Document 2025642

Volume 41, Number 6 | MARCH 3, 2015
$4.25
PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER
www.grainews.ca
Seed survival still stumps
By Lee Hart
W
hat’s killing those
canola seeds before
a seedling can get
out of the ground?
That could very well be a 64 million or perhaps billion dollar
answer for Prairie farmers looking
at seed priced at about $10 per
pound and anywhere from a 20
to 50 per cent seed mortality rate.
But you can’t necessarily blame
seed or equipment for the poor
performance.
Even with good-quality seed and
properly adjusted equipment used
to seed the crop into almost ideal
seed bed conditions, the results
of crop emergence are all over
the board, says Blaine Metzger, a
researcher with Alberta’s AgTech
Centre in Lethbridge.
The AgTech Centre has looked
at the issue in the past couple
of seasons, and hopes to continue the work to pinpoint what
is affecting canola seed survival,
says Metzger.
“The fact is there appear to be so
many variables,” says Metzger. “We
have used one type of opener on
replicated plots to seed canola and
in one plot the emergence was 80
per cent, and then used the same
piece of equipment on another
plot and the emergence was 50 per
cent.” In fact, in their research they
Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240
have used eight different openers
all on the same air seeding system
— from minimum to high disturbance openers — and found the
same degree of variability.
“You can get losses due to seeding depth and seed placement,
seed that didn’t germinate because
it was mechanically damaged.
Fertilizer damage and seeding
speed is an important factor, too”
says Metzger. “But we found that
losses due to any one of these
factors in itself wasn’t enough to
account for situations where there
was 50 per cent seed mortality. It is
frustrating, because just when you
think you might have something,
the next plot proves you wrong.
So we’re thinking if it is not the
seed and equipment it has to be an
environmental effect.”
Metzer says he had focused on
canola because it has such variable
seed survival. But large-seed crops
such as cereals and pulse crops can
also experience 20 to 30 per cent
seed mortality.
Tracking seed placement and
depth, and counting seedlings is a
labour-intensive process. Metzger
needs as many as eight technicians and summer students spending a lot of time on their knees to
determine where the seeds are and
whether they survived.
» continued on page 4
photo: courtesy of alberta agtech centre
Seed killer still at large. Several suspects behind high mortality, but no arrests
It’s a lot of tedious work to looking into seed survival by digging into a seed row after seeding to count seeds,
measuring spacing between seeds and confirming seed depth.
In This Issue
Wheat & Chaff .................. 2
Features . ........................... 5
Crop Advisor’s Casebook . 8
Columns ............................ 16
Machinery & Shop............. 24
Cattleman’s Corner .......... 30
Stubble soil moisture map
les henry page 16
Build a better workshop
FarmLife ............................ 33
scott garvey page 24
Cardale
seeddepot.ca for free seed offer
Consistent Yields & Protein
Less Sprouting* - Weathering
Best Fusarium Performance
Semi Dwarf
Faster Harvest Speeds
Easier Straw Management
*Better Falling Numbers
Working Hard to Earn Your Trust
2
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Wheat & Chaff
STAMPEDE
Diversification
BY JERRY PALEN
Leeann
Minogue
I
contact us
Write, Email or Fax
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hearts
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.
t’s getting really close to that
time of year. One last round
of farm policy/ag research/
farm management meetings,
a little more time to change spring
plans and then it will be time to
get back outside and get things
ready for seeding.
Some farmers prefer harvest
— the relief of actually getting
that crop safely into the bin and
finally knowing how the growing year has turned out. But for
other farmers, it’s all about seeding. Before you actually get that
seed in the ground, anything
could happen. This could be the
year that every field is a winner,
all of the weeds and diseases
can be beaten and the prices are
high come fall. Every spring is a
chance to start again — this time
with a lottery ticket that’s sure to
be a winner.
I’m sure it’s this feeling that
keeps us out here year after
year. It’s like having one more
chance to make New Year’s resolutions, but this time, actually
keep them.
There are a million things that
can go wrong once that seed gets
into the field, but for this one glorious short time, there’s still the possibility that everything will go just
right. For now, we’ve got a bumper
crop ahead with perfect weather.
No bugs. Hail free. Enjoy it.
Seeking advice
If you’re still finalizing your
seeding plans, Lee Hart is willing
to help. He’s interviewed several
experts for advice about seed survival.
Typically, Lee Hart chooses a
topic and then goes to a handful
of farmers for their advice, and
turns it into what we call the
“Farmer Panel.” But in this issue,
Lee has gone to the experts —
researchers and agronomists who
focus on seed survival — and created an “Expert Panel.” Lee has
found experts from across the
Prairies and gleaned a lot of good
information.
In early February, I went to
the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers
regional workshop in Regina.
This year’s meeting was well
attended, and all of the southeast
Saskatchewan farmers in the room
seemed very interested in the presentation on fababeans.
One of the big reasons for this
interest in new crops became very
clear when the talk turned to
apanomyces.
Across the Prairies, disease is
becoming more prevalent, and
especially so in areas where it’s
been wetter than usual. (I know
that many Grainews readers have
not had the wet weather we’ve
been living with in the southeast.
See for yourself on Les Henry’s
annual stubble moisture map on
page 16). This wet weather hasn’t
been great for everyone, but it has
been great for apanomyces — a
fungus that has been causing troubling yield losses in field peas and
lentils. (We’ve got a story on aphanomyces by Melanie Epp on Page
9. She opens that story with exactly
the news you don’t want to hear:
There are no in-crop solutions to
root rot in peas and lentils.)
Aphanomyces
isn’t
new,
said Faye Dokken-Bouchard,
Saskatchewan Agriculture’s provincial plant disease specialist, at
the SPG workshop. “It’s just that
we didn’t find it or didn’t have it
in Saskatchewan until 2012.”
“The last few years, when we’ve
had wetter conditions overall,
have allowed the pathogen level
to build to a level where we’re
seeing symptoms in the field and
we’re taking more notice of it.”
Aphanomyces are also known
as water moulds. “As the name
suggests, they like, or in fact they
need to have water in order to
survive and to complete their life
cycle. In the absence of water, or
in the absence of a susceptible
host, they will survive in the soil,”
Dokken-Bouchard said. Some
research says they can survive for
up to 20 years.
So, we’re going to be dealing
with this one for a very long
time. Bunyamin Tar’an, a plant
breeder at Saskatchewan’s Crop
Development Centre, told SPG
delegates that the long-run solution to aphonomyces in peas and
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Leeann Minogue is @grainmuse
Lisa Guenther is @LtoG
Lee Hart is @hartattacks
Scott Garvey is @machineryeditor
It’s almost time to get things tuned up and ready to go.
SOME FOOD FOR
ROTATION THOUGHT
OLD
ROTATION
NEW
ROTATION
1
Cereal
Cereal
2
Oilseed
Oilseed
3
Cereal
Cereal
4
Lentil
or Pea
Lentil
or Pea
1
Cereal
Cereal
2
Oilseed
Oilseed
3
Cereal
Cereal
4
Lentil or
Pea
NOT Lentil
or Pea
Source: presentation by Dr. Bunyamin
Tar’an, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers
regional workshop, Regina, Sask.,
February 2015.
lentils will be genetic — new varieties with inbred resistance. But in
the short run? Your best defence
is a long rotation. And this means
a rotation even longer than you
might be thinking.
Short rotations are not a good
idea with wet weather, Tar’an
said. “Under these conditions,
you really have to modify the way
you do rotations on your farm.”
Then he put up a slide that he’d
labelled “Some food for rotation
thought.”
On the left hand side of the
chart (shown in the table), he put
up a generally recommended fouryear rotation: cereal, oilseed, cereal,
then lentil or pea. “This is the
old rotation under normal conditions,” he said. Then he put up the
right side of the table. Switching
pea or lentil with something else
in the second turn through the
four-year cycle could work “to cut
the cycle of the root rot disease.”
By Year 8 of the rotation, “go with
something else, not lentil or pea,”
Tar’an said. “Unless the forecast is
true, and we get a drier year.”
“Chickpea is a not a host for
this aphonmyces,” Tar’an said.
Fababeans are another option for
farmers looking to bring a new
crop into their rotation.
Tracking an eight-year rotation
is going to require some interesting planning, and some detailed
records. Welcome to the new
normal. †
Leeann
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
Wheat & Chaff
Farm safety
Be the difference as a medical professional
N
ot only do farmers face the
potential for injury on the
farm, they are also at risk
for illness. Farmers face illnesses related to livestock, grain and
chemicals and this exposure doesn’t
stop at the end of the workday — farmers also live in their workplace. It’s this
exposure to the workplace 24 hours a
day, seven days a week that can create specific health and safety concerns
for farmers and their families. Medical
professionals like doctors, nurse practitioners and mental health workers
have a significant role to play in the
health and safety of Canada’s farmers. These professionals are uniquely
positioned to be farm health and safety
champions.
Access to health care in rural areas
can be limited. Oftentimes farmers and
their families have to travel a great
distance to access even primary care.
In many rural areas there is a chronic
shortage of health care providers. These
are a few of the barriers that farmers
and their families face when addressing
health concerns. So what can health
care professionals do to be farm health
and safety champions?
Effective health care of farmers and
their families includes a focus on personal health, wellbeing and illness prevention as well as treating illnesses
and symptoms. Medical professionals
are often perceived as authority figures
with great knowledge. Information
about health and safety means a great
deal when coming from someone who
is trusted and knowledgeable.
Understanding the unique health
and safety issues of farm life is another
means of keeping farm families healthy
and safe. Livestock can cause illnesses
like salmonella and influenza; overexposure to crop protection products
can result in health issues ranging
from cholinesterase suppression to
headaches and diarrhea; grain handling can expose farmers to Hantavirus
and respiratory impairments. Physical
hazards are just one piece of the many
health and safety concerns that farm
families can have. Other health and
safety concerns can include risk-taking behaviours, mental-health issues,
physical activity and the management
of chronic diseases. Asking about these
hazards and concerns at appointments
can lead to discussion of prevention
and management tactics or to a quicker
and more accurate diagnosis of symptoms.
Speaking the same language as farmers and their families is also an important part of being a farm safety and
health champion. For example, understanding what an auger or silo or chaff
are can create a connection and provide an appreciation of the day-to-day
lives of farm families. This also can give
health care professionals an insight
into the variety of hazards faced by
farmers and their families.
Lastly, advocating for the health
and safety of farm families within the
health care field is one of the best ways
health care professionals can be farm
W
Glen Blahey, Canadian Agricultural Safety Association
Canadian Agricultural Safety Association — www.
casa-acsa.ca.
Weather Lore
Agronomy tips… from the field
2014 weather; 2015 agronomy
safety champions. Farm safety and
health champions help keep those who
grow our food healthy and safe and
this, in turn, keeps our society healthy
and food-secure.
CASW 2015 is presented by Farm
Credit Canada and brought to you
by the Canadian Agricultural Safety
Association
and
the
Canadian
Federation of Agriculture with assistance from the Government of Canada
through Growing Forward 2, a federal, provincial and territorial initiative. In 2015, CASW sponsors include
long-time corporate sponsor Farm
Credit Canada, Imperial Oil and their
Esso Branded Retailers, Ag for Life,
Canadian Fertilizer Institute, Dupont
Pioneer, Viterra and Brandt.
Canadian Agricultural Safety Week is
March 15 to 21, 2015. For more information
about how you can “Be the Difference”,
please visit agsafetyweek.ca. †
You might be from the Prairies if...
By Carson Demmans and Jason Sylvestre
Groundhog history
… If the groundhog is seen sunning
himself on February 2, he will
return to his winter quarters for
six more weeks of winter.
hether it was a late start, an unusually wet
growing season or possibly even September
snow, there was a lot of weather in 2014
that most of us would rather forget. But let’s
not do that too soon. Last year’s weather could have lingering consequences that extend into 2015’s cropping plans.
For one thing, the weather resulted in poorer crop
quality across much of the Prairies. So for those anticipating using farm-saved seed in 2015, seed testing
should be considered essential because of the increased
risk of seed-borne infections. Armed with lab results, you
can make an informed decision on whether farm-saved
seed or certified seed fits your need. (In either case, a
seed treatment should be a priority.)
If you go the farm-saved route, be sure to test your seed
for germination and vigour, which could have taken a hit
along with reduced seed quality. Knowing your seeds’ germination results, you can calculate seeding rates that will
improve the density of your stand.
Of course, the risk of higher soil-borne diseases should
also be a consideration after last year’s weather. Rotating
crops is the best solution, but you might need to consider
the use of fungicides too. †
G
roundhog
day,
originally
Candlemas Day, a feast day of
the Church comes to us from
Europe. It falls about one week
after the coldest day of the year. Maybe
that was why it came to be seen as a day
of reckoning weather wise. At any rate,
several sayings alluding to that day’s
forecasting ability were created. Although
they varied in wording they were in agreement on one point: A sunny Candlemas
day was a sign of lots more winter. In
fact it was said that on Candlemas Day, a
shepherd would rather see a wolf enter his
stable than the sun. †
If Candlemas be fair and clear,
There’ll be two winters in the year.
This agronomy tip is brought to you by Rob Klewchuk, technical lead, western
canada for Syngenta Canada Inc.
Your second car is a snowmobile.
Photo contest
GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT
This entry came from Barry and Noreen Schnuth of Cabri, Sask.
They said, “We have had horned owls nesting in our farmyard for
a few years. We have evergreens and they like to nest in them.
We usually can find the nests, so we can watch the babies grow.
“This past year we kind of knew the area where the nest was,
but we couldn’t see it. Then one night we saw the three baby
owls trying to fly. In this picture, all three baby owls are in a
willow tree here in the yard. We are now retired but still living
on our farm.”
Thanks for sharing this beautiful photo! We’re mailing you a
cheque for $25.
Send your best shot to [email protected].
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
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.
3
4
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Cover Stories
Seed and seeding
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Closing in on seed survival
While the AgTech Centre
research has yet to crack the case
of what is causing seed mortality,
Centre engineers and technicians
have made several observations
about seeding through this project
and others over the years.
Facts and mysteries about seeding
Seeding is not as straightforward
as farmers and the researchers at
the AgTech Centre might like.
Consider these facts.
• Even with a canola seed batch
with a germination test of 99 per
cent, AgTech Centre researchers
achieved only 50 per cent seed
survival and plants emerging in
some seeded plots.
• Mechanical damage to seed,
seeding too deep, seed that is off
the seed row and didn’t make
proper seed-to-soil contact and
fertilizer damage are all factors
that can affect seed germination and emergence. But overall,
these appeared to only account
for about five per cent of reduced
emergence.
• Seeding speed can affect seed
survival and germination. AgTech
research has shown increasing
travel speed from four to six miles
per hour can reduce germination/
emergence by 10 to 15 per cent.
Slower is better.
• The new precision planters
do a pretty good job, but they
aren’t perfect in terms of seed
placement. The AgTech Centre
compared a precision seeding system on a conventional air drill to
a disc-type precision planter, also
known as a vacuum planter, row
crop planter or corn planter.
• Precision planters had as
much as one-half inch variability in seeding depth, compared
to an older-style rigid shank
opener that had as much as
much as one-inch variability in
seeding depth.
• Precision planters also had
their challenges with consistent seed spacing in the rows.
Depending on temperature and
moisture at seeding the precision planters could develop static electricity, which would hold
small seed crops such as canola
in the mechanism and then drop
a small clump of seed in the seed
row. In some plots, researchers
found more clumps of seed with
the vacuum planters, than with
conventional air seeding system.
Manufacturers are redesigning
planters to reduce the risk of
static electricity.
• Looking at seed row spacing
and seed bed utilization (SBU),
the Centre has conducted research
comparing eight-, 10- and 12-inch
row spacing with a shank-type air
seeding system with wide openers,
to results from a seeding system
with narrow disk type openers.
A five-year project showed the
most consistent top yields were
produced on eight-inch row spacing, with a shank-type system
where seed was distributed over a
four-inch spread in the seed row.
Metzger’s not recommending people abandon disc type seeding systems in favor of shank-type systems. While the wider openers had
higher SBU, they were also more
variable in seeding depth. †
Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in
Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by
email at [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 SH ER
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fiel d Ed ito r
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Farm life Edito r
Sue Armstrong
Machinery EDITOR
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Pro duction Di recto r
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Des igne r
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photo: courtesy of alberta agtech centre
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photo: file
1. This is one of the hoe-type air seeding systems evaluated for seed placement
by Alberta’s AgTech Centre. Of the eight systems tested, researchers say
equipment was not the issue affecting canola emergence rates. 2. Blaine
Metzger, right, and technician Joel Hubert, use this portable fan to demonstrate
the variability of product distribution through an air seeding manifold. 3. Field
research shows precision planters like this vacuum planter do a good job of seed
placement but are not perfect for depth control and seed spacing.
Tundra
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MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
5
Features
Soil management
Back to tillage after wet years
With extra rain, tillage is back in style in some areas. First, evaluate the
risks of erosion and salinity. Then, consider dealing with compaction
By Lisa Guenther
S
oggy springs and summers
have made tillage fashionable again in some parts of
the Prairies. Some see tillage as a means of drying saturated
soils. Others hope to relieve compacted soils through some sort of
vertical tillage.
But is tillage an effective solution to these problems? And do
the potential benefits outweigh
the risks?
Tilling to warm soils
seeding before soil is dry enough true vertical tillage implements.
to support the equipment.
Faster soil movement has the poten“The challenge is not actually tial for higher erosion, she added.
causing the compaction in the
The University of Wisconsin’s
first place,” said Riekman.
Discovery Farms looked at shallow
Farmers should keep in mind vertical tillage on five Wisconsin
that 80 per cent of compaction farms. Researchers concluded that
happens on the first pass, Riekman “aggressively designed vertical tillsaid. She suggested making sure age implements will disturb more
tractors aren’t over-ballasted.
soil and surface residue” than
Running tires at the rated pres- other designs.
sure is also important. Riekman said
Machines with aggressive
when tires are at the rated pressure, blades and rear attachments and
they don’t cause any more com- gangs angled at more than 180
paction than tracks. Often tires are degrees disturb soil and crop resiover-inflated for the field, she said.
due more than other vertical tillAs for vertical tillage, Riekman age implements, the Wisconsin
warns that many units are actually researchers noted. Conservative
T:8.125”
more like high-speed diskers than and shallow are key words when
using those implements in fields
likely to suffer soil loss, the
reports states.
Making two or more passes with
vertical tillage implements can
boost soil disturbance and reduce
residue, similar to tandem disking, Wisconsin researchers noted.
Aggressively designed vertical tillage equipment will move soil laterally on the first pass, they added.
One shallow pass with non-concave coulters didn’t move much
soil laterally.
Riekman said researchers haven’t
found any fracturing below the
coulter. As well, one of Riekman’s
» continued on page 6
T:10”
Farmers dealing with sopping
wet soil might want try tilling,
Dr. David Lobb told delegates at
the Manitoba Agronomists conference in December 2014. Lobb is
with the University of Manitoba’s
Department of Soil Science.
“Crop residues shade the soil
and keep it moist. You have a cool,
moist environment which usually
delays seeding,” said Lobb. Since
tillage buries crop residue and
exposes soil to air, it should help
warm and dry it, Lobb explained.
But research into using tillage
to manage wet soils hasn’t yielded
conclusive benefits. Some studies
have shown tilled soils tend to be
slightly warmer and dryer than
no-till soils, Lobb said. But differences are often insignificant and
results are inconsistent, he added.
Farmers might see some small
improvement by managing extra
moisture through tillage, he said.
“But what’s going to override how
wet your soil is isn’t the tillage
system so much as the weather. If
you have wet weather, you have
wet soils.”
Tillage brings risks to the Prairie
pothole region and the Red River
Valley, Lobb said. For one, it accelerates soil erosion. Without residue cover, farmers will more likely
see wind and water erosion. Tilled
hilltops are more likely to erode.
And in the Red River Valley, “tillage is actually what fills in a lot of
those surface drains, particularly
at the field edges where you get a
bit of damming,” said Lobb.
In wet years, water draws salt to
the soil surface, causing salinity.
Tilling those areas can increase
salinity, said Marla Riekman,
land management specialist with
Manitoba Agriculture, Food and
Rural Development. The salinity
caused by tilling around wetlands
can outweigh potential benefits
such as drying, she added.
Lobb said tilling to eliminate
ruts is a good way to keep fields
operational. But tilling when soils
are still wet will make the problem
worse. Instead, he suggested targeted tillage when the soil is slightly
frozen. “You can actually level out
those ridges and ruts a little bit.”
Minnesota’s website notes. A little compaction can also cut water
loss from the soil.
But in wet years, yields drop
with any increase in compaction,
the University of Minnesota notes,
because it leads to more denitrification. In dry years, some soil
compaction boosts yields. But too
much soil compaction cuts yields
in dry years, too, according to the
university.
Tillage, raindrops and minimal crop rotation can all cause
some form of compaction, the
University of Minnesota notes.
But wheel traffic is the major
cause, as machinery grows heavier
and farmers are pressured to start
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Some farmers are concerned
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6
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Features
Expert panel
Many hazards to seed survival
Want to increase your seed survival rates? Find out what these experts say
By Lee Hart
L
ike most things in life,
there is no simple answer
to what causes seed not to
germinate or the seedling
to die before it gets out of the
ground. Alberta’s AgTech Centre
in Lethbridge has been looking at
mechanical factors such as seed
placement, seeding depth and
seeding speed as likely suspects
playing a role in reducing canola crop emergence rates by as
much as 50 per cent. But, AgTech
researchers also recognize there are
plenty of environmental factors
that fit into the equation too.
So the question was posed to
crop production specialists across
Western Canada: “What do you
think is the biggest or couple of
key factors affecting seed survival?” The answers were varied
whether they were talking about
small seed crops such as canola
or flax, or large seed crops such as
cereals and pulses.
Farmers can do their best to
mitigate the risk of reduced crop
emergence, but often Mother
Nature holds the trump card. One
important point from several of
the specialists was to start with
good quality seed and do your calculations to determine the weight
of a 1,000 seed count, to at least
insure you’re getting enough seeds
in the ground to achieve a target
plant count.
Doon Pauly
Alberta Agriculture
Agronomy Research
Scientist
Doon Pauly, agronomy research
scientist with Alberta Agriculture
in Lethbridge, says there are a wide
range of factors affecting seed germination and seedling emergence.
Cereals and other large seeded
crops are more forgiving when
it comes to soil depth and seed
placement. He would expect with
a good quality seed batch with 95
per cent germination test, seeded
into moisture, he should get 90
per cent emergence. “If you have
reasonable moisture you can probably seed anywhere from threequarters to two inches deep and
probably be fine,” says Pauly.
A small seed crop like canola
is less forgiving. Again, he says
if you can place the seed at onehalf to one inch deep and seed
at three miles per hour, “you can
probably have good confidence in
that seeding depth.” If the seeding
speed increases to five miles per
hour there is bound to be more
variability in seed placement.
Openers perform differently as
well. With a knife-type opener for
example, most seed will be in the
seed row, but there might also be
some seed spread off to the edge
of the seed row and be outside the
packer wheel. With poor seed-tosoil contact, or buried 1.5 inches
deep it probably won’t germinate.
Just by the nature of the agriculture industry today, farmers aren’t
always able to seed under optimal
conditions. They have 5,000 to
10,000 acres to seed and they have
to get going. Seeding early may
mean they seed into cold, damp
soil which isn’t conducive to germination, but on the other end of
the scale they know there is a yield
penalty with some crops if they’re
trying to seed after the middle of
May or into early June.
Less than optimal seeding conditions is an important factor.
Soils can be too cold and damp,
with pulse crops for example a
slight crack in the seed can allow a
pathogen to infect the seed, conditions can turn dry, and depending
on soil type soils can crust over.
“Farmers don’t always have the
luxury of waiting for ideal conditions, and as conditions change
many also don’t have the luxury
of choosing between two of three
different types of seeding systems
or openers to better match the
conditions,” he says.
Pauly says if the crystal ball works
YOU WON’T FIND
photos: file
Murray Hartman, Alberta Agriculture oilseed specialist, talks to farmers
at a Lethbridge field day about proper practices for producing canola.
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
Using tillage
in a wet year
colleagues and a summer student
used a penetrometer to see whether
vertical tillage cut compaction in
a field. Three weeks after the field
had been tilled, they couldn’t find
any signs that compaction had
been decreased, she said.
Subsoilers also fall into the vertical tillage category, but they’re
meant to dig deeper into the soil
profile and fix deeper compaction issues.
“Will it help? Maybe. But the
end game is we’re trying to gain
yield here,” said Riekman.
Farm trials in Iowa found subsoilers had a 50 per cent chance
of bumping yield high enough to
offset costs, she said. Subsoiling is
very expensive, Riekman noted,
partly because it takes a lot of
fuel to run the implements up
and down the field. Rather than
working the whole field, farmers
should focus on headlands and
other areas that are more compacted, she suggested.
The University of Minnesota’s
extension website also noted that
although subsoilers can break hard
pans, subsoiling doesn’t boost
yield consistently or for long periods of time. Irrigated loamy soil is
one possible exception, the university noted.
There may be several reasons
for the lack of yield gain, such as
recompaction, insufficient depth of
subsoiling, high soil moisture levels
while subsoiling, or worsening of
soil properties because of subsoiling, the university’s website states.
Subsoiling can help by shattering
a hard pan, Riekman told delegates.
But farmers shouldn’t go more than
an inch below the hardpan, she
added. Going too deep might create
more compaction, she said.
The University of Minnesota
suggests the following steps for
successful subsoiling:
1. Make sure there’s actually a
compaction problem. Do visual
crop symptoms match wheel traffic? Is there standing water in
wheel traffic patterns?
2. Make sure subsoiling will
loosen up the compacted layer.
3. Soil should be dry and fracture to the shank’s depth during
subsoiling.
4. Use controlled traffic to
avoid more soil compaction.
The University of Minnesota has
soil compaction information online
at www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/tillage/soil-compaction/.
U n i v e r s i t y o f Wi s c o n s i n ’s
Discovery Farms research is available online at http://www.uwdiscoveryfarms.org/, under “Our
Research,” “Cropping Systems and
Soil Conservation.” †
Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based
at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.
at all, he expects that as the cost
of seed increases the industry will
focus more on refining and improving seeding equipment to improve
seeding accuracy. “Many producers
are out there today with massive
machines that are 60 and 80 feet
wide, with carts carrying tonnes
of product so it is pretty hard to
call that a precision instrument,”
he says. “Some of the machinery
researchers working with these large
air seeding systems described it as
a ‘controlled spill.’ But as seeding
costs increase manufacturers and
producers will pay more attention
to the seeding operation itself.”
Murray Hartman
Alberta Agriculture
Canola Specialist
Murray Hartman, Alberta
Agriculture canola specialist
points to some older, yet comprehensive research affecting canola
emergence and after a wide range
of factors and conditions were
BETTER VALUE OR A
GRASSY WEED.
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
7
Features
Jeremy Hummel, with the University of Lethbridge, says cool soils can give disease and insects more
opportunity to infect seeds.
analyzed the number one deal
breaker turned out to be moisture
(or lack of it).
“This research considered all
types of factors from soil type, to
soil texture, to weather, to seeding dates, soil temperature, different types of seeding systems and
types of seed. And after looking at
all that, the No. 1 overwhelming
factor affecting emergence came
down to moisture,” says Hartman.
“And it isn’t necessarily the moisture you have just before or right
at seeding, but more importantly
what happens 10 days to two
weeks after seeding.”
He says farmers can seed into
dry conditions, but if they get
moisture in the next 10 days the
crop should be fine. Conversely
they may seed into cool, wet soil,
but then if the weather turns warm
immediately after, the crop should
also do well. “So it isn’t necessarily about what conditions are like
on the day of seeding, but what
happens in the next 10 days after
seeding that will impact the success of the crop,” he says. “That’s
the real driver.”
While ideally canola should be a
shallow-seeded crop, farmers have
to weigh the situation, he says. If
it is late spring, the soil is dry yet
warm, seeding two inches deep to
reach moisture, is probably a better option than seeding one-half
inch deep into dry soil.
“With moisture the big factor,
farmers don’t have a lot of control,” he says. “And there are a lot
of ifs and buts to be considered.
If it is early May and conditions
are a bit dry chances are you can
expect rain in the next week or so,
so the best option might be to seed
shallow. If you are seeding in late
May, it might be best to seed a bit
deeper to find the moisture.”
Hartman says regardless of how
farmers are seeding, the real measure is how many plants are coming out of the ground. His cut-off
minimum is four plants per square
foot and ideally farmers should
target eight to 10 plants.
“Farmers ask me what they
are doing wrong because they
aren’t getting the emergence or
crop stand they expected,” says
Hartman. “And I tell them if
they are getting six, seven or
eight plants per square foot they
are doing okay. Regardless of
whether they are seeding three
or eight pounds of seed per acre,
if they are getting six to eight
plants that will certainly produce
a good crop.”
He says specialists have revised
their thinking from the original
canola production manual which
called for 17 to 18 plants per
square foot. That’s too high for
canola varieties of 2015. “If farmers are getting 15 plants per square
foot today, perhaps they need to
cut back on their seeding rate,” he
says. “But, what is more common
is producers seeding four pounds
per acre and getting three plants
per square foot. That will produce a crop, but my advice is to
increase the seeding rate so there
is a minimum of four plants per
square foot and preferably more in
the seven, eight, to 10 plants per
square foot range.”
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Anastasia Kubinec, oilseed
crop specialist with Manitoba
Agriculture considers soil temperature and soil moisture as the two
factors most affecting canola stand
establishment.
“You are going to get a higher
percentage of seeds germinating if
you have a warmer soil temperature,” she says. “And along with
that you need proper soil moisture. There is a sweet spot there
that is sometimes hard to find or
doesn’t last very long, but ideally
you don’t want the soil too dry or
too wet.”
The longer seeds sit in cold soil
the more susceptible they are to
disease and insects, says Kubinec.
In cool soils, seeds can germinate,
but if they are slow growing the
seed treatment wears off and disease or insects can kill the seedling. And she has seen years when
seeds germinate but then conditions turn dry and the seedling
just dies.
Seeding rate wise, she says her
advice changes depending on the
point of the seeding season. If
it is early in the season, with
cool damp, less than ideal conditions she would advise farmers to
increase the seeding rate. Whereas
later in the season — mid May and
beyond — if soil conditions are
warm perhaps they can cut back a
bit and still achieve that optimal
crop stand.
John Heard
Manitoba Agriculture
Crop nutrition specialist
John Heard, crop fertility specialist with Manitoba Agriculture
says obviously, if farmers can
wait for warm soil conditions
they will probably have the best
chance of good stand establishment, but in real life that isn’t
always possible.
In his area of expertise, he says,
fertilizer placement is always a
balancing act. Farmers need to
place fertilizer as close to the seed
as possible without causing seed or
seedling damage.
“Some crops are more sensitive
than others,” says Heard. “But
generally if you have good moisture conditions in the seed bed
the crop is better able to tolerate
fertilizer than if you have drier
conditions.”
He says as a general rule, with
seed placed fertilizer — nitrogen
in particular — a crop will recover
from 15 per cent loss in the stand
due to fertilizer damage. “It can
handle that loss, cereals will tiller more, and canola plants will
expand their plants and crops
will still maintain yield,” he says.
“But again it depends on soil
moisture. If it is too dry losses will
be higher.”
Jeremy Hummel
University of Lethbgridge
Plant and soil sciences
Jeremy Hummel, a researcher and
instructor in plant and soil sciences
at the University of Lethbridge says
seeding under less than optimal
conditions might give crop pests
the advantage.
Hummel, who has a specialty in
insects and diseases, says seeding
early into cool soils will increase
the risk of seeds and seedlings
being exposed to root rot and
damping off type pathogens.
“It will depend on the crop and
type of seed, but even if the seed is
well placed in the soil under cooler
conditions it will be more susceptible to pathogens,” says Hummel.
“The longer it sits there the higher
the risk of being infected with soil
borne diseases — root rots are the
big one — and insect pests can
also be an issue.”
Seed treatments will help to
reduce losses, “but I hesitate to
call it a guarantee”, says Hummel.
“Peas and other large pulses are
particularly susceptible to disease
under cool temperatures. If the
seedling doesn’t break the soil surface and start growing, the seed
treatment may not be enough to
prevent mortality.”
With soil temperature being a
big factor, he says it becomes a
balancing act for farmers to get
the crop seeded within a limited
time frame and still have optimal
conditions. Early seeding allows
the crop to use soil moisture,
often puts the crop out of sync
with pests that may come along
later in the year, and helps avoid
the risk of a killing frost in the
fall. Those benefits have to be
balanced against the risk of having a slow emerging crop affected
by soil borne disease or insect
losses. †
Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in
Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by
email at [email protected].
8
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Features
Crop Advisor’s casebook
The mystery of sickly durum wheat
By Ashley Kelly
I
n late July, I got an anxious phone call from Terry,
who grows 3,500 acres of
durum wheat, canola, flax
and peas at his farm about 100
kilometres south of Regina, Sask.
Terry was worried about the sorry
state of his durum crop — the
plants were looking extremely
unhealthy and he feared nothing
could be done at this late stage to
bring the crop back.
I assured Terry I’d come out
right away to have a look. When
I arrived at one of the affected
fields, I could see right away the
durum was in pretty poor shape,
with a large number of small,
sickly looking plants scattered
throughout a thin crop stand.
Terry was at a loss to explain
what was going on with his
durum crop, but suggested
extreme environmental stress
as one possibility. “It’s been
such a wet year,” he said. “I
wonder if that has anything to
do with it?”
Walking into a durum field, I
noted the symptoms were most
noticeable as the crop started
to head out through to the soft
dough stage of the plant. The
affected plants were all stunted,
with small heads (some of which
were black and sooty), brownish stained lower stems and bottom leaves that had turned completely yellow. I was able to pull
plants out of the ground very
easily and I observed there was
virtually no root mass.
Terry said the same symptoms
were occurring in all his durum
fields, even though other
The affected plants were all stunted, with small heads, brownish stained lower stems and yellow bottom leaves. There was virtually no root mass.
durum crops in the immediate
area that were at the same stage
looked completely healthy,
with vigorous growth and optimal plant stands.
I questioned Terry about his
fertility program, and also asked
about his crop protection measures since I had detected a large
amount of tan spot on some of
the affected plants. However, I
knew there had to be much more
to the problem than just leaf
disease.
If you think you know what’s
behind Terry’s sickly durum
plants, send your diagnosis to
Grainews, Box 9800, Winnipeg,
Man. R3C 3K7; email leeann.
[email protected]
or fax 204-944-5416 c/o Crop
Advisor’s Casebook. The best suggestions will be pooled and one
winner will be drawn for a chance
to win a Grainews cap and a oneyear subscription to the magazine. The answer, along with the
reasoning that solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop
Advisor’s Solution File. †
Ashley Kelly is a sales agronomist with
Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Corinne, Sask.
Casebook winner
T
Ashley Kelly is a sales agronomist
with Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at
Corinne, Sask.
he Casebook winner
for this issue is Glen
Schott. Thanks for
reading, Glen, and
thanks for entering!
We’re renewing your
Grainews subscription for
a year and sending you a
Grainews cap. †
Leeann Minogue
Crop advisor’s solution
Pesticide drift causes drooping canola flowers
By Dustin Miller
J
oe, a mixed grains farmer near Spring
Coulee, Alta., called me in July and
asked me to come out to look at his
canola fields. The crop wasn’t doing
very well in some areas of his fields and
he wanted my help to figure out what was
wrong.
When I arrived at Joe’s farm, I was taken
out to one of the canola fields where some
plants looked stunted and were dropping
flowers. It was happening in the lowest
part of the field and followed a draw that
also went through an adjoining wheat
field, where the crop was fine. The draw
continued from the wheat field onto a
Tundra
second canola field, which had plants
exhibiting similar symptoms in the low
areas as well.
Joe wondered if poor seed was to blame,
but the damaged canola crop didn’t follow a pattern suggesting this was the
case. Similarly, there were no straightline patterns indicating a problem with
chemicals in the tank when the canola
fields were sprayed with Roundup the
previous month.
The indications were that this was in
part a Mother Nature problem. When Joe
told me that a wheat field just to the north
of the first canola field had been sprayed
with a broadleaf pesticide in June and
described the weather conditions that day,
it confirmed my suspicions about what
was causing the canola damage.
On the day of that spray application, it had been on the cool side and
there was no hint of wind. Joe told me
the worker who applied the pesticide
reported that it had stayed suspended
in the dead calm air rather than settling
to the ground, indicating a temperature
inversion was occurring. From the damage pattern, it was pretty obvious that
the suspended chemical had eventually
drifted southwards, following the draw
that ran though the adjoining canola
and wheat fields.
It was this pesticide drift that had damaged plants in the lowest areas of the
Tundra
canola fields but had left the wheat crop
unharmed. Unfortunately for Joe, there
was nothing to be done to salvage the
damaged crop, and he ended up with
a zero yield for the affected areas of his
canola fields.
To prevent problems like this on their
farms, growers should always be keenly
attuned to the weather and avoid spraying
crops when the temperature conditions
are ripe for an inversion. Similarly, farmers should keep a close eye on the wind to
make sure the chemicals they are applying are going precisely where they should
be. †
Dustin Miller is a sales agronomist with Richardson
Pioneer Ltd. at Magrath, Alta.
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
9
Features
Crop management
Weed management in soybeans
With high seed prices, farmers will be tempted to lower soybean seeding rates
By Michael Flood
S
oybean farmers have been
facing a growing threat to
their bottom line: rising
seed costs. Seeds for the
very popular glyphosate resistant
cultivars have increased in price by
$47.75 an hectare (or 230 per cent)
since they were first introduced in
1996. This trend is likely to continue given soon-to-be-introduced
varieties with new herbicide resistant traits as well as increased soybean planting across the world.
The rising costs have, so far, been
more than compensated for by soaring prices for soybeans in the past
few years but that trend will not
continue forever; eventually farmers will begin to feel the pinch and
will increasingly want to find ways
to boost yields while reducing their
use of the glyphosate resistant seeds.
Lower seeding rates
A natural solution is to reduce
seeding rates. Evidence from many
recent studies shows this can be
done without significantly reducing yields. For instance, soybeans
have been shown to produce 20
per cent more branches per plant at
lower seeding rates (under 250,000
seeds per hectare) than at higher
rates (near 450,000 seeds per hectare). Simply put, each plant is
able to develop more fully when it
has more space in which to grow
and faces less competition from its
neighbours. That means a higher
overall soybean yield.
Unfortunately that lower plant
density can make the plants more
vulnerable to weeds. Common
Canadian Prairie weeds grow more
aggressively and compete more ferociously for water and nutrients than
soybeans. The main way soybeans
compete is to form a thick canopy,
which starves the competing weeds
of the sunlight they need to drive
their metabolism. Less dense planting means a less dense canopy, and
a less dense canopy means a more
welcoming environment for weeds.
This in turn reduces soybean yields
and cuts into the profits farmers
would have enjoyed through savings on seed.
Dense soybeans canopies are a
part of integrated weed management (IWM), an increasingly important practice as common weeds are
becoming increasingly resistant to
growing season applied glyphosate.
This would seem to leave soybean
farmers at an impasse.
Pre-season herbicides
Recent research by scientists at
the University of Wisconsin shows a
way to a relatively low cost solution,
a way to seed less densely without worrying about weeds reducing your yield. The study is titled,
“Can Soybean Seeding Rate Be Used
As An Integrated Component Of
Herbicide Resistance Management”,
and was published in the OctoberDecember 2014 issue of Weed
Science. In the article, these scientists, led by Ryan DeWerff, studied
the effects of combining pre-season
residual herbicides with lower seeding densities.
The researchers found that early
season weeds are a substantial competitor with soybeans. These can
take away vital water from the
vulnerable growing plants, as well
as reduce the availability of soil
nutrients. If these weeds are also
resistant to glyphosate (very possible in fields where glyphosate is
regularly applied) and other common weed killers then they will
become strongly established and
significantly reduce yields later in
the season. Denser soybean plantings were not very effective at suppressing these weeds.
In contrast, pre-growth herbicide
treatments with metolachlor and
fomesafen (sold under the brand
name Prefix from Syngenta) were
very effective at suppressing early
season weeds and allowed the soybeans to enjoy the greater potential
to develop in a less dense canopy.
Fewer weeds in these plots also
lowered the number of plants that
could become resistant to herbicides, an important factor for farmers looking to achieve integrated
weed management in their fields.
The scientists concluded that
pre-season residual herbicides use
produced maximum yields with
fewer plants per hectare than
late season applications. This is
good news for soybean growers
wondering how to control weeds
this season while economizing on
seeds. Though the research was
done in Wisconsin, results should
apply to soybean farmers everywhere. †
Michael Flood (www.michael-flood.com) is a
business writer and columnist. You can reach
him at [email protected].
photo: leeann minogue
Dense soybeans canopies are a part of integrated weed management.
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/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Features
Crop disease
Minimizing the impact of Aphanomyces
There are no in-crop solutions to root rot in peas and lentils. But there
are ways to minimize your risk of losing yield to Aphanomyces
By Melanie Epp
Identification
No in-crop soluation
Post-harvest, pre-planting
iven the wet springs
and dry summers
we’ve seen in recent
years, Aphanomyces
euteiches — Aphanomyces root
rot — has become a real problem for pea and lentil growers.
First confirmed in
Saskatchewan in 2012 and then
in Alberta in 2013, the disease
has been slowly creeping across
the country, destroying crops in
its wake. Making matters worse,
the disease has the ability to
live in the soil for up to 12 years
where it continues to build up
until environmental conditions
are just right. Growers with
Aphanomyces in their fields
will
want to take steps to1/22/15
miniSEC_KIND14_T_GN.qxd
mize its impact.
The first step in managing any disease is identifying it, says Dr. Syama
Chatterton, pulse crops pathologist,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
“Unfortunately, symptoms of the
two types of root rots are very difficult to distinguish,” she says. Not
only will fields that have experienced flooding or high levels of
water saturation show symptoms
that look like root rot, but they also
Aphanomyces root rot also exhibits
similar symptoms as Fusarium spp.
“If a grower suspects root rot
in a field the best action is to
send samples to a testing lab for
confirmation of whether or not
Aphanomyces euteiches is the causal
agent,” says Chatterton. SeedtestingPMlabsPage
in Saskatchewan
and
1:25
1
Alberta, she says, offer this service.
Once root rot has been diagnosed there is unfortunately no
in-crop solution. There are no
fungicides that can help manage root rots, says Chatterton.
“Foliar-applied fungicides will
not penetrate the soil surface to
reach the roots and thus do not
have activity in the roots,” she
explains.
“Seed treatments have efficacy
in reducing early season root
rots caused by Fusarium spp.,
Rhizoctonia solani and Pythium
spp., preventing seed-borne diseases. However, there are no seed
treatment products registered
for Aphanomyces root rot, and
active ingredients found in registered seed treatments are not
effective against Aphanomyces.
Without in-crop solutions, the
only action growers can take
is post-harvest or pre-planting.
“Once it is confirmed that you
have Aphanomyces root rot, decisions need to be made prior to
planting your next pulse crop in
that field,” she says, explaining
that a field that is found positive
for Aphanomyces will require a
longer rotation of up to six years.
Beth Markert, seed growth specialist with Bayer CropScience,
agrees. “A four-year crop rotation
will no longer suffice,” she says.
Markert offers a number of
other techniques that could help
manage the disease. First, she
says, clean all equipment before
moving on to the next field. Opt
for a healthy, high-germinating
seed, good fertility and a heavy
seeding rate in order to establish
the crop early on.
“Although no seed treatment on the market can prevent Aphanomyces root rot, it
is still recommended to use a
seed treatment to prevent any
other diseases coming in, as
Aphanomyces root rot opens the
plant tissue up for diseases such
as Fusarium and Rhizoctonia to
follow in it,” says Markert.
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Although Aphanomyces root
rot affects the entire legume
family, peas have a different
strain from lentils and chickpeas, so growers can switch from
one crop to another. Finally,
says Markert, avoid stressing
the crop. ‘If you don’t need to
spray, then don’t,” she says.
“Fusarium and Aphanomyces
like low pH fields. You could
raise the pH in your field by
putting a lime precipitate down
for multiple years to break the
disease cycle.”
“If you need to plant peas,
then choose a field with good
drainage and sandy soils so the
water does not sit in your field
too long, as Aphanomyces is
a water mould,” Markert concludes.
Since Aphanomyces is relatively new to the Prairies, there
have been almost no field trials
focusing on potential management options that fit with the
growing practices of the region.
Chatterton and her team at
AAFC have planned field trials
to test the ability of soil amendments and seed treatments to
reduce root rot severity for 2015
and 2016. †
Melanie Epp is a freelance farm writer based
in Guelph, Ont.
All those pathogens
CDC Kindersley
A
phanomyces is just one type of the many pathogens that
may be present in your fields. Saskatchewan Agriculture’s
provincial plant disease specialist, Faye Dokken-Bouchard,
spoke to delegates about pathogens at the Saskatchewan
Pulse Growers regional workshop in Regina in February.
“You might have all of the pathogens present, but maybe one is
going to cause a bit more of a problem in a given year because of the
conditions.”
Dokken-Bouchard presented a table showing the conditions
favoured by some of the more common pathogens.
“They all like to have moisture, but there is a little bit of difference in how much they really need,” she said, or when they will
really thrive.
“All of these pathogens could cause disease outside of the
optimum, but under those optimum conditions they’ll be able to
cause more damage and reproduce more and build up more in the
soil for future years.” †
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Leeann Minogue
Produced by: SeCan
Product/Campaign Name: SeCan CDC Kindersley
Date Produced: January 2015
Favourable conditions for pathogens
Organism
Temperature
optimum
Moisture favouring
sensitivity
Aphonomyces
22 to 27
Excessive
Fusarium
25 to 30
Moderate
Pythium
17 to 23
Wet
Rhizoctonia
Can damage at 18
Wide range
but most aggressive
of conditions
at 24 to 30
Tundra
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MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
11
Features
Crop nutrition
Copper applications have limited impact
Researchers say non-targeted copper application does not increase micronutrients
By Julienne Isaacs
T
he importance of micronutrients, including
boron (B), chloride (Cl),
copper (Cu), iron (Fe),
manganese (Mn), molybdenum
(Mo), zinc (Zn) and nickel (Ni),
has come under the microscope in
recent years. Some researchers say
a lack of micronutrients can cause
yield loss.
According to Tee Boon Goh, a
specialist in soil chemistry and
mineralogy at the University of
Manitoba, and Rigas Karamanos,
a senior agronomist with Koch
Fertilizer Canada, ULC, copper is
an essential element for wheat
growth. Goh and Karamanos are
the co-authors of a pamphlet
entitled “Does addition of copper
increase the macronutrient content of wheat?” recently presented
to the Manitoba Agronomists’
Conference at the University of
Manitoba in December, 2014.
Goh and Karamanos identify copper as essential to wheat
because it is involved in a number
of plant functions, such as electron transfers, chlorophyll production, protein synthesis and
respiration.
Copper deficiency can have
severe impacts on wheat yields.
“Copper deficiency in wheat produces characteristic symptoms of
yellowing and curling of young
leaves, pigtailing of leaf tips, limpness or wilting, delay in heading,
aborted heads and spikelets, head
and stem bending, as well as stem
melanosis disease in certain wheat
cultivars,” says Goh.
to the addition of copper to the
soil’s macronutrient content.
“Claims that application of copper (either foliar or soil applied)
increase nutrient content and
in particular protein content are
unfounded,” Goh and Karamanos
concluded in their report.
“Micronutrients are essential elements; however, unless there is
a deficiency in any given micronutrient, they contribute little
to improving nutrients that are
required in higher quantities, such
as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium
and sulphur,” says Karamanos. “As
a matter of fact, when soils are deficient in copper, correction of the
deficiency resulted in a decrease in
macronutrient concentration and
protein content, as a result of a
simple dilution effect.”
This is not to say that the targeted application of copper is not
important in deficient soils.
Goh says that a large body of
research in Western Canada clearly
shows that targeted application of
micronutrients, including chloride,
copper, zinc and manganese, based
on valid soil test criteria, contributes to significant yield increases.
The key word is “targeted”: nontargeted applications of copper in
wheat results in no benefit to the
crop. Untargeted copper applications, says Goh, “are a waste of
money on expensive material.”
protein content in wheat is
based on crops achieving “better health.” But they say “plant
health” is a contested notion
with many definitions.
“Although there are numerous
studies on the general health
definitions and health criteria in
human medicine, plant health
is not a well-defined and often
misused term,” says Goh.
For consumers, Goh says,
plant health may refer to crops
free of pesticides and other
chemicals with high nutritional
value, whereas for regulators,
it means crops free of heavy
metals and toxins, for example.
Plant health
“For the producer, ‘plant health’
According
to
Goh
and means crops achieving their full
Karamanos, the claim that cop- genetic potential, but even this
T:8.125”
varies depending on the type
per can be applied to increase
of crops. Plant health measures
a wide spectrum of perceptions
about the ‘fitness’ of a plant for
varying objectives of groups of
people and the debate is still
on,” he says.
“This work addressed the
impact of copper on other macronutrients from a plant nutrition
perspective and in particular its
effect on the nitrogen content,
which is the main component
of protein for which farmers are
compensated,” says Karamanos
of the study. “Any extrapolation to a loosely defined ‘plant
health’ would be non-scientific
at this point and only lead to
confusion.” †
Julienne Isaacs is a Winnipeg-based
freelance writer and editor. Contact her at
[email protected].
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A waste of
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T:10”
The researchers tested the
hypothesis that copper can be
applied in an effort to increase
macronutrient uptake, and in particular nitrogen uptake, and subsequently high protein in the wheat
seed. They took into account 47
experiments that had been conducted on a total of 2,648 separate
plots, and examined the impact
of copper on protein levels (where
measured), or the macronutrient
tissue content in each of these 47
previously conducted experiments.
Wheat is sensitive
to copper
Goh and Karamanos chose copper as their focus because, while
lack of any of the micronutrients
will cause yield losses in wheat,
the crop is particularly sensitive
to copper and manganese, and
there is a large volume of research
conducted on copper. “It is estimated that there are close to five
million acres of deficient or potentially copper deficiency soils in the
Prairies,” says Karamanos.
The study, almost exclusively
funded by Western Cooperative
Fertilizers Ltd. (Westco), showed
18 significant yield responses and
21 non-significant yield responses
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12
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Features
seeding
When you have to broadcast seed
Broadcasting seeding is always a last resort for canola growers. But if you have to do
it, here are some suggestions to increase your odds of getting decent yields
By Melanie Epp
T
ypically, broadcast seeding in canola is considered questionable at best.
But it comes to mind
when weather causes delays.
“Broadcast seeding is acceptable
as a last resort late in the seeding season under wet conditions,”
says Murray Hartman, oilseed specialist with Alberta Agriculture.
“Wet soil can plug up openers and
packer wheels, and the seedbed
can be smeared, which impedes
good seedling emergence.”
Since working wet fields can
cause soil compaction, waiting
is always the best option, unless
it’s already near the end of May.
“There are custom broadcast seeders,” Hartman suggests.
Making sure the crop is in on
time may also be important in
order to qualify for crop insurance deadlines. In Alberta, for
instance, canola must be seeded
before June 20 in order to qualify
for yield insurance. It is recommended, however, that the crop
is actually in the ground by May
31, otherwise grade coverage
could be limited.
Crop insurance actually depends
on establishment, says Hartman.
“Broadcast canola does not automatically quality for crop insurance,” he says. “The established
stand may need to be inspected
and meet crop density standards
before it can be insured. If the crop
does not grow and the ground is
too wet to seed, the grower could
be eligible to receive an unseeded
acreage benefit. Rules for unseeded
acreage benefits vary by province.”
ola are lower as compared to seeds
that are drilled into moist-packed
seedbeds. A higher seeding rate can
compensate for this. “It also provides more margin for error if the
seed and fertilizer ratio doesn’t stay
consistent as the floater tank empties,” says Hartman. “A floater with
two tanks — one for seed and one
for fertilizer — should eliminate
this particular risk. Consider seed
size in grams per 1,000 kernels and
estimate seedling survival when
setting the seeding rate.”
Fields with poorer conditions
are better suited to lower-priced
seed in order to allow for increased
seeding rates and the higher risk of
crop failure.
Fertility practices will differ
with broadcast seeding, too, says
Hartman. He suggests doubling
the phosphorus rate, since canola
needs early access to phosphorus
and phosphate drills and seed are
not always close enough for timely access to fertilizer. Hartman
warns growers to account for
higher nitrogen losses — broadcast nitrogen has a higher risk
of denitrification. On saturated
soils, nitrogen fertilizer efficiency
can be especially reduced.
“Enhanced efficiency nitrogen
fertilizers, such as ESN or Agrotain,
will reduce these losses,” he says.
“Although harrowing after broadcasting is still recommended to
get these fertilizer products into
the ground.” Although this can
increase overall costs, it may be
worth it in less ideal conditions.
Apply the blended seed and fertilizer as soon as possible after blending
or utilize a floater with two tanks,
one for fertilizer and one for seed.
Consider a split fertilizer application, says Hartman. Broadcast
seed first and see what gets established; if the crop gets established,
then top up with broadcast nitrogen and sulphur, he says. Top
dressing applications should also
be made as soon after emergence
as possible, he continues, since
early nutrient access is important
for optimal yields.
It is still
possible to obtain
adequate yields
The good news is that establishment is somewhat controllable,
especially if certain situations are
avoided. For instance, avoid planting into fields with poorly distributed heavy crop residue, or into fields
that require large amounts of fertilizer. Hartman says they make poor
choices because nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium efficiency suffers
greatly when left on the surface.
On average, yields on broadcastseeded fields will be five to 10
percent less than fields that are
drill-seeded. “In wet conditions,
broadcast seeding can equal or
better drilled methods if there is
more than two or three weeks
delay needed to achieve the drilled
seeding,” says Hartman.
Tips for broadcast success
Hartman says that broadcast
seeding should only be considered if it is already late in the
seeding season and wet weather has greatly delayed seeding
progress. Fields should be harrowed soon after seeding to cover
the seed and fertilizer.
Often, germination and seedling
emergence rates for broadcast can-
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Finally, if weeds are an issue
and there’s considerable growth
in the field, a herbicide application should be made pre-seeding
to prevent weeds from adding to
fertilizer losses. “Canola seed laying on the surface can be affected
by some herbicides used in herbicide tolerant canola,” he concludes. “This is another reason to
harrow after broadcast seeding.”
While broadcast seeding certainly isn’t first on the list of
recommendations, it does provide
an additional option. And with
proper management it is possible
to obtain adequate yields. †
Melanie Epp is a freelance farm writer based
in Guelph, Ont.
T:17.4”
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
13
Features
Crop production
Crop rotation impacts canola yields
A new Ag Canada study finds that increasing the number of years in your rotation
between canola crops can raise your average canola yields
By Michael Flood
C
T:17.4”
anola is one of the biggest crops in Canada
and it’s only getting
bigger. In the five years
from 2008 to 2013 Canadian
farmers went from growing 10
million to 18 million metric
tonnes, nearly doubling the canola harvest. With market demand
anticipated to only increase in
years to come, driven by a rising
global demand for vegetable oils
and other canola products, the
same land is going to have to
yield ever more bushels per acre.
Raising canola yields on the
same land requires more inten-
sive cultivation as well as rotating canola more frequently than
in the past. This strategy carries
significant risk of heavy losses as
many canola pests and diseases
are capable of overwintering in
fields and on surrounding vegetation making them harder to
control.
To test out the possible effects
of this more intensive cultivation,
researchers from Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada undertook a
series of trial to see what happens.
This team, which includes Neil
Harker of the Lacombe Research
Centre in Alberta, recently published their results in the Canadian
Journal of Plant Science under the
title “Canola rotation frequency
impacts canola yield and associated pest species.”
The research
To study the effects of more
intensive cultivation the scientists conducted six years of trials
at five sites across the Prairies
using glyphosate and glufosinate
resistant canola, treating them
with the recommended amounts
of herbicide each season. Each
field had previously grown no-till
wheat, barley, or oats. In different fields, they tested different
rotation rates, alternating canola
with various crops on one- and
two-year intervals. After five
years, researchers collected and
analyzed the data, looking for the
effects of temperature and precipitation, weed densities, blackleg
disease levels, root maggot damage and canola yield.
“In terms of the number of
sites,” Harker told us, “and the
way it was conducted there hadn’t
been a study quite like this before.
To make this more useful we conducted an all-phases study, which
means that if we had wheat in one
year and canola the next we also
had canola in that first year and
wheat the next.” The all-phases
nature of the research helped the
research team eliminate single-
year effects, like weather that may
have just been, by chance, better
for one crop rather than another.
The results
Among the major results of the
study was the finding that canola
seed yields were not hurt significantly by decreasing the years of
rotation between crops. At the
same time, canola yields always
improved when wheat or field pea
were followed by barley between
canola plantings. So while there
was not significant loss with intensive cropping, yields were higher
with rotations, as was expected.
“What stood out to me the most,”
Harker said, “was how consistent
the improvement in production
was with years between canola
crops. In other words as you go
from zero years (between crops) or
continuous canola you had yield
improving constantly as you put
both one year and then two years
between them.”
As for diseases and pests, the
study confirmed what was long suspected, that growing canola intensively invites increased yield losses
due to predation. “As you went
from zero to two years,” Harker
said, “you had pests, whether they
were insects or disease, decreasing.”
Growing canola
intensively invites
increased yield
T:10”
Without a year or two of rotation between canola persistent pests
proved highly resilient and hurt
yields significantly. Another result
of interest was that higher yields
were produced at sites that had
relatively uniform precipitation (no
extremes of wet or dry) and generally cooler temperatures. If you live
in a region that regularly experiences cooler than provincial average
temperatures this may be another
reason to consider canola planting.
While high frequency rotation
of canola may be profitable in the
short term it will be highly risky in
the long term. To ensure sustainable production (and a profitable
farm) the researchers recommend
that farmers balance high immediate-income low diversity cropping
with lower immediate-income,
higher diversity systems. This can
be accomplished by not using your
entire farm for intensive cropping
but only a portion, retaining one
area in longer-term canola rotation.
Managed over several years, rotating the areas of higher intensity
cultivation, can yield strong returns
for the careful farm manager.
Harker and his colleagues plan
to continue the study for three
more years. In addition to seeing
how the trends they’ve identified continue they will be working
with economic specialists to calculate the effects of different rotation
strategies on a farmer’s bottom
line. †
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Michael Flood (www.michael-flood.com) is a
business writer and columnist. You can reach
him at [email protected].
F:8.7”
14
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Features
Farm management
How to fire farm employees
Nobody wants to fire employees. Learn how to do it kindly
By Patty Milligan
F
arms are unique places
of employment: they are
often family businesses,
they are not unionized,
the work is often seasonal, they
sometimes house their employees, and they are exempt from
some provincial employment
standards. As grain farms on the
Prairies grow, so do their number
of employees. While some farms
still get by with a workforce
made up of family members and
neighbours, for many operations,
managing employees has become
much more complicated.
On top of these complexities,
ongoing labour shortages have
made it hard to find good peo-
ple. Some workers move across
provinces to take up jobs. A small
number of grain farms have
started hiring Temporary Foreign
Workers. Managing employees
can be overwhelming, especially
when most farmers’ primary concern is farming and taking care of
the land.
To navigate human resources,
some operators have turned to consultants. Allam Farms Partnership
operates farms east and northeast
of Edmonton where they primarily grow wheat and canola. With
one to two full time employees
through the winter, seven to eight
in the spring and eight to nine in
the fall, juggling human resource
issues can be difficult. Chris Allam,
who manages the farm with his
parents and brother, says “HR is
one of the toughest areas to get a
handle on. We need all the help
we can get.”
Through their partnership with
FamilyFarms Group, Allam Farm
Partnership gained a mentor in
Dave McLaughlin, an HR/Labour
Specialist based in Manitoba.
McLaughlin works with farms primarily across the Prairies. He helps
them with all matters related to
managing employees — including
termination.
is made. McLaughlin says, “In a
way, a job description is part of
the termination process.” Most
job descriptions are too vague.
Farmers would also do well to
use contracts with clear terms of
employment including an end
date if the position is seasonal,
and then, once an employee is in
place, provide necessary support,
training, and management.
warnings to face-to-face meetings
to suspension.
The goal is not to punish, rather
to correct the behavior. Each step
must be clearly documented; if
the behavior doesn’t change, then
termination may happen in a fair,
professional manner.
Progressive
discipline a must
Firing starts with hiring
Progressive discipline is a best
practice McLaughlin urges farmers to adopt. It means ongoing
negative behaviours are met with
increasingly serious responses —
from verbal warnings to written
McLaughlin strongly advises
farmers to do (and document)
everything they can to save an
employee’s job. First of all, a written record of those steps provides protection against possible
future complaints. Firing can be
costly especially if the employer
must pay several weeks worth
of pay. Recruiting a new hire is
also costly — you have to place
the ad, interview candidates, hire,
complete paperwork, and train all
over again.
Finally, many farms operate
within tightly-knit communities.
Farmers have to deal with relationships, especially if they are hiring family, friends, or neighbours.
McLachlan encourages farmers to
be aware of their reputations: “You
are creating your own brand. If
you are compassionate, then you
become an employer of choice.
But if you terminate for bad reason, that is going to get around.”
For McLaughlin, firing an
employee is a last resort. It comes
only at the end of a series of steps
that starts even before the hire
Many reasons
to avoid firing
Know the laws
If you must fire someone, know
the laws.
Each province sets its own
Employment Standards that govern the way that you can fire an
employee. An employer needs to
know the provincial laws. Each
province publishes useful resources online:
• Alberta: Employment
Standards: Toolkit
for Employers
• Saskatchewan: Rights and
Responsibilities: A Guide
to Employment Standards
• Manitoba: A Guide
to Employment Standards
in Agriculture
While farm/agricultural workers
are exempt from some employment standards, they are not
exempt from those related to termination. There are two exceptions. First, in Manitoba, family
members employed on family
farms do not require termination
notice (those employees who are
not family members do). Second,
in Saskatchewan, workers in a family business — one that employs
ONLY immediate family — are
exempt as well.
The most common routes
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An employer who terminates
an employee is legally bound to
give them notice or pay-in-lieu of
notice. The number of weeks of
notice depends on the amount of
time the employee has worked for
you and it varies from province to
province. (See table.)
Termination
Notice/Pay-inlieu of Notice is not required
in some situations. For instance,
seasonal workers do not require
termination notice or pay-in-lieu
if they knew when hired that the
job would end with the season.
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
15
Features
However, if a seasonal employee is
terminated earlier than planned,
termination notice or pay-in-lieu
must be provided. When calculating the number weeks, consider
each season a year for seasonal
employees. For clarification on
other situations, check your provincial Employment Standards
branch.
Firing for just cause
An employee can be fired without termination notice or payin-lieu of notice if there is just
cause. On farms, McLaughlin says,
just cause is usually related to
theft or insubordination. Other
serious breaches constitute just
cause, but the burden of proving
it is on the employer. According
to McLaughlin, “not a good fit”
just doesn’t cut it especially if an
employee has moved from another province or country.
If “just cause” is based on a particular event, then the employer
has to be able to show that the
event was investigated properly,
that it was serious enough to
warrant firing, and that that the
employee was treated fairly in the
process.
If “just cause” is the result of
an ongoing pattern of negative
behaviours, then the employer has
to be able show through written documentation that adequate
measures were taken to correct it
along the way.
Incompetence is also a possible “just cause” but, McLaughlin
warns, it is difficult to argue. For
instance, if the employee has
worked on the farm for some time
and the farmer did not take steps
to address his or her incompetence
during that time, then it could not
be used as grounds for termination. This brings us back to the
job description: the farmer has to
be able to show that the employee
knew from the get-go what jobs he
or she would have to perform.
Proceed with the termination
and don’t keep the employee on
the farm. The longer the employee stays, the more disruptive he or
she could be. If the employee will
be working out the notice period,
you’ll need to figure out how
to negotiate the weeks ahead.
Jessie Radies, Local Food Associate
with Edmonton Northlands says,
“Throughout my career I’ve fired
hundreds of people, and honestly, having a cheque, letter, and
Record of Employment ready is
the easiest.”
Get your ducks in a row
In order to fire someone the
“right” way, farmers need to put
human resource policies in place
in all areas. McLaughlin feels confident that farmers will get better
at it: “They are compassionate
people. And they are professional.
I tell them, ‘You can terminate
with compassion.’” †
Patty Milligan is a freelance writer based at
Bon Accord, Alta.
NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF PAY-IN-LIEU OF
How long has the employee worked for you?
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
3 months or less
13 weeks or less
30 days or less
none
More than 3
months but less
than 2 years
More than 13 consecutive
weeks but 1 year or less
At least 30 days but
less than 1 year
1 week
2 years or more but
less than 4 years
More than 1 year but
3 years or less
At least 1 year and
less than 3 years
2 weeks
4 years or more but
less than 6 years
More than 3 years but
5 years or less
At least 3 years and
less than 5 years
4 weeks
6 years or more but
less than 8 years
n/a
n/a
5 weeks
8 years or more but
less than 10 years
More than 5 years but
10 years or less
At least 5 years and
less than 10 years
6 weeks
MoreT:8.125”
than 10 years
At least 10 years
8 weeks
10 years or more
B:8.125”
S:8.125”
Uncover the problem.
Termination day
For more information, visit
BayerCropScience.ca/Pardner
BayerCropScience.ca or 1 888-283-6847 or contact your Bayer CropScience representative.
Always read and follow label directions. Pardner® is a registered trademark of the Bayer Group. All other products
mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies. Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.
R-66-02/15-10284119-E
T:10”
Pardner® herbicide is now registered as a
pre-seed, tank-mix partner with Roundup®
WeatherMAX® herbicide and other similar
glyphosate technologies for control of all
volunteer canola, even if they’re resistant
to other herbicide groups.
B:10”
Even though it looks the same, it’s not.
Volunteer canola can provide a host for
dangerous diseases, steal nutrients and
limit the yield performance of your crop.
But moving forward, this doesn’t need
to be a problem.
S:10”
Some farms have more than one
manager to deal with employees.
If, for instance, a husband and
wife team runs the farm, then they
need to be on the same page.
McLaughlin advises employers, agricultural or otherwise, not
to fire an employee on a Friday.
Choose a time earlier in the week
and preferably earlier in the day.
Invite the employee in to sit and
talk. The goal is to be clear, neutral, quick, and kind. The privacy
and dignity of the employee need
to be protected even at a difficult,
possibly angry, moment.
The conversation will be familiar to the employee. Firing usually
won’t come as a surprise if the
employer has taken the necessary
steps along the way. Remind the
employee of the process you’ve
gone through together — the verbal warnings, written warnings,
and/or suspensions he or she has
received. And be clear that you
haven’t seen the necessary changes in attitude or behaviour.
McLaughlin
believes
the
employee should have one more
opportunity to speak: “Ask ‘Is
there something you’re not telling
me?’ An employee may open up
and tell you something you are
unaware of, that might change
your opinion. It could be a medical issue, or a family issue.” If not,
make sure you have the letter
of termination ready. It should
outline the process leading up to
termination.
Number of weeks required
for notice or pay-in-lieu
16
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Columns
Soils and crops
Stubble soil moisture map
Les Henry’s annual stubble soil moisture map shows, for the most part,
an overall rise in the water table across the Prairie region
les
henry
T
he situation as of freezeup 2014, brought a few
changes. My red pencil
was not used even in
Alberta and “super wet” is back as
it was in 2010 and 2012. “Super
wet” is for areas that had significant rains on top of that needed
to bring the entire soil profile to
“field capacity.” The end result
of that situation is a rise in the
water table.
Daphne Cruise of the government of Saskatchewan’s Ag
Knowledge Centre in Moose Jaw
alerted me to a situation on their
farm at Stalwart, Sask. — just
west of Last Mountain Lake north
of Regina. They have a significant
turkey operation that uses a lot
of water; the water comes from
shallow bored wells. After the big
summer rains the lowest elevation well started to flow. I looked
up the water well and e-log data
and found a significant shallow intertill aquifer. The entry
of water at higher elevations
brought up the water level so a
well at lower elevation flowed.
The flow was handled by directing it to a nearby slough — but it
was an interesting phenomenon.
It is always fun to get the data
and figure out Mother Nature’s
plumbing system that makes it
all happen.
The grey areas on the map are
the super wet category which
includes Weyburn east, where
our fearless editor farms. She can
tell me if I have it wrong*.
The map is based on the
Alberta and Manitoba Soil
Moisture Maps from their provincial government websites and
on rainfall data. Rainfall data and
some local soil probing is used for
Saskatchewan.
The Saskatchewan rain data is
from the Saskatchewan Agriculture
Crop Reports that come from
farmers dumping rain gauges.
It is a good database and the
Saskatchewan GIS folks are very
good at making maps. Through
the Moose Jaw Ag Knowledge
Centre I am able to access any
map I want. A soil moisture map
cannot be made without a very
large number of stations with good
and complete records.
Many areas
are off to a
fair start
As for Manitoba, it may be heresy but I did use the orange pencil for a small area on the U.S.
border. That is based on the rain
records for the Morden, Winkler,
Altona and Emerson stations. The
Manitoba Agriculture, Food and
Rural Development website has
daily rain records for many stations from April to freezeup. I just
scanned down the record pretending to be an annual cereal/pulse/
oilseed crop and looked for excess
that would give storage for next
year. Finding little excess and very
low fall rain, I put it in the “dry”
category. Readers can tell me if I
am wrong.
With corn production on
the rise in Manitoba, the water
left over for next year might be
reduced. Most of out regular
crops are pretty much done using
water by late July to early August
— depending on seeding date.
But, corn will use water well into
August, leaving less “calendar” to
add water to the soil for next year.
The orange/green line in the
Saskatoon-north area was hard to
place, but it generally follows the
area mapped as “dry” last year.
In a mid-July field day in clay
soils near Saskatoon the crop was
sucking hard on the third foot to
keep alive. Daytime wilting was
observed.
On my Dundurn farm high
water tables are still providing
sub-irrigation so the soil moisture
at freeze-up is more than usual.
There is more year-to-year carry
over than we have experienced
in more normal rainfall patterns.
So, there you have it — many
areas are off to a fair start. May
the sun shine upon you and the
rain come when needed and the
amount needed. Wishful thinking for sure.
*Editor’s note: Les Henry does
not have this wrong at all. After
our epic flood of 2011, there is still
much more water here in southeast
Saskatchewan than we would really
like to see. †
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, Sask. S7H 3H7, and he will
dispatch a signed book.
STUBBLE SOIL MOISTURE: NOVEMBER 1, 2014
(General guide only — check your own fields in spring)
VERY DRY
DRY
MOIST
Stubble has essentially no moisture storage below 6 inches
Sandy Soils Medium Soils Heavy Soils
Wet to 12-24” Wet to 6-18”
Wet to 6-12”
(About 1 to 2 inches of available water)
Sandy Soils
Medium Soils
Heavy Sils
Wet to 24-48” Wet to 18-30”
Wet to 12-24”
(About 2 to 4 inches of available water)
Will include local areas with no dry layer
WET
No dry layer in sandy, medium or heavy soils
(Sandy = 4, Medium = 6, Heavy = 8 inches of available water)
GrandePrairie
Prairie
Grande
SUPER WET
Excess rain - water table rise
Edmonton
Edmonton
Lloydminster
Lloydminster
PrinceAlbert
Albert
Prince
NorthBattleford
Battleford
North
RedDeer
Deer
Red
Melfort
Melfort
Saskatoon
Saskatoon
Drumheller
Drumheller
Calgary
Calgary
Base map
courtesy of
Manitoba
Agriculture
Data Source: Environment Canada
Lethbridge
Lethbridge
Yorkton
Yorkton
MedicineHat
Hat
Medicine
Regina
MooseJaw
JawRegina
SwiftCurrent
CurrentMoose
Swift
Weyburn
Weyburn
Brandon
Brandon
Portage Winnipeg
Portage
Winnipeg
Estevan
Estevan
Prepared by Les Henry, January 19, 2015
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
17
Columns
Off-farm investing
Money rotates among stocks
On oil prices, cash, and the hazards of ownership during earnings reports
ANDY
SIRSKI
I
n the February 10 issue of
Grainews I wrote that the
price of oil will go up at
some point while the price
of gold will go down. The problem is that this sort of rotation
has been more and more common and will likely continue for
a while, but for different reasons.
The price of gold and silver
usually moves up and down during the year with the seasons.
As I have written before there is
no fundamental reason for the
price of gold to go up after the
Chinese New Year and until jewelers start buying the stuff a few
months ahead of the wedding
season come fall.
Oil, however, has become a
victim of the supply and demand
equation. In this case supply is
much larger than demand. As
I write on February 7, there are
apparently 400 million barrels
of oil in storage, the most since
the 1930s.
Storage will
be full
by sometime
this spring
That industry will likely keep
putting more oil into storage for
a few months because speculators
can sell oil in the futures market
for $10 a barrel more six months
out than today’s price, and it only
costs about 65 cents a month to
store a barrel of oil.
Of course storage will be full
by sometime this spring. In the
meantime the number of drilling
rigs is dropping week by week
around the world but mostly in
the U.S. So while the price of oil
could go above $50 per barrel for
a few more months the odds are
that storage will be filled sooner
than drilling slows down. Plus,
there seems to be no incentive
yet to shut down existing oil
wells. The drop in supply is due to
depletion in oil wells and a drop
in rig count. When and if companies shut down wells the supply
of oil will drop in a hurry.
The price could well have to
drop to $40 a barrel and stay
there for a few months before
existing producing wells would be
capped. Of course speculators can
change the ups and downs every
month or so and that is hard to
predict.
I think I understand and can
work with the seasonality of the
price of gold and silver but I think
that is a lot harder to do with the
price of oil. I’m tempted to buy
some oil stocks but so far have not.
Back to cash
As of February 6, I’m back to
all cash except for 1,000 shares
of Input Capital. Here’s what
happened. All through January
I was having a good time making money selling weekly calls
on 2,000 shares of Barrick Gold
(ABX) and 200 to 400 shares
of Gilead (GILD). On roughly
$65,000 worth of shares I picked
up $5,000 for the month which
was about eight per cent. And, I
had 14 wins out of 15 trades.
Then earnings reports came out
for Gild on Tuesday, February 3.
Since I did not think shares would
drop I held my 400 shares. The
company had good earnings, is
offering to pay a dividend come
spring and says it will buy back
$15 billion worth of shares. Then
GILD said it plans to offer deep
discounts on its Hepatitis C drugs
and its share prices dropped.
I watched for a few days and
bought back my calls for a few
pennies per share and sold out. I
might be back, but for now I will
watch.
Watch earnings reports
I hope I learned my lesson.
Please learn from my mistakes. I
am going to write down the date
of earnings reports and as we come
to that date and I hope I will have
the common sense to sell those
shares. These days it seems that
if good news is expected on earnings, the price of shares will go up.
After earnings are announced the
market feels earnings are never
enough and down go the shares.
If the company misses its
expected earnings, the shares get
whacked down hard. It seems to
be a no win situation. To avoid
that risk I hope I never again
to own shares during earnings
report.
Barrick Gold (ABX)
On Friday, February 6, the
U.S. came out with its labour
stats for January. The number of
jobs was up and unemployment
numbers were down. Of course
many say those number are all
cooked up since many jobs are
part time or come with low pay
and people who have stopped
looking for work are not part of
the unemployed.
Cooked up or not, the price
of gold dropped $30 on the spot
and shares of ABX dropped to
$12.40. I bought the calls back
for pennies and sold those shares
too. Again, I made good money
on ABX all throughout January
and I intend to keep it. As I wrote
earlier, the price of gold is coming
closer and closer to the end of its
“in-season.” Maybe this was the
beginning.
Overall, in January I picked up
something over $5,000 and gave
back about $1,200, which still is
pretty good return. †
Andy is mostly retired. He plays with
granddaughters, does income tax and
manages his family’s investments. He also
publishes an electronic newsletter called
StocksTalk where he tells what he does and
why. If you want to read it free for a month
send an email to [email protected].
No bundles.
No rebates.
No waiting.
No kidding.
Your money. Your choice.
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/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Columns
Reporters notebook
Running a ranch of her own
It’s not new for women to be involved in agriculture. Lisa Guenther’s grandmother was ranching on her own in Saskatchewan in 1959
By Lisa Guenther
W
hen my grandmother, Mar y
Guenther, was 30
years old, her life
changed drastically.
Mary and her husband, Chuck,
were ranching south of Maple
Creek, Saskatchewan, and raising
six kids. In 1959, Chuck’s tractor
rolled, killing him, and Mary was
widowed. But instead of giving up
and moving to town, she kept on
ranching.
My grandmother was interviewed several years ago for an
anthology called A Voice of Her
Own. The book includes interviews
with western Canadian ranch
women. It should be required
reading for anyone who thinks
agriculture is solely a man’s world.
It’s certainly not today, and it
wasn’t 50 years ago, either.
Farming and ranching have
always been family affairs. As my
grandmother put it, “women on
farms and ranches have always
done what needed to be done.” In
her day, that meant working in the
fields, milking cows, cooking for
threshing crews and driving teams.
Today’s farm women are just as
busy I’m sure, running combines
and pulling calves. Others might
hold an off-farm job, all while
managing farm finances, gardening, cooking, volunteering, caring
for elderly parents and doing a
good chunk of the child care.
But for years Statistics Canada’s
data collection methods excluded
most married farm women from
being counted. Before 1991, each
farm could only report one farm
operator. So with the exception of
widowed women or the rare single
female farmer, the stats ignored
women who shared in the daily
farming decisions.
This is a shame, because
although the gender split isn’t
even, it’s not as skewed as people
might think, either.
In 2011, 27 per cent of farm operators were women, according to
Statistics Canada. That’s over 80,000
female farmers. Most were on farms
with two operators or more, but
10,740 were sole operators. These
percentages have held steady since
2001, when women made up just
over 26 per cent of farm operators
in Canada. And the farm women
who don’t see themselves as operators make important contributions,
too. Family farms are usually partnerships, not solo acts.
Then, of course, we have the
women working in other areas of
the ag sector, in everything from
plant breeding to finance.
No double standards
I don’t remember my grandmother complaining much about
anything, including her own
experiences of discrimination. I
know she had good friends. In
the book she mentions her neighbours, Lloyd and Irene Coleman,
as supportive. And I’m sure there
were others.
But not everyone liked what she
was up to. In the book, she noted
her father warned her that hired
men wouldn’t like working for a
women. “Some of them I remember very fondly and some I don’t,”
my grandmother said.
Not much stopped her, though.
She persisted on that ranch, which
one local has told me was probably
the windiest spot in the Cypress
Hills. She embarrassed her mother
and mother-in-law by writing prochoice letters to Chatelaine. She
raised her family as she saw fit, and
that meant no double standards for
her five sons and one daughter.
“If I wasn’t going to make the
boys do dishes, I didn’t make her
do dishes. If the boys were going
riding, she went riding,” she said.
“I felt right from the start that my
daughter was going to have to look
after herself just as well as any of
the boys, and there wasn’t very
much her brothers ever did that
she couldn’t.”
My grandmother was born just
when things were really starting
to change for Canadian women.
Some women had gotten the vote
about a decade earlier, my grandmother pointed out in the book.
Emily Murphy was declared a person by the British courts a year
before my grandma’s birth.
And my grandmother took
full advantage of the opportunities those early feminists gave
her generation. She went to RM
meetings, even though she was
the only woman there at first.
She was membership chairman
of the Shaunovan constituency
in the 60s. When the boundaries
changed, she became president
of the Maple Creek constituency.
She served on the SaskTel Board of
Directors.
Women today
Things have changed since my
grandmother was a young woman.
Although it would be nice to see a
few more female faces on some
boards, it’s not unusual for women
to hold leadership positions these
days. And though some might
view the typical farmer as a man
in overalls holding a pitch-fork,
most of us in the industry understand this isn’t an accurate picture.
My own experiences in agriculture have been generally positive,
too. I’ve heard others say one of
the best things about this industry
is the people, and I agree. For me,
sexual harassment on the job has
been rare since my early 20s, and
nothing as severe as we read about
in the media.
But I don’t want to pretend we
live in a utopia, either. Sexism and
violence still exist in Canadian
society, and it must still happen
in our industry as well. An Angus
Reid survey reported a million
Canadians — mostly women —
reported being sexually harassed
at work between 2012 and 2014,
according to the Toronto Star. A
2011 Statistics Canada release
noted that women are 11 times
more likely than men to be sexually assaulted and three times
more likely to be criminally harassed. This is based on police
reports, so it’s hard to know how
many crimes go unreported.
Rural
communities
aren’t
immune, either. A 2010 Statistics
Canada report noted that fam-
ily violence rates are generally
lower in metropolitan areas than
small cities, towns and rural areas.
Women and girls are more likely
to be the targets of family violence, although men and boys are
victims, too.
I don’t cite these statistics to
be a killjoy, but to point out that
we shouldn’t be complacent. We
still have big problems to deal
with. And there are a few among
us who’d like to push us into the
dark ages.
Mary Guenther died 10 years
ago this February. Her generation’s
greatest legacy is the knowledge
that it’s a woman’s world, too.
A Voice of Her Own was published by the University of Calgary
Press in 2005. Details available by
searching the title on uofcpress.
com. †
Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based
at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.
Lisa Guenther’s grandmother, Mary Guenther, kept on ranching when
her husband was killed in an accident in 1959.
ANOTHER
STELLAR
TM
PERFORMANCE.
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
19
Columns
Financial markets — the basics
Investing in financial markets
In Part 1 of this new series on financial management basis, Andrew Allentuck
explains how to choose a manager for your money
By Andrew Allentuck
W
arren Buffett,
the tycoon from
Omaha who
became America’s
second richest billionaire after Bill
Gates, quipped that investing is
simple but not necessarily easy.
The simplicity is understanding
relatively few things very, very
well. The job entails both researching each business he buys and
having the guts to stick to rules
he traces back to Ben Graham, a
professor of classics at Columbia
University who invented securities
analysis. He was Buffet’s teacher
and mentor and also a man who
got rich following principles of
understanding balance sheets and
income statements.
Anyone can do what Buffet and
Graham do, but it does take a lot
of study. The alternative is to hire
fund managers or portfolio manag-
ers who, presumably, have studied
Graham or other investment principles and let them invest for you.
At this point, the path to
money management comes to a
fork in the road. There are many
varieties of financial planner,
each with a few letters of designation, many with useful skills and
some with motivations that are
harmful to their clients’ wealth.
You can go down that road or
take the other branch of the fork,
which is to study accounting,
economics, math, some financial
history and perhaps financial or
engineering specialties for sectors
which attract you — say banking
or energy. This is labour-intensive, but it will give you the tools
not just to invest, but to judge the
work of those you hire to handle
your money.
You might ask, “Why bother?” If
your farm is profitable and produces
a return on your equity in the busi-
ness of, say, eight or 10 per cent a
year or more, you are probably beating the long-term average returns
from financial assets. For retirement
purposes, building up a farm and
making use of the complex but flexible accounting rules for productive
and profitable farms and the ability
to make use of up to $800,000 of
capital gains on qualified small business corporation shares provides
both tax shelter and inventive to
stick to the business you know and
stay out of the ups and downs of
financial markets.
The problem with sticking with
farming is that, of course, there are
good and bad years. Farmers have
almost no control over the prices
they receive, weather is unpredictable and bugs, vermin and government rule changes can wreck the
best laid plans.
Reducing the risk of exposure
to the whims of weather, the markets, the odds of exposure to tran-
sient diseases like BSE and more
requires diversification. And there
is no diversification as broad as
what financial markets offer.
Financial markets
The government wants you
to invest in financial markets.
Registered Retirement Income
Funds must be invested in financial
products. You can’t put real estate
directly into an RRSP, though you
can borrow from an RRSP to buy a
home — many do it to get a down
payment. The home, if it is your
principal residence, can be sold
with no tax on capital gains. It’s
an easy and entirely legal way to
invest and get a tax break.
The trouble with financial markets is their complexity. It takes
a lot of knowledge to understand
stocks and bonds, mutual funds,
exchange traded funds, options,
tax rules and international currency markets. Financial advisors are
available to help you invest your
money at banks, mutual fund vendors like Investors Group, accounting companies and life insurance
and annuity brokers. Most of these
advisors take a slice of your money
and in many cases, it is hard to
know what you are paying. There
are few grading systems for advisors, so it is hard not just to find
one who is good at picking stocks
or funds, but also to find one who
is worth what they charge.
You can find advisors at banks,
investment firms, insurance brokerages, independent mutual fund
dealers, or through professional
associations such as the Institute
of Advanced Financial Planners
(visit www.iafp.ca). Many of these
people earn their living from commissions and fees paid by the companies whose products they sell.
Finding fee-only financial planers
is harder. See www.moneysense.
ca/directory-of-fee-only-planners
for an excellent list together with
their fees and specialties.
Let’s consider fees. The average
management fee for an equity
mutual fund in Canada is 2.6 per
cent of net asset value of the portfolio or fund per year. For 10 years,
you will pay 26 per cent, for 20
years of management, 52 per cent.
If you add compounding of what
the advisor gets and what you
lose, the numbers are even higher.
Fees are usually charged invisibly. They are deducted each month
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“Let’s see... we have grain, we have
corn and this is filled with Legos.”
from the fund. What the advisor gets, you lose. In some cases,
the advisor is worth the fee. In
many cases, the advisor offers relatively little beyond hand holding
and guidance through a menu of
mutual funds. There is change in
progress, for regulators and the
mutual fund industry are preparing to make the fee structure more
visible. Trailer fees paid to advisors
out of funds will be more visible.
They will show that the more you
have under management in a fund,
the more you pay. But the labour
of advising a client for a $100,000
portfolio is not substantially different from advising for a $150,000
fund, though the advisor’s remuneration is 50 per cent higher.
It takes a lot of
knowledge to
understand stocks
and bonds
You can pay lower fees by hiring
an independent investment advisor. These people usually want to
get $500,000 under management.
They charge an average of one to
1.5 per cent of assets under management. They get no sales commissions and most of these people
have far more demanding qualifications than mutual fund sales
people, such as being Chartered
Financial Analysts.
There are also questions of honesty, both in the strict sense of
accounting for money and not
pocketing client funds for personal use and the more subtle
sense of providing value for the
client. Large mutual fund companies and chartered banks, credit unions and trust companies
will not steal your money. But
they can lose it in unfortunate
investments or fritter it away with
excessive fees.
The history of client losses
through theft are littered with
names of big thieves — Ponzi and
Madoff, for example. Today, if you
choose to use an independent
money manager, it is vital that you
understand who is the custodian
of your money. Most money managers have a trust company act as
custodian of your cash, stocks ,
bonds, funds or other assets. The
advisor tells the custodian what to
do. Cheques are written to the custodian and the custodian pays the
client when he or she wants money.
The advisor never gets his hands on
client money directly. If an advisor
asks for a big cheque made out to
him personally, head out the door.
Understanding the rules of
investing and the economics and
accounting of money management provide comparable protection. It is far harder for an advisor
to bamboozle a client well versed
in financial markets than a naïve
client who comes with money,
trust and a lack of understanding. †
Andrew Allentuck’s latest book, “When Can I
Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work,”
was published in 2011 by Penguin Canada.
20
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Columns
Understanding market bulls and bears
Currency and the wheat basis
Grain companies are blending their currency conversions into the wheat basis.
For western Canadian farmers, this is not pricing transparency at its best
Brian
wittal
A
s I explained in my last
article maybe we aren’t
being ripped off with
the wheat basis, but it
looks to me like we are being
misled (ripped off) with the currency conversion being calculated
within the basis!
Let me expand on this with
some numbers and facts so that
you can decide what transparency
means and how we can achieve
it in wheat pricing in Western
Canada.
When you look on the major
grain companies’ websites to see
their western Canadian bids, this is
what you will find something like
this. For CWRS, for example, the
posted futures value (let’s use $5.75
per bushel) is exactly the same
number as the corresponding U.S.
Minneapolis wheat futures value,
which you would say is how it is
supposed to be, right? Hold that
thought for a moment.
Next, we’ll look at the basis
they’re offering, which right now
is fairly attractive at +$0.40 per
bushel. So simple math would
mean you take the futures value
and add the basis to get a net price
offered to you for delivery of that
grade: $5.75 + $0.40 = $6.15 per
bushel delivered to Lethbridge.
What the grain companies
tell you is that they are including the currency conversion in
their basis, and that’s why the
futures value on their pricing
sheet is exactly the same as the
Minneapolis futures. That seems
like a good answer. Or is it?
When I look at the pricing
sheets from a U.S. grain company
just across the border this is what
I see: A futures value of US$5.75/
bu. + a US$0.15/bu. basis, for a
net price of US5.90/bu. I convert
that to Canadian dollars and I
get a value of $7.31/bu. ($5.90 x
1.24), delivered to Sweet Grass,
Montana. This is $1.16/bu. more
than the Lethbridge bid! Mind
you this U.S. bid is for CWRS
with 14 per cent protein, so to
be fair we must deduct $0.15/bu.
off the price to match our base
grade of 13.5 per cent, so now
there is only $1.01/bu. difference
in prices.
The U.S. futures value of $5.75/
bu. is set on the futures markets
and posted for all to see. Open and
transparent.
Currency exchange is also traded
on the futures markets and posted
for all to see. An $0.80 Canadian
dollar converts to a U.S. dollar by
using a factor of 1.24. Open and
transparent.
The net price of $6.15/bu. is
the price the Canadian grain
companies offer to you. It’s open
for all to see, but it’s not transparent as to how they arrived at
that number.
Doing the math
Let’s apply some logical steps
and simple math to this scenario
and see why we have this discrepancy.
We have determined that the
U.S. futures value converted to
Canadian dollars is $7.31/bu.
The next important step is to
figure out what basis the Canadian
grain companies are offering. That
is pretty easy. You take the futures
price and subtract the net price
they’re offering — the difference
is the basis. So we take the futures
price (US$5.75 x 1.24 = $7.13) less
the net price ($6.15), and we get a
-$0.98/bu. basis.
How come these numbers don’t
match the grain company’s posted
basis numbers of +$0.40/bu? Good
question.
To be polite, I will say that the
grain companies are using “lazy
math” to establish their prices
for wheat at this point in time.
Don’t get me wrong — the basis
levels they are offering are attractive and one may want to lock
them in before they decide to
change their math and readjust
their basis calculations to correctly and transparently reflect
the true converted futures values
to the market place.
Let’s follow this math through
using the grain companies’ methodology and apply the currency
conversion to the basis as they say
they are doing and see what we
come up with.
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If we take the currency conversion difference between the
US$5.75/bu. futures price and
the equivalent Canadian value of
$7.13/bu., we have a difference
of $1.38/bu. The grain companies
are saying that they’re doing the
conversion in the basis, so that
value should show in the basis as
+$1.38/bu. The posted basis that
they show is +40c/bu. so there is a
difference of $.98/bu. Why?
The only thing I can take from
this is that the grain companies
are taking the extra cash to offset
their risk in the marketplace or
just for profit.
Now to be fair ,I can see why
the grain companies don’t want
to post this as a -$.98/bu. basis. It
just doesn’t look good and they
would get too much flack from
producers asking why their basis
is so wide.
The last time basis levels were
this high was about a year ago
when weather and transportation
issues forced a halt to grain movement and the grain companies
widened basis out to stop the flow
of grain coming into their facilities
as they could not sell or move it
and they didn’t want to own a lot
of product at a time when there
was so much risk in the markets.
Today conditions are far different
from a year ago so why is the basis
back to these levels?
Maybe other market conditions
are forcing companies to set such a
wide basis. The only justifiable reason I can come up with for such
a wide basis would be that they
don’t have any sales in place, so
they are taking additional protection to ensure that the wheat they
buy now is at a profitable level in
case the markets should fall before
they can sell it.
If that’s the reason, they should
post a transparent basis and send
the right signal to the marketplace
instead of playing a shell game
with currency exchange and basis
levels just to make themselves
look good. In fact, it looks like
they are taking a bigger piece of
the pie and trying to hide the fact.
How are we going to get transparency in pricing? By being diligent and taking the grain companies to task when they fall back to
using “lazy math” to determine
their price offers. Give us proper
market signals, don’t hide behind
the basis.
If that doesn’t’ work then I guess
we will have to push governments
to legislate mandatory methodology for pricing grains in Canada
that will give producers and buyers relevant and transparent market signals.
It’s the open market at work, but
for the benefit of who?
Keep your pencil sharp and
don’t be afraid to ask questions
when something doesn’t look
right. †
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).
Visit grainews.ca to sign up for enews.
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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. Commercialized products have 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.
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treatment technology for soybeans (fungicides only) is a combination of three separate individually
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and metalaxyl. Acceleron® seed treatment technology for soybeans (fungicides and insecticide) is
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PRO® are trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC. Used under license. LibertyLink® and the
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trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC. Used under license. Poncho® and Votivo™ are trademarks
of Bayer. Used under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Pub: Grainews
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
21
Columns
Can’t take the farm from the boy
Sharing equipment to grow profits
Is it a good idea for two or more farm operations to share equipment? There are pros and cons
Toban
Dyck
T
hirteen thousand dollars
divided by two is less
than $13,000. We can
agree on that, correct?
The same amount divided by
three is even less.
We used a 45-foot conveyor
to unload our seed soybeans last
fall. It took less than a cigarette
to fill our tandem. I don’t smoke,
but I know it takes about seven
to nine minutes to burn one
down. The conveyor was fast,
and seductive. I wanted one.
We still speak of our seven-inch,
electric auger with the respect it
deserves after faithfully serving
our farm for many years, but we
sound forced now. Its 30-minute
load time doesn’t hold a candle
to the marvelous things that conveyor could do: drive itself, operate with little horsepower and run
whisper quiet.
Our farm is small — too small
for an expensive conveyor used
almost exclusively to load trucks.
But we could share one with
other small farms in the area.
Two or three farms could share
one combine, self-propelled
sprayer, and an attractive lineup
of other implements.
Sharing terrifies me, to be
honest. But it’s not a stupid
idea. Its pros and cons deserve
to be explored:
Two minds are
better than one
The first point, and perhaps the
least convincing for you seasoned
lone operators, is that two minds
are better than one. My only artillery here is anecdote. In every job
I’ve had, every venture I’ve been a
part of, collaboration has resulted
in greater things that I would have
been capable of alone. Farmers, in
my experience, are often very sure
about things. They have to be.
It’s a good thing. But, and only
because they are human, they are
often wrong. Two minds can be
wrong, too, but the odds are more
attractive. Collaboration is difficult — it really is — but worth it.
Community is tied to my/our
life on the farm. The word is
mentioned often. We need to
find community here, and this
would be one way to do it. It’s
too easy to operate in a vacuum
when you’re physically distant
from others. Band together.
But half of a used one puts it in
reach, when the time comes.
The specifics of how this can be
done, and some farms are currently
practicing the sharing model, are
up to the individuals involved,
and their accountants. I’m only
unpacking theory here. I don’t yet
own anything, and these decisions
are not yet mine to make. But this
shouldn’t weaken the idea.
People want to own things,
and have a hard time wrapping
Purchasing power
their minds around how two or
I may not have $13,000 to three people could own one tracspend on a conveyor, but $6,500 tor. Ownership is a difficult concould work. Our sprayer is in cept to strip down. I generally
good condition, but it won’t be want things for myself, once in
forever. A high-clearance, self- a while conceding to share them
propelled would be nice, and with my wife. I would have an
something I’ve only admired in initial, knee-jerk reaction to only
T:8.125”
classified ads and dealer lots.
owning 75 per cent of a combine
There are
countless
complications
and questions
Toban Dyck is a freelance writer and a new
farmer on an old farm. Follow him on Twitter
@tobandyck or email [email protected].
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Always read and follow the label directions. Raxil® is a registered trademark of the Bayer Group.
Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.
C-55-11/14-10250625-E
T:10”
Farmers with few acres should
want to acquire more acres. I
hear this often. I get it. Growth
makes sense, and I’m not averse
to it. I want our farm to survive,
grow at a rate comfortable for
everyone on it and become as
efficient and profitable as it can
be. And, heck, sometimes small
is okay, even best.
Sharing some of the financial
load and farm-related responsibilities with others may be what
will save and preserve the small
farm, which many speak of as
though fated to a corporate buyout. The idea of farm sharing
is interesting in theory, complicated in practice, I imagine. And
it has come up a few times since
I moved back to the area.
The sharing concept, as it’s
been articulated to me, is this:
take two farms, their acres,
machinery, storage and throw
them into one basket. My land
in this hypothetical scenario
represents 75 per cent of the
kitty, meaning I pay for 75 per
cent of the fuel, labour costs,
equipment costs, you get the
idea. The farmers involved would
decide together which acres of
the land in the basket would
be seeded first, basing this not
on who owns the land, but on
what is ready first. The same
rubric would apply to spraying
and harvest. It would apply to
everything.
and then having to share it with
others. What if they scratch it?
Smoke in the cab? And a thousand other questions.
I understand there are countless complications and questions
associated with a farm moving
in this direction. To be honest,
I don’t know if this is the direction our farm will go. We’re not
facing buyouts. Our end is not
in sight. But growth, in terms of
buying more land, seems far from
possible right now. Sharing is an
efficiency that could potentially
increase profits in a way similar
to an increase in land base. I just
wanted to plant the bug in your
ear. Think about it. †
22
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Columns
Open Field
Export sales mission to Asia
Sarah Weighum travels to Japan to learn more about international ag sales
sarah
weigum
I
f it hadn’t been such a rainy
harvest, I may not have
found myself on a flight to
Tokyo last November.
I can’t remember if I was waiting for a shower to dry up or the
snow to melt, but one morning in
early September I read an article
in one of the farm papers that
highlighted an upcoming trip for
businesses wanting to export food
and food ingredients to Japan
and Korea. I have been co-ordinating our farm’s export business
for a couple years, but in 2014
our major Korean buyer severely
reduced demand. The trade mission seemed like an opportunity
to pursue new opportunities to
export clean, packaged grain,
ready for food processing.
The trade mission was organized
by Alberta Agriculture in conjunction with the British Columbia
and Saskatchewan agriculture
departments. Between harvest and
mid-November I created promotional material, had it translated
into Japanese and Korean, booked
flights and hotels and collected
clean grain samples to show prospective buyers. My boyfriend,
Curtis, who is also a farmer, joined
me for the adventure.
After touching down in Tokyo
and taking a couple days to adjust
to the time change, we met up
with the other Canadian exporters at the Canadian embassy for
a day of introduction to the
Japanese market.
We learned from both trade
commissioners and Japanese
business people that food safety
followed by cost are the two most
important factors to Japanese
consumers. Vegetable oils, beef
and bottled water are products in
high demand.
We visited a warehouse where
home-delivery grocery orders are
processed. An amazing bar code
system stores individual food
packages in crates and compiles
them to match the customers’
order forms with an employee
loading all the goods into one
final crate for delivery to its
destination. According to the
warehouse managers, they make
about 50 mistakes in one million
orders. One of the trade officers from the Alberta-Japan office
pointed out that that is the level
of precision the Japanese expect
when doing business.
The next day the embassy
hosted a day-long trade show.
Japanese buyers visited the show
and a lunch reception gave us
the opportunity to mingle with
them. The staff from the embassy
and the provincial offices are
well-connected and made sure to
introduce us to as many relevant
buyers as possible.
That night we took the bullet
train to Osaka and had a similar
trade show and reception the following day.
The trade mission was billed as
the Western Canada Food Expo
and it happens every two years.
Most of the Canadian companies
in attendance were exporting
ready-to-retail foods like potato
chips, candy, camelina oil, pork,
rolled oats and honey. Many of
the buyers at the Tokyo and
Osaka expos were from grocery
stores, restaurants, and other
retail outlets and they wanted
to buy ready-to-eat and ready-toprepare products.
Buyer feedback
We did have a couple of traders
and food manufacturers express
interest in importing Canadian
grains. Fababeans sorted to particular sizes were of interest, as
were green peas for snack foods.
Several buyers asked about nonGMO soybeans for food process-
ing. There were also a couple of
companies interested in importing flax, but flax has two strikes
against it in the Japanese market:
cyanide and GMOs.
I had no idea before I traveled
to Japan that there are naturally
occurring cyanide compounds
in flax. We all know cyanide
is poisonous, but as the saying
goes, “the dose makes the poison.” There is no evidence of the
cyanide content in flax harming
any humans, but the Japanese
will reject a shipment if the cyanide content is more than 10
parts per million. This standard
is based on research on the cassava plant, which also contains
cyanide. Cassava is a staple food
in some parts of Africa and when
consumed exclusively for an
extended period of time the cyanide content can cause a paralytic
disorder. Ten parts per million is
considered a safe level of cyanide
compounds in cassava.
It doesn’t make much sense
to impose the same standard
on flax, which is consumed in
much smaller amounts than cassava, but this is good example of
Japanese regulators prioritizing
food safety. According to the
trade commissioner I talked to,
most raw flax contains 10 to 20
parts per million of cyanide, if a
shipment were to arrive in Japan
and test over the limit, it would
be sent back at huge cost to the
exporter. The only way around
the cyanide problem is to roast
the flax, which one Regina company is doing.
The other problem I mentioned
is GMOs. In 2009, Japan found
a trace amount of genetically
modified flaxseed in a shipment.
(A genetically modified variety
of flax had been developed in
Saskatchewan but was pulled
from the market. However, not
before trace amounts were found
in a number of Canadian flax
varieties.) Because GM flaxseed
is not approved for human consumption in Japan, the load was
rejected and all subsequent flax
shipments destined for food are
to be inspected until enough
shipments pass the test that random testing can resume. Even if
a lot of flax passes a Canadian
T:17.4”
Ba
Alw
FS:8.45”
F:8.7”
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
23
Columns
Left: Sarah Weighum at the Japanese embassy. In Japan, Sarah learned that food safety and cost are the two
most important factors to Japanese consumers. Right: In Japan, Sarah Weighum visited a warehouse where
home-delivery grocery orders are processed.
T:17.4”
GMO test, concerns remain that
trace amounts will be detected
on the other side of the Pacific.
Despite the supposed purging
of GMO seed from the Canadian
flax crop, exporters remain in
a catch-22 situation. Canadian
exporters are loathe to send a
shipment to Japan in case it gets
rejected, so the Canadian system
can’t build up the good credit it
needs to avoid intense scrutiny.
Another thing we learned is
that all imports of wheat and
barley to Japan are co-ordinated
by their ministry of agriculture.
Every year the government asks
food processors to estimate their
wheat and barley needs for the
year. The country’s small domestic
production is subtracted from this
amount and then the government
tasks private grain traders with
bringing enough grain into the
country to meet the demand. Part
of the mark-up on the imported
wheat and barley is used to subsidize domestic production.
T:10”
Freedom from wild oats.
Varro® herbicide for wheat.
Freedom from Group 1 herbicide resistance.
Freedom to select your preferred broadleaf partner.
Freedom to re-crop back to sensitive crops like lentils.
To learn more about Varro, visit:
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BayerCropScience.ca or 1 888-283-6847 or contact your Bayer CropScience representative.
Always read and follow label directions. Varro® is a registered trademark of the Bayer Group. Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.
C-78-01/15-10303665-E
There are
naturally
cyanide
compounds
in flax
It’s kind of a reverse Canadian
Wheat Board: instead of a single
desk buyer, Japanese food processors
essentially have a single desk supplier. And it means that Canadian
exporters can’t sell directly to a
Japanese food processor.
If it sounds challenging to do
business in Japan, that’s because it
is and the staff from the Canadian
embassy didn’t sugarcoat this reality. It can take a long time and
many emails and visits to ink a
deal. The trade-off? The Japanese
desire for a long-term business
relationship.
As one commissioner said, “The
Japanese aren’t looking for a one
night stand, they’re looking for a
marriage.”
In my next column I’ll take
you to Korea, where we experienced kimchi, Korean BBQ and
an onslaught of keen Korean grain
buyers. †
Sarah Weigum grows pedigreed seed and
writes at Three Hills, Alta. Follow her on
Twitter: @sweigum.
F:8.7”
24
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Machinery & Shop
Build a better workshop
How to install an overhead garage door
Installing an overhead garage door may not be the easiest project you’ll ever tackle,
but doing it yourself can save a hefty installation fee. Here’s a hands-on account
By Scott Garvey
“
T
here’s more to it than
you’d think,” commented a friend who
used to be a contractor
and building supplies retailer. We
were discussing what’s involved
when installing an overhead
garage door in farm workshop.
After just finishing my own
installation, I had to wholeheartedly agree with him. But getting
a quality overhead door installed
may be one the best improvements any workshop can get,
especially if it involves upgrading
from the sliding door types.
One of the problems with sliding doors is it’s difficult to get
them to seal to the wall to keep
cold winter air out and heat in.
Overhead doors do that pretty
well. So for that reason we decided
to swap out a pair of sliding doors
on our workshop for something
better. And to save about $1,000
in installer fees, we tackled the
project ourselves.
Based on our experience, here
are our tips for anyone contem-
plating a do-it-yourself overhead
door installation.
The tips
If you’ve never tackled an
installation like this before, make
sure you have all the instruction
sheets you need before beginning.
When our door arrived, there was
a box full of jumbled hardware
but no instructions and no materials list. So, it took a couple of
phone calls and a wasted day trying to get them.
Even after tracking down
instruction sheets, laying out the
door sections and hardware on
the ground, before trying to put
anything together, was helpful in
understanding how things should
fit together. Take your time here
and understand the process before
you begin.
There are a couple of ways to
tackle the job. Both require setting the bottom door section
(with rollers attached) in the
opening, centring and levelling
it. Drive a framing nail into the
jamb on each side and bend
them around the door section
to hold it in place when you’re
satisfied it’s in perfect positon.
You may have to place a shim
under one side of the bottom
door section if your concrete sill
isn’t perfectly level. Keeping the
door and tracks level and plumb
is critical.
From here, there are two ways
you can go. You can continue
stacking sections and holding
them in place with nails until all
are in place and level all the way
to the top. Or, you can install
both vertical tracks after placing
just the bottom section.
If you go with the second option
and install the tracks first, installation of additional door sections
requires you attach a hinge on
one side and pivot the roller into
the track as you stack the section
on the one below it. Then slip the
opposite roller and hinge into the
track and slide it down onto the
door section to attach it.
If you’ve shimmed one side of the
door, be sure to shim the bottom
of the vertical track on that side as
well. The tracks on both sides of the
door need to be level or the door
will bind when you try to raise it.
The vertical track is designed
to tilt back, away from the wall.
To compensate and keep the
door fitting tightly to the wall
when it’s closed, hinges will progressively place the roller about
1/4-inch farther back from the
door on each section. The rearward angle of the track allows
the door to pull away from the
jamb as it’s lifted, eliminating
any drag. Each hinge will have
a number stamped into it to
indicate where it’s placed on the
door. The higher up the door the
hinge is mounted, the higher
number it will have.
Once the door sections and the
vertical track are in place and
properly levelled and plumbed,
install the horizontal tracks and
temporarily secure them to their
mounting points on the ceiling
with a rope. There is pre-drilled
aluminum angle iron available
just for the purpose of mounting
tracks to the ceiling, but it likely
won’t be included with your door
kit. Building supply stores carry it.
Measure carefully to ensure
both horizontal tracks are square
to each other and at 90 degrees
to the wall in order to prevent binding when the door is
raised. Depending on your particular door and the type of lifting mechanism, the horizontal
tracks may need to be level or
tilted slightly upward.
The tensioner spring used to
help raise the door needs to be
manually wound the appropriate number of times to give the
proper lift assistance. Check your
instructions for the proper tension. Winding them the necessary
amount for a large shop door will
involve a little sweat.
Overall, this type of installation is not a one-man job. You’ll
need at least one helper. If you
have a friend who has installed
a door before, do your best to
convince him to come over for
the day and give you a hand.
Having someone on site with
experience doing this job will
definitely help. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
1
2
3
4
photos: scott garvey
1. Changing the doors on a farm shop from the sliding type (left) to a roll-up version (right) can
be a useful upgrade if you intend to heat the building in the winter. 2. To ensure the door will
roll up properly, the vertical sections of the tracks need to be level and even with each other at
the start of the curve to the horizontal portion or the door will bind. 3. Each hinge is numbered.
Place those with lowest number on the bottom section and progressively install the next highest
numbers as you work upward to the top of the door. 4. Perforated angle iron is available from
building supply stores to mount the horizontal tracks to a secure point in the ceiling.
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
25
Machinery & Shop
Keep it going
Keeping the old Cat running
On his ranch near Turtle Lake, Wilfred Hamm is still using his 820 John Deere and D4 Caterpillar
By Lisa Guenther
W
ilfred Hamm has
a large collection
of old and antique
farm machinery, and much of it is still used
on his ranch near Turtle Lake,
Saskatchewan.
Wilfred uses an 820 John Deere
for cultivating summer fallow. The
820 John Deere is a two-cylinder
diesel. It has a four-cylinder pony
engine which runs on gas. Wilfred
says the John Deere always starts,
and requires little maintenance,
other than oil changes. Wilfred
and his son, Paul, both weld, and
can tackle many repair jobs on
their own.
But the John Deere’s six-volt
generator doesn’t work anymore,
and Wilfred can’t source another
one. This means that after a week
or so of work he has to recharge
the battery.
The old JD isn’t the most comfortable ride — in fact, Wilfred’s
the only one who uses it regularly.
It’s quite loud, so he has to wear
hearing protection. But it does
have power steering, and Wilfred
says he can run it for half the
cost of his newer tractor, which
has front-wheel assist and an airconditioned cab.
photos: lisa guenther
Left: The Hamm family originally used this D4 Cat in their sawmill,
and they still use it to put up wood to heat their shops, as well as
one home. Right: The JD 820 Diesel has a four-cylinder gas motor
that starts the diesel engine. Wilfred says it always starts.
The little cat
This D4 Caterpillar is still used
on the Hamm ranch, near Turtle
Lake, Saskatchewan.
Wilfred Hamm says he originally bought the Cat to skid logs.
Wilfred and his family used to run
a sawmill, and they still mill their
own lumber for corrals and farm
buildings. They also use the Cat to
bring in wood to heat one house
and two shops on the ranch. The
dozer blade comes in handy when
clearing snow or brush.
The D4 Cat pre-dates hydraulics,
and so a cable winch lifts the dozer.
Breaking cables aren’t a problem,
Wilfred says, as they replace the
cables once they start to fray.
The engine is a four-cylinder
diesel. It has an electric start
pony engine, which runs on gas.
The D4 was bought second-hand
several years ago, but Wilfred
says the only issue he’s had
was a leaky radiator, which he
replaced. †
WE’RE
FARMERS,
TOO.
Farmer. Visionary.
SeedMaster Founder.
Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based
at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.
You want to seed fast and efficiently. You want to place seed and fertilizer accurately. You want
the best stand establishment possible. You want the most profitable seeding system. We know
what you want. We’re farmers, too.
1.888.721.3001
Wilfred Hamm originally bought
the Cat to skid logs.

www.seedmaster.ca
26
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Machinery & Shop
Build a better workshop
How to pick the right fire
extinguisher for a farm shop
There is more than one type of fire extinguisher.
Find out which type is best to keep your farm shop safe
By Scott Garvey
I
n any typical farm workshop
there are always flammable
materials inside, such as liquids like oil and gasoline or
greasy rags and ordinary wood and
paper. In the same space is a variety of potential ignition sources, a
welder or grinder that can throw
sparks, the electrical systems of
vehicles or machines stored inside,
even gas-flame torches.
The risk of fire is very real, and
more than a few farm shops have
burned to the ground. The best
way to ensure yours doesn’t go up
in smoke is to start by having a fire
extinguisher on hand. But there is
more than one type and not all
work on every type of fire. Here’s a
look at your extinguisher options.
First of all, fires are classified
by the type of material burning.
Class A fires are fuelled by ordinary
materials, like paper, wood or some
plastics. Class B fires involve combustible fluids like gasoline and
oils. And Class C fires are electrical.
There is also a Class D fire,
which describes burning metals,
like magnesium. But it’s unlikely
the average farm shop will ever
experience one of those.
Class A, B and C fires, however,
are high on the probability list.
So every workshop should have
extinguishers that can cope with
all three. An ordinary dry chemical
extinguisher will handle that job,
just look for an ABC rating, which
will be displayed on its body.
Dry chemical extinguishers
smother a fire with a powdery,
non-toxic agent that can leave
you with a big mess to clean up
afterward. But at least you’ll still
have a shop that needs cleaning.
And if you spray dry chemical into
the engine bay of a vehicle to suppress a fire, you may find you have
to remove and clean the carb (if
it’s an older machine) along with
other components to try and get
rid of residual chemical.
An alternative to the dry chemical type is a carbon dioxide (Co2)
extinguisher. The Co2 displaces
oxygen in a small area, putting
the fire out that way. A benefit
to this type is it does not leave
a big residue mess, making it
ideal for engine bay flare ups. A
disadvantage is it is not rated for
Class A fires. The high-pressure
gas cloud it creates can scatter
burning material, actually spreading a Class A fire.
If you need to extinguish your
own burning clothes or a coworker’s, the dry chemical extinguisher
is better suited for that. Co2 will
work, but it can also cause frostbite to skin, adding to injuries.
And because it displaces oxygen
it can cause suffocation if you surround yourself with it. You really
don’t want to pass out in the middle of fighting a blaze.
There are also still Halon extinguishers on the market, which use
Halon 1301 or Halon 1211 gas.
These gasses have been identified as
long-lasting ozone depleting agents,
but manufacturers are allowed to
use existing stocks in new extinguishers. They work in a manner
similar to C02, stopping the chemical reaction involved in a fire.
It’s best to avoid buying cheaper, small, plastic-bodied extinguishers, opt instead for a five or
10 pound steel-bodied, recharge-
Tundra
Keep an eye on the pressure gauge to ensure an extinguisher is still
usable. This one no longer has stored pressure and needs servicing.
able types. These good-quality
extinguishers also have a pressure
gauge that will clearly indicate if
they are still serviceable.
Where to put them
Mounting ABC extinguishers at
eye level near exits is a good idea.
That way in the event of a fire
your escape route and path to
an extinguisher location are the
same, so making a fight or flight
choice won’t involve going away
from an exit — and safety — to
find an extinguisher. If the fire
is of a size that you can tackle it
with an extinguisher, you’ll still
have your escape route at your
back if things get out of hand.
If you have a designated repair
area in your shop where you could
experience a Class B or C fire,
placing a Co2 extinguisher near
there will provide quick access to
deal with small flare ups without
leaving that dry chemical mess I
mentioned earlier. You’ll still need
ABC extinguishers near the exits
to fall back on, though.
But it’s important to remember
this: if the fire is large and flames
are already lapping at the ceiling
or the building is rapidly filling
with smoke, getting out is probably your only sensible alternative.
After successfully suppressing a
workshop fire, keep a close eye on
things for quite a while in case of
a flare up. And if you can safely
move the problem material outside, do it. If fire flares up again,
at least your shop won’t be at risk.
And when using an extinguisher, discharge the contents
fully to ensure a blaze is out.
Once activated, an extinguisher
photos: scott garvey
Selecting a steel-bodied five or
10 pound extinguisher like this
one is a good choice for a farm
workshop. But keep them in
serviceable condition. This one
has been neglected and won’t be
of any use in a fire.
won’t hold pressure over the
long term any more, anyway. It
will need to go to a service facility to be refilled.
According to Leonard Sharman,
senior media advisor for Cooperators
Insurance, having extinguishers in
your shop won’t guarantee you an
insurance discount. But, he suggests, demonstrating you’re prepared for fire in your shop may
result in an underwriter offering
you a discounted premium. “It is
a factor that the underwriter takes
into account when reviewing the
policy,” he said in an email. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
27
Machinery & Shop
U.S. Farm Progress Show
New grain storage products from GSI
A new high-capacity bin and belt conveyor are the latest from AGCO’s GSI brand
By Scott Garvey
A
GCO’s grain storage
and handling brand GSI
had a couple of new
products to introduce
at the U.S. Farm Progress Show
in Iowa last August. It added
a new 40-Series, four-inch corrugated high-capacity grain bin
and VersaLoop round tube chain
conveyor to its list of products.
GSI carried forward some of
the features of the 2.66-inch corrugated 40-Series bin, which it
launched in 2013, and integrated
them into its new 4-inch corrugated bin line. The new design
allows bins to be built taller than
the 2.66 version yet sit on a smaller
footprint. Diametres range from
30 to 72 feet; and they can be built
up to 21 rings high, providing a
maximum capacity for the new 40
Series of 282,000 bushels.
“We now have a much more
comprehensive bin offering along
with additional features, such as
2-ring walk-through doors,” says
Greg Trame, GSI’s global product
manager for storage.
Roof panels on the new 40
Series have been redesigned, and
the bins are also available with the
optional Z-Tek roof that can withstand higher snow loads. They
have larger flat tops and are rated
for up to 50,000 pounds of peak
loading to accomodate a wider
array of handling equipment.
Chain conveyor
can move up
to 6,000 bushels
per hour
The new 40 Series bins also use
an updated, rolled structural base
angle that prevents water from
entering at the base of the bin,
and base stiffener boots that are
powder-coated so they won’t rust.
“These and other upgrades bring
farmers many of the same rugged features that were originally
designed for commercial bin environments,” Trame adds.
The new modular VersaLoop
round chain conveyor can move
up to 6,000 bushels per hour on
inclines of up to 60 degrees with a
minimum of supports.
Trame says installing the
VersaLoop conveyor is an easy
way to replace an auger. “It’s quieter, doesn’t wear like an auger
and also moves grain more gently
and efficiently,” he says. “And,
with its round tube design, it
offers excellent clean-out compared to loop conveyors with
square boxes.”
The company claims the
VersaLoop offers easy maintenance, because it uses a direct drive
system with no belts to repair or
replace. Also, the motor, gear box
and chain take-up are all located
at one end of the tube, providing
easier access than loop conveyors
that have these service points at
both ends.
For more information go
online to GSI’s website, www.
grainsystems.com. †
photos: agco
Left: New four-inch corrugated 40 Series bins from GSI offer up to 282,000 bushel capacity on small
footprints. Right: The VersaLoop offers easy maintenance and can move up to 6,000 bushels per hour.
Tomorrow’s success starts here
and the key is in John Deere equipment
Before you turn the ignition on another canola season,
make sure the machines in your shed can get you from
one destination to the next, and not just a stop or two
along the way. John Deere equipment and services are a
complete solution you can trust to get you from seeding,
through application, and into harvest.
Start your season off strong with a new 9R/9RT Series Tractor
paired with precise air-seeding tools – combined they give you the power
and productivity to set the stage for higher yields. Ensure your canola
gets consistent application coverage, acre after acre, thanks to our
impressive line of self-propelled sprayers. On the back end, get some of
the best harvesting options in the business with a John Deere Windrower
or S-Series Combine to pull as much revenue out of your feld as possible.
Want to know the whole story? Visit Deere.ca/Ag for more information
on the full John Deere suite of technology for high-performance canola
production. Nothing Runs Like A Deere™.
JohnDeere.ca
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
61483-2_Canola JD Products 1p ad_CAN.indd 1
2/5/15 1:35 PM
28
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Machinery & Shop
New equipment
Kubota launches the M7 Series
An entirely new line of tractors raises the orange brand’s horsepower limit to 170
By Scott Garvey
M
ore than a few head
of Prairie cattle look
forward every winter to seeing one
of Kubota’s the orange machines
bringing them out feed bales each
day. But with a top horsepower
rating on the brand’s most powerful model at the start of 2014 that
kept it in the utility segment, the
range of duties these tractors could
perform was limited.
Now, Kubota executives plan
on having their equipment — not
just tractors — make a much bigger impact in the ag machinery
market. They’ve started growing
the size of their tractors with the
introduction in October of the
three-model M7 Series.
Built in France, the new 130,
150 and 170 horsepower models
will make it to Canadian shores by
mid summer.
“We’ll start to see that tractor
mid year, probably July or August
we’ll start to get equipment on the
ground in Canada,” says David
Webster, general manager for marketing and sales in Canada. “Then
we’ll be doing some local events to
help dealers expose their customers
to the machine.”
The M7 Series is a new design
for Kubota tractors, both inside the
cab and out. The company claims
all the driveline components have
been specifically engineered to work
together for maximum fuel efficiency. And designers have paid
attention to ergonomics to make
the cab and controls much more
comfortable for the operator.
The control layout inside the cab
includes a new, multifunction joystick that controls speed, direction
and three-point hitch operation. A
new touch screen monitor provides
data on a number of functions.
The M7 tractors were introduced
a few weeks earlier in Europe than
here, and they are more likely to
appeal to farmers as tillage tractors there. In Canada and the U.S.,
brand marketers expect to target
primarily livestock and hay producers, although it will appeal to some
as a primary field tractor.
“We have much larger tractors
here (in North America than in
Europe),” says Todd Stucke, VP of ag
and turf for Kubota in the U.S. “This
tractor fits their market very well.
There is more market opportunity.
It fits us very well too, especially
in that livestock, hay market and it
also allows us to step into that row
crop market.”
To further pique livestock producers’ interest, the brand is now
offering some haying equipment,
and there is more to come. Kubota
recently acquired Norwegian manufacturer Kverneland, which has
been producing haying and tillage
equipment for decades. Some of
those implements are already available through Kubota dealers.
“One of the biggest things we’ll
be introducing is the silage baler,”
says Webster. “We have a 4x5, 5x5
(round) baler that we offer now in a
couple of different models. And we
offer those in silage configurations
as well. We don’t have a 5x6 baler
yet, which is probably more applicable to customers in Western Canada,
in the prairie provinces. But that’s
something I expect to see in our
product line in the coming years.”
Although executives won’t reveal
the timeline for the introducing
additional products, they emphasize that there will be more to come.
And they think western farmers
will like what they see, with future
products tailored to meet the needs
of larger producers.
“...As we look at getting into
larger farming operations, we’ll
definitely continue to see product-line expansion, evidenced by
the M7 tractor that was introduced,” adds Webster. “And we’ll
definitely see that product line
continue to grow. The company
isn’t done there.” †
1
2
photos: kubota
3
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
1. Introduced to North American
dealers in October, the new M7 Series
offers three models that top out at
170 horsepower. 2. Along with the
new, larger tractors, the company is
also offering a growing line of Kubotabrand haying equipment. 3. Kubota
will eventually add more round baler
models to its Canadian equipment
lineup, including a 5 x 6 model
sometime in the future.
fielding life’s needs.
At OK Tire, we know there’s more to life than your fields. That’s why we service what we sell, and offer a
full range of tires for tractors, combines, wagons, implements, even ATV’s. We keep you moving, leaving
you more time to enjoy the other important parts of your life.
For the latest specials, visit your local OK Tire or oktire.com
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
29
Machinery & Shop
Canada’s Farm Progress Show
Aftermarket concave wins Innovation Award
Sunnybrook Welding introduces CR Tri-Frame concave for NH combines
By Lisa Guenther
rub bars to concaves to rotors. The them. Boronized equipment
modular concave for CR model wears better than steel and cuts
New Holland combines, which the co-efficient of friction of the
was granted a Sterling Innovation concave’s underbelly by about
Award at Canada’s Farm Progress half, according to Foster.
Show last June, is just the comThe award-winning concave
pany’s latest offering.
was designed specifically for
Sunnybrook’s modular concave New Holland combines, but the
design also cuts waste, Foster says. “technology crosses over to every
With a typical concave “You throw combine out there,” he adds. The
500 pounds of steel into the scrap company is currently replicating
bin for the loss of three or four the technology for other models.
ounces of mass when we call it
Farmers can pick up a
dull,” he says. “With this system Sunnybrook concave through
you’re able to change out a small most New Holland dealers. For
piece.”
more information, visit sunnyWhen the people at Sunnybrook brookwelding.com. †
photo: lisa guenther
Welding started designing the Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based
The modular CR Tri-Frame concave for NH combines garnered
concave, they decided to boron- at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
Sunnybrook Welding a Silver Innovation Award at Canada’s Farm
Walinga7614FAd_VF.pdf
Walinga7614FAd_VF.pdf
1 fbcpublishing.com
8/13/2014
9:49
AM Twitter @LtoG.
8/13/2014
9:49
or on
Progress Show last1
June.
ize surfaces instead
of chroming
S
unnybrook Welding’s new
CR Tri-Frame concave
design slashes changeout time by at least half,
claims Gerald Foster, the company’s president and CEO. The key,
he says, is the modular design.
“So instead of replacing the
whole frame, we have a segmented
underlay to the concave that bolts
in, in three different pieces,” Foster
explains. “And each one of those
three pieces has three reversible,
replaceable segments in it.”
Sunnybrook Welding produces
combine components compatible with all the major equipment
brands. Their products range from
AM
National Farm
Machinery Show
THE ALL NEW
e-QuipTV
online
7614F
Grainews was at
the National Farm
Machinery Show in
Louisville, Kentucky
HIGHEST CAPACITY
UNBEATABLE
PRICE AND
T
he annual National
Farm Machinery Show
was held in Louisville,
Kentucky, in mid-February and Grainews was there. Be
sure to go online to grainews.ca
and click on the e-QuipTV heading under the “videos” link to
watch our video coverage of the
event. Also check out the online
features listing for additional
articles from the show. †
Scott Garvey
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/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Cattleman’s Corner
The Markets
Downsizing is over —
the cow herd is rebuilding
Next fall’s feeder market may adjust to larger calf crops in Canada and the U.S.
Jerry
Klassen
Market
Update
W
estern Canadian
fed and feeder
cattle prices have
come off the historical highs over the past month
as the market starts to factor in
growing beef supplies and beef
demand stagnates.
It appears U.S. second quarter
beef production will be larger than
earlier anticipated given the yearover-year increase in cattle-onfeed inventories. Longer term, it
appears that cattle inventories are
expanding as producers respond
to the record-high prices. Feeder
cattle values may have reached
an exasperation point this past
fall. A sharper heifer-retention
rate resulted in an abnormally
tight supply situation and feedlot
margins for the spring will move
into negative territory given the
price of fed cattle.
Macro conditions have supported the Canadian cattle complex. The weaker Canadian dollar has enhanced demand for all
classes of cattle and beef products
while weaker energy prices have
given the average consumer a 1.5
to four per cent increase in disposable income.
The USDA estimated the Jan.
1 cattle inventory at 89.8 million head, up one per cent in
comparison to Jan. 1, 2014. The
number of beef cows showed a
year-over-year increase of two per
cent while beef replacement heifers were up four per cent from
last year. Calves born in 2014
totalled 33.9 million head, up one
per cent from the 2013 calf crop
of 33.7 million head. Looking at
past historical patterns, we could
see the calf crop jump by four
to five per cent in 2015 given
the number of beef cows and
heifer retention projections. The
inventory contraction phase has
come to an end in 2014 and we
have turned the corner looking
towards an additional two to four
years of herd rebuilding.
U.S. cattle on feed inventories
as of January 1 were 10.690 million head, up one per cent from
last year. Fed cattle marketings
during December were down five
per cent from December of 2013
while placements were down
eight per cent. I don’t focus to
hard on the placements because
this can be delayed due to factors
such as dryer pasture or market conditions. The most important is the on-feed number and
fed-cattle marketings. Feedlots
have held back on marketings
and overall on-feed numbers are
higher, which will result in a
year-over-year increase in secondquarter beef production.
ALBERTA AND
SASKATCHEWAN NUMBERS
Alberta and Saskatchewan feedlot inventories are running three
to five per cent below year-ago
levels. The industry experienced
a larger export program of feeder
cattle resulting in lower on-feed
numbers domestically. For January,
the number of cattle slaughtered
in Canada was down five per cent
from last year while beef production was down two per cent.
We’ve seen an increase in slaughter
weights offsetting a portion of the
number of cattle slaughtered.
photo: file
As these southern Alberta cows wait for spring to arrive, figures show a one, two and even four per cent increases
in some aspects of the U.S. beef cattle herd are clear signs that the beef industry contraction phase is over, and
the North American beef herd is beginning to be rebuilt.
Alberta packers have been
using contracted supplies but
I feel the domestic market is
rationing demand away from
export channels due to the lower
on-feed numbers. Canadian fed
cattle exports during January
were down 50 per cent compared to year-ago levels. This
may be a signal we should see
stronger basis levels in the second quarter which is somewhat
counter seasonal. However, it is
a positive factor for Canadian
producers when U.S. supplies are
growing. Alberta fed cattle prices
are quoted near $185 whereas
U.S. destined cattle bring $180 to
$183 back to the feedlot.
The demand equation is vulnerable to a weakening profile.
U.S. pork and broiler production
will expand by nearly one billion
pounds each in 2015. Consumers
may have a marginal increase
in disposable income due to
lower energy prices but people
are always price conscious, especially when products are equally
healthy.
Another factor to consider is
the unemployment rate has been
declining, dipping to 5.6 per
cent, which is under the longerterm average of 5.8 per cent. The
unemployment rate can be misleading because there are apparently 30 million Americans out of
work or severely underemployed,
which the surveys doesn’t take
into account. In any case, if we
don’t see this change or improve,
beef demand is not improving but
stagnating or deteriorating.
Fed cattle prices are expected to
trend lower in the second quarter
due to larger beef production and
stagnating demand. Feeder cattle
prices are expected to come under
pressure as fed cattle values drift
lower. Secondly, I’m still somewhat
bullish on feed grain prices for
western Canadian feedlot operators
later in spring, which will narrow
the feeding margin structure. Next
fall, I’m expecting the feeder market to adjust to larger calf crops in
Canada and the U.S. †
Gerald Klassen analyzes cattle and hog markets
in Winnipeg and also maintains an interest in
the family feedlot in southern Alberta. For
comments or speaking engagements, he can
be reached at [email protected] or call
204 899 8268
Better bunks and pastures
How much mineral are your cows eating?
Some guidelines on how to calculate a herd’s consumption from different sources
PETER
VITTI
P
utting out free-choice
loose mineral to nursing
cows isn’t a particularly
difficult job, but it is an
essential one.
It’s a recommendation that I
have made for years, because we
need to maintain or elevate their
post-calving mineral status that
helps cows cycle before the start
of the breeding season and conceive early within weeks of letting out the bulls. In addition,
we should feed cattle mineral in
proper feeders and then monitor
its consumption by cows to assure
they are eating sufficient mineral.
Unfortunately, many people
follow the feeding directions on
the mineral bag’s feed label, but
really don’t check how much
their cows are consuming on a
daily basis. In many cases, they
feed too little, which could allow
a possible macro- or trace-marginal deficiency to develop and
could easily lead to poor pregnancy rates. Others dump in too
much, where they are constantly
digging out uneaten rock-hard
mineral, which is wasteful.
Once, I received a call from a
veterinarian near Edmonton saying one of her clients, a 300
cow-calf operation, thought they
had a copper deficiency in their
herd, because many cows had
little heat activity a couple of
months after calving and often
failed to catch during the breeding season. Within a few minutes
of our conversation, she said the
herd showed subtle symptoms of
a copper deficiency and asked me
if it made sense to significantly
increasing the copper levels in
a commercial mineral her client
was feeding.
Without judgment on the herd’s
copper status, I asked how much
mineral was being fed daily to this
cow herd. The vet replied didn’t
know, but her clients visited their
cattle grazing pasture about once
a week and assumed they put
out a couple of bags of this commercial mineral. At the end of our
conversation, I gave her the best
recommendation for feeding most
commercial low-salt beef mineral;
feed 50 to 100 grams (two to four
ounces) per head per day. For
a 300 cow-calf operations: (70 g
x 300 cows x 7 day)/25-kg bag
equals six bags on a weekly basis.
KEEPING TRACK
For producers who wish to
keep track of the exact amount
of mineral their cattle consume
on a daily basis, adjusted within
these guidelines; the calculation
to determine cattle mineral intake
is a straightforward procedure:
(1) count how many cows and
estimate how much total mineral is to be fed to them, (2) fill
each mineral feeder with one
bag of mineral, (3) come back
a few days later, (4) estimate or
measure the amount left in each
feeder, and (5) do the following
calculations.
• (7 feeders (for 300 — cows)
x 25 kg mineral) — (about
1/3 of the mineral leftover)
= 117 kg
• 117 kg/300 cows/3 days
= 130 g per head per day.
•4
.6 ounces (divide grams by
28) per head per day.
Given this conversation, there
is likely a built-in variability in
how much mineral cattle actually eat. We target between 50 to
100 grams, but a small portion
of the herd will either consume
inadequate or too much mineral,
but the bulk of the cow herd
should consume the approximate recommended amount.
Some producers mix salt with
their purchased mineral, in order
to either increase or decrease
cow herd mineral intake. It is
common to mix 1/3 salt with
2/3 mineral, and feed it, accordingly. Although this is a sound
practice, producers should check
the rest of the cows’ diet and
make sure that cattle don’t avoid
» continued on page 32
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
31
Cattleman’s Corner
ANIMAL HEALTH
Refresher on pulling a calf
Even if you have easy calvers, it’s a skill worth perfecting
Roy
Lewis
animal
health
P
roducers need to understand the proper use of a
calf jack or hand-pulling
techniques during a difficult calving, as different malpresentations need to be dealt with
slightly differently.
When pulling, be cognizant of
the stress this puts on both the
calf and cow. With more producers selecting for ease of calving in
their breeding program, pulling
is a skill less needed but one still
worth perfecting.
A successful “pull” can mean
the difference between a live calf
versus a dead one, or a cow which
breeds back on time versus one
which retains her placenta, has
vaginal tears and never rebreeds.
The very first decision is about
when to intervene — vaginally
checking out a cow and initiating
a helping hand. The rule of thumb
is to wait one hour in cows and
1.5 hours with heifers once they
show strong uterine contractions
with no progress. Exceptions to
this rule are when cows or heifers
are uneasy, bawling, or nesting for
an extraordinary period of time.
These are also signs of how some
malpresentations, torsions and
breech births present themselves.
If you have a maternity pen it
is easy to simply run them in and
check them. You can avert a disaster and often save both calf and
cow. With a higher percentage of
twins born in some herds, malpresentations are more common than
one might think. By now all farmers should have either a commercially made maternity pen calving chute or home made device,
which accomplishes the same
thing. The principle when pulling is you must be able to restrain
the cow to clean and check her.
At the same time, while keeping
her head caught she must be able
to lay out in lateral recumbency
with enough room behind to fully
manipulate the puller. Choked
down at the end of a rope is not
the proper position to pull a calf.
CLEANLINESS IS KEY
Of paramount importance is
cleanliness. Before examining the
vagina make sure the whole perineal area is washed with warm
water and surgical soap. Endure,
Betadine, Hibitane are designed
to not be irritating to the sensitive
mucosal surfaces like the inside
of the vagina. You can purchase
a small container from your veterinarian — they are not costly
and will last a long time. Ordinary
soaps, which irritate can lead to
infections potentially scarring and
possibly a delay in rebreeding or
even result in an open cow.
Keep yourself clean. Ideally wear
a calving suit or at least minimally
put on full-arm obstetrical gloves.
Keep them held in position on
your arms with a towel clamp or I
use wide elastic bands. This keeps
you clean and dry and the cow
protected. Take a few minutes to
do these procedures. It calms the
cow down and you are then prepared when pulling ensues.
It is important to first determine
the positioning of the calf. Make
sure it is presented properly. You
always want three things in the
pelvis. Two front legs and a head
for a forwards presentation or two
back legs and a tail in a backwards
presentation.
Attaching the chains properly
can avoid damage to the calf’s legs
and feet. This is especially true
when a routine pull turns into a
hard pull. Again take time and
double loop above and below the
fetlock. Make sure the links are
laying flat and the pull of each
wrap should be lined up. I prefer
the pull to come off the bottom
of the leg.
I personally like one long chain,
which can be double looped on
both feet. The only time I single
loop is with a small malpresented
calf or with twins where I absolutely know it will be a light hand
pull. Calving straps are an alternative. My only issue with straps is
they are harder to keep clean.
Always keep the calf jack close
and have it cleaned and well serviced. It is a good idea to do maintenance and check operation of
the jack at the start of calving
season as it may be rusted stiff
or worn out. This is again where
some farmers’ efforts to keep the
whole process of assisted calving
sterile falls down. I have seen
some pretty grungy calf pullers
over the years. Take a few seconds
to quickly wash especially the
breech (part which goes around
the cows back end) and hang it
to dry. The breech straps should
keep the puller just nicely below
the bottom of the vagina when
pulling. Keep the calving area and
maternity pen clean and periodically disinfect with Virkon disinfectant to keep bacterial and viral
contamination low.
BE PATIENT
With the actual pull, only
advance with the cow’s contractions. You have a bit of time here
so don’t get in a rush. The cow’s
contractions will greatly reduce
the force you need to use. Apply
lots of sterile lubricant. This is
a cheap product, which can be
purchased at the veterinary clinic.
The lubricant is especially helpful
when applied over the head in a
tight pull. It minimizes friction
in the vagina, which is where
tears result. With long calvings or
when the cow has been examined
frequently the vaginal vault dries
out so don’t hesitate to use lots of
lubricant in these circumstances.
You will be amazed at how much
easier the pull becomes. Apply
lots of lubricant over the o.b.
sleeves as well to minimize friction this keeps your arms from
This diagram shows the presentation of a backward calf. While
assisting the delivery of a backward calf starts out on pace with the
cow’s contraction, once the feet and tail are past the pevlis there isn’t
much time to waste.
fatiguing when doing manipulations or applying the chains.
Pull in a slightly downward
motion following the natural curvature of the calf. This is easier
if the cow is lying down. With a
standing cow you can only get
about a 45° angle on the puller.
Always keep an eye on the tension
of the chains. It is very easy in the
heat of the moment to overpull,
pull way too fast and injure the
calf or cow.
Remember calf pullers can exert
2,000 pounds of pulling power,
which can cause great damage in
the wrong hands. Two good-sized
people should be able to pull a
calf by hand otherwise if it is
too big a caesarean section may
be needed. With today’s labour
shortages on farms producers are
often by themselves and the use
of a puller greatly reduces fatigue
by allowing a slow pull, timed
with the cows contractions.
BACKWARD SITUATIONS
Backward calves are pulled
pretty much straight back. Again
you can take your time making
sure the tail is down between
the legs. Pull slowly until the tail
and hips are presented out the
back end. It is about at this time
the calf’s umbilical cord breaks
and the calf must be extracted
fairly fast. This is the only time
you will ever see me pulling a
calf fast.
Keep in mind cows cannot
deliver as big a calf backward as
they can forward. If you see the
dewclaws pointing skywards the
calf should be assisted immediately as many found stillborn calves
are the result of too long a delivery
with a backward calf. †
Roy Lewis is an Alberta-based veterinarian
specializing in large-animal practice. He is
also a part-time technical services vet for
Merck Animal Health.
feed management
Feeder helps reduce hay waste
Designed to encourage eating of small amounts all day
BY LISA GUENTHER
S
troll through the trade
show at a farm conference,
and you’ll quickly find
people who saw a need for
a product for their own livestock
and turned it into a business. The
Jubinville family is one example.
“My dad invented the feeder
and then my brother and I saw
how well it worked and we decided
to turn it into a business,” says
Clayton Jubinville, who has displayed his feeder at several shows
including Agribition in Regina last
fall. Clayton’s father, Leonard, has
a history of creating equipment
such as a deer-handling system.to
improve his bison and whitetail
operation,
Today Clayton and his brother
Delton own HayBoss Feeders, a
company that sells livestock feeders designed to cut hay waste.
The feeder is suitable for horses,
sheep and goats, along with exotics such as llamas, alpacas and
deer. A platform and roof keeps
the hay off the ground and out
of the weather. Netting holds the
bale in place and keeps animals
from pulling out and trampling
large chunks, Jubinville says. “It
just saves the hay. Makes them eat
small amounts, all day.”
HayBoss offers netting with
two-inch or inch-and-a-half holes,
along with one-inch inserts.
Smaller holes make animals work
harder for feed.
How much horse owners will
save on feed depends on whether
the horse is an easy keeper and
how the product is used, Jubinville
says.
For example, square bales in
the two-inch netting wouldn’t
slow down the horses but would
eliminate waste, but netting
with smaller holes would slow
feeding further.
Jubinville says they created the
product to cut feed waste, but
discovered afterward that there are
health benefits linked to continuous feeding in horses. The equine
digestive system is designed for
continuous eating, and so allowing horses to eat small amounts
all day, rather than a couple of big
servings, is optimal.
The Jubinvilles offer a 30-day,
money-back guarantee and a oneyear warrantee on the frame and
all moving parts. Nets last between
two to five years, says Jubinville,
depending on the number of animals being fed and how aggressive
they are. The feeder frame should
last a lifetime, Jubinville says.
Other net feeders offer the same
health benefits for horses, but
HayBoss offers a few extra benefits. The feeder can be used on a
fence line, allowing producers to
feed two pens with a single feeder.
The net also retracts automatically. All the metal is galvanized.
Every round bale feeder comes
with floor extensions and wood
skids, for loading ease and general
sturdiness.
“We consider it the Cadillac of
net feeding,” says Jubinville.
For more information on
HayBoss Feeders, visit www.haybossfeeders.com or call 1-844-HAYBOSS (429-2677). †
Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based
at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.
photo: lee hart
Clayton Jubinville demonstrates
a HayBoss Feeder with the door
open. When closed, livestock can
only access smaller bites of feed
through the netting.
32
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Cattleman’s Corner
Rancher’s Diary
From ice to flooding
— one extreme to the other
heather
smith
thomas
JANUARY 18
ndrea took Dani to Sun
Valley for her hockey
tournament this weekend. With all the kids
in hockey, on different teams,
it’s a challenge to get them to all
their games. Andrea finds rides
for them with other team members when she is taking one of
them a different direction, since
their dad won’t take them to
tournaments, even when it’s his
weekend to have the kids.
Lynn and I help out all we can,
with money for gas and lodging.
They take food along, so they
don’t have to buy meals. One
nice thing about the Sun Valley
trips is that Andrea and kids
have been able to stay in a room
furnished by the Seventh Day
Adventist Church, making those
trips less expensive.
Here at home it’s been cold.
Jasper, one of the dogs tethered
near the heifers, got loose, so we
bought a new dog tether. The
deer are getting bolder, eating
with the heifers in spite of the
dogs. When I went to do chores
that evening there were seven
deer lounging in the field waiting for me to feed hay.
Today Michael took two big
bales of straw up to the cows.
With all the ice, it’s hard to get
around with our big tractor.
A
JANUARY 26
Michael spent several days
working on Andrea’s old car — the
Eagle she bought from neighbours
when she was in high school in
the mid 1980s. She’s getting it
running again, to have a spare
vehicle for Em to drive to work
and hockey practice. Em has a full-
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 30
How much mineral
are your cows eating?
or gravitate toward mineral feeders, because something is excessive or lacking in the forages or
other feed.
We should also realize there
are some seasonal and regional
factors beyond our control. For
example, low mineral intakes
often coincide with springtime,
where high-quality grasses sprout
in lush pastures. In other cases,
high mineral water sources drunk
by cattle are also notorious for
curbing mineral consumption.
PRACTICAL MEASURES
Luckily, there are a few practical measures within our reach.
For example, it is always a good
idea to have enough mineral
feeders for the whole herd. One
standard recommendation is one
feeding station for every 30 to
time job, and also takes the kids
to hockey practice in the evenings
on days that Andrea can’t. Sam
and Em both had birthdays this
month; Em turned 17 and Sam is
12. These kids are growing up fast!
We couldn’t find our tractor
chains; we haven’t used them
for several years and don’t know
where they ended up. Michael’s
tractor chains were easier to
locate, but frozen in the ice. He
chopped them out of the ice and
helped Lynn put them on our
tractor. This made it a lot easier
to load the hay and straw bales
without getting stuck.
Friday, Em went to her hockey
tournament in Missoula,
Montana with a teammate, Lynn
took Charlie and Dani to the
hockey rink here and Andrea
took Sam (and a teammate) to
her tournament in Sun Valley.
They had fun and enjoyed seeing
a snow sculpture created with a
chain saw.
FEBRUARY 3
Last week Michael worked on
Andrea’s pickup, and helped
Lynn build a new fence along the
ditch in the lane to the calving
barn. After putting in the new
culvert last fall and cleaning out
the ditch, it’s very deep and we
don’t want calves falling in when
we’re taking them to and from
the barn. The young cows (heifers and second calvers) are not
competing well with the older
cows that push them away from
the alfalfa hay, and are losing
weight. We decided to move the
young cows to heifer hill where
they can be fed separately.
We needed a feeder for big
straw bales. Michael chopped one
of his old round bale feeders out
of the ice on the upper place and
brought it down with his tractor.
Then we brought the cows down
to the corral Sunday morning.
Michael and Carolyn gave them
their pre-calving vaccinations and
another round of delouse pour-
50 cows. They should be placed
where cattle make frequent visits. Moving mineral stations
closer to water sources generally
increases mineral intake by cows,
while moving feeders farther
back from the water will often
decrease mineral intake.
Mineral feeders should also be
checked often. Some beef specialists suggest producers visit them
every three to four days, while
others say a weekly trip is fine.
It seems the more visits made to
a mineral-feeding site, the better
the chances of achieving optimum mineral intake. If cattle are
allowed to run out of mineral,
they often overcompensate and
fill up on available mineral. In
contrast, cattle tend not to eat
leftover hard mineral or overeat
fresh mineral when feeders are
frequently stocked.
Last, the actual mineral feeders
should be checked on occasion.
Even though each should contain enough good-quality mineral and be easily accessible to
all cows, it should protect the
on, then we sorted off the heifers
and a few of the skinniest young
cows and took them to heifer hill.
Sam didn’t have a hockey tournament that weekend, so she helped
sort cows. Andrea wasn’t here to
help because she’d taken Charlie
to his hockey tournament.
FEBRUARY 12
We had more snow last week
and Lynn’s pickup got stuck
when he took Charlie home from
the bus. The kids had supper
with us, and Dani made a calving calendar, with due dates for
the cows (calving in April), to
put on the wall. Every year we
make a calving calendar, and
Dani likes to circle their names
as they calve.
Cold weather has taken a toll
on 29-year-old Veggie and he
became so stiff he could hardly
walk. I started giving him “bute”
daily, dissolving the pills in warm
water and mixing it with molasses, squirting it into his mouth. It
reduces pain and inflammation,
and by the next day he was walking better, and not so lame.
Last weekend Andrea took
Emily to her hockey tournament in Sun Valley. The weather
warmed and snow melted—slush
on top of ice in our driveway.
Michael spent two afternoons
with tractor and blade, trying
to make our driveways safer. It
thawed for several days, and
snow melted off the low country, flooding fields, ditches and
roads. Now instead of snow we
have mud! It washed big gullies
across our county road.
My brother Rockwell Smith
and his wife Bev brought a big
trailer from Boise, the first load
of things they are moving. They
are selling their house and moving to a rented house here at
Baker (two miles from us), while
their new house is built this
spring on the upper place. Lynn
and Robbie helped them unload
boxes from the trailer.
mineral from water, wind and
sunshine. Water dissolves many
soluble trace minerals such as
copper sulphate. A strong wind
will easily blow away small nutritious particles, while sunlight
degrades a mineral’s vitamin
content. Well-designed feeders
should also be durable to stand
up to years of cattle abuse as well
as survive our cold climate.
By replacing one or two damaged mineral feeders, putting
enough loose mineral in all feeders, and occasionally checking
out how much minerals are being
consumed; helps most post-calving
cows meet their mineral and vitamin requirements. It supplements
essential mineral and vitamins of
the rest of the cows’ diet in order
to get them ready for the upcoming breeding season. It’s all part of
a sound feeding program, which
rewards such effort with cows that
are pregnant with profit. †
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].
photos: heather smith thomas
Fog is just starting to lift off a field where cows are being fed this winter.
First there was snow and then very icy conditions, and soon after this
photo was taken it started to rain which resulted in some areas flooding.
Veggie, the 29-year-old horse stiffened up badly during a cold spell,
although a daily dose of “bute” (Phenylbutazone) helped to improve his
movement until warmer temperatures prevailed.
Readers have been enjoying
my new book Horse Tales: True
Stories from an Idaho Ranch, so I
am starting my next book, Cow
Tales from an Idaho Ranch.
Monday it rained, with more
flooding. Andrea shovelled
ditches along her driveway to
divert the water that was making
deep ruts. With the snow melting, the cows are grazing again.
There was still some grass under
all that crusted snow. We haven’t
put out straw for more than a
week. We’re feeding the alfalfa
hay on top of the straw where
the feeders have been so the
cows won’t tromp the fine leaves
into the mud. †
Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her
husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact
her at 208-756-2841.
Mineral feeder
W
hile there are good commercial mineral feeders on the market, these
are a couple of simple
homemade designs featured on the
Saskatchewan Agriculture website. The
roofed mineral or saltbox keeps minerals dry and is easy to construct. Face the
opening downwind for additional rain
protection. Covered inside corners reinforce the joints and allow cattle to lick
the box clean. To prevent overturning
the feeder, anchor the base skids to four
stakes driven into the ground, or extend
the legs into postholes and backfill.
The barrel-style mineral feeder is constructed from a 45-gallon drum and used
car parts. Wind rotates the drum by
means of the weather-vane so rain is not
driven into the opening. The drum pivots
on a concrete base, which must be heavy
enough to prevent overturning by cattle
or wind. †
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
33
Home Quarter Farm Life
SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Does having fun farming matter?
What is the culture of your farm workplace and how much fun are you having?
Elaine
Froese
W
hen I attend conferences I like to sit
close to the platform
to have an uninterrupted view of the speaker. My mission is to learn, so I take notes on
my laptop or scrawl on a paper.
I also make sure that I introduce
myself to my tablemates, “Hi, I am
Elaine Froese,” as I extend my hand
for a firm handshake. This is not a
game, it’s purposeful networking
that has enhanced the fun in my
life, and provided fodder for these
columns over the past two decades.
March 15, 2015 is the 20th anniversary of my first column in this
paper. When I took over for Marie
Salway’s “Butter Side Up” column
that she had written for 17 years, I
thought, “Wow, that’s a long time.”
Last December at Agri-Trend’s
Digital Farm Forum, I took my preferred spot at the centre-front table
to hear Mario Pilozzi, the former
CEO of Walmart Canada sharing his
lessons on leadership that we could
apply to growing our farms. He sat
at the table and introduced himself
simply as Mario Pilozzi, no fancy
titles. He spoke casually with notes
in one hand, no PowerPoint, and
in a gentle manner. He said the two
most important points for farmers
to focus on was to pay attention to
strategy, and to culture.
His Walmart boardroom was not
the “Ritz,” the folding chairs and
simple table did the job, and did
not cost a lot. Mario had started his
career with Woolco, and moved up
the ranks, but he never lost sight
of the importance of connecting to
people and watching dollars. Mario
wanted to create a great culture for
all of his staff.
I coached a young farmer who
showed me the large-font mission
statement he had created after I
challenged him what kind of farm
he wanted to be a part of. The
words that stuck out for me were,
“We will work hard to grow the
best products possible, and we will
have fun doing it!” I am curious to
ask you, what is the culture of your
farm workplace? How much fun are
you having as you travel quickly
through the seasons of agriculture?
“Are you kidding Elaine? Who
said work is supposed to be fun?”
I just did.
When we are “in flow,” according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi we
lose all track of time because what
we love to do is aligned with our
task. We have a purpose that is
being honoured in our work and
play. I lose track of time when I
write, when I visit or host people.
I am wired to communicate, be
positive as an encourager, and to
seek out more learning. Reading
books in one sitting is fun for me.
You may plant the same crops
this year, herd the same cows, and
drive down the same roads, but are
you having fun? Did you ever stop
to think about what ruts you might
be stuck in that are not serving the
culture of your family well?
In our book Farming’s In-Law
Factor we mapped out the culture of agriculture, the norms of
behaviour that we take for granted
as farmers. Some folks think the
culture of their family can never
change, but I would beg to differ.
Creating a happier, healthier workplace doesn’t happen by accident,
it is intentional. It really starts with
the attitude of each team member
and how they choose to interact
with all the players of the day. We
have a new employee who smiles
a lot and waves hello to recognize
my presence. That small gesture
makes me feel good. What gestures
do you display that make you fun
to be around?
Another piece of culture is how
you decide to solve problems.
Do you embrace new ideas from
many people, and collaborate on
solutions, or does the tension rise
when a certain “leader” enters the
conversation. Today may be the
day to sit down and create a list
of ways to have fun on your farm:
• Smile more.
• Acknowledge work well done
with a “thank you” or high five.
• Tell funny jokes, and stop
using sarcasm as a form of humour.
• Invite times of celebration like
special snacks for staff birthdays.
• Go to the lake on a workday
as a farm team.
• Hire a graphic artist to make
your walls talk with positive quotes
like, “This farm serves our family,”
and, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.”
• Have more picnics in the
field or on the tailgate. Eating
together adds joy to the family
connection, especially when you
have young children who don’t
see Dad enough.
• Plant trees in memory of special events; you can never have
enough trees!
• Talk openly about what is your
favourite role and activity on the
farm, and why. It might be even
more fun if you had better tools
or more leeway to make decisions.
• Stop avoiding the tough conversations and deal with issues
before they explode. Fun things
happen when people aren’t carrying heavy weights of unrealistic
expectations and they are free to
be who they were meant to be.
• Be intentional at paying
attention to your feelings. What
makes you feel satisfied and joyful? For some farmers just seeing
straight rows and good emergence
brings job satisfaction. For others
it might be the verbal affirmation
of the farm staff or jobs done without being asked.
Farms with a strong culture of
fun are attractive to new employees. You might want to ask Colleen
and Grant Dyck of Artel Farms
in Niverville what their “secret
sauce” is.
Artel: (ahr-tel’) noun: A group
of people working together towards a
common goal.
Grant might just tell you that he
models fun and respect to his staff.
People come to their operation
looking for work in a culture that
has a great reputation.
Lots of seminars will talk about
strategy for more yields, better balance sheets and success financially. I
think it’s time we started measuring
the fun factors on our farms and
the degree of work/life balance that
creates energy to grow well together.
What is the culture of success that
you need to focus on in order to
have more fun on your farm? †
Elaine Froese, CAFA, CHICoach coaches
from her farm home in southwestern
Manitoba. Playing games with her “adopted”
grandchildren and painting (art) are two ways
she plans to have more fun on her farm this
spring. Buy her books at www.elainefroese.
com and follow her on Twitter @elainefroese.
Tell her what you do to have fun on your farm.
EXTENDED OUTLOOK FOR THE PRAIRIES
Weather Forecast for the period of March 8 to April 4, 2015
Southern Alberta
Peace River Region
March 8 - 14
Look for changeable conditions
this week as sunny, pleasant days
alternate with occasional rain or
snow. Chance of heavy
precipitation. Seasonal to mild.
March 8 - 14
Look for changeable conditions
this week as sunny, pleasant
days alternate with occasional
rain or snow. Chance of heavy
precipitation. Seasonal to mild.
March 15 - 21
Mild to cool temperatures with
several windy days. Sunshine
mixes with occasional heavy
snow and rain.
March 15 - 21
Mild to cool temperatures with
several windy days. Sunshine
mixes with occasional heavy
snow and rain.
March 22 - 28
Temperatures vary through the
thaw/freeze cycle. Fair apart from
rain or snow on 2 or 3 days,
chance of heavy in places.
March 22 - 28
Temperatures vary through the
thaw/freeze cycle. Fair apart
from rain or snow on 2 or 3 days,
chance of heavy in places.
March 29 - April 4
Generally sunny and seasonal to
cool. Expect a few days with a mix
of sun and cloud or overcast
skies, along with snowy conditions.
March 29 - April 4
Sunny and seasonal to mild, but
on cooler, windy days expect rain
or locally heavy snow.
-12 / 0
Grande Prairie
18.6 mms
March 8 - 14
Temperatures vary with some highs
well above zero in the south but
with sub zero lows. Sunshine
interchanges with heavy snow. Risk
of rain in south. Windy. Cold in east
and north.
March 15 - 21
Seasonal to cold with thawing in the
south and west. Sunny on many
days, but expect some heavier
snow. Risk of rain in south. Windy.
-11 / 0
Edmonton
17.0 mms
15.7 mms
-8 / 4
21.5 mms
March 15 - 21
Temperatures vary from thawing
to sub zero lows. Windy. Sunshine
alternates with heavier snow or
rain in south. Snow and cold north.
March 22 - 28
Mild, blustery, thawing. Some rain
or snow on 2 or 3 days. A weather
system threatens heavy
precipitation.
March 29 - April 4
Unsettled on a few days as
sunshine alternates with rain or
snow. Variable temperatures.
At times windy.
March 29 - April 4
Thaw/freeze cycle and often
windy. Fair, but expect rain or
heavier snow on a couple of
days this week.
-12 / -2
North Battleford
-11 / 1
Red Deer
16.5 mms
-15 / -2
Prince Albert
18.2 mms
17.3 mms
-12 / -2
Saskatoon
16.0 mms
-14 / -3
Yorkton
-16 / -4
The Pas
23.6 mms
NEAR
NORMAL
-14 / -2
Dauphin
-8 / 3
Calgary
Forecasts should be 80%
accurate, but expect
variations by a day or two
because of changeable
speed of weather systems.
March 8 - 14
Temperatures lean toward the cold
side, but some melting in southern
areas. Sunny days alternate with
periodic snow, and possible rain in
the south.
March 22 - 28
Fair with thawing, but a couple of
cooler, frosty, windy days bring
rain or heavy snow.
-16 / -3
-13 / -2 25.6 mms 25.7 mms
-11 / 0
Gimli
Regina
22.6 mms
-11 / -1 Moose Jaw 16.5 mms
Swift 18.1 mms
-12 / -1
14.7 mms
-13 / -2 Portage -12 / -2
-7 / 5
Current
-11 / -1
Medicine Hat
Brandon 26.3 mms Winnipeg
19.5 mms
Weyburn
19mms
cms
20.5 mms
Lethbridge 16.0
23.1 mms
NEAR
16.8 mms -11 / -1
26.0 mms
26 cms
-7 / 5
NORMAL
Estevan Melita -14 / -1
Banff
Manitoba
Precipitation Forecast
NEAR
NORMAL
-7 / 4
Jasper
Saskatchewan
19.9 mms
25.0 mms
Precipitation Outlook
For March
Much Above Normal Below Much
above normal
normal below
normal
normal
Temperatures are normals
for March 15th averaged
over 30 years.
Precipitation
(water equivalent)
normals for March in mms.
©2015 WeatherTec Services
www.weathertec.mb.ca
34
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Home Quarter Farm Life
FROM THE FARM
Create a character cake
What better way to celebrate an event than with a special cake
Debbie
Chikousky
W
hen our children
were growing up
my husband and I
used to make character cakes for their birthdays.
We had a pile of fun and most
of the cakes the children still
remember. We made cakes from
rented novelty pans; there are
lots for purchase at Bulk Barn.
We also made ones that were
pieced together. This was what
my daughter and son chose to do
when they made me a character
birthday cake a few years ago.
They chose to make a penguin
because I adore penguins. They
are the cutest, fluffiest creatures
when they are babies, and then
they grow up into sleek and
shiny adults.
When making a cake that will
be cut up and pieced into a character cake it is important to use a
recipe that is a firm crumb cake.
This is our favourite:
BUSY DAY CAKE
(Family Circle Library
of Cooking)
Preheat oven to 350 F.
2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup soft vegetable
shortening
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
Grease a 9x9-inch baking pan
and lightly dust with flour. Tap
out any excess. Combine flour,
sugar, baking powder, and short-
ening in a medium-size bowl;
stir in milk until blended; beat
at medium speed with electric
mixer for two minutes; add eggs
and vanilla; beat another two
minutes. Spread batter evenly
in prepared pan. Bake in moderate oven (350 F) 30 minutes; or
until centre springs back when
lightly pressed with fingertip.
Cool cake in pan on wire rack.
To make the penguin you
need one 13x9-inch cake plus
two cupcakes. Since this recipe
is for a 9x9-inch cake it must be
increased by 1/2 to use it for a
13x9-inch pan. This will allow
for the two cupcakes that must
be baked for the feet.
Once baked and cooled cut
two curved triangles off the top
of the cake. These are to be
used for the wings which are
glued with frosting onto the
cake. Then decorate with icing.
We used blue because we didn’t
have black food colouring. (If
black is desired it is much easier
to turn chocolate icing black
than white icing.) Then the cupcakes were iced and placed for
feet. The beak was made on
saran wrap, frozen, and then
placed on the penguin’s face.
The hardest part of these cutand-glued cakes is the decorating
of the cut sides. There is nothing
more frustrating than trying to
pick crumbs off. The trick is to
seal them with a crumb coating.
Crumb coating is a very thin
layer of icing that will “glue” any
crumbs down. The key is thinning your icing to a consistency
that will not tear your cake as
you spread it on. When thinning your icing start with small
amounts of water until you reach
the desired consistency. Start by
spreading a thin layer of this
icing onto the cake. Don’t worry
if there are crumbs in the icing;
this is expected. The icing layer
is so thin that you will see the
cake and crumbs. Smooth the
icing as best as you can and let it
dry. The crumb coat needs to be
dry to the touch before you put
the final layer of icing on. Once
the crumb coat is completely dry,
you are ready to continue icing
and decorating. At this point you
would continue icing the cake
as you normally do. The crumb
coat will hold in all of the loose
crumbs and make the penguin’s
head look nice and smooth.
BUTTERCREAM ICING
(double for
penguin cake)
/2 cup solid vegetable
1
shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or
margarine softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups sifted confectioner’s
sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
2 tablespoons milk
In large bowl, beat shortening
and butter with electric mixer until
light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla.
Gradually add sugar, one cup at
a time, beating well on medium
speed. Scrape sides and bottom of
bowl often. When all sugar has
been mixed in, icing will appear
dry. Gradually add milk; beat at
medium speed until light and
fluffy. For thin (spreading) consistency icing, add 2 tablespoons light
corn syrup, water or milk. Add food
colouring of choice.
The addition of grandchildren
into our lives will mean pulling
out the old pans and revisiting
all those birthday experiences.
Little did we know that we were
building such precious memories by making special cakes all
those years ago. Hopefully we
will have lots of fun with all our
events to come too! †
photo: courtesy debbie chikousky
LOVE HEARING FROM YOU
Do you have a story about a farm or
home-based business? How about some household
management tips? Does someone in the family have
a special-diet need? Share some of your meal ideas.
SEND THEM TO FARMLIFE
1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1
Phone 1-800-665-0502 Email [email protected]
Please remember we can no longer
return photos or material. – Sue
Debbie Chikousky farms at Narcisse, Manitoba.
Tundra
Tundra
y! .
da ed
to it
er lim
st s
gi g i
Re atin
Se
“ Very well done! Variety of topics was
great! Can’t wait for the next one!”
- Haley R., Regina Saskatchewan, 2014 AWC Delegate
Capitalize on your opportunities and reap the benefits of your growth! This conference could change your life. Join women
from Ag and related businesses as they reveal the secrets to their success. Attend in Calgary or Toronto - or both. Early Bird
and Group Rates available now. Register today! Visit advancingwomenconference.ca or phone 403-686-8407.
HYATT REGENCY CALGARY, APRIL 6 & 7, 2015
WESTIN HARBOUR CASTLE, TORONTO, OCT 5 & 6, 2015
Advancing Women Conference / Grainews 10.25” x 3” / Saskatchewan Quote
MARCH 3, 2015 grainews.ca /
35
Home Quarter Farm Life
POSTCARDS FROM THE PRAIRIES
Life’s secrets, according to you…
What’s your secret to leading a fulfilling life?
Janita
VAN DE VELDE
W
hat’s the motto you
live by? In the teachings of Confucius,
he referred to three
basic elements required to create
a positive human interaction —
kindness, humanity and respect.
I think that sums it up for
me. If you can radiate a compassion for all those you meet, then
I believe you will feel fulfilled.
I also believe you must extend
these gifts and generosity of spirit
to yourself, because if you don’t,
then I’m afraid your cup will
never feel full.
getting over things as quickly as
they come. And don’t compare
— it makes you ugly.
Just be. I’m starting to sound like
the Dalai Lama. I need to do a
better job of this because I’m a
worry wart.
Live joyfully.
Live and love today as if
there’s no tomorrow.
Work hard, contribute to your
community, savour the present and
engage others.
You get the life you build, not the
life you’ve been told you deserve.
Every day has only 24 hours — use
them all.
Here forthwith are your secrets to
leading a fulfilling life.
Treat everyone with the kindness
and respect they deserve.
At a minimum, leading a fulfilling
life requires breathing and being in
the moment.
Work hard, play hard.
I have three: It’s all good. Will this
matter in five years? Every day
above ground is a good day.
Live well, laugh often, love much.
Do the right thing — in everything
we do this is always the best
way to live.
My life is truly a gift not to ever
be taken for granted. It is my
responsibility to continually strive to
live my best life, to honour that gift.
Enjoy every moment, even if it is
not the first thing you want to be
doing. Make the most of it,
because you can’t ever get that
moment back.
Try to make the world a better place
than it was when you got here.
Not dwelling on hardships and
Remember that
everything works out.
One day at a time.
Your life is what you make it.
I think it’s the belief that I can
do whatever I want and I am
completely responsible for my own
life.
Help others, every day and in every
way you can.
Be OPEN. Open to others, and open
to life as a source of learning and
love.
Try to be the best that you can be.
Be thankful, be grateful, be kind,
have integrity, practise honesty,
laugh and try to appreciate life at
its fullest.
Be grateful, because tomorrow
might not be as good.
My motto at the moment is
Silence. It’s a source of great
strength. Another motto I have is
Dig Deep. It’s a constant journey
and you need to stop and remind
yourself to stay focused. That’s the
hard part, isn’t it?
Work hard for what you want and
appreciate what you have.
I haven’t figured out yet how
to put this into a motto, but
basically I put myself in a bubble
and don’t let negativity in. I have
just really started learning this
in the last few months, but I
block out any negative thoughts,
feelings, words from others. I
replace that with the positive
opposite.
Do what you love! One life, one
chance.
You have to be true to yourself, be
authentic and don’t settle. Take
ruthless care of yourself — your kids
will thank you for it.
Make things better and leave this
place better than when you came.
Treat others how you
want to be treated.
There are four things you can’t
recover: the stone after the throw,
the word after it’s said, the occasion
after it’s missed, the time after it’s
gone.
Be the leader and not the victim in
your own life. Happiness is a choice
you make for yourself — no one else
can provide that for you.
So long as you put your family first,
your own satisfaction will follow.
Always do your best!
My motto: begin with a question —
it’s the door to answers.
When there’s a decision to make,
then choose what you know you
won’t regret later. There is actually
always an obvious choice — it’s just
hard to make yourself choose it.
Surround yourself with good people,
people who make you feel good
about yourself and are fun to be
around. People who you love. When
you die, no one will talk about how
big your house was, or what kind of
car you drove, or how much money
you had. They will talk about what
kind of friend you were.
Be grateful always — you woke
today, healthy and able. There are
others who didn’t.
Try new things; learn from others.
Faith, Family, Friends.
There are so many! My favourites:
People who know better, do better.
If you don’t have time to do it right,
you must have time to do it over.
Are you rowing the boat, or just
rocking it? There is no reality, only
perspective.
Respect. Above trust, love,
friendship, mercy and all else…
respect.
Be grateful for what you have, help
others and make a difference in
some way. Mother Teresa said: “We
may not be able to do great things,
but we can do small things with
great love.” Do that.
Don’t let anyone into your life who
doesn’t like or agree with the person
you are. Always stay true to yourself
and be free to do what you wish.
Keep it simple, that’s my motto.
Love and laugh as much as possible
and keep things in perspective.
Always be thankful and don’t be
afraid of failing. That’s how you
grow. If a person never fails, it
means they aren’t moving ahead.
Take time to enjoy the small things,
because not everyone has that
luxury.
Being filled with the wonder and
awe in His presence — this has
really changed the way I live my
life. I take time to appreciate and
enjoy the everyday beauty, big or
small, in the world He created.
The smell of rain, the sound of
the wind in the trees, the sunset,
the sound of my mom’s voice,
my baby’s smell… I find it very
therapeutic. †
Always remember that
God is in charge.
I try not to dwell on what I didn’t
do. I try to help people and to be
honest.
I learned this from another mom:
J.O.Y. Jesus first, then Others,
Yourself last.
Live each day like it was your last
because it is a gift, or they wouldn’t
call it the present.
Don’t let your past dictate who you
are, but let it be part of who you
have become.
Make everything an adventure.
Every day, every job, every trip, every
assignment should feel like part of
the adventure.
Bring people together and the energy
will be AMAZING.
Keep your nose out of other people’s
business.
Janita Van de Velde grew up on a farm near
Mariapolis, Man. She holds a bachelor of
science degree in agricultural economics
from the University of Manitoba, and has
worked for a financial institution since
graduating. She lives in Regina, Sask., with
her husband Roddy and their children Jack,
Isla and James. Her first novel, Postcards
Never Written, was the recipient of the
Saskatchewan Reader’s Choice Award and
also listed by CBC as one of the top funny
books in 2009. She donates a portion of
proceeds from the sale of her book to World
Vision to help those less fortunate. For more
information, or to order her book, visit her
website at www.janita.ca.
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36
/ grainews.ca MARCH 3, 2015
Home Quarter Farm Life
SINGING GARDENER
All about grapes
Ted’s important tip — grapevines always need pruning
ted
meseyton
W
hen grapevines
aren’t pruned, the
result is usually
very few grapes or
no grapes at all. Get out the pruners. You may also need lopping
shears and a pruning saw. The
tools should be of good quality
and make sharp cuts without shattering vine tissue. If you think it’s
all about grapes — you’re right!
I, Ted, love to tip a welcome to
my family of Grainews readers. In
the caricature I’m wearing my Tilley
hat. It’s right at home on top of my
head. During personal appearances
I mostly wear my alternate one-ofa-kind Singing Gardener cap. I may
show a sketched image of the S.G.
cap one day soon. When my headgear pieces retire, none will be put
out to pasture on the crown of my
scarecrow. It’s quite content with an
old straw hat.
In Prairie and short-season climates, hardy grape varieties should
be planted where protection is
received from northerly winds. I
know what the northwest wind
does to my body and how my three
Canadian flags remain straight
forward at attention when strong
winds blow. If you don’t have a sturdy south-facing wall or fence, grapevines may be planted in rows that
run north to south. Ideally, plants
should be spaced about two metres
(six feet) apart or more. If you have
the growing area, rows can also be
two metres (six feet) apart. Vines
in rows may be staked the first year
or two, but ideally they should be
supported by a sturdy three-wire
trellis. When experimenting with
less hardy grape varieties for your
hardiness zone, provide the best
microclimate spot with protection
that you have available. Consider
tender grape varieties as a trial in
progress during any effort to establish their hardiness.
GRAPEVINES REQUIRE PRUNING
If I were standing before a group
of grape growers regardless of their
expertise or lack of it, I, Ted, would
repeat several times: Grapevines
Always Require Pruning. Then I’d
ask the class to repeat those same
four words back to me. Without
correct pruning, don’t expect an
abundant harvest of handsome
grape clusters. You’re more apt to
wonder why there are no grapes at
all. The importance of grapevine
pruning can’t be overemphasized.
When neglected for even one year,
the lack of yield can be quite disappointing. The most common
remark I hear is: “I don’t know
how to prune grapevines.” There are several ways to tackle
such a task and here’s one preferred
approach called spur pruning.
Train a vine to follow the shape
of a ‘T’ secured to a sturdy trellis
wire (see sketches). Depending on
age of the vine (two years, three
years or four years and older) select
two, four or six of the largest oneyear-old laterals that grew off the
main trunk called a cordon. In horticulture a cordon is a vine or tree
whose branches are pruned in such
a fashion to bear fruit.
Laterals can project straight up
or outward in either direction at
approximately 45- to 90-degree
angles. Each one-year-old lateral
(cane bearer spurs) is pruned back
to two to four buds. Always keep
in mind that pruning stimulates
new growth and up to 80 per cent
of what grew last year is eventually
removed. Each bud will produce
two to four large clusters of grapes
and they often ripen earlier. Be
careful not to damage the scale
leaves that cover and protect the
soft and spongy buds in the joints.
Major spur pruning, trimming
and shaping is done on milder days
during very early spring. It’s sort of
like a close ‘brush cut’ and is timed
to when the outdoor daytime temperature remains close to 0 C or
slightly higher. Grapevines begin
to come out of dormancy, once the
daytime temperature rises to 10 C
to 12 C (50 F to 54 F) and higher.
A second pruning is what I call
the ‘midsummer special’ when
vine growth is really rampant. I
prefer to do both sets of pruning during dark of the moon
when there’s the least amount of
vine sap bleeding. If you prune
really lengthy sections of grapevines during summer, they can
be easily twisted into really attractive wreaths for Thanksgiving or
Christmas. Do it while vines are
still soft and pliable before they
become too stiff and brittle, otherwise you may want to soak them
first in water so they become more
flexible. Always keep in mind it is not
whether you should or whether
you shouldn’t prune grapevines.
Instead, it is always — when shall
you prune them? Keep practising
this art until you become skilled
at it in the vineyard, be it large or
small. Times will vary of course,
depending on climate in your area
of the country. SOME GRAPE VARIETIES
What’s wrong with these two grapevines? They were lightly trimmed
only once during a 10-year span. The short answer: These vines are
desperately in need of being pruned and simplified with annual pruning
to follow thereafter. This includes removing all the thin, tangled and
spindly growth along the main trunks and laterals, plus the twiggy stuff
growing up from ground level. The vines are also planted far too close
together, restricting air movement.
… to search for at nurseries,
greenhouses and garden centres
this spring. Colour and hardinessrated zone is shown in brackets:
• Beta — (grandfather of all
hardy blue grapes, best for jams
and jellies, self-pollinating, 3).
• Bluebell — (large blue grapes,
self-pollinating, 3B). Permit me,
Ted, to say this is the finest grape
photos and illustration: courtesy ted meseyton
Here’s a classic picture going back awhile when l, Ted, had full facial hair
while picking Bluebell grapes. The beard is now gone and Bluebell is still
my favourite grape. See my Ode to Bluebell.
I’ve grown for over 10 years. It’s
completely hardy here in my Zone
3 without any protection whatsoever. Large berries are sweet and
flavourful right off the vine and
close to Concord style. Bluebell
makes excellent grape juice too. • Eona — (white grape berries,
known to make a decent white
wine, 3B).
• Fredonia — (large blue fruit of
good quality, 3B).
• Frontenac — (self-pollinating
blue grape, makes good red wine
of depth and character, 3B).
• Frontenac Gris — (similar to
Frontenac, light coloured, reddishgreen skins, self-pollinating, 3B).
• Kandiyohi — (immense blue
grape berries, self-pollinating, 3).
• Kay Gray — (white berries,
self-pollinating, 3).
• Manitoba Native Wild Grape
— (also known as native grape
with small blue seedy berries, but
occasionally some pure-white
grapes, good for naturalizing and
jelly, 2B).
• Marquette — (a superior red
wine grape, 3B).
• Minnesota 78 — (sweet and
large reddish blue similar to Beta,
3).
• Prairie Star — (self-pollinating
sweet, pinkish-white grapes, 3B).
• St. Pepin — (sweet white
grapes, excellent right off the vine,
also for fresh juice or wine making. Needs a pollinator, 3B).
• Valiant — (dark-purple black
grape berries that ripen end of
August to early September, good
eating variety, 2B).
GRAPE LEAVES
Most of us are familiar with
cabbage rolls. Dolma is a famous
culinary Arabic word meaning
‘something stuffed.’ Grape leaves
are filled with well-seasoned
combinations of meats, vegetables and rice that are eaten both
hot and cold. Making dolmas
has been a standard part of Near
Eastern cookery for centuries.
Fresh grapevine leaves can be prepared in advance for immediate
use, or frozen for later on. Drop
fresh, cleaned grape leaves into
boiling water for three to five
minutes to make them soft and
pliable. Remove grape leaves from
heat and rinse in cold water.
A favourite Greek recipe is
Stuffed Grapevine Leaves with
Lemon Sauce. It calls for ground
lamb, onions, rice, various seasonings, chicken broth, eggs
and lemon juice. A spoonful of
mixture is placed on the centre
and each grape leaf is folded to
enclose the filling in a fashion
similar to cabbage rolls.
Gotta go. That’s the end of
today’s word journey. †
ODE TO BLUEBELL (By Ted)
Shown are before and after sketches that give a good idea how frazzled grapevines should be groomed. Think
of it as a severe haircut. Elsewhere on this page look under: “Grapevines Require Pruning.”
ot grapes of Gilbert, N
nor grapes of wrath,
But lead me to the grapevine path,
Bluebell you truly are a prize,
Taste and colour so grand in size,
Bluebell eaten out of hand,
And grape juice that is truly grand,
Y
ou do me proud, your vines sustain,
Grant me more grapes next year again.
This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener
and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie,
Man. A feature in the esteemed British
Journal of Nutrition reveals that eating a
handful of natural, dried plums or prunes
every day will help prevent fractures and
osteoporosis in the elderly. Doesn’t that
inspire all of us to plant plum trees this
spring? Pembina plum is one of the best
known for Zone 3 fruit growers. However,
there are a few other Prairie-hardy varieties
that include Brookgold Japanese plum and
Brookred hybrid plum both rated for Zone 2
and Toka hybrid plum for Zone 3. My email
address is [email protected].
See the lAteSt
in the FielD
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