July 2004 Study Tour

Darrel Oech

• He uses the Seed Hawk seeder from Canada – the first machine bought into the US about 6 years ago. He is very happy with the unit. He adds UAN and APP fluid fertiliser delivery on 12” spacings and sows at 4-5 mph - very deep frame because each assembly is very long. Would be happy to go to 14” for extra trash clearance.

• Fluid fertilisers are used for convenience only, they are certainly not cheaper. Granulars can be a bit sticky in moist conditions.

• Only using warm season broadleaved crops (sunnies, safflower, buckwheat), no warm season grasses.

 Mike Zook

• 24 yrs of no-till and he has 9,100 acres, 1,600 in CRP (Conservation Reserve Program).

• Mike works closely with Dwayne Beck.  He uses a 4-7 year rotation because a narrow wheat/broad leaf rotation does lead to a proliferation of prickly lettuce.

• He grows 9-14 different crops in any one year. He is a seed producer for pulses. These include; peas, lentils and chickpeas (and garbonzo beans).

• Mike’s favourite rotation for performance is peas, wheat, corn, sunflowers. Mike thinks that 1 pulse crop in 4 crops is just about right.

• The “duff layer” (organic matter on the surface) was lost last year because the broad leaf crops do not leave enough residue and his breakdown rates are now too fast.

• Mike is therefore now experimenting with growing flax under his sunflowers to improve residue levels going into the next crop - his rate of flax was too high and gave a yield loss.

• Running 7.5” row spacings with cool season crops to improve weed competition.

• Has no livestock but now using lucerne and native perennial grasses for seed production.

• Is broadcasting N prior to seeding but would prefer to deep band it. Using P and S with the seed.

• Using variable rate to increase seed and fertiliser on best areas of each paddock.

• Using 20,000 seeds/ac for sunnies on solid wide rows and getting 1,400-1,600 lb/ac

• Achieving 10 bu/ac/inch of rain with wheat but DA says he should only get 5

• Cool season pulse-corn-sunnies-wheat

• Sunnies perform much better after corn than after a cool season pulse - because the mycorrhizae are increased from corn and they help the sunflowers perform better.

• With corn, Mike is chasing 100 bu/ac in a 10-12” rainfall country

Tuesday 10 August

Scott Day, Boissevain, Manitoba, Canada

• 18” rainfall country, 10” in growing season will give good crops, they can get 8 months without snow.

• Heavy black soils, 5-8 feet of root zone. Land sells for $5-600 acre.

• Since Scott was well aware of the GM debate in Australia (through Bill) he took us  to the only case of RR canola in RR soybean.  Scott says the impact is only cosmetic, it will have no effect on the yield and the farmer knows that he could have easily and cheaply avoided the problem.

• 2004 has been a wet year and crops very late; lots of water damage and areas not sown.

• Occasional fluid fertilisers used for convenience. Phosphoric acid sometimes used.

• Salinity is emerging as an environmental (and productivity) issue now and that no-till has solved erosion

• Salinity is the second biggest issue in the area, due to shale in soil near Turtle mountain, lakes are salty (sulphates) and farm land is salt scalded. Many farmers plant back perennial native grasses to scolded areas, although these are difficult to establish. In the USA farmers are subsidised to plant native grass seed, but not subsidised in Canada.

• US closed border to Canada for cattle because of BSE. Cattle in Canada went from $2,100 to $100 very quickly and this is crippling the cattle farmers.

• Common crops are canola, flax, winter and spring wheat, peas, sunnies, lucerne, barley, oats and durum.

• N in urea=38c/lb, N in UAN=41c/lb, N in anhydrous ammon=31c/lb

• Not growing sunnies after corn because first summer crops dry out the soil too much.

• Winter freeze cures compaction so getting no benefits from deep ripping or controlled traffic

• Sunnies are very profitable and they stretch out harvesting period and equipment use.

• No contamination of sunnies in malting barley allowed because the oil prevents the head on the beer.

• Liberty link canola is much more popular than RR canola - there is no conventional canola grown in the district - this is due to the hybrid yield benefit and LL is stronger on some broadleaf weeds that are a problem, including Kochia.

• We saw an ammonia tank on Seed Hawk seeder (5,400 lb N/tank, placed 1.5” below seed)

• Applying N and S with liquids.

• Most of district is now on 10.5” row spacings. There are lots of reasons for this, but swathing is one – the need stubble to keep the wind row off the ground.

• Kochia is a major weed problem in sunnies (treflan is very unreliable on Kochia)

• Variable rate fertiliser applications are not taking off because the seasons are too unpredictable (low spots can be good or bad depending on the season ).

• Pneumatic press wheels do handle the mud very well.

One of the fantastic highlights of the trip was the billeting out of everyone with rural Manitobans. Most hosts were farmers and they made our visit to Canada a most memorable one. Many hugs and email addresses were exchanged in the one brief evening we had together.

Wednesday 11^th August

Justin Griffith, farmer, Manitoba

• 6,500 ac, no winter cropping, direct seeding but with high soil disturbance with a Horsch Anderson Seeder that side bands lots of fertiliser (80 lb N/ac +P,S for wheat, sunnies).

• The single disc drill was causing trouble with residue - not hairpinning but loose short chaff, residue managers are not working properly.

• Smashing up stubbles with heavy harrows to spread the straw.

• Justin uses Spartan, a non-volatile, water active and residual herbicide.

• Leading coulter stands 50 cm in front of John Deer MaxEmerge seeder (with fluid delivery for N).

• 20,000 plants/ac for sunnies on 30” row spacings.

• Putting all fertiliser 3” to side and 4” deep with sunnies.

Simplot fertilisers, Lindsay Caspas
Brandon, Manitoba

• They produce all N fertiliser types, including anhydrous ammonia and UAN; 1 mill t/yr.

• They produce 10:34 (N,P) liquid also.

• Liquids are used for convenience especially for no-tilling with mid-row banding; it is just easier with liquids, especially for retro-fitting mid-row banding.

• Lots of N plants are closing down in North America and are shifting to countries with cheap natural gas like Trinidad and Venezuela.

• UAN 32 costs the farmer $CA230/t (28% w/v).

• 7-9 c/lb extra for APP vs MAP (more than 10% more expensive)

Brandon Research Centre, Manitoba - AgCanada

• Started in 1886, contains about 80 staff, has 800 ha + field station of 120 ha.

• Staff from 2 federal programs - sust production systems, environmental health

• Benefits from KCl on reasonably high K soils (eg 200 ppm K) but could be a Cl response to diseases etc, or maybe some extra straw strength from K.

• Dr Wayne Buckley (agronomist); canola that is held for a long time in high temperature and in moist storage and seed treated leads to reduced vigour (separate to reduced germination and can occur without reduced germination) in canola.  Low germinations always has low vigour but reverse not always true, developing an ethanol production assay for seedling vigour; on farm with a colorimetric disc in a bottle; also developing an instrumented assay for more detailed work (breath analysers).  More ethanol production in low vigour seed.

• Dr Alan Moulin (researcher in precision agiculture); he did not tell us anything new, he is using real time sensors for N fertilisation.

• Dr Marcia Monreal (microbiologist) - Canada has signed the Kyoto protocol, wheat/pulse with zero tillage rotation leads to very low N₂O production (although GHG guidelines assume high emissions), flax is very dependent on VAM for good production.

Visited Atom Jet, Morris air seeder cart factory and a Hutterite colony

• Atom Jet produces tungsten tipped points for no-till openers and does repairs for farmers.

• The Morris factory continues to grow and is a popular box in Canada.

• The Hutterite colony grow potatoes, produces plastic products and presses. 

Bob McNabb, farmer from Minnendosa, Manitoba, Canada

Thursday 12^th August

Seed Hawk Factory, Langbank, Saskatchewan

• See website www.seedhawk.com

• Their seeder is becoming increasingly popular across Canada.

• It has a good reputation for handling rocks and precise seed placement and fertiliser banding at seeding.

 ConservaPak Factory, Indian Head with Emerald Anderson

• See website www.conservapak.com

• ConservaPak opener has now finally gone hydraulic.

• The seed opener has 8 settings and the seeder has a C distribution system.

• A new pressurised tank - what goes in comes out.

• Second boot not likely to wear as the first boot is moving the soil

• 2 tanks for seed (has 73 speeds) and 2 tanks for fertiliser (93 speeds) which can be mixed up.

• It has 8 cameras to monitor the operation.

• Can get down to a baseball cap of grain before shutting off.

• It is possible to shut off one half of the machine on the run - which makes it good for headlands or paddocks that aren’t square or the last run.

• New platinum system is simpler with fewer moving parts; press wheel controls depth and provides protection for seed opener.

Dr Guy Lafond, Bill May, Yann Pelcat (Precision Farming)
Indian Head Research Station, Ag Canada

Friday 13^th August

McDougall’s farm, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

• 6,500 acres on heavy black soils (Gumbo), 65% clay which is alkaline.

• They are seed cleaners and certified seed growers – durum is a major crop (50% of crop area is cereals), also lentils, peas, recently flax, chickpeas and barley.

• Hoping for 50-60 bu/ac for durum and 30 bu/ac for lentils.

• A typical rotation would be Durum/Lentil or Chickpea and tries not to grow the same pulse more frequently than 1 yr in 4.

• Usually getting 12-15% protein in durum, even in high yielding years, is now using a lot of Dividend (fungicide for pythium) on durum.

• 9” of in season rainfall this year but average is 6-7”.

• Best Gumbo land is going for $800/ac but down to $150/ac for lighter country (good country is highly sought after at these prices).  Cash rental land is going for $40-60/ac on good country, often on 3 yr terms.  Some share farming.

• They are using N, P and S liquid fertilisers (UAN, APP, ?? for S) for purely handling and logistic reasons - it extends the gap between fills, only 1-2c/lb N more expensive and still using dry fertilisers for P and K.

• Now using all fertilisers at seeding but used to do fall applications of N but got too messy.

• On durum, they are using 75 lb N, 25 lb P2O5, 10 lb S, 20 lb K and 90 lb seed/ac.

• Liquids put out at 5 gal/ac with John Blue pump, and orifice in stainless steel pipe down the boot, deep banding with a John Deere tine drill but seems to be little separation from seed and fertiliser.

• No livestock, all cropping.

• Durum wheat price is $2.40/bu. Freight, drying, weight charge all paid through handling facility (average deduction is $1.25). Payment received 18 months later

• Sells peas, chickpeas and lentils for cash.

• Total on farm storage is 250,000 bushels.

Not concerned if the CWB collapses tomorrow as it has includes only Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and it has a lot more rules and restrictions than Ontario WB.

AgPro Grain - Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Accompanied by Dr Brian McConkey and Dr Herb Cuthbert

• Only 3 provinces are under the control of CWB only markets cereals.

• Canola, lentils, peas etc are traded on the Winnipeg exchange.

• Very old facility (built in 1918) but efficiency has increased, it can still store 100,000 t and load 100 rail cars in 8 hrs.  It can unload a semi carrying 45 t of grain in 10 minutes and takes 7 minutes to load a 90t grain cart.

• $11.60/t handling charges plus $30-40/t freight to port (Thunder Bay - 2000 km away)

• 34% of the grain produced in the area goes through the facility

 Swift Current Research Station, Saskatchewan - Ag Food Canada

• Only research station left which can address salinity issues

• 350 mm total precipitation (250 mm growing season rainfall). Semi-arid prairie.

• 200 ha but most of it as native prairie, soils have 25% clay, rooting depths to 1.5 m at best.

• Seeding begins at soil temperature of 5^oC at seeding depth. This is not dependant on rains. Trafficability of paddock also an indicator. 

• Hard red spring wheat is sensitive to salinity but USDA says the opposite. The textbook says that wheat growth is not affected by salinity up to 6 dS/m and then declines linearly but they have found that is a sigmoidal curve which starts declining sharply from 2 dS/m, soft wheats are a bit more tolerant

• Using a completely washed sand culture which is flooded periodically with a salt solution plus basal nutrients and then allowed to drain (probably sterile, basals may not be refreshed although salt is, will cause anaerobic conditions?)

• Work has been done with sulphate salts so are results directly applicable to us?

• Area is traditionally wheat/fallow but much more diverse rotations and pulse crops are now being used, because
  no-till is conserving more water and giving timely seeding.

• Commonly grown crops on the research station are; wheat, peas, lentils, canola, chickpeas

• Fall crops sown into tall stubble will yield 10-15% better because there is less evaporation early and this water is used later in the season (total water use is the same between flattened stubble and very tall stubble). Very tall means 45 cm. All crops respond to the tall stubble but canola is the most responsive. In these trials stubble treatments were imposed after winter so if imposed before winter may get a double barrelled effect because there would be extra storage from the extra snow trapped. Crop is also warmer in tall stubble because the wind chill factor is reduced. Bill says that in WA canola can struggle in tall stubble because they are not getting enough light. Their day lengths immediately following seeding are much longer, warmer days as well.

• Quite a lot of disc drills being used in the area (especially where the stubble is kept long) but knives still dominate.  They have a rule of thumb that for tined implements, stubble has to be no longer than the row spacings.

• Stubble is kept tall through winter to trap as much snow as possible and then the stubble is cut to 15 and 30 cm prior to seeding for knife opener stubble flow.

• Chickpea production peaked at 1.1 million ac in western Canada in 2001 but ascochyta has reduced the area to where they are now only a novelty crop, they are developing a model for ascochyta forecasting based on weather.

• Granular rhizobial inoculum is doing as good or better than seed dressings with lentils or chickpeas. This follows their very positive results with granules in field peas.

• Warm season crops don’t do well here (but their season overlaps a lot with the cool season crops so perhaps it is not a true winter/summer crop rotation). They have not been yielding as well as cool season crops but hang on longer so they just dry out the profile for the following spring crop.

Saturday 14^th August

Hilton Farm - Spencer and Stirling Hilton, Alberta, Canada.

• 6,400 acres, Crop 5,300 acres

• Rainfall is 12-14’’ but variable, in 2004 they have had 6’’ since March.

• Have been no-tilling for 30 years

• Received a Farm Family of the Year Award at the Calgary Stampede for their multi-generational support to agriculture.

• Difficult to get farm labour due to competition with oil and gas industry in Alberta.

• They grow field peas, canola, barley, wheat and cattle

• Typical rotation is milling wheat/canola/Harrington barley/field peas

• Canola provides the best return (40 bu/acre) with a net margin of $100/acre, where the net margin for peas is $25/acre. Just can’t grow canola too often due to disease risk.

• Shallow A horizon in the soil, low OM (1-2%).

• Sprayer uses crop dividers, with 20’’ spacing between air bubble jets, been using GPS since 1996, no foam needed.  Has an auto high leveller that feels the height of the ground and re-adjusts the sprayer.

• Wild oats and Kochia are a concern for resistance, but a survey of the property shows that resistance is not yet a problem.

• Irrigation doesn’t pay in the area as more problems and inputs are needed.

Land value varies due to urban sprawl, being $1000-1500/acre near Strathmore and up to $2500/acre near Calgary.

Sunday 15^th August

Another rest day in the wonderful Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Many went for a walk to the right side of this spectacular Lake Louise.  Most people spent the day sight-seeing and shopping for tourist items. Some went golfing, chairlift riding and for a ride on the gondola to view the town.  Some hired a car. The views were spectacular. A thunderstorm rolled late in the day, this crack around us.

Monday  16^th August

Stangmuir Farms, Alberta.  Accompanied by Dr John Harapiak, Soil Scientist.

• 14,500 head of cattle in a feedlot

• Beef fed on barley sileage with 60% moisture,  with 6000 t of sileage stored in huge pit.

• Cattle are fed 70 % sileage and 30% grain and daily growth rate is 2.5 lb/day.

• Hormone implants cost $25-$75 per animal, impossible to get premiums to make up for this.

• Two companies control 60% of cattle sales

• Canada can export meat, not animals, but don’t have the capacity to do this in abattoirs.

• BSE has dramatically reduced beef prices.

• Cattle are 850-925lbs when slaughtered, the variation within the breeds is as great as between breeds.

Dr Jill Clapperton and Dr Bob Blackshaw
Lethbridge Research Station, Alberta, Canada

• 9-13’’ rainfall and 3’’ snow

• Been operating for 38 years

• W-F rotation had a lot of biological activity and little biomass production recently (doesn’t smell much)

• W-W-F plot had more residue, less OM, different soil structure due to higher earthworm activity (more wheat) and was harder to dig (musty smelling soil).

• Earthworms burrow down 3 to 4 metres bringing clay to the surface and causes problems

• Noble blade invented in Nobleford, nearby

• Stripper work all started in Lethbridge.

• Hoe drills first 10-12 years then switched to narrow openers (massive drills), then to narrow points.

• Heavier clay soils not suitable for narrow points

• Little winter wheat is grown due low protein (11%) and poor marketing compared to spring wheat.

• Area of land fallowed has halved since 1989. Soil erosion has been reduced, snow trap increased, continuous cropping increased and moisture holding capacity has also increased.

• This year 2.5 t/ha yield for spring wheat expected.

• Animals (mites, nematodes, earthworms etc) are most sensitive to tillage, not microbials. Animals are driving the system as they feed on OM and are the best indicators of soil health.

• Fertilisers applied to crops reduce the nutrients in the grain (B vitamins) compared to fertilising through biological processes.

• Microbes breaking down atrazine and simazine use the herbicide as a food source. 1000 microbes of 10 different microbe types is better than 10,000 varieties of 3 different microbe types.