GNN121022 by Farm Business Communications

Volume 38, Number 16 | OCTOBER 22, 2012

$4.25

PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER

www.grainews.ca

Ten new cereals for 2013

The new wheat, barley and oat varieties available to western farmers come with higher yield and improved disease resistance BY LEE HART

here aren’t a lot of new cereal varieties coming to the western Canadian market in 2013, but many of the 10 wheat, barley and oat varieties being introduced have significant improvements in disease resistance and agronomic traits worth noting. Both Syngenta and Canterra have new Canada Prairie Spring (CPS) varieties available in 2013. Canterra’s AC Conquer was available on a limited basis

Five new wheat varieties for 2012 and has much wider availability this year. Along with high yield and good agronomics, it also has wheat midge resistance. Syngenta is releasing SY985 CPS wheat — one of the first high yielding CPS varieties — with milling quality comparable to a hard red spring wheat, says Todd Ormann, cereal portfolio manager for Syngenta. “Farmers can get the best of both worlds,” he says. “The potential for quality wheat, with all the yield that comes with CPS.” Among SeCan’s new varieties, AC Vesper is a new Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat. It is the fourth midge-tolerant variety SeCan has introduced, and this one comes with a “real yield bump,” says Todd Hyra, SeCan’s business manager in Western Canada. SeCan is also introducing AC Whitehawk, a hard white spring wheat which will be produced under IP contract through Richardson Pioneer. Hyra says Whitehawk has “a great quality profile” that really defines the hard white wheat class.

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There are 10 new wheat varieties on the market for Western Canadian farmers to consider when making plans for 2013. FP Genetics, based in Regina, has the only new durum variety for 2013. With good agronomics and an improved disease package, AC Transend apparently “sets a new standard” for amber durum on the Prairies. SeCan’s CDC Carter barley has improved smut tolerance which may be of interest to a lot of farmers, but is of particular interest to organic growers, who aren’t able to use chemical fungicides. And AC Bradley is a good all round white hulled milling oat. Although it was developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Ottawa, AC Bradley appears to have a very good fit in

Western Canada, both yield-wise and agronomically. The other new oat variety, CDC Seabiscuit, marketed by Canterra Seeds, is one of the newest milling oat varieties to come from the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre, with features that offer great promise for both farmers and processors. Bob Mastin, a seed grower from Sundre, Alta., northwest of Calgary, has the only new winter wheat variety released in 2013. Pintail was developed by Alberta Agriculture breeders at Lacombe. “It is a great variety with the highest level of winter hardiness of all winter wheats,” says Mastin.

“And it has the 20 to 25 per cent improved yield that winter wheats deliver over hard red spring wheat.” He was very impressed with a stand that produced many seven-inch long seed heads.

WHEAT Here are five new wheat varieties reported by western Canadian seed companies available for commercial production in 2013. SY985, CPSR Syngenta The first high yielding Canada Prairie Spring Red wheat with milling quality.

In This Issue

A CPS variety with: • medium milling quality; • medium protein (meeting the needs of most milling wheat markets); • higher milling quality than U.S. hard red winter wheat (the highest volume milling wheat type in the world); and, • fast, strong and uniform emergence. This variety has a high test weight, with excellent protein (up to one per cent higher than the pack of leading varieties), and excellent harvestability.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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

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

Crop Advisor’s Casebook

Columns ........................... 21 Machinery & Shop ............ 30 Cattleman’s Corner .......... 35

Goss’s wilt more prevalent in corn fields ANGELA LOVELL PAGE 6

Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show

SCOTT GARVEY PAGE 32

FarmLife ............................ 41

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Wheat & Chaff LEEANN MINOGUE

“It’s OK kids, they’re just politicians.”

Write, Email or Fax SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES: Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (CST) 1-800-665-0502

U.S. subscribers call 1-204-944-5568 or email: subscription@fbcpublishing.com If you have story ideas, call us. You can write the article and we’d pay you, or we can write it. Phone Leeann Minogue at 306-861-2678 Fax to 204-944-5416 Email leeann.minogue@fbcpublishing.com Write to Grainews, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1

HEARTS

For most farmers across the Prairies, harvest is over. At our farm, we managed to get the crop off without any major problems, but yields were not what we hoped. We aren’t alone. On Oct. 4, Statistics Canada released its September crop estimates, reporting a 17.5 per cent drop in canola yields compared with last year — an average yield of only 28.2 bushels per acre. Things weren’t so bad in Alberta, where average canola yields were about 35.6 bushels, but that was still a slight decline from last year. While StatsCan reported more canola harvested in Manitoba in 2012 than in 2011, this was due to more seeded acres. Yields were still down significantly compared to last year. Nationally, average wheat yields (excluding durum) are about average — 42.1 bushels per acre as compared with 44 bushels per acre last year. Manitoba yields were slightly above last year; average yields in Saskatchewan and Alberta were slightly below. That matches the experience on our farm as well. While we’d gone into the good-looking canola fields expecting great yields and been disappointed, we got more or less what we expected from the wheat. For better or worse, the grain is in the bin and the combine is on its way back to the shed. But, before we can officially declare an end to this harvest season, there’s one final stage we have to survive.

THE WORST PART

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You know harvest is officially, finally over for the season when someone comes in from the shed looking embarrassed, carrying that one last lunch cooler with his arm outstretched, to keep it as far away from his nose as he can. “Sorry. Somebody must’ve left this out in the truck.” If you don’t live on a farm, you might not have a clear idea of exactly how disgusting this one last cooler is going to be. Maybe your kid is the kind who hides his school lunchkit in the back of the closet from the last day of June until the first day of school next September. That’s gross. But the farm cooler is worse. Unsupervised lunchkits generally have some air openings. They might smell bad for a while, but left on their own long enough, food leftovers eventually desiccate into dry blobs. Today’s good quality airtight coolers let that leftover lunch marinate in its own juices. For months and months. Unsupervised lunchkits typi-

cally get hidden (or shall we say “stored?”) somewhere in the house. Farm coolers are left to fend for themselves out in the hot sun. Even the best cooler can’t stay cool or even room temperature in a truck cab for four days in a Prairie heat wave, when the sun is magnified by the windshield glass. That one last cooler is unspeakably gross. As my neighbour said in the post office last week (I’ll call her Penny, but that’s not her name), “You know it’s a bad one when you have to use the pressure washer.” I take some small comfort in knowing for a fact that I’m not the only one.

THE STRATEGY That last lunch cooler is always the worst one of the season. This is partly because it’s been out in the truck longer, but also a mental phenomena. Just when you think you’re done cleaning gunk out of coolers for another crop year, that one last cooler finds it’s way into the house. But while the last one is gross, it’s certainly not the only delinquent cooler to come home during the year needing extra cleaning. Farmers are busy. There’s a lot of moving around from cab to cab, jumping from the combine to a shift in the grain cart to a turn in the grain truck, then taking the one-ton truck on a quick trip to town to pick something up. It’s perfectly understandable that someone could leave their lunch in a cab in a field somewhere. Especially at the end of the day, when everyone is so tired all they want to do is fall asleep in a quiet place until the whole circus starts again the next morning. As the main lunch preparer on our farm, I’m generally in charge of the coolers. And I’ve come to realize I’m following the wrong strategy. I have the wrong number of lunch coolers. I have just enough that if someone misplaces their cooler for a few days, they can take their lunch in one of a few backup coolers. There are almost no consequences for the cooler-forgetter, and no way I can avoid cleaning out the gross coolers when they finally make their way back to the kitchen. I don’t have a lot to spare. Penny at the post office has a better plan. She has lots of coolers. She looked around to make sure nobody else could overhear before she told me this (this is why I can’t use her name). Last year, when a really gross cooler came home, Penny took one look inside and… just threw it away! (Don’t tell her motherin-law.) I was shocked by this, until I did a cost/benefit analysis. If you find a really good sale on lowquality coolers at a big-box store, you can throw out at least four a season and it’s still cheaper than

paying for the psychiatric help you need after cleaning out the most vile lunch coolers during a long hot harvest. Having a lot of cheap coolers is a definite winning strategy. Another option I’m thinking of trying next year is fewer coolers. One per customer. If you don’t bring your lunch cooler home at the end of the day, there’s no lunch tomorrow. (Well, I’m not that cruel. I might offer one of those flip top cans of beans with a plastic spoon). Under a limited-cooler regime, there would be clear consequences associated with leaving the cooler in the cab. I’m willing to bet that after three or four days of brown beans for lunch, everyone would be on board with bringing their cooler in at the end of the work day, even if it meant a late night trip back to the field to track it down.

IT GETS WORSE I was planning to spend the winter deciding if I have too many coolers or too few. Writing lists of pros and cons. Consulting with experts (Mom? What do you think?) I was pretty sure I could come up with a solution for next year. Until I found out about the new combine. The combine that’s under construction for our farm comes with a built-in cooler. That’s right. A cooler in the cab. Apparently, it fits under the buddy seat, and will be a great place for the combine operator to store his lunch without cluttering up the floor. Thanks a lot, Case. Now if I can just figure out a way to get the pressure washer up into the cab.

IN THIS ISSUE With disappointing canola yields, maybe you’re planning longer rotations for 2013, and looking to plant cereals on a few more acres. Lee Hart’s written our cover story just for you — a list of 10 new cereal varieties you should take a look at before next spring. Syngenta announced a new variety after we’d finished the article, so you can read about that one in the Wheat and Chaff section on page 3. You think the Farm Progress Show is big? Scott Garvey saw Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock, Ont., this year. Area-wise, it’s the biggest. You can read about it on page 32. Or you can read my non-farming aunt’s take on the show — she and her husband took a drive over from London, Ont., to see what all the fuss was about. Her email subject line was “Wow what a farm show!” In the message, Aunt Lois said, “My goodness half of Ontario was there. There were even ATMs and a beer tent!” Enjoy this issue. Leeann

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Wheat & Chaff Farm finance

Grain markets

Cargill facility near Camrose

argill announced new plans to build a canola processing facility near Camrose, Alta. Subject to receiving all required approvals, Cargill expects construction to be completed in time for the 2014-15 canola harvest. The new crush facility is projected to have the capacity to process 850,000 tonnes of canola per year and will serve Alberta canola farmers by providing a consistent and competitive point of delivery. This investment in Alberta will generate approximately 800,000 hours of employment throughout the construction phase. In addition, Cargill expects that 50 permanent full time positions will be created. “This is our second major Canadian investment in canola crushing, and demonstrates our confidence in the continued growth and competitiveness of the canola industry in this country. The facility will have the capacity to process both conventional and specialty canola seed which will enable us to significantly increase our contracting programs in the area,” said Ken Stone, commercial manager for Cargill’s Canadian canola processing business. “Canola continues to be a very competitive crop for the Canadian grower and

Camrose is an excellent location for valueadded canola processing. In the 2012-13 growing season, canola acres in Canada were over 21 million; we see that as an indication that the industry will continue to grow, driven by competitive access to a large North American livestock industry for canola protein meal and continued strong demand for canola oil. We are very excited about this new opportunity and believe it positions Cargill, the Camrose area, and the Alberta farmer for future growth in the canola business,” added Mark Stonacek, president of Cargill’s North American grain and oilseed business. This announcement will allow for additional economic activity in Camrose and will add to the company’s footprint in the province. In Alberta, Cargill currently operates 21 locations and employs over 2,700 people. On August 9, Cargill reported $1.17 billion in earnings from operations in the fiscal year ended May 31, 2012. This is a 56 per cent decrease from their record earnings of $2.69 billion in the previous fiscal year. † www.cargill.ca

Cash advances for winter wheat

armers planting winter cereals can now apply for a 2013-14 cash advance on their newly seeded winter wheat or fall rye. The Canadian Canola Growers Association (CCGA) began accepting applications for the 2013-14 Advance Payments Program for Winter Cereals on October 1, 2012. “A farm’s fall cash flow needs are often high,” says Rick White, general manager of CCGA. “A cash advance provides inexpensive cash flow, doesn’t tie up farm assets as collateral and provides farmers with the added flexibility of timing their grain sales when it’s most advantageous.”

“The Advance Payments Program for winter cereals is a 24-month program that kicks off October 1, 2012 and wraps up September 30, 2014,” says Janet Morgan, manager of program administration at CCGA. “Farmers can apply for an advance on winter wheat or fall rye right from their telephone by calling our toll-free customer service centre at 1-866-7452256.” They can also apply online or download an application form at www.ccga.ca. Printed applications will soon be available at local grain elevators. † Canadian Canola Growers Association

Grain marketing

CWB pool open until end of month

WB’s harvest pool remains open for farmer sign-up until Oct. 31. It’s early delivery pool closed at noon on October 2, after the original deadline of September 28 was extended due to technical delays.

Once the harvest pool closes at the end of October, farmers will still be able to sell to the CWB through cash contracts, but there will no other pooling opportunities throughout the winter. † CWB.ca

Farm safety

Grain Vacuum Safety

ust like your household vacuum, grain vacuums are designed to make light work of a tedious chore. Pneumatic conveying machines can suck grain out of bins at a rate of about a thousand bushels an hour. Beats the shovel, but there are some risks worth noting. To begin, consider the size of a human being. The average human body is only equivalent to about a few bushels of grain. So when an operator enters a grain bin or other flat storage surface to sweep a vac hose or wand over grain, this can pose a serious entrapment risk, even when sucking up the dregs of the bin. For example, let’s say it’s late

in the afternoon, and a farmer needs to get the crop to a processor by five. The farmer is in a hurry, and walks onto a shallow pile of grain, alone, dragging the grain vac. If the farmer isn’t careful, no one will be going anywhere. A person can become entrapped and unable to move when buried above the knees in grain. At this point, it takes about 325 pounds of force over and above the weight of the entrapped person to extricate them from this situation. So how does one become entrapped using a grain vac? Remember that the suction power of these devices is very strong. If an operator drops or lets go

New varieties

photo contest

New wheat from Syngenta

yngenta has launched its newest wheat variety, Canadian Prairie Spring Red (CPSR) SY985. It offers high yield potential and milling quality grain. “The CPSR class of wheat was originally developed as a high-yielding industrial wheat class, for uses such as ethanol and feed. Through our extensive breeding programs, Syngenta has developed the highest grain quality CPSR varieties currently available in Western Canada. Now, with SY985, Syngenta has brought to market a CPSR variety that offers milling wheat grain quality,” explains Todd Ormann, crop portfolio manager, cereals, for Syngenta. “With its level of protein and milling quality, SY985 meets the needs of the largest traded milling wheat

of the nozzle, the attachment can become buried in grain very quickly. If the operator tries to lift the nozzle out of the grain while the machine is in on, this can cause the vac to suck up grain around their feet. It can work like quicksand; they can be buried in seconds. The deeper an operator is buried, the greater the pressure and the more dire the situation. When buried up the chest, every time an entrapped person breathes, grain flows into the space created by the movement of their chest. With each breath, pressure increases until breathing becomes impossible and suffocation can occur.

type in the world, creating a potential new market for Western Canadian growers.” In trials conducted this past spring, SY985 yielded 126 per cent versus the check (AC Taber) in Alberta and 114 per cent versus the check (AC Barrie) in Saskatchewan. Much of this variety’s yield performance is due to the fact that it emerges fast and strong out of the ground with exceptional uniformity. SY985 features short straw, excellent standability and good lodging resistance, as well as very good resistance to leaf, stem and stripe rusts, loose smut and bunt. With a solid test weight, SY985 is among the heaviest wheats, with excellent protein, up to one per cent higher than leading varieties. † www.syngenta.ca

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT Collette Hill sent us this gorgeous photo. She took it when she stopped to see her father one night while he was out swathing barley. The photo was taken in Gordon Thurston’s barley field, north of Irma, Alberta. We’re sending Collette a cheque for $25. If you’d like to see your photo on this page and receive $25 for yourself, send your best shot to leeann.minogue@ fbcpublishing.com. Please send only one or two photos at a time and include your name and address, the names of anyone in the photo, where the photo was taken and a bit about what was going on that day. A little write-up about your farm is welcome, too. Please ensure that images are of high resolution (1 MB is preferred), and if the image includes a person, we need to be able to see their face clearly. — Leeann

If completely submerged, an entrapped person will suffocate in minutes. Between 1990 and 2008, 58 people died in silo/grain binrelated fatalities across Canada. While some died from falls or were overcome by silo gases, many lost their lives after becoming entrapped in grain. While a grain vac may seem like a quick, safe way to handle grain, it can become very dangerous if not used properly. Never work alone. Do not walk on top of grain that is more than 1.5 metres deep unless another person is with you and you are attached to a safety line. Vacuum from the outside wall inward, this will reduce the risk of engulfment. Never position the nozzle near or between your feet when standing on grain, this

is extremely dangerous and can cause a quicksand effect. Instead move the nozzle frequently to keep the grain surface level and prevent the formation of a cone. Do not operate a grain vac unless the intake nozzle is outfitted with an air-adjustment gate. When opened, the gate can stop or significantly slow down the flow of grain. Make sure there is someone near the grain vac controls so they can shut down the machine immediately in an emergency situation. And exercise extreme caution when vacuuming spoiled grain or other sticky material. If you own or operate a grain vac, don’t put yourself at risk. Take every precaution necessary. It could save your life. † Canadian Agricultural Safety Association — www.planfarmsafety.ca

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Cover Stories new varieties » CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Disease package: R to stem rust, MR (moderately resistant) to leaf and stripe rust and general leaf spot complex, and I (intermediate resistance) to fusarium head blight. This seed has: • good lodging resistance; • maturity equal to Barrie; • slightly lower protein; and, • a good overall agronomic profile.

10 new cereals for 2013 AC Conquer VB, CPSR Canterra Seeds AC Conquer VB is suited to all wheat growing areas of the western Prairies, in particular, areas where the orange wheat blossom midge occurs. This is is the only CPSR that is resistant to wheat midge. AC Conquer VB: • has high yield potential; • matures 0.5 of a day later than 5701PR and one day later than 5702PR; and, • is rated R (resistant) to stem rust, bunt and stripe rust.

AC Vesper VB, CWRS SeCan This second-generation midgetolerant wheat provides high yield potential (120 per cent of AC Barrie), large seed and high test weight. AC Vesper VB is ranked number one for yield in Saskatchewan and Manitoba seed guides. A good seed supply is expected for 2013.

CDC Stanley, CWRS Viterra CDC Stanley is high yielding, compared to AC Barrie: 118 per cent in Sask., 123 per cent in Alta., and 115 per cent in Man.

AC Whitehawk, CWHWS SeCan AC Whitehawk is an improved quality hard white wheat with very early maturity (two days ear-

SEED COMPANY CONTACTS Here is contact information for seed companies with new cereal varieties for 2012. Call them or visit their websites to get more information on varieties or to find a retailer nearest you.

Canterra Seeds

Viterra

1-866-744-4321 www.canterra.com

1-866-569-4411 www.viterra.ca seed.questions@viterra.ca

SeCan

1-403- 994-2609 www.mastinseeds.com

Syngenta Seeds Canada

FP Genetics

1-800-756-7333 www.nkcanada.com

Winter wheat There is one new winter wheat variety available for 2013. intail, Awnless P GP Winter Wheat Mastin Seeds This variety was developed by the Alberta Agriculture Field Crop Development Centre at Lacombe, Alta. Pintail has the highest winter hardiness and highest yields of check varieties. Pintail winter wheat: • is well adapted to the Parkland region; • is resistant to stripe rust; • has good lodging resistance; • has moderate resistance to leaf spots and powdery mildew; • has intermediate resistance to stem and leaf rust. There is limited seed availability for 2013.

Durum Grainews found only one new durum variety for 2013. AC Transcend, CWAD FP Genetics AC Transcend is a new highyielding Canadian Western Amber Durum with a strong agronomic package, low cadmium and excellent quality characteristics desired by end-users — good protein and strong color. This variety is resistant to stem rust, leaf rust, common bunt and leaf spot and has improved fusarium head blight resistance. It also has good lodging resistance.

Mastin Seeds

1-800-764-5487 www.secan.com

lier than AC Barrie) and mediumshort with strong straw. Identity-preserved contracts are required through Richardson Pioneer.

1-877-791-1045 www.fpgenetics.ca

Barley There is one new variety to consider for 2013. CDC Carter, Two-row Hulless Barley SeCan CDC Carter is a smut-resistant hulless barley with excellent threshability and a solid disease package. It makes a great fit for food or feed. This variety is similar to CDC McGuire in yield and agronomics, but offers the advantage of smut resistance in a hulless variety.

1 6 6 6 D u b l i n Av e n u e , W i n n i p e g , MB R 3 H 0 H 1 w w w. g r a i n e w s . c a PUBLI SHER

Bob Willcox Associate Publisher/ Editorial director

John Morriss

Edito r

Leeann Minogue field Ed itor

Lisa Guenther Cattleman’s Corner Editor

Lee Hart Farmlife Edit or

Sue Armstrong

Oats

Machinery EDITOR

There are two new oat varieties to check out for next spring. AC Bradley, white hulled milling oat SeCan This is a high-yielding, earlymaturing white hulled variety, currently under milling evaluation. AC Bradley is moderately susceptible to both leaf and stem rust. It provides short, strong straw and a reasonable disease package. DC Seabiscuit, C White milling oat Canterra Seeds This variety is best suited to the non-rust areas of Western Canada. CDC Seabiscuit exhibits high grain yield with an excellent milling yield and plump kernels. It is similar in maturity, height and test weight to AC Morgan, and has good straw strength. It is rated MR to smut, and MR/MS (moderately susceptible) to stem rust. † Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com.

Scott Garvey Pro duction Dir ecto r

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Steven Cote MARKETING /CI RCUL ATION Director

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Circulation manage r

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EXTENDED OUTLOOK FOR THE PRAIRIES Weather Forecast for the period of October 7 to November 3, 2012

Southern Alberta

Peace River Region October 7 - 13 Cooler temperatures and frosty nights. Fair overall, aside from some snow in central and northern areas, chance of heavy in places.

October 7 - 13 Windy at times with cooler temperatures and frosty nights. Fair overall aside from rain in the south on 1 or 2 occasions.

October 14 - 20 Weather conditions fluctuate this week ranging from fair to unsettled , with rain becoming mixed with snow in central and northern areas.

October 14 - 20 Weather conditions fluctuate this week ranging from fair to unsettled , with rain . Windy at times. Expect frost on most nights.

October 21 - 27 Fair and seasonal most days apart from rain on a couple of days in the south, and rain mixed with snow in the north. Chance of heavy snow in the north.

October 21 - 27 Fair and seasonal most days apart from rain on a couple of days in the south. Chance of heavy snow in the north.

21.7 mms

October 14 - 20 The weather varies this week from fair and dry to wet and blustery. Temperatures fluctuate from cold to mild. Some snow in central and northern areas. October 21 - 27 Temperatures vary with some sub zero lows. Blustery at times. Fair, except for scattered rain on a couple of occasions. October 28 - November 3 Fair overall, but rain on 2 or 3 days mixed with snow in central and northern areas.

Manitoba October 7 - 13 A couple of cooler, windy outbreaks bring rain to the south, with changeable temperatures trending to the cool side. Cool in the north with snow. October 14 - 20 Fair skies on many days will be followed by scattered rain and blustery winds. Temperatures vary from cool to mild, but average near normal. October 21 - 27 Mostly fair this week aside from rain on a couple of days. Temperatures fluctuate from mild to cool with a few sub zero lows. October 28 - November 3 Fair overall, aside from rain on a couple of days in the south, changing to snow in the north. Seasonal to occasionally mild. Brisk winds.

-2 / 11 Edmonton

NEAR NORMAL

-1 / 10 Jasper

30.9 mms

-1 / 10

30.3 mms

Banff

-3 / 12 Red Deer 20.2 mms

-1 / 13 Calgary

15.5 mms

0 / 14 Medicine Hat cms Lethbridge 15.519mms 15.9 mms 26 cms 1 / 14

-1 / 11 North Battleford

1/8 The Pas

-3 / 10 Prince Albert

13.6 mms

-1 / 11 Saskatoon 16.9 mms

33.2 mms

21.6 mms

BELOW NORMAL

-1 / 11 Yorkton

-1 / 11 Dauphin

1 / 11 -2 / 12 24.5 mms 31.2 mms 0 / 13 Gimli Regina -1 / 12 Moose Jaw 20.3 mms 39.8 mms Swift 18.3 mms 1 / 12 -2 / 12 Current Portage 0 / 11 -1 / 12 Brandon 32.7 mms Winnipeg 17.5 mms Weyburn 22.2 mms 29.5 mms 19.7 mms 0 / 13 Estevan Melita -2 / 13 21.3 mms

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Precipitation Forecast 17.3 mms

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

October 7 - 13 Cooler, windy outbreaks bring rain on a couple of occasions this week. Frosty nights. On fair weather days, temperatures average close to normal.

October 28 - November 3 Seasonal to cool with a few sub zero lows. Fair skies interchange with some rain.

October 28 - November 3 Seasonal to cool with a few sub zero lows. Fair skies interchange with some rain, mixed or changing to snow in central and northern areas.

-1 / 10 Grande Prairie

Saskatchewan

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

28.2 mms

Precipitation Outlook For October 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 November 12, 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.

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Features SEED TECHNOLOGY

Disease resistance key to new variety development When it comes to developing canola genetics, yield is still king, for now BY LISA GUENTHER

nsects, heat, hail and wind were only part of the problem. Diseases such as sclerotinia did significant damage to canola crops this growing season. Statistics Canada’s experimental Crop Condition Assessment Program initially estimated the Western Canadian canola harvest at over 16 million metric tonnes, averaging 34.2 bushels per acre. But Stats Can’s October 4 estimate dropped the estimated canola harvest to 13.4 million metric tonnes, with an average yield of 28.2 bushels per acre. Developing new varieties that are more disease resistant is becoming more and more important.

SCLEROTINIA RESISTANCE Chris Anderson, the canola breeding lead with Monsanto Canada, says that as canola acres grow, Monsanto’s plant breeders are looking for new resistance sources and focusing on building durable resistance into plants. Anderson explains that by not relying on a single gene to give a new variety resistance, plant breeders hope to cut the risk of diseases overcoming that resistance. Pioneer Hi-Bred released two new sclerotinia tolerant canola varieties in introductory volumes this year:

D3154S and 45S54. DuPont retailers will sell D3154S, and Pioneer’s sales reps will market 45S54 in commercial volumes in 2013. The two new varieties have had similar performance and disease resistance levels in the trials leading up to this year, says Dave Harwood, senior research manager at Pioneer Hi-Bred. Pioneer is awaiting this year’s results, but Harwood expects both varieties to shine with the high sclerotinia levels. He adds that Pioneer characterizes its sclerotinia tolerant varieties as having moderate resistance. “It means that under moderate to low (disease) pressures a producer could not use a fungicide and (still) have protection from the disease. It means under high levels of pressure, such as the Red River Valley where they can have sclerotinia virtually every year, the combination of the trait with a crop protection product, a fungicide, is a good twopronged approach to minimizing yield loss from sclerotinia.” Pioneer isn’t the only company turning its attention to sclerotinia. Bayer Crop Science plans to roll out a sclerotinia tolerant InVigor hybrid in 2014. Blaine Woycheshin, manager of Bayer’s oilseed crops, describes the new variety as “the first line of defence for growers in areas where disease pressure is not always

present and the decision to spray is difficult.” “However, under extreme sclerotinia pressures, I believe growers may still have to use integrated management systems,” which he says would include a fungicide such as Proline.

AGRONOMIC PRACTICES STILL KEY Yield is still Canterra Seeds’ number one priority when selecting varieties from breeding partners. Brian Cummings, sales director, says that Canterra combines yield with other desirable traits such as standability, early or late maturity, and high oil content. Clubroot and blackleg resistance are included in disease packages. But sclerotinia tolerance isn’t a priority right now. “We would still encourage proper rotations and fungicides, particularly fungicides sprayed at the appropriate time. People are monitoring and being aware of the fact that disease is out there. And this year it was out there probably more than we’ve ever seen,” says Brian Cummings, director of sales for Canterra Seeds. He adds that while some varieties are more susceptible than others, there isn’t a shared rating for sclerotinia at this time. None of the agricultural company representatives contacted for

this interview suggested thatfarmers can avoid spraying when fields are heavily infected, even with the sclerotinia tolerant varieties currently available or set for release in the near future. Chris Anderson of Monsanto explains there are few genetic sources of true sclerotinia resistance for plant breeders to draw on, making it challenging to develop sclerotinia tolerant varieties. Monsanto is looking at sclerotinia tolerant varieties, but Anderson is hesitant to make any claims about tolerance levels before they’ve been evaluated.

BLACKLEG AND CLUBROOT Resistance to blackleg and clubroot is becoming more important as canola acres grow. “We don’t have a product that isn’t an R (rated as resistant) to blackleg. Again, that being said, that blackleg strain continues to evolve in western Canada. As we push our rotations… that blackleg R value is going to become even more important to customers,” says Brian Cummings of Canterra. Woycheshin says all of Bayer’s canola varieties are rated resistant to blackleg. Clubroot resistance is also a priority, and in 2012 Bayer released a new clubroot resistant variety, InVigor L135C. InVigor

L135C yielded at 138 per cent of the checks in the 2010 WCC/RCC Co-op Trials. “It’s an excellent combination of early maturity and high yield potential,” says Woycheshin. Monsanto is looking for new sources of clubroot resistance and plans to combine multiple sources of resistance in each hybrid, to prolong resistance. Monsanto’s plant breeders also plan to stack resistance traits, such as blackleg and clubroot, in one plant, Anderson adds. Pioneer’s Harwood calls any variety lacking blackleg resistance a deal-breaker. He thinks clubroot and sclerotinia resistant traits will become more in demand, and Pioneer plans to release more hybrids with moderate sclerotinia resistance in the near future. Pioneer’s long-term goals go beyond moderate resistance. Harwood adds that “…somewhere around 2015 we’ll be introducing materials that both stack sclerotinia and clubroot resistance, but as well elevate that level of sclerotinia resistance to something close to fungicide replacement where even in the high pressure zones, we’ll have a level of protection that will eliminate the need for fungicides.” † Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at lisa. guenther@fbcpublishing.com.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features CROP DISEASE

Damaged crops more susceptible to Goss’s wilt The bacterial disease Goss’s wilt has become more prevalent in Manitoba corn fields, but its severity is depends on local weather conditions BY ANGELA LOVELL

oss’s wilt is a bacterial disease which causes leaf and vascular blight. It can result in severely wilted plants and significant yield loss. Plants damaged by hail, wind or sand-blasting are susceptible to infection by the bacteria, which overwinters in corn stubble. Wet weather and high humidity favour development of the disease. “The severity varies from year to year and is closely related to wet, humid conditions, so the areas that were more severe this year were the areas that received some timely rains,” says Holly Derksen, a plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives. “For example the Altona area, in southcentral Manitoba, had some significant moisture during the growing season so they’ve seen more symptoms of Goss’s wilt as a result.” The disease will quickly develop and spread under such wet, humid conditions. “It’s not like it gets to a point where you think, ‘okay, this is as bad as its going to get,’” says Derksen. “As long as there is green tissue, and weather conditions are right, it can continue to spread. Once the crop is ripened it doesn’t spread as quickly or do as much damage.”

FINDING GOSS’S WILT Farmers are likely to notice Goss’s wilt first infecting patches along the edge of the field where residue from infected fields can blow in and land. The pathogen also enters leaf tissue which has been wounded by severe weather such as hail, wind or sand blasting, which is often worse around the outside edges of the crop. Although

PHOTOS: HOLLY DERKSEN, MAFRI

Goss’s wilt causes a foliar blight that destroys leaf tissue and causes the plant to wilt. Goss’s wilt can be seed borne, this has not been seen in Manitoba. Goss’s wilt causes a foliar blight that destroys leaf tissue and causes the plant to wilt. Other symptoms include lesions on the leaf that are parallel to the veins and can give a water soaked or freckled appearance, similar to bacterial blight, during the early stages of disease development. In the later stages, the disease produces an exudate (fluid that moves from the circulatory system into lesions or areas of inflammation) that makes the leaf appear shiny, with a peppering of black spots. It’s important for corn growers to correctly identify and diagnose Goss’s wilt. That will probably become easier the more familiar they become with the disease. “Your crop could also be wilt-

ing for other reasons as well, like environmental stress,” says Derksen. “But the symptoms of Goss’s wilt are quite different to other diseases because

Goss’s wilt, relatively new in Western Canada, will make corn leaves appear shiny. tify. If they’re not sure what is going on they should call their agronomist or send samples in for lab testing.”

SPREAD OF GOSS’S WILT

The primary defence against Goss’s wilt is genetic resistance it does give a shiny look to the leaves. So once producers become familiar with it they are probably less likely to misidentify it in the future, but initially, if they are unfamiliar with the disease, it may be hard to iden-

Goss’s wilt is a relatively new disease in Western Canada. It was first confirmed in corn fields near Roland, Manitoba in 2009. Since then, DuPont Pioneer has conducted extensive surveys of corn fields throughout Manitoba over the last three years and has found Goss’s wilt throughout all of the traditional corn growing areas. In 2011 they surveyed 270 corn fields and found the disease in 83 per cent of them, but at very low levels which resulted in virtually no yield loss. The data is still being evaluated for 2012, but Derksen doesn’t think it’s

Farmers love this. Prairie wheat growers are turning to midge tolerant wheat for midge control and high yields. And everyone wants this to continue. That’s the point of the Stewardship Agreement. The Agreement limits the use of farm-saved seed to one generation past Certified seed. It’s a simple step that keeps the interspersed refuge system at the desired level, preventing a build-up of resistant midge. Protect your yields and grade, and preserve this important tool for years to come. What’s not to love about that? Contact your retailer or visit www.midgetolerantwheat.ca to learn more about these new varieties and how the interspersed refuge system works.

going to cause major problems in most fields. “I think most farmers will only see a patch of Goss’s wilt here and there, and they are not going to see much yield loss,” says Derksen. “But I have heard of fields this year that are going to have a bigger yield loss, maybe up to 30 bushels per acre, where they had warm weather with adequate moisture.”

PROTECTION Because Goss’s wilt is a bacterial disease, fungicides are not effective. The best lines of defense are proactive. Tillage that buries infected residue and encourages decomposition can be effective to help reduce the rate of new infections. Controlling grassy weeds, such as foxtail or barnyard grass, reduces other plant sources that can act as a host for the pathogen. Crop rotations that include soybean, dry beans, small grains or alfalfa will also help to reduce the primary inoculum sources, but will not completely eliminate the bacteria, which can persist in the soil for some time, making it a recurring problem in subsequent corn crops even if other management measures are taken. The primary defence against Goss’s wilt is genetic resistance. Although there are many resistant corn varieties being grown successfully in the U.S., where Goss’s wilt has been much more prevalent, there are not yet any resistant varieties registered in Canada. That is soon likely to change, as many seed companies are working on corn varieties that provide resistance to Goss’s wilt. Dupont Pioneer is one of them and has hybrids with moderate resistance available to Canadian growers. “Our organization has a long history of breeding genetics with resistance to Goss’s wilt,” says Wilt Billing, DuPont Pioneer’s area agronomist for Manitoba. “We have used that knowledge gained over the last 50 years to begin breeding resistant hybrids or hybrids with increased toler-

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Features

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Farmers are likely to notice Goss’s wilt first infecting patches along the edge of the field.

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Because it’s a bacterial disease, fungicides are not effective against Goss’s wilt. ance to Goss’s wilt in our early maturing corn varieties for Canadian farmers.” In addition to new resistant varieties, says Billing, the company has conducted three years of nursery trials at Carman, Manitoba. These trials have helped them identify which of the hybrids already available in their current line have performed better when Goss’s wilt is present. Those particular varieties have been tested extensively through plots across Manitoba to compare their performance against competitive products and a susceptible check variety. “Through that effort we have been able to screen our current products in real world scenarios and we are fairly confident that there are products in our current line up

that can handle this disease very well,” says Billing. Billings is confident that farmers will soon be able to access some existing and new corn varieties from DuPont Pioneer which will carry a strong rating for resistance to Goss’s wilt. He feels that those varieties may be quickly embraced by Western Canadian corn growers, not because Goss’s wilt has been a huge problem to date but because it could be in the future. “I think growers will choose to grow varieties resistant to Goss’s wilt for the same reason they grow Bt corn,” says Billing. “They don’t know whether the pests are going to show up but use it as an insurance policy.” †

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features CROP PRODUCTION

A LIGHTER SHADE OF GREEN

CROP ADVISOR’S CASEBOOK BY ANDRE LAFORGE

t was mid-June when Art, who farms 1,500 acres of canola, wheat, peas, oats and barley 10 miles east of Carrot River, Sask., noticed a problem developing in his oat crop. Art had reason to be concerned. Areas of his field had deteriorated over a matter of days, and were showing patches of pale green leaves. “It looks like I turned the ammonia applicator on and off,” Art told me over the phone. “But that can’t be the case because the

problem is showing in an irregular pattern.” Art suggested that 3-1/2 inches of rainfall a few days before had caused the nitrogen to leach below the root zone. Soon after his call, I headed out to Art’s field to see the crop for myself. Once there, I found his crop in exactly the condition he had described — irregular patches of light-green leaves were discolouring an otherwise healthy-looking crop. On closer observation, however, I saw that only the newer leaves of many plants sported the pale green colour — the

older leaves had maintained their natural healthy green hue. Generally, in the case of a rainfall heavy enough to cause nitrogen leaching, the whole plant is affected, not just the new growth — so a nitrogen deficiency couldn’t be causing the discolouration. “What did you grow on this field before this crop?” I asked Art. Art said he’d grown alfalfa for the local processor for three years prior to the oat crop. No fertilizer had been applied on the alfalfa field, although he had a fertility program in place

for the oats, which included nitrogen. “I think I know what’s troubling your oats, but we’ll have to do a tissue test just to make sure,” I told Art. What’s caused the discolouration of Art’s oat crop? Send your diagnosis to Grainews, Box 9800, Winnipeg, MB, R3C 3K7; email leeann.minogue@fbcpublishing.com or fax 204-944-5416 c/o Crop Advisor’s Casebook. Best suggestions will be pooled and one winner will be drawn for a chance to win a Grainews cap and a one-year subscription to the magazine. The answer, along with the reasoning which solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop Advisor’s Solution File. † Andre Laforge is a sales agronomist for Richardson Pioneer Ltd. in Carrot River, Sask.

Andre Laforge

CROP ADVISOR’S SOLUTION

TANK CLEAN-OUT: SKIPPING STEPS IS A COSTLY RISK BY JASON SAUCHUK

B PHOTO: ANDRE LAFORGE

Irregular patches of light-green leaves were discolouring an otherwise healthy-looking crop.

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ill thought there was something wrong with the in-crop herbicide he’d sprayed on his canola field in early June. A week after spraying his canola, the Alberta farmer noticed that his plants looked sick, and some were even dying. Soon after Bill phoned me, I visited his 2,200-acre farm where he produces canola, barley and wheat near Waskatenau. One area of the canola field in particular looked damaged — the plants were significantly shorter than other surrounding healthy plants, and their leaves were cupped, purplish and covered with white speckles. The older leaves on the damaged plants had turned brown, however, the plants were projecting new growing points. Growing conditions had been excellent so far that season, so I had no concerns of environmental factors playing a role in the damage. The seed lot was fine, as were Bill’s fertilizer application rates. However, the distinct appearance of the damaged field — the stunted and dying plants were mostly concentrated at one end of the field, the entry point, with the damage gradually tapering off toward the farther end of the field — led me to believe we were dealing with a sprayer or herbicide issue. We examined Bill’s sprayer, checking for any mechanical issues, but found none. However, the sprayer boom length was the exact same width as the damaged area! We were dealing with a chemical injury, but applied correctly, the incrop herbicide Bill had sprayed mid-June could not have caused this type of damage.

When we checked Bill’s herbicide application rates, we found they were correct. Had they been incorrect, the whole field would have been adversely affected. Bill said the sprayer and tank were new and the herbicide he’d sprayed on his canola was the first chemical to be put in the tank. “Did you happen to spray a pre-seed burn-off with your new equipment?” I asked. Suddenly Bill’s face lit up. “Yes, I guess I did. That’s got to be it!” he said. We discussed the steps Bill had taken to clean and rinse his tank between chemicals. Bill’s clean-out practices were not adequate to thoroughly remove all traces of chemicals between applications. The canola plants were suffering from a Group 2 herbicide injury due to chemical residues left in the tank, filters and boom. Effective sprayer clean-out procedures include pulling off and cleaning filters during the first rinse, and adding a solvent cleaner to the second and third rinses of the equipment. This removes residue off the tank wall, hoses and screens. When cleaning a sprayer, do not skip any steps and triple rinse every time between chemical applications. Even in a stainless steel tank like Bill’s, chemicals can adhere to tank walls and filters. This crop advisor casebook has a bittersweet ending. Bill was relieved to have some answers about his ailing canola plants, but the injury caused a crop loss of 70 out of 160 acres. However, conscious of best clean-out practices, Bill is well-equipped to take on tank residues in the future. † Jason Sauchuk is a sales agronomist for Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Sprucefield, Alta.

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Features GRAIN STORAGE

Avoid spoiled grain You’ve finally got it in the bin. Don’t lose it now BY LISA GUENTHER

s harvest winds down and bins fill up, many farmers are likely breathing easier. But a university researcher warns that stored grain will spoil if conditions aren’t right. “Grain storage is part of farming. Before the money is inside your pocket, you can’t say it’s safe,” says Dr. Fuji Jian, grain storage specialist with the University of Manitoba. Keeping grain dry and a consistent temperature is vital to preventing spoilage. Aeration cools grain in the fall, while natural air drying dries tough or damp grain. The basic difference between the two processes lies in the air flow rate. “When your air flow rate is low, basically you could not dry your grain,” Jian says. Aeration uses low air flow rates to cool grain and keep temperatures uniform. Grain can dry by up to one per cent if grain temperatures start out very high and cool substantially, but aeration is not a grain drying system. Natural air drying requires higher air flow rates and warm, dry weather. Air is forced into a perforated floor in the bin bottom, pushed up through the bin, and out roof vents. The right weather conditions are needed for natural air drying. If the air outside is hot and humid, the grain will heat up and become wet.

LOAD STRATEGICALLY Many bin systems are designed for aeration rather than natural air drying. Jian says that a system’s air flow rate depends on fan power, but farmers can also boost air flow rates by loading bins strategically. “If your silo is six metres high, than you can do aeration. But if you load your grain only half, then in that case air flow rates will be much higher and then you can do natural air drying,” Jian says. Volume isn’t the only consideration. Jian recommends coring the bin to level the peak, increase airflow, help with moisture migration and remove fines. The grain pile should be level or even concave to maximize air flow rates. Narrow bins are ideal for low moisture grain. Jian doesn’t recommend putting wet grain in bins with diameters less than four meters as it’s hard to boost air flow rates in tall, narrow bins. Bins less than six metres in diameter don’t hold enough grain to insulate hotspots so aeration isn’t necessary during cold winter months. Bins with a diameter greater than six meters will develop hotspots in the winter, making aeration necessary. Drying wet canola, flax, and mustard using natural air drying is often impossible because the small seeds are densely packed, cutting airflow rates. The Canola Council of Canada recommends making sure there is enough fan power to keep air flow rates high, ventilating the bin, and removing some canola if necessary. If the outside air temperature isn’t high enough, or the canola is too damp, farmers will have to look at other strategies such as adding heat, batch drying or moving damp canola back and forth to prevent spoilage. Silo bags (grain bags) are a popular storage method with some farm-

ers, but Jian warns they aren’t a good option for every situation. “Even for short term storage, you couldn’t put a high moisture grain inside because for high moisture grain in a silo bag, you have no ability to do monitoring. You have no ability to do aeration. Of course you can’t do any drying. And then if your silo bag is in the field in the winter time… you couldn’t access it because it’s snowing.” Canola sitting at 12 per cent moisture should only be stored in a silo bag for six to eight months maximum, Jian adds. Storing such canola for a year leads to large losses. Canola at less than 10 per cent moisture can be stored for up to a year. Silo bags should be placed on high ground to keep them dry, and surrounding grass should be

knocked down to discourage mice from raiding the bags.

NEW STORAGE TECHNOLOGY The ethanol industry is using probes to monitor insects in bins. The Insector, manufactured by OPI Systems, integrates with software to report what kind and how many insects are in the bin, Jian explains. It can also be used as one component in a system that may include aeration and natural air drying. However, cost can be a barrier for farmer hoping to adopt the technology. A large bin requires several probes, and each probe currently sells for over $200, plus the other system components. Farmers can buy perforated tubes that take advantage of natural con-

vection to cool and dry stored grain. Heat from within the grain travels up the tube and escapes out the bin’s top, preventing large hot spots from forming. Gatco, Grain Air Tube manufacturer, states the tubes can cut moisture by one to two per cent. No power is needed to operate the tubes. Jian says the tubes are a good idea, though he adds farmers must make sure snow and rain doesn’t get in the bin while the heat is venting out the top. He also says farmers need to make sure their grain doesn’t get too cold in the winter. Farmers could also use sealed tubes filled with refrigerator coolant or another cooling chemical. The tubes would stick out the bin top. When the grain temperature broke 20 C, the liquid would turn to steam and rise to the top. “It would always move heat from inside the grain to the outside,” says Jian. The cooler conditions outside would chill the chemical, which would travel back down the tube and cool the grain.

Dr. Fuji Jian Jian warns against looking for a simple solution to what may be a complex grain storage problem. “Look for more deep insight into what’s going on and understand it.” † Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at lisa. guenther@fbcpublishing.com.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features Crop disease

Clubroot in new areas Clubroot has been found in new areas. Whether it’s new to you or a perennial problem, learn how to keep it out of your fields By Lisa Guenther

lubroot has infected three new Alberta counties, and all the counties along Highway 16 to the Saskatchewan border now have clubroot. Farmers in counties with clubroot and areas bordering those counties, are on high alert, says an agronomist. “They should be really intensively looking for this to make sure they manage it before it gets there because it’s likely to get there some day,” says Dan Orchard, agronomy specialist with the Alberta Canola Producers Commission. Clubroot poses several risks to farmers. Once clubroot is on the farm, containing it is difficult. Yields can drop drastically, especially if the disease isn’t detected early. Orchard says he’s seen everything from almost no loss to 100 per cent yield loss, and adds it’s hard to predict yield loss. Though resistant varieties perform very well, clubroot limits variety selection. Currently there are only a handful of resistant varieties, Orchard points out. If new, higher yielding varieties without resistance are released, they’ll be off the table for farmers with clubroot. “You’re risking regulatory action from your county,” Orchard adds. Crop rotation restrictions vary

between counties. Some impose three to five year rotations, while a few have hit infected farms with seven year rotations. Leduc County sits down with affected farmers to develop individual management plans, but Leduc’s approach is rare.

Scouting Regular field scouting is crucial to early detection. Since machinery is usually the culprit, field entrances are the first place to check for clubroot. Farmers can also leave suspicious patches while swathing and check these patches later. Orchard has seen one case of wind carrying clubroot from over half a mile away to infect a new field. Areas where wind continuously dumps soil are more at risk. Farmers may want to check places where snow piles or where they’ve observed wind swirling. Another potential hotspot is downwind from bins. Above ground symptoms can include premature ripening, wilting, yellowing, or stunted growth. Clubroot symptoms can be confused with blackleg, sclerotinia, fusarium wilt and moisture stress, so farmers should dig up plants to check for root galls. Galls will be small when the plant is first infected, and expand

as the infection progresses. Earlier in the season, the galls will be white, but as the plant dies, the galls become woody. If plants are pulled several weeks after swathing, the galls may be peat coloured and decaying. By October the galls look like wet sawdust and may even fall off when the plants are pulled out. Hybridization nodules can be confused with clubroot galls. Nodules are dense inside, and don’t decay rapidly like clubroot

galls. Clubroot galls are spongy or marbled inside. Farmers may also want to send in soil samples from fields with high traffic areas if they’re particularly concerned about clubroot.

Prevention and management Cleaning equipment is still the first line of defence against clubroot infestation. Knocking

visible dirt off equipment, including ATVs and trucks, helps contain clubroot, other diseases, and weeds. Farmers need to gauge their own risk to decide whether to disinfect equipment. If machinery needs to move from an infected field to a clean field, or a field where the clubroot status is unknown, it may be worth washing everything well. Controlling volunteers and weeds is also an important management

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grainews.ca /

Features practice. Stinkweed, wild mustard, and flixweed all host clubroot. While a longer crop rotation is ideal, variety rotation also helps manage clubroot, blackleg and other diseases. “Growing that same variety in a really short rotation repeatedly is just not a good practice. ...I don’t think it turns into a disaster really quickly, but it certainly will lead to the erosion of this resistance.”

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

12.9167”

A visit to an online farming forum revealed several questions about preventing and managing clubroot. Some farmers wrote that their high-pH soils should help prevent clubroot infections. Early research

seemed to show high pH levels defended plants from aggressive clubroot infections. But Orchard says more recent research reveals soil pH doesn’t have an impact

Canola on canola boosts disease risk when weather factors are taken into account. Researchers have found infected plants in soils with a pH as high as 7.8. Farmers also raised questions about unconventional rotations. For example, one farmer wondered if growing canola three years in a

row, followed by a two-year break, carries the same or less clubroot risk as a canola-wheat rotation that would see canola seeded three years out of five. Orchard has been asked these types of questions before. He says canola on canola “is the worst possible idea.” Canola on canola boosts disease risk, especially for blackleg, he explains. “I think that neither one of those rotations is good, but you’re better off to have a break in between rather than growing canola in succession. That’s where things just get out of control.” For more information on managing clubroot, visit www.clubroot.ca. † Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at lisa. guenther@fbcpublishing.com.

Clubroot galls can decay in the fall, making them harder to detect

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Bushels of smiles. To see how InVigor® hybrids are performing in your area visit: InVigorResults.ca

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features PRODUCTION

Organic and conventional agriculture There has been a lot of media coverage comparing organic and conventional agriculture. There’s research on both sides of the field BY ANGELA LOVELL

here has been a lot of media coverage recently about the merits of organic versus conventional agriculture, a lot of which — like a study from Stanford University — focus on nutritional content. The study, prepared by a team of medical researchers, analysed 237 studies comparing organic and conventional foods. “They did not find strong evidence that organic foods are more nutritious or carry fewer health risks than conventional alternatives, though consumption of organic foods can reduce the risk of pesticide exposure,” says a press release from Stanford University. The researchers

ferent variables. “These yields are highly contextual, depending on the system and site characteristics,” say the authors — Verena Seufert and Navin Ramankutty (both of McGill University) and Jonathan A. Foley (University of Minnesota). “Under certain conditions — that is, with good management practices, particularly crop types and growing conditions — organic systems can thus nearly match conventional yields, whereas under others it at present cannot.” The study found that performance of organic systems varies considerably across different crop types. Organic fruits and oilseed crops had the lowest yield difference compared to conventional (three to 11 per cent respectively). Organic

Organic legumes and perennials fare better because they appear to be more efficient at using nitrogen. “Legumes are not as dependent on external nitrogen sources as non-legumes,” say the authors. “Perennials, owing to their longer growing period and extensive root systems, can achieve a better synchrony between nutrient demands and the slow release of nitrogen from organic matter.”

Phosphorus also plays an important role in yields. The fact that studies have shown organic crops perform better on weak-acidic to weal-alkaline soils (with a pH between 5.5 and 8) could be due, say the authors, to fact that phosphorus is less readily available to plants in strong acidic or alkaline soils. Under these conditions, conventional crops depend on soil amendments and fertilizers to provide phos-

phorus in a form that they can use, but in organic crops they cannot access enough phosphorus to replenish the amount lost through harvest. Some significant conclusions of the report, however, are that farmer knowledge and good management practices are more important in achieving good yields under organic systems than conventional. It also takes time for organic yields to reach their full potential. Organic

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Farmer knowledge and good management practices are more important in achieving good yields under organic system admit that most of the studies were of short duration and not conclusive in their findings.

YIELD DIFFERENCES The conversations about organic versus conventional agricultural systems can be framed in any number of contexts, and data can easily be found to support any angle of argument. As an example let’s compare data on yields from organic and conventional systems. In a letter to the journal “Nature” published in May 2012 and titled Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture, the authors of a review which analysed 66 studies representing 62 study sites and 316 organic-to-conventional yield comparisons concluded that: “Our analysis of available data shows that, overall, organic yields are typically lower than conventional yields.” The difference in yields ranged anywhere from five to 34 per cent, but there is, of course, a qualifier. The results are highly dependent on a number of dif-

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cereal and vegetable crops, however, had significantly lower yields than conventional, with organic cereals yielding 26 per cent lower and vegetable crops 33 per cent lower. Generally organic perennial and legume crops seemed to perform better in terms of yield than organic annual or non-legume crops versus conventional systems.

NITROGEN A lot of the differences in yield are attributed to the amount of nitrogen received by the two systems. “When organic systems receive higher quantities of nitrogen than conventional systems, organic performance improves, whereas conventional systems do not benefit from more nitrogen,” say the authors. Nitrogen availability has been identified as a major yield-limiting factor in organic farming systems, because the release of plant-available nitrogen from organic sources such as cover crops, compost or animal manure is slow and doesn’t keep pace with the high nitrogen demand from growing crops.

BayerCropScience.ca/Liberty or 1 888-283-6847 or contact your Bayer CropScience representative. Always read and follow label directions. InVigor® and Liberty® are registered trademarks of the Bayer Group. Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.

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Features yields were shown to increase over time because of improvements in soil fertility and management. “Organic performance improves in studies that lasted for more than two seasons or were conducted on plots that had been organic for at least three years,” says the report.

Long-term yield This is where another study enters the picture that perhaps better demonstrates the longterm yield effects of organic versus conventional crops. The Rodale Institute, a U.S. non-profit institute devoted to research and outreach to promote organic farming released the results of its 30-year side-by-side Farming Systems Trial (FST) in 2011.

Rodale’s FST compared three systems: 1. An organic manure system using manure from an organic dairy or beef operation that featured a long rotation including annual feed crops and perennial forage crops. It used leguminous cover crops and manure for fertilization and relied on crop diversity and rotation for pest control. 2. An organic legume system representing a cash grain system used mid-length rotations of annual and cover crops. The sole source of fertility was leguminous cover crops. Rotations were used to try and limit pest problems. 3. A conventional synthetic system used synthetic nitrogen for fertility and synthetic herbicides

for weed control, and also added GM corn and soybeans in 2008. In 2008 each of the three systems were divided into plots under tillage and no-tillage management using appropriate practices for each system. The FST study found that, following the three years when the FST fields were being transitioned to organic production, organic corn yields matched conventional corn yields. Over the 30 years of the trial, organic corn and soybean yields were equivalent to conventional yields in tilled systems. Wheat crops were added in 2004 and yields again were the same for organic and conventional fields. In times of weather-related stress, however, the organic system seemed to provide more

resilience and greater yields. Organic corn yields were 31 per cent higher than conventional in years of drought and outyielded genetically engineered drought tolerant varieties that yielded only 6.7 per cent higher than conventional non-drought resistant varieties. Weeds, as any farmer knows, are yield-takers in any system, and the FST also found that corn and soybean crops in the organic systems tolerated much higher levels of weed competition that those in the conventional systems, while producing equivalent yields.

Technology and yield No one would argue that high yields are essential to ensure

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Links Here are some links to the information cited in this article: “Little evidence of health benefits from organic food.” To find this article, go to www.med.stanford.edu and type “health benefits organic” in the search box. The Rodale Institute’s Farming Systms Trial: www. rodaleinstitute.org/fst30years At www.nature.com, type “comparing yields organic” to find the link to the letter titled “Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture.” † Leeann Minogue

Tundra Insertion Date: October 22, 2012

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here is almost no end to the studies, websites and opinionated articles comparing organic and non-organic food. Some are sponsored by organizations or agencies funded by the organic industry. Others are sponsored by parties funded by crop input suppliers, or other corporations with a vested interest in the issue. Before you read, know who’s paid for what you’re reading. Before you reach any conclusions, remember, organic and non-organic farmers are all farmers, with similar concerns about weather, insects and weeds. We’re all producing food.

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food security on a finite land base. A recent report prepared for CropLife Canada says that without pesticides, fertilizers and biotechnology, Canada would need another 37 million acres of cropland to produce the same amount of food that is produced today with those tools available to farmers. Another recent report from the Worldwatch Institute says that since 1961 global grain production has increased 269 per cent and grain yield has increased 157 per cent, the grain harvest area has increased only 25 per cent. The tools and technology of conventional agriculture have contributed to higher yields. But there is another factor in the debate about “how to feed the world,” we are producing those yields in some part with non-renewable resources. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, not to mention the diesel for the tractor, are derived from fossil fuels that are not infinitely available and are likely to keep rising dramatically in price the harder they become to discover and extract. Perhaps a better discussion about the viability of agricultural systems would revolve around how to blend the many tools and technologies available today — and the many that are being developed for tomorrow — to create integrated solutions that can continue to produce the yields that are needed in a resource and possibly climaterestrained future, and in ways that do not degrade the ecological functions required to sustain them. Going back to Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture, the authors conclude: “There are many factors to consider in balancing the benefits of organic and conventional agriculture, and there are no simple ways to determine a clear ‘winner’ for all possible farming situations. However, instead of continuing the ideologically charged ‘organic versus conventional’ debate, we should systematically evaluate the costs and benefits of different management options.” In the end, to achieve sustainable food security, we will probably need many different techniques — including organic, conventional, and possible “hybrid” systems to produce more food at affordable prices, ensure livelihoods for farmers and reduce the environmental costs of agriculture.” † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www. angelalovell.ca.

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features FARM MANAGEMENT

Effective rodent control Keep mice and rats away from your farm with these steps to rodent control BY DANELLE VAN STAVEREN

ne day, years ago, I returned home from university to the apartment I shared with three roommates, to find every chair we owned arranged across the entire floor like stepping stones. We had a mouse. I, the farm girl, fearless of all savage beasts, was directed to “Get rid of it!” Getting rid of one small mouse concerned me far less than the big problems that came with it: what damage has it done, how much mess has it made, how many friends did it bring to the party and where did it get in? If I ever wanted to sit down again, I needed to solve the problem.

Mice can gain access to buildings through very small openings. A mouse only needs 0.6 cm (a quarter of an inch) of space to fit through. This is about the same width as a No. 2 pencil. If it can fit its head through a hole, the rest of its body will fit also. Check foundations, door and window frames and conduit openings for cracks, and seal any openings with steel wool or a patching compound to keep mice out. Keep in mind, mice can jump up to 45 cm (18 in.), walk across wires, and climb vertical surfaces.

2. REDUCE HABITAT

One little mouse is a nuisance, however, each year farmers across the prairies must be on the lookout for signs of these small rodent pests. Mouse species, such as the white-footed mouse, the deer mouse, and the western harvest mouse are native to the Western Plains, and can survive in the wild. However, a nice cozy barn, haystack or farm shop makes an attractive place to spend the winter.

Mice prefer cover to wide-open spaces. Reducing the outside habitat around buildings may help keep mice out. Trim grass, trees and shrubs, and remove any debris piles that may give mice a place to hide. Stack all wood piles 30.5 m (100 feet) away from buildings, and when possible, raise them off the ground. Similarly, ensure that all compost, or food scraps are kept away from buildings or secured in bins. All potential food sources — like spilled grain, livestock feed, or even the pet’s food — should be cleaned up, and kept away from mice.

1. DON’T LET THEM IN

3. USE POISON

Keeping mice out of all farm buildings is always in your best interest, as mice can carry several diseases, including the potentially fatal Hantavirus.

To keep mice in check, poison may be needed. Always take care when using poison. It can be a danger to children and pets when not used properly. Fumigation,

CONTROLLING MICE

glue boards, electrocution, and basic mouse traps can also be used to control mice.

CONTROLLING RATS As damaging and annoying as a mouse problem can be, it pales in comparison to the destruction created by the mouse’s big cousin, the rat. “Rats are the Olympians of the rodent world,” says Rick Wanner, pest control officer for the Rural Municipality of Weyburn, Sask.

A single rat can eat, or spoil, about $25 worth of grain each year “They can survive on anything.” The rat is recognized as the most destructive vertebrate in the world. The most common rat found on the prairies is the Norway rat. It is also known as the brown, common, or sewer rat. It is not native to Canada, but entered the country in the 1700s as an unwanted stowaway. As settlers moved west, so did the rat. The destruction caused by rats can be divided into three categories: contaminated foodstuffs, physical damage to structure, and disease transmission. A rat eats about 10 per cent of its weight each day, or 20 to 40 kg per

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year, and contaminates five to 10 times more food than it eats with it’s urine and feces. Rats consume or contaminate approximately one-fifth of the world’s field crops each year, including about four per cent of all stored grains. A single rat can eat, or spoil, about $25 worth of grain each year. Physical damage to structures caused by rats can be extensive. Rats have four incisor teeth that grow 15 cm (5 inches) each year. They must gnaw daily to keep these teeth short enough to eat. In their quest to build food access routes, nesting sites, and escape routes, rats gnaw through almost anything in their way, such as walls of various materials, pipes, hoses, and conduits of all types. Rats can do particular damage to insulation and ceilings, allowing cold air and humidity into buildings. Rats tunnelling under foundations and walls undermines structures, and allows cold air to flow through the tunnels, which may lead to heaving. Damage to electrical wiring caused by rats chewing is not only aggravating and expensive, but increases the chance of an electrical fire. Because rats live in close proximity to humans, disease is a serious issue. Disease is spread directly from a rat bite, or ratcontaminated food, or indirectly via rat fleas acquired by pets, which come into contact with rats.

1. BE VIGILANT Nobody wants a rat problem. Whether you are the proprietor of a small acreage, grain farm, or livestock operation, it is in your best interest to avoid the problem. “Vigilance,” says Pest Control Officer Wanner. “Knowing what to look for is where rat control begins. It’s the old walk around the vehicle theory. Do periodic inspections of stacks, and buildings, especially in the fall.” When inspecting a building, check the siding for holes, or places under the siding where rats could gain access to the walls. Doors and windows should fit tight, and doors should have metal kick plates to prevent gnawing. Drains and conduits should use screens 12 mm (1/2 in.) or smaller. Areas where utilities enter buildings should be tightly sealed. Seal sandwich panels to protect insulation. Protect perimeter BY DAN PIRARO

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insulation by extending rat proof material 95 cm (3 ft.) below ground surface. Also check the foundation for, cracks or openings, and repair when necessary.

2. REDUCE SHELTER AND FOOD Harbourage is the next step in preventative rat control. Rats cannot survive or reproduce without shelter and food. Spilled grain, or access to grain, is the number one food source of rats. “Clean up spilled or rotten grain in bin areas, and when using grain bags, clean up the site, and dispose of the grain bags,” says Wanner. Don’t dispose of those grain bags in the farm junk pile, as they will still be attractive to rats. In fact, it is a good idea to clean up the junk pile, which may become an attractive place for rats to live. Rats, like mice, do not like open spaces. Trim grass and trees, and stack lumber piles away from buildings, and off the ground. Wanner cautions that bale stacks, in particular, should be located away from buildings, and checked regularly. “Old bale stacks are like A&Ws for rats — especially straw stacks, because there is always something to eat in them.”

3. BAIT STATIONS Along with vigilance, and removal of harbourage, Wanner recommends the use of a preventative bait station. Various types of homemade bait stations can be constructed and strategically placed, or commercial bait stations can be purchased. Warfarin, an anticoagulant, is the poison most often used. When using a bait station, care must be taken to avoid the accidental poisoning of pets, other non-target animals, and children. Other forms of rat control may include a basic snap trap, glue boards, fumigation and electrocution. “Use your pest control officer,” says Wanner, “because we are trained for signs of rat activity, and proper placement of bait stations.” And, furthermore, “Don’t lie to your pest control officer — cats don’t cut it!”

SEEK HELP If you think you have a rodent problem and you live in rural Saskatchewan, call your local Rural Municipal Office to get in contact with the R.M.’s Pest Control Officer. If you live in Manitoba, contact Manitoba Conservation 204-944-4888. In Alberta, contact your County Office and an agricultural field man will help you deal with the problem. As for the mouse in my apartment, a well placed snap trap proved to be its demise. Apparently it had a weakness for peanut butter. The damages were limited to a few items in the pantry, and if it brought friends, they were all very sensible, and exited where they came in — where ever that was. I never did find out. I did, however, get to sit on my chairs again. † Danell van Staveren farms and writes near Griffin, Sask.

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Features CROP PRODUCTION

Canola yield and temperature

Lots of farmers are looking to the weather as a scapegoat to explain lower-than-expected canola yields BY LES HENRY

n the past few years, fabulous canola yields have been achieved. The 2012 crop appears not to be near as big, and many suspect warmer temperatures to be a factor. With all the hype about

global warming, if we look at actual temperature data our July, temperatures are cooler if anything. The past many summers Environment Canada has predicted hot summers and they have been wrong. The cool July weather has saved our bacon — or at least our canola.

But 2012 was warmer, although not a scorcher like 1987 or 1988. The data in the table is taken from the reference listed below — work by Wes Nuttall of Melfort, Sask., well known canola guru Keith Downey and J.P. Raney. Old Westar could really yield. We grew 65 bushels per acre of

it on irrigation trials many years ago. But, the importance of cool temperatures on canola yield is driven home by that data. Part of the lower canola yield this year is probably temperature related. † J.L.(Les) Henry is a former professor and extension specialist at the University of Saskatchewan. He farms at Dundurn, Sask.

Westar Canola, Bushels per acre Data comes from Co-op variety trials, 1989-91. Mean June, July, Aug temp (C)

June, July, Aug rain: 6 inches

June, July, Aug rain: 12 inches

Source: W.F Nuttall. R.K . Downey, J.P. Raney. “Sask Soils and Crops Proceedings”, 1995. Pages 122-127.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features Weed control

Leafy spurge control Brought here as a decoration, leafy spurge has become a real problem. Biological agents are one way to control this weed By Emile Frerotte

L Leafy spurge first came to southern Saskatchewan as a garden flower.

eafy spurge takes over pasture grasses and causes scours and mouth blistering in cattle that graze it. Leafy spurge was first brought to southwest Saskatchewan in 1914, by the Oevray family who homesteaded there in 1912. Mrs. Oevray’s sister in Switzerland sent her some garden seeds, and amongst them was leafy spurge. The following few seasons, Mrs. Oevray was very proud of her nice yellow flowers that regrew every year. Little did

she know of the problems her flowers would cause in the future.

Controlling leafy spurge When the Meyronne Community Pasture opened in 1957 there was about two acres of leafy spurge. As the years passed, it got worse. That section was fenced out from the rest of the pasture. Sheep corrals were built and 2,200 sheep were brought in from various parts of the province. The sheep controlled the leafy spurge well. But by this time other patches were appearing.

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The provincial government supplied 45 gallons of 2,4-D every fall, and I would spray these patches with a hand sprayer. As the years went by, the spurge got worse. By the 1980s, we were using Tordon 22K on 100 acres every year. Nothing grew the following year, but the year after that the grass came back, and leafy spurge would start again, with a head or two every 30 to 40 feet. Since Todon was very costly, the provincial government bought leafy spurge bugs. The flea beetles survived in the fields, and two years later we were able to harvest some. We did this by catching the bugs with fish nets lined with flour bags, trapping hundreds with each sweep. JOB ID: 5003-F

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One of the most effective CLIENT: methods of leafy spurge control SYNGENTA CANADA is the use of biological agents PROJECT: like the leafy spurge beetle. SEED beetles CEREALS AD – TOKYO in late Adult emerge June PUBLICATION: or early July. They feed near GRAINEWS the top of the spurge shoots and along the leaf edges. DESIGNER: AfterPLmating, the females lay their eggs in groups of 20 to 30, ( the ) MECHANICAL ( X ) PDF/X below soil surface near the spurge root. FINAL SIZE: 8.125" X 10" The eggs, which may number 240% up toUCR: 300 in a season, hatch in aboutCLIENT three weeks. The larvae SERVICE bore through the soil until they PROOFREADING encounter a small spurge root, on which they feed. ART DIRECTION As the larvae grow, they feed PRODUCTION on larger roots. After about two months, feeding stops. The larvae go dormant in the winter and resume feasting in the spring. They pupate in the soil, and emerge as adults. It is the larvae that area primarily responsible for the control of the spurge, with the destruction of the root system. Their feeding depletes the plants nutrient reserves. The plant is no longer able to flower and it eventually withers and dies. By collecting leafy spurge flea beetles, farmers could establish beetle colonies on their own infested pastures. † Emile Frerotte was manager of the Meyronne Community Pasture from 1957 to 1996. He lives at Assiniboia, Sask.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Features CROP DISEASE

Take-all in durum Take-all may not have taken as much yield as other diseases such as root rot

hite heads in spring wheat, durum and winter wheat crops across the Prairies this season have led some farmers to send in samples for testing, suspecting that the cause might be take-all disease.

NO POSITIVE SAMPLES The cause of white heads in wheat can be a number of things including common root rot, aster yellows, fusarium head blight and simple heat stress. So far, no samples have tested positive for take-all in Manitoba or Saskatchewan labs. “Our Plant Diagnostic Lab has confirmed that there were no samples of wheat that tested positive for the take-all pathogen this year which isn’t that unusual,” says Holly Derksen, a field crop pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives. “Generally it’s pretty rare that we get a sample in the lab that is diagnosed as take-all. That isn’t necessarily representative of whether or not there is take-all in the province — perhaps it is being recognized in the field, although it is hard to diagnose accurately.” Brent Flaten, integrated pest management specialist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture in Moose Jaw says he has no information that would indicate that take-all disease is on the increase overall. “Certainly both take-all and common root rot have been more prevalent in the last three years, but some of that due is to the saturated soil conditions that we have had in spring which stresses and weakens plant roots because they don’t like the lack of oxygen,” he says. “It’s then a discussion of which came first? Was the disease there initially or was the plant starting to suffer because of the wet conditions which made it more susceptible to infection?” Ieuan Evans, a forensic pathologist with Agri-Trend Agrology Ltd., says that he has not seen any incidences of take-all in Western Canadian wheat crops for several years. The last significant outbreak he noticed was in the early 1980s, when he found one wheat field that was 70 per cent infected with takeall. The field had been broken up out of alfalfa, which Evans suspects may have contributed to the occurrence and severity of the disease. “Quack grass provides a natural reservoir for the take-all fungus and alfalfa fields generally have some quack grass in them,” he says. “It’s likely the incidence of take-all was so high in the subsequent wheat crop as a result of the fungus being present in the quack grass.” Most Prairie farmers keep quack grass under control, which could be one reason take-all hasn’t been a huge problem, says Evans. He also theorizes that western Canadian rotations of canola and wheat could be reducing the potential for take-all pathogens to build.

TAKE-ALL FUNGUS The fungal spores of take-all overwinter on infected crop residue. In

spring, the fungus grows in the soil, where it comes into contact with the crop roots and causes infection. The fungus may grow from root to root, infecting new plants. Infection may occur throughout the growing season, but the early infections are the most damaging because they move up into the plant crown. The disease organism can also be spread by transport of infected soil or crop residue from field to field. Take-all thrives in cool soils (12 C to 20 C) and high soil moisture. The severity of the infection will increase in alkaline, compacted or poorly drained soils, or soils deficient in nitrogen, phosphorus or copper.

A severe infestation can result in considerable losses as the disease kills headed-out plants. In spring wheat, a 62 per cent infection of take-all reduced yields by 50 per cent and in barley a 64 per cent infection of take-all reduced yields by 24 per cent. Root rot pathogens infect cereals to some extent every year. Symptoms are more severe when infections occur early in the year or during times of excess moisture or extreme lack of moisture, says Derksen. “When there is excess moisture available some root rot pathogens, such as pythium, thrive and will cause more damage,” she says. “When there is an extreme lack of moisture the root system

eases and environmental factors may be causing white heads in wheat and affecting yields this year, says Derksen. “The symptoms of suspected take-all that I heard about this year turned out to be caused by different factors, sometimes more than one,” says Derksen. “The symptoms of take-all include dark discoloration of the lower stem and in severe cases, white heads. However, other root rots such as those caused by fusarium also can cause these types of symptoms. Unless plants exhibiting these symptoms are sent to a lab for testing we cannot be sure what is causing them. If plants are infected by take-all the root system and basal stem will have shiny brown to black fungal growth, possibly even look slimy, which is characteristic of take-all. But I still recommend sending a sample in for testing.” †

CROP ROTATIONS Take-all is most common in wheat, although it can also affect barley, rye and grasses. It’s most severe when wheat follows wheat. Crop rotation is recommended as one of the best ways to reduce the incidence and severity of take-all.

IDENTIFYING TAKE-ALL Take-all is usually identified by patches of stunted, empty, white heads that stand out in the field. Roots of these plants are dark brown to shiny black, and so rotted that plants can easily be pulled from the ground. Take-all disease cannot be completely ruled out in all areas, it’s likely that a combination of dis-

Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www.angelalovell.ca.

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becomes much more important, to access any moisture that is available in the soil. When root rots come in and take out even a small fraction of that root system the end result can be more severe.”

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BrettYoung is a trademark of BrettYoung seeds Limited. Ares is a trademark and Clearfield and the unique Clearfield symbol are registered trademarks of BAsF Agrochemical Products B.V. All used with permission by BAsF Canada Inc. All others are trademarks of their respective companies. 12026 10.12 1 Based on 2012 Nexera oil premiums and 2012 sr Ps on the seed. For complete details on the trials visit www.canolaperformancetrials.ca

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features FARM FINANCE

Changes to AgriStability While the details about the changes to this federal farm program are still vague, changes to reference margins can have a big impact on farm income protection BY LEEANN MINOGUE

n September 14, Agriculture and AgriFood Canada (AAFC) announced changes to Canada’s farm programs for 2013. While several details have yet to be nailed down or announced, it is clear that these changes will mean less lucrative programs for Canadian farmers. For the past few months, farmers have been aware of the federal government’s intentions to decrease AgriStability coverage from 85 to 70 per cent of reference margins. However, other program changes will also have significant impacts. Make sure you know the impact on your farm before you decide whether or not to pay premiums and sign up for the program.

LIMITED REFERENCE MARGINS The change to using what AAFC’s press release calls a “limited reference margin” is important, especially for grain and oilseed farmers. AgriStability payments are based on a farm’s historical “production

margins” — rough estimates of farm profit calculated by subtracting “allowable” expenses from “allowable” income. A farmers’ program “reference margin” (the amount protected by the program), is calculated using the Olympic average of production margins from the past five years (subtracting the highest and lowest numbers and averaging the remaining three.) For 2013, AAFC will change the way your reference margin is calculated. You’ll be limited to the lower of your production margin or your allowable expenses. While AAFC has not yet announced details, a spokesman said they are leaning towards looking at each of your past five years of data, choosing the lower of your production margin or your allowable expenses, and then re-calculating your Olympic average using the new numbers. At first, this change doesn’t seem particularly important. You wouldn’t expect your profits to be a lot higher than your expenses — grain farming doesn’t exactly have a reputation as a high margin business.

However, the limitation doesn’t apply to all of what you might think of as expenses — it applies to AgriStability’s “allowable” expenses. Allowable expenses are only costs directly related to production. They do not include items like machinery repairs, land rental, interest costs, or depreciation. Some consultants estimate that 60 to 70 per cent of expenses are “allowable” under this program. There are noble reasons for excluding these expenses — the program was designed specifically to avoid influencing management decisions like “should I lease or buy a tractor?” or “should I buy or rent land?” — but the key is that they are only variable expenses like seed and chemicals.

cates that this change will make a big difference to us. My husband and I operate a pedigreed seed farm, about 4,600 acres, in southeast Saskatchewan. We think our production and sales experiences are reasonably typical for our area. Our recent AgriStability statement includes data from 2006 to 2010. In three of these five years, our allowable expenses are lower than our production margins.

IMPACT ON THE FARM

Looking at our statement, I considered each year in our five year history and chose the lower of the “total allowable expense” or our “adjusted production margin,” then calculated our new Olympic average (by eliminating the highest and lowest years and averaging the remaining three). This number, our new “limited reference margin” is 23 per cent

AAFC has not released any statistics or forecasts to explain how this change might impact farmers. Accountants are reluctant to speculate on record without more federal information. But a quick look at the most recent AgriStability statement we’ve received on our farm indi-

Know the impact on your farm before you decide

lower than our previous reference margin. There are different ways that AAFC could chose to implement this change. This straight-forward approach I considered would mean a significant decrease in the value of AgriStability on our farm. Even before we consider the other program changes.

NO MORE TIERS For a quick, simplified understanding of AgriStability, let’s take a look at an example straight from the program brochure. The farmer in the example has a reference margin of $100,000. In a claim year, that farmer has a “program year margin” of only $35,000. Because the program covers 85 per cent of his margin, you might imagine that this premium-paying farmer could look forward to a $50,000 cheque ($85,000 - $35,000). Not so. Instead, there are two tiers of payments (well, actually three, but let’s ignore negative margins for now). For the first tier of the payment, the program pays 80 per cent of losses, up to 70 per cent of his reference margin. In the example, 70 per cent of his $100,000

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Features margin is $70,000. Because he already has a program year margin of $35,000, our farmer is $35,000 short of the $70,000 mark. So, for this tier, he receives $28,000 (80 per cent of $35,000). The second tier covers his margin from 70 to 85 per cent (from $70,000 to $85,000 in the example). The program covers losses in this range at 70 per cent. For our farmer, this is a range of $15,000; our farmer’s payment for this tier is $10,500 (70 per cent of $15,000). So, in total, our farmer receives an AgriStability payment of $38,500. Added to his program year margin of $35,000, this brings him up to $73,500, just a bit more than 70 per cent of his reference margin.

LOTS OF MOVING PARTS As well as moving the coverage level from 85 to 70 per cent, announced program changes will eliminate the confusion of different payment tiers. Our sample farmer would simply receive coverage of 70 per cent of his program margin. That is, 70 per cent of the difference between his protected reference margin ($70,000) and his program year margin ($35,000). Seventy per cent of $35,000 is $24,500. This is a much lower payment than before (largely because of the coverage drop from 85 to 70 per cent), but at least it’s easier to explain.

NEGATIVE MARGINS These changes will be somewhat less harsh for farmers with nega-

tive margins. Previously, while the program paid out 70 and 80 per cent of positive program margins, AgriStability only covered 60 per cent of negative margins. If the farmer in our example had a negative margin of -$20,000 in the claim year (as compared with +$35,000 in the earlier example), he would receive a payment made up of three tiers: • tier one: 60 per cent of his negative margin ($20,000) = $12,000 • tier two: 80 per cent of 70 per cent of his reference margin ($100,000) = $56,000 • tier three: 70 per cent of the difference between 70 and 85 per cent of his reference margin ($15,000) = $10,500. His total payment would be $78,500. The math is simpler with the program change. He would now receive 70 per cent of 70 per cent of his program margin (70 per cent of $70,000), plus 70 per cent of his loss (70 per cent of $20,000), for a total payment of $63,000. However, keep in mind that, in order to generate a negative margin, that farmer would have to have “allowable” expenses greater than his sales. This is much more severe than a typical farm loss you might see on an accounting statement that includes rent, machinery repairs and depreciation. And, currently there are a few other caveats to negative margin payments. According to AAFC’s website: two of the three production margins used to calcu-

Know how AgriStability changes will impact your farm before you decide whether or not to sign up. late your Olympic average must be positive; you must have used sound management practices; and circumstances of your negative margin must have been beyond your control.

PROGRAM VALUE The most common complaints about the existing version of AgriStability have been that it’s too complex and not timely enough. That describes our experience. Last year, we had no production on our farm. Spring flooding in 2011 kept us out of the field until it was much too late to seed and expect a crop.

Now, 16 months after the flood, we still have no idea how much, if anything, we’ll receive from AgriStability. To be fair, some of this delay is attributable to our corporation year end date. But with the program impacts of structural changes (we’ve taken on more land) and calculations for allowable expenses, we can’t make any educated guess about the size of our 2011 payment. For this reason, the program is already of less value to us than Crop Insurance, which paid out incredibly quickly and efficiently when we were unable to seed, or AgriRecovery, which gave us

a prompt payout when we faced disaster. We are very grateful for both of those programs. If AgriStability works the way we hope it will, and we receive a payment that helps us recover from 2011, my husband and I may yet be the loudest advocates of AgriStability on the Prairies. But a lower than expected payment (or no payment at all), combined with these new changes that lower the value of the program, may mean the end of our participation in AgriStability in 2013. † Leeann Minogue is editor of Grainews.

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Features FARM FINANCE

Deducting farm losses The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that farmers with town jobs can deduct all farm losses from their off-farm income BY ANDREW ALLENTUCK

then the restricted farm loss CRA said. They viewed it as a provisions of the Income Tax THE CRAIG CASE sideline to his main business of olks who have town jobs Act holding deduction for farm The case pitted the Canada being a lawyer. that help them survive losses to $8,750 per year, would Revenue Agency against John H. The CRA had relied on an money-losing farming not apply,â&#x20AC;? says Mark Siegel, tax Craig, a high profile breeder of earlier Supreme Court decision, operations will have an partner with law firm Gowlings race horses. Breeding and racing Moldowan versus the Queen, GRACOL easier time deducting losses from LLP in Ottawa. was not consistently profitable. decided in May 1977, in which other income thanks to a case, Translation: Farm losses will He lost $222,642 in 2000 and only farmers who got the majorClient: Broadhead Co.other $205,655 in 2001 on the horse ity of their income from farming Canada versus Craig, decided by now be deductible from the Supreme Court of Canada on income provided the farmer operation. He deducted those could deduct all losses. Moldowan, 69925 August 1, 2012. invests substantial time, labour sums from his total income: $1.2 like Craig, raised horses. But he đ°&#x201A;Śđ°&#x20AC;Ąđ°&#x20AC;˛đ°&#x20AC;˛đ°&#x20AC;łđ°&#x20AC;˛đ°&#x20AC;Ąđ° &#x2039;đ° ˘đ° ¤đ° Źđ° ´đ° °đ° Żđ°&#x20AC;Ąđ° &#x201D;đ° ľđ°&#x20AC;Ąđ° ?đ° &#x2020;đ°&#x20AC;đ°&#x20AC;Ąđ° &#x201D;đ° ľđ° Śđ°&#x20AC;Ąđ°&#x20AC;˛đ°&#x20AC;˛đ°&#x20AC;´đ°&#x20AC;Ąđ°&#x201A;Śđ°&#x20AC;Ąđ° &#x17D;đ° Şđ° Żđ° Żđ° Śđ° ˘đ° ąđ° °đ° đ° Şđ° ´đ°&#x20AC;đ°&#x20AC;Ąđ° &#x17D;đ° ?đ°&#x20AC;Ąđ°&#x20AC;śđ°&#x20AC;śđ°&#x20AC;ľđ°&#x20AC;˛đ°&#x20AC;´đ°&#x20AC;Ąđ°&#x201A;Śđ°&#x20AC;Ąđ°&#x20AC;ˇđ°&#x20AC;˛đ°&#x20AC;łđ°&#x20AC;Żđ°&#x20AC;¸đ°&#x20AC;ˇđ°&#x20AC;¸đ°&#x20AC;Żđ°&#x20AC;´đ°&#x20AC;ľđ°&#x20AC;śđ°&#x20AC;ś â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Craig case says that if and capital to at least try to million in 2000 and $800,000 could not satisfy the test that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the Profile: Gracol Swop and Newstaxpayers Supplied make farm. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Epson a taxpayer with two Lpi: businesses, a profit on the inColor 2001. The CRA objected must have a profit or a turn from the reasonable one of which is farming, the losses, limiting him Approvalthen Stock: 180-degree Fortune McCoy Producto former Pub News denied Supplied Epson Stock: Comm/Gracol Pub/Swop3 Newsexpectation of profit.â&#x20AC;? notwithstanding the fact that the rule that, despite trying to make to deductions of $8,750 in each From 1960 to 1972, the horse non-farm business may be more a living from farming, if some- year on the basis that horse operation lost money, even as lucrative than the farm business, thing else pays better, farm losses breeding was not Craigâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chief his other income sources â&#x20AC;&#x201D; salprovided both businesses have over $8,750 per year are not source of business. It was not ary and non-farm investments the indicia of real businesses, deductible. intended to make money, the â&#x20AC;&#x201D; generated income. The court

ruled that the horse business was a hobby that was not intended to make money and limited the deduction of losses. The Supreme Court, in overruling itself in the former Moldowan decision, decided that if a taxpayer devotes significant time and resources to the farming business, the combination would have to be considered as a whole. That one part of the combined businesses was more profitable than another would not deny a full deduction for farming losses.

TESTS FOR DEDUCTION The Supreme Court decided in the Craig decision that there should be other tests for deducting farm losses. Those tests would include how much capital is invested in farming and the other source of income, the amount of time spent farming and on the other source of income, how much income each produced, and, finally, the taxpayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way of life, history in farming and future intentions. It is a far broader and more accessible test of farm loss deductions. In Mr. Craigâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s case, though his business as a lawyer took more time than horse breeding,

It is a far broader and more accessible test of farm loss deductions the court considered that he had a large amount of money invested in stables, was a member of the racing community, and was even a chairman of a board devoted to improving the integrity of racing. The court therefore ruled that horse breeding and racing in combination with the practice of his usual business, law, was the source of his income. The farm loss deduction would not apply in his case, said the court. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Craig case means a lot to beginning farmers and new entrants who are looking at agriculture as a viable career option but lack the capital to make the farmers profitable,â&#x20AC;? says Doug Chorney, President of Keystone Agricultural Producers, an organization based in Winnipeg that represents farming families and 23 commodity groups. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Now, with the Craig case, they can have an off-farm job, say in the oil patch, and make money so that, one day, they can be full time farmers. Moreover, the Craig case can keep family farms going and act as a bridge to the time that a new generation of farmers can come in to restore the profitability of a family farm.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;

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Andrew Allentuckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest book, â&#x20AC;&#x153;When Can I Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work,â&#x20AC;? was published by Penguin Canada in 2011.

69925_MES-0410_CanolaBrandAd_GrainNews_k1F.indd 1

7/27/12 3:05 PM

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Columns UNDERSTANDING MARKET BULLS AND BEARS

Change can be a good thing The popular quote is “Change can be a good thing.” That’s only true if you can figure out how to benefit from the change BRIAN WITTAL

elivering to the Canadian Wheat Board has changed. You need to figure out if delivering to the new CWB can benefit you, and how (or if) you can use CWB in your marketing plan.

ADMIN CHANGES First, there are some administrative changes: 1. A CWB delivery permit is no longer required. Farmers who already have CWB customer (producer identification) numbers are not required to renew. CWB will drop the first two digits of your current number — it will be an eight-digit number, used for all your transactions with CWB. 2. An important change has been made to contracts for landlords and interested parties. Separate contracts must be signed for each landlord and interested party sharing in the actual producer’s returns. Interested party deliveries, including those made by joint producers, can no longer be included in the same contract signed by the actual producer. The actual producer can enter a contract on behalf of the interested party, with no requirement for a signature from that party. This can be done when the actual producer enters their own contract, or CWB can switch tonnes from the actual producer’s contract to an interested party contract, any time until the cash ticket is issued. CWB will make free contract amendments to re-allocate tonnes between parties to facilitate crop share agreements.

All CWB pool contracts have an Act of God/Force Majeure clause. If an extraordinary event such as a flood, fire, hail or windstorm leaves you unable to deliver the tonnes you committed to the pool, CWB will reduce the tonnage at no charge as long as you notify them within 15 days of the event and verify the event. The CWB has expanded the grade and protein bands deliverable against pooled contracts. This will reduce your need to request contract changes when delivered quality differs from what was contracted. You are also eligible for storage payments in the harvest pool starting February 1, 2013.

By refusing to handle CWB pooled canola they in effect reduce competition in the market — a good business strategy for grain companies, one less viable pricing option for farmers!

CHOICES If you like the idea of using a pooled approach for wheat you now have a couple of choices. If you are looking for faster movement and cash flow and you don’t think markets will continue to go higher throughout the year, use the early delivery pool and then consider using the pool cashout option. If you think markets are going

Brian Wittal is a Saskatchewan raised farm boy who has spent the past 32 years in the Alberta Grain Industry. He started Pro Com Marketing Ltd in 2006 with a focus on helping grain producers better understand the markets and advise them on how to market their grains more profitably. Contact Brian at bfwittal@ procommarketingltd.com.

7 1%

CWB POOLED CONTRACTS There are now two options. The early delivery pool and the harvest pool. The main differences are that the early delivery pool is price pooled over a shorter period of time — August 1, 2012 to January 31, 2013 — and you are guaranteed that your grain will be called for delivery before Jan 31, 2013. Grains in the harvest pool are price pooled over a 12-month period — August 1, 2012 to July 31, 2013 — and will be called in for delivery before July 31, 2013. The deadline for sign up for the early delivery pPool was September 31 (extended to October 2). The harvest pool deadline is October 31, 2013, but the pool will close earlier if tonnage requirements are met. Only straight grades will be accepted. No tough or damp deliveries are allowed on CWB contracts. One advantage of signing a CWB pool contract is that you are not locked into a delivery location or grain company. That allows you to shop around for the best deal on grade, freight, handling and trucking. You’ll negotiate directly with the grain company. Remember, freight elevation and handling charges vary among delivery stations so ask and negotiate.

For faster cash flow the CWB offers a pool cashout option, paying 100 per cent of the projected final return for delivered grain only (less a discount), as a fixed and final payment. The biggest new change is that CWB is offering a price pooling option for canola. The devil is in the details and right now CWB is working out those details with grain handling companies. My discussions with representatives at a few companies leads me to believe that very few if any of the companies are going to handle pooled canola as it competes with their pricing and sales contracts.

to improve, you will want to use the harvest pool to take advantage of those better prices in the future. Pooled pricing allows you to spread price risk over a longer period of time. The prices you receive are based on sales values during that pool period, less an administration fee, so you know you’re getting a fair market value for your grains. In volatile markets, pooling provides price risk security by price averaging over a period of time, but it also restricts your ability to take full advantage of price spikes in volatile markets. If you want to take control of your own pricing destiny, then futures and cash contracting is probably more for you. †

2012 TRIAL WIN RATE

Even under the severe weather conditions of 2012, 74-44 BL consistently out yielded competitors.

2012 YIELD COMPARISONS* L Series 74-44 BL

40.6 43.2

N = 55

2 YEAR YIELD COMPARISONS** L Series 74-44 BL

While no one wins them all, in FACT™ trials conducted by farmer co-operators, DEKALB won its fair share. Consistent yield performance under adverse conditions, that’s the complete package.

42.8 44.9

N = 67

www.DEKALB.ca *Source: 2012 Monsanto Field Scale Trials as of October 3, 2012. **2011-2012 Monsanto Field Scale Trials. DEKALB represented by 74-44 BL; InVigor by L150, L130 and L120. Individual results may vary, and performance may vary from location to location and from year to year. This result may not be an indicator of results you may obtain as local growing, soil and weather conditions may vary. Growers should evaluate data from multiple locations and years whenever possible. Always follow grain marketing and all other stewardship practices and pesticide label directions. Details of these requirements can be found in the Trait Stewardship Responsibilities Notice to Farmers printed in this publication. DEKALB® and Design and DEKALB® are registered trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC. Used under license. InVigor® is a registered trademark of Bayer. ©2012 Monsanto Company.

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Columns SOILS AND CROPS

Earthworms: our silent partners Earthworms provide numerous benefits to soil. One of the under-researched side effects of our switch to zero till may be an increase in earthworm activity LES HENRY

hen I taught the first year soils class at the University of Saskatchewan, soil biology was a quick study. The rhizobium that fix nitrogen with legumes were discussed in detail. The bacteria that control conversion of organic nitrogen to the mineral forms (nitrate and ammonium) were also considered important.

EARTHWORMS The bigger things like earthworms were mentioned in passing and identified as Lumbricus terrestris. It was all academic, as we did not have any earthworms in field soils on the Canadian Prairies at that time. On soil surveys, we dug thousands of holes in farm fields each year and rarely turned up an earthworm. But with the change to continuous cropping and zero till farming, that has all changed. My Dundurn farm has been continuous crop min/zero till for about 15 years. The past few years I have been finding earthworms when checking seeding depth. So this summer I dug around like a pocket gopher and read several books and research papers from the library. In today’s world, information is easy to come by. Dr. Sina Adl, our new head of Soil Science at the U of S, is a soil ecologist. He alerted me to the first book written about earthworms. It was written in 1881 by none other than the famous Charles Darwin of Beagle, Galapagos Islands and On the Origin of Species fame.

EARTHWORM SURVEY Please - clip and mail this survey to Les Henry at 143 Tucker Cres, Saskatoon, SK, S7H 3H7; or - clip and fax this survey to Leeann Minogue at 204-944-5416; or - send the information by email to leeann.minogue@fbcpublishing.com. 1. Province __________________________________________________ Nearest Town _____________________________________________ Legal Location of Home quarter ____________________________ 2. When Checking seed depth I see worms Never __________ Seldom __________ Often __________

Always ___________

3. Number of years Continuous Crop, Zero/Min Till _____________ 4. Crop Rotation _____________________________________________ 5. Other Observations?_______________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

A few mouse clicks later and I had a copy of the book on my computer desktop. It runs to seven chapters and 342 pages. His observations, mainly from

had several hand sketched cross sections showing the topsoil created by earthworms and the stones that were buried by the new topsoil. He called it “vegetable mould.”

CREATURE HABITS

Earthworms are well known to improve soil structure England, showed the beneficial actions of earthworms in forming topsoil, aiding soil structure and promoting drainage through the burrows of the worms. He

Are you looking for…

It turns out there are hundreds of species of earthworms. In terms of habits they can be placed in three groups: 1. Surface Feeders: These feed on the soil surface — on leaves and other plant materials — and are found under fallen trees and similar places. Their casts (feces) form part of the surface soil. 2. Deep drillers: These produce single burrows from the soil surface to depths of two meters

I started rooting around with the same trowel I use to measure seed depth, but soon graduated to using a tiling spade placed at a depth of four to six inches deep between the seven inch wheat rows. or more. They consume surface litter and mix it with soil, and can bring subsoil to near surface. Lumcricus terrestris is a deep driller. 3. Topsoil dwellers: These worms work in the topsoil (about 6 inch depths) and produce roughly horizontal burrows. They live off surface litter and mix it with soil.

Support the Wheat & Barley Check-Off. The check-off enables Western Canada’s farmers to continue funding variety research and market development in the open market. This voluntary check-off of $0.48/tonne of wheat and $0.56/tonne of barley will be shown as a Deduction of Levy on your Cash Purchase Ticket upon grain delivery at a Canadian Grain Commission licensed company.

wheat barleycheckoff.com

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

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Biologists have fancy names for these three groups (Epigeic, Anecic and Endogeic respectively), but my names are easier to remember. From my observations the main actors in our fields are from the third group — Topsoil Dwellers.

SOIL IMPROVEMENTS Earthworms are well known to improve soil structure, drainage and general physical health. Through defecation and secretion and the recycling of dead earthworms, they contribute to nitrogen and phosphorus fertility. Earthworms are about 60 per cent protein, so a lot of nitrogen is supplied by dead earthworms. It is well known that Canadian Prairie farmers have improved the soil in the past 20 years BY DAN PIRARO

Bizarro

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Columns

When the spade is turned over a vibrant population of mature, juvenile and young worms is revealed. I found worms almost everywhere, except my eroded knolls. Even in places where I didn’t find worms, the burrows left behind were visible. These burrows aid drainage.

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 Cres, Saskatoon, SK, S7H 3H7, and he will dispatch a signed book.

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through continuous cropping, good fertilization and crop rotation. We must now admit that our silent partners have played a significant role. But, there has been very little research on earthworms here. Jill Clapperton had a program underway when at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge, Alta., but she is now in Montana. John Reynolds of Kitchener, Ont. documented some species, mostly in urban settings. Most earthworm research has been done in the U.K., Europe, New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. I think it behooves us to initiate research to document what the worms are doing and how our practices affect them. When anydrous ammonia first came out in the 1970s naysayers said the NH3 would kill the worms. “What worms?” I said at that time. On my Dundurn farm anhydrous ammonia is my main form of nitrogen, applied three years out of four (not on peas). So, obviously anhydrous is not hurting the worms. We would like to get observations from readers on what you’re seeing as you root around, checking seeding depth in spring. Please clip out the survey on the side. Then mail it in, fax it in, or send us an email to tell us about the worms on your farm. †

This is an adult of the same species. The adult worm is busy consuming the canola residue left from 2011, mix- Earthworms leavings (cast). It is quite easy to scare the “you ing it with topsoil and mineralizing the organic nitrogen know what” out of an earthworm. The leaving is a thin paste of a weak UAN (urea-ammonium nitrate) suspension. to ammonium and nitrate that our plants can use.

POOR

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6 7 8 9

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Columns FARM FINANCIAL PLANNER

Age and illness threaten an Alberta family farm When it’s time for generational change, this family needs to consider age and their children’s special requirements BY ANDREW ALLENTUCK

t is a farm in crisis. A couple we’ll call Max, 74, and Ruth, 71, are struggling to keep 640 acres of mixed hay and grain in central Alberta going. But it’s getting to be almost impossible. Max has trouble getting around and is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. As a result, they have rented out the farm and now just watch others farm their property. It’s a heritage farm with an original homestead built at the beginning of the twentieth century. Over time, Max and Ruth have coped with his illness by cutting back their operations. They sold off their herd of 200

beef cows a few years ago but want to keep the farm in the family.

NEXT GENERATION Time is running against them; Max has to go to a long-term care facility. His needs have become more than Ruth can provide. Keeping the farm in the family depends on what children we’ll call Stephen, 41, Arlene, 42, and Lucille, 45, can do. Stephen and his wife — we’ll call her Diane — have a business in town. They have no time to manage or operate the farm. But their youngest child, a grandchild we’ll call Tom, is passionate about

livestock and wants to restore herds to the farm. He is in the second year of an agriculture program at a nearby university. Tom is likely to be the best

herself financially, much less take on the family farm. And Lucille, married with three children, lives far from the farm and has no interest in running it.

Generational shifts are never easy, but this one is especially challenging hope for continuation of the farm. Max and Ruth’s daughter, Arlene, who lives in a small house on the farm, has neurological problems and cannot support

Paradoxically, money is not the largest problem. Max and Ruth have a $67,926 combined annual income from land they rent out and mineral royalties, Canada

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Pension Plan benefits and Old Age Security. The farm has an assessed value of $1.21 million and is clear of debt. Add in the value of vehicles and equipment and a bit of cash in the bank and Max and Ruth have assets totaling $1,573,000.

CONSIDERATIONS For the family, the farm’s continuation depends on what Stephen and his wife, Diane, can do. A financial plan structured by Certified Financial Planners Richard Bradford and Edward Turgeon of LifeLegacy Wealth Management Inc. of Red Deer, Alberta will transfer the farm to them with the understanding that Arlene will continue to live in the house, even if the farm is sold out of the family at some time in the future. Generational shifts are never easy, but this one is especially challenging. “We need to give equitable treatment to the couple’s daughters and to make a plan that ensures that Stephen’s sisters, though not a part of future farm operations, cannot interfere to the detriment of the farm. It is imperative that his siblings cannot exert influence that would compromise the ongoing viability of farm operations,” Mr. Bradford says. Transfer of the farm and its operations to Stephen and, in time, to Tom will not be enough to assure its continuation. The farm’s real estate is the largest part of realizable assets, Mr. Bradford notes. “There is not much cash or other equipment and, moreover, we have to provide money for Max’s long term care,” Mr. Bradford adds. “Money also has to be found for the needs of Arlene, who will be a dependent for the foreseeable future. Later, Ruth may need long term care. Finally, given the nature of Max’s illness, he is unable to change his will. Ruth manages her husband’s affairs and the farm with a power of attorney which enables her to arrange for the transfer of farm assets during Max’s lifetime.” Arlene’s welfare can be assisted in part by the Alberta program called Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped. It provides $1,588 per month with an exemption of $800 per month for earned income. A life insurance policy can pro-

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Columns vide money for the non-farming siblings. However, there are other health issues that have to be considered. Consideration has to be given to the possibility that for any reason — perhaps illness — Stephen and Tom might not be able to run the farm in the future, Mr. Turgeon says.

THE PLAN Under the plan for the generational change, the farm will be transferred to Stephen and his wife Diane at fair market value, $1,21 million via a loan from the parents and secured by a promissory note. Max and Ruth should register a lien against the property to secure the repayment of the loan. That lien would register a life interest in the home quarter and thus ensure that Arlene has the use of her small home for as long as she chooses to remain. If Stephen and Diane or their estates sell the farm, the parents would have to be repaid or they could call the loan and seize the security. Interest on the promissory note should be payable monthly to Max and Ruth. That income will be taxable for the purpose of recovering taxes, likely the alternative minimum tax, that will have to be paid upon the transfer. Interest will also help to replace land rent and allow them to pay care costs and general costs of living. Interest should float and be subject to annual revisions, Mr. Turgeon suggests. Arlene will receive Alberta’s Assured Income for the Handicapped (AISH). Eventually, she can apply for Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement. She can also apply for a Registered Disability Savings Plan. The RDSP can be funded out of the AISH benefit and any earnings she generates. The first $800 per month of her earnings will not be clawed back. For the RPSP, if she contributes $1,500 per year, she will get $3,500 per year in annual grants and $1,000 in annual bonds. By her age 60 at a 5.5 per cent nominal rate of return, the RDSP would grow to $99,645 and provide about $4,332 per year of income to her age 80, Mr. Turgeon estimates. Arlene can also apply for a Disability Tax Credit. The current amount of the credit is $7,546 from the federal government and $13,331 from Alberta. The present combined tax value is $2,465, Mr. Bradford estimates. As a last step, Ruth needs to change her will to affirm if her intent on her passing is to forgive any portion of the promissory note owed by Stephen and his wife.

Ruth also has to decide how the residue of the estate will be distributed among her adult children. Arlene’s needs should be given additional weight, perhaps by creation of a testamentary trust funded by insurance. The trust’s income or capital distributions can be at the discretion of the trustees based on Arlene’s needs. These plans seem complex, but they establish a secure basis for the farm, keep it in the family, provide for the needs of Max and Ruth and address Arlene’s disability. It is a solution that keeps the farm in the family and looks after each of Max and Ruth’s children. The plan is complex and needs the combined assistance of their accountant, lawyer and the financial planners, Mr. Bradford says. “It’s the best way to help them maintain their lifestyle and achieve their legacy.” † Andrew Allentuck’s latest book, “When Can I Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work,” was published last year by Penguin Canada.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Columns HART ATTACKS

The plight of a barbershop drifter Sometimes the search for the perfect haircut can be more difficult than you might think BY LEE HART

needed. I always say, “just a trim all over, I don’t want it to look too severe.” And then I let the professional take it from there. Of course my wife might argue I’m not going to shops where they employ professionals. My criteria for a barbershop is based mainly on price and speed. I look for places offering haircuts for under $15, and I usually do a drive-by to make sure there aren’t too many people waiting. One of the best haircuts I ever got was a $14.95 job (before tip) and I was in and out of the shop in seven minutes. Now that’s a great barbershop. And as I recall the cut got a C+ rating from the Mrs., so that was a bonus. Unfortunately the place is on the other side of the city and not handy to get back to.

y mother’s longtime friend Jean McKenzie always maintains, “there are only three days between a bad haircut and good haircut.” The point being, if you wait a couple days, any haircut will look good. Jean always has a nice easy to care for hairstyle, and I don’t get the impression she spends many hours stressing over it in the beauty parlor. I have been in search of the perfect haircut for many years. The truth is I am usually quite happy with every haircut I get. It’s my wife who often gives me a startled, borderline horrified look when I return from the barber and she asks, “Who did this to you?” The odd time she says the hair cutter did a good job, but quite often it is too short in some places, or too long in others. One of her favoured observations is that the cut is well suited for someone in a mental institution. Like she would know about pysch ward fashion trends. It’s not that I have grand expectations of the type of cut

WAY BACK WHEN It was simpler in the good old days. Growing up in my hometown of Chesterville, Len Giles was the barber so you went to Giles’ Barber Shop. My mother often took me there. In those days, when you got a hair cut, you made it count. Mom didn’t want to be bringing me back in

a couple weeks for a trim. Those were cuts that carried you for six weeks or more — perhaps the whole summer. There was also a barber about 10 miles in the other direction from the farm at a little community of Goldfield. I forget the barber’s name, but his feature was that his shop was open some evenings. So if a daytime cut wasn’t possible I would go with my dad and sometimes my brother to Goldfield and we’d all get a haircut. Those were long evenings, boy. There would be us three and then if there was one or two other people waiting, the whole evening was shot. And there was absolutely nothing to do in this shop — no TV, nothing — so you just sat and waited. Fortunately for my dad I was well behaved. That experience may be where speed of a haircut became an issue for me. I was probably traumatized by long evenings in the Goldfield barber shop, so now time is of the essence.

ON THE ROAD Later in life, working in Cranbrook, B.C. I went to Roy’s Barber Shop for many years.

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There were a few hairdressers in town, but really just the one barber, Roy Gaskell. My friend Barney would often go to a hairdresser, make an appointment and all that nonsense, but real men went to Roy’s place. But since Cranbrook, I have been a barbershop drifter. When you live in different communities it can be hard to develop a relationship or bond with one hair cutter. My friend Mike has lived near the Crowsnest Pass in southern Alberta for more than 30 years and he always liked Hugo’s barbershop in Blairmore. I was there with him once. I think the price was right — $6 as I recall, but don’t be in a hurry. Going for a haircut at Hugo’s was almost an all day affair — slower pace, lots of visiting going on. Unfortunately

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Hugo had to retire due to ill health. In Calgary there is just too much choice. I was going to a Lebanese barber for a while — a woman named Maha. And actually she did a good job. Price was a bit higher, about $20, but usually no waiting, and quite often her cuts got a B+ to A rating from “The Inspector.” Trouble is that Maha’s shop is about 10 or 15 minutes in a direction I don’t usually go, and her shop can be closed on those days when I suddenly decide I need a haircut. So then I will quickly cruise the circuit I am familiar with, with my checklist — who’s open, any advertised specials and who’s not busy? My wife often points out, there is a reason these places are not busy. Never mind Jean’s three-day rule on haircuts. My wife says it has been three weeks since my last haircut, and only now I’m looking like I don’t need a bib and help cutting my food when I eat. I didn’t think it was that bad. It was $17 with the tip, and total of 10 to 12 minutes. And I had said, “just a light trim.” I guess that may mean different things to different people. I am not sure if there is a resolution to the perfect haircut, at the right price, without waiting, and not a lot of pre-planning. We’ve gone the ball cap route to cover it up in emergency situations, but that has it’s own adverse side affects — a bad haircut, complicated with hat head. I probably should just make a point of planning my days and trips so I can get Maha to cut my hair. Or I may have to resign myself to simply taking my wife with me on hair cut days so she can supervise, but that would be a very last resort. Damn the expense, Maha warm up the scissors, here I come. † 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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OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Columns CAN’T TAKE THE FARM FROM THE BOY

The honeymoon is over Now that Toban Dyck and his wife have spent some time on the farm, he’s ready to get on with the real business of farming TOBAN DYCK

he farm is now my home. My wife and I no longer spend time gasping at how our current situation differs from our last decade of life in the city. A month and a half into country life, we now exist in the brief limbo period between being an outsider and an engaged member of the community, on the cusp of real change. Our honeymoon period is coming to a close. Soon, whatever aura caused people to stare at the grocery store will fade to normal and the city will no longer be the place we left, but an exciting destination to visit when the farm work is done. That’s what we signed up for and we’re okay with it. In fact, we are loving it.

have we done?” every time I drive to town and the conversations I have with other farmers and people in the community are lacking the innocence of an outsider’s perspective. Soon, I imagine there will be expectations, social and otherwise, placed on me. On us. After all, the guys at the elevator know me by name and, of course, whose farm I belong to, so I can’t anonymously leave the elevator scale with the hoist up (not that I have done this). I don’t own land, I don’t even rent land, though I hope to soon, but completing harvest this year was still a bittersweet feeling, marking the end of a process that began in fall of last year when the farm was planned out,

field by field; then, the months of decision making in order to maximize each crop’s potential yield; then, the thrill of threshing the fruits of that process, and, hopefully being able to report to the water cooler your decent if not amazing yields. I am beginning to understand how the many aspects of farming relate to each other — a crucial and interesting step enabling me to anticipate tasks before I am told to do them: putting away the auger after the last load is emptied, making sure the next

implement needed is ready for the field, etc. The examples are simplistic, I know, but they demonstrate the difference between working on a farm and running one, a transition I am currently navigating. Operating the grain truck was a lot of fun and now feels old hat (seems like a lifetime ago when I boasted in this column about not stalling my dad’s tandem), combining was a thrill and learning about elevator contracts and market analysis was and remains very interesting. I have learned a lot and

will now be accountable. Next year, even this year, my dad will ask for my opinion with the assumption that the farm is no longer foreign to me and with the assumption that, one day, those yields will be mine to be proud of. This limbo period is almost over and I will soon engage in this vocation and community as a farmer and resident, shedding once and for all my outsider’s perspective. † Toban Dyck is a freelance writer and a new farmer on an old farm. Follow him on Twitter @tobandyck or email tobandyck@gmail.com.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Columns OFF FARM

Three sell signals can lock in profits Andy Sirski explains three sell signals that help him decide when to let go of a stock ANDY SIRSKI

etween my last article and this one, administrations in Europe and the U.S. have set up what are called “infinite quantitative easing” or “perpetual easy money.” I believe that over the next couple of years these monetary policies will help to drive up the price of gold and silver, but both will be volatile. At some point, inflation will kick in and administrations will likely have to put the brakes on these economies.

I think we will have an opportunity to make money from volatility, but only for a few years. If you’re a long-term buy and holder stock investor, maybe flip the page. However, if you are a more active investor, buying low and selling high are key parts to making money with volatile stocks. There are three sell signals I try to follow to make volatility work for me. I won’t be so bold as to say that every sell signal works perfectly every time, but from what I see, if all three sell signals gang up on a stock and say “sell,” perhaps I would be wise to listen. The best part is that most of the information you need to make good decisions is free.

1. DOWN EIGHT PER CENT In the late 1990s during the tech stock bull market, I read William J. O’Neil’s book How to Make Money

High dividend paying stocks might run into a wall one day in Stocks. He wrote that if a stock is down eight per cent from your cost, you should sell. When you’re down eight per

cent, that stock needs to rise back up 8.7 per cent to get back to your purchase price so you can break even. If you wait until that stock is down 20 per cent from the original price, it will need to rise 25 per cent for you to break even. As you might guess, it’s a lot easier for a stock to rise 8.7 per cent than 25 per cent. Critics of this strategy say we might get whipsawed, that good stocks usually recover and if we sell we don’t know when to buy back again. Selling when a stock is down eight per cent is a very simple strategy that requires no charts and no sophisticated knowledge, just a simple calculator.

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When the daily price is lower than the 10-day moving average, it’s an indication of a downward trend. I developed this sell signal on my own after giving back big bucks. The strategy would not have worked well during the 17-year bull market that ran from August, 1982 to March, 2000. But these days, even though stocks have generally gone up from their March 2009 lows, many stocks are still below water, and many move up and down a lot more than in the past. In other words we are in a volatile market, not a definite bull or bear market. Sure, CNR has gone from $40 to $90 but those are few and far between. Fortis (FTS) dropped to around $22 during the bear market and now is over $32 and does not move much. Pipelines: same thing. The shares recovered and have generally kept their value. Maybe you don’t need sell signals if you own a bunch of utility stocks that have regulated profits and usually rising dividends. But even high dividend paying stocks might run into a wall one day when interest rates rise and big money starts selling high dividend paying stocks. With stocks like Silver Wheaton (SLW), the stock dances with the price of silver and over the past two years. Selling when the daily price of SLW crossed the 10-day moving average and buying again near market lows would have made a person more money than the stock is worth. That would be called farming volatility. The key would be to sell when the daily price stops going up, rolls over and crosses the 10 day moving average. Waiting just a few days would likely be okay, but most of the time when these volatile stocks start to drop they drop hard. If I had sold CCO when the daily price crossed the 10 DMA going down, I would have sold at $22 or even $21.50. That’s a lot better than $19.30. When there is downward movement in a stock you can sell the shares, except many fear being whipsawed. You can buy puts on

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On September 26 I sold 1,000 shares of Cameco (CCO) because it was down eight per cent.

2/7/12 3:19 PM

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Columns the stock — the put goes up as the price of shares goes down. If you’re wrong, all you will lose is the premium you paid to buy the put.

3. DOUBLE TOPS OR HEADS AND SHOULDERS

NATURAL GAS

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Talking about Natural Gas: $natgas had a double top almost six months apart in 2011 at around $4.60. In April 2012 the price touched down to under $2. The price did drop to $2.22 in early 2012 and then jumped to about $2.70. Then the price went to under $2 in April, 2012. On a chart, that $2.22 sure looks like the left hand shoulder of an inverse head and shoulders. The price has clawed its way back up to around $2.70 and then dropped to $2.25. On a chart that sure looks like the right hand side of an inverse head and shoulders. The natural gas industry was good at finding new wells. Then the price dropped and the industry got very good at shutting down or capping wells. Now, I believe the natural gas industry has developed a supply management system for natural gas and those capped wells will not be BY DAN PIRARO

SEASONALITY There is one more sell signal that is a bit harder to see — SFM10_04-8.125x10PSO_GN.qxd seasonality. Many stocks move with the seasons. The precious

metal stocks drop from February/ March to June. After June or July, jewelers begin to buy gold and silver ahead of wedding season, Christmas and Chinese New Year. Once harvest is done in India, when farmers have a good year they pay off their bills, set aside some money for groceries and

We will have an opportunity to make money from volatility buy gold or silver with the left over money. That creates a bull market for precious metals. If we believe that the price of silver for example will drop going towards June, and the commod10/1/12 PM Page ity and 12:33 the stocks have 1had a double top or head and shoulders

pattern, we now have two pretty solid reasons to sell a stock or the commodity. The same thinking can be applied to other stocks and other commodities.

ROTATION ROTATION ROTATION In this volatile market many investors are quite ready to lock in profits and move on to another stock that has been ignored or beaten up. I call this rotation. Stack that on top of or ahead of seasonality and again we might have two reasons to sell a stock: selling when the daily price crosses the 10-day moving average going down works well with these volatile stocks. I’m also practicing selling high and buying low. In late August I sold 1,000 shares of Standard Resources (SS0) at just under $14 after the stock earned $2,000 (16 per cent) in a few months. I also brought 300 shares of Potash at $40 and change, just

a dollar or two above a common bottom. I sold calls with a strike price of $42 for September and collected 26 cents per share. Then the shares were exercised. I made $1.50 plus $0.26 ($1.76 or 4.3 per cent) in a month. I also bought 300 shares of Molycorp (MCP), a start up rare elements mine in Nevada, and 1,000 shares of Arch Coal (ACI) at $6.60. I sold a call for MCP with a strike price of $13 and kept the money and the shares. I also sold a call for ACI for April for a strike price $7 and collected $1.75 in premiums. That’s 26 per cent return on my cost of $6.60 per share. Selling SSO might look like a mistake as the price of silver rockets up. But I made good money and bought other stocks that should do well too. † Andy is mostly retired. He gardens, plays with grandchildren, manages his own portfolio and publishes a newsletter called StocksTalk. In StocksTalk Andy explains what he does with his stocks and why. If you want to read it free for a month email Andy Sirski at sirski@mts.net.

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A third very reliable sell signal first shows up as a new and quite high price. Stocks that make a double top normally go up high, then drop and then go back up but stop rising just about the time the price is just below the old high. That second high price might be a few days or a few weeks after the first high. Normally it is quite distinct and quite easy to spot. When the price comes back up to that second high it’s quite easy to think that it will keep rising. When it doesn’t rise above the old high, many shareholders will start to sell. Non-believers might just hold on and hope the price goes back up. And it might. But it might not. In his book Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns, Thomas N. Bulkowski studied enough stock patterns to put a statistic to them. For example he shows in a table that when a stock shows a double top there is a 92 to 93 per cent chance that stock will drop from 23 to 27 per cent. My silver stocks, like SLW, have often dropped far more. In fact, several times during the past two years as SLW peaked and rolled over, the shares dropped from say $38 to $25. That is a drop of 34 per cent. Sure, the price has come back up but that sort of drop can ruin a new investor’s attitude and the value of his or her portfolio.

turned on until the price goes up and the industry decides to let more natural gas onto the market. Plus, a lot of shale gas wells don’t produce very long. The latest drop in price has been down to just below that $2.22 level. In technical terms the price of $2.22 or so was a resistance that was tested twice and the price dropped. Now that price could easily become a floor. Natural gas shares might be cheap, but this may be the reason for that. Under accounting rules, if natural gas companies find that their reserves are a lot smaller than they once thought, they might have to write down values or cut dividends. I would be careful.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Machinery & Shop COLD WEATHER OPERATION

Belted ag tractors see use in the Antarctic Low-compaction ag tractors make ideal tow mules, getting supplies to the South Pole SCOTT GARVEY

PHOTO: U.S. ANTARCTIC PROGRAM

The traverse hauling team of the U.S. Antarctic Program pose with their Case IH QuadTracs during a balmy summer day at the South Pole.

EZ does it.

he thought of starting up a high-horsepower tractor during cold winter weather makes many Prairie farmers cringe, due to the higher risk of engine and transmission damage from reduced lubrication. But there are a select few ag tractors in the world that see nothing but cold weather operation, and they’re put to work on a continent where farming is impossible: Antarctica. Incredibly, a large number of the machines operated by

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the Antarctic expedition are — believe it or not — rubber-belted farm tractors. And they’ve earned their spots in the expedition’s fleet because they’re the best machines for the job.

BEST FOR THE JOB “I played probably the single, largest role in getting these tractors to Antarctica,” says George Blaisdell, operations manager for Antarctic infrastructure and logistics. Prior to actually working for the U.S. Antarctic Program, he was involved in cold weather evaluations of belted farm tractors in northern Minnesota. And he recommended them for work in Antarctica. Despite Blaisdell’s stamp of approval, managers at the U.S. Antarctic Program initially decided not to use them. “They wanted to use proven technology,” Blaisdell adds. And belted ag tractors were relatively new at the time. But after the French contingent opted to use them in its work at the South Pole and had good success, the U.S. program followed suit. “By the mid 90s the U.S. program started using them,” Blaisdell says. “That’s when we decided to do long traverses from McMurdo (the port where supplies are offloaded from ships).” Prior to that, supplies had to be flown to the South Pole from that location, but belted tractors were given the job of pulling sled trains from the coast to the research station instead. “We could haul 36,000 gallons of fuel on a single trip and tow it at six to eight miles

Additional heaters are installed in all tractors per hour. We’ve reached a point where we’re very efficient towing things with these tractors.” “Our ag tractor fleet has grown in leaps and bounds since we first started using them,” Blaisdell continues. “We have a vehicle fleet that’s about 350. But the biggest category would be ag tractors.” The number in use varies between 35 and 56.

CHANGING FLEET Initially, the program used a modified Challenger tractor called the DV87, which Caterpillar produced specifically for Antarctic service. Among other things it included a different cab that allowed for multiple occupants and design changes to allow the tractor to better deal with the extreme temperatures, which range from -20 F to -40 F during the Antarctic summer. Today, however, the belted tractors used are off-theshelf models with only some minor changes. “Now, we just take what the dealers have,” he adds. “We purchase virtu-

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Machinery & Shop

The DV87 was an early, modified version of an agricultural Challenger tractor that had design This Case IH 450 QuadTrac and another vehicle haul fuel from the Port of McMurdo to changes allowing it to better suit the demands of Antarctic work. Today, standard ag models get the research station at the South Pole. minor modifications before being put into service in Antarctica. ally everything in the U.S. and work through the dealership network.” “We run a little less aggressive tread pattern (on the tracks),” Blaisdell adds. “The grousers aren’t as tall. On snow you don’t want any slippage, because then you start excavating.” The lower grousers also allow the track to flex more easily in cold temperatures.

V in R isit us ed D at A eer, gri-T AB N rade ov 7 -10

MODIFICATIONS Among the modifications made to the tractors, the air intakes are changed to keep snow out, and the hoods have been redesigned to completely enclose the engine for the same reason. The Case IH QuadTracs also get a larger fuel tank. And, not surprisingly, additional heaters are installed in all tractors. Finally, the standard fluids are replaced with cold weather viscosity types at the dealerships before shipment to the southern continent. Currently, the U.S. Antarctic Program uses both Case IH Q u a d Tr a c s a n d C h a l l e n g e r MT865s. “Ideally, we’d like to only have one (brand),” says Blaisdell. “Because NAPA isn’t just around the corner, we need to stock our own parts.” But the two tractor types each excel in different jobs, so the program will likely continue using both. “The QuadTracs have some advantages over the two-track in some areas, and the two-tracks have advantages over the Case in some areas.” Newer tractors are used on the long-haul traverses from McMurdo, racking up about 450 engine hours in a single trip. After tractors have logged about 7,500 total hours, they are placed in the local-use fleet. “The individuals (operators) are then at no risk, because someone can come and help you if it breaks down,” explains Blaisdell. Despite the fact the expedition has access to machines ranging from steel-tracked crawlers to dedicated snow vehicles, the ag tractors remain the vehicle of choice for long-haul traverses. Blaisdell sums up the reason this way: “It turns out that goal of low compaction — that combination of a light foot print and high traction — is ideal for snow, too.” † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Machinery & Shop FARM SHOWS

Ontario show features demos Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, held near Woodstock in southern Ontario, puts emphasis on practical demonstrations BY SCOTT GARVEY

ith over 700 exhibitors in a 50 acre outdoor park, Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show — held near Woodstock, Ont., on September 11, 12 and 13 this year — can certainly rival its western cousin, Canada’s Farm Progress Show, in scale. And while the Ontario show certainly hasn’t been around as long as the classic Regina event, this year marked its 19th birthday. “It started as a dream back in 1993,” says Doug Wagner, the show’s president. “In 1997, an opportunity presented itself for us to move the show here to the Woodstock research station, which is part of the University of Guelph. We lease about 150 acres from the research station, then we have another 100 acres, plus or minus, we lease from neighbours for parking and demonstrations.” That large land base provides room for the show to offer visitors a chance to see a variety of infield equipment demonstrations. This year, the event focused on manure spreading and ploughing. “Each year we select one or two larger demonstrations,” explains Wagner. And there were also a variety of smaller demos, such as animal handling techniques. That combination makes this event particularly appealing to mixed farmers.

BACK TO THE PLOUGH But why focus on ploughing demonstrations? That implement is more common in the East than the West, but many farmers have turned away from it, even there. According to Pat Lynch, an agronomist who organized the demos for the show, it wasn’t necessarily to promote the practice. “There are several new models on display [on the show grounds], so we’re just showing what the different models are capable of,” he says. That not only helps anyone interested in buying a plough make an informed decision, it also helps producers decide if they even want to adopt the practice.” And while ploughs may seem pretty foreign to most Western growers, most of the equipment on display at the outdoor show wasn’t. “A lot of the equipment is the same between East and West,” notes Wagner. And the show makes an effort to scout out the most interesting new technologies to feature among the static displays on the grounds or as part of the demonstrations. “The show is getting a reputation for bringing innovation to the show and presenting it effectively,” he continues. “If we think something is of interest to Ontario farmers, we’ll try and get it here.” And because of the increasing standardization of technologies, innovative machinery of almost any type generates interest from

PHOTO: SCOTT GARVEY

Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, held each September in Woodstock, Ontario, will celebrate its 20th anniversary during next year’s event. people from all across the country. But the chance to see some of it working may be the show’s greatest draw. “I think its because the show is demonstration centered,” Wagner adds. “That’s why a lot of people from all over Canada come to the show.” Next year’s 20th anniversary show is scheduled for September 10, 11 and 12. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

PHOTO: RAY BIANCHI, CLASSIC FARM PHOTOS

A crowd of onlookers moves in to take a closer look at the surface left by a plough during one of the show’s infield implement demonstrations. Practical demonstrations are a key element of the Ontario show.

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Machinery & Shop Keep it going

Old IH pickup gets a makeover This farm family keeps busy in the workshop bringing old machines back to life By Scott Garvey

“

have been doing barnyard paint jobs for over 40 years,” says John Mikal, who, along with his family operates River View Farms north of Sundre, Alta. “I taught my son, so he does most of them now.” And one of the latest projects to come out the family’s “barnyard” painting program is this 1952 International pickup. “We got this truck from a friend that just was not into Internationals,” explains John. “So Andy decided to put a shine on it. We did get all of it painted, Including the interior. As I recall, we removed the whole dash for painting as well. We are still missing a front grille and tailgate. The rest of the truck is in good shape now, as the brakes were fixed as well as a new gas tank. The motor runs good too. The plan is to find the parts we need to finish it original. Andy, my son, worked on it for about six months just some evenings and the odd day off. Andy wants to haul a load of grain with it. But most of the time it will sit in the shop and come out (only) on parade day.” Now that the International has gone as far as it can without those new parts, the Mikals have turned their attention to another project. “We are doing another ’79 ford short box in dark green and real-tree camo,” he adds. “It will be my new service and hunting truck.” The kind of results of the Mikals were able to achieve on the old International is proof that it’s possible to do some pretty good paint work in the kind of workshops most farms have. But the Mikals are making the investment to build a dedicated painting facility. “We are in the midst of building a new shop with down draft paint booth,” says John. “Everyone should have one on the farm.” John, I couldn’t agree more. Do you have a restoration project on the go in your farm shop, or do you have an old machine you’ve kept running? If so, let us know. We may feature it in an upcoming issue of Grainews. Send an email message to scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com with a good, highresulotion photo and description of your project or machine. †

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

By Dan Piraro

Bizarro

photos: john mikal

Inside the farm workshop, the International is masked and in the process of getting new paint.

With a new coat of red and gold, the old truck shines like new.

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Machinery & Shop Manufacturing milestone

The Magnum turns 25 Case IH celebrates a milestone anniversary in Magnum tractor production By Scott Garvey

I photo: scott garvey

The Magnum family tree. Posing with one of its forefathers, this anniversary edition 340 represents the newest incarnation of the line, while the model 7130 behind it, which wears serial number two, is the oldest model in existence.

f something works for you, you stick with it. That seems to be the best explanation for the 25-year production run of Case IH’s line of Magnum tractors. The company is now celebrating that silver anniversary with a limited production run of 100 special edition tractors. Over the next few months, those 2013 model-year, 340, powershift Magnums, each with a unique silver and red livery, will be sold to a waiting list of customers in Canada and the U.S. “Celebrating this milestone allows us to recognize the

Mr. Agbedoamenu is not using a Seed Hawk air seeder.

Magnum tractor’s reputation of innovation, reliability and productivity,” says Dan Klein, marketing manager for Magnum tractors. “The Magnum has maintained its market position as the leading high-horsepower row crop tractor, and we expect this to continue.” At a media event held near the company’s corporate headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin, in early August, one of only two anniversary Magnums built to that date was shown to reporters just ahead of its public debut, which was scheduled for the U.S. Farm Progress Show in Iowa later that month.

In a picturesque corner of the Racine fairgrounds, that new Magnum was parked alongside the oldest living Magnum, a 7130, which bears serial number two. (Serial number one no longer exists.) The old 7130 now spends most of its time in the Case IH museum at the company’s Burr Ridge, Illinois, facility.

IH tradition By creating a unique anniversary edition tractor, Case IH is drawing on an old IH tradition, which saw that company create many unique machines to celebrate production milestones over the years. The original Magnum models were, like the then-new company, itself, a blending of both the Case and International Harvester brands. The transaxle assembly that delivered engine power to the rear wheels was the product of R&D done by engineers at IH shortly before the corporate merger. The angular hood shape was reminiscent of the style used on Case tractors since the introduction of the 70 Series, while the cab could trace its inspiration back to 86 Series IH tractors. The new Magnums gave the company an updated model with something, it was hoped, that both die-hard Case and IH customers would find familiar enough to continue their brand loyalties. And by being the first tractor to wear the current shade of Case IH red paint, it helped transition those customers to the new brand.

The Magnum line

Wonder Agbedoamenu won’t be buying one of our air seeders to plant his Cassava in the Volta region of Ghana. But like the farmers in Western Canada who use our equipment, Wonder is now practising minimum tillage, protecting his soil so it can produce better crops today and into the future. Wonder learned about minimum tillage through a radio script produced by Farm Radio International, a Canadian organization that reaches farmers through more than 400 radio stations in Africa, which are often their only source of management information. Working with Farm Business Communications, Seed Hawk has donated the value of this advertisement to Farm Radio International so it can deliver information to even more farmers like Wonder.

Originally, the Magnum line consisted of only four models. But today, that number has grown to nine with the promise of a tenth, 370 horsepower model for the 2014 model year. The company has since abandoned the original choice of Cummins power in favour of its sister company’s FPT (Fiat Power Train) diesels. The MultiControl armrest and console that Case IH uses in most of its powered equipment is also now the standard control array in the Magnum line, and it has been for a while. That kind of continual upgrading seems to be the secret to the Magnum’s longevity. “Customer input has been the key ingredient to the successful design of Magnum tractors,” says Klein. Although the production run of limited-edition, anniversary Magnums is already spoken for, you can still get a little something special if you opt to buy one of the regular models to be built over the next year. A 25th anniversary decal will be applied to the hoods of all 2013 model-year Magnums. For a video look at the latest Magnums, check out e-Quip TV online. To find it, go to www. grainews.ca and click on the videos link. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at scott.garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Cattleman’s Corner forage production

Demand puts pressure on hay prices Some short supplies in Western Canada, and U.S. cattle producers are also looking to buy Canadian hay BY ANGELA LOVELL

eed shortages may be on the minds of some cattle producers this year, but it will most likely depend on where they live.

Good supplies in Saskatchewan Shortages are not much on the minds of Saskatchewan producers at the moment, with the Saskatchewan Forage Council (SFC) reporting 2012 has been another good year, thanks to plentiful moisture across most of the province that has given hay yields at or near average. Many Saskatchewan producers also had some significant carryover stock from 2011, which is allowing some to take advantage of shortages in the U.S. and Ontario. “Saskatchewan hay producers are beginning to capitalize on this demand by shipping hay into the U.S. and eastern Canada,” says the SFC in a late-summer hay and pasture report. “There are reports from around the province that shipments are going south under various arrangements. Regular calls are being received by both government employees and the Saskatchewan Forage Council from producers interested in selling hay to the U.S.”

Alberta comfortable Alberta, despite some warm, dry conditions throughout much of the province in July and August, still has very good soil moisture ratings, which is giving average or above average hay yields and good quality for most producers in the province. “We are not anticipating feed shortages,” says Grant Lastiwka, grazing/forage/beef specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development. “Production across Alberta is variable, with some good quality first cut and the rest similar to what we have seen in the past two years.”

Drier in Manitoba

Demand increases prices

In the southeast corner of Manitoba, however, the prospect of feed shortages is definitely a concern, with hay production down anywhere from 25 to 50 per cent for many producers in the parched area. “Our hay production is probably about 55 per cent of what is normal for us,” says Heinz Reimer of J.V. Ranch — a division of Hylife Foods Ltd. The ranch, near LaBroquerie, usually produces more than enough hay for its 750 to 800 cow-calf pairs and an additional 750 feeders per year — around 7,000 round bales annually on 10,000 acres of hay and pasture land. Reimer isn’t panicking quite yet thanks to a 25 per cent carryover from last year’s hay production, which will help, but he has purchased some hay and timothy straw and is looking around for more just in case, but admits it’s getting harder to source any locally. “I started looking about a month ago and most producers said ‘talk to us a month from now and we might have some.’ I had one guy who thought he would have 1,000 bales for me, but he called me back and said ‘I just didn’t get it so I can’t help you this year,’” says Reimer, who is usually selling, not buying hay. Other areas of Manitoba are reporting average production, with the possible exception of central and south Interlake, which is still battling problems associated with last year’s flood and is reporting that hay production is down by around 25 per cent. Although he doesn’t think feed shortages going into winter will be acute for most producers, Glenn Friesen, provincial forage specialist with Manitoba, Agriculture & Rural Initiatives (MAFRI) has seen more straw being baled this fall. He says producers who are feeling the pinch will probably be blending straw and barley into the diet to stretch existing hay supplies.

Hay prices are already up as a result of speculative buying from U.S. brokers who have been coming north for several weeks trying to secure first-right-of-refusal on future production on behalf of desperate cattle producers in the U.S. Midwest, who usually rely on corn feed, supplies of which are virtually nonexistent, following a record drought. This has already had a significant impact on the price of hay. Round bale prices are anywhere from $50 to $60, and if producers have to travel any distance to source them, costs can escalate. Reimer estimates if he has to make an eight-hour round trip to pick up bales at $90 to $100 an hour for the cost of the truck, fuel and labour, when loading time is also factored in, it’s costing him $30 a bale in additional costs. With each cow eating six to seven bales a winter it soon costs more to feed the cows than they are worth. That said, it doesn’t appear too many producers are considering selling extra cows. “We did a survey across the south east recently and it doesn’t look like too many producers are planning on decreasing the breeding herd amounts,” says Ben Hamm, a cattle producer from the Vita area who also is a business development specialist with Manitoba Agriculture. “They probably won’t be holding back too many heifers, or they may be selling a few cows and keeping back some younger animals that require a little bit less feed,” he says” Most producers at time of writing were still sitting back waiting to see how the feed situation pans out this fall. Higher grain prices could add some additional costs, but there is also potential for some corn crops to be downgraded for feed because of the dry conditions, or for alternative feeds such as sunflowers, that don’t make grade, to provide some additional feed resources.

Hamm advises producers to make sure that they test the quality of

their feed before they begin to blend in straw or other alternatives. “Producers need to get an accurate feed inventory of amounts and the feed quality on their farm,” he says. “If a producer was cutting hay in July and it was dry, that hay might only be as good as straw itself. He needs to find out what he has for inventory before he can come up with any kind of plan.” Hamm says he encourages producers to do feed tests before they incorporate any kind of straw into the diet, and suggests feeding straw earlier in the gestation period, as well as limiting amounts to avoid compaction. “The effects could be long term because if they don’t have good body condition scores (BCS) going into winter, and they deplete the BCS over the winter, next year there’s going to be problems for re-breeding, so there’s all kinds of issues that they face,” Hamm says. Reimer’s feed quality has turned out to be better than most years and he has been able to develop a plan based on that. “Basically we are going to be feeding some straw and, on our calves that we keep back, we will probably try to top it up with maybe a little more grain,” he says. “The good thing is that the hay samples we have tested this year have shown the feed quality is definitely been better than in past years. So that will allow us to do some blending.” What is more of a concern than the immediate spike in hay prices caused by the U.S. situation is the longer-term effects that a prolonged period of low production there could have on the whole industry, says Friesen. “Optimism is important, but spreading your risk is what separates you from the rest,” he says. “Everyone should remember no market is a sure thing. There’re many signals pointing to strong beef prices for the next while, but this season is a good example of how vulnerable those prices are when the feed crop is short” Reimer, on the other hand, has a

from BeefLink, Alberta taxation specialist Merle Good and a producer panel on sustainable farming. Agri-businesses will be in attendance with booth displays and handout materials. Registration is $150 per person for Manitoba Forage Council Members (earlybird), which includes meals and sessions. For more information go to the Manitoba Forage Council website at www.mbforagecouncil.mb.ca or any MAFRI GO office. CATTLE MARKETING — Canfax, the cattle market info division of the Canadian Cattleman’s Association is staging its first cattle market forum in Calgary, Nov. 13 and 14. The forum, geared for beef producers, backgrounders, feedlot owners and other industry players, such as feed companies, bankers, consultants, wholesalers and retailers, will provide a wide range

of information on cattle and livestock feed markets as well as the global economy. Among the speakers are Todd Hirsch, senior economist with ATB Financial, who will give an overview of the global economy and Mike Jubinville, president of Pro Farmer Canada, with a report on grain markets for 2013. Len Steiner of Steiner Counsulting will give an overview of competing meat markets — poultry and hogs; Andrea Brocklebank, Canfax research manager will talk about the future of the Canadian beef industry; Duane Lenz, with Canfax in Englewood Colorado will talk about the U.S. cattle market, and Brian Perilat, manager of Canfax will talk about profitability in the Canadian beef market. David Hughes, professor at Imperial College London, based in Wales will talk about export markets. The event will be held at

the Deerfoot Inn and Casino. Registration details can be found on the Canfax website at: www.canfax. ca by clicking on the forum poster. GRAZING CONFERENCE — The Western Canadian Grazing Conference and Trade Show is coming up Nov. 28 and 29 at the Sheraton Hotel, Gaetz Ave. in Red Deer, Alta. Held every two years, the conference this year has an excellent line up of speakers including beef producers Neil Dennis of Wawota, Sask., Charley Orchard, grazing management specialist from Great Falls, Montana; and Glen Rabenberg, president of Soil Works, PhosRite and Genesis Soil Rite Calcium. Banquet speaker is David Irvine, an Alberta psychologist who will talk about “Working with the ones you love: The human side of agriculture.” For more information visit the conference website at: www.westerncanadiangrazingconference.com or call the West

Test feed quality

Resources for selling or finding hay The Saskatchewan Forage Council has some useful information about selling hay to the U.S. in its August Hay & Pasture Report at the link below: http://www.saskforage.ca/ Coy%20Folder/Publications/ Hay%20Report/SK_Hay_Pasture_ Report_August_2012.pdf Saskatchewan Forage, Feed & Custom Service Listing http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/ FeedForageListing Hay Exchange http://www.hayexchange.com/ Manitoba Hay Listing Service http://web2.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/haysearch/index.php Ontario Hay Listings http://www.ontariohaylistings.ca/ Alberta Hay, Straw and Pasture Listings http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/ app68/hay different take on the issue of crises, having lived through more than a few. “As farmers we are always optimistic,” he says. “I lived through the drought of 1980 and 1988 and I think 1988 was worse. Whenever you do have a drought the quality of the hay always seems a little bit better, which definitely helps cope if feed supplies do get tight.” Friesen explains the reason for higher-quality hay in dry years. “With legumes (alfalfa), as the plants lose access to soil moisture they focus less of their metabolic energy on elongating stems, and more on leaves,” he says. “The result is lower stem to leaf ratio, and higher quality.” With low carryover grain inventories in the U.S., if corn prices stay high and supplies remain tight south of the border that could mean some western Canadian producers have to decide if they should sell some of their hay inventory while prices are good or hold on to it in case next year’s production isn’t as good. † Angela Lovell is a freelance writer based in Manitou, Manitoba

Coming events MANITOBA RANCHER’S FORUM — The long-running Manitoba Grazing School has been revamped and renamed this year as the Manitoba Rancher’s Forum to be held Nov. 27 and 28 at the Victoria Inn, Brandon, Man. While the school was good, organizers decided to refresh the program, with a broader range of topics focusing on the needs of livestock, forage and grain producers. There will be a wide range of topics and speakers for all involved in agriculture. The topics include marketing, animal rights, soil and pasture cropping systems, herd health, legal liability issues on the farm, tax management, feedlot topics, goat and sheep production, social media development and much more. Speakers include the Manitoba minister of agriculture, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Martin Unrau, Brenda Schoepp

Central Forage Association at 780727-4447. FORAGE CONFERENCE: The Canadian Forage and Grassland Association is holding a two day conference on Innovations in the Forage and Grassland Sector, December 10 to 12, at the Radisson Plaza Mississauga hotel at the Toronto Airport. Several key speakers are lined up for the event including Dr. Dan Undersander, University of Wisconsin; Dr. Ralph Martin, Professor and Loblaw Chair Sustainable Food Production, University of Guelph; Steve Eby, a beef producer; Evert Veldhuizen, a dairy producer, Ed Shaw, IQ Forage, Carstairs, Alberta; Marc Lavoie, Macay Enterprises, Peace River, Alberta, Jeff Roberts of Harvest Tech Inc., and Nick Betts, Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement. For more information visit the association website at: www.canadianfga. ca. †

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Keepers & Culls Readers ticked off with CFIA and XL Foods mess LEE HART

A few readers have weighed in on the massive meat recall from XL Foods at Brooks, Alberta which started in early September and continues, more than a month later as we reach deadline the second week of October. I had written a couple of blog c o m m e n t s ( w w w. g r a i n e w s . ca) mostly criticizing XL Foods management for not stepping up to the plate. Obviously they have some role in this, but one reader says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has to get serious about food safety. Here are those comments: Dear Editor: This mess should never have happened and must not happen again. As producers we have spent millions building the Alberta Beef brand only to have this black eye show up as a result of negligence I have no control over. Asia, our “gold ring” market is now suspect of our food safety. The Americans are laughing all the way to the bank. There goes Canada again; shooting themselves in the foot! This is an inspection and safety issue. There is too much at stake for CFIA to only be responsible for training company inspectors, doing random checks and looking at the occasional form. As producers we must demand that every single carcass and procedure be inspected by an independent CFIA inspector. Our current federal government has used budget reduction and reduced department spending to download or default on their (our)

responsibility for food safety. We must be prepared to check a thousand clean carcasses to find the one contaminated carcass. This is a cost of doing business and keeping business once we get it. The taxpayers of Canada will gladly pay for clean food. The company has the responsibility to process properly and the inspection system must put their stamp of assurance as the last link in the chain. For (Alberta Premier) Redford to tell people to cook their meat well is an insult to the system and producers. She just told the majority of people they can no longer order a medium rare or rare steak. She did irreparable damage with that sweeping statement. She threw in the towel and said we can’t supply you with an assured uncontaminated steak so you must cook it white. She should have been up one side of Gerry Ritz and down the other to show her support for the ranchers she represents. She should have said the meat was clean until the hide came off, what happened? How can we be sure it won’t happen again next year? How much longer must we put up with CFIA dodging their responsibility? How much longer is the federal government going to starve food inspection services of adequate resources? Why lie to the public about hiring additional inspectors when those additional inspectors had nothing to do with the current crisis? Damn rights I’m mad! XL has admitted to an inability to keep up with the overwhelming contamination that hit the plant this summer. Many similar animals arrived at Cargill. How did they handle the situation? Did they slow the line speed? Did they hire more cleanup people? How did they avoid contamination or did they just not get caught?

Canadians will likely forgive this fiasco but I’m not sure overseas markets will. This just puts more pressure on primary producers and hastens the day when XL will own all the auctions, all the feedlots and all the cattle. I’m going to now take my blood pressure meds and do some yoga. Norman Storch Hanna, Alta PS: Garden Plain looks better all the time and I had steak for supper! (Editor’s note: Storch’s reference is to Garden Plain Kansas, Beginning in 1980, the opening of two massive beef-packing plants on its outskirts turned Garden City into a modern boomtown and the first majority-minority community in Kansas. But when one of those plants burned down in 2000, the boom went bust.)

AND A COUPLE MORE BLOG COMMENTS: Editor: I can’t escape the feeling that the western beef producer is going to take a real kick in the u-nowhats over this. We are now in southern Ontario, (Milton area) and the reaction is ugly. Shortly after the first recall, the host at a white tablecloth restaurant told us after seating that they did have beef products, none of them came from Alberta but from local producers. They did have other entrées if we did not wish to eat beef. Supermarkets posted the same signs (no Alberta beef) for a few days, then replaced those signs with “Our beef is corn fed Ontario beef.” The most recent signage adds “All our beef is provincially inspected corn-fed Ontario beef.” So much for branding — how many years of work by the Beef

Write, Email or Fax Contact Cattleman’s Corner with comments, ideas or suggestions for and on stories by mail, email, phone or fax. Phone Lee Hart at 403-592-1964 Fax to 403-288-3162 Email lee@fbcpublishing.com Write to CATTLEMAN’S CORNER, PO Box 71141 Silver Springs RPO, Calgary, Alta. T3B 5K2 Information Centre promoting beef has been lost in the past month? After a lifetime eating our own beef, raised, fattened and butchered on our Cypress Hills farm, I find it unsettling when I have to buy beef these days. P.S: I cringe whenever I hear the beef spokesmen saying that “with proper cooking, beef is safe.” In other words with the beef we buy we also get at no extra cost fecal matter with E. coli. The first principle of TR’s (Teddy Roosevelt) pure food laws over a century ago was, “Food must be wholesome.” Oh, how I wish someone could get up and say that honestly today. Blair Backman And on a different topic…a reader sends in his comments concerning an early October column on managing mouldy feed. Editor: The mouldy feed story (GN Sept. 10, p. 23) by Mr. Vitti is terrific. It is clear, balanced, readable and informative and has much value in managing livestock. One can say more from history, however. On the human side of things, ergot fungus in wet rye produced a form of neuropathology, which affected perceptions and caused twitching. That’s the mycological

explanation for witch mania in Europe and especially in Salem, Mass. after a season in which unusual levels of moisture from heavy fall rains caused unventilated stores of rye to develop ergot. There were witch trials in Europe, esp. Germany, for behaviour of a similar sort following very wet falls. Wet rye fungus was the devil, so to speak. There is a substantial scholarly literature on this. As a further historical note, the experiments with LSD in the 60s and 70s were reruns of the history of human ingestion of ergot mould. Temporary psychosis occurred in Salem in 1692 when 19 women and one man were executed and in Harvard Professor Timothy Leary’s head after he danced with LSD. “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” said philosopher George Santayana. The relevance of this to Mr. Vitti’s story is that, witches aside, critters which ingest certain mycotoxins may develop behavioural oddities. The cure is often not in pharmacy, but in clean, dry feed. Andrew Allentuck

THE MARKETS

Beef recall has impact on consumer spending JERRY KLASSEN MARKET UPDATE

ed and feeder cattle prices have come under pressure over the past few weeks as price conscious consumers back away from beef on the retail shelf. Beef consumption moves through a seasonal low from September through November on both the retail and restaurant level. The beef recall due to the E. coli problem at the XL Foods packing plant in Brooks has been psychologically negative for the beef complex and it will take time for consumers to regain confidence in beef. Wholesale prices are struggling to move higher and packing margins are in red ink. Alberta packers were buying fed cattle in the range of $106/cwt to $108/cwt in early October, down slightly from a month earlier.

Cattle-on-feed numbers in Canada and the U.S. are similar to last year and heavier carcass weights may cause beef production to come in above year-ago levels in October and November. Fed cattle prices are expected to trade sideways to lower due to weaker demand and larger supplies over the next month. From December forward, the market will start to adjust to lower cattle-on-feed numbers and stronger consumer spending for the winter and spring period. Fed and feeder cattle prices are expected to percolate higher in January through March.

CATTLE ON FEED Cattle on feed in the U.S. as of September 1 were 10.6 million head, down one per cent from September 1 of 2011; August placements came in at 2.2 million head, down one per cent from last year while fed cattle marketings were two million head which was a yearover-year decline of five per cent. The placements number was the

second lowest since 1996, which should result in lower beef production from December forward. Higher feed grain prices have done little to shorten feeding periods as dressed weights in the U.S. are running 16 pounds above last year. U.S. beef weekly output has increased over the past weeks but on the year is running two per cent below 2011. The number of cattle in the U.S. on feed 120 days or more has been abnormally high for this time of year and will likely decline only December. Higher numbers of market ready cattle and larger weekly beef output will continue to hinder fed cattle prices through November. Unlike the U.S., the Canadian weekly average slaughter pace has declined in the fall, resulting in lower beef production. However, the temporary closure of the XL beef plant in Brooks has skewed recent data. On the year, Canadian beef production is only down one per cent from 2011 for the week ending Sept. 22. U.S. beef production is down a meagre two per cent so this is not significant enough to offset overall price structure. Canadian year-to-date (late September) exports of slaughter steers and heifers were 264,085

head, down eight per cent in comparison to the same period last year. Western Canadian feedlots are also backed up with marketready cattle despite total on-feed numbers at seasonal lows. Beef demand depends on consumer spending and highly variable to disposable income. Certain steaks are generally purchased by people with aboveaverage income on the retail and restaurant level. Top-end cuts of beef tend to soften in September through November and then start to increase in December. Ground beef and lower-end cuts are bought by the general public and fast food restaurants; these cuts also have higher substitutability with pork and chicken.

FEEDER PRICES Feeder cattle prices are about the same as last year. In early October, a small group of black mediumflesh steers weighing just over 600 pounds sold for $148/cwt in central Alberta. A group of Charolais-cross steers averaging 740 pounds moved at $144/cwt landed in a southern Alberta feedlot. Feedlot margins are in negative territory and most operators are factoring higher barley

prices over the winter. Fed cattle prices need to rally over $120/cwt in November to break even, up from current levels of $108/cwt. Therefore, feeder cattle values will have difficulty moving higher given the current feeding economics. For the week ending Sept. 22, Canadian year-to-date exports of feeder steers and heifers were 106,575, up a whopping 68 per cent over the same period of 2011. The U.S. market has been trading at a premium to western Canadian values, especially since winter wheat pasture is in fairly good condition. Stronger U.S. prices should underpin Canadian domestic feeder prices throughout the fall and limit any slippage in the market. However, keep in mind domestic demand is soft. If domestic feedlots experience significant equity erosion in the fall, there will be limited buying power in the spring. Cowcalf producers should sell increments of their feeder cattle over a longer period to diversify their marketing strategy. † Gerald Klassen analyses 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 gklassen7@hotmail.com or call 204 899 8268.

B U I L D I N G T R U S T I N C A N A D I A N OCTOBER B E E F 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Cattleman’s Corner

Two Maritime beef industry leaders first to be VBP audited First audits in the region are a milestone

he Verified Beef Production (VBP) program, Canada’s beef on-farm food safety program, got an important boost with the announcement that two industry leaders both received their VBP audits. Both occurred on the same day. Brian Morrison of Morrison Farms Inc. in Summerside, P.E.I. and Darlene Sanford, of Mont Carmel, P.E.I., both feedlot operators, completed their audits this spring. That audited status means they have implemented accepted Standard Operating Procedures, and their recordkeeping systems have been reviewed by a third-party auditor and officially recognized by the VBP program. Both Morrison and Sanford say they hope other beef producers will be encouraged to

get involved in the VBP program, as a way of giving consumers more confidence in the beef they purchase at the meat counter. RECORD-KEEPING LESSONS

For Sanford, a longtime beef industry leader who operates a 400- to 500-head capacity feedlot and family farm, one of the most useful parts of the VBP experience has been to understand the value of record-keeping systems to the beef industry. “Some producers seem worried that the VBP program will require more record-keeping, but when you boil it down, there really isn’t much effort to records for VBP. It is flexible enough that it can be set up to work for you and the program, and it doesn’t have to be a cumbersome thing.” Sanford keeps manual herd records in a binder and she appreciates having all the information she needs in one place. “If I want to know how the calves from one producer performed, I have that. If I want to check health records I can do that. I can find anything on any animal in under five minutes,” she says. “These records help me make better management decisions.” ADDING VALUE

Darlene Sanford of Mont Carmel, P.E.I.

Morrison says he saw value in the program from his experience in the P.E.I. Cattle Producers and thought it was important to complete the audit to show others how it could work. He’s hopeful it will lead to value-added opportunities for the industry. “When you’re a small feeder in a small province, you need to find every opportunity

Brian Morrison, Summerside, P.E.I.

to add value. Hopefully this could be one way to give us a marketing edge with some specialty products.” “The message I’d like other producers to see is that there is value in this VBP program. It’s professionalizing your feedlot or farm. At the end of the day we handle food, and the consumer wants to know that it is being handled properly. This is a vehicle to do that.” AUDIT SIMPLE

Both Sanford and Morrison agree the audit itself was basically a “painless” exercise. Sanford says the process was simply a matter of showing the auditor around the operation, answering questions and then reviewing the herd records and answering any further questions. Morrison adds it used to be that one person knew everything that went on, but today there are often several people involved. This program is a way that any one of them can step into the operation and pick up where the last person left off.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Cattleman’s Corner

Messmer family marks 100 years of farming After homesteading near Barrhead, north of Edmonton in 1911, the generations of the Messmer family are still running the mixed farming operation today By Sharon Espeseth

t was a three-country, twocontinent journey that started in Germany in the mid-1800s before the Messmer family finally set roots in the somewhat isolated parkland region of northcentral Alberta. This past summer they joined the ranks of an exclusive group of farm families receiving the Alberta Century Farm and Ranch Award. In mid-August 2012, the Messmer family and friends celebrated 100 years of Messmer Farms along with Eugene Messmer’s 80th birthday. The event took place at the Naples Hall, 10 miles northeast of Barrhead, Alta., a hall Eugene’s relatives helped build and support over the years. Eugene’s father Oscar and uncle Peter Messmer first came to the Barrhead area early in the 1900s. Since Oscar was too young at the time it was “Uncle Peter” who actually held the first claim on Messmer land, which continues to be farmed by Eugene’s son, Tim and his family today. Present for the August celebrations were Eugene and his wife Grace, their three sons, Laurie, Tim, and Kevin, along with their wives and offspring. Visiting, displays of old photos, maps, clippings, and memorabilia helped family and

guests relive the past. Also exhibited was the bronze plaque from the Alberta government commemorating 100 years on the family farm.

Started in Germany During the afternoon, Eugene narrated an old-fashioned slide show and daughter-in-law Kim read the family history, starting with Peter (senior) and Meria Messmer born in Germany during the mid1800s. From Germany, Peter and Meria and their then eight children moved to Zurich, Switzerland where two more children, Frida and Oscar were born. From Switzerland, the family emigrated to the United States, where they operated a dairy farm near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Selling milk to city residents went fine until a downturn in the country’s economy downsized their income. In 1911, three Messmer men ventured to Alberta to investigate homestead country. Recognizing potential in the land northwest of Edmonton, they staked claims in the area now called Naples. The rest of the family, except one son who stayed behind in the U.S., followed in the spring of 1912. Travel by train ended at Clyde, Alta. Oscar, Eugene’s father, then 12 years old, was too young to stake claim. Oscar’s brother, Pete Jr. made

his claim in 1911, which is significant to the 100-year status. Pete Jr. continued improving his homestead while living with his parents until 1917. A bachelor of 32 years, Pete then moved into a small house he had built on his own quarter, which later became part of Eugene’s farming operation and is part of Tim’s farm today. Uncle Pete’s quarter, as the family refers to it, is kitty-corner from what became Oscar’s quarter. This quarter section has been passed down from Oscar to Eugene and is now farmed by Tim. Grain farming was Uncle Pete’s specialty. While his brothers preferred modern machines for fieldwork, Pete used only horses. Perhaps Pete’s slower pace kept him going longer, as he farmed until his death in 1962. At age 75, Pete died while loading small bales onto his wagon.

Farming and lumber In 1931, Oscar married India Properzi, an Italian neighbour. Shortly after their marriage, Oscar and India moved to what is now the home quarter of the Messmer Farms. During the early ’40s, Oscar ran his own sawmill and stockpiled lumber for a new house, outbuildings, and fences. Eugene recalled, “There were always piles of lum-

photo: melissa messmer

Above are members of the Messmer family, from left, Kevin Messmer and Lois Borle, Tim and Kim Messmer, Grace and Eugene Messmer, and Barbie and Laurie Messmer. ber in the yard.” Eugene grew up working with his father. Eugene’s only sibling, Marie, married a local farmer, Rudy Glessman. While still farming at home, Eugene met Grace Roberts, a farm girl from the Layton district east of Barrhead. Married in 1956, Eugene and Grace lived with his parents in “the big house,” the one built from home-sawn lumber. After three years of sharing the big house, Oscar built a small house in the same yard for him and India, leaving the larger house for Eugene and Grace’s growing family. Raising their four sons on the farm made Laurie, Brian, Tim, and Kevin all farmers at heart. Horseback riding, 4-H, and raising prize-winning Herefords ran in their blood. Grace inherited the chicken business from her mother-in-law. Selling chickens and eggs added to the family income. With the boys growing like poplars, Grace found it economical to sew their clothes, including jeans and jackets. Relatives and friends loved to visit the farm. Grace and Eugene welcomed them all. With the house often bursting its walls, Eugene and Grace eventually added on.

Next generation In 1980, Grace and Eugene’s son Tim married Kim Mitchell,

another local farm girl. The young couple lived in Barrhead, where Tim worked for Walden Tire. When their children, Brandon and Melissa, were school age, Tim and Kim talked to his folks about moving their mobile home onto Pete’s quarter. Living near the home place made it easier for Tim to help his dad. Making Pete’s quarter home for 14 years meant raising their kids in the country. When Eugene and Grace retired to Barrhead in 2000, Kim and Tim renovated the main house, again adding on, before moving in. Today, on 600 acres, Tim produces hay and grain for his herd of about 90 cow-calf pairs. Kim, who supervises a pre-school program in Barrhead, is the first wife of the family to work off the farm. Eugene still helps Tim out with some jobs, but Tim also works closely with neighbours when more hands are needed. Successive generations of Messmers have upheld the tradition of being industrious, honest, and financially stable. They have all been community-minded. Like preceding couples, Kim and Tim continue to be leaders in the Naples Community. † Sharon Espeseth is a freelance writer based in Barrhead, Alta.

dairy corner

Keeping Holstein steers alive and growing BY PETER VITTI

Miss colostrum

eeding Holstein steers for the beef market has swung from a sideline to full-scale operations in Canada. Favourable economics of this venture often coincide with the regular beef feeder market or are inversely scaled with lower grain prices. Many people buy newborn bulls, either to be raised and resold to grower or finisher feedlots or taken right to market weight. Either way, producers should be aware that raising Holstein steers for profit presents its own unique challenges, even before they are weaned and eventually put in a feedlot for further growth and finish. Right from the start, all viable Holstein beef operations must depend upon an established health program, which naturally dovetails into a step-by-step nutrition and management program. That’s because a four-day old bull calf is a very vulnerable animal. The mortality rate of purchased Holstein bull/steers has been recorded as high as 75 per cent before they reach weaning age compared to less than two per cent reported by a typical beefbreed operation. The culprit of this health status imbalance originates when sold newborn Holstein bull calves fail to receive colostrum after birth.

Feeding colostrum to newborn dairy calves is one of the most common calf-raising recommendations followed by most dairy producers. The dairy calf is born with virtually no protection against disease and feeding colostrum within hours of birth gives it general disease protection for the next couple of months until it can develop a more permanent immune system. Bull calves that do not receive colostrum shortly after birth, have very low disease resistance and have a poor ability to handle any significant amounts of stress. Therefore, dairy calf operators should purchase Holstein bull calves from a single reputable and known source such as large successful dairy operations which feed colostrum to all calves as part of their routine management practices. In contrast, there is no guarantee that auction mart calves have received proper colostrum care after birth and due to several changes to their environment are likely to be heavily stressed. Even if one knows where the bull calves come from, avoid purchasing any poor-looking animals, skinnyboney calves, those coughing or with excessive nasal discharge or wet tails with diarrhea. The mistake of purchasing unhealthy bull calves usually follows the buyer;

these poor calves are likely to remain “poor doers” in the preceding months after purchase or infect healthy calves already at home.

Proper vaccinations The wise choice of purchasing sound, healthy calves is only a start. In the upcoming weeks before weaning, all growing bull calves should be castrated into steers and vaccinated against common cattle diseases. Consequently, a veterinarian consulted for a specific vaccine program (re: blackleg, malignantedema, IBR, PI3, BVD, pasterella, and clostridial diseases) and type of effective vaccine (live or modified) to use. He/she should also make out a specific timetable as to give vaccines as well as the recommended timeliness of booster shots. At vaccination time, one should also consider giving each calf an A, D, and E (with selenium) injection as well as a B-vitamin shot. A similar program to control internal and external parasites should also be recommended by a veterinarian. Once a good health plan is chosen for Holstein steers, an equally important pre-weaned nutrition program should also be implemented. High-quality milk replacer is going to be the sole feed source

for these young calves until they reach two to three weeks of age. Newborn calves are born with an immature digestive system (with a non-functioning rumen), so their elementary stomachs can initially only break down simple compounds such as casein proteins and un-complexed dietary energy sources such as lactose milk sugar and saturated animal fats. These elements are typically found in 100 per cent milk-based milk replacers. Milk replacers should contain 20 to 22 per cent protein, as well as a high fat content. Newborn calves should be started on a commercial product that is 20 per cent fat. Research has shown that this high fat level is necessary to meet their energy requirements and can support a desirable daily growth rate of about 250 grams (1/2 lb.). By the time dairy calves are a few weeks old, they should be consuming a significant amount of dry calf starter as another source of dietary energy and therefore the fat level in the milk replacer can be reduced to 15 to 16 per cent fat until calves are weaned. Calf starter feeds should be introduced by the time calves are two weeks of age. It should be coarse textured or pelleted. Calves will initially nibble on it, but in a short time, each pre-weaned calf should

be consuming about 0.5 to 0.75 kilo per day. Provide extra water, even while milk is being fed. Water consumption encourages good calf starter intake. When bull calves are about six to eight weeks of age, they should be consuming about 1.0 to 1.5 kilos of calf starter, daily.

Weaned from milk replacer Once these bull calves are eating this amount of calf starter on a consistent basis and have doubled their body weight (about 90 kg) from the time of purchase, they should be weaned from their milk diets. These calves can continue on a post-weaning ration and rely on water as their sole liquid until they are about 180 kg. For example, a total mixed ration of 80 per cent grain/20 per cent roughage is often recommended. That can include a complete coarse mix of corn/barley, supplemented with a protein such as soybean meal and 15 to 20 per cent ground alfalfa hay. This post-weaning ration should support about 0.90 to 1.1 kg of average daily gain in dairy steers, but as calves grow their dry matter intakes will increase while feed efficiencies will gradually decline. † 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

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Cattleman’s Corner ANYONE CAN START FARMING

Options for lowest-cost rations With rising grain prices, more and more farmers are exploring alternative options for livestock feed DEBBIE CHIKOUSKY

SUNFLOWER SEEDS The other feed that we have been blessed with a steady sup-

ply of is black oil sunflower seeds. These are not only high in protein but they are also a source of vitamin E and copper for our goats.

PEARSON SQUARE My favourite tool for mixing rations is the Pearson square. This is a mathematical tool that takes all the guesswork out of combining available components to form a ration suitable for livestock. Although I have only used it for protein, it can also be used for TDN, amino acids, or vitamins. I use the Pearson square when I am combining two ingredients with different protein levels. For example, if I have a grain that is 10 per cent protein and

BUCKWHEAT An organic farmer friend asked us if we could use some buckwheat to mix with the peas. Always up for a research project, I discovered buckwheat is a very acceptable feed for livestock. Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is actually not a grain — it’s related to rhubarb — but has the same general nutritive characteristics as cereal grains. It has a lower feeding value than wheat, oats, barley, rye or corn, with a protein level of about 10 per cent. We had great success soaking whole buckwheat overnight to feed to poultry but for other types of livestock it would need to be ground due to the hulls. Buckwheat contains a compound called fagopyrin which can cause photosensitivity, rashes on the skin and itching behavior when exposed to sunlight. Only white or light-coloured areas of the hide are affected. The animals become photosensitive after consuming large amounts of buckwheat for an extended period. Buckwheat should be limited to 20 to 25 per cent of the concentrate mixture. Since we didn’t have a grain crusher available, we reserved the buckwheat experiment for only poultry. They were very healthy and grew very well with this in their feed mix.

Many provincial government nutritionists have told us that protein is the most expensive component of the diet, and they are more than willing to help with rations. Using the resources of Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiative (MAFRI) is beneficial because they have all the latest technology at their disposal and farmers can usually use it for free. To make using the Pearson square more convenient, I found a free download online at www.freewarepocketpc.net (search for “Pearson”). Learning all we did this summer about feeding alternative energy sources was very educational. We are very hopeful that our winterfeeding will go smoothly and that all our fellow farmers that are struggling with low crop and hay yields will make it another year. Sometimes it just takes a bit of exploration to unveil more affordable feeding possibilities. † Debbie Chikousky farms with her family at Narcisse, Man. Visitors are always welcome. Contact Debbie at debbie@chikouskyfarms.com.

TIPS & TALES

ising grain costs in Manitoba have made our family very glad our beef herd is grass based. The rest of our livestock still depends on grain for feed. When we realized our oat bin was getting low and oats were sitting at about $0.15 a pound, it was time to research some different ideas. One of the most successful products we have used is field peas ground finely in combination with field pea screenings and other grains. Whole peas are also available from a local processing plant but without proper milling machinery they are unacceptable feed for small ruminants because they can damage teeth. The field peas are very palatable; protein usually ranges from 20 to 27 per cent and energy from 88 to 90 per cent total digestible nutrients (TDN), making them a great choice for creep feeds. Luckily, our local processing plant feed tests its screenings, which average about 10 per cent protein, making them a great base grain for a ration.

Spelt’s total protein content varies from 13.1 to 14.3 per cent, depending on climate and soil conditions. It is higher than soft wheat (10.5 per cent) and spring wheat (9.1 per cent) but similar to durum wheat (13.8 per cent). The sequence of amino acids also differs between spelt and wheat; spelt contains more cystine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine and neurotransmitters, phenylalanine and tryptophane. In comparison with other grains spelt has generally more vitamins and basic minerals.

I have pea screenings with a 20 per cent protein value, I can use the Pearson square to quickly calculate how many parts of each I need to achieve a 16 per cent protein ration. The Pearson square is a simple diagram of five numbers. To perform the calculations, subtract the figure in the bottom left corner from the centre number. Write the result in the top right corner. This is the part of grain needs to be included in the ration. Then subtract the number in the centre from the top left number, and write the result in the bottom right corner. This is the part of peas that need to be mixed with the grain to achieve a 16 per cent ration. So, for every four units of measure I use for grain I need to add six parts of equal measure of peas. Since most of our grain choices are approximately $0.10 a pound and pea screening/fine grounds average $0.06 a pound, the resulting mix would cost approximately $0.08 cents a pound.

CALVING

SPELT The other grain we gained a bit of experience with this summer was spelt. We found some that had been saved for seed but it had a low germination rate. It was wonderful for feed. My only previous experience with spelt was for baking bread so this project was very enlightening.

We need your...

Friends and neighbours, we are once again looking for your best calving tips and

tales for CATTLEMEN’S expanded January 2013 Calving Special. We’re looking for good ideas, practical advice, or humorous tales and calving photos to share with fellow readers. A reward will be sent for Tips & Tales printed in this special.

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Cattleman’s Corner REPRODUCTION

Ultrasound technology has good fit for preg-checking These veterinarians developed a probe for determining pregnancy that is not only accurate but saves the wear and tear on the arm HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

hile preg checking has traditionally be done by arm-in rectal palpation, technology is making it possible to use trans-rectal ultrasound probes to do the job with just as much or more accuracy and it’s a lot easier on the technician as well. Andrew Bronson came to Alberta after graduating from Ontario Veterinary College in 1982. “Most ranchers have their cows pregnancy-checked in the fall,” says Bronson, who is based in Lethbridge, Alta. “I was proud of my palpating skills, because this is what makes or breaks you, as a beef cattle veterinarian.” By age 45, however, the wear and tear on his arm and shoulder — multiple strain injuries after palpating cows all day — was taking a toll. He bought an aluminum extension-arm ultrasound unit, called a mechanical sector scanner. After using it several years, he saw the benefits of extension-arm ultrasound. Due to mechanical problems, however (and the long distance and turnaround time on repairs), Bronson and a partner, Bruce Hill, developed their

own extension-arm ultrasound, called ReproScan.

EASY TO USE This type of ultrasound equipment is much easier to learn to use than palpating, as well as being easier on the body. Also, there are certain stages of gestation in which ultrasound is much more accurate in determining the age of the fetus. “Then as the cow gets farther along in pregnancy, ultrasound is not quite as accurate as palpation for someone who’s done hundreds of thousands of palpations,” says Bronson. “But ultrasound is probably more accurate for the inexperienced person because it’s easier.” While Bronson’s ReproScan was first used as a linear probe, he later changed to an ReproScan extension-arm unit working with a 4.0 MHz convex rectal probe. “This produces a pie-shaped image,” he says. “Depending on how it’s set, it can be as large as the size of your hand — versus a creditcard size picture with the linear probe (which is what most armin ultrasound units provide).” Bronson says this is like the difference between hunting birds with a rifle instead of a shotgun. “It’s easier to hit a small target with a shotgun.” Bronson and Hill bought the convex probe technology from a company and

PHOTO: HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

Above, the “arm” of the ReproScan probe is inserted into the cow’s rectum, while in the top-right hand corner of the photo is the monitor displaying the ultrasound image. designed their ReproScan probe as a portable unit. “When we started out we thought the biggest market, initially, would be feedlot heifers,” says Bronson. “My partner and I were involved with live cattle exports when the border closed because of BSE. When it did reopen in 2005 all heifers had

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to be preg-checked because no pregnant cattle were allowed to be exported. So we did 150,000 heifers by ultrasound in 2-1/2 years. We would not have been able to do this number without extension-arm ultrasound.” Veterinarians who spend a lot of time palpating or doing armin ultrasound find it physically demanding, and ultimately wear out. And with more women in the industry, the average height of veterinarians is dropping which makes it even more difficult for them to palpate cows all day. “Today the pressure is on veterinarians to go through a lot of cows quickly,” says Bronson. “Fewer veterinarians are interested in taking the time to learn to palpate.”

GOOD ACCURACY Ultrasound can do a good job of aging the fetus. “Under 120 days, ultrasound in general can be quite accurate — more accurate than anybody palpating cows, and there are some really good palpaters,” Bronson says. All forms of checking (palpation or ultrasound) become less accurate on fetal aging in advanced pregnancy. It becomes more difficult after 120 days’ gestation because the uterus drops below the rim of the pelvis and there are also variations in the size of the fetus and cotyledons. “Other things start affecting the size of the fetus as well, including genetics and nutrition,” says Bronson. There are many stories about sale-barn preg-checking errors. “Even vets who have done hundreds of thousands of cows err now and then,” Bronson says. “Sometimes they have to put those cows into a one- or two-month window. If a cow comes in at what they think is a six-month pregnancy and it’s an eight-month fetus — and she calves earlier than expected and the calf freezes to the ground — the buyer is angry. But it’s easy to make that mistake, especially

on a big old cow where you can’t reach the uterus. “If you put our extension arm in there, however, and see large cotyledons and maybe a hoof, you can say it’s at least six months. When palpating, if you are good at this, you can get a feel for the weight of the uterus, size of uterine arteries, and all these things can give you information. Once you have done 100,000 or so, you can quickly say you think she’s more than six months — maybe seven or eight,” he says. “My argument is that it’s not worth it. This is too hard on your body and you are still going to be off, now and then, by one or two months. This can be misleading to the person trying to put together a package of April calvers,” Bronson says. Most of the old vets who were really good at palpating are gone or retiring. “Palpation is a difficult skill to learn and it’s hard for young veterinarians to gain experience quickly enough. It’s easier to learn to do ultrasound,” he explains.

COST EFFECTIVE The ReproScan equipment costs about $10,000, which is feasible for a veterinary practice, a big feedlot, or large cattle operation. “We now have a portable unit for veterinarians who want to save their arm. We have two groups who like our technology — the older vets who want things easier on their bodies, and the young vets who like the new technology,” he says. Bronson’s company provides demo equipment and training courses for veterinarians and producers. “Here in Western Canada we’ve been running mostly full-day classes on a regular basis.” For more information on ReproScan email inquiry@reproscan.com, or call 1-877-8902411, or visit www.repro-scan. com. † Heather Smith Thomas is a long-time writer who ranches with her husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact her at 208-756-2841.

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Home Quarter Farm Life SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Power of target dates, timelines and action You owe it to yourself and your next-generation farming partners ELAINE FROESE

here’s nothing more scary for farm families who are trying to gain control over their lives than to have no clue about what the future holds. I am chuckling as I write today because today is the first time that I have been gently asked over the phone if I would like the “senior’s discount” for age 55 plus, and I now qualify! I wonder what’s in my future as a senior. I will be four years away from the “brown envelope” early option when I celebrate my 56th birthday this month. Time has a way of slipping quickly by, something like the toilet paper roll that spins faster as it reaches the end of the roll. Please promise yourself and your next-generation farm partners that you are going to engage the power of target dates, timelines and action. Specifically: 1. You are going to speak to your spouse about letting go of power and control of the farm, and what that might look like. This means taking your spouse

out on a date to have fun, to engage in intimate conversations about what is keeping you awake at night. Then decide on the date for “becoming the hired man again.” I don’t expect that you are ever going to retire, just “reinvent” yourself and your roles. 2. You are making a date with your accountant and tax planners to discuss your net worth, your living costs and your intentions to bring along the next generation. Remember that April 30 is always a deadline you honour with our accountant, so how about a deadline for farm transition? It’s a process, and may be a series of dates, not just one day. 3. Action begets more action, so you are going to have coffee in a casual way with your family to talk about your dreams for the next new chapter in your life. This includes the farming and non-farm business heirs. Perhaps you can meet with each adult child independent of the others. Trust me, they are scared that you are not dealing with your future lifestyle choices, and they want you to enjoy the fruit of your labour. Have courageous conversations. 4. Bedtime reading for nights that are short of sleep will include reference to my book Do the Tough Things Right…how to prevent communication disasters in family business.

Psalm 16 (NIV) says, “I will praise the Lord who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.” I truly believe that “the wise counsel God gives when I’m awake is confirmed by my sleeping heart” (The Message). What messages are feeding you and kick-starting you to take action? 5. Book some counselling time if you are emotionally distraught and need new coping

war on their heart regarding their fear of failure. Should they turn things over gradually? What will their new roles be? Will anyone really appreciate them when they get older or thank them for what they have helped to grow? Face your fears. Talk with your spouse. Set dates. Act. Then celebrate your family relationships and business success. A large orange pumpkin filled with crushed ice and glass bot-

Think about how great you are going to feel when you embrace the power of target dates and timelines skills. I am encouraged when coaching clients realize that “counselling is about recovery and coaching is about discovery.” Some folks need to have therapy to release the burden that is keeping them stuck in neutral. Take care of your mental health. Here is the farming forecast for this fall: Many aging, 55-plus farmers are procrastinating, and not sleeping well. There is a tug of

tles of Orange Crush pop is my favourite childhood birthday memory. My mom was also great at putting money in wax paper in the layered chocolate birthday cake, and making black cat chocolate drizzle cookies. These memories did not cost a lot of money to create, but they did take time and intentionality. Strong families celebrate! Think about how great you are going to feel when you embrace the power of target dates and timelines.

Take the time this fall to set target dates for action for your farm business continuance success. Let your trusted team of advisers help you confirm what prices and money targets need to be proposed.

DATES AND MONEY Just like my October-themed birthday parties, I hope you get as much delight from your next generation’s feedback as we did when we discovered the quarters in the birthday cake. It really is the small things in life that make a big difference. Don’t let the little foxes of family irritations spoil the vineyard of potential success. Keep your promises. Honour the timelines and dates. Be concrete with your proposals. Then your entire family will sleep well at night, and be certain of their future. Have a great life, don’t embrace fear, live intentionally. Remember, it’s your farm, your family and your choice. † Elaine Froese, CHICoach creates a safe place for courageous conversations. She is a member of CAFA, the Canadian Association of Farm Advisors. Elaine coaches families and mediates across Canada. Buy her book, Do the Tough Things Right, at www. elainefroese.com/store and share your thoughts at www.elainefroese.com/contact. Call 1-866-848-8311 to share your favourite childhood memory or to book Elaine’s brain.

Pioneer Harvest & Field Day BY CHRISTALEE FROESE

Jack Grad has been hosting his Pioneer Harvest & Field Day for 15 years. He has collected all of the original equipment for the multi-activity day that features plowing, discing, spring tooth harrowing, binding, threshing and potato cultivating.

“There’s no end to looking for and finding equipment to bring back home and fix up,” said the 73-year-old farmer and horseman. The annual event, attended by over 500 interested spectators, was held at Grad’s farm near Vibank, Sask. in Sept. † Christalee Froese writes from Montmartre, Sask.

Priscilla Tames, Jack Grad’s apprentice, delivers a load of sheaves to the threshing machine.

PHOTOS: CHRISTALEE FROESE

Kim Hewalo of Pilot Butte, Sask. guides his Belgian team through the field as they pull an old-time discer.

Rope making was one of the demonstrations held at the harvest day.

/ grainews.ca

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Home Quarter Farm Life FROM THE FARM

Tomatoes — more than just great tasting DEBBIE CHIKOUSKY

omatoes are probably the No. 1 reason our family grows a garden. If the fact that tomatoes are delicious isn’t enough to convince your family to add them to their menu, their healthy nutritional profile might. Many scientific studies have found substances in tomatoes to help with heart and prostate health. Fresh tomatoes and tomato extracts have been shown to help lower total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

Compounds such as lycopene (responsible for the colour of the tomato) help prevent atherosclerosis. It also helps keep platelets from sticking together thereby helping circulation. Lycopene is present in all red fruits and vegetables, but its concentration is highest in tomatoes and it becomes more usable when it comes from processed tomatoes ingested with a small amount of healthy fat such as coconut (non-hydrogenated) or olive oil. Dr. Mridula Chopra conducted research at the University of Portsmouth testing the effect of the nutrient lycopene on the simple mechanism through which cancer cells hijack a body’s healthy blood supply to grow and spread. They

found that lycopene intercepts cancer’s ability to make the connections it needs to attach to a healthy blood supply. With these very good reasons to include more tomatoes into our daily menu my next mission was to research how to do it without consuming BPA (Bisphenol-A). Our family watched a documentary titled, “The Disappearing Male” about why BPA needs to be avoided. Most commercial tomato products are sold in BPA-lined containers so we decided that growing more and home canning would be the best way to go. BPA is a compound found in plastic bottles, canned foods (lines the containers) and even cash register receipts. Exposure to BPA can

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have negative effects on brain development and reproductive function and is especially problematic for children and pregnant women. It is a known xenoestrogen, which means that it binds with the body’s estrogen receptors and according to Dr. Karlene ChinQuee (ChinQuee Center for Health & Wellness New York City) too much exposure can cause depression, irritability, sleeplessness and weight gain. All our tomatoes are being canned this year or frozen whole. Freezer bags don’t pose as much danger of BPA as long as the contents are cool when put in them.

SALSA 6 c. chopped, unskinned tomatoes 2 c. chopped green peppers 1 jalepeno pepper, chopped (wear gloves) 3/4 c. chopped onions 4 cloves garlic, chopped 3/4 c. apple cider vinegar 1-1/2 tsp. salt

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list! one on your y n a r o s d n dress mily, frie il it to the ad at gift for fa a re m g d a n s a e k a rm e’ll get t this fo Grainews m mber and w ! Just fill ou u y s n a e e e is fr g ll in to all our And the giv 502 page. OR - C e th f o -800-665-0 m 1 o : tt e o n b o e h p th e t . 24th a Before Dec m you over th r o e fr d s r il O ta e d all the to 23% inews garding Gra and Save up formation re g.com tional in ublishin For any addi ption@fbcp ri sc b su l: ai s e-m subscription

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Cook till consistency desired. If canning use sterilized jars and process for 20 minutes.

SPAGHETTI SAUCE 1 ice cream pail tomatoes, peeled (retain the peels) 6 green peppers 1 bunch celery 2 large onions 1 tbsp. parsley 1 tbsp. oregano 1 tbsp. basil Salt to taste Simmer the sauce to desired consistency. Pour into sterilized canning jars and process for 20 minutes in a water bath canner. All the peels that came from the canned tomatoes and the spaghetti sauce didn’t get wasted this year. For many years when I peeled tomatoes, the peels went to the henhouse. They love them but then I found out that they are extremely healthy. Tomato peels contribute a high concentration of the lycopene found in tomatoes. The amount of lycopene absorbed by human intestinal cells was much greater with tomato paste enriched with tomato peels compared to tomato paste without peels, according to a study from Marseille, France. The tomato skin also holds most of the flavonols (another family of phytochemicals that includes quericitin and kaempferol) as well. Heat is required to release these helpful chemicals so we have tried dehydrating the skins for later use. My husband noticed our dehydrators full of peels and cautiously asked what I was up to now. I explained that I had learned that we could dehydrate them then easily powder them and add them to many of our daily meals. One friend recommended warming up a mug of milk and adding about 1 tablespoon of the peel powder for an instant mug-o-tomato soup. The fats in the milk would act as the activator for the nutrients to be absorbed into our systems. That sounds like a great idea to me. Another friend suggested adding it to scrambled eggs. The other method of preservation we have utilized is to dehydrate the whole tomato. They are so yummy for snacking and can be used in any recipe that requires sun-dried tomatoes. This is also the preferred method for low-acid varieties or cherry tomatoes, which don’t can safely. On the theme of combining tomatoes with healthy fats this recipe is planned for Christmas entertainment.

DEHYDRATED TOMATO GOAT CHEESE SPREAD 1 c. soft goat cheese 1/3 c. chopped dehydrated tomatoes 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley The day before serving combine the goat cheese, tomatoes, garlic, and parsley in a food processor; mix until thoroughly combined. With all these great ideas, when the neighbours call and ask if you can possibly take their extra tomatoes off their hands you’ll be ecstatic. There just never seems to be enough time in the fall to do all the canning a person wants to before it snows, though. Hopefully we’ll all be enjoying the taste of summer for a bit longer. † Debbie Chikousky farms at Narcisse, Manitoba. Email her at debbie@chikouskyfarms.com.

OCTOBER 22, 2012

grainews.ca /

Home Quarter Farm Life POSTCARDS FROM THE PRAIRIES

Life’s secrets, according to you… Part 2 What makes your soul sing? JANITA VAN DE VELDE

e still my beating heart. My brain hasn’t caught up to you just yet. I’ll get there. My brain and my heart will reach a peace agreement, an armistice of sorts, one day. It’s dawning on me that yes, we are the architects of our own life. We can do just about anything. But we can’t do everything. We can’t do everything. You can’t do everything. I can’t do everything. It’s a hard pill for me to swallow. Time is finite. You have to decide who, or what, gets yours. For now, I will make it work. I will find a way to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. Pursuing your dreams takes blood, sweat and tears. You have to want it more than anything else in the world. But a soul that sings is worth the effort. For now, real job will be during the day, doing what makes my soul sing will come after. I know that it’s a blessing to have a stable income to provide for my family. I totally get that and feel blessed beyond measure. My parents taught me to earn my keep, have fun doing it and play a good game; learning the importance of a solid work ethic has served me well. They also taught me that life is a giant board game. Take the pieces you’ve been given. Do your best with what you have. Play a good game. Leave the board in good shape. Don’t chew on the corners. Roll the dice every once in a while. And one day? One day we’ll have to pass on our chips. And holding on tighter won’t help at all. Our time at the board isn’t up to us. But our moves while we’re here, are. So it completely baffles me how many of us aren’t making our moves count. What gets in our way? It sounds harsh, but in my case, perhaps it’s greed. My husband and I could likely live off one salary. That would mean completely altering our spending habits. And yet maybe it’s another sort of greed... that insatiable desire to be everything. I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for a while now. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to share this or not. I don’t know — parts of it feel too personal. It doesn’t portray me in the best of lights. But then I remembered why I write in the first place... to have an honest account of my life. To put stuff down that I don’t want to ever forget. To have something I can share with my kids one day... stuff that isn’t all made up to make me look good. Rather life, as I remember it. I live by the code to always tell the truth. My sister informs me that when it comes to being honest, there are varying degrees of truth. She compares it to a cough lozenge. You can give someone the Vicks version, or a Fisherman’s Friend. Vicks, being slightly less invasive, tastes all right and is somewhat soothing. Fisherman’s Friend? It tastes like s**t. But it works much faster. And it’s likely better for you in the end. I fear I’m about to shove a Fisherman’s Friend down your throat. So the truth? It goes something like this…

My desire to earn a solid income to help pay off our mortgage drives my behaviour. My desire to put away money for our children drives my behaviour. My desire to have money to travel the world with my family drives my behaviour. My desire to buy really nice shoes whenever I feel like it drives my behaviour. My desire to feel important, feel wanted, drives my behaviour. And my fear, yes it’s fear, of letting go of a big part of my life drives my behaviour. I could also just call it fiscal sanity... the logical thing to do. That’d be the Vicks version. I guess we call it what we have to call it, in the hopes of making it palatable. After all, it takes a clever line to fool a yearning heart. Maybe the real culprits

are vanity and pride... is my ego attached to my title at work? I don’t think so. But if I really scraped away at it, perhaps there is a tie that binds. I’m going to make some changes. One day. As I blaze through my 30s, I’m attempting to line up my head with my heart. I suspect therein lies the key to eternal happiness. And it’ll happen for me. One day. And yet, after thinking all of this through, it hit me, like a wooden bat upside the head. What if I don’t make it to that one day? Why do I take for granted that I’ll always have that one day? We all hope for it. That’s a given. We all hope to make it through our 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s in one piece. Retire... punt our children from the nest. Make it through to the other

side with the same convictions, drive and determination. Have the chance to pursue what we’ve always longed to do. But what if that day never comes? And if you do arrive, what if your energy levels don’t permit it? Even worse, what if we don’t get that one day to share everything we’ve always wanted to share with our children? We know we won’t be around forever; each day is a blessing, not a guarantee. But I do hope I’m around long enough to share what I know. What I think I know. That is, when they’re of an age that they care to hear about it. If I don’t make it to that one day, what would I want my children to know? What about real life would interest them? To be continued… as one kind

reader pointed out, my to-becontinued segments remind him of TV programs from the ’80s, when you’d be in a blind panic to get home on time to watch Part 2 of some miniseries you had started watching. Once home, you then had to remember which of the three channels it was on so you could adjust the antenna accordingly. All this and hold your pee until the commericals. If you’re under the age of 25 and reading this, move on. You’ll likely just think I’m making this stuff up. † 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.

2012 agriculture for Life

Harvest Gala Saturday, November 3, 2012 bmo CeNtre at Stampede park, 6 pm to 11 pm The Agriculture for Life Harvest Gala offers a unique opportunity to celebrate Alberta’s agricultural roots. Experience a fusion of urban and rural style and design; the scrumptious tastes of locally produced foods, the sights and sounds of Alberta artists, a silent auction and a chance to connect with friends in the community market. Tickets are available online (www.agricultureforlife.ca) or by calling Toll Free 1-877-682-2153. aG for Life fouNdiNG memberS: agrium inc. atb financial

atCo Group penn West exploration

rocky mountain equipment transCanada Corporation

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Glacier media Group

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OCTOBER 22, 2012

Home Quarter Farm Life SINGING GARDENER

Get tough with houseplants Plus, reader feedback on portulaca TED MESEYTON

o you have a stubborn houseplant that won’t do what’s expected of it? A verbal scolding and some homemade plant food might help. Remember… you’re in charge of the plant. It’s not in charge of you! Lots more on this Grainews page including some feedback about portulaca, but don’t expect a picture. Everyone knows what portulaca looks like. It’s Singing Gardener time!

THERE ARE HOUSEPLANTS THAT SAY NO … and just sit there and sulk. No green-thumber needs to put up with any houseplant that fails to grow or bloom. Simply refuse to take “no I won’t co-operate” for an answer. Here are a couple suggestions worth sharing. First of all, keep a balking or obstinate plant in the kitchen or same room when you prepare leafy greens and other veggies for a salad. A plant with a bad attitude becomes traumatized when fellow greenery goes on the chopping block. It quickly reacts to the sight of other vegetation less fortunate than itself and soon decides to smarten up. Tell the plant you won’t put up with its lack of discipline and it shall receive the same fate and be put onto the compost heap unless it quickly shows an improved growth pattern. Repeat as often as necessary and each time you make a salad. Once an improvement is noticed treat it to dessert with some homemade plant food. Here’s a recipe and it works particularly well with African violets. 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) 1 tsp. saltpetre (potassium nitrate available at pharmacies) Dissolve above ingredients into a cupful of warm water then pour into 1 gallon (16 cups) of water into which you’ve previously stirred 1 tsp. of non-detergent household

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 meal ideas. Send them to FarmLife, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1. Phone 1-800665-0502 or email susan@ fbcpublishing.com. Please remember we can no longer return photos or material. — Sue

ammonia. I use an empty fourlitre milk jug. It holds about 1-1/2 cups more water for a total 17-1/2 cups. Shake the mixture well before feeding either indoor or outside plants and apply monthly. Keep the surface soil loose, worked up and pliable. Some houseplants do better when watered from the bottom rather than the top. Six to eight weeks later you should notice an explosion of growth or change for the better. A Nova Scotia recipe similar to above calls for 1 tsp. baking powder instead of 1 tsp. baking soda (that’s one OR the other — not both).

THE PORTULACA BATTLE In response to a reader from Blackfoot, Alta., with a major portulaca problem in her garden, (see Sept. 10, 2012 Grainews, page 46) the following emails arrived: My battle with portulaca started in the early 1970s when we moved to a farm near Miami, Manitoba. I remember digging up a healthy portulaca plant in my garden and setting it upside down on top of a fence post, with the intention of disposing of it on my way back to the house. I must have had my hands full and I walked by it leaving it for a couple of days before I was reminded that I should drop it in the burning barrel. Surely after a few days in the hot sun it would be wilted and quite dead, right? Wrong! Somehow the root had turned itself downward and was starting to grow into the fence post! My method of solving the portulaca problem was a bit drastic but it worked. We moved two provinces west and so far after nearly 40 years, portulaca hasn’t made an appearance! Maureen Pocock Lacombe, Alberta Ted’s response: Thanks Maureen. There’s even a touch of humour in your portulaca experience. Got me to wondering whether all gardens at Lacombe are free from wild portulaca. Let’s hope some unseen guest didn’t turn Maureen’s portulaca right side up again after she “set it upside down on top of a fence post.” But then who knows? Portulaca may have the ability to do this on its own, or with a touch of help from… say the wind. I, Ted, wonder whether other gardeners have tried the fence post method in the past. Then I heard from Cheryl and Glenn. Here’s their experience and recommendation: Tell your subscriber from Blackfoot that this gardener in B.C. has been very carefully removing all portulaca roots and leaves from our garden for 12 years and will probably have to pull some more next year. Spraying would not help much because the seed bank would still be there. It is really amazing how quickly it germinates — one day there are not any plants and the next day there are very healthylooking plants. The most helpful thing you could do would be to advise gardeners how to prevent it getting started; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We do have worse invasive plants in our area — Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed come to mind. They are spreading

everywhere in large part because local governments do not keep the ditches weed free. Prairie communities try harder to keep the ditches clear but still don’t seem to be able to win the weed war. Thanks to Glenn and Cheryl from Langley, B.C. They work with parks and watershed associations where invasive plants, fish and animals are a concern. Glenn is originally from SW Sask., and describes himself as “still part stubble-jumper.” Then there’s my kind of stubble. I, Ted, had a fullfledged natural Santa beard for about 10 years. From time to time a woman would ask me when I was getting “rid of the stubble.” In past years when I played Santa Claus in season during December some kids would ask whether my beard was real and if they could pull it, gently of course. Now I have hardly any facial hair at all.

PURSLANE WAS CULTIVATED … over 4,000 years ago. Its botanical name is Portulaca oleracea. Some common names include garden purslane, duckweed, fat weed and little hogweed. One of the strangest names is crazy vegetable so named because its branches spread over the ground without any control. The word portulaca comes from the Latin meaning “little door.” Purslane is native to India. Its thick, fleshy stalks and leaves are classed as a succulent with sharp flavour and a gelatinous character. All parts are said to be edible as a vegetable eaten raw or steamed. In the Cretan diet purslane is considered exemplary for its many benefits and synonymous with long life. Purslane was listed in the first Greek pharmacopoeia for its anti-inflammatory and soothing properties and used in cosmetology. In skin-care treatments for men, it helps fight razor burn, soothe irritations and calm redness. Purslane is an annual herbaceous plant with yellow flowers whose seeds have a germination capacity lasting for eight to 10 years. It is found throughout the world including here in Canada and like dandelions is determined to hang in there. In 17th century England the cooks of Charles II added fresh leaves to all salads, perhaps to satisfy the king’s taste, or else for its digestive properties. Chopped young purslane leaves were mixed with double amounts of lettuce leaves, chervil, borage flowers and marigold petals; the mixture being dressed with oil and lemon juice. No surprise then that purslane has achieved some usefulness in everything from salads and omelettes to Bonne Femme soups and medicines.

PORTULACA IS AN INSECTICIDE TOO This may come as a surprise, but purslane (Portulaca oleracea) has shown usefulness as an insecticide, especially at getting rid of anthills. Harvest plants before they flower and turn to seeds. Place portulaca on top of anthills and leave plants there until ants disappear. Or, try making a concentrated,

PHOTOS: TED MESEYTON

Shown is a generous picking of mostly Kay Gray very hardy (Zone 3) white wine grapes. These were harvested just prior to full maturity in early September. They held their firmness, remained in good condition several days and plucked easily from the clusters. I, Ted, found them quite pleasant to eat out of hand too. Kay Gray vines are disease resistant and selfpollinating. The blue grapes on long, reddish strands are Frontenac that produces a high-quality deep-red wine of depth and character. Frontenac is rated hardy for Zone 3b or in a sheltered Zone 3a location and is both disease resistant and self-pollinating. Here’s more good news. Cardiovascular research suggests eating grapes can lower blood pressure, help heal signs of heart muscle damage and improve heart function. Green, red, blue and black grapes all offer cardio protective benefits. strong portulaca tea. The brew is then poured onto anthills. There’s a bit of “scientist” in most of us and gardeners may decide to do some experimenting with portulaca next season. Individual trials will vary. Portulaca contains oxalic acid (as do rhubarb leaves) which may be toxic when consumed in large quantities. Researchers have refined and developed a method that removes oxalic acid, yet retains over 90 per cent beneficial properties. Medieval herbalists considered purslane a prescription for a burning or malfunctioning heart and liver. Greeks called it a blood-cleansing herb. In Mexico purslane is recommended for diabetics. Both purslane capsules and powder may be available at select health food stores.

thought she no longer had back issues. In a followup email she says: Hi Ted, As luck would have it, I found a Grainews that I hadn’t recycled, and there was the earthworm solution! Ten years ago, lime was sprinkled on the garden in the spring and worked in, and there are still no earthworms. Now I just have to find some lime! I often save your articles that are of special interest to me and I will add this article to my collection. Thanks, Lois. For readers seeking more information re: earthworms: See April 16, 2012 Grainews page 42, June 4, 2012 Grainews page 50 and July/ August 2012 Grainews page 38.

SUBJECT: EARTHWORMS A third email comes from Lois Sawatsky who writes: Hi Ted, I live in Humboldt, Sask. It seems to me that you had an article this past year about earthworms causing the soil to be very hard. I believe that I have that problem, and I wondered if you could let me know what it was that cured the problem. I have enjoyed your gardening tips and words of wisdom. Thank you. Lois I, Ted, later learned that Lois recycles all of her newspapers and

This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie, Man. We’ve all heard of Rudyard Kipling from good ol’ school days. Here’s what he says. Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees, That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees, So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away! My email address is singinggardener@mts.net

OCTOBER 22, 2012

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