Document 2025536

Volume 39, Number 14 | SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
$4.25
PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER
www.grainews.ca
Herbicide carryover may not be in the past
Some soils are more susceptible to herbicide carryover than others, and
herbicides from some groups are more prone to cause problems
BY LISA GUENTHER
H
arry Brook hasn’t had
a lot of calls on herbicide carryover recently,
but he’s not sure it’s a
problem of the past.
“Actually, when you really come
right down to it, it could raise its
ugly little head again because as
we’re having problems with weed
resistance, guys are moving back
to some old chemistries to try and
control problem weeds like wild
oats,” says Brook, crop specialist
with Alberta Agriculture and Rural
Development.
Wet weather in the last three or
four years helped break down a lot
of products, Brook says. And most
modern herbicides are less persistent than older chemistries.
CARRYOVER ISSUES
Kristin Phillips, Canola Council
of Canada agronomist, says she
sees carryover in canola crops
more often than she’d like. “But
guys that are keeping good records
don’t have an issue with it.”
Phillips sees carryover issues with
Group 2, 4, 5, and 14 herbicides.
“And also, we’re starting to hear
and see some Group 27 carryover,”
says Phillips.
She adds that herbicide
Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240
carryover shows up more
often in soils with low organic
matter. Soil pH also affects some
herbicides. An April 2013 issue of
the Canola Council of Canada’s
Canola Watch notes that some
Group 5 herbicides, along with
some Group 2 sulfonylureas,
break down more slowly in
alkali soils. But Group 2 IMIs
disintegrate slowly in acidic soils.
Signs of herbicide carryover
depend on the chemical group,
Brook says. “If it’s really bad, you
could get nothing coming up. And
then you have to start digging
around to check out the plants.
Did they germinate?”
Group 2 herbicides affect the
growing point, Brook says. Often
the growing point will be dead
and white, but shoots will pop up
at the bottom of the plant.
Anastasia Kubinec, oilseed specialist with Manitoba Agriculture,
Food and Rural Initiatives, outlined herbicide carryover symptoms at CanolaLAB in Brandon,
Manitoba. Group 2 carryover
symptoms can also include yellowing, purpling, and cupping.
Group 4 carryover symptoms
include twisting and stem swelling, while Group 9 carryover
can cause wilting and yellowing.
Bleaching is a sign of Group 27
carryover.
PHOTOS: CANOLA COUNCIL OF CANADA
Damage from carryover of Group 4 herbicides can include abnormal stem growth. This photo was taken at the
Canola Council of Canada’s CanoLAB in Brandon last winter.
Other carryover symptoms
can include leaf sclerosis,
stunted plants and bare patches,
says Kristin Phillips. Cotyledon
thickening is also sometimes seen.
“Typically you’ll see it earlier
than later, especially if it is herbi-
cide carryover and not herbicide
drift. You want to be looking for
it at that cotyledon to three leaf
stage,” she says.
Farmers and agronomists should
also look for patterns, Brook says,
such as problems in spots with low
organic matter. “So if you notice
at the hilltops, the crop’s doing
very poorly and you’re noticing
stunting, that could be due to a
carryover issue.”
» CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
In This Issue
Wheat & Chaff ..................
2
Features ............................
5
Crop Advisor’s Casebook
6
Columns ........................... 27
Machinery & Shop ............ 34
Cattleman’s Corner .......... 44
Six things to know
about intercropping
LISA GUENTHER PAGE 24
New Holland introduces
new hay and forage tools
FarmLife ............................ 51
SCOTT GARVEY PAGE 34
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Wheat & Chaff
STAMPEDE
BY JERRY PALEN
LEEANN
MINOGUE
I
n the last issue of Grainews
I wrote about the July 13
hailstorm that swept over
most of our land, doing a
lot of damage. Since the article
was published, we’ve heard from
all kinds of friends and acquaintances, passing on condolences and
kind wishes. All of the thoughtful
comments have definitely made it
easier for us to cope with the loss.
I should probably email
Hallmark and suggest that they
come out with a “Sorry you were
hailed out” card. Maybe I could
get royalties.
HARVEST AFTER HAIL
“Elmo just swears by this old pickup.”
CONTACT US
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: [email protected]
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 [email protected]
Write to Grainews, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1
HEARTS
Some of our canola was a
complete writeoff. Brad sprayed
it with Roundup, not long after
the storm. He’s hoping it’ll
dry down enough that he can
smash it up with a harrow bar
before winter.
As for the fields that were damaged, but not a complete writeoff,
we’re trying to figure out exactly
when to swath. The main stems
of most of the canola plants were
badly damaged by hailstones. The
seeds in the pods on the oldgrowth area are starting to brown,
but the newer parts of the plant
are nowhere near ready to cut.
As a welcome break from spraying out what were once nice-looking canola crops, Brad has been
out in the field seeding winter
wheat on some land that was too
wet to seed in the spring. Planting
new seed brings a lot more optimism to the summer. We’re trying
to stay optimistic, but now we
need to start watching for grasshoppers coming in from the edge
of the field to eat the sprouting
winter wheat. What a year.
With the late harvest, like
everyone else, we’re watching
the calendar, the long-range
forecasts and the phases of the
moon to try to forecast the first
frost. Here’s hoping it doesn’t
come too early for us or any
Grainews readers.
IN THE GARDEN
Try to imagine my husband’s
delight when he found out that,
even though a lot of our crop was
lost, the zucchini plants in the garden came through the hailstorm
just fine.
I’ve been serving stir-fried yellow and green zucchini as often
as I think I can get away with
it. Then zucchini chocolate chip
cake. Muffins. Loaf.
Things hit a new peak the other
night (or low point, depending on
your point of view), when I made
zucchini and feta cheese pancakes
for supper.
Everyone knows the old jokes
about how Prairie people have to
lock their car doors when they
go to the post office so nobody
sneaks zucchini into their cars.
I don’t know if this has actually
happened, but I do know that
a few years ago, a woman who
hadn’t been living out here very
long called me up, very upset. “I
had to buy zucchini,” she said.
“I just know everybody in the
Co-op was looking and me and
thinking ‘she doesn’t have any
friends.’”
Another neighbour swears that,
on the day of his grandmother’s
funeral, when the mourners drove
out to the family farm for coffee
and squares, his mom sent him
outside to sneak zucchini in to the
back seats of all of their relative’s
vehicles.
I love zucchini. It’s hardy.
Versatile. Even if you’re not a great
gardener, you can usually grow
zucchini. And it makes your garden look a lot more substantial
for drivers going by on the road.
And here’s the best part: if an early
frost threatens the canola and the
wheat, I can still take out blankets
to save the zucchini. Brad will be
thrilled.
TILLAGE RADISH
I have a new back up plan, for
the day when my family really,
really can’t stomach any more zucchini. Tillage radish.
Brad seeded tillage radish for the
first time a couple of weeks ago.
We’re hoping that the tillage radish plants will suck up some of the
excess moisture in some parts of
our fields, so they’re easier to deal
with next year.
About two weeks after Brad
seeded, they’d popped up nicely,
as you can see from the photo.
One day when I was cooking
up some Swiss chard from the
garden and thinking about how
this new crop is called “radish,”
I had an idea, and emailed Kevin
Elmy for more information. Kevin
is a Saskatchewan farmer and a
Grainews contributor. He’s been
growing tillage radish on his farm
for a few years, and he wrote an
article about it for Grainews last
winter.
Kevin was quick to reply and
tell me that I could definitely eat
tillage radish. He wrote, “Roots
can be treated like carrots or
potatoes, leaves in salads. It is
the hot part of hot and sour
soup.” I foresee a whole new
series of cooking experiments.
This is bound to be even more
exciting than the zucchini feta
cheese pancakes.
IN THIS ISSUE
This is our soil management
issue. Lisa Guenther has written
the cover story about herbicide
carryover. We also have stories
about soil testing, managing soil
residue, how to live with clubroot
and wind erosion.
As we move from a drier cycle
to a cycle with more moisture,
lots of farmers are finding they
have to learn new ways to manage the same soil they’ve been
cropping for years. Hopefully,
you’ll find something in this
issue that will be helpful for your
situation.
Leeann
Ask for hearts
When you renew your subscription to
Grainews, be sure to ask for six Please
Be Careful, We Love You hearts. Then
stick them onto equipment that you,
your loved ones and your employees
operate. That important message could
save an arm, a leg or a life.
Like us on Facebook!
Grainews has a
Facebook page.
Find, read and comment on blog posts
easily and with a thumbs up!
Find us on Twitter:
Leeann Minogue is @grainmuse
Lisa Guenther is @LtoG
Lee Hart is @hartattacks
Scott Garvey is @machineryeditor
The tillage radish plants are popping up nicely.
Hailstones broke many of our main canola stems.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Wheat & Chaff
FARM SAFETY
Read the signs to
your farm workers
Cut. If you are working with or near sharp
objects (knife/rotating fan/blade) or objects
that have components that pass close enough
together to create a shearing action (augers
running in tubes/paddle conveyors/lift arms)
your body parts can be cut or severed.
T
his past May, a seasonal agricultural worker
from Mexico was crushed to death by heavy
farm machinery in Ontario. The Minister of
Labour in Ontario confirmed that the worker
appeared to have been adjusting the height of a potato
hopper when an axel slipped, causing the hopper to
crush the worker.
Farms can be dangerous places. According to
Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting statistics,
while 47 per cent of all agricultural fatalities in
Canada involve farm owners and operators, the
remaining 53 per cent of fatal injuries are made
up of other individuals working, living, or visiting
the farm, especially the children of operators and
hired workers.
The body is an amazing organic machine, but it’s
no match for the steel, chemical, electrical and biological hazards on your farm. Have you reviewed the
warning signs that are affixed to your agricultural
equipment, tools and products with your workers?
Do they understand what the pictures mean? You
probably know all the warning signs by heart, but
you’re workers might not. Alternately, they might see
the signs so often that they have become “blind” or
“numb” to the warnings. Either way, it’s a good idea
to go through a little pictorial refresher, pointing out
the warning signs and explaining to your workers
what they need to do to stay safe. And remember
that when it comes to safety, you have an obligation
to communicate hazards to your workers. In the long
run, taking the time to appreciate all the ways the
fragile human body can be harmed will help keep
everyone’s limbs, digits, and body parts, intact and
out of harm’s way.
The following is a listing of some of the key warning signs in the workplace and a description of the
types of injuries resulting from unsafe use or operation
of equipment, tools or products. For more warning
sign imagery, visit: http://www.aem.org/SRT/Safety/
PictorialDatabase/Home.asp. †
From the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association
grainews.ca /
C NOLA
M.D.
grainews.ca/DIAGNOSEIT
PHOTO CONTEST
Entanglement. If an
object rotates, your body
can wrap around it.
Pinch. If a machine has
close moving parts, it
could pinch you.
Runover. If a machine
has wheels, it can run
you over.
Crush. If two pieces
Electrocute. If electrical
Burn. If an object is hot,
it can burn you. Beware
as you might not notice
it is hot at first glance.
Chemical Exposure.
Dust/Fumes
Inhalation.
of machinery run past
each other they can
crush you.
Rollover. If a machine,
like a tractor is pushed
to its limits, it can
overturn onto an
operator, causing
serious injury
or death.
WEATHER LORE
wires and terminals are
not properly protected,
you can be electrocuted.
If a dangerous chemical
makes contact with
your unprotected skin
or other body part, it
can burn you.
If you inhale unsafe
biological or chemical
particles, you can
damage your lungs
or even suffocate.
AGRONOMY TIPS FROM THE FIELD
Chicken wisdom
W
hen the rooster crows on going to bed
You may arise with a watery head.
Normally, roosters don’t crow in the evening but
when they do it could be a sign of increased irritability due to falling barometric pressure.
When the barometric pressure falls, the rooster’s body must
give up dissolved gases, which it releases through body fluids. As
they are being released these gases collect as tiny bubbles in body
tissues. These bubbles affect nerve impulses and can tend to make
Mr. Rooster a tad peevish. Lowering barometric pressure can affect
people in similar ways. †
Shirley Byers’ book “Never Sell Your Hen on a Rainy Day” explores over 100 weather rhymes
and sayings. It is available from McNally Robinson at: www.mcnallyrobinson.com.
Laird lentil developer honoured
PHOTO: STOBBE PHOTO
Saskatchewan Pulse Growers (SPG) and Food Day Canada marked
the 10th anniversary of Food Day Canada Aug. 1 by presenting
Alfred Slinkard with the Pulse Legacy Award for his contribution
to the pulse industry. He developed the Laird lentil 35 years ago,
and since then, the large green lentil market class continues to
be adapted and improved while continuing to maintain large
consumer demand around the world. Slinkard (left) received the
award from SPG executive director Carl Potts.
Managing
nutrients
Y
ou can think of the soil as being a
“bank” of nutrients. And like the balance on your bank statement, you don’t
want to neglect the balance of the nutrients in your fields.
Every year, crops withdraw nutrients from the
soil. Each crop puts its own unique demands
on the soil, whether it’s sulphur, nitrogen or
any other mineral. So over the course of a rotation, nutrients decline overall, and they tend to
decline unevenly.
That’s why there’s really no such thing as a
good, one-size-fits-all fertility package to replenish the soil. Each field needs to be properly soilsampled to make sure you have a good handle
on its fertility. Ideally, you should wait until after
harvest, just before the field freezes, to do your
sampling. This way, nutrients in the trash have
time to break down and return back to the soil
before the samples are taken.
Next, just like you might review your finances
with an accountant, consider going over your
test results with an agronomist. The agronomist
will advise you on how to tailor next year’s fertilizer program to the exact needs of the incoming
crop. (Plus, if you should have problems with the
crop, a soil test will enable you to discount fertility as a cause of poor crop performance.)
With the field’s nutrients properly replenished, you will once again have a field you can
bank on. †
This agronomy tip is brought to you by Justin Daymond, Agronomic
Service Representative for Syngenta Canada Inc. Justin is a
qualified CCA and CCSC agronomist. Justin’s hobbies include
farming near Cypress River, Man.
GIVE US YOUR
BEST SHOT
This issue’s winning photo came from Julie Scott.
Three-year old Halle lives on a farm with her
parents, Julie Scott and Chet Von Bargen. Julie
says, “Halle has been on horses since she was five
months old and riding by herself since she was
two. Between her grandpa Scott’s farm and her
other grandparents’ ranch — Von Bargen Ranch,
owned by Craig & Karen Von Bargen — Halle has
always been a farm girl. She loves to bottle feed
calves, ride horses, play with the donkeys and help
with any chores.”
In this picture, Halle is leading her horse, Duke,
to the yard. The photo was taken by Halle’s baba,
Linda Dawson.
We’ll send Halle’s mom a cheque for $25. If
you’d like to see your photo on this page and
receive $25, 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
You might be from the prairies if...
You have ever proposed
Gordie Howe for sainthood.
3
4
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Cover Stories
spraying
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Herbicide carryover
may not be in the past
Manitoba farmers who think they
may have an herbicide carryover
issue can send samples to the crop
diagnostic lab or bring samples to
their local government (GO) offices.
Farmers in other provinces can also
send samples to labs for residual
testing. The Canola Council lists
labs that conduct herbicide carryover tests at www.canolawatch.
org/2013/01/31/agriculture-labs.
Labs can conduct soil bioassays
in the fall or early spring to see
if any products are carrying over,
says Phillips. “But if you are seeing symptoms on the plant and
you’re not sure, then you would
send (the plant) to the lab for
diagnostics.”
Phillips also suggests taking
pictures of herbicide injury for
records and to send to agronomists. Posting pictures to social
media such as Twitter is becoming
more common as well, but Phillips
advises farmers to cross-reference
information coming from Twitter
users. “Sometimes people don’t
necessarily give the right answer
on Twitter. But at least it gets
your brain thinking and you can
Google it and go see and look at
more symptoms.”
Farmers can also use the Canola
Council’s Diagnostic Tool, at canoladiagnostictool.ca, to help diagnose crop issues.
Dealing with carryover
The actions farmers can take to
deal with damaged crops depends
on the situation.
“Sometimes the crop will grow
through it if it’s just a small bit
of residual that’s carrying over.
You’ll see that uptake in the
cotyledon and the plant will
actually grow through it,” says
Phillips.
If plants don’t grow through it
and damage is extensive, reseeding may be an option. But the
crop will likely need moisture
to wash away the herbicide, she
adds. And farmers may need
to choose a different crop to
reseed, she adds.
Farmers re-seeding after an
early-season hail storm should also
think about carryover potential
and its effect on the re-seeded crop,
says Brook. As well, farmers doing
late fall herbicide applications to
control late winter annual flushes
should be aware of residual times,
he adds.
Application rates and re-cropping information is displayed
on product labels. Saskatchewan
Agriculture’s Crop Protection
Guide also includes a chart outlining re-cropping restrictions for
residual herbicides.
Both Phillips and Brook say
good record keeping is the key to
preventing problems.
“Know what you’re using,
when, and have a record of it so
you can check back two or three
years, or even just for next year,”
says Brook.
Alberta farmers can reach Brook
and other crop specialists toll-free
at 310-FARM (3276). The Canola
Council of Canada lists contact information for Phillips and other agronomists at canolawatch.org, under
“Contact Us.”
Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews
based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.
[email protected].
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 Lynda Tityk
Associate Publisher/
Editorial director John Morriss
Edi tor
Leeann Minogue
field Edi tor
Lisa Guenther
Cattleman’s Corner Editor
Lee Hart
Farml ife Edi tor
Sue Armstrong
Symptoms of Group 2 herbicide carryover can include severe chlorosis,
purpling and cupping.
Scott Garvey
Produ ction Dire ctor
Shawna Gibson
Desi gner
Steven Cote
MARKETING/ CIR CULATION
Dire ctor Lynda Tityk
Ci rc ulat ion manag er Heather Anderson
president
of Glacier Agricultural
Information Group
Bob Willcox
H e ad O f f i c e
1666 Dublin Avenue,
Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1
Phone: (204) 944-5568
Fax: (204) 944-5562
Adv ert isi ng Sa l es
Cory Bourdeaud’hui
Phone: (204) 954-1414
Fax: (204) 944-5562
Email: [email protected]
Adv ert isi ng Serv ices
Co -ordi nat or
When there is Group 2 herbicide carryover, canola plant leaves may be
chlorotic and small.
AppQuest
Using the Prairie Locator
Here’s an app that will help you find directions to a land
location and show you the satellite image
By Jay Peterson
H
ave you ever agreed to do some
custom work for a neighbour or
friend, but they didn’t have time
to show you the exact field? The
Prairie Locator app can help you with this
problem if you’re in Alberta, Saskatchewan
or Manitoba. With this app you can search
multiple land locations to get the latitude,
longitude, a satellite image and even directions from your current location.
This app is very simple to use and can be very
useful in multiple ways.
The first thing to do is to search for a
single section of land. All you need to do
is use a dial in the top left corner of the
app to select the legal land location for the
section you would like to find. Press the
“convert” button and the app takes you to
the satellite image on the right-hand side,
which you can zoom in or out. You can
keep adding to the list of the sections and it
will add them to the satellite image, highlighting each new section in purple with a
purple pin in the centre.
You’ll notice a small bar in the centre of
the bottom of the screen. One puts a blue
pin into your current location on the map.
The other takes you to the maps app, and
Machinery EDITOR
creates directions from your current location
to the land location you selected, including
different routes. I find this beneficial if I am
looking for an alternate route that may be
less travelled to move large equipment over
a long distance.
In the centre of the bar you see the map,
satellite and hybrid button. These buttons
just switch you image between a true map
look, the satellite image or the hybrid image.
I personally use the satellite image more than
anything but the hybrid view can be helpful
in finding roads that are not easily visible in
the satellite view.
Another button in the bottom right corner
takes you to the settings page. Here you can
select your map zoom level or highlight sections. There is also an option to bring up the
frequently asked questions to find out more
about the app.
There are two versions of this app — the
regular version and the upgrade professional
version. The regular version costs $3.
The upgraded version is $25 but adds a few
features. In the upgraded version you can
search by quarter section, subdivision, latitude/longitude or just try to locate a nearby
section. The professional version just gives
you a little more accuracy on your searches.
This makes it that much easier to find quarter
sections.
If you’re looking to find directions to sections, map out the majority of your land at
once or find alternate routes to a field this is a
great little app for you.
Price: $5 or $25 †
Jay Peterson farms near Frontier, Sask.
At Farm Business Communications we have a firm commitment to protecting your privacy and security as our customer. Farm Business Communications will only collect personal information if it is required for the
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Phone: (204) 944-5765
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Email: [email protected]
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Your next issue!
You can expect your next issue in your
mailbox about October 7, 2013
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.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
5
Features
SOIL MANAGMENT
Manage residue to enhance no-till
Using vertical tillage tools with a no-till system can warm up the soil
and unlock fertility in lower levels, increasing yield potential
N
o-till seeding has
become a tried and
true system of planting
crops over a wide area
of Canada and the U.S. No-till systems have evolved tremendously
over the past 20 to 25 years and that
evolution continues today. The next
challenge will be to push beyond a
yield plateau that many no-tillers
have experienced in recent years.
When it comes to achieving
higher yields, no-tillers have three
major issues to tackle: cold and
wet spring soils; high density in
the lower portion of the topsoil;
and large amounts of residual fertility locked in the no-till stover.
Cold wet soil slows machinery carrying capability, seeding
emergence and vigour. higher
density on the bottom part of
the topsoil layer causes reduced
nutrient uptake, reduced moisture carrying capacity and eventually reduced root growth and
yield. Yields can be enhanced by
having releasing the fertility in
the previous crop’s residue for
the growing crop.
All of these limitations can be
alleviated with the proper use of
true vertical tillage tools.
Let’s use the following analogy:
topsoil is similar to a lake or body
of water. Different creatures have
different preferences as to where
they live in the water column.
For example, algae live near the
surface where they feed on higherlevel nutrients and sunshine.
Bigger fish prefer to live lower
in the lower water column, and
bottom feeders obviously live
on the bottom. Some creatures
move up and down through the
water column as they feed. Soil
is similar. Certain microbes and
bacteria live in the upper portions
of the topsoil, certain fungi prefer
the middle of the soil profile and
others, the bottom.
MOVE SOIL VERTICALLY
If you disturb the soil by totally
inverting it, all of the creatures
in the soil have to build and find
new homes. It takes a while for
their populations to recover. The
beauty of vertical tillage is that
because all the movement is vertical, the existing populations of
creatures in the topsoil are not
displaced or destroyed.
Large amounts of residue on
the soil surface act like an insulating blanket keeping the topsoil cold. Reducing residue volume by processing with a vertical
tillage machine accomplishes a
number of things. It allows more
sun and air into the upper portion of the soil surface for warming and reduces or pre-processes
the amount of residue that the
seeding equipment needs to
deal with. Vertical tillage residue processing also begins the
nutrient release process from the
stover. Opening the very top of
the soil adds air that warms the
seedbed. You are not inverting
or stirring the seedbed, just adding air.
A second analogy is that true
vertical tillage is much like a wood
stove. When you add air to a wood
stove, you increase the amount of
heat and combustion. When you
add air to the seedbed portion of
topsoil, the soil warms and the
warmth increases soil life activity.
You get a soil creature population
“boom” or “bloom.”
There are many benefits to
warming the top one and threequarters to two inches of topsoil:
• Seeding can occur many days
earlier because the soil can carry
the planting equipment.
• Seeds are placed in an ideal
warm environment with neither
excessive or a depleted soil moisture.
• Seed germination, vigour and
speed of emergence are improved.
• Populations of existing flora
and fauna bloom to help in the
nutrient uptake process.
MANAGE CROP RESIDUE
Crop residue, especially corn,
contains a large amount of nutrients. In a standard no-till system
Tundra
these nutrients are usually released
late in the growing season, once
higher temperature and rainfall
cause decomposition. This usually
happens too late to be used by the
growing crop. If these nutrients
are recycled more quickly using
a vertical tillage tool pass, they
will be available for the growing
crop, giving the crop a boost, and
potential yield gain.
Over time nearly all no-till soils
stratify. The top two inches of
topsoil — the layer that received
direct fertilizer application and
mechanical tillage soil movement
— tends to become open and
loose, and very high in nutrients.
The soil from two inches down
to six or eight inches tends to get
quite dense from lack of mechanical tillage, lack of direct fertilizer application and wheel traffic. This increased density reduces
the soil’s ability to store water and
exchange nutrients. Some no-till
soils can become so dense that
moisture and nutrient exchange
can stall. A tell tale sign that this
has occurred is two to three years
of undigested residue visible on
the soil surface.
REDUCE SOIL DENSITY
There are a number of ways of
helping alleviate this lower topsoil density issue. One is to pull
a vertical shank that lifts the soil
profile and shatters it without
stirring it. In-line rippers are an
example of this. Some vertical
tillage systems offer the option of
putting shanks into their framework to offer upper topsoil warming and lower topsoil fracturing.
Just make sure that the shank is
only moving soil vertically if you
wish to keep the vertical tillage
advantage.
Another option is to use vertical tillage tools that offer a jack
hammer effect. Certain machines
have rolling coulters that vibrate
and shatter the lower topsoil
density. Reducing density levels
of the lower topsoil increases
root growth and plant, water and
nutrient uptake. It also increases
the water holding capacity of topsoil, which can add to drought
tolerance in certain years.
Adding all the positives of vertical tillage into a no-till system
without displacing the gains that
have been accomplished creates a
synergy. Combining the benefits
of vertical tillage — increased soil
warming, increased residue breakdown and lower soil density —with
the benefits of no-till’s improved
soil structure, decreased soil erosion and soil conservation can lead
to further yield increases. †
Mark van Veen is a territory representative
at Salford Farm Machinery. Phone him at
519-619-6171 or email mark.vanveen@
salfordmachine.com.
Tundra
Got Wild Oats?
Why Rotate?
If you have wild oats in your field that are resistant to Group 1 and Group 2 chemistry, or want to prevent
resistance, you need to use an herbicide with a different mode of action.
Why
?
Avadex creates a barrier of protection that kills wild oats before they cause harm. Control wild oats at the
no-leaf stage, before they begin competing for soil moisture and nutrients.
Avadex® is a registered trademark of Gowan Company
LLC. PMRA Reg. No. is 25112 Always read and follow
label directions.
BY MARK VAN VEEN
6
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
CROP PRODUCTION
CROP ADVISOR’S CASEBOOK
BY CHARISSE GARLAND
K
elvin, who farms 4,500
acres of durum, wheat,
peas, lentils and flax
10 miles southeast
of Swift Current, Sask., called
me in late May to provide current information on his fields
after seeding for our records. He
also mentioned that something
strange was happening in one of
his pea fields.
During a routine check of
those fields, which were at the
three- to four-node stage at the
time, Kelvin had noticed some
plant damage, especially on the
leaves. “There are small notches
on the outer edges of the leaves
of the plants,” explained Kelvin.
“It appears to be damage from
some type of pest.”
Kelvin was unable to find any
pests in the field at this time
that could be causing the bite
marks, so he asked me to come
by to help him out. After taking a walk through the field,
I could see the damage was
quite noticeable on the plants
throughout the entire crop.
One other consideration
to rule out before we started
searching for pests was plant
injury caused by environmental conditions; for example,
leaves getting clipped or torn
by wind, heavy rain or hail.
The notches, however, in the
edges of the plants were perfectly rounded and the damage was not evenly dispersed
throughout the field, ruling
out environmental causes —
the damage would have been
more uniform and broken
stems would have been evident, which was not the case
in this field. There had been
reports of insect damage in surrounding areas, but what pest
was wreaking havoc in Kelvin’s
pea field?
I noticed that the location of
the damage on the pea plants
was typical of insect feeding and
the field borders — typically an
area where pest invaders would
enter a field and feed first —
were the worst-hit areas. I was
able to find insects throughout
the field, but from the size and
shape of the bite marks, I was
looking for one in particular.
As dusk fell, I found what I
was looking for — whatever was
feasting on Kelvin’s plants had
come out in the cool of the
evening to feed again.
What was eating plant leaves
in Kelvin’s pea field? Send your
diagnosis to Grainews, Box 9800,
Winnipeg, Man., 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 best answer,
along with the reasoning which
solved the mystery, will appear
in the next Crop Advisor’s
Solution. †
CROP ADVISOR’S SOLUTION
A
local farmer from
southeast of Swan
River, Man., called me
when he noticed that
his emerging wheat field was
turning yellow in patches. Guy
farms a mix of canola, wheat
and oats, and was very concerned that the wheat plants
were dying off.
“This field is going downhill
fast,” explained Guy. “It looks
like it may have a disease, but
I’m unsure. Could you come by
and take a look at it?”
Guy had been regularly
scouting his crops, and grew
concerned when he first
noticed some yellow patches in
his wheat field. When I arrived
at Guy’s farm and began my
inspection, I could see that
many areas of the field had
turned even darker in colour,
with the lower leaves of the
damaged plants noticeably
browning and turning to
orange.
There was little to go on in
terms of the history on this
piece of land. Guy only started
renting it a year ago, and this
was his second crop on the field.
The previous crop had been
canola with a fertility package
of 100-30-0-15, while this year,
Guy’s fertility blend on the
wheat field was 80-30-15-0.
The local area had received
a regular amount of rain, so
ABIC 2
EVENING SCOUTS CAN REVEAL HIDDEN PROBLEMS
Charisse Garland
Casebook
winner
C
had Bower is the
Casebook winner for this issue.
Chad farms with
his parents. They operate
Bown Farms Ltd. at Ranfurly,
Alta., a 3,500-acre cash crop
farm along the Highway 16
corridor. The Bower’s grow
mostly wheat and canola.
Thanks for entering, Chad.
We’ll send you a hat and
renew your subscription to
Grainews for one year. †
Leeann Minogue
The small notches on the outer edge of the leaves of the pea
plants appeared to have been damaged by some type of pest.
EVENING SCOUTS CAN REVEAL HIDDEN PROBLEMS
it wasn’t likely the crop was
under early leaf disease pressure, which you might expect
from heavy moisture or a
wheat-on-wheat rotation. In
any case, I could see that while
the lower leaves of many damaged plants were turning colour, newer leaves showed little
to no signs of being affected.
I had my suspicions as to
what could be causing Guy’s
problems in this field, but
needed further exploration to
prove my hunch. I explained
to Guy that the best way to
pinpoint a possible cause
would be to take both a tissue
sample of the damaged plants
and a soil sample for testing.
13
When we received the results
of the tissue and soil tests, my
suspicion was confirmed — the
affected plants were deficient in
potassium. With no application
of potash in the previous year’s
blend, this year’s blend hadn’t
had enough time to dissolve
and take effect yet.
Fortunately, the wheat crop
was still in the early stages of
development, and Guy was
able to top dress some liquid potash with fairly satisfying results. We monitored
the field for the remainder
of the growing season, and
were pleased to see the plants
become relatively healthy as
they grew larger. In the end,
Guy’s wheat field produced a
respectable yield.
This case illustrates how
important it is for growers to
soil test their property, especially if they are renting new
land. By having the proper
tests conducted, growers will
have more peace of mind by
eliminating some of the risk
associated with false assumptions, and can benefit from
greater returns from their
inputs. Guy, for one, has
decided that from here on,
he’ll be testing his soil on a
regular basis. †
Carl Giesbrecht is an area marketing
representative for Richardson Pioneer Ltd.
at Swan River, Man.
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
7
Features
Crop production
Pesticides and groundwater
Some pesticides will take longer to break down than others; the
outcome will depend on both the pesticide and the environment
By Rebeca Kuropatwa
C
anada uses over 35 million kilograms of pesticide active ingredients
per year,” says Dr.
Annemieke Farenhorst, a soil science professor at the University
of Manitoba. Farenhorst studies
the persistence and transport of
agrichemicals — including pesticides — in soil, water, and air.
Some active ingredients break
down more quickly than others.
“
Pesticide break down
How quickly a pesticide will
break down depends on both the
pesticide and the environment.
Exposed to sunlight and other
microorganisms, some pesticide molecules break down in a
few hours. But, Farenhorst says,
“Other pesticide molecules are
persistent in the environment.
Some have been known to persist
for decades.”
These long-lasting pesticides
can wind up in the air, water,
soil and living organisms. “This
distribution results in some pesticides being widely present in the
environment,” Farenhorst says.
“This is one reason why it’s difficult deal with contamination.”
To stop contamination applicators need to keep the pesticide
where it’s applied.
Pesticides can be most difficult to contain when they enter
ground water, where they have
an opportunity to travel to other
locations.
Of course, even without traveling,
pesticides are not wanted in ground
water. “About one in four Canadians
rely on groundwater for their drinking water,” said Farenhorst.
As well, in surface waters,
Farenhorst says, “pesticides are
retained onto suspended or bottom sediments. This can prolong
their persistence, as once they’re
retained by solids, it’s more difficult for microorganisms to break
down the chemicals.
“Building up soil organic matter levels helps retain pesticides
into the soil,” says Farenhorst.
There, they can be broken down,
reducing the risk that they’ll
reach ground water.
And of course, using fewer pesticides also lowers the risk of
contamination.
“Avoiding pesticide overapplication and practices that
lead to weed resistance will
generally reduce the release of
pesticides in and risks to the
environment.”
While there are several actions
famers can take, Farenhorst
says, “Pesticide contamination
can’t be solely controlled by
specific on-farm practices, even
if a farmer is following all the
recommended practices.
“For example,” she says, “spray
drift and post-volatilization losses
(the movement of pesticides into
the air following application)
from other farms will allow
pesticide residues to enter the
atmosphere. These pesticide
residues can be transported short
or long distances and then be
re-deposited on other soils or
surface waters.”
According to Dr. Jeanette
G a u l t i e r, p e s t i c i d e s m i n o r
use and regulatory specialist,
Manitoba Agriculture, Food, and
Rural Initiatives (MAFRI), leach-
ing of pesticides is not a major
problem on Prairie soils, “due to
our low average annual precipitation.”
The widespread adoption of
conservation till and no-till by
Prairie farmers is one of the best
management practices to minimize the risk of spring surface
runoff of pesticides from fields,
said Gaultier. Crop residues act
as a barrier to slow water and
soluble compounds movement
from fields.
“Crop residues also reduce soil
loss by wind and water erosion,
which may contain soil-bound
herbicide residues,” said Gaultier.
“Producers in the Prairie pothole
region can also use two-to-five
metre wide buffer strips around
riparian and other sensitive areas
to reduce soluble and soil-bound
pesticide runoff.
Gaultier also notes the shift
from to relatively non-residual
pre- and post-emergent pesticides.
“Some of the more residual
products are still used in specialty
crops or to combat known
populations of herbicide-tolerant
weeds. However, producers in
flood prone areas tend to avoid
their use, as pesticide loss from
their fields is also lost dollars from
their pocket book.” †
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a professional writer in
Winnipeg, Man.
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There are many ways to prevent water contamination, such
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By Dan Piraro
Bizarro
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13-08-21 3:01 PM
8
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
Soil management
Saturation. Denitrification. Ruts. Saturated soils need special
attention to come back to normal production
By Rebeca Kuropatwa
E
xcess water can deplete
soils. During years of
excess water, plants will
experience extra stress. In
the years after land has been saturated, it’s important for farmers to
re-evaluate their fertility programs.
Soil depletion
“Soil testing is especially
important since nitrogen levels
may be depleted due to denitrification and the potential for
salinity may increase,” says John
Heard, crop nutrition specialist
with Manitoba Agriculture, Food,
and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI).
“Supplemental nitrogen fertilizer
can offset a portion of the yield
losses due to excess water.”
Excess water can reduce root
respiration and other critical plant
processes. It can also cause the production and accumulation of phytotoxic compounds, for example
ethylene in plant roots and soil.
Ethylene is a root growth inhibitor with varying effects on different
crops. Barley is especially sensitive
to ethylene, barley roots will die at
quite low concentrations. Several
other crops will respond to a ethylene build-up with survival mechanisms, like producing secondary
roots and upward growth of roots
in search of oxygen. Potatoes
respond to ethylene by increasing
the size of their tuber pores, to
increase air exchange. Legumes are
indirectly affected by ethylene —it
inhibits the formation and function of nitrogen-fixing rhizobium.
“Saturated soil conditions
change the soil’s redox potential,
favouring loss of nitrogen and
production of ions (toxic under
certain soil conditions),” said
Curtis Cavers, potato agronomist
at the Canada-Manitoba Crop
Diversification Centre (CMCDC).
This hinders healthy plant
growth, causing significant
yield loss.
“Crop tolerance and adaptation
to water-logging is plant species
dependent,” said Cavers. “Plant
roots and shoots can adapt to
short-term reductions in oxygen
by lowering respiration rates and
slowing growth of shoots. Under
conditions of excess water, it’s the
lack of oxygen that changes the
soil and crop environment.
“Oxygen diffuses in water
10,000 times slower than it does
in air, resulting in changes in
nutrient availability and microbial activity, reduced plant respiration, and energy production
and the accumulation of compounds in roots and soil that
may become toxic to plants.
Prolonged exposure to excess
water creates symptoms similar
to those experienced by crops
under drought conditions.”
Mid-season excess
According to Heard, mid-season
excess moisture can be much more
damaging than early-season moisture excess. “There are several factors that influence the magnitude
of impact excess water stress has
on growing crops, including soil
type, plant species, plant growth
stage, temperature, day length and
duration of the stress,” says Heard.
The stress from excess water is
greatest when there is rapid respiration. This usually occurs in July
on soils with less drainable pore
space, such as clay soils. On some
soils, excessive May rainfall could
result in crop yield increases.
“Like oxygen, carbon dioxide and ethylene gases diffuse
more slowly through water than
through air, accumulating around
plant roots.”
“Reduction of nitrate to
nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitrogen gas (N2) can result in nitrogen fertilizer losses of two to four
pounds per acre per day when
soil temperatures are greater
than 5 C,” said Cavers.
“Different plant species are
able to tolerate low oxygen levels
depending on several mechanisms
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of plant adaptation, including lowered respiration rates of roots and
changes in metabolic pathways to
produce less toxic end products,
such as malic acid rather than the
more toxic ethanol.
“Producing replacement roots,
which grow in well-aerated surface soil, doesn’t guarantee plant
survival, in that roots developed
this way still need oxygen and
tend to grow horizontal rather
than vertical — so these plants
are shallow-rooted and more susceptible to later-season drought.”
Plant growth
in excess water
Plant shoots slow overall
growth to adapt to excess water
stress. Although stem elongation
still occurs, plants do not fill in.
“The senescence and abscission
of older leaves takes place, often
remobilizing mobile nutrients,
such as nitrogen to younger tissue,” said Cavers.
“Most annual crops can tolerate three to seven days of water
stress, while forage legumes tolerate nine to 14 days, and forage grasses can tolerate 10 to 49
days. However, it’s important to
remember other factors influencing the tolerance period,
such as soil type, plant species,
soil temperature, etc.”
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a professional writer
in Winnipeg, Man.
HylandTM and the Hyland Seeds logo are trademarks of Dow AgroSciences LLC. 09/13-20278-01GN
Managing saturated fields
Crop tolerance to excess water
stress depends on the plant
species. “In cereal crops, oats
are the most tolerant of excess
water stress, followed by wheat,
and then barley,” said Cavers.
“Barley plants are particularly
vulnerable in the five- to eightleaf stage, as head formation is
initiated at the fifth leaf stage
and water-logging decreases
pollen viability.”
“Plants at the seedling and early
vegetative growth stages haven’t
consumed as much soil water, so
soils may waterlog sooner with
less rainfall. In addition, due to
the lower oxygen demands from
plants at this growth stage, soil
oxygen depletion is slower, soils
are cooler, and root biomass is
smaller.
“Larger plants at flowering stages
have used up much more soil moisture so the soil can absorb more
water before approaching waterlogging. These plants are photosynthesizing and respiring at their
greatest rates and have the greatest
need for water — which can’t be
moved to the shoots under waterlogged conditions. Furthermore,
soil oxygen depletion is at a rapid
rate. Large root biomass and warm
soil temperatures encourage microbial respiration.
“As a result, high water use
crops may be more buffered
against the negative impacts of
late-season rainfall events than
low water use crops. However,
once the soil becomes saturated,
high water use crops will be negatively impacted more quickly
and at a larger magnitude that
low water use crops.” †
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
9
Features
CROP NUTRITION
Sulphur as part of nutrition package
Plants need sulphur to develop protein. Make sure your crops have enough
BY REBECA KUROPATWA
T
his is the third time in
his career that Ontario
provincial cereal specialist Peter Johnson, has
conducted trials on sulphur. After
earlier trials in the early 1990s
and again in 2000, he began again
in 2011.
“The first two trials, we got no
response to sulphur, except the
occasional little blip — but on
average there was nothing there,”
said Johnson.
This was likely because Ontario
is in the wind shadow of much
Chicago and Michigan industrial
development, conveyed Johnson.
“That’s been referred to, in the
past, as ‘acid rain.’ Farmers in
Ontario really should refer to it as
‘foliar fertilizer.’
“Back in the late nineteenth
century (1890-2000), if farmers
wanted to grow wheat, they’d
have to add some form of sulphur
(as we were quite deficient). From
the ’40s until now, we’ve had
a sufficient amount from atmospheric deposition.
“Throughout the bulk of the
twentieth century, we had enough
sulphur without sulphur additions. That’s changed. We’ve
brought in more and more environmental laws and efforts to
improve air quality, and with that,
we’ve seen our sulphur essentially
cut by two thirds.”
phur than grains. Canola is very
responsive to sulphur. “It’s a little
harder to see in wheat,” Johnson
says, “as it doesn’t have the same
demand for sulphur.”
Typically, sulphur deficiency
appears when the plant hits the
rapid growth stage (stem elongation) when the greatest demand
for sulphur and nitrogen occur.
“Sulphur and nitrogen
deficiency look the same,” said
Johnson. “It’s virtually impossible
to tell the two apart. But, if you’ve
already put on 90 or 100 pounds
of nitrogen and you’re seeing
nitrogen deficiency symptoms, it’s
a pretty good chance it’s sulphur,
not nitrogen, you’re lacking.
“Sulphur is a secondary nutrient
while nitrogen is a macro-nutrient. Sulphur can’t photosynthesize
properly or make corossol properly
without nitrogen. Once you apply
sulphur, the plant picks it up, fixes
the deficiency, and away you go.
Our soil bank
account is
significantly
depleted
“How quickly that happens
depends on how fast the sulphur
gets into the soil. Using liquid
sulphur with moisture present at
the soil surface, it can rebound in
as little as 48 hours.”
HIGHER YIELDS
Johnson says the sulphur situation in Western Canada is very
similar to that of North Dakota and
Montana. Farmers in all of these
areas have been applying sulphur
to many crops for many years.
However, our soil bank account
is significantly depleted, compared to what it was 40 or even
100 years ago.
“As you push for higher yields,
you have a higher demand for all
nutrients, not just sulphur,” says
Johnson.
Johnson recommended using
sulphate as opposed to elemental sulphur (which is cheaper but
needs to be broken down by bugs).
He also suggests applying sulphate
in the spring as opposed to fall
when it may leach out before it
can be used.
Doon Pauly, agronomy research
scientist at Lethbridge, Alta. says
that it is common practice for farmers in southwestern Alberta to seed
winter wheat on canola stubble.
Jeff Schoenau, a professor at the
University of Saskatchewan says,
“Significant amounts of sulphur
can be released from canola residue
the following year and any unused
sulphur likely carries over quite
well. As such, sulphur deficiency is
unlikely to be a major issue, just as
it’s not generally for spring wheat
in many locales, especially southern
Saskatchewan in brown and dark
brown soils where sulphates are
often present in the sub-soil.” †
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a professional writer in
Winnipeg, Man.
A flushing weed control
story worth telling. To everyone.
SULPHUR DEFICIENCY
Agronomists have often
suggested applying a pound of
sulphur for every 10 pounds of
nitrogen.
“I don’t believe that ratio applies
in Ontario conditions, because it
would only apply if I got zero sulphur out of the air,” says Johnson
“The key is simply to make sure
there’s enough sulphur and nitrogen, and give credit to the sulphur
from the air.”
Plants need sulphur to develop
protein. Johnson and his team
have been evaluating the quality
of the flour from sulphur-added
wheat, and have found that,
“when sulphur is deficient, it
definitely impacts the quality of
the flour and yield of the crop.”
Sulphur is an important part of
a total nutrition package. Johnson
says, “If you’re sulphur deficient
and you add too much nitrogen,
in the extreme case you’ll actually
reduce rather than increase yield.”
Oilseed crops need more sulBY DAN PIRARO
Bizarro
Growers can’t seem to stop talking about Ares™ herbicide for Clearfield® canola.
Only Ares takes out the toughest flushing weeds and keeps them out. Including
wild buckwheat, lamb’s quarters, cleavers—even volunteer canola from other
systems. Ares also makes herbicide rotation easier, because it uses a different
mode of action. You’ll be so impressed with its performance you’ll want to tell
every canola grower you know. And almost anyone else who’ll stand still long
enough. For the latest buzz visit agsolutions.ca/clearfieldcanola or contact
AgSolutions® Customer Care at 1-877-371-BASF (2273).
Always read and follow label directions.
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BASF Agrochemical Products B.V.; all used with permission by BASF Canada Inc. © 2013 BASF Canada.
110200853_CLC_Mech_GrainNews_v3.indd 1
2013-08-21 2:07 PM
10
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
BEE KILLS AND SEED TREATMENTS
Bee kills and
seed treatments
Bee deaths are getting a lot of attention. New research
shows this mystery could be linked to seed treatments
BY ANGELA LOVELL
A
fter Ontario recorded
240 bee kills last year,
involving 40 different
beekeepers, it’s no surprise that the issue of bee deaths
has been front and centre in the
media or that there is confusion
about the various research reports
that have been unearthed.
Shrinking numbers of honey
bees across Europe and North
America has prompted an enormous amount of research into the
phenomenon of Colony Collapse
Disorder and bee kills like the ones
in Ontario. Published studies to
date have implicated pesticides,
GMO’s, fungi, pathogens, pests,
climate change and even radiation
emitted by cell phones.
But a number of scientists have
conclusively linked the insecticide
family neonicotinoids with bee kills.
This is not surprising, as neonicotinoids are toxic to all insects
and bees are just one of the nontarget insects that are affected by
them. What is surprising, however, is that neonicotinoids are
generally used as a seed treatment
for many crops such as corn, soybeans and canola. They’ve gained
popularity partly because of the
reduced environmental impact of
using this technology.
“One of the main things about
the technology of seed treatment,
which has made it really take off
over the last decade or so, is that
much less insecticide product is
being used on a per acre basis and
exposure to non-target organisms
was greatly reduced,” says Pierre
Petelle, vice-president, chemistry
at CropLife Canada. “It is one
of the attractive parts about seed
treatments. Producers can put that
treatment on the seed, or purchase
the seed already treated, and then
put that seed under the ground, so
in terms of non-target insects the
exposure is much less than if you
are spraying over the entire field.”
vegetation that the honey bees are
foraging on.”
This discovery has led to a
number of initiatives to try
and reduce the potential risk of
exposure for bees and other nontarget insects. Industry researchers working in association with
CropLife Canada are tested a
new talc replacement product
across North America. “This new
type of lubricant shows very
promising results and is being
tested in a wide area and with a
wide range of different planting
equipment in collaboration with
equipment manufacturers,” says
Petelle. “If these trials continue
as well as they have been going
the idea would be to replace all
of the talc and graphite used
with this new product as early
as next year.”
A set of Best Management
Practices (BMP’s) for seed-applied
insecticides have been drawn
up which closely follow pollinator protection guidelines estab-
lished by the Pest Management
Regulatory Agency last year. These
include ways to minimize the risk
of insecticide dust exposure during planting, which include making sure that farmers only use the
recommended amount of lubricant and are aware of weather conditions, especially wind direction,
and hive proximity.
“I think growers sometimes
err on the side of caution and
probably use more lubricant
than they need to and that
over abundance is probably not
helping, especially on non humid
days,” says Baute. “When it’s not
humid the seed is less likely to
stick in the planter, so if they
use exactly what their planter
manufacturer recommends it
should help reduce the production
of contaminated dust.”
The biggest challenge the industry is working to address is communication between growers and
bee keepers. “Growers may not
even realise that there are bee
LUBRICANT DUST
The issue is really about how
the bees are being exposed to the
insecticide, and the main culprit it
seems is the lubricant dust emitted from air seeders. To help make
sure that the seed flows smoothly
through the air seeder, a lubricant
is used — especially for corn and
soybeans, but also for crops like
canola, which is generally made of
talc or graphite.
“What we have identified as a
potential original cause of exposure is the vacuum planters which
most of the growers are using,”
says Tracey Baute, field crop entomologist at the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture and Food and Ministry
of Rural Affairs (OMAF and MRA).
“The talc or graphite lubricant
is abrasive to the seed and takes
off some of the coating, so some
of the seed treatment gets into the
talc and the insecticide-laden talc
or graphite dust is exhausted into
the air and makes contact with the
*Source: 2012 Canola Performance Trials
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. ©2013 Monsanto Canada, Inc.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
11
Features
hives nearby,” says Baute. “And
they clearly didn’t have the knowledge that bees can forage as far as
they do.”
The industry has been very
proactive in trying to encourage
more dialogue on the issue, says
Petelle. CropLife Canada has
established an informal round
table which brings together its
member companies, the beekeeping community, grower
groups, government and regulators and equipment manufacturers to share information
and try to find solutions to bee
health issues.
BEE RESEARCH
Research from Purdue
University is also suggesting that
there could be insecticide residue
in the soil, which could be finding its way into water sources like
puddles or ponds and providing another route for exposure.
Other studies suggest that residues could also be present in nec-
tar and pollens at either lethal or
sub-lethal doses.
“This is where it gets really
tricky,” says Baute, who is
involved in a year-long study in
collaboration with the University
of Guelph and OMAF and MRA
into these kinds of potential
exposure routes. “There could
potentially be residues in the nectar and pollen from the vegetation along the perimeter of the
fields but are those residues high
enough to have an impact on
these bees? There are still a lot of
gaps in the knowledge.”
Petelle cites data from independent studies that are finding
the amount of insecticide residue present in pollen and nectar
from canola crops treated with
seed treatments is infinitesimally
low and is not a significant source
of exposure for bees. According
to data from Statistics Canada,
in Alberta, where more than 2.5
million hectares of canola were
planted last year (almost all of
which was treated with neonicoti-
noids) bee numbers are increasing
in parallel with seeded area.
“Canola is a highly attractive
crop to bees and if there were issues
around sublethal effects, they
would appear in this crop,” says
Petelle. “So we always point to that
as a clear example that if the pollen
and nectar were truly a significant
source of exposure we would be
seeing problems in canola.”
Petelle believes that many different factors affect hive health,
not least of which are old enemies
such as the Varroa mite, a parasite
that attaches itself to bees. Some
companies are investing heavily in
bee health products and technology, he adds.
Bayer Crop Science, for example, has a dedicated bee health
research facility in Germany and is
opening a similar one in Raleigh,
North Carolina, with full scale bee
hives and testing facilities for new
products to try and control mites
and other hive health issues.
It does appear that issues with
bee kills linked to the use of neoni-
cotinoid seed treatments are more
prevalent in Eastern Canada where
more corn and soybeans are grown.
Some Eastern farmers have been
trying out European designed
deflector kits, which they use to
modify certain types of air seeders
so exhausted air is pointed in a
downward direction.
North American equipment
manufacturers have concerns
about the kits. “The use of deflectors on equipment disrupts the
airflow through the planter and
could create performance issues,”
says Nick Tindall, director of government affairs for the Association
of Equipment Manufacturers. “We
are also concerned that changing the direction of the exhaust
downward may not be the best
course of action to protect pollinator health.”
Tindall says equipment manufacturers are taking pollinator
health seriously and have taken
steps to mitigate any potential
role that their products play in
fugitive dust from treated seed.
Besides being involved in the
testing of the talc replacement
product they are also working to
create a new ISO international
standard for equipment manufacturers to follow to better control fugitive dust.
Baute would like a return to
emphasis on Integrated Pest
Management as a way to mitigate
the risk of accidental insecticide
exposure to bees and other nontarget insects. “With Integrated
Pest Management you assess if you
have a pest problem before using a
seed treatment,” she says. “I think
that’s where we want to move
towards, so we are only using a
seed treatment when we really
need to.”
Honey bees are extremely valuable as crop pollinators for crops.
Small expenditures in strategies to
preserve them seem like a pretty
good investment. †
Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor and
communications specialist living and working in Manitoba. Find her online at www.
angelalovell.ca.
The
neonicotinoids
A
It’s all tied up.
When it comes to yield supremacy,
it’s six of one, half dozen of the other.
It’s been talked about, debated, and argued amongst
growers across the prairies. When it’s all said and done,
according to yield trials, Genuity® Roundup Ready®
hybrids yield on par with the competition.* Like all
contests this close, the debate rages on... for now.
new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics for short, was
initially developed in the
1970s.
Their chemical structure is
derived from nicotine (also
an insecticide which keeps
tobacco plants safe from caterpillars) and they are relatively non-toxic to most vertebrates. Most are water-soluble and break down slowly
in the environment, so they
can be taken up by the plant
and provide protection from
insects as the plant grows
and develops.
During the late 1990s this
class of pesticides became
widely used (primarily as
imidacloprid, trade names
include Gaucho, Provado,
Merit).
Beginning in the early
2000s, two other neonics began to see wide use to
treat corn and other field
crop seeds. These compounds
are clothianidin (trade name
Poncho) and thiamethoxam
(trade name Cruiser), the latter
rapidly breaks down into clothianidin in living organisms
Currently, virtually every
corn seed that is planted in
the Midwest (and Canada)
is treated with one of these
two compounds, as well as
fungicides. Most soybean seed
is also treated with neonics
(usually thiamethoxam).
Clothianidin is one of the
most toxic substances we
know of for honey bees. The
lethal oral dose to give a 50
per cent chance of death (the
LD50) among an exposed
group of adult honeybees is
about three nanograms per
bee. That’s three billionths of
a gram, a tiny fraction of the
weight of the bee (one tenth
of a gram).
This description of neonicotinoids is adapted from
“Neonicotinoid Seed Treatments
and Honey Bee Health” by Greg
Hunt and Christian Krupke of
Purdue University. †
Angela Lovell
12
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
Soil management
Seven tips to getting more from soil tests
Farmers can get more value out of soil test reports by digging deeper,
according to an agronomic soils specialist
By Lisa Guenther
“
L
ook for some hidden values out of that soil report.
Don’t just look at the obvious,” said Mandy Huska,
an agronomic sales specialist at
Taurus Technology. Huska spoke
to farmers at Cavalier Agrow’s plot
tour in July.
Here are seven tips for sampling
soil and interpreting test results.
1. Look for patterns
Weeds can signal specific problems, or high production areas,
in fields.
“So, for example, something like
a sow thistle could be where you
have excess magnesium in your
field,” said Huska. Lamb’s quarters
thrives in high organic soils and is
a sign of high fertility.
Huska said there is also a correlation between nutrient deficiencies and disease, as well as insects
and fertility problems.
“So a sucking insect like a leafhopper actually is attracted to areas
of the field, or plants, that produce
a sugar called asparagine. And actually that happens when you’re low
on potassium,” she said.
Huska also suggests looking for
high production areas using yield
maps, and soil testing those areas.
Huska said she wasn’t necessarily
suggesting farmers invest in variable
rate technology. But farmers could
sample from high production areas,
based on yield maps, and also test
areas with production problems.
2. Soil sampling depth
Huska said the zero to 12 inch
samples dilute some numbers. For
soil under zero or minimum till,
Huska recommended sampling at
zero to six inches.
“If you can take two, that would
be a zero to six (and a) six to 12 to
look for your mobiles.”
Mobile nutrients such as sulphur, nitrogen and boron show up
at six inches and lower. Sodium is
another issue to watch for at depth.
“If you’ve got areas where the
water table’s been really elevated,
your sodium levels at depth
could be higher and you could
run into some problems later
on,” said Huska.
PH levels and nutrients can also
vary with depth. For example, the
pH levels may be fine in the zero
to six inch range, but either drop
off or climb at depth.
Huska said some consulting
firms are starting to sample at
zero to three and three to six. She
said if farmers have been using
zero till for years and not working
in trash, many of the nutrients
will be in the first three inches.
“If you want to start getting a little
more in tune with where nutrients
are located, how much stratification
is happening, maybe we have to
look at flipping the soil or rotating it
once every five or 10 years.”
3. Understand pH
Les Henry’s Handbook of Soil and
Water states that, “soil pH is to a
soil scientist as blood pressure is to
a medical doctor.” A pH score lower
than seven means soil is acidic, or
sour, while numbers higher than
seven mean the soil is alkaline, or
basic. A pH level of seven is neutral.
Chemical intervention isn’t usually
tried for soils with a pH between six
and eight, Henry writes.
Soils with very low pH levels may have aluminum tying
up phosphate, Huska said. Henry
notes that soil phosphorus availability drops sharply at pH levels
below six. Acid soils also affect
soil organisms.
Calcium binds phosphate in
high pH soils, Huska said. Henry
writes that alkaline soils also
reduce micronutrient availability,
including zinc, manganese, copper and iron.
Huska went through soil tests
from the Cavalier area, in northwest Saskatchewan. Some fields
had pH levels as low as 4.5. “You
guys can grow blueberries there.
It’s really low,” she said.
Other fields in the area had pH
levels of 7.5, which Huska said was
“pretty decent.”
“Just having this huge variance
here makes me say you need to
soil test,” she said.
are low on boron. “I think for
the most part you have to be at a
certain level, fertility wise, to get a
response (to boron).”
Huska cautions against applying
micronutrients without soil and
tissue testing, as they could cause
unintended reactions.
Henry writes that some crops
are more prone to certain micronutrient deficiencies. For example,
alfalfa is sensitive to boron defi-
for optimum protein. Severely
sulphur deficient canola causes
cupping leaves and purpling,
especially on the leaf’s underside, Henry writes.
“The only time I trust a sulphur
recommendation… is when it’s
low,” said Huska. “You can pick up
sulphates of any kind that can throw
your numbers off so always apply
sulphur, especially to canola, regardless of what your soil test says.”
said it’s not always available
when the plant needs it. Much
might be available early in
the growing season, but as
plant growth ramps up, the
plant might not have enough
potassium within the root zone.
Magnesium can also influence
potassium uptake,.
Henry writes that though fertilizer potassium isn’t needed
on many Prairie farms, there are
T:12.9167
S:12.9167
Strong returns.
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invest in InVigor® Health L156H and watch it come
back to you in a big way. Exceptional yields and a
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was designed for growers hunting for a better
return on their investment.
Contact your Cargill representative
for more information at 1 888-855-8558 or
www.cargillspecialtycanola.com
4. Understand CEC
Cation exchange capacity (CEC)
tells you whether you’ve got sand
or clay. Sand and clay react differently to moisture and applied
nutrients, Huska said.
“If you’ve got a sand, you want
to control some of the nutrients
that we have. You want to be able
to hold on to nitrogen through the
season,” she said. She suggested
farmers with sandy loams consider
products controlling nitrogen loss.
“There’s nothing really there to
bind those nutrients,” she said.
Higher CEC scores mean heavier
clays. Many Saskatchewan soils
have CEC in the 25 plus range,
Huska said.
5. Know your
organic matter
Huska said organic matter is the
lifeblood of the soil. “It has the
ability to hold or release nutrients
all through the growing season.”
For every percentage of organic
matter, a field could release
between five and 13 lbs. of actual
nitrogen in a year, Huska said.
“If you’re over-applying because
you don’t know what your organic
matter is, not only have you spent
more money on nitrogen than
you needed to, maybe you’ve
got lodging issues. Maybe it’s not
going to mature quick enough.
Maybe you’ve got an imbalance of
something in your field as well,”
she said.
Huska points out that if soils
have a huge amount of available nitrogen, farmers may want
to spend part of their fertilizer
budget on other needed nutrients, such as potassium.
Organic matter can vary greatly
within a field. For example, one
quarter in the Cavalier area had
organic matter ranging from 1.2
per cent to 4.9 per cent
6. Look at micronutrients
Huska said 80 per cent of the
tissues tests she’s seen this year
BayerCropScience.ca/InVigor or 1 888-283-6847 or contact your Bayer CropScience representative.
Always read and follow label directions. InVigor® is a registered trademark of the Bayer Group. Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.
ciencies. Wheat is sensitive to copper deficiencies, oats to manganese
and beans to zinc. Soil types also
affect micronutrient deficiencies.
7. Look at macronutrients
Calcium promotes root growth
and gives roots the ability to
push into the lower levels of
soils. Huska noted some fields in
the Cavalier area had very low
calcium levels.
“I’m not an advocate of liming
because it’s very hard to find in
this part of the world. But there
are certain areas of our province
that we need to start looking at
adding calcium,” she said.
Plants need the right balance of nitrogen and sulphur
FS:6.0833”
H e n r y w r i t e s t h a t S a s k a t - deficient areas. Soil tests are a
F:6.4583” soils are
chewan’s grey wooded
reliable indicator of potassium
well known for their sulphur deficiency, and soils below 121
deficiency. But sulfur deficien- lb. per acre in the top six inches
cies in other soils are much more require potassium fertilizer, he
common than they used to be, so writes. Soil with 121
to 180
SBC13115.InVigorHe
8-21-2013 4:54lbs.
PM
canola producers should always
per acre will still probably
CALMCL-DMX8127
Cyan,
Magenta,
Yellow,
apply sulfur.
require a low rate of seed-placed
Marsha Walters
Potassium helps with photosynpotassium. Sandy soils need less
SPEC ORIGINALLY GENERATED: Marianne
None
100%
thesis, nutrient management
and potassium
than
clays, as potas12.9167” x 8”
SAFETY: None
disease resistance. It also helps sium isn’t tied up as much
in TRIM: 12.916
Helvetica Neue LT Std (65 Medium, 75 Bo
prevent lodging, especially in high sandy soils, said Huska.
organic matter soils.
“If you guys soil test and find
“If we were going through some that you’ve got some low K levsort of a dry spell, your plants els — which I know you do, I’ve
would be able to take in water seen your soil tests — here’s an
much better if they have potassi- opportunity for you to go and
um available to them,” said Huska. apply some on. Spread it on. It’s
F a r m e r s m i g h t a s s u m e money in the bank.” †
potassium is abundant in Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews. Contact
Saskatchewan soils, but Huska her at [email protected].
12.9167”
12.9167”
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
13
Features
Crop nutrition
Soil testing with the PRS probe
Western Ag Labs’ Plant Root Simulator Probe offers farmers
a unique way to look at crop nutrient needs
by Angela Lovell
E
very soil testing lab has its
own methodology for testing soil and making nutrient recommendations.
Since the 1990s, Western Ag
Labs Ltd. of Saskatoon has been
using its own unique tool — the
Plant Root Simulator — to analyze soil and make recommendations for its clients.
different crops for yield potential
and then tailor the economics specifically to the farmer.”
That means concentrating on
maximum economic yield says
Hammermeister, not just the
maximum yield potential of a
specific crop.
“The Forecaster may calculate
that the optimum fertilizer budget
may be $80 an acre to grow a 50
bushel per acre wheat crop, but
Two pairs of PRS probes are
inserted into the soil under standard moisture and temperature conditions. This eliminates variables
that could influence the analysis
if the probes were used under field
conditions.
Nutrients with a negative charge
(anion) like nitrate-nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur are adsorbed
by an orange coloured probe.
Nutrients like ammonium, potas-
L156H
The PRS Forecaster
T:8”
Once the soil is analyzed,
the data from the probes is run
through Western Ag Labs’ computer model to calculate the level
of nutrient supply required for
certain crops. Crop specific factors
that can influence yield potential are taken into account. These
include rooting characteristics
(which vary with crop type, soil
physical and chemical properties)
and expected growing conditions
(such as moisture and heat).
The computer program determines the crop’s maximum yield
potential, then produces yield
response curves for nitrogen,
phosphorus and sulphur. These
curves can help clients optimize
their spending on nutrients.
“If the curve is very steep then
that’s likely where he should put
his fertilizer dollars first, because
that is where those dollars give
the biggest economic benefit,” says
Hammermeister. “As you add more
fertilizer you go from a steep curve
area to a shoulder area and then
the curve levels off. The curves
show the diminishing returns
for each dollar spent. The model
allows the farmer to allocate his
fertilizer cost on each curve were he
needs it to be.”
S:8”
There are two steps to Western the farmer was hailed or flooded
F:6.4584”
Ag Labs’ process. First, soil samples out last year
and he only has $50
are analyzed using patented soil an acre to spend on that part of
probes developed at the University his budget,” says Hammermeister.
of Saskatchewan. Then the sam- The technolocy can help farmples are analyzed using a computer SBC13115.
ers decide where to spend limited
gorHealth.2.4C.indd
model. The computer model pro- Grainews
dollars. “It could be that spending
Insertion Date:
September
9, 2013
llow,
Black duces crop and nutrient recom$50
on wheat
might give less ecoCrop Science
mendations tailored to the clients’Bayernomic
return to that farmer, based
PAGE: 1
BCS13106
land,
production goals and risk on what
the Forecaster tells us,
: 12.9167” x 8” tolerance
Bleed: None level.
than spending $50 on oats. So the
m, 75 Bold, 55 Roman,
85 Heavy;farmers
OpenType) are very comfort“Some
model allows him to see how he
able rolling the dice hard and other can best allocate that $50.”
farmers, for whatever reason,
ProductionpreContact Numbers:
403 261 says
7161
403 261 7152
fer to be more conservative,”
PRS probes
Edgar Hammermeister, field servPRS probes use specially charged,
ices manager for Western Ag Labs.
“Some may have a specific budget ion exchange membranes that
in mind. So our consultation allows adsorb nutrients directly from the
us to see what the potential of the soil — mechanically similar to the
land is, how it compares between way a plant root takes up nutrients.
ity for turning over nutrients,
says Hammermeister, there will
be a large amount of nutrients
absorbed onto the probes. If the
capacity is low, there will be less
nutrient on the probes.
Out in the field
O-66-08/13-BCS13106-E
sium, calcium and magnesium,
which have a positive charge (cation) are adsorbed by a second, purple coloured probe. Micronutrients
like copper, zinc, manganese, iron
and boron are measured using the
orange PRS Probe.
“In warm, moist soil the microorganisms start chewing away at the
organic matter and the chemistry
becomes active and the nutrients
will release and be dissolved in the
soil water,” says Hammermeister.
“Anything that is dissolved in
water will have either a positive
or negative ionic charge. So the
probes are measuring the soil activity. I usually describe it to farmers
as the PRS probes generating a
horsepower rating of your soil.”
If the soil has a high capac-
Brian Kennett is a pedigreed
seed grower from southeast
Saskatchewan who has been using
Western Ag Labbs’ PRS technology
on his barley and canola crops
since 2001. He first approached
Western Ag labs to learn why he
was getting inconsistent barley
yields. “One year it would be 80
bushels per acre and the next year
it would be 50,” says Kennett.
Kennett applied Hammermeister’s
recommendations on a couple of
fields and the first year he achieved
the 88 bushels per acre barley yield
he’d targeted.
“He said that our soil was capable of far more than what we were
farming it at,” says Kennett, who
was a little skeptical at first. “But
I think the benefit of the system
is we go after the right nutrient
or combination of nutrients and
over the years our yield average
has moved up significantly and is
more consistent. We don’t always
hit what we are shooting for, but
we are consistently at the top end
of the range of what is achieved in
our area.”
Specific scenarios, such as how
much moisture is expected, price
expectations or equipment logistics can be factored in to come up
with an individualized crop nutrition plan for each client.
“The farm plans are tailored
to the farm regarding logistics,
equipment capabilities, and most
importantly, the customer’s risk
tolerance,” says Hammermeister.
“Crops receiving balanced nutrition generate better yields and
better quality.”
CropCaster
W
e s t e r n A g ’s
CEO, Kevin
D o w, h a s
r e c e n t l y
announced that Western
Ag’s network of consulting
agronomists is expanding.
These consultants will offer
Western Ag’s “PRS CropCast”
service — using Western Ag’s
PRS CropCaster software to
estimate farmers’ returns on
investment, based on yield
potential, nutrient supply,
weather forecasts, inputs and
crop prices.
Consultants will look at
individual fields and overall
farms, helping farmers optimize expenditures on inputs
and use the most economical
fertilizer blends. The cost is a
flat fee of $4 per acre, with a
$0.50 per acre early booking
fee. †
Leeann Minogue
Backcasting
The best laid plans can go awry
during the growing season. To take
reality into account, Western Ag
Labs includes “backcasting” as part
of its package. Western Ag Labs’
agronomists feed actual outcomes
into the Forecaster after harvest,
then run the computer functions
in reverse to see how close the real
outcome came to the forecast.
“We can enter how much fertilizer was actually applied and how
much actual rain was received
during the growing season. The
impact of insect or disease issues
and how they were managed are
also considered in the process,”
says Hammermeister.
The aim, he says, is for the recalculated yield based on the actuals
to be within 90 per cent or more
of harvested yield. “Farmers really
appreciate this because they get to
see how well the model worked
and how well their management
worked,” says Hammermeister.
Backcasting provided Kennett
with solid evidence that it might
be time to roll the dice a little
harder. In 2010 his neighbours
were getting 50 bu./ac. canola
yields; he had yet to achieve this
and he wasn’t sure why. The
backcasting process showed that
Kennett had underfertilized.
“When we did the backcasting
we looked at what we did rather
than what the field had called for
and took into account growing
conditions over the season and we
came to within a bushel of what we
could possibly have achieved based
on the nutrients.”
Kennett still likes the fact that
the PRS system suggests options
with the best economic return
first, but he is now looking more
carefully at other options which
tell him what he would need to do
and spend to target a maximum
yield.
“We are still taking a good economic approach but are saying if
we hit this one right we are that
much further ahead and we are
willing to take that risk,” says
Kennett. “We feel we are at a point
where we can afford a little bit
more of a gamble. As a result we
have moved our yields up a little
bit more.” †
Angela Lovell is a freelance writer, editor
and communications specialist living and
working in Manitoba. Find her online at
www.angelalovell.ca.
14
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
EXTENDED OUTLOOK FOR THE PRAIRIES
Weather Forecast for the period of July 21 to August 17, 2013
Southern Alberta
Peace River Region
July 21 - 27
Sunshine dominates apart from a
few showers or thunderstorms on
a couple of occasions.
July 21 - 27
Sunshine dominates apart from a
few showers or thunderstorms on
a couple of occasions.
July 28 - August 3
Pleasant temperatures and
mainly sunny skies aside from
showers or thunderstorms here
and there.
July 28 - August 3
Pleasant temperatures and
mainly sunny skies aside from
occasional showers or
thunderstorms in some areas.
August 4 - 10
Warm and sunny but cooler days
set off scattered showers or
thundershowers. Frost threat at
higher levels.
August 4 - 10
Warm and sunny but cooler days
set off scattered showers or
thundershowers.
August 11 - 17
Mainly sunny skies with seasonal
temperatures. Scattered showers
or heavier thunderstorms on a
couple of hotter days.
August 11 - 17
Sunny with seasonal
temperatures. Scattered showers
or heavier thunderstorms on a
couple of hotter days.
9 / 22
Grande Prairie
61.8 mms
Manitoba
July 21 - 27
Sunshine prevails with seasonal
to warm temperatures. Sporadic
thunderstorms are expected in a
few areas.
July 21 - 27
Sunny. Pleasant temperatures.
Showers or heavier
thunderstorms pass through on
two or three days.
July 28 - August 3
Sunny with comfortable
temperatures. Hotter days will set
off heavier thunderstorms.
July 28 - August 3
Variable temperatures. Sunny
days interchange with a few
showers or thundershowers.
August 4 - 10
Pleasant temperatures but cooler
outbreaks bring showers or
thundershowers on a couple of
days.
August 4 - 10
Changeable weather and
temperatures this week. A few
showers or thundershowers.
August 11 - 17
Sunny overall aside from
scattered showers or heavier
thunderstorms in places.
Seasonal to warm.
August 11 - 17
Sunny skies. Seasonal to warm.
A couple of hotter days set off
showers and heavier
thunderstorms.
Precipitation Forecast
9 / 23
Edmonton
67.0 mms
8 / 22
Jasper
50.6 mms
ABOVE
NORMAL
7 / 22
51.3 mms
Banff
11 / 24
North Battleford
9 / 22
Red Deer
64.8 mms
10 / 23
Calgary
Forecasts should be 80%
accurate, but expect
variations by a day or two
because of changeable
speed of weather systems.
Saskatchewan
48.7 mms
11 / 27
Medicine Hat
19mms
cms
Lethbridge 30.6
42.9 mms
26 cms
11 / 26
11 / 23
The Pas
10 / 23
Prince Albert
58.6 mms
49.3 mms
11 / 24
Saskatoon
36.8 mms
Precipitation Outlook
For August
57.5 mms
NEAR
NORMAL
11 / 24
Yorkton
Much Above Normal Below Much
above normal
normal below
normal
normal
11 / 24
Dauphin
12 / 24
11 / 26 57.5 mms 63.3 mms
Gimli
12 / 27
Regina
11 / 25 Moose Jaw
79.8 mms
40.0 mms
Swift 34.8 mms
13 / 25
11 / 25 Portage 12 / 25
Current
11 / 27
Brandon 78.8 mms Winnipeg
38.2 mms
Weyburn
69.3 mms
75.3 mms
47.4 mms 12 / 27
Estevan Melita 10 / 26
53.2 mms
81.2 mms
Temperatures are normals
for August 1st averaged
over 30 years.
Precipitation
(water equivalent)
normals for August in mms.
©2013 WeatherTec Services
www.weathertec.mb.ca
IMPORTANT NOTICE
Attention: Grain producers
Reminder of upcoming variety reclassification
Effective August 1, 2014, CDC Falcon will be
moved from the Canada Western Red Winter
class to the Canada Western General Purpose
class.
Working together, we all play a part in
maintaining Canada’s grain quality.
For more information, contact the
Canadian Grain Commission:
1-800-853-6705 or 204-983-2770
TTY : 1-866-317-4289
www.grainscanada.gc.ca
Follow us @Grain_Canada
Stay informed. Check the variety designation lists on the
Canadian Grain Commission’s web site.
Search Canada’s top
agriculture publications
with a simple click.
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
15
Features
FARM FAMILIES
Spring Creek Farm
Foregoing video games for farm work has
encouraged the children at Spring Creek Farm
to take up careers in agriculture
BY REBECA KUROPATWA
S
pring Creek Farm, a 480acre mixed farm, five miles
south of Cypress River in
Man., has been in the Wood
family for three generations.
Greg Wood and Lisa Clouston
are very proud that all four of their
grown children have an interest in
agriculture. “We encouraged them
to follow their dreams and passions, no matter what they were,”
Clouston says.
Their eldest child, Kelsey, studied applied science in agribusiness
at Olds, Alta., and started working with an agribusiness company
in Beiseker, Alta., in April. “I look
forward to a long and challenging
career in agriculture,” said Kelsey.
“The industry is such an important
part of my life.”
Andy, 20, works as part manager
and butcher at the family’s meat
shop, Cypress Meats. He is also a
musician.
Taylor, 19, is studying agribusiness at Assiniboine Community
College in Brandon, Man. Taylor
has her own herd of beef cattle, and
likes working with pastured pigs
and pastured meat chickens.
Jessica, 18, is working toward
a diploma in agriculture at
the University of Manitoba in
Winnipeg. She also has a small herd
of beef cattle, and also involved
with the pastured pork and pastured meat chicken operations.
ents. “The farm and meat shop are
very intertwined, and so are we.”
The farm has about 50 head of
cattle (South Devons), over 100 pastured pork (Tamworth, Berkshire,
and a few Large Black), 50 sheep
(Clun Forest X), heritage and conventional free range laying hens, a
few alpacas for fleece and about 800
pastured meat chickens.
“We eat food that’s as fresh and
of the same high quality as most
royalty eat. We take great pride in
that, and in the knowledge that our
children have great skills, are hard
working, are confident about their
skills, and are healthy.”
“We’re focusing on the long
term health of the soil, our family,
the animals, and the local food
economy,” said Clouston “We
don’t worry about what other big
farmers in the area are doing, as
we have our own busy market and
don’t feel a need to keep up with
Jones.”
Clouston says, “It’s an amazing
time to be alive and involved in
agriculture. I’m excited for our kids
and hope they raise their kids in
ways that make them all healthy,
happy, and strong.” †
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a professional writer in
Winnipeg, Man.
The Wood family is focusing on the long-term health of the soil, their
family, their animals and the local food economy.
Get the N that delivers
all seasoN loNG.
INCLUDING THE KIDS
Clouston says “The way we were
raised had a huge impact on the way
we raised our kids. When we met,
we realized how similar we were.
It was easy to decide to include the
kids in farm life.
“We made very deliberate choices
to expect them all to do chores with
the animals and to participate in
planting the gardens, making jam,
freezing vegetables, and more.”
Wood’s mother, a gardener and
cook, has taught the couple’s kids
to bake pie, butcher chickens, and
make jam.
“I value these skills deeply, especially in today’s world that lacks
many of these skills,” said Clouston.
“We hope our kids will raise their
kids in a healthy, value, and character laden way.”
When the family got into pastured pork, Wood and Clouston
bought pigs for the children. The
children became very handy at
building fences.
“We made conscious decisions
to support their growth and knowledge in these areas, and to withhold spending on things like video
games,” said Clouston.
Wood and Clouston had to make a
big adjustment last September, when
their youngest daughters moved offfarm for two years to pursue their
post-secondary education.
“We thought we’d planned
for their leaving for the last two
years... but it sure feels like a
holiday when they’re home and
helping with daily chores. Each
of us is integral to the smooth
functioning of the farm and the
meat shop, including Greg’s par-
©2013 Agrium Advanced Technologies. ESN; ESN SMART NITROGEN;
SMARTER WAYS TO GROW A SMARTER SOURCE OF NITROGEN.
A SMARTER WAY TO GROW and AGRIUM ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES
and Designs are all trademarks owned by Agrium Inc. 08/13-21782-01
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ESN® SMART NITROGEN® is the best choice for your farm
because timely nitrogen feeding enhances yield and crop
quality. With a single application, ESN nourishes crops
throughout the growing season, so you get everything you
can out of your nitrogen investment. Get the facts from
your retailer, or visit SmartNitrogen.com.
8/21/13 9:38 AM
16
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
Crop disease
Cleaning for clubroot
Other
means
Researchers agree that the most effective way to control the spread of
clubroot is to sanitize machinery. This is effective, but time consuming
C
lubroot can spread
from field to field
on oilfield or construction equipment as well as on agricultural
machinery.
Andrea Bullinger, Encana’s group lead for soil,
vegetation and spill management told delegates
at the 2013 International
C l u b r o o t Wo r k s h o p i n
Edmonton in June, it’s
really important for Encana
to address farmers’ needs
when it comes to clubroot.
“If we can’t get access to
land, we can’t get access to
our resources.”
Once clubroot became an
issue in Alberta, many landowners asked Encana about
prevention measures. “Due
to the nature of our developments, we could potentially spread the disease,”
Bullinger says. “It was a
really crucial concern for
our neighbours.”
H o w e v e r, i n 2 0 0 8 ,
Encana estimated that the
total costs of thoroughly
cleaning the equipment
required to drill one well
was about $43,000, and
would use 112,000 litres
of water. “We did our best
to build a practice that was
reasonable, achievable and
secure.”
Now, she says, Encana’s
policy is that “washing
should be a regular part
of maintenance.” Their
contractors have a regular
wash cycle, and if vehicles
or equipment show up on
site dirty, they’re sent back.
They also follow provincial
and municipal regulations
and bylaws. †
By Leeann Minogue
W
hile there is no
foolproof way to
prevent clubroot
from getting into
your fields, sanitizing equipment
is one way to prevent its spread.
Dr. Stephen Srelkov, plant
pathologist at the University of
Alberta told delegates at the 2013
International Clubroot Workshop
in Edmonton that “the largest
risk comes from the movement of
equipment.”
Moving dust and water can also
spread microscopic clubroot spores.
Besides moving to zero tillage, there
isn’t a lot that farmers can do to
prevent this type of spread.
Seeds and tubers can spread the
disease, Stelkov says. “Farmers
should avoid the planting of common untreated seed harvested
from clubroot infested fields.”
Effective cleaning
Since moving equipment
accounts for the largest risk of the
spread of clubroot, it makes sense
for farmers to consider sanitizing
equipment as they move from
field to field. This is especially
true if you believe clubroot is
established in one field in your
operation.
The Canola Council of Canada
recommends a three-step process
to equipment sanitization. (This
information can be found online at
www.clubroot.ca. Click on resourc-
Paul Muyres believes clubroot resistant seed is the future of successful canola crops.
es, and scroll to the bottom to find
the link to “Managing Clubroot:
Equipment Sanitation Guide”).
Step 1: Rough cleaning This
step should remove about 90 per
cent of soil from the unit. Use a
hand scraper, a wire brush or an
air compressor to remove dirt. For
a 40-foot cultivator, the Canola
Council estimates this may take
one to two hours.
Step 2: Fine cleaning Use a
pressure washer at 2,000 to 3,000
p.s.i. everywhere dust, soil and
crop debris could accumulate. Step
1 and Step 2 combined should
remove 99 per cent of soil from
the unit. The Canola Council estimates that this may take another
one to two hours for a 40-foot
cultivator.
Step 3: Disinfection The
Canola Council recommends
using a backpack sprayer to apply
a one per cent bleach solution or
a commercial surface disinfectant. You will need to ensure that
the area remains wet with the
solution for 15 to 20 minutes.
Applying disinfectant in early
photos: leeann minogue
morning or early evening will
reduce evaporation, keeping the
area wet for a longer time. This
can take two hours or more for a
40-foot cultivator.
Barriers to sanitizing
Once clubroot spreads to a
field, it is very difficult to eradicate. It is easy to see how clubroot
spores could move from field to
field on equipment. However,
there are practical reasons that
all farmers haven’t adopted a
strict on-farm equipment sanitation policy.
• Practical details: Once you’ve
cleaned your machine, where can
you safely put the infected dirt? It’s
important to make sure that the
infected dirt and the water you use
to clean the machine don’t wind
up in an area where they can infect
a field or re-infect the machine
later. If you decide to clean in-field,
Trait Stewardship
Responsibilities
Notice to Farmers
Leeann Minogue
Bizarro
Monsanto Company is a member of Excellence Through Stewardship®
(ETS). Monsanto products are commercialized in accordance with ETS
Product Launch Stewardship Guidance, and in compliance with
Monsanto’s Policy for Commercialization of Biotechnology-Derived Plant
Products in Commodity Crops. This product has been approved for
import into key export markets with functioning regulatory systems.
Any crop or material produced from this product can only be exported
to, or used, processed or sold in countries where all necessary
regulatory approvals have been granted. It is a violation of national
and international law to move material containing biotech traits
across boundaries into nations where import is not permitted. Growers
should talk to their grain handler or product purchaser to confirm their
buying position for this product. Excellence Through Stewardship® is a
registered trademark of Excellence Through Stewardship.
ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS.
Roundup Ready® crops contain genes that confer tolerance to
glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup® brand agricultural
herbicides. Roundup® brand agricultural herbicides will kill crops
that are not tolerant to glyphosate. Acceleron® seed treatment
technology for corn is a combination of four separate individuallyregistered products, which together contain the active ingredients
metalaxyl, trifloxystrobin, ipconazole, and clothianidin. Acceleron®
seed treatment technology for canola is a combination of two separate
individually-registered products, which together contain the active
ingredients difenoconazole, metalaxyl (M and S isomers), fludioxonil,
thiamethoxam, and bacillus subtilis. Acceleron and Design®,
Acceleron®, DEKALB and Design®, DEKALB®, Genuity and Design®,
Genuity Icons, Genuity®, RIB Complete and Design®, RIB Complete®,
Roundup Ready 2 Technology and Design®, Roundup Ready 2 Yield®,
Roundup Ready®, Roundup Transorb®, Roundup WeatherMAX®,
Roundup®, SmartStax and Design®, SmartStax®, Transorb®, VT Double
PRO®, YieldGard VT Rootworm/RR2®, YieldGard Corn Borer and Design
and YieldGard VT Triple® are trademarks of Monsanto Technology
LLC. Used under license. LibertyLink® and the Water Droplet Design
are trademarks of Bayer. Used under license. Herculex® is a registered
trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC. Used under license. Respect the
Refuge and Design is a registered trademark of the Canadian Seed
Trade Association. Used under license. ©2013 Monsanto Canada Inc.
308166_DLG_AZ_AT_CAN_Grainews_152,4x168,3_RZ.indd 1
By Dan Piraro
24.06.13 09:26
10801A-Gen Legal Trait Stewardship-Grainews.indd
7/29/13
1
3:56 PM
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
17
Features
how will you get water and a pressure washer to the site?
• Disinfectant: Some disinfectants can be harmful to humans.
Bleach can corrode equipment,
especially tires.
• Time: Thorough cleaning can
take quite a bit of time. As shown
in the above example, the Canola
Council of Canada estimates that
it would take four to six hours or
more to effectively clean a 40-foot
cultivator. Cleaning the last speck
of dust out of a combine after
finishing each field would be very
time consuming. And don’t forget
the quad used to check a field,
the grain truck, and the half-ton
truck.
• It’s not a guarantee: You could
thoroughly clean your equipment, then drive through lumps
of mud from your neighbour’s
tractor on the road. If there are
clubroot spores in that soil, you’ll
have it on your tires even after all
your efforts. There is nothing you
can do to stop clubroot’s spread
through dust or water.
It’s important to come up with
a policy that makes sense for your
farm, your location and your level
of risk tolerance.
LIVING WITH CLUBROOT
Alberta consultant Paul Muyres
has been working with clubroot
infected fields since 2007. At that
time, Muyres says, “there was a lot
of fear.”
When farmers found clubroot
in their fields, “there was just no
alternatives.”
Clubroot regulation
W
ith more severe
infection in the
west, differnet
provinces are
taking very different approaches
to managing clubroot.
ALBERTA
Stephen Strelkov says that the biggest risk of spreading clubroot comes
from moving machinery.
To help ease his clients’ minds,
he developed a 16-item protocol
list for cleaning equipment.
He cleaned his truck from field
to field, including using disinfectant. “I went through tires
because the bleach erodes the
rubber.”
He found that this cleaning
regime really ate into his time.
“In an eight-hour day of scouting
fields, I had four more hours [of
cleaning] attached to that.”
Now, Muyres finds that most of
his clients who have found clubroot in one field assume that they
have it in all of their fields. Now,
he treats each clients’ fields as one
operation. He still cleans all of his
equipment between clients, but he
doesn’t clean from field to field.
“It’s clean in, clean out.”
These days, he says, his clients
“aren’t going to lose their minds
about the fact that they have clubroot. We have to simplify our lives
when it comes to being out in the
field.”
“Clubroot is where blackleg was
when we first started growing canola,” Muyres said. “Think about
where we’ve come.” Clubroot was
found in Alberta in 2007, and “by
2010, we had resistant varieties.”
“Farmers just assume they have
the disease in the world that I live in,”
Muyres says. “They grow clubroot
varieties. End of story.” †
Alberta counties are taking clubroot seriously. Aaron van Beers is
an agriculture fieldman for Leduc
County, south of Edmonton.
“Everybody’s got an obligation
to prevent the spread,” van Beers
told delegates to the International
Clubroot Workshop in Edmonton
in June. “Our policy is to inspect
every field with canola every
year.” Fieldmen inspect plants at
the approach of every field, the
spot where clubroot is most likely
to first infect a field.
Once clubroot is found in a
farmer’s field, farmers are only
allowed to grow canola one
year in four, and may plant
only clubroot resistant canola
varieties.
SASKATCHEWAN
Clubroot was officially
declared a pest under
Saskatchewan’s Pest Control Act
in 2009. This declaration gives
power to control clubroot to
rural municipalities.
Municipalities are encouraged to be consistent in their
approach. As many places in
the province have not yet been
impacted by clubroot, several
municipalities are not taking
any action at this time.
MANITOBA
Clubroot is not included
in Manitoba’s Plant Pests and
Diseases Act. For now, Holly
Doerkson, plant pathologist
with Manitoba Agriculture,
Food and Rural Initiatives,
says, cases of clubroot are
“dealt with on an individual
basis by MAFRI staff,” who
recommend ways to limit the
spread of the disease to surrounding fields.
The locations of infected
fields are kept confidential. This
is mainly because the farmers whose fields are tested for
clubroot are those farmers who
have volunteered to have their
soil tested. Doerkson says, “We
don’t want to pick on people
that are in the Canola Disease
Survey.” So far, she says, farmers whose fields have tested
positive for clubroot tend to be
“prepared and willing to work
with MAFRI.” †
Leeann Minogue
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews.
Growing together
for generations.
For 100 years, generations of farm families have contributed to the success of
Richardson Pioneer. Five generations of the Mass family have delivered to their
local Richardson Pioneer elevator in Weyburn, Saskatchewan.
“We have always delivered to Richardson Pioneer,” says Chris Mass, who has taken over the
family farm from his father Don and now works alongside his 21-year-old son, Evan. Younger
son Nicholas is eager to follow in his footsteps. “It’s all because of the people - the personal
service and the relationships that we have developed over the years.”
www.richardson.ca
18
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
PLANT DISEASE
Stopping the spread of clubroot
Whether you’re trying to keep clubroot from infecting your soil in the first
place, or stop it from moving from field to field, there are strategies to use
BY LEEANN MINOGUE
B
y the time you find a patch
in your field that’s infected
with clubroot, Clint Jurke,
agronomy specialist with
the Canola Council of Canada
told delegates at the International
Clubroot Workshop in Edmonton
in June, “that disease has probably
already been in the field for years.”
In fact, it’s likely already spread
to the rest of your farming operation. At this point, Jurke said, “the
cat’s already out of the bag.”
Jurke presented eight things that
won’t stop the spread of clubroot.
EIGHT THINGS THAT WON’T
STOP THE SPREAD
1. Fungicides Fungicides will
reduce yield damage in infected
plants, but won’t fix the root
cause. However, “they stop
infection. They’re not eradicating
the clubroot from the soil.”
2. Seed treatments Clubroot
spores can spread in dirt that
comes attached to seed that’s
imported from an infected area.
Seed treatments will keep this
from happening.
However, if you already have
clubroot spores in your field, seed
treatments won’t kill them. Jurke
said, “Seed treatments will kill that
pathogen that’s on the seed, but
not the pathogen in the ground.”
3. Boron Researchers have
been studying the effect of boron
on clubroot. “Boron will reduce
clubroot infestation,” Jurke said.
Unfortunately, “the concentration
of boron that’s required is phytotoxic to the canola plants.” In this
case, the prevention is worse than
the cure.
4. Liming High pH soils have
been shows to be associated with
lower incidence of clubroot infection. However, Jurke said, “having
high pH soils will not stop clubroot from arriving on your farm.”
Jurke says, “This might be a tool
that we can use to kind of slow it
down, but it’s not going to be the
most cost effective.”
5. Other soil amendments
Researchers are examining other
soil amendments, such as calcium
carbonate. So far, nothing has been
found that isn’t cost prohibitive.
Jurke says, “In a cost-benefit
analysis, these do not work.”
6. Bait crops Researchers have
been testing the possibilities of
using bait crops to convince the
crops to germinate, then destroying the spores. So far, Jurke said,
“It hasn’t panned out.”
7. Tillage Not only will tillage
not kill clubroot spores in your
soil, adding more operations and
traffic to your field could actually help the spread of the disease.
Additional tillage can also lead
to soil erosion, which can help
spread clubroot spores.
8. Crop rotation Crop rotation
can slow the increase of clubroot
spores in the soil, but it will not
eliminate the spores or stop clubroot from arriving in your field.
So what can you do?
SLOWING THE SPREAD
OF CLUBROOT
1. Crop rotation While good
crop rotations won’t stop the
spread of clubroot, growing canola
on canola stubble will increase the
amount of inoculum in your soil.
“Where a longer crop rotation
actually works is in conjunction
with resistant varieties,” Jurke says.
“A long rotation is not enough if
you’re using susceptible or moderately susceptible varieties.”
2. Clubroot resistant varieties
Resistant varieties can help farm-
ers with infected soil continue to
grow canola. “Resistance is our
saving grace,” Jurke said. However,
he added, “It’s not bulletproof.”
If farmers put too much pressure
on resistant genes, Jurke said, “you
will eventually start selecting for the
clubroot to overcome resistance.
“ We d o h a v e t w o s o u rc e s
of resistance,” Jurke said — one
developed by Pioneer Hi-Bred and
another developed by Monsanto.
Jurke suggests farmers maintain
recommended crop rotations, and
also rotate clubroot resistant seed
between the two types.
3. Seeding date “The earlier
you plant your canola,” Jurke said,
“the better your chances.” As soil
temperature increase, clubroot can
spread faster.
4. Sanitation “Sanitation is
our best weapon to really help
control the spread of disease,”
Jurke said. “But it is a big cost.”
Effectively cleaning and disinfecting farm machinery to the point
where not a single clubroot spore
could survive is time consuming.
“Sanitation has to be used in a
strategic fashion,” Jurke said.
5. Early identification “if you
can find clubroot when it first
arrives in your field,” Jurke said,
PHOTOS: LEEANN MINOGUE
Clint Jurke spoke at a field day
in Swift Current in the summer
of 2012. These disposable white
booties he’s wearing ensure that
he doesn’t spread clubroot when
he travels from field to field.
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
19
Features
The history of clubroot
R
you may be able to quarantine it
in a small area.
6. Reduced tillage Reducing
tillage “will reduce the amount
of wind and water erosion,” Jurke
said. Also, travelling over the field
less will give spores fewer opportunities to move around the field.
7. Quarantine/isolation
Clubroot spores are more likely
to be near the field entry point.
“Ninety per cent of the time that is
were you’ll find the pathogen first,”
Jurke said.
If you find clubroot at the field
entry point, you might consider
grassing in that area, or moving
the approach to the field to a new
location. If you isolate that area,
Jurke said, “you don’t have to treat
the whole farm as being infested.”
8. Eradication Researchers are
looking at fumigants as an option
to totally eradicate clubroot spores
from the soil. So far, Vapam is
showing some good results.
However, while Vapam is effective in greenhouse studies and
plot-sized areas, it is not yet costeffective on a field scale. “That is an
option that we do need to explore
a whole lot more,” Jurke said.
9. Brassica
weed
control
Canola is not the only plant that
clubroot will attack. The spores will
also attack weeds in the Brassica
family. These include wild mustard,
stinkweed and shepard’s purse. A
large population of Brassica weeds
in your field, Jurke said, “could be
propagating that disease.”
10. Planning In developing a
clubroot strategy, remember that
if you’re growing wheat in your
field, the clubroot spores are still
there. For example, if you’re moving harvest equipment from an
infected field to a clean field, you
should sanitize your equipment,
Jurke said, “even when it’s not a
canola year.”
11. Inputs Seed imported from
an area infected with clubroot
can bring the pathogen with it.
Cleaned, treated seed, Jurke said,
“can reduce the pathogen to
almost zero.”
This doesn’t just apply to canola.
Spores can also travel with bin run
barley seed imported from an area
infected with clubroot.
12. Management plan Coming
up with a plan to prevent clubroot
and identifying it early if it does
reach your field can help prevent
the spread of clubroot. †
Researchers have found reference to a disease that seemed
to behave like clubroot in documents written by the Romans,
about 2,000 years ago. “At least
we think this is what they were
talking about,” Dixon said.
Clubroot didn’t emerge as an
important problem until the
agricultural revolution. In the
late nineteenth century, after a
severe epidemic hit cabbage crops,
Russian scientists set out to learn
more about clubroot. One Russian
scientist, Mikhail Voronin, managed to identify the importance of
rotation, removal and burning to
prevent the spread of clubroot.
Dr. Stephen Strelkov, plant
pathologist at the University of
Alberta, suspects that clubroot was
brought to Canada with infected
fodder turnips. It was well established here by the late nineteenth
or early twentieth century.
Holly Derksen, plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture,
Food and Rural Initiatives, says
there are reports of clubroot in
Manitoba vegetable crops dating
back to 1925.
By the 1970s, Dixon said,
agricultural advisers were telling
growers with clubroot problems:
“You don’t grow brassicas for five
years. End of story.”
But then, Dixon said, “Research
really took off from the 1980s
onwards.”
In canola, clubroot was first
reported in Quebec, in 1997.
On the Prairies, clubroot was
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esearchers at the
International Clubroot
workshop in Edmonton
in June told delegates
that clubroot likely had its wild
origins in sub-Saharan Africa.
Geoffrey Dixon, a professor at
the University of Reading in the
U.K. said, “It was not until man
really started to use the Brassicas
that it evolved.” The Brassica
group of plants includes canola
and related weeds, but also vegetable crops such as cabbage, broccoli, Brussels spouts, turnips and
radishes.
Clubroot evolved in Western
Europe, Dixon said, “and from
there it has spread to the rest of
the world.”
It is not a new problem.
first found in canola in 2003,
near Edmonton. That year, Dan
Orchard, now an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council
of Canada, was working as an
agronomist. A new graduate,
Orchard had studies clubroot at
university.
When one of his clients called
Orchard out to his field to diagnose a disease, Orchard thought
he recognized clubroot. But when
he talked to experts, he was told
“that isn’t clubroot. We don’t have
clubroot.”
But Orchard persisted, and
soon found a researcher who
agreed with him. Then he took
a plant pathologist to visit the
infected field. It was like a horror movie for a pathologist,”
Orchard said. “Every single plant
we pulled out was infected.”
Clubroot was ultimately found
in 12 Alberta canola fields that
year.
Once it was first reported,
experts’ initial assessment of how
fast the pathogen would spread
turned out to be very wrong.
Previously, clubroot had been
found in small, intensive horticulture crops. It can spread a lot more
quickly in large field scale crops.
Clubroot was found in
Saskatchewan in 2008.
By 2009, clubroot resistant
canola seed was available for
farmers in infected areas.
Infected canola plants were
found in Manitoba in 2012 (the
pathogen had been found in
Manitoba soil earlier, but not
detected in growing plants until
last summer).
The pathogen continues to
spread. With clubroot marked
as a danger to Canada’s high
value canola industry, money
and research attention is being
diverted to try to find more
answers for farmers dealing with
this disease. †
Leeann Minogue
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
Soil management
Mining manure
University of Manitoba researchers are hoping to kill
two birds with one kidney stone by mining manure
By Lisa Guenther
S
truvite is a naturally
occurring mineral that
forms kidney stones, says
Dr. Don Flaten, soil scientist. The mineral, which can be
made from hog manure, is also
a phosphate source which is less
water-soluble than commercial
phosphate fertilizers.
Regular phosphorus fertilizers
dissolve quickly, leaving high salt
concentrations, which can kill
seedlings if too much fertilizer is
applied in the seedrow of sensitive
crops such as canola.
Right now a farmer should
apply no more than 20 pounds
of phosphate per acre with canola
seed. “And yet the crop usually
needs more than that,” says Dr.
Francis Zvomuya, research leader
for the project.
Struvite releases phosphate
much more slowly than fertilizers such as ammonium phosphate,
says Zvomuya, and so less salt
accumulates in the seed row. That
might make struvite a useful inrow fertilizer for salt sensitive crops
such as canola, corn and soybeans.
“There may be some potential
to use this product in a very con-
venient fashion and still maintain
our soil phospohurs concentrations. But the big question is,
how does the product perform
agronomically as a source of nutrients,” Flaten says.
Study results
In a study supported by the
Canola Council of Canada,
Manitoba Pork Council, and
Agrium, Zvomuya and his colleagues found that uptake for the
commercial and struvite fertilizer
was the same.
But biomass yield, or total
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dry matter, at the flowering
stage was lower for the struvite
fertilizer. Yield differences were
likely due to alkaline soil and
the low solubility of the struvite
fertilizer, which might not
release phosphate fast enough
to meet crop demand.
Zvomuya says moderate phosphate levels in the soil may
have affected results as well.
Researchers are now looking at
how struvite performs in phosphate-deficient soils. They’re also
using a canola-wheat rotation
to mimic conditions on many
Prairie farms, and examining
how weather may affect phosphate toxicity, while applying
several different treatments to
plants in a greenhouse.
“Once we identify in the greenhouse what treatments are performing the best, then we take those out
in the field to test them under field
conditions,” says Zvomuya.
Researchers will also measure
grain yield and quality, as well as
other parameters, during field trials, Zvomuya says.
Recycling waste
Dr. Nazim Cicek, a biosystems engineer at the University
of Manitoba, devised the phosphate-extraction process. Cicek
adapted the technology municipalities use for waste water to
treat hog manure.
Cicek says the struvite extraction technology is not meant to
replace traditional fertilizers, but
instead solve an environmental
problem while producing a highvalue, niche product. “It would
help livestock farmers with their
environmental pressures and hopefully help overall sustainability in
terms of replacing fossil-fuel based
fertilizer with a green fertilizer.”
Inorganic struvite can be cre-
T:21.6”
T:21.6”
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
21
Features
ated in the lab, but the cost is
prohibitive for most crops. Cicek’s
method is cheaper and produces
organic struvite, which benefits
soil structure and other soil properties, Zvomuya says.
Cicek and his colleagues ran a
pilot on a hog farm in Manitoba.
Before extracting the struvite,
settling tanks separated the solids from the liquids. Though
most of the phosphorus is associated with the solids, which is
typically used as fertilizer, 20 to
40 per cent of the phosphorus is
left in the liquid.
The liquid is put into the struvite
reactor, where it’s aerated. Aerating
increases the pH levels and crystallizes the phosphorus, along with
magnesium and ammonium.
“It’s just like having too much
sugar in your tea. When you drop
the temperature, some of that will
come out. Or when you look at
sugar in a jar of jam — when you
cool it down, some of the sugar
crystallizes out,” Cicek says.
The crystallized phosphorus
sinks to the bottom of the reactor,
and comes out as a white or greyish powder, or struvite.
The amount of phosphate
extracted depends on a number
of factors, including how the pigs
were fed, the age of the pigs,
whether the manure was stored or
digested, and how much water is
used for flushing.
“We’re looking at kilograms out
of tons of manure,” says Cicek.
Cicek and his colleagues are
looking at setting up the struvite reactor on the university’s
research farm to fine-tune the
process. The university farm has
swine, beef and dairy operations.
Beyond that, they’re considering installing it at a commercial
dairy operation.
“They have some interest in
bedding recovery and solid sepa-
ration of their manure, which
allows you to access the liquid
fraction where the struvite can
be made. So dovetailing to that
kind of activity in that sector
might help this particular technology,” says Cicek.
set up on individual farms. But
Cicek says selling struvite would
not necessarily pay for the system
installation and operation.
“On balance I’d suggest it is
lower cost than alternative struvite extraction systems because it
“We’re looking at kilograms
out of tons of manure.”
— Nazem Cicek
Liquid dairy manure lends
itself to the process once it goes
through an anaerobic digestion
system, but Cicek would need to
adapt the process to deal with
higher calcium levels in dairy
manure, which scavenges the
phosphorus.
The extraction process could be
does not require you to dose in
chemicals, which is a cost both
of purchasing the chemical and
storing. And adding it, so there’s
labour issues involved in making
sure that works,” says Cicek.
Cicek says they’ve looked at
the economics of struvite extraction with the hog farm they ini-
tially worked with. The actual cost
depends on several elements, including the farm’s size, the manure type,
electricity cost, labour, and the struvite market. Scaling up and improving the technology would improve
margins, but a market that paid a
premium for struvite would have
the biggest impact on the viability
of the technology.
“We would like to test this particular pilot system on a number
of platforms to see if it makes
sense and go from there. I think
it’s a little bit early to say that at
the current energy and phosphorus prices this might be viable,”
says Cicek.
“But with future trends, the way
it looks I think we would have
to be more careful about sourcing phosphorus and reusing and
recovering it from a number of
waste streams.” †
Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews.
Contact her at [email protected].
There’s no stronger tie than the family who works together
on the same land. For them, farming’s a tradition.
And although each new generation has their own ideas,
there are some things they will be reluctant to change, the
things that have consistently performed for them, the things
that aren’t broken.
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
FARM MANAGEMENT
On farm traceability
On-farm traceability, and the paperwork that comes with it, is going to become
more common, whether farmers want it or not, says an on-farm auditor
BY LISA GUENTHER
I
t’s going to be, in the long
run, more about consumer
confidence. And not necessarily in regards to safety
of food, but in the sustainability
of the food — where it’s coming
from and that’s it’s being produced in a sound way,” says Jodi
Holzman, auditor with Control
Union Canada.
Holzman has audited about
100 farms in Manitoba, Alberta,
and Saskatchewan. All the
farms are supplying canola to
the European Union’s biofuel
market.
“
CERTIFICATION SCHEMES
Companies that want to export
canola to the European Union
have to prove that they are farming sustainably by meeting certification schemes such as those
set out by the International
Sustainability and Carbon
Certification (ISCC) system.
Every part of the supply chain is
scrutinized, and farmers selling
canola to these companies have
signed declarations stating they
meet the requirements.
Holzman assesses all the farms
that have signed up with the
exporter and then selects farms
for on-site audits. She determines
how many farms to audit by taking the square root of the total
number of participating farms.
For example, if 100 farms are
assessed, 10 are audited. Holzman
tries to give farmers a week or
two notice before the audit.
All the farms Holzman has
audited have passed. Holzman
says farmers need to comply with
at least 60 per cent of the minor
principles outlined in the certification standards, such as signage
for fuel tanks and chemical inventories. But if they miss one major
principle, they fail the audit.
Major principle violations
include practices such as farming on land that’s been cleared
of trees or native grassland
since 2008. Though clearing forest is now rare on the Prairies,
Holzman says this principle “also
applies to windrows and old farm
yards. When it comes to trees, it’s
not necessarily native.”
Leaving intact wetlands, peat
bogs and any other habitats that
have a high carbon stock are
also major principles.
Farmers receive a pre-auditing checklist before Holzman
arrives so they can get together
documents and other information she needs. Holzman asks
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them about basic farming practices such as how much land
they farm, soil testing, pesticide
and fertilizer management, and
tillage type.
“It’s very basic. How do you
do things and how do you make
the decisions to do them?”
If they have employees, she
also checks to see that they’re
complying with related provincial and federal legislation.
Farmers who have completed
Environmental Farm Plans tend
to score higher on the minor
principles because they’ve
already put certain practices in
place, such as signage for chemicals and fuel.
At this time, the companies
exporting biofuel are covering
farmers’ certification costs.
BIOFUEL MARKETS
IN NORTH AMERICA
So far these audits are only
required for companies selling
biofuel into the European Union.
Canadian farmers can also sell
into the U.S. biofuel markets.
In 2010, the Canola Council of
Canada began working with the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to get canola on the
approved biofuel list. The federal
government then started leading the initiative so that other
Canadian crops, such as wheat
ethanol, would have market
access as well.
Part of the approval process
involved establishing a life cycle
analysis number for canola.
Crude oil products such as
gasoline and diesel form the
baseline to measure renewable
fuels against. Every point where
energy is used, from seeding
onwards, is examined.
“So it’s really an apples to
apples comparison to determine
what the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would be
from using a biofuel, a renewable fuel, versus the baseline
numbers for gasoline and diesel,” says Dennis Rogoza, sustainability advisor for the
Canola Council of Canada.
Natural Resources Canada
has developed a tool called
GHGenius,
which
Alberta
and British Columbia use to
determine the life cycle analysis number, which can vary
between ethanol plants.
“So there is established methodology. It’s adopted by regulators. It’s well-respected. It’s very
thorough. It accounts for every
point in the production cycle,”
says Rogoza.
Right now the U.S. market
is worth about $500 million.
Rogoza says that number is based
on existing production capacity
that uses Canadian canola.
The European market for
Canadian biofuel is uncertain
right now, Rogoza says, partly
because commodity canola oil
prices are high, and partly because
of Europe’s financial turmoil.
Though the big canola markets
are in the U.S., China, Mexico, and
Japan, the canola industry wanted
to “make sure that as other markets
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
Features
were available, that the door’s open
to the Canadian canola industry
to actually put product into the
market,” says Rogoza.
Rogoza says there was hesitancy to move into the certification
system because of complexity
and perceived cost. “The reality
is that many of these systems in
Europe were basically designed
for application in third-world
countries. So when you look at
the criteria inside of that, you
sort of say, ‘Well, we do that, we
do that, we do that,’ you know?
“It’s because we are modern
and advanced agriculture. So on
a large scale we’re going to be
better than a third-world country by far. So there’s less to fear
about this than people might
have thought.”
MORE CERTIFICATION
REQUIRED IN FUTURE
Although the European Union
is the only market that requires
auditing and certification right
now, Unilever intends to buy all
its agricultural products from
certified farms by 2020.
“So all the raw materials,
feedstock materials, that Unilever
gets from the Canadian supply
chain will have to be certified by
then. And their language is pretty
stringent. They’re basically saying
that if you’re not certified, you
won’t be doing business with us,”
says Rogoza.
Unilever has created its own
certification scheme, but it will
also accept products from supply
chains certified by other schemes it
has approved. The ISCC is working
on getting their scheme approved
by Unilever, which would give
certified Western Canadian farmers access to Unilever as well as the
European Union.
Holzman thinks western
Canadian farmers are close to
being ready for more traceability requirements, but will likely
need to focus on better documentation. “I’ve found most
farmers have some basic documentation on seeding, seeding
rate, fertilizer applications, and
the chemical applications.”
But Holzman says there’s
often no formalized procedure
for record-keeping.
“It’s mostly in a little
notebook. So the amount of
records and documents being
kept really varies from farm to
farm. And I think if the industry
was able to put out — whether
it’s through the Canola Council
or Ag Canada or whomever
— kind of a standardized
document that all farmers could
easily access and start using, I
think that would really help.”
Rogoza says it’s unclear how
far away these changes are.
“Canola may be the first out of
the gate on a large scale in this
area. But there’s going to be a
lot of things happening in due
course. But when, how, what it
looks like — that’s murky.”
But the bottom line is that
farmers need to be aware that
certification schemes are going
to become more common.
“And the more that they can
document what they’re doing,
even if it’s in an Excel spreadsheet to start with… keeping
those records and keeping those
notes is going to help them
down the road, even if it’s not
for another five years,” says
Holzman. †
Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews.
Contact her at [email protected].
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
CROP PRODUCTION
Six things to consider when intercropping
Intercropping can boost profits and provide agronomic benefits.
But before jumping in feet first, farmers need to think through the process
BY LISA GUENTHER
I
ntercropping involves
growing two or more cash
crops in the same field.
Farmers may also grow a
cover crop over green manure.
While some might assume
intercropping is more suited to
organic production, that’s not
the case.
“Under these conventional
systems, with the right crop combination, you would get overyielding,” says Dr. Martin Entz
of the University of Manitoba.
Over-yielding occurs when the
two crops yield more grain than
a single crop would have yielded
on the same land.
Entz and his colleagues
have researched intercropping
in
both
organic
and
conventional systems. Ten
years ago PhD student Tony
Szumigalski studied several crop
combinations under organic
and conventional systems.
On average, pesticide-free
crops got a yield boost from
intercropping 47 per cent of the
time, while conventional crops
over-yielded 75 per cent of the
time. Canola-pea was the best
performer during the three-year
study. Pesticide-free canola-pea
over-yielded 67 per cent of the
time, while the conventional
version over-yielded 100 per
cent of the time.
Rosengren says a pea-canola mix is a good choice for first time intercroppers. They’re both easy to harvest
and he’s consistently had positive results.
INTERCROPPING ON THE FARM
Colin Rosengren, a Midale, Sask.
farmer, started looking into alternative cropping systems in 2004.
Today half or more of Rosengren’s
5,000 acres are intercropped
every year. Intercropping boosts
Rosengren’s net returns by increasing yield, and, in many cases,
lowering inputs such as fungicide.
Rosengren also sees less insect
damage in some intercrops.
Rosengren grows specialty varie-
ties such as maple peas, which are
sold into the racing pigeon market
in the U.S. He says maple peas
have poor standability, poor yield
and are disease prone. But when
they’re grown with canola, “they
stand up perfectly fine, they don’t
get diseased, and we find they
yield the same as yellows. And we
get paid more.”
Andy Kirschenman farms near
Hilda, Alta. Kirschenman uses
cover crops to establish green
manures, and he is also grow-
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ing 600 acres of mustard-canola
this year.
“I like the idea of a yellow mustard because it isn’t as susceptible
to some of the insects as canola is.
If we can stay out of the field with
some of the insecticides, I’d be
happy,” says Kirschenman.
1. CROP CHOICES
Farmers should pick two crops
that will mature at roughly the
same time, or can wait while the
other crop matures.
Entz, Rosengren and
Kirschenman all say pea-canola or
pea-mustard are good choices for
first time intercroppers.
“It’s very forgiving. Both crops
are very easy to harvest. I mean
the feeder house thrashes both
of them out, so that’s a good one
to start with. It also has shown
consistent positive results,” says
Rosengren of pea-canola.
Choosing a late-maturing pea
and early-maturing canola will
help the crops mature at roughly
the same time, Rosengren says.
Flax and chickpeas are also
a winning combination on the
Rosengren farm, cutting ascochyta and boosting flax yields.
Rosengren says he won’t grow
chickpeas without putting flax
with them.
In general, Entz and his colleagues haven’t seen a great yield
response with wheat, which he
says was initially disappointing. He
says he thinks it may be because
wheat is less plastic than some
other crops, and yield is set early.
“One thing we did find is…
you really reduce the diseases in
the wheat when you intercrop it,”
says Entz.
Rosengren has also tried peas
and wheat, and flax and durum.
“Typically anything with cereals
we’ve struggled to get much of a
gain by intercropping.”
Kirschenman has tried wheatflax too, but finds the wheat is too
competitive and the maturity gap
too large for it to work well.
“What has worked well has
been Clearfield canola with sweet
clover underseeded to it,” says
Kirschenman, who’s been growing
this combination for four years.
Farmers in Kirschenman’s area
include fallow fields in their rotations. The year after seeding,
Kirschenman allows the sweet clover to grow into late June before
terminating it. In areas with more
moisture, he thinks producers
could seed warm-season cereals
into it, or swath-graze it.
2. SEEDING
Farmers can seed each crop in
its own row, known as strip intercropping, or mix the crops.
Entz says research out of India
and the tropics shows strip intercropping often works better than
mixed rows, but that’s not the case
for every crop. For example, when
lentils are seeded at a 45-degree
angle to flax, they suppress weeds
in flax, Entz says.
Kirschenman has seeded clover
and canola in separate rows, which
worked, but left him with 15-inch
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews .ca /
25
Features
With pea-canola mixes seeded in soil with low organic matter, Rosengren has seen the best
results from applying about two-thirds the nitrogen of a typical canola crop.
gaps in the next year’s clover. He
now seeds it in mixed rows.
“You probably get more benefits
of the intercrop early in the season
that way because you do have that
root interaction… It takes quite a
while to grow across 7-1/2 inches,
which was what our alternating
rows were,” says Kirschenman.
Rosengren has had the best
results seeding mixed rows rather
than alternating rows for most
intercrop combinations, including peas and canola. But when
it comes to chickpeas and flax,
Rosengren seeds two chickpea
rows, then two flax rows, on 7-1/2
inch spacing. He seeds it against
the wind, so the flax stops ascochyta spores from spreading.
Seeding rates are often set at
two-thirds the regular rate, but
that can vary. Both Rosengren and
Kirschenman set their pea-oilseed
crops at two-thirds the full rates.
Generally Rosengren is trying
to bring up canola yields, but peas
will out-compete canola, so he
seeds the peas deeper to give the
canola a head start on emergence.
Usually each crop yields about
two-thirds of a full crop, giving
him a yield bonus.
Seeding rates with chickpeas
and flax are a little trickier to nail
down because of the micorrhiza
fungi on the flax roots. Rosengren
thinks the micorrhiza connect the
flax roots to the better-rooting
chickpeas, allowing the flax roots
to find more nutrients.
Last year Rosengren seeded 15
pounds of flax per acre. A typical full rate for his farm is 50
pounds. Normally he would apply
60 pounds of nitrogen with the
flax, but he didn’t lay down any.
But the flax still yielded 90 per
cent of an average monoculture
flax crop, says Rosengren.
“We grow specialty flax that’s
been $18 a bushel. So if we’re
growing 20 bushel flax and 20
bushel chickpeas like last year,
that’s amazing.”
Kirschenman seeds the clover
and canola at the same time. He
sets seeding depth at the correct
depth for the smallest seeded crop.
Canola is seeded at the regular
rate, and he sets the clover at three
to four pounds per acre.
3. Fertility
When it comes to fertilizing
pea-canola, Rosengren takes the
inoculant into account. On soil
with low organic matter, the best
results he’s seen come from applying about two-thirds the nitrogen
of a typical canola crop.
Though there is no direct link
between the rhizobia inoculant
and canola, the rhizobia will break
down nutrients in the soil, freeing
up more nitrogen if there’s plenty
of organic matter. So Rosengren
applies less nitrogen to soil with
high organic matter, as long as mineralization is likely.
Kirschenman uses a little less
nitrogen, but a full phosphate
rate, for pea-mustard. He lays
down nearly a full nitrogen rate
for canola-clover. “The benefits of
the green manure are mostly coming in the years after, not in the
year of establishment.”
4. Spraying
Intercropping systems can control weeds, says Entz. But they’re
really good at clamping a lid on
disease.
“The problem with raising
yields in monocrops is you raise
these incredibly dense canopies
that are very humid. Even in dry
areas they stay humid longer during the day. So there is a lot more
potential for disease infestation.
And so the question that we’ve
been asking ourselves is how do
you create a real high-yield situa-
Colin Rosengren’s farm assistants, at work in the corn-soybean crop near Midale, Sask.
tion, but not have so much disease
pressure,” says Entz. He says creating diversity within the canopy is
one answer.
In some cases, intercrops seem
to deter pests. Entz cites research
out of North Dakota showing flea
beetle infestations were less severe
in canola-pea intercrops than
monocropped canola.
“Some of the benefits that we’re
seeing, in some years may be due
to disease. In other years, they
may be due to insects that we
didn’t observe. And in some years,
maybe it’s a combination of all
those things plus more photosynthetic capture,” says Entz.
Rosengren has found that
although spraying Odyssey incrop doesn’t normally damage
peas, the peas don’t always recover when they’re competing with
canola. One year after he sprayed
Odyssey, damaging the peas, “it
cost us 10 bushels an acre in pea
yield, but we gained seven in
canola. So in the end it netted the
same dollars.”
The flax-chickpeas intercrop
sees far less ascochyta blight than
monocropped chickpea, says
Rosengren.
When other farmers are spraying their chickpeas for the fourth
time, Rosengren says, “we’re
starting to think about our first
pass.”
Kirschenman can spray Odyssey,
Pursuit or Solo in the canola-clover intercrop without damaging
the clover. He also uses a Group
3, such as Edge, with the peamustard to control Group 2 and
glyphosate-resistant kochia.
5. Harvest
When it comes to harvesting
lentils and flax, farmers should
take care not to chip lentils during threshing. Entz says the lentil
chips are the same size as flax
seeds, making it difficult to separate them.
“Those sorts of practical things
are really important to keep in
mind,” says Entz.
Kirschenman says the canolaclover intercrop is usually easy
to harvest. An early frost might
set the canola back, and there
have been a couple times where
the clover is as tall as the canola
during harvest. But Kirschenman
says the canola does dry out in
the swath.
“It doesn’t take that long and
then you’re able to harvest it just
as you would straight canola,”
he says.
B a s e d o n h i s n e i g h b o u r ’s
experience, the peas-mustard
should mature at the same time,
Kirschenman says. He plans to use
a rotary cleaner to separate the
seed. “You’re able to through-put
at least a 1,000 bushels an hour,
but probably more.”
Rosengren straight-cuts both
the flax-chickpea crop and the
canola-pea crop. Swathing peacanola works, too. The crop is
cut high enough that there is still
stubble to anchor it against big
winds. The swaths are heavier,
too, so they’re less likely to tangle. Rosengren cautions a canolalentil swath blows around easily.
The lentils also lay at the swath
bottom, which is a problem if it
rains.
When it comes to harvesting
the flax-chickpea crop, Rosengren
sets his combine for chickpeas. He
says it’s simple to harvest them,
but there needs to be at least five
bushels per acre of chickpeas for
threshing.
Rosengren likes to separate the
seeds from both crops right away,
but he says if they’re dry, they
can be stored for a while. He’s
used rotary drums to separate the
seeds, and says they worked well.
But he now uses a rotary cleaner
with shaking screens, as it’s a little more reliable and has more
capacity.
6. Rotation
Entz says farmers have asked
whether growing a canola
intercrop, such as pea-canola,
means growing monocropped
canola later in the rotation would
increase disease risk. He says
more research is needed before
he can give a good answer, but
he thinks farmers’ experiences
are important.
“I don’t think the threat is serious enough to not consider intercropping. I think intercropping is
intriguing and is worth a try. And
I think as we gain more experience
with it, hopefully we’ll get some
pathologists starting to look at
these cropping systems a bit more
closely and provide those answers
in the future,” says Entz.
Rosengren says he wouldn’t follow pea-canola with canola, but
in his opinion disease has more
to do with how intensely a crop is
grown in an area than rotations in
individual fields.
“This is not the opinion of most
researchers I talk with but it has
been my experience,” Rosengren
writes.
Kirschenman says he isn’t concerned about disease pressure from
short intercrop rotations.
“Short duration rotations are
really not an issue for us because
we’re trying to get into six and
seven year rotations. So even if it
is an issue, it’s not going to be an
issue for us.”
Andy Kirschenman blogs about his
on-farm trials and other production
practices at andgronomy.blogspot.ca.
Research by Entz and his colleagues
is available online at umanitoba.ca/
outreach/naturalagriculture/.
Lisa Guenther is a field editor with Grainews.
Contact her at [email protected].
the highest
yielding canola hybrids on the market today .
Trial data proves that DEKALB® offer the
*
*2011-2012 Monsanto Field Scale Trials.
26
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Features
Soil management
Managing wind erosion
The productive top layer of Prairie soils is relatively thin.
Once it’s lost, it can take years to recover
By Rebeca Kuropatwa
O
nce topsoil erodes,
it is slow to recover.
Research indicates that
“the estimated loss of
a quarter inch would take over
10 years to replenish, assuming
no further erosion occurs,” says
Murray Lewis, land resource specialist with the Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada’s Saskatoon
Research Centre.
Erosion is an ongoing issue that
will always require management.
“As climatic conditions and
farming systems change, it will be
necessary to evaluate and re-evaluate erosion control management
strategies,” says Lewis. The best
proactive plan is regular erosion
monitoring.
photo: david lobb
Crop and crop residue cover are the most effective ways to manage soil erosion.
Four risk factors
Wind erosion has two distinct
actions: soil detachment and
movement.
“All wind erosion control practices are based on preventing
detachment or reducing the carrying capacity of wind,” says Lewis.
“A number of wind erosion
control practices can be adopted,
depending on producers’ farming
system and risk factors.”
One potential risk factor is climate.
“Climatic risks vary with each
region,” says Lewis. “Areas such
as Southern Alberta tend to
have higher climatic risk factors
throughout the winter, due to
periods without snow cover, frequent high wind speeds, and the
freeze/thaw action of Chinooks.
Other regions are more concerned
about the spring or fall.”
A second risk is crop residue.
“Adequate crop residue and/
cover crops are the most effective
way to control wind erosion,” says
Lewis. “Crop residue builds soil
organic matter, creates stable soil
aggregates, conserves soil moisture, and protects the soil surface
from erosive forces.
“The widespread adoption of
chemical fallow, minimum tillage, and direct seeding has greatly
reduced erosion risks across the
prairies by conserving crop residue.”
A third possible risk concerns
texture.
“Soil texture is one of the key
wind erosion risk factors,” said
Lewis. “Research indicates that
sandy soils (more than 70 to 75 per
cent sand and less than 10 to 15 per
cent clay) and clay soils (more than
40 per cent clay) tend to be more
susceptible to wind erosion. In the
case of sandy soils, they tend to
form poor aggregates, easily broken
down into erodible-sized particles.”
Different soils behave differently.
“Clay soils can be broken into
small erodible fractions by tillage or
freeze/thaw processes, while loam
soils (a balance of sand, silt, and
clay) tend to be the most resilient
to erosion.” (Although tillage, dry
soil conditions, and lack of crop
residue can put loam soils at risk.)
A fourth risk factor is surface
roughness.
“Significant surface roughness
(large aggregates or ridges) can disturb wind flow and reduce its carrying capacity,” says Lewis. “Surface
roughness is only a factor for land
lacking adequate crop residue.”
Seven ways
to control erosion
Depending on the farming
system, wind erosion control
best management practices can
include agronomic management,
chemical fallow, reduced tillage,
direct seeding, soil ridging, low
disturbance tillage, cover crops,
organic additions (such as
manure or straw), shelterbelts and
combinations of these.
1. Consider agronomic choices:
“Erosion management starts with
optimizing crop agronomy, such
as seeding date, seeding rate, and
fertility, which improves root
growth and biomass production,”
said Lewis. “Extended and diverse
crop rotations, such as rotations
with forages, are also beneficial.
These practices increase the soil’s
resilience to erosion by improving
soil quality, soil biology, binding
soil particles together and
protecting the soil surface.”
If a winter crop is planted only
for erosion control, Lewis still
suggests following recommended
agronomic practices, such as “seed
early, seed heavy, seed shallow,
and seed into standing stubble.”
2. Adopt minimum tillage: “The
adoption of minimum tillage technologies has been one of the most
significant advancements for prairie agriculture and land sustainability. Crop residue conservation
builds soil quality and resilience to
degradation. Other benefits of minimum tillage include soil moisture
conservation, nutrient availability,
and improved drainage.
Lewis says, “If tillage is required
to manage soil moisture or compaction issues, vertical tillage
implements tend to disturb the
soil less than others.”
3. Use cover crops: “Cover crops
are an excellent option for erosion
control, however they need to be
seeded early to be effective. Soil
disturbance at harvest incorporates the seed and provides supplemental erosion control, however effectiveness is dependent on
harvest date.”
4. Use organic amendments:
Lewis says organic amendments,
such as straw and manure, can be
effective and build soil quality.
5. Create ridges: Where there are
soil ridges and residue, wind flow
will be disturbed. In some cases,
this can lower losses from erosion.
“Dryland producers can ridge soil
to create surface roughness, spread
straw, set up some type of wind barrier, or spread manure,” says Lewis.
6. Plant shelterbelts: Trees can
reduce erosion. “Properly planned
field shelterbelts provide many
benefits to the agricultural community,” Lewis says. “The main
benefit is wind reduction, reducing wind velocities for up to
20 times their height.”
7. Don’t burn: “Burning crop residues is generally a high risk practice with negative implications for
soil erosion,” Lewis says. Burning
exposes soil to erosive sources, while
destroying a valuable soil-building
resource. Rather then burning,
Lewis says, “Excessive straw can be
managed by practices such as chopping and spreading, bailing excess
straw, and seed drill selection.
“Research seems to indicate that
excess crop residues can be removed
without impacting soil organic
matter levels and erosion control.
Harvesting residue from land that is
at significant risk to wind erosion is
generally not recommended.”
In the long run, the costs of
minimizing erosion may be worth
the benefits, Lewis says. “Proactive
soil management is relatively easy
and cost effective. Reclamation can
take years to achieve and comes at
a significant economic cost.
David A Lobb is a Professor in the
Department of Soil Science at the
University of Manitoba (U of M).
“The most effective wind erosion control measure is maintaining crop and crop residue cover on
the soil,” said Lobb. “This protects
the soil from the erosive force of
the wind. Shelterbelts can also
provide some wind erosion control by reducing the erosive force
of wind.”
Lobb’s research, teaching, and
extension activities are in the
areas of soil erosion, soil and
water conservation, and sustainable agriculture.
“Although we can regularly
see dust blowing in agricultural
landscapes, the actual soil loss
within fields is probably negligible,” said Lobb.
“The extreme events resulting from the massive 1930s dust
storms are very rare and the soil
losses observed during that time
may never be reproduced.
“However, we still need to be
concerned about wind erosion.
Even small amounts of it and soil
loss may result in considerable
crop damage by sand blasting, and
may result in enough dust to create air quality problems.
“It is extremely important to
monitor field conditions to accurately assess potential problems
and to manage them effectively...
assessing wind eroded sediment
along ditches, treelines, and fencelines.” †
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a professional writer in
Winnipeg, Man.
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resistance, standability, ease of harvest, and overall performance. *
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
27
Columns
GUARDING WEALTH
Low interest rates won’t late forever
Low interest rates are set to continue for another year or more.
Find out how farmers can make the most of the current environment
BY ANDREW ALLENTUCK
I
nterest rates are due to rise
and, as the world waits for
low single digit interest and
borrowing rates to rise to
historical norms, mischief stalks
the land. Far from the canyons
of Wall and Bay streets, farmers are at risk of having to pay
more to borrow money and, as
a result, earning less when costs
are deducted from revenues. Yet
the bad news conceals the good,
for along with higher interest
rates goes improvement of the
economy.
The summer was a time of fear
of rising interest rates. In the
bond market, where interest rates
are the pulse of the economy,
traders and institutional investors running billions for insurance companies and pension
funds ran for cover in mid-June.
Following remarks by Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
on June 19 suggesting that interest rates might rise by fall, bond
prices collapsed. Investors sold
bonds, terrified that the very low
interest rates they were receiving
would soon be laughable and the
bonds that paid them worth relatively little. They moved to cash
or very short term bonds that
revert to cash in a month or two,
to await higher interest rates.
Dumping vast holdings of government bonds, high yield bonds
and investment grade corporate
bonds, traders and institutional
investors sent yields, which move
opposite to interest rates, soaring.
In the third week of June, the
10-year Government of Canada
bond posted a yield of 2.55 per
cent, up from 1.87 per cent at
the end of March. The 10-year
U.S. Treasury bond dropped so
Tundra
far that it yielded 2.75 per cent,
up from 1.85 per cent at the end
of March. For ordinary investors who buy and hold bonds
to maturity, the rise in rates was
good news. For the first time in
almost five years, bond interest
would match or exceed inflation.
MID-JULY CHANGE
A month later, the rush to
raise cash seemed premature.
Seeing what he had wrought, Mr.
Bernanke promised in mid-July
that there would be no change
in interest rate policy until the
end of 2013 or maybe 2014.
Price supports for bonds in the
form of US$85 billion purchases
every month would continue. In
Canada, the new head of the central bank, Stephen Poloz, said the
benchmark short term rate, one
per cent, would remain in effect
for another year.
Interest rates will go up — that is
a certainty. But the triggers, which
would be a rise of U.S. inflation
to two per cent from the current
1.4 per cent rate and a decline
of unemployment to seven per
cent from 7.6 per cent at present
remain elusive. GDP growth in
Canada is 1.8 per cent and, in
the U.S., 1.6 per cent, according
to the economics department of
Scotiabank.
The June bond yield spike,
which influences all other credit
markets, turns out to have been
a bubble. Bill Gross, co-chair of
PIMCO, the world’s largest bond
portfolio managers, said on June
19 that he thought the chances
slim that U.S. inflation and GDP
growth would rise enough to
justify the Fed’s withdrawal from
markets. Events have proven
him right.
MESSAGE FROM
THE MARKETS
For now, the message of markets is just this: hang tight, borrow cheaply while you can and
lock in low mortgage and line of
credit interest rates. If you want
to buy a new combine, get a line
of credit and fix the terms now,
even if you plan to order in a
couple of months.
It is better to
be a borrower
at today’s rates
than a lender
Higher interest rates mean
that house mortgages would cost
five to six per cent for five-year
terms. That means people could
afford less house. Companies
like big utilities and telecoms as
well as chartered banks would
find their borrowing costs much
higher and would therefore tend
to report lower earnings, all other
things being the same as before
rates rose.
You might think that low
interest rates are a blessing,
for borrowing costs are mostly
modest and, if you want a
higher return, you can buy
dividend-rich stocks from the
very companies that make more
profits because they can borrow
cheaply. However, there is a dark
side to the low inflation that
makes low interest rates possible.
Low inflation means that it takes
longer to pay off debt. Thus
the real value of debt is higher
when inflation is low. It tends to
act as a brake on the economy.
Very high interest rates that
go with high inflation are also
destabilizing. The sweet spot of
inflation and interest is at 2.5 to
three per cent inflation and four
per cent short interest rates. But
that is a long way off.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
What should farmers do in
the present environment? The
present structure of interest
rates implies that it is a good
deal to borrow long on a fixed
term if the premium for the
long loan compared to a short
or floating rate is not too large.
There is a term premium, that
is, a bonus paid to the lender
by the borrower for the risk of
carrying long-term debt. The
normal 10-year premium is
about four per cent, so that if
a 90-day Treasury bill (the same
thing as a 90-day bond) yields
one per cent, the 10 year bond
should pay five per cent. Today,
the premium is artificially suppressed at less than two per
cent. It won’t be this small forever. When rates normalize, so
will the premium.
If you can get a 10-year loan
for four per cent or less over a
three-month loan, really a floating rate line of credit, then it’s a
good deal. If the lender wants six
per cent or more for the 10-year
loan over the floating rate line of
credit, stick with the short loan.
Interest rates on investment
grade corporate bonds follow
those on trend-setting government bonds. Numerous companies pay four per cent on their
long term bonds, implying a two
per cent term premium. It’s not
good enough, for though you
will get the interest you sign up
for, it will be relatively unattractive when rates rise in a few years.
If you want to invest and have a
promise of a return of your investment, you have to buy actual
bonds. When you invest in a
fund that rolls over its bonds forever, you give up the fundamental
guarantee of return of capital at a
fixed date.
Dividend-paying
common
stock, on the other hand, has
no promised return of capital,
but you can make educated bets
that, over time, solid companies
like BCE Inc., which has a dividend of about five per cent, will
raise payouts, that their prices
will rise, and that the combination of higher dividends and
higher stock prices will pace
inflation. Common stock is not
a proxy for a bond; indeed, they
are different critters. The bond is
an obligation and bond holders
can sue for payment of interest
and return of capital. On the
other hand, a share of stock is
a venture with the company
and nothing is promised. Yet
over time, stocks pay far more
than bonds. Canada’s big six
banks have rewarded their holders handsomely with rich and
growing dividends and rising
stock prices.
The market overreacted in June
to the hint that interest rates
would rise. Since then, monetary authorities around the world
have said in unison, “not yet.”
One could add “not much.”
Bottom line — it is better to be
a borrower at today’s rates than a
lender. †
Andrew Allentuck’s book, “Bonds for
Canadians,” was published in 2007 by John
Wiley & Sons Canada.
Tundra
The #1 corn seed in grower satisfaction for yield, disease
resistance, standability, ease of harvest, and overall performance. *
*#1 significantly highest measure of corn seed satisfaction vs. key competitors. 2012 Agdata Study.
28
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Columns
CAN’T TAKE THE FARM FROM THE BOY
Seeding lessons
Toban learned a lot of lessons during his first spring
out in the field, making decisions on his own
TOBAN
DYCK
M
y dad told me not to
seed double. He told
me doing so would
cause lodging in the
wheat. It’s the section of the field
closest to the road everyone on
our lane takes to town, and there
is a lot of lodging to be seen. It is
a mistake I’m reminded of every
time I make the drive, and it’s one
of many lessons I learned over the
seeding season.
Here’s a breakdown: I seeded the
bulk of our acres this year. I made
calls I had never made before.
Nothing that would make or break
us, but things that would test my
prowess as a famer.
It was a cold, wet spring in
our area. In some areas, where
the soil is lighter, we planted too
deep. It’s noticeable now. And
in the heavier soil, the soil that
can often give us problems, our
inch and a half-deep soybeans
thrived.
All of you know this already, but
I had to learn: Never back up with
a hoe drill in the ground.
I did this. Heinous, I know. But I
didn’t think it was as bad as it was.
It happened quickly, I realized
what I had done, and thought
the machine didn’t move enough
for any real damage to occur.
Well, about 500 metres later, I
noticed a plugged run. No big
deal. This happened a lot this
spring, given how mucky some
parts were. I was quick at this by
now. One minute later, another
run plugged, then another, then
another.
I had to unplug them all. Then
I had to figure out where on
the field did the entire drill quit
seeding and go re-seed. As the
beans peeked out of the ground, I
expected to see a 30-foot by 500metre area of missed revenue.
But I re-seeded the right area.
Lesson learned.
30-feet wide; our sprayer 90.
This works, but it requires a
keen eye. If I felt any doubt by
the time I reached the end of
the row and needed to find the
next run, it wouldn’t happen.
A farmer needs to be confident
on these decisions. Casually turn,
let instinct be your guide, and
you’ll find yourself near enough to
where you want to be that you’ll
see the line. Don’t do this, and
you’ll have to stop the tractor, get
out, and walk around nervously
until your mind relaxes and your
eyes start to see what they’re supposed to.
I think an earlier generation of
farmers had a more accurate sense
of the relationship between implements and fence posts. I didn’t hit
any, but I had to stop and back up
a few times.
How does my father get so close
and not hit them? Time will tell if
this is a skill that will get passed
down to me. I blame technology
again. I love it, but it’s weak compared to a strong gut or instinct.
THE FLAT TIRE
This goes back to seeding. The
wind was reported to have toppled highway tractors on Highway
3 between Carman and Winkler,
Manitoba. It was difficult to stand
on the drill, never mind fill it with
Toban Dyck came home to the family farm in Manitoba after living for
Toronto. He seeded his first crop this spring.
a conveyor-belt drill fill. The wind
was loud, but I heard a sound that
was either the onset of tinnitus or
a flat tire.
Sure enough, it was a flat tire.
No big deal, right? Well, funny
thing: We’re in the throes of seeding. So we take off the tire in the
field, propping up the drill frame
with cribbing, take the tire to
town to discover they’re closed for
lunch. The shop’s entire staff go
MISSED ROWS AND SPRAYING
Perhaps the more seasoned
among you are fine with seeing
where the GPS was a little off, and
the spaces between rows were a
little too large to be tram lines, or
intentional sprayer guides.
Or, perhaps the more seasoned
among you don’t make such
mistakes.
Next year, I will not rely as much
on my GPS as I did this year.
Magnetic storms seem to throw
them off, and every once in a while
they misbehave with no obvious
explanation. These errors plague
me, but thankfully the rows are
closing up and the beans and
wheat are doing their part to hide
my blind allegiance to technology.
Spraying is tricky and requires
confidence. We spray our beans
twice, ourselves, and use a system
we refer to as tram lines to do so.
They are not really tramlines. We increased the distance
between the hoes on either
side of centre hoe. Our drill is
Ad #40261 Strong Past. Powerful Future.
on lunch break at the same time.
This is small town life.
But it’s a small town life we
enjoy a lot. Now that spraying is
done and the weather is great, it’s
rewarding to watch the plants I
seeded grow. Harvest is going to be
blast, and will come with its own
lessons, I’m sure. †
Toban Dyck is a freelance writer and a new
farmer on an old farm. Follow him on Twitter
@tobandyck or email [email protected].
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
29
Columns
UNDERSTANDING MARKET BULLS AND BEARS
Living with market volatility
Market volatility is alive and well. Learn how to live with it and keep your sanity
BY BRIAN WITTAL
W
hat has this summer taught us
about market volatility? That it is
alive and well and causing all
kinds of market mayhem!
Adequate moisture and good
growing conditions in the U.S. and
Western Canada increased production estimates for all crops, which
drove futures values lower daily.
Cool wet weather in parts of
the U.S. and across the Canadian
Prairies increased yield potential,
but it has also brought pest and disease concerns and delayed maturity that makes frost a real concern.
Weather situations around the
world have caused production
concerns in certain areas.
China, for example, experienced
the worst heat wave in 140 years in
its eastern regions. This dramatically
impacted production, and brought
China to the market to secure
inventories for the coming year.
In Europe most of the planted
area has been hot and dry for some
time and looks to stay that way,
causing crop stress and potential
yield losses.
Russia, Ukraine and the Former
Soviet Union area experienced
some dryness issues, but intermittent rains helped alleviate concerns in some areas.
At this time of year any weather
news that promotes potential yield
increases or decreases anywhere in
the world creates market volatility
and sends futures markets jumping
up and down.
Will the markets go higher?
Will they stop going down? When
should I sell?
These situations become very
emotional for farmers watching
markets run or crash based on current market conditions.
How do you avoid going
through emotional marketing situations year after year?
You need to have a solid marketing plan in place that you
are comfortable with. It should
include marketing strategies that
will help you avoid making emotional pricing decisions during
times of volatile price movement.
A MARKETING PLAN
1. Know your costs of production. This is critical so you can
establish acceptable profit levels and
price points for selling your grain.
2. Set a pricing strategy of selling increments of production, or
use options or futures contracts to
secure prices at various price levels in an up and or down market
scenario.
3. Follow markets closely so
you can make timely decisions
based on good intelligence. This
can be accomplished in many
ways — from talking to local grain
buyers and buying market newsletter subscriptions to hiring an ag
marketing consultant.
4. Get an understanding of
what the technical charts and fundamental market information are
telling you. What way are the
markets trending and why?
5. Decide if you are comfortable
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selling actual physical grain or if
you are prepared to spend money
putting a futures or options contract in place to protect a futures
price to sell your grain against
later.
6. Start by putting together a
marketing plan where you sell
increments of your crop utilizing
a price averaging strategy along
with an options contract to protect you.
Putting the plan in action before
the growing season will keep you
from getting caught up in an emotional roller coaster ride when
markets are the most volatile.
PRICING RISKS
There are a number of risks you
need to consider when deciding
how to price your grains.
These include moisture at
seeding time, seeding dates and
weather during the growing season.
You could end up with a good crop
or a poor crop and you don’t want
to be overcommitted with physical
delivery contracts if the weather
turns on you.
If the weather is starting out
against you early in the year, the
safest way to consider securing a
price for your grains is on paper
with put option contracts and or a
futures hedge strategy.
How much can you
afford to spend on
futures or options
contracts?
As the year progresses, if you
decide to do any physical pricing,
you may want to consider using call
options to help protect you in case
the weather catches you with a hail
storm or a frost. A weather disaster
could alter your production and
leave you short of grain and unable
to deliver against your contracts.
A MATTER OF BALANCE
How much physical grain
should you price?
How much can you afford to
spend on futures or options contracts?
Or, should you sit back and do
nothing?
Which of these choices will give
you the best results with the least
risk?
These are questions that only
you can answer for your farm.
Do you have the cash flow early
in the new year (pre-seeding) to
put an option or futures contract
in place if need be?
Do you have a brokerage
account set up to do that?
Do you understand how futures
and options work and how they
can be used to protect your farms
profitability?
These are questions that others can help you with. If you are
looking for some help in this
regard, give me a call or send me
an email. †
Brian Wittal has 30 years of grain industry
experience, and currently offers market
planning and marketing advice to farmers
through his company Pro Com Marketing Ltd.
www.procommarketingltd.com.
30
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Columns
OFF-FARM INVESTING
Learn to sell before you buy
If you want to own stocks, before you buy you should learn how to sell properly
ANDY
SIRSKI
A
lot of investors feel that
buying right is the most
important part of owning stocks. From my
experience, selling right is more
important than buying right.
SELLING RIGHT
One reason to learn to sell right
is that you should get you out of
a stock near the top of its price.
“But I might get whipsawed” is
the most common complaint
when I mention selling near the
top. Yes, that is true. But let’s face
it, any stock that you or I own is
not the only stock to own. If we
sell out and the stock goes back
up, we can buy it back or move
on to another good stock.
I think the “might get whipsawed” argument held during
the long-term bull market from
1982 until 2000. But lately, in
the past few years, most stocks
get rotated into and out of. Big
money understands seasonality
and ups and downs very well and
will move into a stock slowly but
get out quickly.
These past few years, selling when the daily price drops
through the 10-day moving
average would have worked
eight or nine times out of 10.
And maybe one whipsaw. That
is pretty good odds.
The only stock that I own
that would have whipsawed me
is Disney. It has been so bullish
since it got above $50 or so that
the price has hugged the 10-day
moving average. Stocks like CNR,
CP, Pfizer and resource stocks
kept going down after the price
crossed the 10-day moving average going down, making selling a
good move.
Another point I hear all the time
is: Well, it will come back up. Yes
good stocks often do. But not all
of them do. Or they might stay
down long enough to discourage
us, tick us off, and provoke us into
selling near the low. And I won’t
even mention the static we might
get from our friends and business
partners.
Selling right has one more big
point that few talk about. As a
farmer, you are mostly a price
taker. You cannot control the
weather. You cannot usually control the price you pay for inputs
or the price you get for your grain.
As stock owners we cannot
control the prices, but we can
control when we buy and sell
and the prices we pay. Usually
if I sell as the daily price crosses
the 10-day moving average going
down, I would be selling high.
And usually, if I buy when the
price has crossed the 20-day moving average going up, I would be
buying low. These charts are free
on www.stockcharts.com. This is
not rocket science. All we have
to do is look at the charts and
believe them.
And if we don’t totally believe
the charts we can always sell some
at the high and buy some at the
low. It’s caller layering in (buy)
and out (sell).
BOMBARDIER (BBD.B.TO)
I’ve done a few things correctly
with BBD.B. First I started buying
at $4.06 shortly after the company
negotiated a $2 billion line of
credit at a good rate. That happened in late 2012 and the shares
were well under $3 per share at the
time. I started buying and layered
in, so I have 10,000 shares at an
average cost of $4.52.
I could have sold some or all of
these each of the three times the
shares dropped through the 10-day
moving average and put in a bid
to buy 15 or 20 cents below the
selling price — I’d have another
$4,000 or $5,000 in my account.
But the company has been
promising to test fly its new plane
and I didn’t think I could guess
when that would be. So I did not
sell shares and I did not sell calls
on the shares.
I collect a 2.5 per cent dividend
every year, which matches most
interest rates, so I decided I would
just wait them out.
THOMPSON CREEK
MINES (TCM)
I did several things correctly
with this one. In the fall of 2012
the premium for selling puts for
April 2013 was very generous,
about $1.10 for the $4 strike price.
So I sold puts on 5,000 shares and
collected $5,500 and then bought
7,000 shares at an average cost of
around $3 per share.
Come spring, the shares were
over $4.20. I sold them at $4.20
when the price crossed the 10-day
moving average going down, and
bought the puts back for $0.30. I
made $11,000 or $12,000 in half
a year with about $16,000 of my
own cash. I did collect $5,500
from selling the puts.
Then I jumped the gun and
bought 3,000 shares at $4.06
and sold calls twice to bring
my cost down to around $3.35.
Recently, TCM released its Q2
report. Its new copper mine in
B.C. is going to get going soon,
the company has enough cash
BY DAN PIRARO
Bizarro
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
31
Columns
to pay its expenses until money
starts coming in, the price of
copper has moved up to over $3
a pound, and it looks like this
could be a successful startup.
The price went from under $3,
crossed the 20-day moving average
going up and hit the 200-day moving average at around $3.35 which
was around my cost of the other
3,000 shares, so I doubled up.
POTASH CORP (POT)
This stock dropped like a rock a
few weeks ago from $38 to $28 per
share. I had 700 shares.
Many think this drop was an
unexpected shock. However, the
daily price did drop through the
10-day moving average at around
$42. All I had to do was believe
it. I had sold calls on the shares
and thought that $38 was a good
support price. It was — until the
Russian potash cartel broke up. I
sold and moved on.
SPREADS
9 at the close. I have no idea how
much the price is going to go up
or how quickly, but I am ready.
Gold and silver are in season and
if there was ever a time of year to
hold this stuff it is now.
I own some Franco Nevada
(FNV) shares and I might sell
them and buy Silver Wheaton
(SLW) shares. But I also have a
venturesome Exchange Traded
Fund called NUGT which moves
three times as fast as the price of
gold. NUGT is not for everyone
— in fact some brokers won’t
even sell it to a customer. It
takes watching. I did sell calls on
most of them and bought them
back the other day when the
price of gold and NUGT crossed
the 20-day moving average
going up.
My other choice is to own some
shares in IMG, AUQ, FVI and FR.
I think all are good quality stocks
and have potential if and as the
price of gold and silver move up
during the in season.
One thing for sure: I plan to sell
all of these things as soon as the
price of gold and silver and these
stocks drop through their 10-day
moving average. I didn’t do that
last fall when the daily price of
gold dropped through the 10-day
moving average at about $1,750
and now I have some catching up
to do.
Gold and silver
are in season
DUST AND DOG
These two creatures are for
special conditions and might
not be for every investor. DUST
(Direxion Daily Gold Miners
Bear 3X) goes up when the
price of gold goes down and
DOG (ProShares Short Dow30)
goes up when the Dow index
($INDU) drops.
I likely will buy some DOG as
the DOW normally slides during
the summer and I will save DUST
for a time when the price of gold
is heading for out of season. It also
moves three times as fast as the
price of gold, like NUGT.
My other strategy will be to hold
Disney shares. My cost is around
$62 and I sold calls for January
with a strike price of $67.50 and
collected something over $3.50.
Since some stocks might tend to
drop I likely will do bear call
spreads on some and be more careful about doing bull put spreads
on other stocks. I find that if I aim
to make five to nine per cent per
trade, I’ll usually be far enough
away from the price of the day
that the option will expire worthless and I’ll keep the money. If I
aim for a higher return I often find
the shares move enough to put the
spread in danger.
INPUT CAPITAL (INP)
I wrote about INP months
ago. This is a canola streamer.
In June the company did a
reverse takeover and now the
shares trade on the Toronto
exchange as INP. My starting
price was $1 and the shares
went public at $1.80 or so and
are hanging around there. I
plan to put them into my wife’s
RRSP as a contribution-in-kind.
In the next issue I will discuss
some high dividend paying stocks
that might make up part of a portfolio. Hint: BMO has been paying
a dividend since 1829.
I want to give you two quotes:
Brooke Thackray: “If I’m wrong
(about a stock) I’m not wrong for
long.” His sidekick, Don Vialoux,
says: “Keep your losses small and
let your profits run.” †
Andy Sirski is mostly retired. He gardens,
plays with his granddaughters, travels a
bit, and manages his investments. He also
publishes a newsletter called StocksTalk
where he tells what he does with his
stocks, explains how he does spreads and
which covered calls he writes. If you want
to read it free send an email to sirski@mts.
net and Andy will set you up for a month of
good reading.
I have at least 10 spreads going,
mostly for August expiry but a couple for September. They include
Disney, Cat, Deere, Phillip Morris
and Agrium. As prices stand on
August 10 all of these will expire
on August 17 and I will keep the
money.
I’m using about $35,000 of buying power and my rough estimate
shows I took in about $3,800 of
cash by doing spreads for August
and the couple for September.
The headline in the last issue
of Grainews seemed to imply that
doing spreads was my full time
strategy. Actually it is not. I do
spreads in my trading account
because that is the only account
we can do them in. I am paying
about $34.95 for commissions and
contract fees with BMO for each
trade and when I do 20 a month
that is around $700.
I’m looking into setting up an
account with Interactive Brokers
in the U.S. Interactive Brokers does
not charge a brokerage fee when
we do spreads. Their fee is $0.70
per contract (100 shares) so the
2,000 shares or 20 contracts would
cost $14. The pair would cost $28
which is a lot less than $70 per pair.
I still have to iron out some
details. In the meantime I do run
a trading account at BMO and I
make good money doing spreads.
Interactive Brokers does not hold
sheltered accounts like an RRSP
of TFSA.
GOLD AND SILVER
As I write on August 10 the price
of gold has jockeyed around from
a low of $1,180 up and down and
was just under $1,315 on August
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BY DAN PIRARO
Bizarro
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32
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Columns
SOILS AND CROPS
Faith, snuff and
slough water
After a wet year, the water in your
slough may look clean. Test it first.
The results may surprise you
DUNDURN MEASUREMENTS
LES
HENRY
T
his is an update to an article that
appeared in the September 2006
issue of Grainews.
My Dad often talked about
early bachelor settlers who lived on “faith,
snuff and slough water.” In many cases
on the Prairies it is a good thing they
had strong faith and brought along lots
of Copenhagen because the slough water
often left much to be desired.
The same might be said for sloughs that
are used as a water source for spraying.
If the water is full of algae or sediment
or stinks like an outhouse we may shy
away. But if it looks clean and clear we
make think it is okay. Think again. Clean,
clear water can often contain loads of
dissolved minerals that can cause trouble
with herbicide performance, especially
glyphosate.
In June, 2006 I took photos and measured the salt content on my Dundurn
farm. That was repeated in July, 2013 and
I took a real lesson from the readings.
When I took the photos I also measured
the dissolved minerals in the water. This
data was obtained directly in the field
by measuring the Electrical Conductivity
(EC) of the water. Benchmark data for EC
(measured in uS/cm — MicroSiemens per
centimetre) is as follows:
Saskatchewan River Water:
EC = 350 uS/cm
Sand point wells:
EC = 500 to 1,000 uS/cm
Farm wells on the Prairies, other than
sand point:
EC = 1,500 to 5,000 uS/cm
Sea water: 35,000 ppm TDS (Total
Dissolved Solids)
(EC is a good first approximation of ppm
TDS for sulphate waters , which we usually
have, but above EC = 20,000 the relationship breaks down so I quote sea water in
ppm TDS.)
SALINITY OF SLOUGH WATER ON NW 22-32-3W3
EAST SLOUGH
MIDDLE SLOUGH
WEST SLOUGH
Elevation MASL*
617
613
611
EC June 18, 2006
300
600
1,300
EC July 28, 2013
1,035
2,335
3,335
* MASL = Meters Above Sea Level
Source: Les Henry
As you select sloughs for spray water, be
careful. Be sure to get an EC or hardness
test before relying on the water. I have been
examining and measuring salt content of
sloughs for 30 years and am not much good
at guessing the salt content just by looking.
Agronomists should be offering this service.
If I can do it most anybody can.
The photos and data tell the story. The
table puts it all together so the data can be
compared easily.
JUICING UP THE GROUNDWATER
Making the July, 2013 readings was a
very serious lesson for me. I expected to
document how much fresher the water was
after the last few years of irrigation-type
rainfall and heavy snow melt. All that fresh
water should “freshen” the sloughs, right?
Wrong.
The large excess of rain and snow melt
has really “juiced up” the groundwater
flow systems. The approximate tripling
of salt level in the water from 2006 to
2013 comes mainly from groundwater
discharge. The west slough by the yard
has a big bathtub salt ring. The high
water has flooded that ring and those
salts are also in the water.
TAKE HOME MESSAGES:
1. If you use sloughs for spray water
do not expect the same slough to provide
consistent water over time. Measure the
EC in the field.
2. Mother Nature makes changes that
can be cumulative over time — in decades
— not just year to year.
3. Expect serious increases in soil salinity as we go back to the other side of the
average moisture conditions.
By the way, changes in soil fertility
and agronomy also have long memories
and effects accumulate over time. I had
a recent farm tour with Dennis Bulani in
the hills north of Biggar and saw wheat
crops that look like nothing I have seen
before. It did not all happen over night.
Good management, and especially soil
fertility is cumulative. But, that is a story
for another day. †
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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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
33
Columns
PHOTOS: LES HENRY
East slough, June 18, 2006: EC = 300 uS/cm
East slough, July 28, 2013: EC = 1,035 uS/cm
Middle Slough, June 18, 2006: EC = 600 uS/cm
West Slough, June 18, 2006: EC = 1,300 uS/cm
Middle Slough, July 28, 2013: EC = 2,335 uS/cm
West Sough, July 28, 2013: EC = 3,335 uS/cm
This water looks fresh, but it would really take the edge
off weed control with glyphosate herbicides.
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34
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Machinery & Shop
2014 MODEL INTRODUCTIONS
New Holland
introduces new hay
and forage tools
Grainews goes into the field with New Holland
product reps to test run the company’s 2014
lineup of haying equipment
BY SCOTT GARVEY
I
t’s that time of year again when
major farm equipment manufacturers pull the wraps off new machinery
models poised to join next year’s
lineup. This summer, New Holland was
first off the mark, holding a media event in
Houston, Texas, to showcase products in
its “Dairy and Livestock segment,” which
means new hay and forage equipment.
“Better, faster and smarter” was the catch
phrase product reps used to describe the
2014 models on display in a Texas almond
grove beside a field of Bermuda grass.
Company executives were so confident in
the ability of their new models, they wanted
members of the farm media to not only see
them, but put them to work as well. That
meant spending a day under the blazing,
summer Texas sun (in air conditioned cabs)
cutting, raking and baling hay.
At the event, New Holland executives
also made it clear they not only want to
build on the company’s reputation as a
leader in hay and forage equipment, they
want farmers to look to them as an infor-
mation source on how to put up quality
hay as well.
“We’ve become much more sophisticated in making hay,” says Abe Hughes,
II, NH North America’s vice-president
of sales and marketing. “Often times, I
think, people just roll the dice and bale.
There’s really a science to it. That’s what
we’re trying to do here at New Holland,
educate farmers, dealers and everyone
else that there is a science to it.”
As a way to share their knowledge,
NH updated its Haymaker’s Handbook
in 2011, which now includes all the
latest research the company has helped
develop in association with Penn State
University. The Handbook is a guide to
producing top quality livestock feed.
Farmers can pick up a copy at their
local NH dealer for about $15.
To give you a chance to see what we saw
in Texas, the Machinery and Shop section
of this issue is filled with a close look at
NH’s updated lineup of haying equipment
for 2014. Enjoy. †
PHOTO: SCOTT GARVEY
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact
him at [email protected].
New Holland invited members of the farm media to see its new line of hay and forage
products at an event in Houston, Texas.
2014 MODEL INTRODUCTIONS
NH eyes canola growers
with new Speedrower and
Duraswath header
High speed road travel and a new Prairie Special
option make this machine a cross-over, intended
to appeal to both forage and oilseeds producers
SCOTT
GARVEY
“
T
his machine is littered
with changes and updates
from our previous H8000
Series,” says Seth Doman,
marketing manager for hay and
forage crop preparation products
at New Holland. “We’re so excited
to unveil this product.”
The Speedrower (which apparently gets its name from a blending
of the words “speedy” and “windrower”) is capable of an impressive 24 m.p.h. (38 k.p.h.) on the
road. That, according to Doman,
makes it the fastest swather on the
market. And it achieves that velocity without changing its primary
direction of operation. So there is
no need to reverse the operator’s
station and look out over the rear
hood.
For 2014 there will be three
models in all, the 130, a 126 horsepower version that gets power
from a four-cylinder diesel, and
the larger 200 and 240 powered
by 190 and 226 horsepower, sixcylinder engines, respectively.
Steering on the Speedrower is
hydraulically
controlled
and
blended with the hydrostatic drive
on the forward axle. The rear wheels
are mounted on free-wheeling
casters. In order to keep them stable
at high road speeds, engineers added
“anti-shimmy” shock absorbers and
gave them independent rear axle air
suspension.
The new steering system
also supports NH’s integrated
IntelliSteer auto guidance.
All three Speedrower models are
available in two basic configurations. Hay and forage growers
can select one designed to run
Durabine disc or HS Series Haybine
sickle cutting heads, which range
from 12 to 19 feet depending on
which type you choose.
PRAIRIE SPECIAL
The other configuration, the
Prairie Special, is intended to
appeal to small-grains and oilseeds
producers. It comes mated to a
Duraswath draper header, which
» CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
PHOTO: SCOTT GARVEY
A new three-model line of windrowers joins the NH lineup for 2014. Each is available in a configuration suited
for hay and forage growers or as a Prairie Special with a draper header designed specifically for canola.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
35
Machinery & Shop
» CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Seth Doman points to one of two 40 G.P.M. drive pumps that come
standard on the Prairie Special version of the Speedrower.
models get one 80 G.P.M. hydraulic pump and the four-cylinder
130 version gets 29 G.P.M. capacity. “That’s more than enough to
run the 13- through 19-foot disc
heads,” explains Doman.
Hydraulic oil cooling capacity
has also been bumped up by about
35 per cent.
To help thick, fluffy canola crops
pass under the tractor body, the
centre ground clearance has been
increased. “We’ve improved our
ground clearance from the previous
series to 42-1/2 inches,” he adds.
Inside the cab, which gets a spring
suspension to help smoothen out
the ride, the operator has a 10-inch
IntelliView IV touch-screen monitor that controls both the machine
functions and auto guidance.
“We’re the only manufacturer that
has one screen for tractor functions
and also for steering function,” says
Doman.
For a video look at the
Speedrower, check out www.
grainews.ca/videos. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
Two different types of rear caster arms are available. The single-sided
version (mounted on the Speedrower) increases under-body clearance
for fluffy crops like canola.
westeel.com
is available in 25-, 30-, 35- and
40-foot working widths.
NH executives say they hoped to
create a machine that attracted the
attention of canola growers when
they settled on the specifications
for the Prairie Special equipped
with the Duraswath header, but
that header isn’t interchangeable
between the Speedrower and a CX
or CR combine. “It’s specific to
the windrower line,” says Doman.
“There are a couple of reasons for
that. One is specific to the draper
belts, themselves, the other is the
cutting system is designed specifically for cutting canola.”
The Duraswath header has a
“draper seal” to prevent crop
material from getting wedged
under the belts and plugging
them. In front of those drapers,
buyers get another choice. “We
offer two different kinds of
cutting,” says Doman. The New
Holland, which works well in
all crops, and the Schumacher,
which is very good in canola.”
The Duraswath header uses a flatter table and lower draper belt angle
to improve visibility from the cab
and allow for better crop feeding.
Prairie Special models get
increased hydraulic drive capacity
to run the Duraswath headers, relying on a pair of 40 G.P.M pumps.
One is dedicated to driving the
knife in order to reduce instances of
knife stalling, while the other pump
runs the draper belts and reel.
On Speedrowers configured for
hay producers, the six-cylinder
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36
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Machinery & Shop
2014 MODEL INTRODUCTIONS
New 560 Roll-Belt
round balers
New balers offer increased capacity and a variety
of features to improve feed quality
BY SCOTT GARVEY
Along with the extra, rubbermounted, six millimetre tines
mounted on sturdier components, the 560’s pickup has been
re-engineered to accommodate the
increased interest in baling biomass
materials, like corn stover. The new
open bottom design allows material
that often gets caught, like cobs,
to simply fall through and prevent
plugging.
And the pickup width has
increased. Not just to accomodate
biomass crops, but to help hay and
forage growers put up the best hay
A
PHOTOS: SCOTT GARVEY
New Holland debuted its all-new 560 Roll-Belt baler. It can be equipped to
make both dry and high-moisture bales.
s he begins describing
the updated engineering
built into the 560 RollBelt baler, New Holland’s
crop packing equipment marketing manager Curtis Hoffman bends
low and points out improvements
to the redesigned pickup.
“You’ll notice we’re running a
five-bar premium pickup now,”
he explains. “We’re the only company in the industry right now
with a five-bar pickup.”
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possible. “It’s the widest pickup
in the industry,” Hoffman adds.
“Wider is better because the crop
mat is thinner when it comes in.”
Once the crop mat makes it
past the pickup, it follows a new
route over top of, rather than
underneath, the all-new rotating mechanism that pushes it
into the bale chamber, which
now includes a new floor roller
design. “The key difference for us
is the weight of the bale is held
on the floor roll, but the centre
of gravity is behind the floor
roll,” he says. “So I can shut the
belts off, open the door up and
the bale will roll right out.”
After the bale core is formed,
sickle knives swing into place
and slice the hay into seven-inch
lengths as the bale builds.
“When it’s time to slice, after
the core is made, the bale will roll
against those sickle sections and
cut itself,” says Hoffman. “Once
the bale is at its maximum diameter, those knives will swing back
out. You can leave a six or eight
inch uncut section if you wrap with
twine. (By cutting) you can actually
pack more material into a bale, up
to about 14 per cent more.”
And according to a university
study, cut hay inside bales delivers
better daily gains.
“It cuts down on the waste,” he
continues. “(Normally) the cattle
will pull mouthfuls of hay out of a
feeder that are the width of a cow’s
mouth and then some. (The extra)
gets bitten off, falls beside the feeder
and becomes bedding. It’s like slicing the apple into mini bites you
can eat. We have a Penn State study
showing there’s an average of 23
per cent more daily gain in yearling
heifers by slicing up the crop.”
The connection points on the
560’s belts use a new, riveted splice,
rather than the current pressed-in
design that is common in balers
across the industry.
“In the area where we splice, we
have new alligator clips,” Hoffman
says. “They’re riveted rather than
a tooth-type lacing. The carcass
on the belt is a lot tougher, too.
It has three nylon layers. They’re
also stiffer so they don’t curl when
they run up against another belt.
They run truer.”
560 balers equipped to make
BY DAN PIRARO
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Part of the
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Grainews Mobile is
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
37
Machinery & Shop
The pickup includes heavier components and a new design to
minimize plugging when baling biomass crops like corn stover.
high-moisture silage bales get
completely different, endless belts.
“Those belts are stronger than a
laced belt,” says Hoffman. “We
offer a three-year, 15,000 bale warranty, we’re that confident about
them.”
And if your tractor already has
a built-in, ISOBUS-compatible
monitor, there won’t be any need
to add another one for the baler.
The 560 Roll-Belt balers are fully
ISOBUS compatible. Simply plug
the baler’s electrical connection
into the tractor and its functions
show up on the main monitor.
“With that ISOBUS-compatible
monitor you save space in the
tractor,” he adds. “It’s using the
tractor’s display monitor not
requiring a second one for that
round baler.”
“I’m happy to say this (ISOBUS) is
now functioning in the real world,
giving you all kinds of information
right there on your SideWinder
monitor,” adds Abe Hughes, II,
vice-president of North American
sales and marketing. “The best
combination now is to pair up that
NH baler with an NH tractor. It
will be a perfect integration. If you
start to pair it with other colours, it
doesn’t have the maximum information and efficiency.
“I think with some of the electronic innovations we’ve seen in
row-crop farming, they’re eventually going to become much more
sophisticated even in making hay,
where you’re actually now mapping where your best hay is coming
from, the kind of hay you want to
develop, and the kind of inputs you
want to put into the field.” †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
BY DAN PIRARO
Bizarro
A bar fitted with sickles slices the hay into seven-inch lengths
to improve bale density and reduce feeding waste.
New rivet connection: Belts on dry-feed balers are
joined by a riveted connecting splice.
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/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Machinery & Shop
2014 MODEL INTRODUCTIONS
NH debuts new centre-pivot Discbine
314 and 316 Discbine models incorporate a host of design improvements over previous models
BY SCOTT GARVEY
“
PHOTOS: SCOTT GARVEY
The New 313 and 316 Discbines use a simplified driveline, powering the
cutterbar from only one side, which is a major design change from the
previous H7000 Series machines.
T
he Discbine 313 and
Discbine 316 are our new
models for 2014,” says
Seth Doman, marketing
manager for hay and forage crop
preparation products. “We’ve simplified the driveline (compared to
the previous H7000 Series models).”
That simplified driveline now
looks considerably different from
what was used on the previous
H7000 Series models. The cutterbar is now driven only from
the left side, unlike the earlier
version which was powered from
both sides. The new engineering
reduces the number of driveline
gearboxes, and it also means the
313 and 316 get a redesigned cutterbar as well.
According to Doman the
new MowMax II cutterbar not
only accommodates the simpler driveline, it incorporates
a range of performance and
design improvements too. Each
MowMax II cutting module uses
a larger disc driven by heavier
gears, bearings and connecting
shafts. And the machine can cut
closer to the ground with less
cutterbar tilt, minimizing scalping. Larger discs with a “tapered
skirt” profile are also better at
moving the crop into the conditioner and out the back.
“The entire cutter bar has been
beefed up,” says Doman. “The
modules, connecting shafts and
gears have now almost doubled
in size. That’s important because
it’s now driven from one side. It’s
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also important because we’re talking about reliability.”
If the inevitable happens and
you hit a rock with one of the cutter discs, a new feature will help
protect the driveline and keep
repair time and costs down. “We
have something we’ve created
called a ShockPro hub,” explains
Doman. “It’s under the top cover
(of the disc module). It has five
splines, so when you hit something one of these spines is going
to shear off instead of damaging
the bearings and gears inside the
disc module. The ShockPro hub
costs about $50, instead of about
$300 if you were to damage the
module. It only takes about five
minutes to change in the field.”
The company is so confident
in new the MowMax II cutterbar’s durability, it gets an extended
three-year warranty on top of the
standard one-year base warranty
on the overall machine.
According to New Holland, all
the design changes combine to
provide one other advantage: they
reduce the power demand on the
tractor, lowering fuel consumption
when cutting.
At the back, the WideDry conditioning rollers have been stretched
out to 125 inches (317.5 centimetres) from 102 inches on the
H7000 Series machines. Windrow
shields have also been lengthened
by 14-1/2 inches to accommodate
the wider rollers. Customers can
choose among rubber or steel rollers or a flail-type conditioner. With
the wider conditioners, farmers can
spread the hay out in a wider windrow to hasten dry-down times.
“The faster we can get that crop
down to that 10 to 12 per cent
moisture level, the better the hay
quality will be,” notes Doman.
“Laying it out will allow the sun to
impact the crop that was just cut.”
Conditioning rollers also have
a two-speed drive (750 or 640
RPMs), allowing farmers dealing
with lighter crops to slow the rollers down to minimize the amount
of material thrown around.
Farmers who buy a new Discbine
also get a choice of six different
knife options, ranging from one
with a seven degree bevel, which
minimizes the amount of dirt and
debris pulled into the crop material, to one designed to deal better
with rocky conditions.
New Holland also offers a biomass kit for the new Discbines to
accommodate cutting typical tall
and coarse biomass crops. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
BY DAN PIRARO
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
39
Machinery & Shop
New Holland has re-engineered its line of Discbines, introducing the 313 and 316 for 2014 with 13- and 16-foot cutterbars.
Seth Doman points to the ShockPro
hub, which has splines designed
to shear off and protect the
knife module from damage if an
obstruction is hit. The ShockPro
hub can be replaced in about five
minutes at a cost of $50.
40º seat swivel
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The New CommandView™ III Cab
The new 313 and 316 Discbines
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By Dan Piraro
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/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Machinery & Shop
Tire technology
Trelleborg introduces TM Blue IF tires
Built to tough environmental standards, Tm Blue tires offer larger footprints
and more traction because of their Increased Flexion design
By Scott Garvey
“
B
lue is the new green,”
says Andrea Masella,
marketing
manager,
agricultural and forestry tires, at Trelleborg, as he
stands in front of a large blue
tractor tire in the centre of
his company’s display at Ag
Connect Expo. “When we say
green, we just think of forests.
But blue refers to the whole
environment. When we say
blue, it’s something good for
the whole environment and for
the end user, the farmer.”
The blue concept
Of course, the company isn’t
actually going to start producing tires that are coloured blue.
The display was meant, in part,
to highlight the environmentally friendlier manufacturing
process Trelleborg now uses
in all its factories around the
world. According to Masella,
the new cleaner manufacturing
process is driven in large part by
tightening environmental regulations in Europe.
“This is the systematic
approach to all our operations
in order to constantly reduce
their environmental impact in
support of Trelleborg’s corporate responsibility,” said Marco
D’Angelo, industrial director,
Business Unit Agri and Forestry
Tires, in a corporate brochure.
But Trelleborg’s TM Blue concept isn’t just about manufacturing procedures. The tires
rolling off those cleaner assembly lines are meant to deliver
environmental benefits in the
broadest possible sense, even to
soils in the farm fields they’re
put to work in.
TM Blue tires have redesigned
inter-lug terracing which gives
them better self-cleaning features. That means the tire travels farther in wet soils before
filling with soil and they clean
themselves in a much shorter
distance if they do, reducing the
transfer of soil onto roads when
leaving a wet field—another
aspect of their environmentally
friendly tag.
The company introduced
two new sizes at the show in
its largest TM1000 High Power
line of IF (increased flexion) tires:
710/75R42 and 650/65R34. IF
tires are designed to carry more
load at the same air pressures or
the same load at lower air pressures and have increasing sidewall
flexing characteristics.
The TM Blue line of tires have
footprints up to 10 per cent larger than competitors’ premium
offerings, according to the company. And there is an eight per
cent increase in traction to go
along with that. “When we talk
about performance, it has a wider
footprint, which leads to lower
c o m p a c t i o n , ” a d d s M a s e l l a .
“That leads to sustainable farm-
ing. Increased traction leads to
reduced fuel consumption and
lower exhaust emissions levels.”
Lower operating costs
In this case being good to
the environment has a payback.
“In the end, the farmer can
save up to $3,400 (in operating
costs),” Masella goes on.
But he acknowledges the retail
price of TM Blue tires will be
higher than most others. It’s in
those reduced operating costs
where farmers will make up
for that. “We say these are the
cheapest tires on the market,” he
says. “Of course, when you buy
it there is an extra, added value.
But what you spend you will save
in the long run. I recommend
these tires to people with big
tractors that use their machines
for many years and are looking
for productivity.”
Because of the deflection of
the casing and the shape of lugs
on TM tires, they transfer less
vibration to the tractor, according to Trelleborg’s marketing
information, which leads to less
stress on the operator over the
course of the day and a more
stable machine.
That’s another part of the blue
concept,” says Masella. “It’s good
for the environment, but it’s also
good for our customer. That’s a
win-win concept.” †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
photo: scott garvey
Andrea Masella of Trelleborg says the company’s new TM Blue IF tractor
tires provide benefits to the environment and the farmer who uses them.
Ag tire fact 1
M
odern ag tires have
a lot of information imprinted on
their sidewalls.
Trouble is, you often need to do
a little decoding to figure it all
out. Here’s what some of those
numbers and letters mean.
Tire size data on modern radial
tractor tires is actually a blend of
both metric and Imperial information. For example, consider
the size rating 800/70R38 on the
tire in the image.
The “800” is the width of
the tire from sidewall to sidewall in millimetres. To convert
that to inches, divide it by
25.4. Next, “70” is the aspect
ratio. It refers to the height
of the sidewall, expressed
as a percentage of the tread
width. “R” indicates the tire
is a radial. Radial tires have a
more flexible sidewall with a
stiffer tread face than bias-ply
tires (also known as cross-ply),
which have the opposite structure with stiff sidewalls and a
softer tread face. And “38” is
the rim diameter in good old
Imperial inches.
Also on the sidewall you’ll
find another important pair of
data number and letter mark-
ings, but they’re in smaller
script and are usually found
close to the rim edge. The first
three-number marking is a tire’s
maximum load rating, which
is expressed with an internationally-recognized Load Index
number. For example, 173,
which means the maximum
tire load should not exceed
6,500 kilograms. Most ag tire
manufacturers have charts on
their websites that provide the
exact weight amounts associated to load rating numbers.
The actual weight, in this case
6,500, may also be imprinted
on the sidewall near the Load
Index rating.
Following that three-digit
number is the Speed Index (SI).
It indicates the maximum safe
speed for the tire at the associated load rating. For speeds
of up to 40 KPH, the SI code
is expressed as a letter and a
number. For example, an A5 rating means the tire is good for 25
KPH, and A8 indicates 40 KPH.
For speed ratings above 40 KPH,
a single letter is used. “B” indicates a 50 KPH rating. SI ratings
are also used on automotive
tires. †
Scott Garvey
Ag tire fact 2
A
g tractor tires are broken down into different RCI (Rolling
Circumference Index) groups. The rolling circumference
refers to the distance travelled with one full revolution
of the tire. All tires in each group have a similar rolling
circumference and similar OD (overall diameter). The larger the RCI
Group number, the larger the tire diameter and rolling circumference.
The top — and newest — RCI Group number currently is 50.
Tires in that group have a rolling circumference of 269 inches and
an OD of 91 inches
On an MFWD tractor, there is usually a difference of five RCI group
numbers between the tires on the front axle and those on the rear,
which is why these machines are called “five-step tractors.” However,
some models can be different. So don’t go ahead and order replacement tires based solely on that rule of thumb. †
Scott Garvey
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
41
Machinery & Shop
TIRE TECHNOLOGY
Firestone introduces “next generation” radial tires
Firestone’s IF and VF radials meet the needs of modern farm machines
BY SCOTT GARVEY
“
I
t’s (the ability to carry) load at
the lowest possible pressure,”
says Ken Allen, president of
Firestone’s ag tire division, as
he discusses the advantages of new
IF (improved flexion) and VF (very
high flexion) tire designs. “That’s
the biggest consideration. Keeping
in mind, at the same time, the
genetics (of GM crops) and how we
ensure the durability of the tire.”
Even with ever-increasing size and
weight, and stiff stubbles left behind
by new crops, farm machines need
to put down a light footprint.
TIRE TECHNOLOGY
The IF and VF technologies that
have emerged in the ag tire marketplace are what tire companies see
as the way forward in dealing with
those modern challenges. Firestone
management considers their new
AD2 (Advanced Deflection) tire
offerings in the IF and VF categories
a “next generation” technology. IF
tires can carry up to 20 per cent
more weight with the same inflation pressure as a standard radial.
And the VFs take that advantage to
40 per cent.
Allen thinks tires based on
Firestone’s AD2 technology can
even compete with tracks when
it comes to minimizing ground
pressures. “We think our AD2, IF
technology comes very close, is
equal to or better in some cases
than what a track does in terms of
ground contact pressure,” he says.
“The interesting thing is, remember, gross pressure is not contact
pressure. That might be the fallacy of tracks because you have
to understand where your highest
contact pressure is. With a track,
it’s usually under one of the idlers
or the boogie. So when we look
at a dynamic contact pressure, we
see, actually, an advantage with
low-pressure tires.”
But in order to make today’s
low-pressure tires work on large
machines, there is a need for
increased tire sizes. “The equation
is we have this load, and we have
this pull we’re going to put on it,
and we’ve been typically trying
to be in around a 10 to 14 p.s.i.
range,” he continues. “That, itself,
will drive what the tire has to be in
terms of size.”
To keep pace with machine evolution, tire sizes are now growing
faster than ever before. “Typically,
over the past several decades
about every 10 or 15 years we’ve
increased the OD (overall diametre) of the drive tire, and we’re in
a situation now where we’re going
two RCI (Rolling Circumference
Index) groups. We’ve only done
one at a time in the past several
decades. Group 48 was introduced
in late 1999, 2000. Now we’re seeing group 49 and 50 introduced
at the same time. We have to be
able to provide not only the load
capability, but something that can
efficiently transfer that amount of
horsepower to the ground.”
In January, Firestone had several
new tires to introduce that management believes will go a long way
toward meeting those challenges in
all tire-size groups. Included in the
announcements were new radial
implement tires with IF and VF
designations. They will be able to
support implements at lower inflation pressures, provide larger con-
tact areas and use steel belts for
increased stubble resistance.
“For implements, we’re bringing
in a product that is steel belted
to prevent stubble penetration,”
explains Allen. “Our compounds
are a little bit harder in that case for
stubble resistance. For larger tires we
have a product, like truck tires, that
is steel bodied and steel belted for
added durability. Stubble has been a
problem for a long time. That corn
is becoming like a tree, almost.”
For sprayers, the company introduced its All Traction RC tires.
Available in both IF and VF designations, these tires now incorporate wider, curved and deeper tread
bars. The wider width better distributes the load while the curved
design makes for a smoother ride
at high speeds. And these tires are
capable of a maximum of 70 kilometres per hour. The 20 per cent
increase in tread depth makes for
longer wear life.
Finally, the company introduced
its CFO (Cyclical Field Operations)
combine tires. They are designed
specifically to handle the high and
changing load conditions typical of
combines. But they won’t be available until the fall of 2013.
“If we take a look at the conventional radial tire, it has to have an
increase in pressure to take a load
bump for cyclical field operations,”
says Allen. “Our new CFO tire can
have that load bump at the standard pressure in an IF.”
“When we look at technology of
the future,” Allen says, “it’s trying
to understand from an agronomy
standpoint what exactly the soil
wants to see or doesn’t want to see,
in terms of pressure.” †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
PHOTO: SCOTT GARVEY
Firestone’s new IF (Increased Flexion) Cyclical Field Operations combine
tires, which will be available this fall, offer the ability to handle changing
load conditions at lower internal pressures. They’re engineered using the
company’s new AD2 technology.
The Leader in Overlap Control
SeedMaster now offers Auto Zone Command™ & FLIP™ (Full Last Implement Pass)
as standard features on its on-board and tow-behind tanks.
Auto Zone Command prevents costly input overlap by
instantly stopping product flow in up to 10 metering zones.
The more zones you control, the more money you will save.
FLIP received the coveted
2013 Gold Innovation Award at
Canada’s Farm Progress Show
FLIP is SeedMaster’s patented mapping software that activates
Auto Zone Command and halts product flow the first time
openers pass through an overlap area. Product is then applied
on the last pass, preventing double seed and fertilizer from
being applied, and avoiding any seedbed disturbance.
The Big Payback – Savings using a 10 zone, 80 ft. drill
Year
Acres
Overlap%No Zone
Command
Overlap%Auto Zone
Command
Savings
per Acre
Cost
Savings/
Total Acres
1
5,000
7.30%
1.20%
$6.38
$31,903
FIRST SEEDED PASS
FLIP VIRTUAL PASS - LAST SEEDED PASS
NO OVERLAP
CONTROL
10 ZONES OF OVERLAP CONTROL
3200 sq. ft.
320 sq. ft.
$6.38 Cost Savings/Acre/Year x 5000 Acres
Based on $104.60 /Acre Average Input Cost = $31,903 Input Savings/Year
4
5,000
7.30%
1.20%
$6.38
$31,903
5
5,000
7.30%
1.20%
$6.38
$31,903
TOTAL 5 YEAR SAVINGS = $159,515
For more information on SeedMaster’s Auto Zone
Command or FLIP contact your local SeedMaster dealer
or call 1.888.721.3001.
The diagram illustrates how SeedMaster’s Auto Zone Command turns
off seed and fertilizer to each zone during headland passes. Without
Auto Zone Command, the large area in red would receive double inputs,
wasting considerable dollars.
The Leader. By Design.
™
1.888.721.3001
™

www.seedmaster.ca
42
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Machinery & Shop
2014 MODEL INTRODUCTIONS
T6 tractors get CVT
transmission option
New Holland adds two new CVT-equipped
models to its T6 tractor line
BY SCOTT GARVEY
N
PHOTO: NEW HOLLAND
The T6 line grows by two models for 2014 with the addition of CVTequipped 110 and 131 horsepower models. Engine output goes north by
up to 33 horsepower when under load, boosting ratings to a maximum
of 143 and 163.
ew Holland is stretching its T6 tractor line
for 2014 with the
addition of two new,
four-cylinder models, the T6.140
and T6.160 offering 110 and 131
engine horsepower. The Engine
Power Management system controlling the Interim Tier 4 emissions-compliant diesels gives a
33 horsepower rise under load,
providing maximum 143 and 163
horsepower ratings respectively.
Owners will need to pour diesel exhaust fluid into the bluecapped tank on the tractor’s side,
but the company claims efficient
engine design coupled with an
SCR emissions system will lower
fuel consumption by up to 10
per cent.
The star feature on these two
new models, though, is the company’s Auto Command, CVT
transmission, which has been
available on the larger T7 tractor
line for a while. “We’ve had the
Auto Command transmission for
Bigbrother.
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reach Brandt is known for, with the higher capacity that your farm operation needs. This new addition to the Brandt GrainCart
line-up partners a large 1300 bushel tank with the technology of a 22” HP auger for fast unloading speeds – up to 620 bu/min.
Factor in our premium build quality and renowned durability, and you’ve got one powerful reason to move up to Brandt.
That’s powerful value, delivered.
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For product details and dealer
locations, call 1-866-4BRANDT
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Brandt is celebrating $1billion in annual
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by offering special rebates throughout 2013.
Visit thanksabillion.ca for details.
about four or five years now in
our T7 tractors,” says Luke Zerby,
a product training specialist. “It’s
perfectly seamless with that variation in speed in 1/10 mile-perhour increments.”
However, the design of the Auto
Command transmission that gets
dropped into the T6s is a little
different than what bolts into
the larger T7s. A company press
release describes it as a “further
refined version of the CVTs found
in T7 Series tractors.” It gives T6
tractors a range of speeds from
0.02 m.p.h. to 31 m.p.h.
“How the Auto Command
works, what makes it a little different and so successful, is it
has three basic components in
there, a synchronized gearbox,
a compound planetary gear and
a hydrostatic unit,” continues
Zerby. “With the combination of
those things working together, we
have the best-in-class mechanical efficiency. We can really get
all that horsepower delivered to
the ground and we also have that
infinite range capability with the
PHOTO: SCOTT GARVEY
Product training specialist Luke
Zerby described the features of the
Auto Command transmission to
members of the media at an event
in Texas in August.
BY DAN PIRARO
Bizarro
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
43
Machinery & Shop
The new T6 tractors get Horizon cabs that include the same SideWinder control
arm and IntelliView monitors common to the brand’s larger model lines.
T6 tractor hoods tilt up to 90 degrees to allow maximum access to engine components.
hydrostatic unit working together
along with that.”
The Auto Command uses Active
Start-Stop technology. That means
the transmission will hold the tractor in place when stationary and
allow for easier starts on a grade
when pulling something heavy.
The 31 m.p.h. version reaches
maximum speed at only 1,750
r.p.m. to keep engine revs down
while roading. “We also have 11.6
m.p.h. in reverse,” adds Zerby.
New Holland sees the CVT’s
ability to fine tune ground speed
without changing engine r.p.m. as
a key element in putting up highquality hay bales, making these
T6 tractors an integral part of
the company’s dairy and livestock
equipment group.
“There’s two things needed to
make high-quality hay and make
consistant bales, day in and day
out,” explains Zerby. “Consistant
PTO speeds and a consistant
amount of crop going into that
baler. With the Auto Command,
we have the ability to change our
ground speed on the fly to make
that consistant bale.”
“There’s nothing new about
CVT transmissions, per se,” adds
Abe Hughes II, New Holland’s
vice-president of sales and marketing for North America. “It’s
something that’s been around
for a long time. But what we’re
trying to do at New Holland
is bring them down and make
them available in nearly every
one of our mainline products.
I think it’s important to understand that it allows you to save
fuel, because you’re not using
too much (engine r.p.m.) where
you don’t need it.”
To make the operator more
comfortable, these tractors get the
brand’s upgraded Horizon cab,
which boasts interior sound levels as low as 69 dBA. Controls
are grouped on the adjustable SideWinder II armrest, the
same one larger tractors get. The
SideWinder includes an IntelliView
III or optional 10-inch IntelliView
IV monitor.
Hydraulic capacity on the T6
line is 33 GPM, enough, the company claims, to take advantage
of the CVT’s ability to work at
low throttle settings and still provide adequate fluid flow to implements. †
GRADING
vERSATILITY
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Because DIRT IsN’T aLWaYs IN THe RIGHT PLace
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Contact us today at 785-738-6613 and we’ll rush you complete product information.
LANDOLL CORPORATION
1600 W. 8th Street / Beloit, KS 67420 / (785) 738-6613
www.landoll.com/icon
FEMA
Landoll reserves the right to change models, designs, and/or specifications without notice or obligation.
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
Land-143C.indd 1
7/10/13 3:28 PM
44
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Cattleman’s Corner
HERD MANAGEMENT
Beef producer promotes
value of hybrid vigour
Part 3 of 3
WHAT IS HYBRID VIGOUR?
BY ANGELA LOVELL
D
on Guilford, who farms
near Clearwater in
southwest Manitoba,
says there is no doubt
in his mind that to make ranching
sustainable in the future, producers need to plan their herd to meet
a specific market.
“You need to capture every
opportunity,” says Guilford. “You
have to think about what breeds
you want to produce, assess your
financial and land resources, target a market and design the herd
to produce for that market.”
Guilford says many producers
miss a huge opportunity by not
introducing hybrid vigour into
their breeding program. “I think
that crossbred vigour is important
because with a properly managed
program and for no added cost, on
a 300-head cow herd there’s nearly
$50,000 added value from increased
production related to hybrid vigour as opposed to a straight bred
cow herd,” says Guilford, who was
one of the speakers at the 2012
Manitoba Rancher’s Forum.
But the crossbreeding program needs to be properly
planned. “Quite a few operations have a cow herd that is
every colour under the sun,” he
says. “And if they are doing that
they are probably compromising about 50 per cent of that
$50,000.”
Hybrid vigour is the boost to
production achieved by crossing
different breeds. It’s expressed
as the percentage amount by
which the crossbred progeny is
better than the average of the
two parent breeds. Direct hybrid
vigour is the extra performance
in calf weight achieved in the
first cross of two purebreds.
Maternal hybrid vigour is the
extra performance from breeding a crossbred cow (known as
a F1 female) with another purebred breed.
Guilford’s own research in producing F1 females showed him a
Hereford heifer crossed with an
Angus bull adds 15 to 18 per cent
higher weaning rates in the firstcross calf. If that F1 female is then
bred to a totally different breed
such as Charolais or Simmental, it
boosts weaning rates by around 22
to 23 per cent.
“If a first cross adds 15 per cent
to the weaning weight of a 500-lb.
calf, at $1.50/lb. that’s $112.50,”
says Guilford. “On 300 calves
that’s $33,750 a year. A three-way
cross adds 22 per cent, which is
$49,500 on 300 calves.”
The degree of hybrid vigour
depends on the specific traits
and genetic diversity of the
breeds being crossed. It is a system that can allow a producer
to almost custom design calves
by changing the sire breed to
meet certain markets. The pro-
gram can be used to produce
calves with either more marbling or a leaner, heavier carcass, for example.
A FEW CHALLENGES
There are some challenges
with the system, however, one
of which is finding a supply of
replacement F1 females that are
a first cross and have not been
interbred with multiple breeds.
Keeping the different groups separate to maintain the integrity
of the crosses requires additional
management.
Guilford says the main problem with a hybrid vigour system
is that it’s hard to achieve alone.
He believes producers need
to work together to develop a
system that benefits everyone
involved.
In order to get hybrids, producers need to start with
straight-bred cattle, although
they don’t need to be purebred,
says Guilford. If needed, those
straight-bred cattle can later be
sold as replacement animals to
someone else with a crossbreeding program. Each person along
the chain has to specialize for the
system to work well.
“You can’t be everything and
you have to decide ‘am I going
to be the guy that raises terminal cross steers and heifers
for the finishing market?’” says
Guilford. “Or am I going to
raise F1 females to supply to the
PHOTO: DON GUILFORD
Don Guilford has a two part breeding program — with the main focus
on producing purebred breeding stock, but a second component that
producers crossbred F1 females well suited for commercial producers.
cow-calf guys? Or am I going
to be a straight-bred breeder
to supply the F1 females to the
guy to breed them to Charolais
bulls?
“When I was raising hybrid heifers people would say ‘why would
you sell those great heifers.’ And
I said, ‘I can’t be everything; I am
the seedstock producer.’”
NEED TO FIND VALUE
Probably the hardest part of
making the system work is building in value for everyone along
the chain. “If I am the primary
guy who is using straight-bred
Herefords crossed with Angus
bulls to get that F1 female, I
need to be compensated for raising those straight bred cattle to
provide the F1’s,” says Guilford.
“If someone else takes those F1
cows and breeds them with a
Charolais, he is the guy getting
the $50,000 added advantage.”
Guilford’s own collaboration with another producer in
a hybrid vigour program didn’t
pan out at that time because of
low cattle prices and market volatility. It was difficult to pencil
out adequate compensation for
both operations.
But, although primarily a
purebred operator, he continues to build his program slowly
over the years, using two important management tools.
After taking holistic management courses more than
20 years ago, he has gradually
switched his grazing program
to a planned rotational system
that has extended the grazing
» CONTINUED ON PAGE 46
BETTER BUNKS AND PASTURES
Don’t put away calf creep feeders just yet
Studies show even a basic creep feed can add 30 to 60 pounds to calf weaning weights
PETER
VITTI
A
cool spring coupled with
good rains throughout
the summer grazing
season has kept most
pastures across Western Canada
lush and many cows milking so
well, their calves haven’t been
eating much creep feed. But as
most pastures rapidly mature by
September, autumn-creep can
help increase pre-wean weight
gains on calves.
At a time when leaves turn colour, the most promising calves
are growing at a rapid rate.
Unfortunately, they cannot meet
their total energy and protein
requirements simply by nursing
their mothers. Cow milk production, which supplies less than 50
per cent of the calves’ requirement for energy and protein, is
slowing. Moreover, calves cannot supplement lower milk consumption with forage nutrients,
because mature grasses are lying
down significant amounts of
low-digestible forage fibre. That
translates into lower amounts
of energy and decreased protein
content.
No Creep (1)
Creep (2)
Calculations
A
Weaned calf weight (lb)
558.5
600
Input
B
Expected Creep feed used
0
270
6 x 45
C
Expected Creep weight gain (lb)
0
41.5
270/ 6.50
D
Predicted calf price at weaning ($/lb)
1.50
1.50
Input
E
Predicted calf value ($)
837.75
900.00
558.50 x 1.50
600 x 1.50
F
Value of Expected gain ($)
0
62.25
900 – 837.75
G
Creep feed cost per lb ($)
0
0.147
325/2204
H
Total cost of creep feed ($)
0
39.69
270 x 0.147
I
Return per head due to creep feed ($)
0
22.56
62.25 – 39.69
ADDED GAINS
A practical feed option to fill
this nutritional shortfall is for
calves to consume a complementary amount of creep feed in the
next couple of months ahead of
weaning. Most university creep feed
studies have demonstrated that preweaned calves on a modest plane of
mature pasture nutrition, nominal
cow milk intake, and supplemental
creep feed can potentially maintain
a daily body weight gain of about
1.8 to 2.5 lb./head/day. As much
as 30 to 60 lbs. of this gain can be
traced back to creep feeding.
Commercial creep feeds are balanced for 12 to 18 per cent protein
and dietary energy of 65 to 75 per
cent TDN (total digestible nutri-
ents). Their formulations often
contains high-energy grains (such
as corn and/or barley), added modest-energy feed byproducts (such
as wheat- middlings and/or corn
distillers’ grains), and concentrated feed proteins such as soybean
or canola meal. A mineral-vitamin
pack as well as a growth promotant such as monensin sodium is
also added to the final mix.
Most producers know creep feed
intake by even hungry calves can
remain relatively low (zero to two
lb./head/day) when pasture conditions are still lush and cows are
milking. Creep feed consumption
begins to change once these pastures start to mature — less grass
and less milk. Creep feed intakes
rise rapidly (six to eight lb./head/
day) and then levels off. Creep
feeding calves grazing higherquality pastures have a lower feed
efficiency of nine to 11 lbs. per lb.
of gain compared to a creep feed
efficiency of five to seven lbs. of
feed per lb. of gain when calves are
out on mature fall pastures.
The sight of healthy spring calves
milling around half-full feeders
in midsummer and still gaining
acceptable weights, can lead some
producers to save on feed costs
and forgo creep feeding until next
years’ calf crop. However, they may
be quitting too soon.
PENCIL IT OUT
The following table illustrates
the financial proposition of an
autumn creep feeding program for
calves weaned prior to the arrival
of the first snowflakes.
In this example, let’s say we
are raising a group of spring
calves and nursing cows (producing less than 10 lbs. of milk,
daily) and both cows and calves
are grazing medium-quality pastures. The parameters of this
creep feeding program: (1)
45-day program (Sept 1- Oct.
14), (2) creep ration @ $325/mt
(3) creep feed consumption @
6.0 lb./head/day, (4) feed efficiency = 6.50, (5) calves weaned
at 600 lbs. and sold @ $1.50/lb.
and (6) No weight-market discount. (Optional).
In this example, there was a
nearly $23 positive return per
head due to autumn creep feeding. Individual financial results
will vary due to the actual cost of
purchased creep feed, and final
calf prices, and other non-financial factors.
And of course, the success of
any autumn creep-feeding program really depends upon the
health status, actual bodyweight
and growth potential of spring
calves. Creep diets don’t even have
to be fancy to lead to greater revenue and profits from calves. †
Peter Vitti is an independent livestock nutritionist
and consultant based in Winnipeg. To reach him
call 204-254-7497 or by email at [email protected].
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
45
Keepers & Culls
Interesting talk by Allan Savory
LEE
HART
I
f you have 22 minutes and
want to help save the planet,
go online and listen to a
TED talk earlier this year by
long-time grazing specialist Allan
Savory. Savory, best known for
developing the Savory Grazing
System under holistic resource
management principles, gives a
simple, straightforward explanation of what he sees as a “disaster”
facing the world, and an effective solution using livestock in
planned grazing systems. It is a
very compelling talk.
Savory’s approach is somewhat
controversial. Some, or perhaps
many, believe in it as an
economical and sustainable
system for managing pasture
and farmland. Others such as
columnist Hyland Armstrong in
a two-part report earlier this year
questioned whether the Savory
Grazing System produces the
results it claims.
Those columns did draw interest from readers. Some people felt
Armstrong was out to lunch, and
others said they had similar suspicions or doubts. I come right
down the middle — I know the
grazing and farm management
system has supporters and detractors, but I’m not knowledgeable
enough to know if there is a right
or wrong answer.
ALMA (The Alberta Livestock
and Meat Agency) brought Allan
Savory to Calgary this summer
for a morning lecture. I wasn’t
able to attend because I was out
of town, but I did follow up and
found a link to Savory’s TED Talks
presentation on the NewStream by
Meristem website. NewStream is
an electronic newsletter produced
by the Alberta Farm Animal Care
program by Meristem Information
Resources. There is lots of good
information there about a wide
range of animal care issues, but
in the August 22 e-newsletter you
will find the link to Savory’s presentation. Go to www.meristem.
com/newstream and when the
NewStream page opens click on
the Farm Animal Care button and
it will lead you there.
You can also Google “Ted Talks
Allan Savory” and find the link to
the presentation there. Whether
you buy in to the whole Savory
Grazing System idea or not, I
found it a very interesting presentation as Savory explains what
he sees as a global problem of
“desertification” and how proper
livestock management can reverse
a devastating trend. It certainly
makes you think.
NEW HIDE SPRAY
FROM ELANCO
Elanco must have been listening
to JBS Canada officials in August
talk about the importance of clean
cattle and reducing the risk of bacteria being introduced to the meat
packing plant. Elanco has introduced a pre-harvest body wash
for cattle that kills many common
bacteria before they are processed.
Elanco Food Solutions Canada
has received Health Canada registration for Finalyse for pre-harvest
use on Canadian beef. Already
used in the U.S., Finalyse is the
first pre-harvest hide wash for live
animals in Canada. It is a foodsafety intervention applied as a
solution in the holding area before
cattle enter a harvest facility.
“Finalyse gives producers another
tool in their food-safety tool box,”
Patrick Mies, senior technical
consultant at Elanco said in a
release. “Because cattle can carry
some traces of bacteria, research
shows Finalyse can substantially
reduce the amount on their hides,
decreasing the risk of exposure to
the packing facility.”
Finalyse is a mixture of bacteriophages that specifically targets
E. coli O157:H7. Bacteriophages
are naturally occurring organisms
found in soil, water, and human
and animal intestinal tracts.
SECRET TO LONG MARRIAGE
Below is a short story about the
secret to a long marriage, and the
story was sent to me by Linda
Johnston (nee Hummel) who I
went to school with 55 years
ago… and I don’t think I have
seen her since. We connected
on Facebook and by email so we
keep in touch from time to time.
She is a one-time farm girl (now
retired) who is often sending
along recipes and she also has
a good sense of humour. I don’t
know if this story is true, but
since I married an Italian I just
thought it was funny.
Italian Secret to a Long Marriage: At
St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in
Aberdeen Scotland, they have weekly
husbands’ Marriage Seminars. At the
session last week, the priest asked
Giuseppe, an Italian immigrant who
had lived in Aberdeen for many years,
and was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary, to take a few minutes and share some insight into how
he had managed to stay married to the
same woman all these years.
Giuseppe replied to the assembled
husbands, “Wella, I’va tried to treat
her nicea, spenda da money on her,
but besta of all is, I tooka her to Italy
for the 25th anniversary!”
The priest responded, ‘Giuseppe,
you are an amazing inspiration to
all the husbands here! Please tell us
what you are planning for your wife
for your 50th anniversary?’ Giuseppe
proudly replied, “I gonna go pick her
up.”
DUPONT’S NEW
SILAGE MANUAL
DuPont Pioneer dairy, livestock and nutrition specialists
have consolidated production
and management information
about silage into one manual
now available to growers, students, university extension and
anyone interested in learning
more about forages.
The Pioneer Silage Zone
Resource Manual serves as a source
of relevant silage-production
information covering many topics
including: planting, growing, harvesting, storing and feeding. “The
goals of the manual include helping customers meet the feed needs
of their livestock operations and
answering growers’ questions,”
Robert Larmer, DuPont Pioneer
livestock information manager
said in a release. “Whether it is
alfalfa haylage or corn silage or
high-moisture corn, this wellrounded resource helps growers
get the most out of their forage.”
The Silage Zone Resource
Manual, formerly known as
the Pioneer Forage Manual, is
described as a go-to resource for
university staff members as well
as producers. Backed by the expertise of 11 dairy and livestock specialists, local agronomists and an
experienced nutritional sciences
team, this manual provides is a
timely resource for anyone interested in learning more about silage
production and management. For
more information on The Silage
Zone Resource Manual or to order
a copy, contact your local Pioneer
sales rep or visit this website to
order online www.pioneer.com/
silagezonemanuals. †
CONTACT US
Write, E-mail or Fax
Contact Cattleman’s Corner with comments, ideas or
suggestions for and on stories by mail, e-mail, phone or fax.
Phone Lee Hart at 403-592-1964
Fax to 403-288-3162
Email [email protected]
Write to CATTLEMAN’S CORNER,
PO Box 71141 Silver Springs RPO, Calgary, Alta. T3B 5K2
FENCING TIPS
Handy homemade wire unroller
BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
W
hen building
barbed-wire fence,
a person needs an
easy way to unroll
the wire. Many methods have been
used such as putting the roll on a
stationary bar and taking the end to
pull out along the fenceline. People
often put a bar or pole across the
end of a pickup, putting the roll
on the bar/pole, attaching the end
of the wire to the fencepost, and
driving along to unroll the wire.
A simpler and easier method
was devised by 69-year-old Idaho
rancher Lynn Thomas last year
when he needed to build several miles of fence with limited
crew and waning strength. He says
necessity was the mother of his
invention.
He looked at a home-made
unroller that a neighbour had
given him. This was a device
attached to the rear bumper of a
pickup. It was a U-shaped piece
of metal a little bigger than a roll
of barbed wire, with a metal rod
in the middle to hold the roll of
wire. The idea behind this creation was to park the pickup and
pull the wire out from it, or drive
the pickup along the fenceline to
unroll the wire, with the end of
the wire fixed to a post.
The problem with this method
was that Thomas’ ranch terrain
(steep sagebrush-covered mountainsides) did not lend itself to either of
these applications. Wire unrolled in
this manner tends to catch on sagebrush, creating a jerk, and then the
spool of wire unrolls too fast — with
backlash and entanglements.
Thomas created his own version
by taking one of the round, flat
metal plates from the neighbour’s
device as a starting point.
“A person could make a similar
plate out of a piece of 3/8-inch
metal, cutting it in a round circle
about the diameter of a roll of
barbed wire, putting a hole in the
center that a bar will fit through,”
he says.
Thomas put a tire rim around
the outside of the metal plate;
the roll of barbed wire sits on the
flat metal plate with the tire rim
around. “Make sure the rim does
not stick up beyond the plate. It
must be flush so the wire won’t
catch on the rim,” he says.
The rim Thomas used was from a
13-inch tire off a small car. A propersize rim could be easily found at
a wrecking yard. “It works best to
leave the tire on the rim, to give it
more stability,” he explains.
“The main reason this works so
well is that the friction between
the metal plate and the unrolling
wire (the roll sitting on the plate
with a bar through the center),
creates a little bit of drag that acts
like a brake. The wire won’t go
spinning off it, out of control.”
This past year, he used this
method to unroll the wire for about
four miles of five-strand barbed
wire fence — more than 20 rolls of
wire. “In all the unrolling, the wire
pulling over the tire and rim did
not leave any cuts in the tire rubber
and very little abrasion.”
He suggests placing the unroller
at the spot you want to start, making sure it’s flat, even if you have
to put some rocks under the lower
edge. Every stretch of fence should
be unrolled either on flat ground or
heading downhill; it doesn’t work
to pull the wire uphill.
The roll of wire is set on the flat
plate, with a metal bar or small
rod put down through it into the
ground. You can pound the rod into
PHOTO: HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
“The basic components of the wire unroller — a tire, a steel plate, and a
steel rod down the centre.
the ground a few inches to hold it
in place. At first Thomas tied the
bar back with a wire to another rod
pounded into the ground — about
four feet behind it — to help hold
it in place, but soon found that it
stayed in place very well without
having to be tied back.
This device stays in place even
when pulling some long runs —
even the whole roll (1/4 mile) if you
make sure the final end of the wire
doesn’t come off the spool. Even in
uneven, brushy terrain, two people
can readily pull the wire — with one
person starting down the hill with
the end of the wire, and the second
person taking hold about 75 or 100
feet back of the front person to give
some added pull.
“With this device, unrolling this
much wire, I never had any problems. We’ve never had anything
that worked as well as this — and
we’ve built more than 20 miles of
fence over the past 45 years on
this ranch,” says Thomas. †
Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact her at
208-756-2841.
46
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Cattleman’s Corner
ANIMAL HEALTH
An ideal year to watch for lungworm infection
ROY
LEWIS
ANIMAL
HEALTH
E
very year in later summer
and early fall we see a few
outbreaks of lungworm in
cattle on pasture. This is
especially true if the year has been
wet and the life cycle of the lungworm can be completed. This year
could be the perfect storm in parts
of Western Canada.
The life cycle of the lungworm
(dictyocaulus viviparous) starts
with the animals picking up infective larvae off grass. The ingested
larvae migrate through the intestine into the bloodstream and end
up in the lungs as adults. They
cause damage to the air sacs in the
lungs and the adults live in the
bronchial tubes.
The adult worms produce a tremendous number of eggs, which
are coughed up by the beef animal
and swallowed again. The eggs
pass into the intestinal tract, and
change to larvae by the time they
are passed out onto pasture in the
manure. The entire cycle takes
about one month.
Finding these larvae in manure
is one of the ways veterinarians
can diagnose the condition in an
animal. It takes a different test
than looking for the intestinal
worm eggs.
MANURE TEST
The Baerman technique is done
on a handful of fresh manure and
takes a few hours to run. With
manure samples that arrive in the
PHOTO: ROY LEWIS
These spaghetti-like shapes are adult lungworms in the lung of an
infected animal.
morning, we can give producers an
answer the same day. Most clinics
are set up to run this test in-house.
Finding even one larval lungworm
is significant and necessitates
deworming. It is probably best to
test several manure samples.
Other than checking manure
samples, cattle can be checked
clinically or autopsies can be done
if any have died. Clinically we
may see cattle doing poorly in
spite of good grass conditions.
There is often a number with very
prominent coughing. Some may
have varying degrees of diarrhea.
With herd involvement there is
always great variation with some
doing very poorly, others just a
bit rough-haired, and still others
looking almost normal. Generally
the younger cattle (calves and
yearlings) are most susceptible as
any previous exposure to the pest
yields some immunity.
If we listen to the lungs there
is often evidence of emphysema
caused by the lungworm larvae
damaging the air sacs. We may
even get a secondary bacterial
or viral pneumonia due to the
stress lungs are under. In severely
affected cattle, even with successful treatment, the damage is done
resulting in a poor-doing animal with reduced lung capacity.
Through autopsy an experienced
vet will notice changes to the
lungs and actual adult lungworms
can be found in the bronchial
tubes and trachea. It is very easy
to see how lung capacity has been
diminished.
TREATMENT OPTIONS
The lungworm can survive in
our Canadian winters but most
of the exposure comes from carrier cattle shedding the larvae on
the pastures. Generally there is a
buildup of the pest by midsummer in affected areas. Treatment
with the endectocides such as
Dectomax or Ivomec are somewhat effective and can be used as
part of the routine treatment in
the fall on asymptomatic carrier
animals.
If a clinical diagnosis is made in
the summer we sometimes have
the dilemma of how to treat if cattle cannot be easily rounded up.
The drug fenbendazole (Safeguard)
is very effective against lungworms.
It comes as either a drench, crumble or concentrated feed additive.
The product can either be mixed
in grain and fed in feeders as a onetime treatment or fed in reduced
amounts over three to six days.
For example, feeding one-third the
required amount in grain for three
days in a row. This ensures most of
the cattle will get it.
A technique found successful
is scripting the concentrate into
the trace minerals. This requires a
veterinary prescription as it is not
an approved method for administration. Most cattle, young or old,
consume minerals at their leisure.
This product if put out just before
maximum exposure to lungworm
(that appears to be around July
first in northern Alberta) goes a
long way to reducing the incidence.
The Safeguard is mixed in with
many assumptions. We assume
adult cattle will eat 30 to 60 grams
of mineral per day and that all
cattle will eat minerals at least
every five to seven days. Some
cattle get over treated but at least
there is a very good likelihood
most cattle will get treated and
reduce contamination for the rest
or subsequent animals that may
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 44
BEEF PRODUCER
PROMOTES VALUE
OF HYBIRD VIGOUR
Join us for the first annual Canfax Cattle Market Forum,
a power-packed day of dynamic speakers and discussions
– dedicated to presenting information and perspectives on a variety of
important factors affecting the Canadian Cattle markets.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013 – Registration, Guest Speaker and Reception
7:00pm – 10:00pm
Wednesday, November 27, 2013 – Registration and Plenary Session
7:00am – 5:00pm, includes breakfast, coffee breaks and lunch
Location: Deerfoot Inn and Casino, 1000, 11500 – 35 Street SE,
Calgary, AB (Deerfoot Trail south and Barlow Trail)
For more information and to register online for the Forum visit
www.canfax.ca or call 403-686-8407.
season to nine months on 70
native grass paddocks. His program further maximizes the
nutrients that stay on the landscape by winter bale-grazing cattle on pasture for the other three
months of the year.
Trying to maintain his 225head of purebred Hereford
and 70-head of purebred Black
Angus initially proved difficult
with the grazing system because
he had to separate the herd into
smaller groups to run with the
bulls. That interrupted the rotational grazing cycle.
Instead he adapted his 60-day
breeding program in a way that
allows him to maintain the
purebred herds and simultaneously produce hybrids, which
he now backgrounds and sells
in the fall.
“We do still raise F1 females
but our focus here is still to
raise purebred Herefords and
purebred Black Angus,” says
Guilford. “But what’s happened
is our grass-management program has kind of led us back
into this F1 female market. We
run our Hereford bulls with our
Hereford cows for 21 days and
the same with the Angus cows
on the Angus bulls and then we
flip them,” he says. “The only
purebred bulls we sell are conceived in the first 21 days. All
get reintroduced. On average 80
to 90 per cent of the cattle get
enough medication to clear the
lungworms.
When treating clinical cases,
the symptoms such as coughing
or respiratory problems will actually increase for a few days. This
is because all dead worms need
to be coughed up and swallowed.
Killing all adult worms may cause
a reaction but the animal must be
dewormed so treatment is necessary. Any pneumonia complications may need to be treated with
antibiotics at this time.
PEST WILL PERSIST
Pastures that have had previous
lungworm problems are the ones
we really concentrate on. Over a
few years treatment possibly can
be phased out, but always be on
the lookout for the clinical signs
reappearing.
Bison are very susceptible to
lungworms and the same Safeguard
can be used but under a veterinary
prescription. The endectocides if
given are used at the same rate as
cattle. Horses can get cattle lungworms as well, but all you will see
is clinical evidence as they are a
dead-end host so no larvae will be
shed in the manure.
As an indicator, any time cattle
are coughing have them checked
because summer lungworms on
pasture are a real possibility and
often get overlooked. Bring several
manure samples into your veterinarian if you suspect the pest and
follow their recommendations for
treatment. †
Roy Lewis is a Westock, Alberta-based
veterinarian specializing in large-animal
practice. He is also a part-time technical
services vet for Merck Animal Health.
females born on the second and
third cycle are black baldy. So
they become the F1 females we
sell to other producers.”
PROPER PROGRAM
HAS VALUE
Guilford is convinced a good
breeding program will bring
more money at auction, where
it’s not uncommon for calves
to be sold in small groups or
even in ones and twos as buyers select for certain traits. In
a multicoloured diverse herd
these traits may not be obvious.
Guilford has sold almost 70
head of cattle in just two lots
because he was able to breed
in the uniformity buyers are
seeking.
“One year when I was living
in Alberta we sold our calves
in Lethbridge and our first
draft in the ring was 46 head
because they were all genetically the same and all coloured
the same,” he says. “That tells
buyers there’s a proper breeding
program in place. The next draft
was 23 head, so I basically sold
my calves in two lots. Buyers
continually will pay four to five
cents per pound more for big
groups of calves that are genetically the same — and for the
most part all that is required of
the producer is proper management. Hybrid vigour in many
respects is the only thing that is
free in cattle production.” †
Angela Lovell is a freelance writer based in
Manitou, Manitoba.
BUILDING TRUST IN CANADIAN BEEF
Cattleman’s
Corner
Think inside the truck
You ship your market integrity with every load of cattle
People who golf quickly learn the term
“mulligan.” It’s a chance to take a shot over with
no penalty because you flubbed it badly.
There are no mulligans in cattle shipping. No
chance to do it over if you make a poor decision.
Every load of cattle that goes out the chute
carries with it your personal and industry market
integrity. It might as well have your name on the
side, “I (your name here) made the decisions on
what was loaded, how they were treated and what
you’ll get as my customer.”
Today’s cattle producers have the tools and
knowledge to handle this. But in the rush of a busy
work time it’s a good idea to make sure everyone
on the processing and loading team knows what
is expected. Remember especially new people who
may not be familiar with things.
A CHECKLIST
A simple rule is if you don’t want to walk them
down the main street of Vancouver or Toronto, or
if you don’t want to eat them yourself, don’t send
them. Here’s a reminder of the big issues.
Physically fit. Check animals for any signs of
physical issues that would make animals unable
to handle travel. Things like cancer eye, or an
inability to walk properly. If they can’t handle it
don’t send them.
Drug withdrawal. Simple. Make sure withdrawal
times are met and check before sorting. Feed records
may be separate from animal health so check them
all so there are no surprises down the road.
Broken needles. Check records and identify any
animal with suspect broken needles. Simplest
solution is to slaughter for your own use. If you
do ship them, make sure the next owner or the
processing plant is informed and that this contact
information is recorded.
Support your buyer. If you ship recently
vaccinated heifers or backgrounded calves to the
next feedlot, let the new manager know what
treatments. Something may happen to require an
emergency slaughter. Note the date you did that
for your own protection.
Keep current records. Make sure the withdrawal
check with date is on record. Set an example of
due diligence for your family and staff and your
customer.
Trucking sense. Use accepted transport
standards like checking for possible slippery
floors and proper animal densities.
THE GOLDEN RULE
Remember the Golden Rule of shipping. “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
You would find it an inconvenience or an
annoyance to receive cattle with incomplete or
incorrect records. So make sure you support buyers
with the information to make good decisions.
THE VBP STANDARD
Shipping is just one Standard Operating Procedure
under the Verified Beef Production (VBP) program.
Producers who are interested in continually
improving their production standards are welcome
to take a VBP workshop or review online.
VBP outlines industry-sanctioned practices for
food safety. Provincial contacts for VBP across
Canada are available at www.verifiedbeef.org.
Trucking cattle can have high visibility with the public, and may be the only livestock they get to see.
DEVELOPED BY PRODUCERS. DEVELOPED FOR CONSUMERS
One implant. That’s it. You’re done!
Avoid the inconvenience
and stress of re-implanting.
Do it right. Do it once.
® Registered trademark of Intervet International B.V. Used under license.
For more information, talk to your veterinarian
or call our technical service at 1-866-683-7838.
Merck Animal Health, operating in Canada as Intervet Canada Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA.
MERCK is a trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA.
Copyright © 2011 Intervet International B.V., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. All rights reserved.
REV-XS Grain News QSHere.indd 1
13-06-13 16:26
48
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
The Dairy Corner
NUTRITION MANAGEMENT
Tips to avoid premature
culling of good cows
BY PETER VITTI
GLUCOSE DEFICIENT
any dairy producers
have experienced
this situation at some
point. A particular
cow comes into early lactation with
a lot of potential for good milk production. She may have come into
the barn in a little thin, but starts
literarily pouring out milk. Within
a couple of weeks, she starts to falter in milk production and health,
but after given some intravenous
therapy seems to snap out of it.
Months later, the producer is
forced to dry her up before she
completes an entire lactation cycle.
There is a good chance that she is
a victim of metabolic disease. It is
a trap many promising dairy cows
can avoid with sound changes to
their feeding programs, even before
they calve and began milking.
Early-lactation dairy cows are
more susceptible than modestproducing and later-lactation herdmates to metabolic diseases such as
ketosis and related conditions from
a week to months after calving.
Not all energy requirements for
their high milk production can be
secured solely from the dairy diet.
These cows are drawn into a period
of severe “negative energy balance”
for about six weeks after calving.
In itself, the roads to most
ketosis affecting severely energyshort dairy cows relates back to a
complex chemical imbalance that
occurs when dairy cows cannot
get enough of a basic energy block
called glucose. It is the simplest
sugar in cattle metabolism but it
essentially drives all maintenance
and production activities requiring energy in the dairy cow.
When feed carbohydrates are in
short supply, the dairy cow will
burn her own body fats in which
non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs)
are formed. They can be reconfigured into glucose.
In less demanding times, NEFAs
are commonly used to support
liver functions and to provide fatty
acid chains for milkfat production. However, when the intake of
carbohydrate-derived energy is so
limited, the cow may suffer from
rapid body fat mobilization and
weight loss.
Too many NEFAs are produced
for glucose transformation and a
good portion of these NEFAs end
up as poisonous ketone bodies. It is
these circulating ketone bodies that
lead to a toxicity associated with
both clinical and sub-clinical ketosis in early lactating dairy cows.
M
Research shows that the natural
incidence of overall ketosis in a
well-managed dairy herd is less
than two per cent, while problematic herds exhibit about six per
cent actual clinical ketosis, and
upwards to 60 per cent hidden or
subclinical ketosis.
It is most prevalent at the start
of lactation and traditionally has
been observed in obese animals
(BCS > 4.5), but also can be present in animals of modest body
condition as well (BCS of 3.5).
These cows tend to demonstrate a
strong correlation between rapid
loss of weight after calving and
the presentation of ketosis often
triggered in the post-partum period by poor dry matter intake,
inadequate dietary energy, poor
feed digestibility, digestive upsets
(sub-clinical acidosis) or a hormonal imbalance affecting energy
metabolism in the cow. Some
studies on ketosis suggest that a
general energy deficit/rapid fat
mobilization may occur in dairy
cows even prior to calving.
NEED TRANSITION DIET
In an attempt to prevent ketosis, producers should implement a
proper transition diet (three weeks
before cows calve and three weeks
post-partum) in order to promote
good dry matter intake and a body
condition score of three to 3.5 in
susceptible dairy cows.
Early lactation rations should
be formulated to maintain good
rumen function (re: effective forage fibre) and yet carry enough
available dietary energy to support the demands of increasing
milk production. The goal is to
build up dry matter intake in
early lactation cows to about 3.5
to four per cent of their bodyweight at about nine to 10 weeks
after calving.
Built on a DMI foundation of 11
to 13 kg, the transitional energy
and protein levels are denser than
faraway dry cow diets, but do not
quite match the early lactation
diets. A typical close-up ration
should contain about 0.70 Mcal
Nel/kg, 14 to15 per cent protein,
and balanced for the recommended levels of macro-minerals (watch
out for potassium that causes milk
fever) and trace minerals plus vitamins (particularly selenium and
vitamin E).
The actual ration should contain no more than 2.5 to 3.5 kg/
head/d of grain such as barley or
corn. It might also have at least 2.5
kg to four kg of long-stem grassytype hay. Some producers may also
incorporate three to five kg (DM
basis) of the early lactation TMR
diet. It also cannot be overemphasized that any feedstuff fed to these
cows should be highly palatable,
digestible and free of moulds and
mycotoxins. Clean water should
also be always available.
PROPER BUNK MANAGEMENT
Tying it together is good bunk
management for all good feeding programs set up for both
the close-up- and early-lactation
dairy cows. This means each cow
should have enough bunk space
and adequate time to eat. A properly mixed ration should be put
in front of the cows, pushed up
frequently and old feed removed.
It is a matter of implementing
any practice that will get dairy
cows, before and after calving,
to eat that extra kilo of feed
to achieve her essential energy
requirements.
The importance of energy in
all aspects of dairy nutrition,
especially for early-lactation
cows cannot be overstated.
We tend to forget that energy
is the single largest requirement for high milk producing
dairy cows. Failure of providing enough dietary energy often
leads to metabolic disease such
as ketosis in post-partum cows,
and although treatable, some of
the most afflicted cows seem to
disappear from the herd. On the
other hand, prevention with
good transition diets and assurance of good energy status in
the dairy herd throughout the
year underlies healthy cows and
their production of consistent,
large volumes and profitable
milk. †
Peter Vitti is an independent livestock
nutritionist and consultant based in Winnipeg.
To reach him call 204-254-7497 or by email at
[email protected].
tHe straigHt
storY on cattle
since waY back.
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SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
49
Cattleman’s Corner
THE MARKETS
Lower feed grain prices improve cattle outlook
JERRY
KLASSEN
MARKET
UPDATE
T
he North American cattle industry is poised for
positive economics over
the coming year with
stronger feeder cattle prices and
a rebuilding of feedlot equity, as
the two-year reign of historically
high corn and barley prices comes
to an end.
The U.S. and Canada will
replenish coarse grain stocks during the 2013-14 crop year allowing cattle market to function on
regular supply and demand fundamentals. This fall could be the
first significant period of heifer
retention thereby reducing feeder
cattle availability. The function
of the feeder cattle market is to
encourage herd expansion given
the lower inventory numbers.
From the feedlot sector, lower
feeder cattle placements will
reduce beef production during the
winter and spring 2014. Fed cattle prices in the deferred months
appear to be incorporating a risk
premium due to the uncertainty
in beef production.
While retail beef prices continue
to trend higher, rising consumer
incomes bode well for a year-overyear increase in consumer spending
resulting in stronger beef demand.
Packing margins are projected to
remain in positive territory thereby allowing more breathing room
for fed cattle prices and further
enhancing the feeder market.
quality steers averaging 926 pounds
sold for $152/cwt in mid August. At
the same time, similar cattle were
quoted at $137/cwt in the Calgary
region. The Canadian feeder market has been lagging the U.S. but
will come in line once the yearling
run in Western Canada gets into
full swing and Alberta feedlots realize the lower feed grain price structure. I’m expecting calves under
500 pounds to reach over $200/cwt
by calendar year end.
HIGHER HEIFER RETENTION
The U.S. cow slaughter during
the first half of 2013 was marginally
higher than last year. However, the
function of the feeder market is
to encourage heifer retention and
reduce the cow slaughter. In addition
to lower feed grain prices, feeder
cattle values will be supported by
lower heifer availability for feedlot
placements. The U.S. feeder cattle
pool could be down by one million
head from last year due to lower calf
crop and heifer retention.
Feedlot margins have struggled in
red ink for most of 2013, but have
moved into positive territory in
late summer. Alberta packers were
buying cattle in the range of $119/
cwt to $120/cwt in mid-August and
breakeven on many closeouts is
about $118/cwt. Looking forward,
I’m expecting a slow climb in the
fed market into the final quarter
of 2013 and first quarter of 2014
due to lower beef production and
steady consumer demand.
U.S. cattle on feed inventory
has been running three to four
per cent below year-ago levels
which will result in a sharp yearover-year decline in beef production during the fourth quarter.
Remember that summer placements during the past two years
were abnormally high due to the
U.S. droughts and limited forage
production. This year, the market
is experiencing a regular normal
placement pattern in line with
the seasonal tendency. Year-todate U.S. beef production is running only 0.8 per cent below last
year; Canadian year-to-date beef
production is about nine per cent
behind last year. The lower placements will cause cumulative beef
production to further lag 2012 in
the latter half of the year.
SHARP INCREASE
IN FEEDER PRICES
Lower feed grain prices will
cause a sharp year-over-year
increase in feeder cattle prices
this fall. The feeder market will
be further enhanced by stronger
deferred live cattle futures, which
have potential to incorporate a
risk premium due to the uncertainty in beef production.
Feeder cattle availability will
be down from last year due to
increased heifer retention and
lower calf crops. The fed market
is poised to slowly trend higher due to lower beef production
in the final quarter of 2013 and
first quarter of 2014. Consumer
demand is expected to remain stable in the third quarter but jump
in the fourth quarter as consumption increases.
Fed cattle prices will be capped
in the first quarter of 2013 as
consumer spending slows and limits the upside in wholesale beef
prices. †
Gerald Klassen analyes 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 [email protected] or call
204 899 8268.
www.farm-king.com
Cut it, Ted it, Rake it, Move it.
BARLEY DOWN $50
With feed input costs being the
largest factor influencing feeder
cattle prices and feedlot margins,
as of mid-August, feed barley in
southern Alberta was trading in
the $230/mt to $235/mt range —
down over $50 from the highs in
spring. Canadian barley production is expected to exceed 9.0 million metric tonnes (mt), up from
8.1 million mt in 2012. U.S. corn
production could exceed 14 billion bushels, up from the droughtstricken crop of 10.8 billion bushels last year. U.S. corn is being
offered into the Lethbridge area
at $235 for fall delivery and this
will keep a lid on the Canadian
feed grain prices. Looking forward, I wouldn’t be surprised to
see Lethbridge barley under $200
delivered to the feedlot during
September and October.
Canadian yearling prices during
the fall are expected to trade $20/
cwt higher than last year due to
the weaker feed grain complex.
The USDA has reported record
high prices for 800-pound feeder
cattle at certain auction markets
in the Midwest as feedlots factor
in the lower costs per pound gain.
For example, in Nebraska, top-
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50
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Cattleman’s Corner
RANCHER’S DIARY
TLC helps save a sick cow
HEATHER
SMITH
THOMAS
JULY 22
S
potty Dottie is coming
along nicely in training.
We got her used to going
with another horse; I rode
with young Heather and Dottie
in the little pasture above the corral. We started riding both horses
daily on the low range. I’ve also
been getting her ready for shoeing,
smoothing her feet with the rasp,
placing a shoe on her foot and tapping on it with a hammer.
Andrea turned hay Sunday afternoon, and Lynn got it baled and
hauled. On Monday Dani rode
with Andrea and me (Dani on
Ed, Andrea on Sprout and me
on Breezy) four hours to check
troughs on the middle range —
the longest ride this year for eightyear-old Dani. We worked on
some springs that were no longer
running into the troughs.
That evening when Andrea
drove past our cows on her way to
Em’s graduation from drivers’ education class, she noticed Freddy
lying by herself, very sick. She’d
lost a lot of weight — relapsed
from whatever was wrong with
her earlier. Lynn and I brought
the cow and calf to the corral and
took Freddy’s temperature. It was
105 F. We gave her LA-200 and an
injection of Banamine to reduce
the fever. She’s not eating much,
and not chewing her cud. The
next day her temperature was still
high (104 F) so we gave her more
Banamine. By the third day her
temp was almost down to normal,
but she still wasn’t eating much,
or chewing her cud.
The next day her temp was
higher, so we switched antibiotics,
giving her Baytril daily for four
days. Her temperature is normal
now, but she’s not eating. Yesterday
we gave her baking soda and water
by stomach tube, in hopes to normalize the pH in her rumen. She’s
very weak and dehydrated. Today I
soaked two pounds of alfalfa pellets
and some beet pulp, ran the mush
through the blender, and we gave
her several gallons of water and
“mush” this morning by stomach
tube, and again before dark.
This afternoon Bob Minor got
called to to do the weed washing
at a huge fire that started near
Challis (60 miles away). All vehicles coming and going from the
fire must be power-washed to prevent spread of weed seeds. Andrea
went to help him.
PHOTO: HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
Lynn uses a stomach tube to get food into a cow that was doing poorly.
AUGUST 2
Andrea has been at the fire
camp for 11 days, working from
6 a.m. until dark. We’ve been taking care of her younger kids, with
Emily’s help.
We continued to keep Freddy
alive with feedings by stomach
tube, morning and night, but with
her rumen not working, nothing
much was going through. The
third day of “instant meals,” we
also gave her a gallon of mineral
oil and a quart of castor oil, in
an attempt to get her gut working again. Within 36 hours her
rumen was “empty” and she was
passing manure again! She was
still terribly weak, but started eating and drinking, and chewing
her cud.
She dried up her milk a couple
weeks earlier, when she first
got sick, but we kept her calf
with her for company. They are
happy being together, and less
stressed than if we’d separated
them. But as soon as she started
eating again, Freddy came back
to milk production and her calf
started nursing again. She’s so thin
we considered separating them,
but decided the psychological
benefits of keeping them together
outweigh the physical drain on
the cow. We moved them to the
pen by the calving barn, where
there’s some green grass.
We don’t have enough hay this
year, so we bought 55 tons from a
ranch 100 miles away. The son and
grandson hauled it in two trips. It’s
grass/alfalfa and reasonable price
($185 per ton, delivered) considering the high price of hay this year.
AUGUST 18
A couple weeks ago Alfonzo
and John Miller moved their cattle from the middle range to the
high range. The grass is really
dry; usually it’s still green on the
high range when the cows go
there, but not this year. Our creek
is low. We had to shut off water
on the upper place. Michael and
Carolyn can’t use the ditch that
goes through their corral so they
are piping water into a tank for
their horses.
The fire near Challis is finally under control. The fire camp
disbanded yesterday and Andrea
came home. The skin on the
inside of her knees is gone. She
always wears shorts, working outside in hot weather, because her
grafted skin has no sweat glands;
she overheats if her legs are covered. She managed OK until a
new supervisor at the fire camp
insisted she wear long pants. The
combination of heat and abrasion
against her delicate skin rubbed
the grafted skin off. We’re hoping she doesn’t develop infection.
Some people don’t understand
the impairments and limitations
of a burn survivor. †
Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her
husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact
her at 208-756-2841.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
51
Home Quarter Farm Life
SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Connected to the community
Friends will share the joys and sorrows of the season with you
ELAINE
FROESE
M
any young folks
are eager to climb
on the bright-yellow school bus,
and see the friends they missed
over the summer. Farmers are
focused on getting a late crop
off, praying for an open fall
(autumn) and no frost until late
October.
Once the busy season has
ended, more jobs on the farm
will appear as they always do,
but what attention are you giving to your friends in your community?
These are the loved ones
beyond your family who will
listen to your heart’s cry, and
share your joys and sorrows
of the season. Unfortunately,
many farmers are neglecting
to take care of the friendships
they nurtured in their younger
years. Friendships need time
and energy to thrive and grow,
just like your crops do.
In the next three months,
what is your rallying cry to create deeper friendships beyond
the farm gate? Without friends
and an emotional support group
you risk becoming isolated, and
mentally distraught. As a farm
family coach I have asked several farm men who they go to
beyond their spouses, and they
typically say “no one.” This puts
a lot of pressure on the spouse
to meet needs that are some-
perspective on what is happening in our lives and our farms.
They can act as sounding boards
to bounce ideas off. Watching
our friends’ lives unfold, gives us
new approaches and perspectives
for families, marriages, parenting
and farm activities.
Good friends can give both
positive feedback and con-
Community relationships can
reassure that we are not alone,
and that people care about us
times better met by a community of people.
Don’t miss out on the fun of
fellowship with folks. Laughter
is great medicine. Friends can
share their stories and help
you realize that you are not
alone in the challenges that
2013 farm storms have brought
your way.
Friends are great for fun, relaxation, renewal and leisure activities. They provide an excuse for
a much-needed break from farm
labour. Friends can provide fresh
insights and give us an outside
structive criticism (gently with
kindness) when we can’t see it
ourselves. Community relationships can reassure that we are
not alone, and that people care
about us. They can help hold us
up emotionally and in practical
ways when the storms of life
hit. In community the celebrations are sweeter, and the tragedies are more bearable.
Some daughter-in-laws (DILs)
take some heat from the farm
family when they seek to socialize
more often than the in-laws feel
is necessary. This tension is really
about different core values around
connection and friendships
beyond the family unit. This fall on
October 15 we are starting a sevenweek series of telecoaching where
you can call in confidentially, and
find ways to deal with farming’s
in-law factors. I’ll be sharing tools
for conflict resolution and role
clarity as it relates to mothers-inlaw, daughters-in-law, fathers-inlaw and sons-in-law. It’s part of our
research for my next book which
I am writing with Dr. Megan
McKenzie. Go to www.elainefroese.
com/contact to send me a message
that you would like to be part of
the coaching teleseminars.
If you need counselling, consider calling your province’s
farm stress line to have a professional listener help you to
get clarity about what the next
steps are for better emotional
health. In Manitoba at www.
ruralsupport.ca there are many
ways to connect and chat. Call
their line at 1-866-367-3276 for
counselling or stress relief.
In Alberta call 1-877-303-2642
the Alberta Mental Health Help
Line.
In Saskatchewan call 1-800667-4442, the farm stress line.
In British Columbia call
1-800-784-2433, the crisis intervention line.
In any situation… call God. He
is always online.
Perhaps you don’t need a counsellor, you just need a good hairdresser… you’ll talk and you’ll
leave looking good!
Do it.
1. Take the first step to invite
folks over.
2. Start a potluck group and
hang out on a regular basis with
other families.
3. Call your best friend from
high school, and share stories.
4. Go to your neighbours.
5. Join an activity group like a
book club, bowling, dance or
golf, Bible study.
6. Volunteer with a new community group. September is the
time they are looking for commitment.
7. Let go of your farm job list,
start making friendship more of a
priority… or do stuff together like
canning or fencing.
8. http://therecoveringfarmer.
blogspot.ca is Gerry Friesen’s
encouragement to farmers. Check
it out. †
Elaine Froese, CAFA, CHICoach writes from
the farm in Boissevain, Man. She wishes
everyone a safe and productive harvest. Call
1-866-848-8311 for coaching or speaking
events. Go to www.elainefroese.com/
contact to share insights and feedback.
Watch for “Farming’s In-law Factor”
telecoaching coming in October 2013.
Farm kids reap the benefits of their work
Looking after 100 specialty small animals keeps them busy
BY CHRISTALEE FROESE
O
n a farm near Odessa,
Saskatchewan, the
peacocks are waiting
for their babies to
hatch, the miniature donkeys are
nibbling on hay, the chickens are
drinking water, the pot-bellied
pig is grunting in his pen, the
rabbit is nursing her bunnies,
and Dolly, the miniature horse,
is waiting at the hitching post
as her seven-year-old owner finishes up chores.
Brooke will get to Dolly soon,
but first there are dogs to be fed,
llamas to be watered and guinea
hens to be checked. Brooke and
her 10-year-old brother Jordan
are in charge. With about 100
specialty small animals, it means
that these farm kids have little
time to spare.
The rewards for the hard work
are twofold: the money from selling an animal, and the fun when
it comes time to host friends at
their pet-filled farm.
“We haven’t butchered anything,” said Shawn Muhr, Brooke
and Jordan’s dad. “We sell the animals and the kids get all of the
money.”
The income from the sale of
geese, rabbits, donkeys, horses,
mules and hens has resulted in a
quad for Jordan and several new
wardrobes for Brooke. With bunnies sometimes selling for around
$40 each and geese going for
about $60, the profits for a youngster can be substantial.
“We find doing it this way
shows the kids more respect for
their money,” said Shawn. “When
they buy something for themselves, they really take care of it
because they know how much
work it has taken to get it.”
“We find doing it
this way shows the
kids more respect
for their money.”
— Shawn Muhr
Both Shawn and his wife Tara
have always had a love of animals.
Shawn remembers enjoying birds
as a kid. This led to pet peacocks
and pheasants as well as an incubator located in the family home. As
a kid, Tara could often be found
with the baby calves on her farm
and it was always her dream to
own a donkey.
“My dad wouldn’t let me get
one for the farm, so I knew if I ever
got my own farm, that’s one of the
first things I’d have.”
Tara’s dream came true 12 years
ago when she married her husband
and they bought a farm together.
It wasn’t long before she had her
first miniature donkey, Angel. This
11-year-old grey miniature donkey
is now one of a herd of 35 tiny
horses, donkeys and mules, and
each has a name and is a part of
The Muhr family (l to r) Tara, Brooke, Shawn and Jordan.
the family. The kids part with four
or five a year when they know they
are going to good homes.
Tara leaves all of the animal
duties to the kids, but she does like
to spend time with her donkey
and horse herd.
“I just love coming out here
and walking amongst them,
feeding them treats, playing
with them and just hanging
out,” said Tara.
Shawn, a full-time farm chemical area manager, makes hay for
the animals, but leaves all of the
chores to his children. His real
passion is taxidermy, so he spends
every spare moment of his time in
his on-farm shop.
He has mounted everything
from caribou to grizzly bears, wolverines and elk. With nine freezers
on site, Shawn has enough work
to keep him busy for years.
PHOTO: CHRISTALEE FROESE
“The best part is when people come to get their finished
animals. They’re always happy
because they can’t wait to see
that trophy.”
With all these animals there is
always something interesting to
do for this busy farm family of
four. And they wouldn’t have it
any other way. †
Christalee Froese writes from Montmartre,
Saskatchewan.
52
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Home Quarter Farm Life
Alpacas provide on-farm
business opportunity
Animals are low maintenance, friendly and produce useful fibre
BY EDNA MANNING
W
hen Dennis and
Karen Pashovitz
moved from
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 2001 to farm full
time in the Perdue area, one of
Karen’s goals was for her to be able
to generate some on-farm income.
They decided that raising alpacas
would fit their situation well, and
started with two females, one of
which was bred.
“What I liked about alpacas is
that you shear them once a year
and you get beautiful products
from the luxuriant fibre they produce. The fibre is unique and so
many useful and beautiful items
can be made from it. Plus, I enjoy
attending craft sales, telling people
about the alpacas and showcasing
the products,” she says.
The animals are low maintenance, friendly, and easy to handle and train. They are hardy,
and generally disease resistant,
and being calm and not easily
agitated makes them easy to transport. They require only about two
pounds of hay per day, and Karen
feeds her animals year round with
hay and an alpaca mineral mix.
Alpacas usually give birth to a
single offspring called a cria, generally during the day so there’s no
need to set the alarm clock to check
for nighttime arrivals. They require
shearing every spring. “We also trim
their toes and give them their shots
at the same time,” said Karen. Their
animals produce between three to
six pounds of fibre every year, and
it’s non-allergenic, warmer than
sheep wool and good at wicking
moisture away from the skin.
At shearing time Karen separates
the coarse fibre from the animals’
legs, bellies and necks from the fine
fibre of the sides and back areas.
Felts are made from the more coarse
fibre, while the finest, softest fleece
is used for yarns, and the medium
fibre is used for socks. Karen has an
assortment of hand-knitted items
made from the finest yarns.
The fibre is shipped to several
different mills across the country — Ontario, Alberta and New
Brunswick, and once the fibre
is returned, Karen hauls out her
dye pots.
“The dyeing is super fun. You
never know what kind of colours
you’re going to get and there are
no two batches of yarn that turn
out exactly the same. Each one is
unique.”
Karen has several knitters who
create the handmade items and
says the alpaca socks are the most
popular, being excellent for hunters, skiers, or anybody with cold
feet. The handmade teddy bears
and rugs she has are brought in
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Dennis and Karen Pashovitz say that alpacas are a perfect fit for them.
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from Peru. She sells her products
out of her on-farm store called
Prairie Fire Alpacas — The Little
Country Alpaca Gift Shop, a
beautiful cedar structure that was
brought in and renovated. It’s perfect for her two-day open house
she holds every September. This
will be the third year she’s held
the event which is promoted by
Alpaca Canada. “Visitors can drive
to any of the participating alpaca
farms on this weekend, see and
feed the animals and check out
the products. We have a concession set up so people can stop for
a burger and some refreshments or
spread out a blanket on the lawn
and enjoy the afternoon.”
The couple’s herd has grown to
about 40 alpaca, and Karen was
thrilled when one of her male
alpacas, called Tornado, won the
Supreme Champion at a show in
Miranda is a successful model, business owner and
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and believe I have it all, but the truth is I don’t. At 37, 5’5
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Since losing her husband to
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Karen Pashovitz in her gift shop.
Red Deer in 2010. “We’ve since sold
Tornado, and he’s been an eighttime Supreme Champion and won
at every show he went to,” says
Karen. One of her future goals is to
continue breeding show animals.
Although she was a city girl,
Karen says she’s adapted well to
living on the farm. Besides raising alpacas, the couple farms over
4,500 acres of wheat, canola and
lentils, and she feels the farm is a
great place to raise their two children, Tasjia and Jessy.
For more information, contact
Dennis and Karen Pashovitz at
306-237-4442; email dkpashovitz@
yourlink.ca. Their open house is on
Saturday and Sunday, September
28 and 29 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
at the Pashovitz farm near Perdue,
Sask. †
Edna Manning writes from Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
grainews.ca /
53
Home Quarter Farm Life
FROM THE FARM
Breakfast ideas for the new school year
DEBBIE
CHIKOUSKY
B
udget-friendly foods
that pack nutrition have
been my focus for years
now. There are many
foods that are consumed out of
habit that really do not help
to stretch the grocery budget.
Then there is the nasty problem
of weaning children on to
cheaper foods that are actually
more nutritious while being
economical. One of these habit
foods is cold, boxed cereal.
Many years ago when boxed
cereals jumped from around $3 a
box to $6 a box I stopped buying
it. The biggest dilemma then was
how to get the children to eat other
alternatives that they weren’t really
used to. That is when I learned an
important lesson about parenting.
The more involved the children
were the better they accepted new
meals.
Weekday breakfasts during
the school year are always hectic. Our children helped with
chores before school and had
to be on the bus for about 7:30
a.m. Even when we switched to
home-schooling for the younger
ones, the older children chose to
finish high school in town. So,
morning foods had to be handy,
filling and not time consuming
to prepare.
The children and I would sit
down with the calendar and they
each took turns picking a breakfast
for the school days. It is fun now
to listen to them complain about
how awful their siblings’ choices
were but the rule was that since
everyone had a day to have their
favourites they ate without complaint on the others. This worked
remarkably well.
Cold
cereal
replacements
included Baked Amish Oatmeal,
Peanut Butter Oat Bran, Cream
of Wheat cooked with milk and
served with homemade canned
peaches with a sprinkle of brown
sugar, Red River Cereal and
Oatmeal. I read the labels on
the instant oatmeal and decided
that health-wise I was no further ahead on added sugars than
on cold, boxed varieties so we
just added things like homemade
applesauce or frozen berries to
cooked quick oats. Eggs are by far
our favourite breakfast food so
they were allowed to choose eggs
every second day with the “new”
cereal choices to fill in the rest.
BAKED AMISH OATMEAL
1/2 c. butter (melted)
2 large eggs
1/4 c. honey
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. nutmeg OR cinnamon
2 c. milk
3 c. oatmeal
Beat together all ingredients
with mixing spoon; pour into
greased 9x13-inch pan. Bake at
275 F oven for 30 minutes or until
done. Serve with milk. For morning convenience this recipe can be
made ahead and frozen in serving
sizes. It thaws quickly.
Along with their new favourite
hot cereals we also learned about
freezing homemade pancakes and
waffles for quick toaster foods. I
came across a very economical
variety online for freezer waffles
at http://onceamonthmom.com/
better-than-the-freezer-aisle-copycat-eggo-waffles/. The author estimates her cost at half of the storebought ones.
FREEZER WAFFLES
2 large eggs
2 c. flour
1-3/4 c. milk
1/2 c. melted butter
1 tbsp. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. mini chocolate chips,
blueberries or strawberries
Preheat waffle iron. Beat eggs
in large bowl with a whisk until
well beaten and fluffy. Using the
whisk, mix in flour, milk, butter,
sugar, baking powder, salt and
vanilla, just until smooth. Add
in chocolate chips, blueberries or
strawberries. Pour mix onto hot
waffle iron. Cook until golden
brown. Makes 12.
Another idea that worked very
well was overnight foods. These
are ones that can be mixed up
the night before and baked
the next morning. These ideas
would also serve very well to be
used on Sunday mornings when
everyone is trying to hurry to
church.
OVERNIGHT FRENCH TOAST
1 pkg. (8 ounces) cream cheese or
soft goat cheese (chevre), softened
1/2 c. sour cream
18 slices bread
1/2 c. jam
1 tsp. vanilla
6 eggs
1/4 c. cream
1-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
In a bowl, beat cream cheese
and sour cream. Spread about
three tablespoons on each slice
of bread. Combine preserves
and vanilla; spread over cream
cheese mixture on nine slices.
Top with remaining bread,
cream cheese side down, to
make a sandwich. In a large
bowl, whisk the eggs, cream,
and cinnamon; pour over bread.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Remove from the refrigerator
30 minutes before baking. Bake,
uncovered, at 350 F for 45-50
minutes or until top is lightly
browned. Yield: 9 servings.
Our family has also found that
instead of traditional syrup we
enjoy homemade Pancake Sauce.
PANCAKE SAUCE
2 c. milk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 c. sugar
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine milk, egg and sugar.
Heat till a skin on the milk. Whisk
in cornstarch and vanilla till thick.
Makes a great topper.
With these new ideas for making
mornings economical and nutritious the new school year should
be off to a grand start. We were
pleasantly surprised at how much
more satisfying these foods were
and how fast the children became
accustomed to not having boxes of
cereal. The best part was that we
saved on our grocery budget at the
same time which is always a blessing when raising a family. †
Debbie Chikousky farms at Narcisse, Man.
Canadian Young Speakers
for Agriculture Competition
Join the young Canadians who are speaking up for agriculture.
Are you passionate about agriculture? Do you enjoy sharing your views with others?
Join the upcoming Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture competition.
As part of this unique competition, contestants prepare a five-to seven-minute
speech on one of five agriculture-related topics and present it in public.
Cash prizes are available for two age groups: Junior (11 to 15) and Senior (16 to 24).
The 29th annual Canadian Young Speakers
for Agriculture competition takes place on
Saturday, November 2, 2013 at the Royal
Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, Ontario.
For competition rules, a list of speaking topics
and accommodation assistance please visit
www.cysa-joca.ca.
The application deadline is Sept. 30, 2013.
Canadian Young Speakers
for Agriculture.
It’s your time to shine.
54
/ grainews.ca
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Home Quarter Farm Life
SINGING GARDENER
Make some zucchini or almond milk
Plus, who remembers ‘The Happy Gang?’
TED
MESEYTON
O
ut in the backyard I,
Ted, am not looking
for a four-leaf clover,
a rabbit’s foot, or a
horseshoe. I’m in the garden where
opportunity not only knocks, but
also grows. Speaking of knocking,
I recall a radio program during my
younger years that delivered its
own style of knocking.
By the way! Have you ever made
zucchini milk or almond milk?
I’ll tell you how! Although I’m a
singer, I neither sing in the bathtub
nor in the shower. Sufficient to say
I’ve been known to practise my
yodelling trills while singing: “O
It Must Be the Tomatoes,” my
song for men’s prostate health,
wellness and awareness. This
is more than enough to fill my
Singing Gardener page.
A TOUCH OF RADIO
NOSTALGIA
As mentioned in a previous
column I was once upon a time a
disc jockey. Does anybody within my family of Grainews readers recall a CBC radio program
called “The Happy Gang?” It aired
for over 20 years every weekday
Monday through Friday during
the noon hour.
“The Happy Gang” went off
the airwaves in 1959 and by
that time had produced nearly
4,900
programs,
averaging
about 200 broadcasts a year and
they were all done live. Bert
Pearl was “The Happy Gang’s”
founder and its longest-serving
MC and host. He was known
as “that slap-happy chappy, ‘The
Happy Gang’s’ own pappy.” He
planned programs in detail to
avoid any unexpected surprises.
Each broadcast opened with
the sound of audible knocking,
followed by the question, “Who’s
there?” The response was: “It’s
The Happy Gang!” That signature
double knock was made by Blain
Mathé, who would get close to
the mike and rap twice on the
back of his violin. Bert Pearl then
invited the gang to “C’mon in,”
and the program began with the
entire group singing their theme
song, which Pearl had written.
There were cheerfully blended
skits and comedy routines. The
show always featured plenty of
songs, many of which became
familiar to listeners. During
the Second World War, they
performed the iconic “There’ll
Always Be an England” every day.
Kay Stokes was the organist and
I’ve sometimes wondered if she’s
related to any of the founders of
Stokes Seeds at Thorold, Ontario.
Of special note was the presence of the Happy Gang at the
official launching of CBC’s 50,000watt radio station CBK in Watrous,
Sask. On that particular occasion
the Gang actually did its broadcast
in the evening rather than at its
regular noon hour slot. Among
songs aired for this special commemoration was a tune they
called “The Barrel Polka” (note
the word “beer” is missing). That’s
because it was forbidden to say or
sing “beer” on air at that time. The
Gang closed that special broadcast
by singing a tribute song titled:
“Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.”
I, Ted, listened a lot here in
Manitoba during an earlier time
to CBK at 540 on the AM dial.
Between programs there was a
20-seconds station break when the
announcer would say something
such as: This is CBK Saskatchewan
with transmitter at Watrous and
studios in Winnipeg. Later, CBK
studios were opened in Regina.
Most “Happy Gang” broadcasts
were performed before live studio audiences in Toronto but the
group also toured Canada in 1947
and then again in 1951. During
the show’s heyday, some two million listeners tuned in to “The
Happy Gang” daily. Here’s something almost unheard of way back
then. “The Happy Gang” was also
carried for a time on the Mutual
Network in the United States.
MAKING ZUCCHINI MILK
Although it’s called milk, it’s
actually more of a purée. Peeling
zucchini isn’t necessary unless
you don’t want a yellow or greentinged concoction using the
entire courgette. Cut zucchini
Ted tells how to make zucchini milk and almond milk. There’s a whole lot more too, so join the Singing
Gardener on his page of words.
into small chunks and remove
large seeds but leave the centre
pulp. Liquefy zucchini pieces in a
blender or food processor. Freeze
in empty juice cartons or glass
jars without overfilling. If you’re
among the folks with allergies to
dairy products, zucchini milk is
an excellent alternative especially
in recipes.
If you’re short on freezer space
large-size, mature zucchinis will
store for months. Wipe the outer
skin clean with a cloth dipped in
a mild dishwater solution. Place
zucchini without touching each
other on paper in a cool, dry spot.
Turn them weekly for air circulation. You can then make zucchini
milk as needed. I’ve kept zucchini in good condition for many
months this way. Garden folk hate
to see anything wasted and are
very clever at using zucchini in
multiple ways from breads, cakes
and muffins to casseroles, soups
and stir-fries.
Here’s one example. To make a
zucchini sauce, add three cups of
peeled, chopped zucchini into a
saucepan. Stir in 1/2 cup of apple
juice or apple sauce (or a combo
of both). Cook until tender and
mash. This sauce may also be used
in cookies, quick breads and pancake recipes. The sky’s the limit!
Has any Grainews reader successfully made yogurt using zucchini
milk? If so, let’s hear about it. Any
extra zucchinis on hand are well
loved by chickens and make a
good source of free-range food for
egg-laying cacklers.
ALMOND MILK
Poppa Irv Wegleitner picks Evans cherries with assistance of his fouryear-old granddaughter Zoey Chodachek from La Salle, Man. Now
retired from Manitoba Hydro, Irv devotes his time to daily family life,
prayer, gardening, cooking, travelling and as Fourth Degree Faithful
Navigator with Knights of Columbus Assembly 2140.
… and fresh raw almonds can be
purchased but both are pricey. If
you choose to make your own, try
the following. Start with a small
batch the first time. A general
rule of thumb is to use three to
four cups of water for each cup of
almonds. This can be adjusted to
suit how thick or thin you want it.
You’ll also need a kitchen blender,
a nut milk bag or jelly bag and a
touch of pure vanilla added at the
end. Soak almonds in water for
at least six hours or longer as this
step results in better extraction.
Place almonds and water in the
blender. Let the machine do its
thing until a nice milky-looking
liquid is observed.
Place the nut bag or jelly bag
in a deep container securing the
top with clothespins. Pour in the
liquid and let it gradually seep
through. Or, to hurry things along
you can squeeze the bag time and
again until all liquid is removed.
Think of it as though you are milking a cow. This isn’t fast food. It
takes time. Once you’ve extracted
all the almond milk, keep refrigerated and use it up within a couple
or three days.
EVANS SOUR CHERRY TREE
… was developed in the 1950s
and introduced out of Edmonton
to Prairie fruit growers. It’s known
for hardiness and abundance of
good-quality fruit. The outer skin
is a sparkling deep red with brightyellow interior flesh. Although a
bit tart, Evans fruit is excellent
stewed and makes wonderful
cherry juice. Some concentrated
juice from cooked beets can be
added to produce a deeper cherry
juice colour. If sweetness is desired,
add powdered stevia leaf available
at health food stores. A glassful of
cherry juice daily may help ease
arthritic joint pain and related
discomfort.
“We had about five deer in the
yard waiting for the corn to get
big so I fixed that by putting Mig
welding wire around the garden
about three feet high. I tied the
wire to conduit pipe posts used
by electricians. Or use small stick
posts about one inch square and
three to four feet long placed 50
feet apart. The deer come up to it
and when the wire touches them
they jump back as they can’t see
the wire. I’ve done this for five
years now and so far no deer in
the garden. They used to use piano
wire for the fence but you can buy
a small roll of Mig welding wire
at Peavy Mart, Princess Auto and
all welding stores. It is very fine,
making it hard to see. Pull the
wire as tight as you can. George
McKenzie, Brownvale, Alta.”
More recently, George wrote the
following: “I had a problem with
ravens coming in my big drive shed
and crapping on my equipment. I
spent hours trying to clean up the
mess as it is hard on the paint. Then
I thought if I put a radio in the shed
they would think someone is in
there. Well that was the answer; no
more birds even after three months.
Now it is four months and not
a bird in the shed and when the
neighbours come over they think
there are some people in the shed.
NO! Just a radio. Cheers. — George
McKenzie.”
FROM CARSTAIRS, ALTA.
Irene Rowntree writes: Hi Ted
— You did an article in an April
Grainews edition on how to keep
deer out of a garden. Right now
we are desperate. I cannot believe
I sent my edition to my friend
without copying it. To our horror
the moose or deer ate most of the
peas and corn a couple of nights
ago. It is time to deal with them.
Perhaps you can tell me how to
retrieve it. Thanks Ted, keep up
the good articles and I will not
give away something that I feel
will be beneficial.
Ted’s reply: The deer control
method Irene refers to appeared in
the Grainews, April 15, 2013 issue.
Here’s the information again and
already sent to Irene.
This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener
and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie,
Man. A hearty laugh, restful sleep and
gardener’s nook are the very best things in
the doctor’s book. In case you’re wondering,
a gardener’s nook is an out-of-the-way
corner or secluded spot for homegrown
vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers. Thanks
for reading Grainews and remember to keep
your subscription current. So much more to
tell in future articles. My email address is
[email protected].
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