make it all possible. Our bulls are affordable – 75% sell from $1800 to $3800, almost half bring about $3000 and all sell to solid commercial cattlemen. Our bulls are guaranteed like no others…you’ll have a bull to breed your cows no matter what…hard to get better than that! As sale time approaches, you can view all our bulls on video on our website or we’ll send you your very own DVD and catalogue and you can show the neighbors. In fact, it’s probably easier and simpler to buy our bulls than buying bulls locally. You get great service, the best guarantee, lots of selection and your calves will be sired by nationally known bulls. It all helps to get them sold! Our customers like the fact that all our cattle are managed and fed just like most all commercial cattle. *Free DVD *Free Catalogue *Free Delivery “Great Bulls” Call Today Mac & Pat

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Sight Unseen Purchase Plan Buying your bulls is easy... and it’s as close as your phone...

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I have spent 30 years working with cattlemen across Canada and together we have developed the most successful Sight Unseen Purchase Plan in the country, so successful in fact that it can sell nearly half our bulls some years. I have done it with sincerity and integrity and the utmost respect for the customers needs and budget. We start by discussing your cows, your breeding program, and what you need to get done. When we are comfortable with each other we can work together to get you the right cattle at the right price. While a few people sell a few bulls on the internet. I much prefer to visit with our customers, get to know them, and help them select the right bulls. Our comprehensive catalogue and DVD will give you an accurate impression of the bulls. After the sale I’ll personally deliver your bulls, in most cases. You must be completely satisfied on arrival or you are under no obligation to take them You pay for them only when they are delivered and satisfactory.

Mac Creech, D.V.M.

Call me anytime to get started.

1-800-561-2855

Thanks Mac

“Canada’s Bull Supplier" 1-800-561-BULL (2855)

email mcquantock@hotmail.com www.mcquantock.com

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Cattleman’s Corner

Andrea busy getting Thanksgiving dinner ready in her new house.

» CONTINUED FROM Previous PAGE Michael load four posts on Gus (two posts on each side) and two rolls of wire on Thelma.

We started up the hill through the sagebrush, with Heather and Michael leading the packhorses from their horses. Things were going well, even though Gus

had never been packed before, until we went through some tall sage and Gus got tangled up in the brush. He tried to jump one of the bushes in his path.

The posts clattered together and scared him. He pulled his lead rope out of Heather’s hand, and took off down the mountain, running and bucking. He lost the posts about halfway down, then galloped around the mountain toward home. We rode back down to where he’d bucked off the posts, and I held Thelma (with the rolls of wire) while Michael and Heather went to find Gus. Fortunately he stopped at the gate and didn’t try to go through the fence. They readjusted his packsaddle (which had turned under his belly) and led him back. This time they only put two posts on him, one on each side. He stood wide-eyed and trembling, but didn’t move. And wouldn’t move when we tried to start back up the mountain. I followed along behind him on Ed, tapping him on the rump to encourage him, until he realized the posts weren’t going to hurt him. We made tour more trips up the precarious, snowy

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www.mcquantock.com

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100 Red Angus Bulls • all older Fall, Long Yearlings and Twos • light birthed but beefy and thick • reliable, predictable like “peas in a pod” • why buy yearlings... “these cost the same”

100 Black Angus Bulls • all older Fall, Long Yearlings and Twos • broad, deep, big bodied, easy fleshing • light at birth but thick • why buy yearlings... “these cost the same”

65 Super Baldie Bulls • all Fall born, Long Yearlings and Twos • add “milk and muscle” • the perfect blend, convenient, consistent and thick • falls/twos

60 Black Super Baldie Bulls • big, buxom, February yearlings, falls and twos • keep ’em or turn ’em Black • balance, muscle, milk and a whole lot more • falls/twos

25 Dehorned Hereford Bulls • broad topped, deep sided • packed full of natural thickness • beautiful dispositions, durable • falls/twos

25 H-2 Bulls • Hereford X Simmental hybrids • pigment, hair coat • deep, thick and convenient • falls/twos

40 Super Guppie Bulls • Red Angus X Gelbvieh • more muscle but still maternal • hair, thriftiness and fleshing ability • falls/twos

35 Charolais Bulls • thick but still smooth • hair coats, moderate birth weights • good disposition, unquestionable soundness • all Two year olds

M.C. Quantock Livestock Corp Call Mac... 1-800-561-BULL (2855)

email: mcquantock@hotmail.com • www.mcquantock.com • Box 10888, Lloydminster, Alta. T9V 3B1

CALL FOR YOUR FREE CATALOGUE AND DVD

slope with posts, and the horses did fine. It got dark and cold before we quite finished; we’d lost quite a bit of time with the first adventure, but at least it ended successfully.

DECEMBER 11 Lynn and Michael spent several more days setting posts, and the last ones were difficult, digging holes for the brace posts through the rocks and frost. We had cold weather (down to -18 C). Andrea got the old rental house completely cleaned and scrubbed, basement rooms repainted, and carpets shampooed. I sent supper home for her and the kids several evenings. Now she finally has time to work at getting everything into her new house that she stored in the shed and trailer. This past week the carpenters finally got her cabinets finished. We’re waiting for a stovepipe for the wood stove, hoping it comes soon so we can start heating her house with wood instead of expensive electricity. With cold weather, we’ve been breaking ice for the cows to drink at the spring in their pasture, but the grass hasn’t snowed under yet. We’re only feeding hay to the two bull calves. The heifers and cows are still grazing, with a protein supplement. Last Sunday we went to town early and watched one of Emily’s hockey games then went to church. This week Lynn and Michael have been setting posts for a fence around Andrea’s new house — to keep our cows out and her dogs in. We’ll graze that pasture in a few weeks (if it doesn’t snow under) and need a fence around her new house. There’s about 12 inches of frost in the ground. Michael used our rock drill to chip through frost and rocks on the worst postholes. The posts are all set now, ready for wire. Andrea’s car window quit working (couldn’t roll up) and she had to bring the kids home from their dance/gymnastics and hockey practice in the cold weather that night with no window. We loaned her our pickup to take the kids to the bus the next morning, and then she took her car to town to be fixed. Michael hauled the last of his yearlings to the sale, except for a couple to butcher later, and hauled their 36 pregnant heifers home from rented pasture. He and Carolyn will be talking to their banker this week, to see if they can keep these heifers or must sell them. The heifers are due to start calving mid February. † Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact her at 208-756-2841

By Dan Piraro

Bizarro

/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Cattleman’s Corner Animal Health

Advantages of hydraulic squeeze BY ROY LEWIS

’ve had the good fortune over the years of working with progressive producers and have seen their usage of hydraulic chutes increase. There are several key advantages with these chutes that help them pay for themselves quicker than you might imagine. Labour can be a major expense in larger cow-calf, bison and feedlot operations, but also just the availability of help can be your limiting component. Hydraulic chutes cut down labour for several reasons. They can be opened wider so almost regardless of the situation cattle flow through them easier with less prodding and poking (animal-rights people should like this).

Because the squeezing and catch mechanism is so fast the operator can often perform other tasks such as vaccinating or implanting as well. Since the squeezes are so easy to run, I as a veterinarian, have on occasion run them when preg checking or semen evaluating (I can pull the levers with my one clean arm). All this and the operator can work all day and not get as tired, and they can be operated by even the smallest or youngest crew member.

Improved Speed Speed is also greatly enhanced for several reasons. The quick squeezing minimizes any struggling you get with manual chutes. The pressure should be set to between 600

and 800 pounds in order to get the desired restraint with little risk of injury. With many procedures such as vaccinating or pregnancy checking, restraint is secure enough so heads don’t even have to be caught. This alone speeds things up and there is NO chance an animal will be missed. Release is also so much quicker and because the front is wide open, cattle move forward and don’t back up. All these seemingly trivial things add up to a lot of time saved at the end of the day. Generally the controls are now put on swing bars to enable them to be run from the back of the chute. By placing controls lower, fatigue on your arms is also greatly reduced. Controls near the back of the chute do not cause cattle to balk like they

do when running the chute near the head gate. It is very important to have side releases on the chutes in case cattle go down and become wedged in. The newer ones also have spring releases on the entire front of the chute. This allows five to six centimetres of give when livestock hit them too fast, greatly minimizing shoulder injuries.

Reduced stress I am thoroughly convinced that besides all of the above great benefits a hydraulic chute will pay for itself time and again with all the stress it saves on your stock. These are sometimes intangibles such as slightly better weight gains and cattle being subject to fewer injuries and

less bruising. I know there is far less flailing around or slipping and going down with hydraulic chutes. By controlling the back gate hydraulically far less piling up occurs, too. This also minimizes injury as well as speeding up the process. When cattle are held more securely, far fewer implants are improperly placed and vaccines, especially subcutaneous shots, are properly administered. If intramuscular shots are given, the neck area is much more accessible. Endectocides (pour on), which we all pay good money for, can be evenly spread over the back. All these benefits over time help the increased price of the chute pay for itself. By running power steering oil or diluting the hydraulic oil 50/50 with kerosene, viscosity is low and even on cold winter days the hydraulic oil will flow. Most people insulate the pump to prevent problems in winter and it also acts as a sound barrier. Those who use the chute only a few times a year may have the hydraulics run off the pump in your tractor. A lot of the bison producers do it this way saving the cost of the pump or avoiding the need to have power brought to the site.

Reasonable cost Most good manual chutes today cost half to two-thirds that of a hydraulic chute so really the cost difference is not huge when considering the years of use it will provide. Once installed it is easy to then have other hydraulic cylinders run sorting gates or scissor gates in the lead-up alley. This again saves labour and speeds up the whole process. My rule of thumb is anyone in the 250-head plus range for cows would be wise to consider a hydraulic chute to make their life easier. With more intensive management these days, especially on purebred operations, a hydraulic chute can be of particular value when a synchronization programs with timed breeding, requires the cattle be brought through more times in a year. Hydraulic chutes allow you to accomplish these tasks without even working up a sweat so you won’t hesitate doing them in a timely manner. Nearly all makers of manual chutes now have hydraulic ones and Morand Industries is just releasing their hydraulic chute. Other companies such as Hi-Hog and Stampede Steel hydraulic chutes have been around for a few years. As with good manual chutes, each hydraulic chute has different features which need to be considered so take a good look at all of them or consult your veterinarian as to their preferences. The cattle market is up now so when you are upgrading your handling system consider a hydraulic chute. The resale value of your old manual one will still be good or it could be relocated for occasional use in a pasture. † Roy Lewis is a large-animal veterinarian at the Westlock Veterinary Centre, north of Edmonton, AB. His main interests are bovine reproduction and herd health

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Cattleman’s Corner Coming events: BEEF CONFERENCE IN JANUARY The third annual Saskatchewan Beef Industry Conference is coming up Jan. 18 to 20 in Saskatoon. From its inception, this premier beef event has been welcomed as a collective, inclusive gathering of all aspects of the beef industry in this province. Through the continued collaborative efforts of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, the Saskatchewan Stockgrowers Association, the Saskatchewan Livestock Association, the Saskatchewan Cattle Feeders Association and the Saskatchewan Beef and Forage Symposium Committee, the conference provides a forum in which to share knowledge, build business networks and shape the future of the beef industry. For more information on how to become a sponsor, trade show exhibitor or delegate, contact: Shannon McArton, conference co-ordinator, cell: 306-731-7610, 306-488-4725, email: shannon.mcarton@sasktel.net. Or visit their website at: www.saskbeefconference.com

» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33

KEEPERS & CULLS

stand the cold quite well if they can get out of the wind. I suggest shelter can be provided in three ways. This could be naturally if there are trees to protect the animals, build a threesided shelter or construct a wind break fence.” He urges horse owners to always be aware and monitor their animals regularly, making adjustments when necessary.

ABP EXECUTIVE The Alberta Beef Producers have elected a new executive for 201112 with Doug Sawyer (Pine Lake) elected Chair, Dave Solverson (Camrose) moved to Vice Chair and Greg Bowie (Ponoka) elected as Finance Chair. ABP also welcomes the newly elected 2011-12 board of direc-

tors: Brent Carey (Stavely), Greg Bowie (Ponoka), Brian Chomlak (Beauvallon), Rick McKnight (Jarvie), Howard Bekkering (Vauxhall), Bob Lowe (Nanton), Brian Edge (Cochrane), Judy Fenton(Irma), Charlie Christie (Trochu), Adam Moseson (Ferintosh), John Buckley (Cochrane), Larry Delver (Calgary), Mark Francis (Taber) and Roland Cailliau (Valleyview).

ENVIRO WINNERS Former Cattleman’s Corner columnist and Peace River-region beef producer Christoph Weder and his wife Erika have been named winners of the 2012 Environmental Stewardship Award (ESA) presented by Alberta Beef Producers. In 2003, the Weders relocated north from the Camrose area up to Rycroft in the Peace Country. The young ranching family already thinks to the next generation and minimizing impacts to the land so they can leave it in better shape than when they began ranching.

“They focus on the big picture, not only growing more grass but encouraging biodiversity to thrive and carrying that through to the cattle they raise and the beef they produce,” says Greg Bowie, ESA Chair. Over 100 wetlands have been restored throughout their Spirit View Ranch with the help of Ducks Unlimited that are great brood habitat for ducks and geese, and retain moisture that increases forage production. The Weders also have over 1,200 acres of forest and grassland protected under conservation easements. A recent wildlife inventory showed that they have 150 bird species, 45 mammals, seven amphibians and one reptile species inhabit the ranch. “The earth is not just habitat for wildlife and birds. It’s our habitat too and we have to look after what we have in front of our doorstep. We want to make sure we keep it, we preserve it, we look after it and that’s what we do,” says Erika.

“I really believe that livestock production and grazing management systems like we encompass with beef production is one of the most sustainable long-term agriculture production systems... It doesn’t take a lot of resources going into it and allows for biodiversity, and soil and water conservation and habitat. It’s something to be proud of as a rancher to be able to sustain all of that for the next generation,” says Christoph. Think global but act local and communicate those values to other people to make a difference. These are words used as guidance for every decision made at Spirit View Ranch. “It isn’t a one-step process for Christoph and Erika. Their message of environmental stewardship is carried through their practice from start to finish,” says Bowie.

Bull buyers big & small, know where to look.

GRAZING SCHOOL Steve Kenyon’s Year Round Grazing Systems school is coming up in Cochrane, AB on Feb. 20, 21 & 22, 2012. The grazing school is an agricultural business management school focused on the business of ranching. It is based on a grazing system for both summer and dormant seasons but is highly focused on the management side of your ranch. The school looks into how to use a gross margin analysis and a cash flow. Grazing is only a production practice. To make a living at ranching, you need to be good at business. This school gives you some great information to help your production component, but also gives you tools in human resources, economics and finances to help make your business profitable. Producers will receive some easy-to-use tools to help you see where your operation is and where it needs to go. It includes a cell design workshop to help with fence planning and in developing a grazing plan. Tuition is $800 which allows two members of your farm to attend. Your tuition covers lunch, coffee and snacks. As a promotion, the school offers a $100 reduction to tuition for every additional farm unit that a producer brings along to the school. All you need to bring to the school is a calculator, and aerial photos of your pasture (without fences drawn in) for the cell design workshop. 1:5,000 scale is best unless your pastures are very large, then smaller is fine. For details contact: Steve Kenyon Greener Pastures Ranching Ltd.; email: skenyon@ greenerpasturesranching.com; visit the website at greenerpasturesranching.com or phone Phone (780) 307 2275.

Can you afford not to be in it? 2012 EDITION

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JANUARY 9, 2012

Home Quarter Farm Life SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Listen to farmer’s true needs Have a family get-together and really listen ELAINE FROESE

inancial planners can be intimidating and some don’t understand what our true needs are. • We need help. Our family is large and some actively involved and others not, yet everyone feels like they have an inherited right to the farm’s assets. • We need help to seek more financial management training so we can better manage our farm’s finances and ensure a smoother transition of the farm’s affairs to our children when they take over. Asking for help from an adviser is an uncomfortable task for many farm families. There is a huge issue around trust and performance. Can I trust the person to

really know what they are talking about? Will they follow through in a timely manner and really listen to what I want? I’ve met a fair few farm folks this winter who are still looking for great advisers. Some have been burned in the past, so decide to stop looking. Others have been literally “bullied” by aggressive sales tactics with their adult children being harassed at work, and so on. The Canadian Association of Farm Advisors www.cafanet.com is a good place to start scouting for help. I am a member of this group and we tend to talk amongst ourselves as to who we feel does great work on behalf of farm clients. You might also want to quiz your neighbour and use some word-of-mouth referrals for expert advice. I can’t believe the stubbornness of some people who refuse to go back to a doctor because five years

ago the doctor didn’t really help them. If you don’t like the professional you are dealing with, keep seeking and searching until you find someone who fits the expectations you have and your needs.

Call your family over for a potluck, just to celebrate being together as a family. I am finding a lot of farm folks don’t have a financial planner. I would like you to find a certified financial planner who can help you with your personal assets, your personal wealth bubble, insurance needs, and your lifestyle income needs for the 20

to 30 years that you will be in your role of “hired man, or helping mom” before you die in your late 80s. If you know what it costs you to live at the level that you prefer, and if you know you have farm income and nonfarm income streams to sustain you, you truly will enjoy the peace and restful nights of financial freedom. Sometimes we avoid facing what we know to be true. We are going to die, therefore we need to meet with a lawyer to update our wills, get enduring powers of attorney in place. We also need to meet with our doctor or health-care home-care workers to draw up a health-care directive or living will. In January when the calendar turned to 2012 it dawned on me that I will be 56 in the fall. The average age of a widow in Canada is 56. Are you ready for widowhood?

Many of my coaching clients are dreaming about the “retirement goal of freedom 55” which always makes me smile when it is written by a 30-year-old. Most 62-yearold dads are never going to retire from the farm. I hope they will gracefully “reinvent” themselves as the hired man and intentionally mentor the next manager and successor. When the cold wind blows, and the snowbanks are growing outside your window, make the call to your advisers to update your wills, your lifestyle plans, your investments and your physical health. Then call your family over for a potluck, just to celebrate being together as a family and listen to the true needs of your family this winter. † Elaine Froese authored Do the Tough Things Right as an action guide to help farm families keep taking the next step of getting many plans in order. Visit www.elainefroese.com or call 1-866-848-8311 for coaching or speaking events

A business of their own

Raising alfalfa leafcutter bees provides learning experiences and extra income BY EDNA MANNING

n the mid-1980s when Joan and Les Balla’s three children were in their teens, the couple felt it was important for them to be involved in a business of their own. The Ballas, who live near Leask, Saskatchewan, ran a hog operation at the time. They looked at various options and decided that raising alfalfa leafcutter bees would provide many learning opportunities, as well as some income for the children. “Because my father had been in the leafcutter bee business and found it to be quite profitable, we thought this was worth pursuing,” says Joan. Her father gave the boys, Sheldon and Dale, each 10 gallons of leafcutter bee cells to get them started. Robin would join in the business a few years later. The boys each rented some land on which they would raise the bees. They and Les built over 100 huts that would be used on about 500 acres (one hut to about five acres). They also built over 2,000 hives to house the nesting blocks. “A great deal of manual labour is involved in raising alfalfa leafcutters,” said Les. He also constructed a large building to store the hives during the winter. “The alfalfa leafcutter was introduced in Canada in the early 1960s to save the alfalfa seed industry. Before that, native bees did the pollination, but their numbers were reduced as modern agriculture practices expanded. “The leafcutter bees are much more effective pollinators than honeybees. The alfalfa leafcutter is the only species of the leafcutter that has been domesticated, and they are gentle and will only sting when handled. Their sting is much less painful than that of a honeybee or wasp,” Joan said.

They are about the size of a housefly; greyish in colour with light-yellow bands on their abdomens and faces. In the wild, they will nest in soft, rotted wood or in thick-stemmed plants. Domesticated leafcutters will

Domesticated leafcutters will readily use manmade nests that can be moved indoors to protect the overwintering larvae. readily use man-made nests that can be moved indoors to protect the overwintering larvae. In early June the Ballas move the cocoons to incubation trays in a heat-controlled room, where they are incubated at about 25 C for 26 days. Once the bees hatch, they are taken to the huts located in an alfalfa field and released. The bees mate almost immediately and begin looking for nectar and pollen. The females also begin to collect plant leaves which they cut with their mouth parts, then return to their nests in the huts and use the leaves to line them. The Ballas use Styrofoam bee boards that have long tunnel spaces in which the bees make their egg cells. “The bees need hot, sunny weather to work at their peak. There’s about a six-week time frame from the beginning of July until mid-August when days are longest and production is the highest. A cool, rainy

The bees use Styrofoam bee boards in which they make their egg cells. summer will dramatically affect production — the bees just don’t go out when it’s wet and cool. After mid-August the days get shorter and production goes down,” said Joan. Once the nests are filled and the alfalfa has finished flowering, the hives are removed from the fields and stored indoors at about 20 C to allow the bee larvae to spin their cocoons. Proper handling of the bee cells is important, says Les. He and Dale built a machine that carefully strips the cells from the Styrofoam boards with minimal damage to the cells. The cells are then tumbled in a machine to remove excess debris and

Joan and Les have continued on with the bees since the children have grown and moved away from home. reduce problems with mould and parasites. After harvesting and tumbling, cells are placed in boxes for cold storage (about 5 C) until spring. The Ballas sell their excess cells through a broker, with most going to the western U.S. where they are used to pollinate fruit crops and almond trees. “The highest we went was about 500 acres of alfalfa. That yielded about 1,000 gallons of cells at two gallons an acre. We had over 2,000 hives out at

one time and prices were good then — you could get about $85 per gallon. The prices have now dropped to about $12,” said Les. “The children were in it for several years before they moved away from home. Les and I have continued with the bees, but not to a large extent. It’s now more of a hobby that brings in some additional farm income,” says Joan. † Edna Manning writes from Saskatoon, Sask.

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Home Quarter Farm Life POSTCARDS FROM THE PRAIRIES

New Year’s resolutions… Making promises for a new year whilst recovering from a wine-induced coma is not a good idea. So instead, I’ve created a list of basic instructions for how I want to live my life. Part One JANITA VAN DE VELDE

ome resolutions should never be made — they’re conceived in the shadows of excessive wine consumption and cherry cigar smoke, laced with general stupidity and an inflated dominion of possibilities. After reviewing my lists in years gone by, I’ve made a new resolution: “Don’t. Drink. Cooking. Wine. When. Making. Lists.” Hence my disenchantment in the early days of January, when I find myself staring at a list of ridiculous resolutions scribbled on a page in black jiffy marker (half of which I can’t really make out), almost as though the thick ink strokes are mocking my lack of willpower. So instead of wallowing in pity at my remarkable lack of focus, I’ve decided to turn my attention to the bigger things, like how I want to live my life. Recently, I was asked by the lovely people down in the Weyburn area to come speak at their Thanks Offering service in Bromhead. (Bromhead is an adorable little hamlet down in southern Saskatchewan; as a side note, it makes my hometown of Mariapolis look positively booming, and that’s saying something.) When they asked me to come and speak to their group, I momentarily panicked. You see, I’m used to doing presentations, but for the most part they’re work related. Give me a graph or a PowerPoint presentation and ask me to waffle on about business process re-engineering, communication plans, budgets, internal controls, and I’m your gal. Yes, I’m a certified geek. Perhaps my degree in economics gave that away. But put me in front of a crowd with no PowerPoint to back me up, or numbers to talk about, well that’s just crazy. Then give me a microphone to boot, well, you could then safely call me armed and dangerous. So when I asked the lovely ladies what they wanted me to talk about exactly, they said, “Just about your life BY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

growing up on a farm, what you’re thankful for and what’s important to you. And don’t worry about preparing anything — just speak for about 20 minutes, kind of like a sermon!” Well, for starters, in regards to giving a sermon of any sort, please don’t ever confuse me with Jesus. I’m pretty certain he’s got my back but I’m also fairly certain he doesn’t want to be held responsible for a majority of the crap that flies out of my mouth. And because my parents are rather important to me, I don’t want them suffering from premature cardiac arrest, so I won’t share all my stories about growing up on a farm with five older brothers. I’ll write that little memoir to celebrate my 90th birthday, when I’m closer to planning my exit strategy. In regards to being thankful for what we’ve been given, I’ll share with you what I know, or what I think I know, most of which has been passed down to me from my parents and siblings, who have in one way or another, taught me all of the important lessons in life. Although I’m certain the editors at Grainews love me, they don’t love me quite enough to grant me a four-page spread so I’ve divided this article into four parts. So here goes. I’ve broken it down for you… life’s basic instructions, according to Janita. Part One. And if that doesn’t scare you into reading this, then I’m not sure what would.

HAVE FAITH In today’s world, it’s so easy to get deflated and feel like we’re not good enough. There’s always something that seems just out of our reach, and we think to ourselves, “Oh, if only I had that. Then I would really be happy.” Says who? Likely that pesky little voice inside your head telling you to work harder, get more, be more, get rid of that paunch, do something, anything, about those wrinkles, be craftier, have more energy and be just a little bit nicer, particularly to a two-year-old (or co-worker with similar mentality) who throws temper tantrums that would knock the snakes off Medusa’s head. When wanting to better ourselves and be more thankful for BY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

our blessings, I think it’s best to focus on what’s really important in life, which in effect acts as a beacon through difficult times. Being a mother to three children, I often wonder what the most important things are to teach them, given the overload of information and parental advice in today’s world. It’s one thing to tell them something, but quite another to live that way every day, to serve as a

“Don’t. Drink. Cooking. Wine. When. Making. Lists.” role model throughout their childhood. They’ll look anywhere for guidance and advice — clues as to how to act, what’s acceptable, what’s not — so we need to provide them with a solid footing for them to cling to throughout the trials in their life, which are bound to come. As parents, we want to shelter our children from teasing, bullying, from getting their hearts broken, when really, we can’t stop that from happening. Heck, I think it needs to happen to some extent.

Standing up to tyrants and dealing with crap is exactly what builds character. What we can give them though is the gift of faith, a foundation, to help make those inevitable heartaches a little more bearable. The world is full of people eager to knock them down, to tell them they’re not good enough, so there’s no need for them to do it to themselves. They need enough confidence and faith to know that they are here for a reason. They need to know that they are loved, no matter what. And that their best will always be enough.

BE INTELLIGENT Be hungry for it. And I’m not just talking about intellectual intelligence; today you can Google just about any topic and become an expert within the hour. I’m talking about emotional intelligence… having the ability to sense when those around you need help, or a hug or a shoulder to lean on. Be interested in others, for every person has a story. Learn from others — that way you’ll have information in your own head so you can make good choices in the moment. When presented with a difficult decision that you need to make in a split second, God help you if you have to search the Internet for a solution.

SASKATCHEWAN YOUNG AG-ENT 7.000X3.00 000022052r1 4C

Be intelligent in your choices; this life of yours isn’t a practice round. Be intelligent with your words; people may not remember exactly what you said or did, but they will always remember how you made them feel. Be intelligent through your actions; they speak volumes about the stuff you’re made of. And always picture the next scene — whether it be driving too fast or not treating your loved ones with the utmost care and respect. After it’s all said and done, you can never take it back. Simply put, once you’re in the ditch, you’re in it. And since I’ve spent the occasional stint in the odd ditch, I can tell you without hesitation there are much better ways to spend your time. To be continued… † Janita Van de Velde grew up on a farm near Mariapolis, Man. She holds a bachelor of science degree in agricultural economics from the University of Manitoba, and has worked for a financial institution since graduating. She lives in Regina, Sask., with her husband Roddy and their children Jack, Isla and James. Her first novel, Postcards Never Written, was the recipient of the Saskatchewan Reader’s Choice Award and also listed by CBC as one of the top funny books in 2009. She donates a portion of proceeds from the sale of her book to World Vision to help those less fortunate. For more information, or to order her book, visit her website at www.janita.ca. For additional, yetto-be-rated material, you can also follow her on her blog at www.postcardsneverwritten. blogspot.com. Consider yourself warned

/ grainews.ca

JANUARY 9, 2012

Home Quarter Farm Life

It’s all about the grass Holistic management is the key to this operation’s success BY CHRISTALEE FROESE

or Blaine Hjertaas, it’s all about the grass. Wherever his eye wanders on his 800acre farm near Redvers, Sask., it instinctively zeroes in on the grass, analyzing its height, its composition and, most importantly, its nutrient content. “See that area there?” he said pointing to a 10x10-foot block of emerging grass. “We had chickens there last year, so they left all kinds of fertilizer that has given us about three times as much grass as we had in that same spot 10 years ago.” It wasn’t always this way on the Hjertaas farm. From 1974 to 2000, the high-tech operation focused on expanding its land base, using large machinery and depending on chemicals to grow the southeast Saskatchewan grain farm. But in 2000, Blaine and his wife Naomi decided to take a risk and run their operation in a way that depended less on fossil fuels and more on the gifts from Mother Nature. Selling off their combines, air seeders and sprayers, the Hjertaases now operate their livestock operation with one skid steer and one grain auger. “We have so little money invested in overhead, and we don’t need operating loans, so we can make a good return on what we do produce.” The products of their labour are grass-fed chickens, free-range pigs, naturally fed cattle and rangeland sheep. “We get a lot of calls from people who eat our meat and say they’ve never had a chicken like that since grandma’s day,” said the 60-year-old farmer. “Or, someone will call us up saying they had dinner at someone’s house and they wanted to find us to see where they can get meat like that.” The secret to success for the operation, which now has taken

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son Martin and his partner Thyra into the fold, all rests on holistic management of the family’s 800 acres of pasture land. With a multi-paddock system containing 20 different species of native and tame grasses, Blaine claims his land produces four times the feed of a conventionally managed pasture of the same size. The grass management system depends on a series of electrical fences that are repositioned one to two times per day, meaning the animals are moved every 12 to 24 hours. The farm is divided into eight one-mile-long strips, as the 300 custom feeders and 70 farmowned cattle are moved twice daily during the growing season. As Blaine walks quietly into the pasture the cattle pay little attention, and instinctively move to the new growth area, leaving behind their old stomping ground that is now flattened, but not overgrazed. “The land is the ultimate resource on any farm, so any decision we make has to improve the health of the land.” The philosophy behind the short grazing periods lies in the theory that the cattle eat the succulents, while stomping down the taller grass and leaving litter behind for organic matter. Animal manure provides important nutrients, while also acting as a method for reseeding. If the plant mixture in any given pasture needs to be changed, Blaine simply adds seeds to the cattle’s salt ration which is then eaten by the livestock and passed back to the earth via manure. He finds a mixture of 20 pounds of loose salt to 10 pounds of legume seeds to be an optimal ratio. “Our system is working with nature so it doesn’t matter as much if it’s wet or dry or late or early because we can manage all that with the timing of our grazing.” While Blaine does feed purchased hay to his herd for about

The cattle pay no attention as Blaine Hjertaas works in the pasture. three months of the year, the majority of the diet is grass which leads to meat with a higher concentration of healthy conjugated linoleic acid and beta carotene. He doesn’t feed his cattle grain at all, finding it to be an expensive additive and an unnecessary nutritional component that leads to meat that is higher in less-healthy omega-6 fatty acids. Calving is also based on Mother Nature’s schedule and the availability of fresh grass, with the timing set as close to June 15 as possible when there is peak grass production. This date also gives the cows about a month to eat fresh grass that makes for healthier mothers, better milk production and stronger offspring. The Redvers rancher became a certified Holistic Management Educator in 2008 after two years of study. He speaks and teaches on the subject, having taught at the University of Manitoba for some of the first-ever university-level holistic management classes in Canada. He takes a very scientific and quantitative approach to the

business of livestock production, carefully calculating how many pounds of beef per acre he can produce. He has found that his feeder cattle gain 1.2 pounds daily on grass that nets about $100 per acre in profits. With the only inputs being the time it takes to maintain and move the fencing, Blaine has calculated that he earns about $125 per hour for the time he spends moving fence. While making a living is paramount, the holistic educator also prides himself on running a lowfuel-emissions operation which features peaceful animals, a quiet, quad-free environment, and a natural setting with lots of bush for shelter and three miles of underground piping for fresh drinking water. “Now, that right there is peace and contentment,” he said. “We’re producing food and we’re making the environment better at the same time because we’re sequestering carbon dioxide as the percentage of organic matter in the soil goes up.” As for the chickens, they’re placed in “chicken tractors” — chicken

wire cages that are about 10x10 feet that allow the chickens to feed on the grass below and allow the Hjertaases to move them regularly to fresh grass. What is left behind from the chicken tractors is a nutrient-rich layer of manure that creates a visible trail of bright-green grass behind. As for the 130 or so pigs, they are left to feed free range all winter long and the sheep are grass fed in a similar daily-movement system as the cattle. Overall, Blaine said his lowoverhead operation produces more nutritional products at a lower cost and benefits the environment. “When you eat something you grew that you’re totally in control of, that makes you feel pretty good.” The Hjertaases market their meat by word of mouth alone, selling at the farm gate and delivering to friends and neighbours within a 100-km radius. For more information on holistic agricultural management, contact Blaine at (306) 452-3882. † Christalee Froese writes from Montmartre, Saskatchewan

Preparing venison Although the season is over here’s some great field and meal tips

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By Suzanne Driessen University of Minnesota Extension

enison is a versatile meat, and there is a certain pride that comes when you bring it home fresh from the hunt. The thrill of the hunt can continue at the dinner table if the game is handled properly along the way to prevent foodborne illness and ensure good flavour.

Field dressing and transporting deer safely • Did you dress the carcass as soon as possible? It’s also important to clean your knife frequently between cuts to avoid contaminating the meat. • Did you remove any visible dirt, feces, hair and bloodshot areas?

• Did you keep the carcass clean and quickly cool it to 1.6 to 4.4 C (35 to 40 F) to prevent bacterial growth? One way to do this is to add ice sealed in plastic storage bags and pack them in the cavity. • Did you keep the carcass out of direct sunlight? Tying the carcass across the hood or roof of a car is not recommended. Properly cooled venison can spoil later by carrying it next to a hot motor. • How about storage? Storing the venison in the refrigerator is approved for immediate use. Freeze it if it will be used later than two to three days.

Cooking methods that enhance flavour The wild flavour of venison is related to what the animal eats. Removing connective tissue, silver skin, bone, hair and excess fat dur-

ing processing reduces the “gamey” taste. Undesirable flavours are also due to inadequate bleeding, delay in field dressing or failure to cool the carcass promptly. • Moist heat methods such as braising (simmering in a small amount of liquid in a covered pot) work well for tougher cuts like rump, round and shoulder. • Chops and steaks may be panfried or broiled. • Experiment with herbs like rosemary, marjoram, thyme and sage. Meat should always be marinated in the refrigerator. • Add other fats to keep game meat from becoming too dry. Rub a roast with oil, butter, margarine, bacon fat, sweet cream or sour cream to add moisture, richness and flavour. • Don’t overcook or cook at temperatures above 375 F, or the meat will get tough.

• Jerky made from beef or venison should be steamed, roasted or boiled to 71.1 C (160 F) before drying. Directions available atwww. extension.umn.edu/go/1086. Find directions for smoked sausage and summer sausage at www.extension.umn.edu/go/1087. • Some folks like venison medium rare. Bacteria on whole cuts, like steaks or roasts, are usually just on the surfaces so these cuts can be cooked to a minimum internal temperature of 62.7 C (145 F). Cook ground venison to 71.1 C (160 F). Find more information about preparing wild game safely a t w w w. e x t e n s i o n . u m n . e d u / go/1085. To learn more about food safety, visit www.extension. umn.edu/food-safety. † Suzanne Driessen is a food safety educator with University of Minnesota Extension

JANUARY 9, 2012

grainews.ca /

Home Quarter Farm Life SINGING GARDENER

Apple and prune benefits Plus, info on sea buckthorn and webworms TED MESEYTON

apple before going to bed, will make the doctor beg for his bread.

GOT ARTHRITIC PAIN?

pples are strong medicine. I, Ted, am urging Grainews readers to plant more apple trees. Now there’s a new “old proverb.” Also, other health-promoting stuff such as... prunes can contribute to strong bones... plus the challenges of successfully growing your own plums. Read on for the rest.

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE … if we could put a pair of handcuffs on illness and disease and then throw away the key for a long, long time; maybe even for the rest of our natural lives? Well we’re getting closer! There’s something special about hearing the snap when you bite into a homegrown apple (Malus) and some of the juice squirts on your face. I love it! But then who doesn’t? Not only are apples pleasant to eat but best of all — beneficial to the human body from the top of the head to the heels of feet. In other words, from brain to breath; from the pineal to the prostate; from toes to teeth; from the throat and tonsils to every gland, organ and nerve pathway in between. Study after study confirms the tremendous health-promoting power of apples. For example! A couple of fresh apples eaten daily and drinking pure apple juice may well contribute to improved memory, sustained brain health and help halt progression of Alzheimer’s disease. A mountain of ongoing research vigorously confirms that apples are also the near-perfect food for diabetics and those with heart disease, the wrong kind of cholesterol, obesity and constipation issues. The old proverb used to be an apple a day keeps the doctor away. But now, the new recommendation is two apples daily for optimum health benefits. It’s no surprise the following newer expression has surfaced. It goes like this: To eat an

A few weeks back I was at a thrift store and one of the lady volunteer workers said to me: “I’m trying your prune recipe for my arthritis.” I confirmed with her my belief that fresh and dried prune plums can really improve bone health and ease pain. I encouraged her to continue eating prunes along with other health-promoting foods, plus exercise appropriate to her age and lifestyle. Fortunately, dried prunes are available year round and here’s the best news. Recently, a team of researchers released study results in the esteemed British Journal of Nutrition. What a revelation to learn that a handful of naturally dried prune plums eaten daily can help prevent fractures and osteoporosis in the elderly. The research team leader says it’s great news, especially for post-menopausal women, who commonly struggle with the loss of bone density and an increased risk of fracture. The test group of women consumed 100 grams of dried plums daily. The control group consisted of women who ate 100 grams of other dried fruit each day, including dates, figs, raisins and strawberries. To complement their diets, all participants in the study received daily supplements of calcium (500 mg) and vitamin D (400 units). Comparisons confirmed there was no similar beneficial effect on bone density to what prunes provided. During the first five to seven postmenopausal years, women are at risk of losing bone at a rate of three to five per cent per year. Around the age of 65, men start losing bone with the same rapidity as women. The conclusion? Dried plums are an amazingly useful food resource for middle-aged individuals. Don’t wait for a fracture to happen or be diagnosed with osteoporosis. Consider eating two to three dried prune plums daily, then gradually increase to between six to 10 per day, depending on weight. Prunes can be eaten in all forms, including recipes. Matrimonial cake with prune plum filling instead of dates is tremendously delicious.

But like everything else — different people react differently to certain dietary and lifestyle changes and treatments. Results will not be immediate, so be patient.

SO YOU WANT TO GROW PLUMS! (GENUS PRUNUS) Although there are more than 2,000 plum varieties, most have regional application. Practically all plums are self-sterile and need to be cross-pollinated in order to produce fruit, so plant two of a different kind. Other family groupings such as Nanking cherry, sour cherries, plus ornamental flowering plum will also cross-pollinate with edible plums. Yet the question often arises… “why are plum trees so iffy and often short lived?” Plums are frequently affected by a deluge of bizarre and disgusting diseases such as brown rot, bacterial spot, black knot and plum pocket. The latter first appears as small, white, powdery blisters on the plum. As the fruit grows, these blisters enlarge rapidly. Before long, the entire plum blows up like a small balloon. It then withers, becomes hollow, distorted and covered with greyish mould-like spores. Infection sets in shortly after plum blossoms open, especially during a cool, wet spring. A reasonable measure of control is achieved with properly timed fungicide sprays. There’s a wide range of plum pests too. The apple maggot can be troublesome, destroying as much as 25 per cent of a plum crop. Then there’s plum curculio, red mites, twig borers, leafhoppers and various scale. Soft-bodied sucking scale insects called lecanium scale can be an issue. They exude a sticky type of honeydew on which grows ugly black mould. If abundant for several years, these scale insects can kill branches or even the entire tree. A bad scale outbreak is justification for application of a dormant oil spray as a pre-season cleanup of overwintering scale insects and other pests. Do this only during spring dormancy before the buds swell and sap flows. Choose a warm day because the oil-water mix must not freeze on the tree. Make sure coverage of twigs, branches and trunk is complete. Dormant oil con-

SUE ARMSTRONG

LOVE HEARING FROM YOU Do you have a story about a farm or home-based business? How about some household management tips? Does someone in the family have a special-diet need? Share some of your recipes and some meal ideas. Send them to FarmLife, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Manitoba R3H 0H1. Phone 1-800665-0502 or email susan@ fbcpublishing.com. Please remember we can no longer return photos or material. — Sue

PHOTOS: TED MESEYTON

Over 100 compounds have already been identified in sea buckthorn berries that contribute to wellness, good bodily function and improved skin hydration and elasticity. The tiny orange and yellow berries are rich in health-promoting and healing constituents, plus omega fatty acids 3, 6, 7 and 9 that benefit the heart and circulatory system. Solberry Sea Buckthorn Purée is made from 100 per cent pure fruit grown and harvested on our Canadian Prairies and contains no additives, no preservatives and no added water. The Singing Gardener adds Solberry Sea Buckthorn Purée to his Ted’s Tonic recipe. centrate is available at garden centres, as well as a commercial natural lime sulphur insecticide/fungicide for both dormant and growing-season application. If you choose to make your own dormant oil spray, a fruit specialist suggests a five per cent solution of light vegetable oil such as sunflower or canola mixed with water (i.e. five per cent oil, 95 per cent water) and a bit of soap.

A FALL WEBWORM NEST … is something I came upon last August on an apple tree. There’s usually only one generation per season here in Canada. The adults are white moths with a 55-mm wingspan bearing brown spots. Females lay masses of 400 or more white eggs on the underside of leaves. In about two weeks they hatch and develop into pale-green or yellow caterpillars covered in long, soft hair. True to its descriptive name, these larvae make silk nests close to branch tips and feed on leaves. Such an infestation can be controlled by cutting off and destroying the affected branch. A measure of prevention can be gained by spraying early in the season with B.T.K., (bacillus thuringiensis) a biological bacterial organism insecticide which kills caterpillars.

SEA BUCKTHORN AND MAPLE SYRUP Female webworm moths can lay masses of 400 or more white eggs on the underside of apple and other fruit tree leaves. Once hatched, the larvae develop into pale-green or yellow caterpillars, covered in long, soft hair. They feed on foliage close to branch tips that dry and wither, while spinning silk nests.

… are two ingredients in my Ted Tonic recipe. I buy Sea Buckthorn Purée at a health food store and add some each time I make my tonic drink. I take this pick-me-up once

daily, especially during winter. It’s a blend of what I believe to be several health-promoting ingredients, including pure Neighbourhood Maple Syrup, made from Prairiegrown Manitoba and silver maples, tapped by Mitchell Omichinski of Portage la Prairie. (See my Grainews article September 2011 issue, page 38.) This spring, Mitch will increase the number of taps he’ll have on the go by almost 100 per cent, to about 1,000 trees. Albeit, if ideal weather prevails, Mitch expects to again turn harvested sap into “maple syrup that oozes like liquid gold.” Maybe you’d like to grow sea buckthorn shrubs? This is a versatile plant that makes a good hedge and begins to fruit in about three years after planting. Sea buckthorn is very drought tolerant and capable of withstanding alkali and nutrientpoor soils. But do provide a welldrained location as it won’t tolerate waterlogged areas. Tiny yellow flowers appear early in spring, followed by clustered yellow and orange berries in fall. Check at local nurseries and garden centres for sea buckthorn plants or via catalogues from T & T Seeds in Winnipeg and McFayden’s in Brandon, Man. † This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie, Man. Trustworthy, reliable people are always there when it counts. They come from all walks of life, whether a gardener or a guru; a farmer or a filling station attendant. You don’t have to be a philanthropist to leave your mark in this world. All it comes down to is an upbeat attitude, a kind heart, a willingness to help and a genuine, warm smile. Top it off with plenty of hearty laughs. After all, laughter is good medicine, so let’s not keep it bottled. Reminds me of a song I wrote called: A Smile Is So Contagious. My email address is singinggardener@mts.net

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