p r a C T i C a l ... www.grainews.ca Volume 41, Number 10 | april 28, 2015

Volume 41, Number 10 | april 28, 2015
$4.25
PRA C T I C AL PR O D U C T I O N T IP S F O R T H E PRAIRI E F AR M E R
www.grainews.ca
2015 REBATE ROUNDUP
Corporate rebate programs can make a difference to your bottom line,
or at least give you a bonus cheque
By Leeann Minogue
I
’m sure you’ve seen most of this information in
your mailbox at least once, but here’s a chance
to see a rundown all of the input rebate programs in one place, to make it a little simpler to
compare offers while you’re putting the final touches
on your spring seeding plans.
For the most part, this year’s corporate pricing programs are very similar to the programs that were on
offer for 2014. Farmers who commit large numbers
of acres to one company’s products could see large
cheques. But even if you’re just buying small amounts
of a company’s product, it’s still nice to get a small
rebate cheque in the mail.
Adama
Arysta LifeScience
Arysta LifeScience offered an Early Purchase Offer
on Everest 2.0. If you bought an Everest 2.0 Smartboy
(10 specially packaged jugs of Everest 2.0) prior to
Jan. 31, 2015 you received an instant discount of
$1,200 per Smartboy.
Arysta is also offering an opportunity to save on its
new grass and broadleaf burn-down herbicide Inferno
Duo. If you purchase between December 1, 2014 and
May 15, 2015 you’ll get an instant discount of $0.50
per acre ($40 per canister).
And, Arysta LifeScience is now offering Air Miles
reward miles with purchases.
BASF
BASF’s AgSolutions Rewards program for 2015 is very
similar to last year. To qualify, you need to purchase
enough of at least two qualifying BASF products to
treat 160 acres, and in total, enough product to treat
400 acres.
Once you qualify, your rebate will range from two
to eight per cent of qualifying products — the rebate
increases for farmers who purchase more qualifying
products or more product acres. To reach the maximum
rebate, you would need to buy enough of five or more
different qualifying products to treat 8,000 or more acres.
Clearfield canola, wheat, lentils or sunflowers will
only qualify for the rebate program if you sign a
Clearfield Commitment form and purchase matching acres of a BASF herbicide registered for that crop.
Forms must be submitted by July 9, 2015.
Only products purchased between Oct. 1, 2014 and
Sept. 30, 2015 are eligible for rebates. You can use
BASF’s online calculator at www.agsolutions.com to
calculate your potential rebate before you buy.
Bayer CropScience
Bayer’s Value Program is based on your total purchases of Bayer CropScience products between Oct. 1,
2014 and Sept. 30, 2015.
All growers who purchase a minimum of 300
acres of InVigor canola seed are eligible for savings
in the segments of the 2015 BayerValue Program.
» continued on page 4
photo: thinkstock
Adama, formerly MANA Canada, says it strives
to create simplicity in agriculture, both in its products and business approach, and therefore provides
quality products without forcing growers to sign
up for mandatory bundling or complicated rebate
programs. Rather than farmers having to wait for a
cash back reward program, Adama says its promise
is to work with their customers to create the best
return on investment from the start.
In This Issue
Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240
Wheat & Chaff .................. 2
Features . ........................... 5
Crop Advisor’s Casebook . 8
Columns ............................ 12
Machinery & Shop............. 20
Cattleman’s Corner .......... 25
New phos guidelines
leeann minogue
page 6
Feeding the world
Darcy Goodrich page 25
FarmLife ............................ 31
2
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Wheat & Chaff
STAMPEDE
BY JERRY PALEN
Leeann
Minogue
M
y cellphone buzzed
around 9:30 on
Friday night, but it
was closer to 10:00
before I looked at the screen.
The text said: “Todd will be there
at 11 tomorrow with 12 people.”
“Todd” is my husband’s cousin;
the text came from his wife,
Elaine. It shouldn’t have caught
me by surprise. We’d made some
tentative plans a couple of weeks
earlier, but of course I’d forgotten all about it. A few seconds
later I was rooting through our
basement deep freeze, wondering
what I might have hiding in there
that I could possibly serve 15 people for lunch the next day.
Who doesn’t like to climb up into the tractor cab?
photos: leeann minogue
Vacation farms
“If it’s dangerous, Elmo’s into it!
It’s why he loves to barbecue!”
contact us
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the article and we’d pay you, or we can write it.
Phone Leeann Minogue at 306-861-2678
Fax to 204-944-5416
Email [email protected]
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Be Careful, We Love You hearts. Then
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I think everyone who reads
Grainews would agree that it’s just
wrong for someone to come all the
way to the Prairies without visiting
a farm. Green fields, hay bales, yellow-flowering canola — those are
the pictures we put on all the tourism calendars. Not that there’s anything wrong with spending time in
downtown Regina, but travelling
to Saskatchewan and not visiting a
farm does seem a little like going to
Niagara Falls and having so much
fun in the casino that you don’t
bother to look at the water.
Farms are a staple of Prairie tourism, but our farm is 90 minutes
from the nearest airport. So, other
than old friends from work and
school, we’d never really been on
any major “foreign visitor” circuits.
Until Brad’s cousin Todd married Elaine.
Elaine moved to Regina from
Malaysia a few years ago. She’s
very close to her family and
friends, so they come to Canada
to visit her every chance they get.
She also has an uncanny knack
for meeting other Malaysians who
are new to Canada or just visiting.
She’s a fantastic host; when her
family and friends are visiting,
she makes sure they get a chance
to see everything. Of course, that
includes a visit to a farm.
Todd grew up in Regina, but
his mother grew up on the farm
where we live now. Even with the
distance, we’re still a good stop
for Elaine’s visitors’ circuit.
And so, since Todd’s wedding,
my husband and I have met a
pretty sizable chunk of the population of Malaysia.
Tour for 12
This particular group of
Malaysians were very friendly.
We learned about how their
farmer friends grow palm oil and
bananas. They talked up the new
Malaysian government program
intended to entice foreigners
to buy second homes in their
country (“Malaysia My Second
Home,” if you’re Googling).
They were more than polite
about the food. When one of
The view from the edge of our farm in southeast Saskatchewan.
them asked the name of the soup
I’d served (so he could find a recipe, he kindly said), it was a little
tricky to explain that the technical name for the recipe was “Rink
Soup,” because it was the soup
my mom always made when she
had to donate soup to the local
rink kitchen.
After lunch we jacketed up for
the outdoor portion of the tour.
They started out a little disappointed, when they found out we
have no livestock. “This is it?” one
of them asked, pointing forlornly
at our dog (who’s not exactly looking his best in his pre-shedding,
end-of-winter coat). Telling the
guests we have two new cats coming next month didn’t really make
things any better.
But they recovered from that
setback in a hurry when Brad
opened the door to the shed.
The tractor, the combine, the air
seeder, the sprayer — they weren’t
sure what to look at first. Tractor
tires were used as photo props.
Air cart ladders were climbed.
Yield monitors were gaped at.
This was the highlight of the tour.
Later that afternoon, when a
neighbour came by with a semiload of canary seed for cleaning in
our plant, we hyped up the action.
When he backed up near the auger,
the group was on hand taking photos, ready for a first-hand look at
how a cleaning plant works.
Then everything came to a
halt. The yard was a little softer
than we’d realized. The truck was
stuck. Deep. Trust me, there are a
lot of photos of this.
Eight tips for
entertaining tourists
I’ve put together a few tips, in
case you have tourists visiting
your farm.
1. If you don’t have livestock,
borrow some from a neighbour.
Nothing is sadder than the face
of a foreign tourist who has just
found out your collie is the only
animal on the farm.
2. Unlock the combine. I have
yet to see a tourist, rural or urban,
who didn’t want to get up there
and check out the view from the
cab.
3. Be ready to explain. Nonfarmer visitors are not likely
going to know the basics of how
a combine works or what the
swather might be for. They might
feel silly asking. You might have
to give out a lot of information.
4. Give them a little space. It
always throws me off when I
see people taking photos out the
back of our yard. “But there’s
nothing out there,” our eightyear old said. That’s right. They’ll
take photos of nothing and look
pretty happy about it.
5. Cook them something local.
Lentils are handy, especially
when you don’t have time to get
to the store before lunch.
6. Be ready to see your yard
in a different way. Every time we
have visitors roaming our place,
they point out a view I haven’t
noticed for a while, or find beauty
in a place I’d forgotten all about.
7. Take names. You never know
when you might have a chance to
visit your guests on their own turf,
and how great will it be to have a
local guide showing you around?
You might think you’ll never go
to Borneo in your lifetime, but we
used to think that too.
8. Have a good time. We do!
Thanks for helping us remember
how interesting Prairie farming
is, Todd and Elaine. Most places
we go, everyone we meet is a
farmer, or grew up on a farm,
or once dated a farmer. But in
the grand scheme of the urbanizing world, what we do out
here is special and unique. As a
percentage of the world’s population, there really aren’t that
many of us. Other people are
generally thrilled to see it, and
we are proud to be able to tell
them what we’re doing and how
we’re doing it. Keep those visitors coming. †
Leeann
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
Wheat & Chaff
Photo contest
Farm safety
GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT
Justin Bell sent us this photo of his daughter Anna. Justin
wrote, “She is the fifth-generation farmer from Will Farms Ltd.
near Rosebud, Alberta. Anna loves to go for rides in all of the
equipment. She always makes tractor sounds whenever they drive
by the kitchen window. On this day she came with me hauling a
load of wheat to Richardson Pioneer (Carsland). I took advantage
of the lineup to snap a couple pictures of our little adventure.”
Thanks for sending this in Justin, She’s adorable!
We’re sending Justin 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
Getting back to ag
T
he Back to Ag program was envisioned to help farmers get back to
the work they love — farming. André
Veilleux, a maple syrup producer
from Quebec, is doing just that thanks to his
new stand-up wheelchair.
On March 1, 2008, André’s life drastically
changed when a maple tree he was felling
crushed him, severing his spinal cord, fracturing six vertebrae and resulting in paraplegia. André would never walk again.
His drive and focus have seen him recover
in many ways, but he still found some work
difficult. “It took two years for my rehabilitation, he says. “And I began to move forward,
but every time I wanted to do something, I
still needed help.” Through some research,
André discovered what exactly he needed —
a wheelchair that would help him to stand.
Using his regular wheelchair, André was
not easily able to perform the necessary
maintenance of his equipment or even boil
his maple sap — a key step in the production
of maple syrup. A stand-up wheelchair would
give André the ability to be more independent and perform important farm work by
himself.
A stand-up wheelchair’s costs are fairly
prohibitive, and André’s government health
insurance in Quebec (Régie de l’assurance
maladie du Québec or RAMQ) does not cover
the costs of such a device. Fortunately, the
Back to Ag Program has helped André realize
his goal of becoming more independent and
active on his farm.
André was one of the first successful applicants to the Back to Ag Program, a partnership between Farm Credit Canada, the
Rick Hansen Foundation and the Canadian
Agricultural Safety Association. The Back
to Ag Program provides funding to support
the cost of adaptive technology to Canadian
farmers and agricultural workers that have
experienced life-altering injuries.
“Thanks to Back to Ag, I could get the
stand-up wheelchair,” André says. “It allows
me to work in my workshop and handle tools
and repair equipment properly. It will be useful during the sugaring season to monitor the
syrup and make cleaning easier.”
The stand-up wheelchair has not only
given André more independence, but it also
has the potential to improve his health.
Complications from his paralysis include
André Veilleux uses his stand-up wheelchair to
perform farm tasks more independently.
involuntary muscle spasms. Increased standing using the stand-up wheelchair can significantly help reduce these spasms. Andre
has already seen the number of leg spasms
decrease. “Already my quality of life has
improved, especially in my health,” he says.
“I have fewer leg spasms.” Using the standup wheelchair will also increase blood circulation and help reduce the impact of osteoporosis.
André’s story highlights what the Back to
Ag program was intended to achieve: support
traumatically injured farmers and agricultural workers through adaptive technology.
For more information about Back to Ag and
other farm safety programs, please visit casaacsa.ca. †
Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, www.casa-acsa.ca
Agronomy tips… from the field
Volunteer canola in soybeans
H
Weather Lore
You might be from the Prairies if...
By Carson Demmans and Jason Sylvestre
ow do you effectively control volunteer Roundup Ready
canola in the same field where you’re growing Roundup
Ready soybeans? That’s a question more growers are
asking as soybeans continue to move west into nontraditional soybean growing areas where canola is prevalent.
The first thing you need to do is manage your rotation to use
both Roundup Ready canola and soybean systems. Diversifying
your rotation by including cereal crops and lengthening the
rotation can help reduce the amount of volunteer canola seed
in your soil.
When you do get volunteer plants emerging, the key is to
control them early while they’re small. Once that canola starts
getting bigger and putting on more leaves, control becomes
more of a challenge.
A pre-emergent herbicide is an excellent tool for keeping volunteers at bay and establishing a clean field until your soybeans
are up, out of the ground and established.
If you decide to go with an in-crop product (depending on
registration restrictions), you need to spray when the soybeans
are in the first to second trifoliate, or when volunteer canola is
at cotyledon to two-leaf stage. Soybeans exhibit what’s called
“phenotypic plasticity”, meaning that they will fill in and adapt
to any free space provided to them. †
This agronomy tip is brought to you by Doug Fotheringham, agronomic service
representative, Manitoba, with Syngenta Canada Inc.
FLOWER
POWER
W
hile humidity affects
some plants, others
are temperature
sensitive.
Open crocus, warm weather.
Closed crocus, cold weather.
Scientists have checked this idea
out and have found that it is possible to determine the air temperature to the closest one half degree
by noting how far the crocus
has opened. Tulips are similarly
affected. They open their petals
when the temperature rises, but
close them when it falls. †
Miss Tulip’s shy in weather cold,
In warmer times, her face is bold.
You had to convince an American you come from
somewhere that actually borders their country.
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 APRIL 28, 2015
Cover Stories
Farm management
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
2015 REBATE ROUNDUP
Segment 1 contains cereal and
pulse seed treatments. You can
save up to 25 per cent on Raxil
and 15 per cent on Trilex EverGol.
You need to purchase a minimum
of 300 acres in this segment to
qualify for savings.
Segment 2 includes cereal herbicides. You must buy a minimum of 300 acres in this segment to qualify. Save up to 17
per cent on Velocity m3, Tundra,
Varro and Infinity. And, save up
to 17 per cent on Puma Advance
and Varro, Thumper, Buctril M,
and Infinity through the five per
cent savings with the Tank Mix
Bonus. To receive this rebate,
you must add matching acres
of a graminicide (Varro or Puma
Advance) and a broadleaf herbicide (Thumper, Buctril M and
Infinity). The InVigor Purchase
Bonus and the Tank Mix Bonus
cannot be combined.
Segment 3 includes savings of
up to 14 per cent on Prosaro,
Folicur EW, Propulse and Delaro.
You must add a minimum of 160
acres of Delaro or 300 total acres in
the cereal and pulse fungicide segment to qualify for these savings.
The Canola Products Section
allows growers to save up to 15
per cent on Proline and eight per
cent on Pardner.
There is also a Quarter Million
Dollar Bonus. Purchase $250,000
or more to save an additional
one per cent on all products that
are eligible for a rebate in the
BayerValue Program.
If you participated in the
2014 Bayer Value Program you
will automatically be re-enrolled
for 2015. If you were not registered last year, contact the Bayer
CropScience Rebate Fulfilment
Centre at 1-888-283-6847 before
May 1, 2015 to register. Find
complete terms and conditions at
BayerCropScience.ca/BayerValue
or ask your local retailer.
Dow AgroSciences
Dow AgroSciences is continuing to offer the Dividends
program it introduced in 2011.
Rewards are calculated as a dollar
per acre payment. The amount of
the payment depends on the mix
of Dow AgroSciences products
you use.
Dow AgroSciences categorizes
its products into four groups. The
first group of cereal grass and onepass products includes Tandem,
Simplicity and Liquid Achieve.
You must use a minimum of 300
acres of any one or combination
of these three herbicides or 300
acres of Nexera to qualify for the
Dividends program.
Once you qualify, earn rebates
by matching qualifying acres with
purchases of a Dow AgroSciences
cereal broadleaf product (the second group of products) and/or a
canola and special crop product
(the third group). In the 2015
program, Tandem automatically qualifies for the $1 per acre
reward without requiring matching acres from other categories.
Liquid Achieve is not eligible for
a rebate, but can still be used as a
builder to qualify other products
for a reward.
Dow AgroSciences glyphosate
products are the fourth group category and if purchased, increase
any reward you’ve qualified for.
Dow AgroSciences is also continuing the Bulk Up component of the Dividends program.
If you purchased bulk-packaged
PrePass before Feb. 20, 2015,
those purchases will increase
your reward by up to $0.50 an
acre. Rebates also increase if you
purchase bulk-packaged OcTTain
XL, Attain XC, Frontline XL,
or Stellar, Tandem, Simplicity,
Liquid Achieve and/or Prestige
XC before March 20.
If you participate in both components of Dividends, you can
save up to $5 per acre on Dow
AgroSciences purchases. There is
a Dividends calculator at www.
dowagrodividends.ca to help you
figure it all out.
If you have not previously
completed an offer form giving
Dow AgroSciences permission
to collect the information they
need to calculate this rebate, you
must do so before Nov. 30, 2015.
Dow AgroSciences product purchases between Dec. 1, 2014 and
Nov. 30, 2015 qualify for the
Dividends program.
For further information, call
the Dow AgroSciences Solutions
Centre at 1-800-667-3852.
DuPont
The 2015 DuPont FarmCare
Connect Grower Program is a
joint offering from DuPont Crop
Protection and DuPont Pioneer.
The base program qualifies you
to earn rebates, and the Canola
Seed Bonus and Broadleaf Bonus
is new for 2015.
You are automatically enrolled
in the base program when you
purchase $10,000 worth of eligible DuPont Crop Protection
products like new Travallas,
Predicade, Express brand herbicides or D-series or Pioneer brand
seed between September 1, 2014,
and August 31, 2015.
The combined total purchase of these products plus
a long list of other DuPont
Crop Protection products and
Pioneer brand seed determines
the rebate you’ll earn on a
number of DuPont burn-down
herbicides, in-crop herbicides,
insecticides and fungicides. A
complete list of these builder
and rebate eligible products
can be found on the DuPont
FarmCare Connect website at
farmcareconnect.dupont.ca.
Rebates range from four per
cent if you purchase a minimum
of $10,000 worth of qualifying
and builder products all the way
up to 10 per cent for total purchases over $150,000.
The Canola Seed Bonus can
save you up to an additional
three per cent on DuPont Crop
Protection products when you
purchase at least 300 acres of
Pioneer Protector Sclerotinia,
Pioneer Protector Clubroot , or
Pioneer brand canola hybrids
and D-Series hybrids with
DuPont Lumiderm insecticide
seed treatment.
With the new Broadleaf
Bonus, you qualify for an additional $1 per acre rebate on
DuPont Crop Protection products when you purchase at least
300 acres from two of the four
product segments. Segments
include broadleaf herbicides,
non-crop herbicides, fungicides
/Assure II, and insecticide. The
more segments you purchase
from, the more you get back, up
to $2 per acre.
For more information call
the DuPont FarmCare Support
Centre at 1-800-667-3925.
crops. Save 25 per cent on your
first case. Satisfaction guaranteed
or your in-crop maintenance herbicide application is free.
• Conquer, pre-seed burndown for canola crops. Save 25
per cent on your first case.
• Valtera, pre-seed residual
burndown for soybeans. Save 25
per cent on your first case.
• Enforcer, broadleaf herbicide
for cereal crops. Save 50 per cent
on your first 80 acres.
Gowan
Syngenta is maintaining its
Partner Program for 2015. To
qualify for the Partner Program,
you must purchase a minimum
$15,000 of eligible Syngenta
products. New products added
to the Partner Program for 2015
include Cruiser Vibrance Quattro
and Vibrance Quattro seed treatments for cereals, new canola
variety SY4157, new durum variety CDC Desire and malt barley
variety AAC Synergy.
Rebate percentages are calculated by totaling the purchases
of most Syngenta crop establishment, crop management, crop
enhancement and harvest management products.
The Partner Program Calculator
and the rules and regulations can
be found online at syngentafarm.
ca/PartnerProgram.
A total purchase value of
$15,000 in Syngenta products
earns you a three per cent rebate,
and this increases incrementally.
The highest level of savings is
nine per cent for purchases of
$220,000 or more on most crop
protection products and canola
and soybean seed.
Syngenta cereal, sunflower and
corn seed not eligible for savings
but purchases of these products
are used as builders to increase
the rebate percentage rate.
Syngenta has introduced a
Portfolio Bonus in 2015. If you
qualify for the Partner Program
you can earn an additional $2 per
acre rebate on seedcare products
such as Cruiser Vibrance Quattro,
Cruiser Maxx Vibrance Cereals,
and Cruiser Maxx Vibrance
Beans and Vibrance Maxx, when
matched with acres treated with
Traxos, Sierra 2.0, Broadband or
Axial products. You can further
match those seedcare acres with
acres treated with fungicides
Quilt and Fuse for another $2
per acre rebate.
The Cruiser Maxx Vibrance
Beans Bonus also continues for
this year. If you qualify for the
Partner Program, you can earn
an additional five per cent on
all purchases of Cruiser Maxx
Vibrance Beans.
If you participated in the 2014
Partner Program you are automatically registered for 2015.
Confirm registration by calling
the Syngenta Customer Resource
Centre
at
1-87-SYNGENTA
(1-877-964-3682).
Gowan explains that it works
closely with crop input retails
to make sure growers receive the
fairest prices for its products.
Monsanto
Monsanto is again offering
a 100 per cent replant guarantee on DEKALB canola seed
planted after April 15, DEKALB
corn seed planted after April
29 and DEKALB soybean seed
planted after May 1. If environmental conditions require you
to replant your DEKALB brand
seed, Monsanto will cover the
cost of the replacement seed,
up to the value of the original
planted acres. DEKALB representatives will also help you
match
an
earlier-maturing
DEKALB canola or corn hybrid
or soybean variety to your field
and growing season. You can
choose what DEKALB crop you
would like to replant, regardless
of the original planted crop. An
application for a replant claim
must be made to DEKALB retailers before June 26, 2015.
Monsanto is offering financing
until fall 2015 on all DEKALB
seed through AgriCard and John
Deere Financial.
New for 2015, Monsanto has
introduced the DEKALB Acre
Program, which rewards growers
who purchase multiple crops from
the DEKALB brand this season
with a rebate in the fall. The rebate
is two per cent on the second
DEKALB crop purchased and a
three per cent rebate on the third
DEKALB crop purchased. Talk to
your DEKALB retailer or visit www.
DEKALB.ca for more details.
Monsanto is promoting the use
of multiple modes of action to
slow herbicide resistance. Growers
in Western Canada can save $0.50
per acre on Roundup Transorb
HC when they buy matching
acres of Heat LQ, Heat WG or
Distinct herbicides. More details
on this program can be found at
PowerfulCombination.ca.
NuFarm
Nufarm has a number of offers
for growers for the 2015 season. You can find the whole list
on Nufarm’s website at www.
nufarm.ca/special-offers (make
sure to select “agriculture west”
from the menu on the left side
of the page).
Here is a list of the current offers:
• NipsIt Suite, cereal seed
treatment. Get $200 back when
you purchase your first case.
• BlackHawk, pre-seed burndown for cereals and soybean
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
Lynda Tityk
Associate Publisher/
Editorial director John Morriss
Edito r
Leeann Minogue
fiel d Ed itor
Syngenta
UAP
UAP explains that it keeps
things simple with up-front net
pricing — no hassles, no forms
or having to wait to receive your
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Features
5
Crop protection
The latest buzz on bees
Ontario government proposes restricted use of neonic-treated seed
By Lilian Schaer
T
The issue isn’t that clear- seeds was a problem, but farmers
cut, though, say farm groups, took action once it was identiwho recognize the importance fied, such as changing the fluof addressing bee health in a ency agent used during planting
science-based way, but feel that to reduce the amount of dust cremore research is needed to deter- ated, and using deflectors to keep
mine what’s behind the decline dust close to the ground.
in bee numbers.
This
helped
dramatically
Simply pointing the finger at reduce total dust emissions, and
neonics won’t solve the problem, bee deaths reported to the Pest
they say, as there are a few things Management Regulatory Agency
that don’t add up.
during spring planting in 2014
Not all beekeepers in Ontario were down by 70 per cent.
Bee nutrition is a much bighave been dealing with bee
death, for example, and it hasn’t ger issue, according to Craig
come forward as a major issue in Hunter, pesticide specialist with
Western Canada, where neonic- the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable
treated seeds are also widely used Growers’ Association.
The southwestern Ontario
in canola production.
landscape has evolved dramatiThere is no denying that dust
T:8.125”
from the use of neonic-treated cally over the last several decades:
corn and soybean acreage has
expanded, hay and pasture acres
are down, and farmers have taken
out large numbers of fence rows
to increase field size. This means
fewer forage areas for bees to get
food and water, leaving weakened
bees that are much more susceptible to threats.
Currently, this is legislation
limited only to Ontario. However,
it’s worth noting that Ontario
was one of the first provinces to
institute a ban on cosmetic uses
of pesticides in 2009 — and cosmetic use bans are now in place
in nine out of 10 Canadian provinces. †
Lilian Shaer is a professional farm and food
writers based in Guelph, Ontario. Follow her
blog at foodandfarmingcanada.com.
T:10”
he Ontario government
has released its proposed
regulatory changes to the
provincial Pesticides Act
to restrict the sale and use of corn
and soybean seed treated with
neonicotinoids in the province —
and to say Ontario’s grain farmers
aren’t pleased would be an understatement.
According to provincial agriculture minister Jeff Leal, the intent
is to reduce neonicotinoid use in
Ontario by 80 per cent by 2017.
The changes, if passed, would
come into effect July 1 of this year
for the 2016 planting season.
“Our organization has spent
a significant amount of time
reviewing and evaluating the
draft regulations and brought
forward numerous questions to
the Ontario government regarding various aspects of the plan,”
says Mark Brock, Chair of Grain
Farmers of Ontario (GFO). “The
lack of clarity, inability to address
very real on-farm challenges with
respect to implementation of the
regulations, and the timelines
imposed on the industry as a
whole create an unmanageable,
widespread burden to agriculture.”
“The regulations, as drafted,
create insurmountable barriers to
access neonicotinoid seed treatment — essentially, the government has developed a ban on the
product,” he adds.
The proposed changes will create a new class of pesticides in
Ontario, Class 12, for corn and
soybean seeds treated with three
neonicotinoid insecticides: imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, and clothianidin.
Anyone wishing to buy neonictreated seed will have to complete Integrated Pest Management
(IPM) training specific to growing
corn and soybeans either online or
in a classroom.
Although no such training
currently exists, the government
says the course will be available
by this fall — successful completion will result in certification
valid for five years.
This is in addition to the Grower
Pesticide Safety Course that farmers must already complete in order
to buy and use crop protection
products in Ontario.
For 2016 the government
is proposing a “voluntary”
approach that allows the purchase and use of neonic-treated
seed on up to 50 per cent of a
farmer’s corn or soybean acreage
if a written declaration is made.
To plant treated seed above that
level, farmers must complete a
pest assessment to determine
whether their levels of infestation by specific pests meet predetermined thresholds set by
government.
Farmers will be able to perform
their own pest assessments this
year, but as of 2016, those pest
assessments will have to be completed by independent, third-party
pest advisors, the proposed regulations say.
Under the regulations, two pest
assessment methods can be used:
a soil pest-scouting assessment to
confirm the presence of two pests
above thresholds (grubs and wireworms) or a drop damage assessment that will confirm damage
as a result of four pests above
the thresholds (grubs, wireworms,
corn rootworm, and seed corn
maggot).
The proposed regulations only
target neonicotinoid-treated soybean and corn seed, and don’t
include other neonics such as
those used in the edible horticulture industry in foliar sprays or
granular form.
Environmental activist groups
in particular have taken up the bee
cause and campaigning actively
for this type of legislation, believing neonics to be behind an
increase in bee deaths in Ontario
in recent years.
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C-60-04/15-10303662-E
6
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Features
Crop production
New guidelines for phosphorus
Farming has changed since 1992. So have the recommendations for phosphorus application
By Leeann Minogue
W
hile your crop rotations and seeding practices have
evolved into something your grandfather might not
recognize, recommended phosphorus guidelines for Manitoba farmers
have stayed the same since 1992.
Manitoba Soil Fertility experts
have come together to fill this
gap. In looking at soil tests
across the province, John Heard
(Manitoba Agriculture Food and
Rural Development), Cindy Grant
(Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)
and Don Flaten (University of
Manitoba) found low phosphorus
levels in many areas. They weren’t
surprised. In recent decades yields
have increased. As well, farmers have moved from crops that
remove relatively low amounts of
phosphorus from the soil (like cereals and flax) to crops that use a
lot more phosphorus (canola, soybeans and corn).
As well as being based on outdated phosphorus needs, the recommendations that have been in
place since 1992 are based on a
“short term sufficiency” approach,
with a goal of supplying enough
phosphorus for a good yield on
the current crop. The updated recommendations consider long-term
soil productivity.
University of Manitoba soil scientist Don Flaten has a simple analogy. “A phosphorus budget works
like a financial budget or bank
account,” he says. “If you apply
more phosphorus than you remove
at harvest, that phosphorus goes
into ‘savings’ as a reasonably stable
and plant available source of P for
future crops.”
A long-term view of a field’s
phosphorus needs provides more
flexibility. Farmers can replenish
phosphorus in the soil when prices
are relatively low, while, over time
reducing the risk that low nutrients
will limit yield.
The new recommendations are
shown in the table on the next
page. These rates are based on
three factors: your soil test results,
what you’re planting and how the
phosphorus will be applied. For
example, if your soil test is shows
“M” for phosphorus, with 10 parts
per million and 20 pounds per acre
and you’re going to be placing the
phosphorus with the seed, the
recommended phosphorus rate for
canola is 20 pounds per acre.
plant roots. Seventy-five per cent
of phosphorus is picked up in the
first 25 per cent of the plant’s life.”
Starter phosphorus, small quantities of phosphorus placed close to
the seed at planting, can help the
plants reach that fertilizer when
they need it.
Phosphorus behaves very differently from nitrogen in the soil.
It binds to the soil particles, and
releases slowly over time. For that
reason, once it is applied, it will
remain in the soil for years to
come. “In the year of application
a crop utilizes maybe 15 to 25 per
cent of what we apply as phosphorus,” Karamanous says.
“When you grow a crop this
year, it’s feeding from the phosphorus that you put down five,
10 years ago,” Karamanous says.
“How well it does depends on how
good your phosphorus fertilizer has
been over the past umpteen years.”
How plants
use phosphorus
Four options for
long-term thinking
Plants need phosphorus. It
contributes to photosynthesis,
respiration, energy transfer, cell
division, early root growth and
winter hardiness.
In canola, a lack of phosphorus can result in poorly developed
root cells, reduced seed production
and delayed maturity. Under severe
deficiency, the leaves may be a purplish colour.
Plants need phosphorus the
most when they first begin to grow,
about 12 days after seeding. At that
point, Rigas Karamanous, senior
agronomist with Koch Agronomic
Services, says, “phosphorus is moving at a tremendous rate into the
For farmers taking a long-term
approach to fertilizer, the new
Manitoba guideline document
points out the following four points:
1. Broadcasting phosphorus is inefficient and environmentally risky. Banding, rather than broadcasting,
reduces the contact between the
fertilizer and the soil. Because phosphorus is not very mobile, placing
it below the surface will put it in a
better position for root uptake.
2. Side banding at planting is a good
way to match rates to crop removal,
without risking seed injury. Side banding is the optimum method for
photo: dr. martin entz,
small seeded and solid seeded crops
in Manitoba, but sensitive crops will
not tolerate high rates of phosphorus in the seed row.
3. Seed row phosphorus can be
maximized in crops with high tolerance. Farmers without side banding
equipment can apply higher-thanneeded phosphorus rates when
they’re seeding cereals that are
more tolerant, applying a surplus
one year to make up for deficits
in other years. The guidelines say:
“crops such as wheat, barley and
oats can tolerate seed row placed P
at rates up to 50 pounds P2O5 per
acre; however, these crops rarely
remove this much P.”
4. Manure application to meet
nitrogen requirements will give a field
enough phosphorus for several years.
Subsurface injection or incorporation is highly recommended, to
allow the plant to get to the phosphorus, and to minimize runoff.
Long-term research
WINTERFAT — A PROTEIN-RICH FORAGE · WHEN TO FERTILIZE
THE BEEF MAGAZINE
April 2015 $3.00
www.canadiancattlemen.ca
REJUVENATING
PASTURES
SoyBEAn’S
‘SilEnt killEr’
A nEw outdoor
fArm Show
Soybean cyst nemotode creeping closer » Pg 8
Coming to Saskatoon in July » Pg 9
January 15, 2015
SerVinG manitoba FarmerS Since 1925 | Vol. 73, no. 3
disease a north
American first
Where it came from isn’t
as important as how it
will be contained when it
SPECIALcomes
FORAGE
ISSUE
to verticillium
wilt
in canola
Radish to
the rescue 10
By Shannon VanRaes
|
manitobacooperator.ca
$1.75
AiminG Beef leaders strive to
hiGh drive industry forward
Goals include boosting production efficiency by 15 per cent and increasing
carcass cut-out value by 15 per cent in just five years
co-operator staff, with files from Dave
BeDarD anD reuters / st. Jean Baptiste
M
anitoba prides itself on
welcoming newcomWinter graze
ers, butcows
the canola sector won’t be rolling out the welcome matt for26
this one — vertion ryegrass
cillium longisporum.
T h e d i s e a s e w a s d i s c overed in a Manitoba canola
field late last fall and visually identified at Manitoba
Agriculture’s Crop Diagnostic
Centre. That determination
was later confirmed by molecular analysis at the National
see DISEASE on page 7 »
Cows aren’t straying far from the feeder during these cold January days.
By Alexis Kienlen
staff
Publication Mail Agreement 40069240
B
usiness gurus call them Big Hairy
Audacious Goals — and now
Canadian beef leaders have to figure out how to achieve the ones they’ve
set for their industry.
“You have to pick a place to get to,”
said Trevor Atchison, co-chair of the
National Beef Strategic Planning Group.
“You can’t make every goal in life, but
if you don’t set something that’s higher
than what you have today, you can’t
strive to get there.”
photo: laura rance
The group, comprised of the country’s main beef industry players,
released a document entitled Canada’s
National Beef Strategy earlier this
month. It sets the bar high with three
specific goals to be achieved by 2020:
Boost production efficiency by 15 per
cent, increase carcass cut-out value by
15 per cent, and reduce cost disadvantage relative to global competitors by
seven per cent.
“Maybe the goals are more ambitious than what we can complete, I
don’t know,” said Atchison, a cow-calf
producer and backgrounder from
Pipestone, who is also vice-chair of
Canada Beef.
“But it’s in every producer’s best
interest to try and get there to keep
the industry healthy and grow it, with
increased numbers that we’re going
to need to maintain the market share
for the global beef business we have
today.”
The 30-page document (available at
www.beefstrategy.com) contains many
items that are long-term propositions,
including improving genetics, forage
WHEN YOU WANT
IN THE CONDITIONS
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phosphorus, yields didn’t suffer.
The head researcher, Dr. Barbara
Menum-Code, is excited about
this research into how plants use
“legacy fertilizer.”
This study took place on small
plots on AAFC-owned land. “They
may or may not be typical of a
farm,” Menum-Code admits. She
also suspects that, “a lot of it
depends on when the soil was
broken.” Menum-Code has heard
many local farmers say, anecdotally, that fields that lost a lot
of soil during the Depression in
the 1930s need more phosphorus
now. The AAFC plots were not
broken until after the Depression.
Menum-Code’s long-term study
began in 1995. The plots she used
had received full recommended
rates of fertilizer from 1967 to
1995. Then, they stopped applying
phosphorus. Since then, these plots
have yielded similarly to test plots
where phosphorus was applied.
Menum-Code says that some
of these results can probably be
attributed to higher-then normal
moisture levels in southwestern
Saskatchewan during the period
of the study. “Compared to
other parts of Saskatchewan and
everywhere else, plant growth
here is limited by water first,
and nitrogen second, and then
phosphorus,” she says.
NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS REMOVAL
AT HARVEST FOR TYPICAL CROPS IN MANITOBA
Typical Nutrient Removal (lb.)
Per Unit of Crop Grown
see BEEF BUSINESS on page 6 »
Search Canada’s top agriculture
publications with a simple click.
AgCanada.com Network Search
The results of a long-term
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
phosphorus study based at Swift
Current, Sask., recently turned
heads. After years of applying
phosphorus to the soil, researchers stopped applying phosphorus in 1995. Compared to test
plots, where they kept applying
FINED: Both railways penalized for missed grain targets » PAGE 3
SPRAY
2009
This photo of alfalfa plots highlights the long-term consequences of
neglecting soil phosphorus. The alfalfa in the front of the photo received
composted beef cattle manure after years of receiving no phosphorus.
The alfalfa at the back of the plot did not receive any additional
phosphorus, and has suffered dramatically.
Units
N
P2O5
Alfalfa
tons/ac.
58.0
13.8
Barley – Grain
bu./ac.
0.97
0.43
Barley – Silage
Crop
dry tons/ac.
34.4
11.8
Canola
bu./ac.
1.93
1.04
Corn – Grain
bu./ac.
0.97
0.44
Corn – Silage
dry tons/ac.
31.2
12.7
lb./ac.
0.042
0.014
Fababeans
lb./ac.
0.050
0.018
Flax
bu./ac.
2.13
0.65
Grass hay
Dry edible beans
tons/ac.
34.2
10.0
Lentils
lb./ac.
0.034
0.010
Oats
bu./ac.
0.62
0.26
Peas
bu./ac.
2.34
0.69
Potatoes
cwt/ac.
0.32
0.09
Rye
bu./ac.
1.06
0.45
Soybeans
bu./ac.
3.87
0.84
Sunflowers
lb./ac.
0.027
0.011
Wheat – Spring
bu./ac.
1.50
0.59
Wheat – Winter
bu./ac.
1.04
0.51
Derived from Manitoba Soil Fertility Guide
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
Features
Read the full report
The full report, “Phosphorus
Recommendation Strategies
for Manitoba,” by John Heard
(Manitoba Agriculture Food
and Rural Development),
Cindy Grant (Agriculture
and Agri-Food Canada) and
Don Flaten (University of
Manitoba), is posted on the
Manitoba Corn website. Find
it here: http://manitobacorn.
ca/agronomy-links/. †
Leeann Minogue
FERTILIZER PHOSPHATE (P2O5) RECOMMENDED LB./AC.
Soil phosphorus
(sodium bicarbonate
P test)
ppm
0
5
10
How many years will they be
able to grow grain on these plots
without adding more phosphorus?
“Ask me again in a few years,”
Menum-Code says.
Should you try this at home?
“We are certainly not recommending it,” Menum-Code
says. “It’s kind of cool that we
have these long-term plots that
haven’t been changed,” she says.
“When we’re down to zero-test
phosphorus, what will happen
next?”
Don Flaten is quite emphatic
that farmers should not try
this approach at home. Flaten
attributes the results of this study
as the simple impact of drawing
down on a long-running bank
account. “In situations like some
of the long term studies at Swift
Current, the surplus phosphorus
that accumulates during years
of phosphorus fertilization, can
offset a phosphorus ‘deficit’ that
7
15
lb./ac. Rating
Cereal
Corn
Sunflower
Canola
Mustard Flax
Canola
Mustard
Flax
Buckwheat
Fababeans
Potatoes
Peas,
Lentils,
Field beans,
Soybeans
Legume forages
Perennial grass
forages
S1
Sb2
B3
S1
B3
S1
B3
PPI4
B3
S1
Seeding
PPI5
Est
stand
BT6
Seeding
PPI5
Est
stand
BT6
0
VL
40
40
40
20
40
20
55
110
40
20*
75
55
45
30
5
VL
40
40
40
20
40
20
55
110
40
20*
75
55
45
30
10
L
40
40
40
20
40
20
50
100
40
15*
75
55
45
30
15
L
35
0
35
20
35
20
45
90
35
15*
65
50
35
25
20
M
30
0
30
20
30
20
45
90
30
10*
60
40
30
20
25
M
20
0
20
20
20
20
40
80
20
10*
50
35
20
15
30
H
15
15
15
0
15
20
35
70
15
0
45
30
15
10
35
H
10
10
10
0
10
20
30
60
10
0
35
25
5
5
20
40
VH
10
10
10
0
10
20
30
60
10
0
30
20
0
0
20+
40+
VH+
10
10
10
0
10
20
30
60
10
0
25
20
0
0
S1 – seed-placed rates, Sb2 – side banded rates for row crops, B3 – banded away from the seed, PPI4 – if P is broadcast, rates must be 2 X that of banding to be as effective.
PPI5– for forages phosphorus is applied most effectively by banding one inch to the side and below the seed. If phosphate cannot be banded, then broadcast and preplant
incorporate. BT6 – broadcast for established stands of forages, Est stand = established stands of forages, *for field beans and soybeans, safe rates of seed-placed P are limited to
10 lb. P2O5/ac. with narrow row widths (<15") and no seed-placed P when grown in wider row widths.
occurs later on, when no phosphorus or low rates of phosphorus are applied. However, if no
phosphorus is applied over a long
period of time, even soils with a
large reserve of phosphorus will
become phosphorus deficient and
yields will eventually decline.”
Flaten also refers to a long-term
study done by Dr. Martin Entz
at the University of Manitoba’s
Glenlea Research Station.
Graduate student Cathy Welsh
completed a long-term study of
the effects of removing hay and
grain from organic plots with-
out replacing phosphorus. “Even
though soil test levels of phosphorus in this trial were very high
at the beginning, after 12 years
without adding any phosphorus,
the decline in the most plantavailable pools of phosphorus
(i.e. The cash reserves in the phosphorus bank) was much more
dramatic than in stable reserves
(i.e. The bonds and term deposits
in the phosphorus bank.) Then,
Dr. Entz added composted beef
cattle manure on half of the plots,
to restore phosphorus, with a dramatic increase in crop yields.”
phos in the bank
After record-high yielding crops
in 2013, Karamanous and Tee
Boon Goh of the University of
Manitoba took a look at the “balance” of phosphorus and other
nutrients across the Prairies, based
on crop yields and fertilizer applications. They found that, after
record yields, application of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and
sulfur “in 2013 lagged considerably behind the estimated total
removal by crops.”
Their conclusion: “Of particular
concern is the ever widening deficit between removed and applied
phosphate.” They found a negative
balance (that is, more phosphorus
used than applied) in eight out of
the 10 years in the study.
Karamanous updated the results
this winter. Even without record
yields, our average phosphorus situation hasn’t improved. Karamanous’
report says, “Although harvest in
2014 was lower than 2013, it still
contributed to a further reduction
in available nutrient levels in the
soil.” †
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews.
STOP THE SPREAD
Help stop the spread of kochia. Tank mix two or more
herbicide groups to help control the spread of weed
resistance on your farm. For tank mix recommendations,
visit www.rrwms.ca/kochia
Download the WEED ID App today, visit weedidapp.ca
ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS. Tank mixtures: The applicable labeling for each product must be in the possession of the user at the time of application. Follow applicable use instructions, including application rates, precautions and restrictions of
each product used in the tank mixture. Monsanto has not tested all tank mix product formulations for compatibility or performance other than specifically listed by brand name. Always predetermine the compatibility of tank mixtures by mixing small proportional quantities in
advance. Monsanto and Vine Design® and Roundup Ready® are registered trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC, Monsanto Canada, Inc. licensee. © 2015 Monsanto Canada Inc.
8
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Features
Crop Advisor’s casebook
Poor emergence in canola crop
By Dan Friesen
I
n mid-May I got a call from
David, who grows 2,000
acres of canola, wheat,
soybeans and peas on his
farm in southeastern Manitoba.
It had been three weeks since
David had planted his canola
crop, but he was seeing very
poor emergence in the field.
David had hoped for eight to
10 plants per square foot, but so
far only two to four seedlings
per square foot had appeared
in the seed rows. With so few
canola plants emerging, he suspected seed might be the issue.
“I think I received a bad seed
lot, and that has caused poor
germination,” David said.
He asked me to come out and
have a look at his canola field.
When I arrived at David’s farm,
I was told the weather had been
fairly dry in recent months, and
that soils in these fields were a mixture of clay-loam and sandy-loam.
I performed a plant stand
count right away and confirmed
that relatively few seedlings
had emerged. These findings
were uniform across the entire
field, and there were no signs of
patchiness indicating some areas
were affected worse than others.
Prior to visiting David’s farm,
I had called the seed supplier to
enquire about the canola seed
lot. The supplier reported that
no one else had experienced germination issues with this seed
batch, ruling this out as a source
of the problem. But if bad seed
wasn’t to blame, what was?
I wasn’t sure, but I suspected
the issue might have something
to do with chemicals applied to
Dan Friesen is a sales agronomist
with Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at
Starbuck, Man.
the field. When I looked at the
grower’s application records, I
could see that no residual herbicide had been used the previous
year, and that a glyphosate prod-
uct had been applied that spring
just prior to planting.
With respect to nutrients,
David had applied a primary
source of nitrogen as anhydrous
at a rate of 100 pounds per acre
the previous fall. A 36-50-0-20
fertilizer blend had also been
applied at planting, in an effort
to boost phosphorus levels in the
field. I also learned that the fertilizer had been seed-placed with a
narrow opener disc drill.
If you think you know what’s
going on with David’s canola
crop, 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
Casebook winner
T
he winning answer
for this issue of
Casebook came from
Ben Mandel, from
Jenner Colony in Alberta. Ben,
we’re renewing your Grainews
subscription for a year and
sending you a Grainews cap.
Thanks for reading and thanks
for entering! †
Leeann Minogue
and a one-year subscription to
the magazine. The answer, along
with the reasoning that solved
the mystery, will appear in the
next Crop Advisor’s Solution
File. †
Dan Friesen is a sales agronomist with
Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Starbuck, Man.
Relatively few seedlings emerged. This was uniform across the entire field, and there were no signs of patchiness indicating some areas were affected worse than others.
Crop advisor’s solution
Solonetzic soils behind white wheat patches
By Rachelle Farrell
J
oe, a grain producer at Morinville,
Alta., was having trouble with a
particular field at his farm two
years running. The first time, his
barley crop didn’t perform well, as
numerous irregular spots where the
barley heads didn’t fill out emerged
mid-season and reduced the yield in
the field.
The following year, a wheat crop
planted in the same field was looking great until mid-July. That’s when
the plants started turning white in
irregular patches that were even more
pronounced that the year before.
When I went out to Joe’s farm to
assess the situation, I could see the
affected wheat plants had white heads
and dried-up flag leaves.
There were no signs of insect damage, and weather was also ruled out
as a contributing factor. Joe thought
it might be a fertility issue, but he’d
been following a fertilizer plan we’d
laid out earlier in the season so there
appeared to be enough nutrients in
the soil.
I suspected there was something else
going on in the soil that was causing
the problem. Soil tests had been performed the previous fall following the
barley harvest, but it’d been difficult
to precisely target the affected areas
within the field and as a result the test
results had been inconclusive.
We decided to test the soil again.
This time we were able to clearly see
the affected and unaffected areas, and
the testing this time around provided
our answer. The necessary nutrients
were there in all the samples but one
quality in the affected areas stood out
— a high sodium concentration that
indicated a Solonetzic soil.
We determined that while there was
a high sodium concentration over
the whole field, it is higher in certain
spots and these spots corresponded
with areas where the topsoil was shallower and had less tolerance to moisture stress. It was these areas that
contained the affected plants.
If there had been a severe moisture
shortage, the entire field likely would
have been affected. This season, there
had been just enough rain so that the
areas with more topsoil could support
the crop, while those with less topsoil
didn’t have enough capacity to provide plant roots with enough moisture. The roots were unable to grow
through the hardpan that was high in
sodium in search of additional subsoil
moisture.
Unfortunately for Joe, there wasn’t
anything that could be done to salvage
his wheat crop at this point. At har-
vest, the yield was drastically reduced
in the affected areas, and was generally low overall for the field.
There would be no quick fix going
forward either. Mixing calcium in lime
or gypsum form in the hardpan layer
through deep, subsoil plowing would
help displace the sodium and improve
the soil, but this represents a labour
intensive and quite costly solution.
Anyone faced with a similar dilemma
should keep in mind that Solonetzic
soils may only constitute a small part
of a field. Soils can be extremely
variable within a single field, let alone
fields that are close to one another,
so it’s important to consider what
the return on time and monetary
investment will be when considering
whether or not to deep plow and apply
calcium. †
Rachelle Farrell is a Crop Inputs Manager with
Richardson Pioneer Ltd. in Morinville, Alta.
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
Features
9
Ag investments
Looking for Genesis investors
The Farmers of North America were on the road in March, hoping
to attract investors for a chain of fertilizer distribution facilities
By Leeann Minogue
B
arrie Mann spent his
spring holding meetings from Strathmore to
Davidson.
Mann is chief operating officer
of Farmers of North America and
brother to FNA founder and president James Mann. At his Weyburn,
Sask., meeting Mann told about 60
farmers. “Fertilizer is your No. 1
expense. We’re allowing the profits
from fertilizer to go back in your
bank account.”
Most of the farmers at the March
26 meeting were also at the meeting back in October, 2012, when
FNA was on the road to generate
interest in Project N, a plan to build
a majority-farmer-owned fertilizer
plant at Belle Plaine, Sask.
Though no cement has been
poured, Project N is still in the
works, Mann says. Now, FNA is
promoting and raising money for
“Genesis Grain and Fertilizer,” a
plan to build seven farm input distribution sites.
Once FNA has raised the minimum amount listed in its Offering
Memorandum, $24,200,000, it
plans to begin construction of its
first distribution “supercenter” at
Belle Plaine, Sask.
Ultimately, Genesis would include
seven supercenters. Three in Alberta
(including the Peace River region of
B.C.), three in Saskatchewan and
one in Manitoba.
FNA has plans to build Project
N, its fertilizer plant, on that same
Belle Plaine, Sask., site and supply
all seven supercenters with its own
nitrogen fertilizer. Until Project
N is producing fertilizer, Genesis
would sell fertilizer purchased from
around the world.
AgraCity, a separate company
owned indirectly (through other
companies they control) by FNA
president James Mann and another
Mann brother, Jason, will source the
fertilizer and organize the logistics
and sales. Genesis will pay AgraCity
$15 per tonne
of fertilizer sold.
T:11.5”
MPower Management
Team will
S:10.25”
provide management and administrative services for Genesis, at cost
plus 10 per cent profit. Initially,
with just one facility, MPower
forecasts its costs at $600,000, or
$660,000 with the 10 per cent
mark-up. This would increase to
$909,000 ($1,000,000 after the
mark-up) once Genesis is running at
full capacity. Like AgraCity, MPower
Management is owned indirectly by
James and Jason Mann.
Farmers buying fertilizer at the
supercenters would pay market
prices. Non-investors would pay
the same prices for fertilizers as
investors. Investors would gain by
sharing in net profits. “We’re not
out to break the price of fertilizer,”
Mann told the Weyburn audience.
Mann hopes farmers buy at
least enough shares in Genesis
to account for their own ferti-
lizer use. He estimates that farmers
should invest $10 per acre of land
in the Genesis project to effectively hedge their needs. ”If your
investment is much less, you’re
just buying retail.”
Investors can buy $1,000 “units”
in the Genesis projects, with a
minimum investment of $10,000.
Investors must be farmers, Canadian
and FNA members. They will only
be able to resell shares to other buyers that meet these qualifications.
FNA is a Saskatoon-based input
buying group. Currently, it charges
$1,200 for a three-year membership. Membership entitles farmers
to access farm input buying opportunities offered by AgraCity. †
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews.
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10
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Features
Crop protection
Aphonomyces hurting pea yield
Hope in sight
After repeated aphanomyces problems, Bernie McLean
is taking a break from growing peas
By Lisa Guenther
B
ernie McClean usually
has a positive outlook
on everything. But after
three years of dealing
with aphanomyces, he’s taking a
break from peas.
“It’s just too risky. I can’t afford
the risk,” says McClean over a cup
of coffee at his farm, which sits
between Glaslyn and Medstead in
northwestern Saskatchewan.
Up until two weeks ago,
McClean was still planning to seed
a couple of small fields to peas.
But, as seeding time approached,
worries about aphanomyces were
keeping him up at night. He’s now
planning to switch peas out for
malt barley, at least this year.
The decision wasn’t an easy one
to make. Peas broke up the cereals and oilseeds in his rotation.
He’s invested in a flex-header and
roller. The peas also allowed him
to manage his seeding and harvest
operations well — many of his
other crops needed to be seeded
earlier and harvested later.
“It’s a cropping alternative that
I’ll miss. We need those options,”
he says.
Ground zero
for aphanomyces
McClean’s farm has been ground
zero in the struggle to manage
aphanomyces. In 2012, the first
confirmed case of aphanomyces
in Saskatchewan was in his field.
That summer, one pea field,
which had seen the crop several
times over the years, started to
show signs of the disease. McClean,
with the help of his agronomist
and a neighbour, pulled plants
and sent them to a Regina lab.
Aphanomyces is notoriously tough
to diagnose, as other root diseases
such as fusarium quickly move in
after the initial infection.
They had caught the infection
early enough for the lab to detect
aphanomyces, but they couldn’t
save the crop. He watched his
plants wilt and yellow. The root
disease destroyed nodules. Most
of the acres on that field were a
wreck, but one patch that hadn’t
seen peas before yielded well.
In contrast, another of McClean’s
pea fields that year averaged 67
bushels per acre, winning him the
Prince of Peas title with Cavalier
Agrow. The high-yielding green
peas had been seeded into oats
stubble. That was the first year peas
had been seeded into that field.
McClean tried peas again in 2013
and the pulses yielded around 65
bushels per acre. By now, McClean
felt like he was starting to figure
out how to manage aphanomyces. While McClean had known
moisture was an important factor,
he knew that rotation and compaction also contribute. McClean
thought he could manage the disease by picking the right fields.
Water is king
But 2014 proved that when it
comes to aphanomyces severity,
water is king.
Last year he seeded two fields
to peas. One field had seen peas
recently, but had only grown peas
once before 2014. Historically he’d
always seeded into cereal stubble,
but this field was canola stubble. He controlled his volunteers.
McClean thought it would be a
“perfect field.”
But a summer thunderstorm
left standing water on that field
for a day and a half, derailing
the peas. Discovery Seed Labs in
Saskatoon confirmed aphanomyces in the field.
“And it devastated that field,”
he says. McClean netted 11 bushels per acre from the water-logged
field.
Water didn’t pool on the second
pea field, which was about a quarter
of a mile away. It yielded just over
50 bushels per acre, McClean says.
Peas don’t like wet feet to start
with and aphanomyces thrives in
soggy soil. Aphanomyces spores
have flagella that allow them to
swim very short distances through
wet soil, infecting roots.
McClean does have land that
hasn’t seen peas, but it’s very
wet, so he doesn’t want to take a
chance. His whole area has been
caught in a wet cycle for the last
several years. That superfluous
water has even killed willows on
McClean’s farm. “We’ve lost a lot
of acres to water,” he says.
McClean says he can’t see taking
a chance on peas until we’re in a
drying trend. But now that the
disease has built up, he’s wondering if it will affect his crops even in
dry years. The disease, which also
hits lentils, can survive in the soil
for up to 20 years without a host.
Farmers worried about aphanomyces should take it seriously,
he says.
“Believe what they’re saying and
do your due diligence to baby that
field as well as you can if you do
want to try peas again,” he says.
Right now farmers don’t have
any chemicals or resistant varieties
to give them an edge with aphanomyces. Extra moisture seems
to the biggest factor, so McClean
suggests farmers seed their highest, best-drained land to peas.
Compaction also contributes.
McClean had originally planned
to seed his peas later this spring,
to give the soil time to dry out.
He suggests farmers avoid rolling
if they don’t have to, or try to roll
when the soil is dryer, to reduce
compaction.
“Ultimately the goal is to keep
the plant as healthy as you can,”
says McClean. †
Lisa Guenther is a field editor with
Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact
her at [email protected] or
on Twitter @LtoG.
Although
aphanomyces spores are long-lived,
longer rotations seem to
reduce disease severity.
Peas and lentils should
only be grown once every
four years. And if fields
are infested with aphanomyces, rotations should
be stretched to six years
or more, according to a
joint
presentation
by
the Saskatchewan Pulse
Growers,
Saskatchewan
Agriculture and the Crop
Development Centre.
While seed treatments
don’t prevent aphanomyces, they do fight other,
secondary diseases such as
fusarium. Farmers should
test seed for germ, quality
and seed levels, according
to the presentation.
If soils have less than
15 pounds per acre of
nitrogen, farmers should
use
starter
nitrogen,
the presentation states.
Phosphorus is suggested
when seeding into cold
soils. Proper inoculation
is a must.
To view the presentation on aphanomyces,
visit www.saskpulse.com/
uploads/content/Root_
Rot_Pulse_Meetings_2015.
pdf. †
In early April, NuFarm
announced that it had
received emergency use registration of its INTEGO Solo
seed treatment for suppression of Aphanomyces euteiches
in field peas.
INTEGO Solo (ethaboxam)
is a Group 22 fungicide registered for pythium control and
the suppression of seed rot
caused by Phytophthora and
aphanomyces. It had already
been registered Canada-wide
for use on lentils, chickpeas,
dry beans and soybeans.
With this emergency use
registration, it can also be
used on field peas in Alberta,
Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
INTEGO Solo will help
protect seedling roots of
seedlings during early season growth stages while soil
conditions are wet. It is the
only Group 22 seed treatment or fungicide registered
for pulses in Canada.
Graham Collier, technical services manager for
Western Canada with Nufarm
Agriculture Inc. wants to
remind growers that this product is a “suppression product,”
for use as “part of a management system,” and will not
completely eliminate problems. It will be helpful for early
season protection, but the
length of time it will protect
the plants will be dependent
on environmental conditions.
“It’s there while our soils are
moist in the summer,“ Collier
says. However, aphanomyces could still infect plants
later in the growing season.
“We don’t have an option for
later in the year yet,” he says.
“Everyone’s working on it.”
After harvest, residue from
fields treated with this product cannot be fed to livestock. “We have a residue
study that’s not done yet,”
Collier says. †
Lisa Guenther
Leeann Minogue
We need
those options
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APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
Features
11
Crop disease
Clubroot resistance in jeopardy
Alberta researchers have found a clubroot pathogen, 5x, that can
infect clubroot-resistant canola varieties
By Lisa Guenther
A
nyone in the canola
industry banking on
clubroot-resistant varieties alone to stop the
disease is in for a shock this spring,
as Alberta researchers have discovered 16 more fields where resistance has broken.
In 2014 researchers identified
a clubroot pathotype, christened
5x, that had worn away resistance. Not all the resistance-busting pathotypes in the 16 new
fields have been identified as 5x,
although Dan Orchard says those
results are preliminary.
“So there could be many (virulent) strains out there,” says
Orchard, an agronomist with the
Canola Council of Canada.
The new fields are spread
throughout Alberta’s clubroot
zone in central Alberta, Orchard
says. They aren’t clustered near
the original field with the 5x
pathotype, he adds.
“It seems like they’re all independent of each other,” Orchard
says. “There’s no real relationship
to think that they had the same
equipment or shared anything.”
that rating means plants will have
between 30 to 69 per cent infection levels compared to the clubroot-susceptible check.
A canola variety rated resistant
to clubroot has to rate 70 per cent
compared to a susceptible check.
That means in a field of clubrootresistant canola, up to 30 per cent
of the plants could potentially be
infected. But in-house standards
for seed companies would be in
the 90 percentile for resistance,
says Clint Jurke, agronomy director for the Council.
At any rate, this range of allowable infection made it more difficult to catch the resistance breakdown early on, Orchard says.
Old rules have
come full circle
Orchard says the old rules that
farmers were reluctant to follow
“have come full circle.”
Chief among those is cleaning
equipment. The Canola Council
hasn’t asked farmers to clean equipment between each field for years
now, says Jurke. Instead, they’re
asking farmers to look at their
own risk level before deciding how
much cleaning they should do.
If a farmer is scouting diligently and he knows his farm is
clubroot-free, Orchard still recommends knocking large dirt
lumps from equipment.
Farmers whose fields are free
of infestations, but who are on
the fringe of the clubroot zone,
will want to clean a little more
thoroughly, Orchard says. They
may also want to keep equipment from other farms out of
their fields, he adds.
Farmers with infested fields
will want to start field operations in the cleanest fields
and work their way towards
the most heavily-infested. They
should clean equipment thoroughly once they’ve finished
the worst field.
That approach is more realistic, Orchard says, “because farmers just do not have the time
to do the sanitation that’s been
asked by the industry.”
Equipment is the main way
clubroot-contaminated soil infests
new fields, but it can also blow
in from eroded fields, Orchard
says. That means farmers can’t
skip scouting even if their equipment is pristine.
Jurke also notes that the disease
may have arrived in some fields
years ago, but escaped observation.
Both Jurke and Orchard emphasize that the greater the spore
load, the more quickly clubroot
will overcome resistance.
» continued on page 13
IT HAS ALL THE POTENTIAL
IN THE WORLD,
Keep that
spore load as low
as possible
Some of the infested fields are
also in areas where clubroot traditionally hasn’t had high spore
loads, which Orchard says comes
as a bit of a surprise. Resistance
wasn’t expected to break in areas
where spore loads weren’t high,
he explains. The next step is to
find out whether the 16 fields
individually have sky-high spore
loads that weren’t identified for
some reason.
Orchard isn’t familiar with all
the fields, but he says some were
under tight rotations.
Dr.
Stephen
Strelkov,
a
University of Alberta researcher,
is heading up the next round of
research. He’ll look at whether
any canola varieties can fight off
these new clubroot pathotypes,
Orchard says. He’ll also confirm
which strains the new, unidentified pathotypes belong to.
But there are several different
varieties in the 16 fields, Orchard
says, and they all seem to have the
same clubroot resistance genetics.
“So it would be unlikely that it’s
just (specific to) that variety in
that field.”
Strelkov’s earlier work showed
that there appeared to be some
different sources of clubroot resistance being used by different canola seed brands, Orchard says.
“But they don’t appear to
be enough to say that rotating between Company A and
Company B is going to slow down
the shift because none of them are
resistant to this 5x.”
Canterra Seeds is releasing a
new variety — CS2000 — that has
an intermediate reaction level to
the 5x pathogen. Orchard explains
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12
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Columns
Kelly’s AgExpert Tips and Hints
Creating invoices with AgExpert
Setting up, creating and customizing invoices with farm accounting software
Kelly Airey
A
gExpert’s invoice creating capability is a great
feature that allows you
to enter and record a
sale at the same time as invoicing your customer.
All invoices must be made
through the Point of Sale Screen.
You can create an invoice for any
type of sale, including sales of
cattle, grain, hay, custom work or
capital assets. You can choose your
invoice style from a selection of
templates within the program —
they’re customizable to allow for
adding your own farm logo and
selecting font and colours. You
can print an invoice immediately
as you enter a sale into the program or you can set the program
to place the invoices in a queue to
batch print at a later time.
Setting up invoices
To setup and customize your
invoices:
1. Setup > Preferences >
Optional Features Tab > Place a
check mark in the “Point of Sale/
Print Invoices” box.
2. Click Save.
3. Setup > Preferences >
Invoices Tab
4. Choose a Template: Click
BayerCropScience.ca/Infinity or 1 888-283-6847 or contact your Bayer CropScience representative.
Always read and follow label directions. Infinity® is a registered trademark of the Bayer Group.
Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.
on the Folder icon below the copies you’d like printed, the
Template > Select a Template > next Invoice number, and place
Click OK.
a check mark in the “Print Unit
5. Logo: If you have a farm Price” box.
Logo you’d like to use on your
Tip: I recommend printing two
invoice, then click the folder icon invoice copies. One to give to
below the Logo Box > Choose theB:17.7083”
your customer and one to keep
logo from the appropriate loca-T:17.4583”
for your records.
tion on your computer
8. You can also add your own
S:17.0833”
6. Select your printer
thank-you message and payment
7. Select your font, colour, terms.
date format, number of invoice
9. Click Save.
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
13
Columns
Creating an invoice
Using the Point of Sale Screen:
1. Date: Enter the transaction
date
2. Reference:
Enter
the
invoice number
3. Customer: Select a customer
4. Place a check mark in
the “Print Immediately” box
to print the invoice after you
record the transaction. Tip:
If this box is left unselected,
an invoice will still be created
when you record the transaction, but it will be placed in the
print queue for printing at a
later time. The print queue can
be accessed from Transactions >
Print Queue > Invoices.
5. Enter the transaction
details. <For example:> To
record the sale of hay bales:
• Type > IN
• Account > Alfalfa Hay Sales
Account
• Memo: Click on the pencil
icon > the description you put
here is what will be printed on
the invoice
• Quantity: Enter number
of bales or tonnes. Tip: The
quantity unit label that pops
up, comes from the unit label
selected for the Hay Income
Account in the Chart of
Accounts. Ensure that if the
Hay Income Account is linked
to the Hay Inventory Account
to track inventory, that the unit
labels are set the same for both
accounts. They should both be
tracking bales or both be tracking tonnes.
• Unit Price: Enter price per
bale or price per tonne
• Total: will be calculated by
quantity x price
• Taxes: select appropriate
tax code
6. The subtotal, taxes and
total will automatically be calculated on bottom right side.
7. Click the green “+” icon or
[TAB] to create a new line if there
are more sales to add to this invoice.
8. Cash or charge: if the
invoice is already paid, select
Cash > Choose the bank account
the money was deposited into
> Place a check mark in the
appropriate payment method
box. “PAID” will be marked on
the invoice when it prints.
If the invoice is unpaid, select
Charge > upon recording this
transaction, a receivable will
be created in the system, and
“Charge” will be marked on
the invoice when it prints. Tip:
When you receive payment on
this invoice, you can record the
deposit in the Transaction Entry
Screen. The “Transaction Type”
is a Deposit, The “Type” in the
first line will be a Receivable
Payment. You can apply the
amount you’ve received from
the customer against the open
invoice.
9. Notes > Select the Paper
with the pencil icon at the
bottom left side of the screen.
“Private Notes” can be made
about the transaction that will
only be seen by you. “Customer
Notes” are notes that will be
printed on the invoice.
10. A confirmation may appear
saying “This transaction detail
will exceed the credit limit for
this customer. Continue? “Click
Yes, if you have not set any credit
limits for your customers and
continue to record the transaction. Tip: If you would like to set
a credit limit for your customer,
you can go to Setup > Contacts
> Select Customer > Edit > Fill in
Credit Limit Amount > Save
Invoices will always be in the
print queue. If your paper jams
in the printer, or you realize you
need to print another copy then
go to Transactions > Print Queue
> Invoices. Put a check mark in
the box to “Include items already
printed” to show all the invoices
in the queue. If you want to
make a change to the font, colour or template, you can select
Preferences, make the changes,
and then come back to the print
queue to print the invoices with
the applied changes. †
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
more selection pressure they’ll
apply to the clubroot pathogen,
Orchard says.
Early greenhouse research
showed that clubroot resistance
started to erode within two canola crops, regardless of the time
between those crops, Orchard
says. The resistance break-down
would be evident by the third
canola crop. And that’s almost
exactly what happened in the
field, he says.
What this means on a practical level is that farmers with
a two-year rotation have grown
three resistant crops since clubroot resistance was introduced in
2009. These farmers can already
see dead patches of canola from
the swather, Orchard explains.
But farmers using a three-year
rotation with clubroot-resistant
varieties have less severe infestations right now because they’ve
only used resistant varieties twice
so far.
“We can scout their fields and
find very small patches and evidence of this happening. But it’s
not visible from a swather or a
pick-up truck,” says Orchard.
Longer rotations not only slow
the resistance erosion, but also
give researchers more time to get
ahead of the disease, Orchard
says.
Orchard understands it’s a
challenge to find other crops to
lengthen rotations, but adds that
it’s an important management
practice for clubroot and other
crop diseases.
But ultimately rotation alone
isn’t enough to manage clubroot
resistance.
Jurke explains that even with a
four-year rotation, farmers using
susceptible canola varieties will
boost the number of virulent
spores. In fact, a four-year rotation with susceptible varieties will
build up more virulent spores
than a two-year rotation with
resistant varieties, assuming both
farms start with low spore loads,
he says.
The mantra must be to rotate
crops and not use susceptible
varieties anymore, says Jurke. †
Clubroot
resistance no
longer a sure thing
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“Farmers need to identify it
really early to keep that spore
load as low as possible,” says
Orchard. “And that way, the odds
of it breaking resistance are much,
much slimmer.”
Both Orchard and Jurke recommend using resistant varieties
before farms have clubroot to
prevent spore loads from building to uncontrollable levels.
Clubroot seems to spread about
30 km a year, so farmers within
30 km of an infested field should
use clubroot-resistant varieties,
Orchard says.
Orchard also recommends
farmers create a management
plan even if their fields are still
clubroot-free.
For
example,
Orchard finds energy companies
tend to comply with field entry
protocols if farmers have them in
place already.
In areas with few cropping
choices, it’s even more important farmers keep clubroot out,
Orchard says, to make sure they
can potentially survive on a
shorter rotation.
Rotate, rotate,
rotate, rotate
The more often farmers grow
clubroot-resistant canola, the
By jonny hawkins
Country Chuckles
C-52-04/15-10287626-E
“Postmodern Farmers”
Kelly Airey is a producer and ag consultant
in Western Manitoba. She offers software
setups and training, and discounts on
software purchases. Contact Kelly at kelly.
[email protected] or (204) 365-0136
Lisa Guenther is a field editor with
Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact
her at [email protected] or
on Twitter @LtoG.
14
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Columns
Reporter’s Notebook
Better weather information​
New technology allows farmers to have their own on-farm weather stations
Lisa
Guenther
I
n my last column, I wrote
about how new technology sometimes scares the
snot out of me (specifically
driverless cars).
But I’m not a complete
Luddite, or neo-Luddite. I do
have an iPhone, apps and all.
Some of the apps I use most
frequently during the summer
are weather-related. I like to
check if a squall line is marching
my way before I commit to any
lengthy outdoor activities.
Dr. Randy Kutcher, a disease
specialist with the University
of Saskatchewan, thinks local
weather data could also help
farmers make better fungicide
application decisions.
The first thing farmers need to
remember is that weather is just
one risk factor. For a disease to
take hold there needs to be inoculum in the area, he explained.
Rotation and variety are also factors, he added.
Some regions are already creating disease risk maps using
weather data. For example,
Manitoba creates a FHB risk
map. The map is updated daily
and takes into account the tem-
perature and weather over the
last seven days. (To find it, at
discovery.gov.mb.ca, search for
FHB risk forecast.)
Saskatchewan doesn’t have
anything similar right now,
although they do survey fields
for sclerotinia and blackleg ever
year. The disease maps are posted
at www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/.
Those maps will give you an idea
of whether the disease is present
in your area.
Weather stations
But the good news is that even
if you don’t have disease risk
maps for your area, you have
other options. For one thing,
weather stations aren’t prohibitively expensive anymore.
“When you spend half a million on a combine, a couple
thousand bucks for a weather
station is not that much,” said
Kutcher. “And in fact, you
can get stuff for a lot cheaper
than that. You can get stuff at
Canadian Tire even.”
The University of Saskatchewan
uses a sophisticated, solar-powered weather station called a
Davis, which Kutcher said costs
a couple thousand bucks. They
also use small weather probes
called HOBOs, which come in at
less than $500.
“You can move them around.
Or you can move them higher or
lower in the canopy, depending
on what you’re measuring,” said
Kutcher. The cigar-shaped probes
measure temperature, relative
humidity, leaf surface wetness,
and other variables. They don’t
measure rainfall, but farmers can
either check a rain gauge every
morning or buy a tipping bucket.
Of course, Kutcher’s not the
only one who sees a fit. Farmers
Edge is using weather stations
to help its clients with different
agronomic and management decisions, including fungicide application. They combine weather
data with information on fertility,
variety, seeding date, soil water
holding capacity and texture, and
satellite imagery to predict everything from crop stages to disease
outbreaks, Farmers Edge founder
Wade Barnes wrote via email.
Once you have a personal
weather station, you can also
connect it to networks. Both
Wunderground and WeatherFarm
allow individuals to do this,
although you should probably check their requirements
before ponying up for a station.
Hooking into their systems feeds
weather data into the network,
which benefits others in the area.
WeatherFarm also has an online
tool that tells you whether it’s too
windy to spray or not, so that’s
something to consider.
Farmers Edge provides weather
stations as part of a preci-
sion agronomy package it calls
Precision Solutions. The company
supplies the hardware and installs
the station. The stations tie into
an existing network, but they provide local forecasts, weather alerts
to help with agronomic decisions,
historical weather information,
and the ability to monitor environmental conditions for specific
issues, such as disease. The weather
station uploads this information
to the Internet every few minutes.
Barnes cautioned against making spraying decisions based on
alerts from weather stations 50
miles away. I think he’s probably right in that regard. My parents have a WeatherFarm station
perched on top of their shop.
There’s also a Wunderground
station a few miles from their
farm. The temperature, humidity
and wind speed sometimes vary
between those stations. It’s handy
to have both available.
I don’t know much about
actually buying a weather station. Wunderground has a selection on their website (wunderground.com), but keep in mind
they’re a U.S. company. Weather
Innovations Network, which is
based in Ontario, also has equipment information on their website
(weatherinnovations.com).
Barnes suggests making sure
your weather station provides
enough data to help you make
good decisions. You should also
Full disclosure
WeatherFarm is owned by
Glacier Farm Media. Glacier
also owns Grainews and
Country Guide, along with
several other farm papers.
You can see which papers
Glacier houses at www.
farmmedia.com.
Weather Innovations Network is also linked to Glacier.
The company partnered with
Glacier a couple of years ago
to buy WeatherFarm from the
Canadian Wheat Board. †
Lisa Guenther
make sure you have enough strategically placed on the farm to make
a difference, he added.
Kutcher said he thinks we can
make use of weather data much
more rigorously than we have.
“But we need to know when
to collect it, how to collect it,
and how to factor it into all the
other things it affects — diseases like sclerotinia in canola
and fusarium in wheat — to be
able to make better judgments
as to when to spray for those
diseases.” †
Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based
at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.
Can’t take the farm from the boy
Everyone wants to be a farmer
City folk may not understand all the realities of farming, but many dream of doing it
Toban
Dyck
I
t’s frustrating. I want my
city friends to get it. I want
them to understand how
nuanced issues and trends
like livestock production, genetically-modified organisms, fossil
fuels, and eating farm-to-table
are.
It would be unfair to say city
dwellers are vain, but I want to.
Just as it would have been unfair
of me to say all farmers are hicks
when I lived in the city.
I have sat on both sides of the
rural-urban gulf and felt justified
on each.
We all should know better.
Quick judgements are never
correct. And us farmers don’t
take well to those claiming the
final word on agricultural issues
within the confines of a city’s
perimeter. They are often wrong
about us, as we are about them.
But, sadly, it largely remains us
and them.
Here’s the rub: I think rural
life is better. I’d argue this from
personal experience, but I don’t
need to. Trends speak for themselves.
The Good Will is a bar/venue
in Winnipeg located west of
the University of Winnipeg on
Portage Avenue. Hipsters go there
in droves (please don’t ask me
what a hipster is. Apparently I’m
one of them). The Good Will
has got current definitions of
cool written all over it: aloof
bartenders who love everyone,
carry no judgments, and just like
to have a good time; a place
where cool bands perform while
knitting groups meet; and it’s
equipped with a space for people
with notebooks and laptops to
comfortably work.
I’m being disingenuous, in
part, but shouldn’t be because
I really like the place. I sit on a
board that meets at The Good
Will a couple of times a month.
In January, I attended such a
meeting. I drove to the city in
a silver three-quarter ton Dodge
Ram diesel truck. I parked in front
of the bar, on Portage Avenue,
behind a tiny sedan, and walked
into the bar wearing Sorel boots,
a winter parka, a touque, and
big mitts. There was immediate
consensus among everyone who
saw me that I had just come from
the farm.
I stomped through the door
and plunked myself down at the
table, ready to chat about online
publishing. The six of us occupied about eight feet of a 40-footlong table made of butcher block
situated between the pizza parlour and the bar itself.
This time in particular was
strange. Once the meeting was
officially over, and we were just
chatting, the conversation turned
to community gardens, farm-totable eating, and food politics.
There is a charm to farming, it
turns out, and I’m a pretty cool
dude for doing it. At least, that’s
what people think, apparently
having no trouble reconciling the
fact that I, the guy sitting next
to them sipping craft beer, apply
round-up, drive a fuel-hungry
truck — often by myself — and
occasionally fire a rifle, with attitudes that disparage all of those
things.
This is fascinating and telling.
There seems to be an understanding and respect for the measures
farmers need to take in order to
get things done. And this understanding is a trump card. Why?
Seated deep in “artisanal,”
“heritage grains,” “organic,”
“farm-to-table,” is an unstated
pining for something more.
These may just be $10 words or
phrases for the same thing.
“Farming dreams are a modern seduction,” reads the Modern
Farmer article “So You Want To
Be a Farmer…”: “For city dwellers, the vision of making a living
from the earth salves the psychic
wounds of a day job, and acts
as an antidote to urban malaise.
If you could just get out there
on the land, far from spreadsheets and stress, cubicles and car
alarms, things would surely be
different. Eating overripe tomatoes, fresh from the vine and
bursting with juice. Cavorting
with goats.”
Perhaps it’s too crude to just
admit to being tired of a certain
lifestyle and wanting another.
Perhaps the moral superiority
that comes with chasing the
perceived authenticity of current food and small-scale ag
trends is a veiled way of saying
that the city does not satisfy
that nagging part of you that
strives to be genuine. And urban
community gardens, one-hive
bee farms, and two chickens are
only a tease.
Whether Modern Farmer is correct or not, the actual agricultural
community is left to deal with
having these trends foisted on it
by people for whom farming represents something genuine and
missing.
“Farming has been incredibly
healing to me; some days it’s the
only thing keeping me together,”
said an interview subject in the
Modern Farmer article. “It’s hard
to put into words. Farming just
gets in your blood.”
I can’t claim the Holy Grail on
this perspective, but having lived
for over a decade in the city, and
now a few years and a childhood
on the farm, must count towards
something resembling knowledge or wisdom.
Quick farm update: I’m still
waiting to hear if I qualify for crop
insurance or not; I am excited
and nervous about putting the
drill fill on our tandem (it’s a finicky endeavour, but a great one,
as it represents the beginning
of the growing season); and my
next building project is going to
be an outdoor pizza oven. †
Toban Dyck is a freelance writer and a
new farmer on an old farm. Follow him on
Twitter @tobandyck or email tobandyck@
gmail.com.
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
15
Columns
Understanding market bulls and bears
Simplifying grain pricing
Building U.S. currency conversions into the basis complicates price
comparisons. There may be a simpler way
Brian
wittal
S
differences. But other than those causing concern for many producdifferences the basis levels and ers that I have talked to.
net prices offered at facilities in
Currency conversion does not
Canadian or the U.S. should be need to be included in the basis
competitive.
for any reason other than it makes
The simpler and more transpar- it easier for grain companies to
ent the pricing model is, the better help manage their risk. But by
it will be for everyone involved. adding this complication, it looks
The current pricing model used like they are withholding inforfor wheat — with currency conver- mation. Moving to a U.S. pricing
sion and risk being blended into model would bring all aspects of
the basis — is confusing and leaves currency conversion out in the
farmers somewhat distrustful of open for all to see, thus elimithe whole process and the com- nating the concern that informapanies they are dealing with. The tion is being withheld. This would
grain companies’ intentions may result in a better working relationB:8.125”
not have been to confuse anyone
ship between the grain companies
or to try to hide anything, but that
and their supply customers.
T:8.125”
is what it looks like, and that is
Let’s get some clarity into the
S:8.125”
wheat pricing model in Western
Canada so that producers can
see, understand and compare the
prices they are being offered. They
will be able to make better marketing decisions knowing they have
all the relevant information, and
not feel like information is being
withheld or hidden.
If there is a way to do things
that would help build better relationships between grain companies and farmers, let’s look at it
and make it happen. †
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).
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far less restrictive, which should
mean that more grain will flow
south to our biggest customer,
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Regardless of whether the wheat
is going for export via the coast or
into the U.S., the more important
fact is that our wheat prices are all
based on the U.S. wheat futures
contracts just like they are down
east — there is no reason the grain
companies in the west couldn’t
start using this pricing model for
wheat. If they did, it would make
it a whole lot easier for producers
to follow and understand what is
happening in the markets, and it
would not put grain companies
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T:10”
Changing the model
B:10”
S:10”
ince my last two articles on
wheat basis calculations I
have had some interesting
conversations with producers and industry people alike.
One call in particular from a
gentleman who works in the grain
industry in Eastern Canada was
very enlightening. Apparently my
article was forwarded to him by
one of his co-workers at a facility
in Western Canada who found it
of interest. At least I know there
are a few of you out there who
read my articles!
He called to let me know that
the way they do their pricing for
grains in Eastern Ontario is to
quote everything in U.S. dollars.
The reason for this is that the
majority of grain bought and sold
is either into the U.S. or ends up
going to the U.S. after it has been
milled in Ontario. All hedging
transactions are done on the U.S.
markets, so it makes sense to post
U.S. pricing. It’s transparent and
easy for producers to follow and
understand.
Seeing as grains in Eastern
Canada trade off of the various
U.S. grain exchanges it is just a
natural to post the U.S. futures
values. As for the basis, they
quote it in U.S. dollars as well, so
that the calculation to a net sale
price is very easy and simple to
understand. Then they post the
daily currency conversion rate
for the Canadian dollar. From
there it is very simple math for a
producer to figure out what they
will be getting for their grain in
Canadian dollars at the end of
the day.
When he first said this all I
could think was that this concept
is way too easy and uncomplicated
and it would work great out here
in the west as well, if someone
would dare implement such a pricing model.
at any currency fluctuation risk
whatsoever.
If we used a U.S. dollar pricing model for wheat in Western
Canada, you as a producer would
be able to easily compare prices
between the various grain companies here and/or in the U.S. It
would provide you with a true
daily price competitive model,
with all companies in the market quoting their prices in the
same currency.
As I mentioned in my last article there are variations in freight
costs to get grain to port between
U.S. and Canadian facilities, so
you will have some variability
in pricing because of those cost
16
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Columns
Soils and crops
Nitrogen the right way
Researchers and farmers have worried about the 4Rs of fertilizer for decades.
The answers are not the same for everyone
Placement
les
henry
I
Nitrogen has been a hot discussion topic in Grainews for more
than 35 years.
n recent years there has
been a great deal of hype
about the 4Rs when planning fertilizer use: right
source, right rate, right time
and right placement.
The first Grainews column I
penned was in October 1976:
“Nitrogen — when, what kind
and how much to apply.” Back
then, phosphorus was seed
placed and nitrogen was broadcast except anhydrous, which
by necessity was banded, so
placement was not an issue.
And, in those days the best
nitrogen fertilizer was still available — ammonium nitrate (AN)
NH 4NO 3 34-0-0. Ammonium
nitrate provided the quick
action of the nitrate and the
stability of ammonium in one
prill. It could be broadcast with
safety. Fall broadcast in Red
River Valley and other wet areas
could be a problem because of
gaseous losses but otherwise it
was a winner.
But ammonium nitrate was
expensive to produce and plants
had environmental issues. The
explosion hazard and criminal
activities put the boots to it.
Too bad.
YOUR PERFORMANCE
ENHANCER
The fourth R came about when
urea came on the scene. Urea was
broadcast just like AN but did
not act the same. Gaseous ammonia loss was (and is) a problem.
The remedial action of the day
was incorporation. Not immediate like Treflan but without much
delay. We recommended doing the
incorporation within a day or two
of application.
Now it turned out that Westco
did not market anhydrous at that
time and anhydrous was giving
urea a licking in the market place.
Along came John Harapiak (1937
to 2011). He was a Westco agronomist and started an extensive series
of trials all across the west comparing broadcast to deep placed urea.
Lo and behold, if you treat urea like
anhydrous and put it four inches or
so in the soil, it reacts the same.
To this day I remember the
words of John Harapiak in an
address at Quance theater in
the Education Building at the
University of Saskatchewan. He
presented a great set of data and
concluded by saying, “The difference in yield between broadcasting and deep banding urea is
enough to pay for the fertilizer.”
The emphasis is on deep. Recent
work by John Heard and others in
Manitoba has shown that shallow
banding of urea can be worse than
broadcast in terms of volatile loss.
In hindsight and contemplating
the theory of it all, it makes sense.
When urea is shallow banded the
NH3 concentration and pH skyrockets — just as it does when we inject
anhydrous ammonia. We all know
what happens if we try to band
anhydrous an inch or two deep.
The realities of acres and time
has led to a return to broadcast
urea. But, in recent years we have
had much wetter conditions and
the probability of a rain soon after
broadcasting is much greater than
the years when the original work
was done. If urea is broadcast and
an inch of rain comes along in a
day or two, all is good. Urea on
a totally dry surface will just sit
there. But a dry surface does not
stay dry for long. A very heavy dew
or few sprinkles will be enough to
juice it up and lead to gassing off.
Much of the nitrogen is now
side banded or mid-row banded.
Providing the band is far enough
from the seed and deep enough it
is a great option, but a lot of tendering at seeding time.
To digress — the big farmers
that make it all happen are the
ones driving around in their pick
up and communicating with their
smart phone. Decisions are made
on the spot and plans change by
the day or even hour. Big operations making decisions in remote
corner offices of big cities will
never make it — recent events
have proven that yet again!
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I still favor anhydrous ammonia. It is usually the cheapest, is
most concentrated for transport
and rests comfortably at four or
so inches depth until a plant root
finds it.
The entry of Agrotain and ESN
has added some choices to the
mix. From any research I have
seen the products perform as
advertised, in terms of the reactions in or on the soil. Whether or
not they are a fit will depend on
your operation and farm conditions. Broadcast Agrotain does add
a window of a couple of weeks.
Seed placed urea can be a disaster
at high rates and ESN buffers that
to a significant degree.
Timing
The best time and place to have
adequate NO3 and NH4 is when a
plant root comes looking for it.
Spoon feeding through the year is
great in theory but only in practice for irrigation farmers. Green
Seeker and dribbled solutions
sounds good to me but I’m not
sure how much data is available
to prove it. Perhaps readers will
enlighten me.
Spring is better than fall in theory. In practice I like anhydrous in
the fall. Then the big job is done
and we can concentrate on seeding in spring. Also, in dry springs
the tillage associated with applying
anhydrous can dry out the seed bed
— a problem especially for canola.
As you can see there are many
interactions between source,
placement and timing. There is no
“one size fits all.”
Rate
The right rate is a matter of a
good and continuing soil testing
program. Variable rate nitrogen
has much hype but I have seen
few examples where it is working.
The big limitation in nitrogen
soil testing is the need for a measure of mineralization. There are
many research papers and computer programs to estimate mineralization.
For years I have thought it is
as simple as taking a moist soil
sample in fall and leaving it at
room temperature for three to four
weeks and then measuring nitrate.
Alas — no one is listening.
The rationale is this: if it does
not mineralize in a few weeks at
room temperature and field capacity moisture, then it will not mineralize in field conditions to be
any good to the current crop.
Procedures
for
measuring
“potential nitrogen mineralization” have been known for decades. It involves a complicated lab
procedure including incubation at
35 C for 30 weeks. I fail to see what
relevance that has to what will
happen at my farm between June
5 and July 20. In most years that is
about the time most nitrogen will
be sucked up by roots and pushed
above ground.
The 4Rs are just fine but its does
not mean there’s a recipe for any
given farm, crop, or year. †
J.L.(Les) Henry is a former professor and
extension specialist at the University of
Saskatchewan. He farms at Dundurn, Sask.
He recently finished a second printing
of “Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water,”
a book that mixes the basics and practical
aspects of soil, fertilizer and farming. Les will
cover the shipping and GST for “Grainews”
readers. Simply send a cheque for $50 to Henry
Perspectives, 143 Tucker Cres, Saskatoon, SK,
S7H 3H7, and he will dispatch a signed book.
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
17
Columns
Farm financial planner
Keep farming for a lower tax bill
Keeping the farm operating will hold taxes down and maintain the farm legacy
By Andrew Allentuck
F
arming has been good to
a couple we’ll call Horace,
50, and Betsy, 40. Their
3,500-acre grain operation
has been consistently profitable.
Now they want to plan their retirement and succession, but it’s too
early to tell if their daughter, Moira,
10, will be interested in continuing
to farm.
The couple plan to stay with
their farm for the next decade and
a half when Horace will be 65 and
Betsy 55. Then they will either
transfer it to Moira or sell.
The couple asked Don Forbes
and Erik Forbes of Don Forbes
Associates Inc./Armstrong &
Quaile Inc. in Carberry, Manitoba,
to work with them to plan their
financial future. “This is a success
story,” Don explains. “The issue
is how the couple can make the
most of their operation.”
Current situation
At present, Horace and Betsy
each take $60,000 as salaries with a
$10,000 bonus going to each one’s
RRSP. There is usually additional
profit left in the corporation. If it
B:10.25”
is not reinvested,
then they take
it out as dividends
T:10.25”for investment
in their Tax-Free Savings Accounts
or paying down their $550,000
house mortgage.
The mortgage at present has a
four per cent interest rate and 24
years to go on the amortization
schedule. If they add 10 per cent
to their payments, currently about
$3,000 a month, the mortgage
would be paid in full in just under
15 years, Erik Forbes estimates.
It’s time for Moira to get a
Registered Education Savings Plan.
If the parents contribute $2,500
a year for the next seven years to
her age 17, she can receive the
Canada Education Savings Grant
of the lesser of 20 per cent of
contributions or $500 each year.
That makes each year’s maximum
contribution $3,000. There is a
catch up provision as well, so
» continued on next page
S:10.25”
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/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Columns
» CONTINUED FROM Previous PAGE
the couple could add $25,000 plus
$5,000 CESG for the past 10 years
that they have not contributed
and get the CESG to a maximum
of $7,200 per beneficiary. If they
invest at six per cent before inflation adjustment for the entire period to Moira’s age 17, she would
have $64,000 with the $30,000
one-time catch up investment or
$27,000 without it.
Horace’s RRSP balance, currently
$160,000, with a $10,000 contribution each year, will grow to about
$630,200 in 15 years. Betsy’s RRSP,
with no significant present balance, will grow to about $245,000 $247,000 in 15 years with $10,000
annual contributions. They can
make a little more by contributing
early in each year rather than waiting to the end of the contribution
period 60 days after the end of each
calendar year.
At age 65, Horace’s RRSP converted to a Registered Retirement
Income Fund will provide him
with an income of about $4,000 a
month or $48,000 a year to his age
90 in future dollars without inflation adjustment while Betsy’s RRIF
starting at age 55 would provide
her with about $1,200 in future
dollars each month or $14,400 a
year to her age 100, Don. Forbes
predicts.
Horace has $11,000 in his TaxFree Savings Account. He should
add $5,500 a year and fill the
present space available, about
$25,500, to make full use of the
shelter, Don Forbes suggests. Betsy
should open her own TFSA and fill
its $36,500 spaced. The TFSA can
be an emergency cash reserve. Over
the next 15 years, the two accounts
will grow at six per cent a year to
$163,000 for Horace, recognizing
his present $11,000 balance, and
$136,000 for Betsy, who will have
to start with a zero balance.
At age 65, Horace can expect
Canada Pension Plan payments at
75 per cent of today’s maximum,
$12,780, Betsy at 50 per cent of
the maximum, each payable at 65.
Inflated at three per cent per year
for 15 years for Horace when he
starts benefits at 65 and 25 years
for Betsy when she reaches 65, the
couple would have CPP benefits of
approximately $27,160 when both
benefits begin to flow.
They would also have Old Age
Security benefits, currently $6,765
a year, when each is 67. Inflated at
three per cent per year for 17 years
for Horace and 27 years for Betsy,
the couple would have combined
OAS benefits before any clawback
of $25,300 when Betsy is 67.
The sum of all these cash flows
without any TFSA payouts would
be $114,860 in future dollars.
back would have little cost to the
couple’s income, including OAS.
If Moira does not continue to
farm, then all of its assets including
land, machinery, and inventory
would be sold. Unless its retained
in the company, Horace and Betsy
would assume all of the retained
earnings as taxable income.
If the farm is sold, then its present
estimated value of $8,836,000
would presumably grow. If we use a
three per cent rate of return, which
would just cover inflation, then the
farm would be worth $13,182,000
when Horace and Betsy start their
retirement in 15 years. At the same
rate of growth equal to inflation,
the capital obtained from sale of
the farm would provide a pre-tax
income of $395,000 a year before
tax. The exact return would depend
on the future accounting for the
farming corporation and application of the $800,000 exemption on
qualified farm property revalued, as
it might be, in future.
The tax rate on this income distributed as dividends combined
with the farm corporation’s tax
rate would be about 38 per cent,
leaving about $245,000 for living
expenses, travel and investment,
Don Forbes suggests. Total future
income including all RRIF and government pensions would then be
$624,720 per year. After tax at an
average 40 per cent rate, which
includes the effect of the clawback,
they would have about $348,000 a
year to spend in future dollars. That
would more than cover present
expenses of $10,000 a month or
$120,000 a year inflated at three
per cent per year to $194,000 in
15 years or $216,000 a year in 25
years, Erik Forbes estimates.
If the company were to continue to operate with cash, land,
and other assets not generating
active farming income, the Canada
Revenue Agency would treat the
business as a holding company or
tax shelter. The result would be
taxation of all non-business or passive income at the peak personal
rate. Thus any land rent received
by the company after active farm-
The family farm remains a good way to make money and keep it too.
ing has stopped ought to be paid
out each year and taxed in the
hands of each person. Dividend
paying stocks held inside a holding
company would be eligible to pass
through dividend income on a partially paid basis. That would further
reduce the tax burden on Horace
and Betsy, Don Forbes notes.
Horace and Betsy have tough
choices to make, Don Forbes says.
If they sell the farm and convert
Financing retirement
To finance their future, the couple can continue to take money
out of their farming corporation,
but it should be paid as dividends rather than salary income,
Don Forbes suggests. When they
start to draw Canada Pension Plan
benefits and Old Age Security
and income from their RRIFs and
TFSAs, they will be pushed into
higher tax brackets and their Old
Age Security benefits, currently
$6,765 a year and perhaps would
be clawed back quite substantially.
The OAS clawback begins in 2015
at $72,809. With a three per cent
annual inflation, it would start at
about $110,000 when Horace is 67
and $127,400 when Betsy is 67.
Using these numbers, the claw-
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FS:8.2”
F:8.7”
their land and equipment to cash,
they will be faced with very high
income taxes on resulting investment income. Continuing the
farm as an active business, perhaps
controlled by Moira, is the best tax
plan. The family farm remains not
only a good way to make money,
but a good way to keep it.
Andrew Allentuck’s latest book, When Can I
Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work,
was published in 2011 by Penguin Canada.
T:17.4”
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
19
Columns
Off-farm income
Stocks might have a disease
Just like crops, the stocks in your portfolio may have a yield-reducing disease
ANDY
SIRSKI
J
T:17.4”
ust like crops, we might say
many stocks could be hit
with a disease that reduces
yield.
At the end of March, earnings season for Quarter one were
just around the corner. Already
about 100 stocks had earnings
estimates dropped for Q1 while
only 17 had been raised. This is a
bit of a two-edged sword — lowered earnings estimates make it
easier for companies to hit earnings. That’s often interpreted to
be good. But lower earnings are
lower earnings.
Earning for Q2 don’t sound
very good either. The higher
U.S. dollar reduces corporate
America’s chances of exporting
stuff and increases competition
from imports. Plus the high U.S.
dollar makes it expensive for
American companies to repatriate (bring home) profits from
overseas, which reduces taxes
collected by the government.
Some time ago well-known
bond trader Bill Gross went public with his prediction that by
the end of 2015 most assets will
be worth less than they were at
the beginning of the year.
Oil prices, and oil companies
have dropped in value as you
know and the odds are prices
will not recover by the end of
the year. Gold and gold stocks
might drift down if the U.S. dollar drops a bit and then goes back
up before the end of 2015.
Statistics show that only 10
stocks have kept pushing up
the values of U.S. stock market
indexes. The odds are those 10
cannot keep that pace up all year.
If the U.S. raises interest rates
before year-end we can expect
many bonds and interest sensitive stocks to drop in value.
Farmland values in some parts
of the U.S. apparently have
peaked. Here in Canada prices
likely will be a mixed bag. In
some parts low grain prices and
below average yields have caused
bankruptcies so there might be
less competition for renting land.
As far as land prices — old money
around the country and foreign
investors could easily keep farmland prices up.
In my opinion, many stocks
will go up and go down as money
rotates into one sector, then out
of that sector and into another. I
call it rotation, rotation, rotation
— lots of activity and potential
profits for nimble investors but
not much overall improvement
in the price of many stocks.
The price of houses in Alberta,
the East Coast and other places
likely will be down for the year.
Some claim house prices in
Toronto and Vancouver are way
over priced but immigration and
local market pressures could keep
those prices up.
Record high margin debt
One more factor that could
be negative to stocks is that the
amount of money borrowed to
buy stocks is at a record high.
That often signals two things.
One that stocks are peaking and
that could well be since the “sell
in May and go away” is a few
weeks from now. Second, buying
on margin can trigger margin
calls if stocks turn down. Margin
calls can force shareholders to
sell on the low side and that can
force share prices down more
and more.
I used to buy on margin but we
were in a distinct bull market and
maybe I didn’t recognize the risks
as much as I do now. Yes, many
stocks could be “diseased.”
Bullish news
With all that bearish news there
still is some bullish news around.
The first is low oil prices. While
low prices may not be bullish
now, one day they might be and
that day may not be far away. As I
have written before, about 10 per
cent of refining capacity has been
shut down either due to strike or
due to maintenance. That maintenance might be normal or one
triggered by the strikes.
There is
still some
bullish news
T:10”
Refineries have a big market for
gasoline and diesel fuel and driving
season in the U.S. will soon open
up. I’m sure all three will get refineries to settle strikes, start up refineries and start storing summer fuel
for domestic and export markets.
At the same time the surplus
supply of oil is coming down
and likely will continue going
down as the number of drill rigs
keeps falling and existing wells
get depleted.
I will buy some oil stocks as
soon as I see higher and higher
highs and higher and higher lows. I
have many to choose from, such as
Vermillion, Suncor, Painted Pony,
Imperial Oil and many others.
There are 30 million barrels of
oil stored on ships and if sanctions are lifted on Iran that oil
will come to market. Fighting in
various parts of the world can
raise or lower oil supplies but I
suspect all of these points are
already priced into the market.
Longer term, the price of spot
oil is predicting higher prices. For
some time now predictions have
been that by 2020 the U.S. will
not be self sufficient in oil. When
or if the U.S. begins to import
more oil than less, watch the
price go up. †
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F:8.7”
Andy is mostly retired. He plays with
grandchildren., travels a bit with his wife, runs a
tax business, manages his family’s investments
and publishes an electronic newsletter called
StocksTalk. If you want to read it free for a
month send and email to [email protected].
20
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Machinery & Shop
Seeding technology
Kinze adds meter electric-drive
12- and 16-row model 3660 planters coming soon with electric meter drives
photos: kinze
Left: 12- and 16-row Kinze 3660 planters can be
ordered with electric meter drive for 2016. Right: The
electric-drive version of the 3660 comes with a Raven
Viper 4 monitor, but it uses ISOBUS technology, so
any compatible in-cab monitor can control the
planter drives.
By Scott Garvey
G
etting accurate seed
spacing is particularly
important for corn
crops, according to
agronomists. But several components in a planter’s mechanical
drive system, such as worn or
rusty drive chains, can potentially cause problems with spacing accuracy. The trend today
among many manufacturers is
to offer electric drive systems
as an option to eliminate that
problem.
Placing an electric motor on
each meter ensures smooth, even
rotation without those potential
interruptions from mechanical
linkages. And with a separately
controlled drive mechanism on
each meter, there are all kinds
of opportunities for specialized
features like turn compensation.
In February, Kinze announced
it would add an electric drive
option to its popular model
3660 planter. 12- and 16-row
versions with electric drive will
be available in time for the 2016
seeding season.
“The electric drive eliminates
the need for clutches and offers
greater maintenance simplicity
(no drive shafts, chains, bearings, sprockets, etc.),” reads a
company press release. “The
new meter allows for turning
compensation and row-by-row
variable rate planting, and will
utilize heavy-duty, high torque
24-volt meter motors that are
fully sealed against dust and
moisture.”
These planters will use the
company’s 4000 Series vacuum
metering system. And the electric drive system can be controlled from any ISOBUS compatible
in-cab monitor. If you order a
monitor with the planter, you’ll
get Raven’s Viper 4.
“Kinze continues to offer the
Raven Viper 4 monitor with a
format specifically designed for
ISOBUS that allows continuous
viewing of critical planter functions, including the coverage
map,” adds the company press
release. “The customizable LED
touchscreen with ‘touch and
move’ widgets display information in an easy-to-use format.
The monitor contains 30 GB of
internal storage and is Slingshot
ready.” †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
Machinery & Shop
21
Seeding Technology
Kinze’s Multi-Hybrid planter
Farmers can now order a model 4990 Multi-Hybrid planter
photos: kinze
Left: Kinze’s 4900 Multi-Hybrid planter uses a dual meter system and
two separate seed tanks. Right: The two meters on each row unit
source seed from separate tanks, which enables the system to plant two
different hybrids.
By Scott Garvey
T
his spring the first
commercially
produced Kinze model
4900
Multi-Hybrid
planters
will
hit
North
American farm fields. The
company announced last
August that a limited number
of planters with the ability to
switch back and forth between
two hybrid seed types would
be available for the 2015 season. And a company rep says
the firm is now taking orders
for general production.
The
4900
Multi-Hybrid
uses two individual meters
on each row unit which draw
seed from one of two separate seed tanks on the planter
frame. Which meter spins, and
therefore which hybrid gets
seeded, depends on the system
receiving instructions from
a prescription map. When
the planter moves across a
map boundary that requires
a change in seed, one meter
stops and the other starts. The
company claims that process
happens with little or no disruption to seed spacing.
The idea behind the 4900 is
that because soil and growing
conditions vary across most
fields, some hybrids do better
in places than others. So the
planter is able to switch back
and forth between two, placing the type best suited for the
field conditions where it has
an agronomic advantage.
According to Kinze, the six
drills that underwent field trials in 2014 performed well.
“There were virtually no
gaps or overlap when switching from one hybrid to the
other,” the company said in
a recent press release. In its
promotion of the technology,
Kinze reports those field trials showed an average yield
improvement of more than
nine bushels per acre.
Kinze uses Raven technology
to control the dual metering system on the 4900, and the meters
are driven by 24-volt electric
motors, which allows for instant
start-stop performance. Electric
drive also allows for row-by-row
control, enabling features like
turn compensation. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for
Grainews. Contact him at Scott.Garvey@
fbcpublishing.com.
22
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Machinery & Shop
New equipment
New Wolverine
UTV from Yamaha
The sporty Wolverine R-Spec side-by-side
will be ready for the 2016 model year
By Scott Garvey
I
The new Wolverine R-Spec side-by-side UTV will hit dealer lots in April.
photo: yamaha
f you like to add a little
adventure to any trip out
into the pasture to check
cows, Yamaha may have the
ideal side-by-side utility vehicle
(UTV) for you. The company’s new
Wolverine R-Spec joins their product lineup for the 2016 model year.
“The all-new Wolverine will
extend Yamaha’s side-by-side line
into the recreation segment, creating a new level of durability,
quality, handling and superior offroad capabilities not yet seen in
the off-road industry,” said Mike
Martinez, Yamaha’s Recreational
Vehicle (RV) group vice president, in a press release. “Yamaha’s
Wolverine R-Spec side-by-side is
made for off-road enthusiasts,
hunters and explorers looking to
navigate tight, technical trails and
extreme off-road terrain.”
The Wolverine gets aggressive
new styling and what the company refers to as a “nimble and
compact-feeling chassis designed
to maximize visibility while allowing the driver to navigate tight,
technical trails and challenging
terrain.” The R-Spec has 29 centimetres (11.4 inches) of ground
clearance and an 178.8 centimetres (81.3-inch) wheelbase.
Yamaha also incorporated features like rear-wheel protectors
that extend from the bottom of
the frame to reduce obstacle contact with rear tires. Underneath,
you’ll find full-coverage skid
plates front-to-back and side-toside. That should help eliminate
catch points in rugged terrain. For
even more under-body protection, Yamaha incorporated standard front A-arm-mounted CV
boot protectors and rear A-arm
skid plates.
Aggressive
new styling
In the cab, there are highbacked buckets, and the driver’s
seat gets three-position adjustment. There is even a centre console, cup holders and a 12-volt
DC outlet to charge accessories.
The heart of this machine is
a 708cc, double overhead valve,
fuel injected engine. And there
is a four-wheel drive differential
lock option for maximum traction when it’s needed.
The rear bed gets just a 136
kilogram (300 pound) load rating
capacity but the receiver hitch can
tow a respectable 681 kilogram
(1,500 pound) load behind.
According to Yamaha, the
Wolverine R-Specs should hit
dealer lots by April, and they’ll
be available in blue, green and, of
course, a camo version. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
By jonny hawkins
Country Chuckles
“He hit the snooze button.”
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
Machinery & Shop
23
New equipment
5M Series tractors get updates
John Deere
utility tractors
step up to meet
new Tier 4
Final emissions
requirements
and get other
updates
By Scott Garvey
J
ohn Deere’s 5M Series tractors, 75 to 115 horsepower,
offer the best of available
features in the brand’s utility segment. And this year Deere
upgraded their engines to make
them Tier 4 Final emissions compliant. Like other manufacturers,
Deere has used a couple of different engines emissions solutions
in its tractors, based on engine
size and expected use patterns.
In the off-road emissions world,
there hasn’t been a one-size-fitsall solution.
The three-cylinder 5075M
model will get John Deere’s diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) and
diesel particulate filter (DPF) with
no diesel exhaust fluid (DEF)
required. The four-cylinder models (5085M, 5100M, 5115M) will
have a DOC/SCR (selective catalytic reduction) solution using
DEF to meet Tier 4 Final emissions standards.
“The no-hassle emissions regeneration system on the 5075M,
combined with our durable 2.9
litre PowerTech engine, delivers
simple ease of use and low cost of
operation to customers,” explains
Brad Aldridge, product marketing manager for 5M Tractors. “In
addition, the new line of fully isolated platforms provides premium
operator comfort.”
The 4.5 litre John Deere
PowerTech engines in the
three largest models have an
increased power bulge of up to
four per cent and a 30 per cent
torque rise for improved performance under load.
Engines in the 5M Series get
mated to either the 16Fx16R
or 32Fx16R PowrReverser transmissions.
The 2015 versions of these
tractors also feature a compact
cooling package and a new, low
sloping hood that will improve
efficiency in loader applications.
Servicing of the cooling system is
now easier with a slide out condenser, sliding oil cooler, tilt-able
charge air cooler, and removable
radiator screen.
The 5Ms are available with
an open operator station or premium cab.
“We’ve improved exterior
lighting packages, increased
operator comfort, and enhanced
performance, all while maintaining low cost of operation
compared to previous models,”
Aldridge says. “The new 5M utility tractors offer a premium package of comfort, performance and
optionality that provide the ultimate in versatility across a wide
range of applications.” †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
John Deere 5M Series tractors range from 75 to 115 horsepower and offer top-of-the-line specifications.
WE’RE THERE WHEN
YOU NEED US MOST.
Rocky Mountain Equipment has over 40 locations across
the Canadian prairies to serve you. With the best people,
products and services, you can depend on us to get what
you need. Visit us at one of our CASE IH Dealerships or
online at rockymtn.com.
DEPENDABLE IS WHAT WE DO.
photo: john deere
24
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Machinery & Shop
Precision agriculture
Rocky Mtn. Equip.
strikes partnership
The mega dealer strikes up a working
relationship with a precision ag firm to
make VRT easier for its customers
By Scott Garvey
I
photo: scott garvey
The Rocky Mountain Equipment dealership chain has partnered With
Decisive Farming to provide precision agriculture services to customers.
n early November the largest Canadian ag equipment
dealership chain, CNH
retailer Rocky Mountain
Equipment (RME), announced it
had struck up a partnership the
Alberta-based precision agriculture firm Decisive Farming (DF).
The purpose of that agreement is
to make RME a one-stop retailer
for farmers who want to pursue
precision ag practices like variable
rate technology, according to RME
management
Although RME won’t be adding agronomists to its dealerships,
staff in its AOS (Ag Optimization
Specialist) service will work with
customers to help them set up the
technology in their machinery to
enable seamless use of prescription
maps specially created by DF.
“The alignment with Decisive
brings our customers the best part
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You can rest assured that when you run a reliable, all-crop, all-condition
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of what we do, backed by Decisive’s
industry-leading application technologies and agronomic services,”
says Jeff Bilow, general manager
agriculture equipment optimization
and technology. “Our AOS, Ag optimization specialists, will spend time
with the customer. They upload a
test file into the customer’s technology to ensure the technology
is working flawlessly from a variable rate perspective, then Decisive
comes in to offer services to the
customer after we make sure the
equipment is ready for the variable
rate technology. Decisive offers the
agronomic and farm software management side of it.”
“With every piece of equipment we sell, new or used, the
support package we offer is
included,” he explains. “What
we do is work with the customer
to ensure that their machinery
is operating as close to perfect
as possible and then also help
them use their machinery data
and turn it into information that
they can use to improve their
operation.”
RME will have 21 members on
its AOS staff to service all areas
of the prairie where the company
operates dealerships, so farmers
are able to talk face-to-face with
a technology specialist. Decisive
Farming, too, will have area reps
that are able to meet personally
with farmers. The AOS members
will also be able to help RME’s
customers iron out any technical
glitches they may encounter. In
some cases that may mean farmers will get a personal visit from
both an RME AOS member and a
specialist from DF. “In those cases
if it involves something Decisive is
also a part of, we’d be out there as
a team,” says Bilow.
“In all the areas we do business they (DF) have someone currently tied to that area or are
currently hiring someone for it.
They (farmers) have the opportunity to deal face-to-face with a
Decisive rep. For us as an organization that’s part of the relationship that’s important. We want
to make sure our people can deal
face-to-face with customers every
day to make sure their needs are
being addressed.”
This partnership expands the
range of services RME is able to
provide or facilitate for its farmer
customers, and there is a strong
possibility the dealership chain
may expand that range of services
even further in the future.. “We
don’t see this as the only opportunity we have to grow this type of
alliance,” says Bilow.
“We want to make sure we
move toward offering customers the latest and greatest, so to
speak. When it comes to technology, we want to play a role in
delivering that to the customer
where it makes sense. The next
five years is going to be interesting, that’s for sure.” †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
58000-25_8.215x10.indd 1
4/6/15 5:52 PM
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
25
Cattleman’s Corner
POINT OF VIEW
Is it my job to feed the world?
A southeast B.C. farmer raises the question about where farmer priorities should
be — looking after the family and community or feeding the world?
By DARCY GOODRICH
T
here is an unwritten law
it seems in agriculture
these days; whispered on
the wind from coast to
coast and pole to pole. Proclaimed
and prophesied around tables
from kitchens to cafés by old
men, it has spread to the blogs
and blundering of Internet chat
rooms and Facebook foodie folklore. Many in mainstream agriculture have believed it for so long
that it has become ingrained in
their self portrait of their existence.
What is this law? This deeply
held belief that has become a
guiding light of everything from
an individual farmers’ business
planning, to governmental policy
around agriculture and resources?
It is the contagious virus that has
infected the minds of food producers — that there is an inherent obligation of farmers to feed
every last man, woman and child
on this planet.
At first you may think “But of
course, who else will feed them?”
Well, the dilemma goes much
deeper than people being fed.
With very little effort one can
find all kinds of numbers on
the Internet about how many
thousands of calories the current
global food system produces per
acre, per hectare, per region, per
person, and so on. You can find
figures on any aspect of livestock
production, from average piglets
per sow to average litres of milk
per cow; eggs per hen, pounds per
broiler, quacks per quacker and so
on. All the information about our
food that you can possibly imagine is available to you. However,
is anyone asking “Should we be
producing this much, and should
we be doing it this way?”
POPULATION
A second question has certainly
come into the spotlight in recent
years, as more people are pushing for more eco-friendly farming
practices for a wide range of reasons, most of which I will not get
into in this essay. The first question is one that perplexes and I
feel is not being discussed nearly
enough — this planet has approximately 7.3 billion humans on it,
a number debated almost as much
as the debate centres around the
definition of “sustainable.” Many
experts and analysts from fields of
agriculture, economy and ecology
have debated for decades whether
human civilization has surpassed
the threshold of what the Earth
can sustain.
William Catton wrote 35 years
ago in his book Overshoot:
“Human life is now being lived
in an era of deepening carrying
capacity deficit. All of the familiar aspects of human societal life
are under compelling pressure to
change in this new era when the
load increasingly exceeds the carrying capacities of many local
regions — and of a finite planet.”
Most of the analysis on sustainability focuses on looking at
current production numbers or
the future potential of current
production models. A question
that comes to mind for me in
these discussions with friends in
agriculture is, can those models
continue in their current fashion,
and if they do, at what expense
to their foundational support system? Can a model fueled by diesel, guarantee that it will always
be able to do so indefinitely? Can
it guarantee a supply of nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium, to
say nothing for other micronutrients? Can it guarantee it won’t
cause the extinction of another
single species? Can it — wait a
minute — what’s that about other
species?
When we analyze these models
we speak of incredible production. We speak in terms of hundreds of bushels of corn per acre,
hundreds of pounds of beef per
acre, melons per plant, apples
per tree. Why do we not speak
about the success of these models
in terms of soil organic matter
produced, species of both flora
and fauna added to our farms,
rises in subsurface water tables,
pH balancing of soil, or cleanliness of water? Why do we not
have a place on their scorecard
for the health of the ecosystems
that support them, or for the hap-
Looking after the family, ranch and the community top the priority list.
piness of the people who manage
them? Mark Anielski, author of
“The Economics of Happiness,”
speaks at length about his vision
of a “Genuine Wealth” — those
conditions of well-being that
align with our heartfelt values
about what makes life worth living. Why would we not correlate
this same visionary thinking into
something as sacred to our very
existence as our food?
SINISTER ANSWER
The answer in my opinion, is
simple, yet sinister. Our food is
produced by farmers and corporations. In order for that to continue, farmers and farm workers must be kept focused. It is
basic human psychology that in
order to keep someone focused,
you must give them a goal, a
dream, and a passion to pursue
it. Farmers are passionate, tough
and independent people. Give
them a task, they get it done.
So what more convenient way
to get things done in regards to
food production, than to convince such a hard-working and
passionate people, that they have
an obligation to feed every man,
woman and child on the planet?
They are the people that own
and manage the land. They have
the skills, knowledge and equipment to produce food. They also
have the innate naivety of which
no human is immune, myself
included. Once persuaded of
the monumental importance of
feeding more and more people,
the people themselves became
obsessed with increasing production. Production became more
important than profit, more
important than sustainability,
than safety, even more important than happiness. Modern
“agri-culture” has become a culture of measuring happiness by
production.
Many times I have heard friends
and family, all farmers, speak
of how hard they are working.
The husband has a second job in
the oilfield checking wells, gauging tanks, hauling pipe or any
number of other things. Maybe
he works at the lumber mill down
photos: darcy goodrich
Darcy Goodrich and family, wife Candace, and children from left,
Ronan, Emily and Bodi. Eldest daughter Baylee was absent for photo.
the road, hauls logs or gravel, or
does renovations. His wife meanwhile teaches school, nurses the
sick and dying, keeps books, dispatches trucks, or any other form
of employment she can find to
contribute to the greater good,
that noble quest of doing what
must be done to make a living,
because we the farmers, must feed
the world.
I know many of these people.
My wife and I have been these
people, and it breaks my heart
to see others working themselves
so hard, while missing soccer,
hockey and baseball games, dance
recitals and Christmas concerts. I
still do it myself. But it’s okay as
long as we tell ourselves that it
is for that noble quest of doing
what must be done to make a living, because we the farmers, must
feed the world.
SACRIFICES
Our farming operations make
other sacrifices as well. I’ve seen
animals neglected at times, on
my place and others, even if it’s
just a couple of horses that don’t
get ridden like you told yourself they would. Maybe it’s those
heifers in the south pasture that
you knew were reaching through
the old stretch of fence along
the road because the pasture’s
been chewed bare, that cry out
in protest by walking down the
neighbour’s driveway at the exact
time you and the missus are trying to escape for a long-overdue
night out.
Maybe it’s the chickens that
should have had another heat
lamp in the coop, remembered
only when found frozen stiff by
your child’s friend from school
out on a weekend visit to the
farm, wide eyed and shocked into
reality. This too, we can sum up
to a lack of time, but it’s okay, as
long as we tell ourselves that it
is for that noble quest of doing
what must be done to make a living, because we the farmers, must
feed the world.
Then there are the sacrificed
resources of our land. That sacred
land for which we would give
up almost anything to save and
protect, and yet, every day we do
dozens of things without asking
why? Should we apply this chemical this close to that creek? If I let
the cows graze that pasture down
low again this year, will it come
back thinner next year? Is that
perhaps why the thistle and brush
has taken over? What is it doing
to my soil? So many things to
consider when one has the time,
but alas, we must not lose sight of
that golden egg of increasing production, for of course, we must
prioritize our time for feeding the
world.
THE STOOL OF
SUSTAINABILITY
I will end my ramblings with
an analogy for you all to consider, but first let me say that I
have not pointed at anything
in agriculture that I have not
at one time done myself, and
come full circle to question its
validity, safety, ecological sustainability, and whether or not
it contributes to my family’s
overall happiness.
Once I did that I had an
epiphany,thanks to holistic management training from wonderful
friends Don and Bev Campbell of
Meadow Lake, Sask., from reading
books and from meeting fascinating people at conferences and
workshops. I finally realized that I
had to make changes to my methods in order to strengthen all three
legs of our Stool of Sustainability,
which leads me to the analogy
for you to ponder before blasting
me as a tree-hugging, organically
delusional, out-of-touch hobby
farmer:
The Stool of Sustainability demonstrates each leg as representing economics, environment and
community.
At the farm level this could
be your production/profit, your
land, and your people. When you
consider the paradigm modern
agriculture has created for farm-
» continued on page 29
26
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Keepers & Culls
Meeting the real
Heather Smith Thomas
Lee
Hart
T
here is a real, live,
actual ranching person
in central Idaho called
Heather Smith Thomas.
I’ve met her.
Thomas’ columns and features
stories have been appearing in
Grainews, Canadian Cattlemen and
numerous U.S. publications for
more than 30 years. But it wasn’t
until a Friday morning in late
March that she and a Grainews editor had ever met. I am a pioneer.
Pulling into the driveway at
the Thomas ranch near Salmon,
Idaho was a bit like Columbus
discovering America. Of course I
knew I was in the right spot some
distance before I reached the
house because I could see from
the approaching road, Veggie,
the 28-year-old grey horse in the
corral. And I have read lots about
Veggie over the years.
If you are a regular reader of
Rancher’s Diary you know a lot
about the Thomas family. There
is Heather and her husband
Lynn; their daughter Andrea and
her four kids, Emily, Charlie,
Sammy and Dani. And then son,
Michael and his wife Carolyn
and their children Heather (nicknamed Roo) and, son Nick. All
live nearby the ranch house that
Heather and Lynn built when
they got married.
For most of the past 30 years
Heather has opened her family
and farm life up to readers. I don’t
know if much is held back. There
were reports of good times and
bad times describing all the dayto-day “life” stuff most families
encounter. And there were exceptional events, too, like daughter
Andrea being badly burned in a
forest fire in July of 2000. The column has followed their pain and
struggle and ongoing recovery of
their daughter.
Heather describes daily activities in working with beef cattle
and she admits being horse crazy
since she was a young girl — so
there are plenty of reports about
the horses that have come and
gone from the ranch over the
years. They are practical ranching people — sure the cows and
most of the calves are all named,
but come fall the year’s calf crop
has to go to market. They still do
a lot of riding for cattle management and pleasure, so the horses
have some what of a special
place. They work as long as they
can, and then in later years literally are turned out to pasture for
as long as they are healthy and
enjoying a quality of life. I may
go there myself.
She reports on the health of the
cattle, managing the herd over
thousands of acres of lease land
— high elevation desert — dominated by sagebrush and grass.
Problems with predators, problems with water, problems with
weather and the odd time perhaps a problem with neighbours.
There are also reports about beautiful days on the ranch, great rides
in the hills, the successes and
achievements of their adult children, and the talent and ability of
the grandchildren in school and
on the sports field.
AS THE WORLD TURNS
Pretty well anything that happens in Heather’s ranch and family life gets a mention in the diary.
It’s a bit like a monthly soap opera
episode without the high drama
and really, really glamorous people. Fixing fence and tending to
cancer eye in a horse isn’t something you’d likely see on the Bold
and the Beautiful.
Heather is obviously a hard
worker. She not only is actively
involved with the ranch and
family duties, but she’s also been
a writer her whole life. She writes
regularly for about 30 different
publications, including Grainews
— mostly U.S. farm publications
but some outside North America.
And she has a healthy roster of
books to her credit including
Guide to Raising Beef Cattle, The
Cattle Handbook, Essential Guide
to Calving, The Horse Conformation
Handbook, Getting Started with
Beef and Dairy Cattle, Guide to
Training Horses, Your Calf: Guide
to Raising and Showing Beef and
Dairy Calves, Stable Smarts, and
Equine Hoof Care.
Her most recently published
book is called Horse Tales — stories
about the horses in her life, and
she is working on another called
Cow Tales — guess what it is about.
The one non-agricultural book she
says was probably the most difficult to write is called Beyond the
Flames. It’s the account of the
journey of her daughter Andrea
and the family after Andrea was
seriously burned in a forest fire 15
years ago.
If you want to track down any of
these books contact Heather, or just
Google “Heather Smith Thomas
books” and the listing appears.
Heather and Lynn, in their
early 70s, are tremendous hosts.
The day of our visit she prepared a great roast beef dinner.
Andrea and her family joined us
as well. They all sang the Johnny
Appleseed Grace before the meal
where we paid tribute to a roast
from a productive young steer
“Opie or Hope He” — so named
as young calf in the sense of
“hope he makes it”… And he did
— right onto to my plate.
Heather lives in a household
of love and laughter. From the
looks of her office she has saved
every note, report and clipping
since paper was invented — she
says she has a chronological filing system — the newest is near
the top. And every wall of the
house is covered with decades of
family and ranching photos and
artwork that all capture some
moment in their life. It is truly a
Thomas gallery.
The three-hour visit flew by and
then it was time to head for home.
But the warm and genuine invitation was there to come back anytime. And I probably will now that
I know the road. †
Lee Hart is editor of Cattleman’s Corner,
based in Calgary. Contact him at 403-592-1964
or by email at [email protected]
Beef breeds council The Canadian Beef Breeds
Council welcomes new director, Stephen Scott, to it’s
board following its recently
held annual meeting. The
newly elected board of directors include: David Bolduc,
president; Garner Deobald,
vice-president and directors
Anne Brunet-Burgess, Bruce
Holmquist, Roger Peters, Rod
Remin, Stephen Scott, Rob
Smith, and Byron Templeton.
New Gelbvieh CEO
The Canadian Gelbvieh
Association has announced
the appointment of Gaylene
Groeneveld as the chief
executive officer. Groeneveld
takes over the position following the untimely death
of long-time CEO Wendy
Belcher in January.
“Gaylene
has
worked
with the Canadian Gelbvieh
Association for 10 years, and
she was a natural fit for the
job,” says Darcy Hrebeniuk,
president of the CGA. “We
respect her confidence and
knowledge of the beef cattle industry, along with her
publishing knowledge and
work she does in producing
the Canadian Gelbvieh Guide
magazine.”
Hrebeniuk pointed out the
“Gelbvieh cattle have been
in Canada for 43 years, and
the future of the breed looks
very bright going forward.”
Livestock
Transportation
Conference
The Canadian Livestock
Transport (CLT) is holding a livestock transport
conference on May 5 and
6, 2015 at the Delta Bow
Valley in Calgary. The keynote speaker for this conference is world-renowned
animal welfare expert Dr.
Temple Grandin who will
not only present on animal
welfare on May 6, but will
also open the conference on
the evening of May 5 with a
presentation on overcoming
adversity.
Other conference sessions include: the latest in
hog transport research, the
animal welfare expectations
of the EU and U.K. during
transport, new innovations
in livestock transport, and
welfare expectations at the
plant level. For details on
registration visit their website
at: www.livestocktransport.ca
What’s new with cash
advance program
The federal government
has announced changes
to the Advance Payments
Program (APP) which provides cash advances of up
to $400,000, with the first
$100,000 interest-free for
up to 18 months. Nearly
60 producer organizations
across the country deliver
Heather and Lynn Thomas at the kitchen table with the some of the life-and-times of their family captured on
the walls of the Thomas Gallery behind them.
cash advances under the APP.
Many of the changes will
be in place for April 1 but
a number cannot be implemented until amendments
to the related regulations are
completed.
What’s New for 2015:
• Producers can receive
advances for all commodities through one application
with a single administrator;
• No requirement for a
producer to be principally
occupied in farming;
• A repayment schedule
in line with the perishable
date of non-storable products thereby avoiding the
need for proof of sale;
• Repayment of advances
can be made without proof of
sale without penalty when a
producer waits to market the
commodity until conditions
are more favourable; or if the
agricultural product becomes
unmarketable through no
fault of the producer.
Improvements Targeted
for 2016:
• New commodities to be
eligible for advances, including specific classes of breeding animals intended for
market;
• A new streamlined application process will reduce
paper burden and treat farmers like returning clients;
• More options for producers to secure an APP
advance;
• Additional flexibility for
allowable repayment methods;
• Streamlined approach
to obtaining guarantees for
companies with many members.
What is
“Sustainability”?
Alberta Beef Producers is
asking Alberta beef club 4-H
members to put their talents to
work explain their definition
of sustainability. In the Young
Guns Contest, ABP is looking
for Beef 4-H members between
the ages of eight and 21, to submit an essay, video, audio segment, social media campaign,
press release or any other form
of communication tool, that
describes sustainability.
The top three submissions
will be eligible for prizes: 1st
place — $1,000, 2nd place —
$500 and 3rd place — $250
Send your entry form,
on the www.albertabeef.
org home page and contest
submission to:
Katelyn Laverdure
Communications Manager
Alberta Beef Producers
165, 6815 8 Street, NE
Calgary, AB T2E 7H7
E-mail: [email protected]
Entries must be received
by midnight, May 30, 2015
to be eligible to win. The
winners will be determined
by a panel of judges at the
Alberta Beef Producers Semi
Annual Meeting in June and
will be contacted by June 19,
2015. †
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
27
Cattleman’s Corner
farm value
See value beyond beef and grain
There may not be an immediate cash market for tranquility, but the day is coming
BY SEAN MCGRATH
I
t is definitely catalogue season.
Based on past purchases and
connections through work I
generally receive around 150
to 200 bull sale catalogues each
year, as well as lots of general farm
supply and auction catalogues.
All of this glossiness has spurred
a lot of thinking about the products
we sell from our farms and ranches.
Most of us are well aware of our
calves or bulls or bred heifers that
are for sale. Some of our farms are
also well aware of the bin of canola
or wheat that is ready to go to town.
These are all products that may generate cash in a direct way and it is
important to pay attention to them.
These traditional items are not
the only things that our farms and
ranches produce and interest in
nontraditional products is growing,
as well as the willingness of members of the public to pay. Probably
the best-known example at present
is the carbon credit market. This
market makes payment to farmers who use no-till technology to
sequester carbon — a major component in greenhouse gases — from
the air into the soil profile. While
the carbon marketplace has a way
to go in terms of paying for grassland and its highly effective carbon
sink, this is an emerging trend.
Carbon sequestration is a nontraditional product with a lot of public
awareness. It is even possible for
travellers to buy offsetting carbon
credits when they book a flight.
NONTRADITIONAL PRODUCTS
The example of the carbon market is actually a component of a
larger group of services that farmers and ranchers can provide with
their land base, ecological goods
and services (EG&S) — things
that are produced on the landscape through co-operation with
nature that benefit the public.
Traditionally these products have
a huge monetary impact (think
trillions of dollars) and a limited
marketplace. For example, there is
no cash market for clean water or
filtering of runoff into rivers that
provide drinking water for cities,
yet this has a huge impact on
the public at large. Another good
example is wildlife habitat. There is
not a large or easily accessible cash
market for creating habitat and
encouraging wildlife but there are
tremendous benefits to the public
including maintaining biodiversity,
benefits to the tourism industry
and pollination among others.
There are a lot of ways to sell
these nontraditional products. As
previously mentioned the carbon
credit market is perhaps the easiest
example as it has an established
trading system although it lacks a
real grassland component. Some
enterprising folks market food that
commands a premium using these
environmental attributes to extract
value out of the marketplace.
Indirectly this is marketing EG&S
and the public is paying for it,
whether they are aware of it or not.
Probably the most famous example
of this would be the Whole Foods
marketplace, a chain of upscale
groceries that has seen tremendous
market growth in the last decade or
so. Smaller examples could include
the local food movement and the
growth in farmer’s markets.
Other ways that producers are
marketing nontraditional products
are through experiential tourism.
This is the fastest growing trend in
tourism and it has evolved because
people want the real experience of
the place they are visiting. Examples
could be on-farm bed and breakfasts, working vacations, guided
hunting and artist retreats. While
not for everyone, this is a way that
farms and ranches are selling values,
solitude, scenery and experiences to
the public. These are definitely not
traditional products for a farm and
ranch and yet nearly 100 per cent
of the farms and ranches I have ever
visited have at least some or even a
multitude of these products.
BE PART OF THE DISCUSSION
There are several efforts ongoing
at the moment to develop a formal
marketplace for some of these nontraditional products, particularly in
the arena of environmental goods
and services. This is important to
be aware of for a couple of reasons.
One reason is that EG&S are
generally considered “green” under
our World Trade Organization
rules. Many of our global competitors provide funding to farmers to
provide EG&S in place of subsidies
for production and this is allowed
under the rules of trade. This affects
pricing and production on a global
scale. Another, and I believe more
important reason, is that the public
is demanding these types of products. Politicians and businesses
alike are well aware of this and are
currently struggling with how to
go about providing and marketing
services and products produced by
the farmers and ranchers across the
landscape. If we are not engaged in
the conversation as producers we
run the risk of having our product
and production dictated to us as
well as having no say in how that
marketplace is designed. This has
the possibility of turning a potentially massive marketable product
into a liability.
Another prime reason for awareness in this era with “sustainability” as a buzzword is that our
ability to verify our practices and
engage in the marketplace could
be a major financial boost to a
farm’s bottom line. As larger players become involved many of these
markets may be formalized similar
to the way that the carbon market
has been developed. We need to
stay on top of this as producers
and also work to verify our own
production practices.
One of the primary rules of marketing is to know your product.
The next time you are out walking around your farm or driving
through your country neighbourhood, take a deep breath of fresh
air, look at the scenery, the individual plants and animals and consider all of the products you produce on your farm. You may find
some stuff for sale that you never
knew was there. †
Sean McGrath is a rancher and consultant
from Vermilion, Alta. He can be reached
at [email protected] or (780)8539673. For additional information visit www.
ranchingsystems.com.
YOU ARE INVITED TO THE 5TH ANNUAL…
UCVM
Beef Cattle
Conference
2015
Pushing the Frontiers
of Beef Cattle Health
June 17
Pre-Conference Workshops
Clinical Skills Building
University of Calgary, Spyhill Campus
June 18-19
Deerfoot Inn & Casino
Calgary, Alberta
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17TH
Workshops (Spyhill Campus):
1. Low-stress cattle handling
2. Managing cattle non-responsive
to treatment
THURSDAY, JUNE 18TH
Prudent Drug Use:
· Antimicrobial stewardship
· Antimicrobial resistance
· Alternatives to antibiotics
FRIDAY, JUNE 19TH
Hot Topics in Cattle Health:
·
·
·
·
·
Investigating calf death
Parameters to detect BRD
Providing sustainable beef
Heifer development
Strategies for transitioning
calves from ranch to feedlot
…. And MUCH MORE!
Applied Animal Welfare:
·
·
·
·
Recent developments
Impacts of calving difficulty
Lameness in feedlots
Animal care assessment
program
Visit our website for full
details and registration
vet.ucalgary.ca/beef
Email: [email protected]
403.210.7309
@UCVMbeef
and @UCVMnews
UCVM Beef Cattle Conference
28
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
The Dairy Corner
Mud is no friend of dairy cattle
As little as four inches of mud can slow performance and it can
be an excellent environment for disease affecting cattle health
PETER
VITTI
O
nce I was checking the
spring ration for a dairy
producer who raised a
group of replacement
dairy heifers in a drylot. The mud
was about a half metre deep and
with each step toward the feeder,
it was slow going. About half-way
along, my boot got stuck and by
struggling, I buried it. Abandoning
what I was doing, I went back to the
barn without a left boot (and sock).
Unfortunately, these dairy heifers
and others that live in such quagmire, face a similar predicament
as well as negative health consequences. Most producers can avoid
most of these problems by practicing a few “mud maintenance”
techniques.
Without losing a single rubber boot, Kansas State University
researchers confirm that as little as
four inches of mud adversely affect
cattle. Their specific work showed
that four to eight inches of mud
reduced average daily gains in growing drylot beef cattle by five to 15
per cent. As this mud got belly-deep,
cattle performance was shown to be
reduced by as much as 35 per cent.
The negative performance could be
exploited to growing dairy replacement heifers. Even when mud is
not deep, it creates slippery surfaces
along the adjacent concrete, which
hamper beef and dairy cattle from
getting solid footing as they attempt
to move up to the bunk to feed.
More particular dairy studies suggest for every one inch of mud,
photo: file
Keeping dairy replacement heifers or any dairy cattle clean and dry can
make a huge difference in overall performance.
dry matter intake is reduced by as
much as 2.5 per cent in lactation
cows, which is explained by their
reluctance to move in the mud up
to the feed-bunk. As a result, cows
eat fewer meals and promotes more
“slug” feeding, which is speculated
to disrupt their otherwise natural
flow of good rumen fermentation/
feed digestion/natural rumination
(cud-chewing) and may underlie
other digestion problems such as
subclinical acidosis (SARA). Longterm SARA is proven to dovetail
into other problems such as displaced abomasums, and lameness
in dairy cattle.
HOTBED OF DISEASE
Aside from reducing the mobility of dairy cattle the deeper it gets,
mud is often contaminated with
disease-causing microorganisms
from the environment as well as
contaminated with cattle manure,
urine and other fluids such as blood.
When biologically active in warm
spring weather, these pathogens can
cause a higher incidence of mastitis,
lameness, enteritis and even mortality among dairy cattle.
Many reports suggest many types
of bacteria that cause mastitis on
the milk line are widespread in the
cow’s environment. Subsequently,
mastitis is inevitable in many lactation dairy cows unless protocols
are put in place to prevent these
pathogens from entering their teat
canals. Mud increases this pathogenic opportunity in two ways; (1)
it allows contaminated sources of
bacteria to come in direct contact
with the udder’s teat and teat-ends
and (2) it promotes surface lesions
and/or chaffing of the teat skin,
which harbours even more bacteria.
In addition to mastitis caused by
bacteria living in mud, lameness
is a big problem in cattle raised in
muddy pens or pastures, which is
usually not related to the aforementioned feed intake problems.
Instead, more than three-quarters
of lameness observed in dairy cattle housed outside are confirmed
cases of foot rot microorganisms
thriving in mud.
By nature, foot rot is prevalent
in muddy conditions, because cattle hooves standing in constant
wet mud becomes soft and pliable. The skin of the hoof’s coro-
nary band and inter-digital starts
to crack, chap and is eventually
opened to infection by anaerobic (lives without oxygen) bacteria called Fusobacterium necrophorum. There may also be other
invaders such as strep and staph
organisms found in soil, manure
and even the rumen microbes of
the cows themselves. And sharp
rocks and stones found in mud
will injure the cattle’s soft hooves
and open them up to invasion by
foot rot bacteria. Pus and discharge
from swollen feet will contaminate
muddy ground and healthy cattle
can become infected if they walk in
the same mud.
ASIDE FROM FOOT ROT
Unfortunately, foot rot is not
the only microbial threat that can
live in mud of drylots and on
pastures. Mud is a good home
for cattle enteric disease-causing
organisms such as crytosporidia
and coccidia that cause coccidosis; the organism is shed in the
manure of infected cattle, which
defecate back it into the mud.
Fortunately, coccidiosis in cattle
can be controlled by adding monensin sodium to these cattle diets.
The actual extent to which mud
contribute to these diseases in dairy
cattle is not known, but one can
speculate that good “mud management” implemented in muddy drylots and on pastures should reduce
the incidence of their adverse
health effects and also help dairy
cattle move around and up to the
feed bunk.
Here are some suggestions to help
reduce the effect of mud on outside
dairy cattle:
• Scrape down pens — Deal
with mud and get rid of it. We
are not only getting rid of significant amounts of mud, but in many
cases, much of the manure that
built up during the winter. Scrape in
front of feeding areas or concrete lip
in front of the feed bunks.
• Improve drainage in pens —
Put in necessary culverts and grade
pens with a bit of a slope, which
helps carry water away from loafing areas.
• Improve cattle comfort —
Extra bedding should be used in
drylot areas. While cleaning out
pens, a mound in the drylot might
be created, which water drains
away and keep lying cattle, dry.
Clean and slope dirt and manure
away from pole barns.
• Improve udder hygiene — For
lactation cows with access to outside mud, concentrate on sound
pre- and post-milking protocols,
which clean and sanitize the teat
and teat-ends.
• Manage wet pastures — Avoid
keep cattle in the same early
pastures for extended periods.
Implement more frequent movements of cattle. Move mineral and
salt feeders on occasion to assist
movement of cattle.
It’s not always easy to keep dairy
cattle clean and dry after the winter snows melts and creates lots of
mud. It is almost guaranteed to put
non-lactation and lactation cattle
at a performance and health disadvantage. Therefore, dairy producers
should do all they can to lessen
mud’s negative effects. Ultimately,
protecting cattle from mud might
also find my missing boot. †
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].
fencing
Rolling up old wire simplified
BY LISA GUENTHER
F
encing is probably not
a favourite chore for
most livestock producers,
and cleaning up snarled
barbed wire even less so. But
one Saskatchewan entrepreneur
hopes to ease ranchers’ fencing
pains with an automatic wire
roller.
Brad Mohr, owner of BAM
Enterprises, says his brother came
up with the initial level-wind
wire roller design and started the
company about 12 years ago.
Mohr’s brother was “selling a
few,” but was “moving onto bigger and better things,” Mohr says
so he bought the blueprints and
stock from his brother, simplified
the design a little, and started
marketing the wire rollers.
Mohr’s brother came up with
the design after seeing a guide
which was originally patented by
John Deere in the early 1900s for
use as part of a seeding system.
The old John Deere part now
guides the wire onto the spool.
There are other machines that
spool barbed wire, but Mohr says
they require people to manually
guide the wire. “Whereas this is
all automatic,” he says.
Mohr says ranchers setting up
electric fence for swath grazing,
or with old fencelines to tidy up,
are interested in the wire roller.
“You don’t want cattle or anything getting tangled up in old
barbed wire that’s out there.”
ROLLING UP OLD,
UNSPOOLING NEW
Producers can use the wire
roller to roll up old barbed wire
or unroll spools for new fencing. Mohr also sells adapters to
unwind brand-new rolls from
wooden spools. The tractor’s
hydraulics pull in the wire, he
says. “And then when you want
to unroll the wire, just tie the
wire to the post and drive away.”
The standard spool holds
three-quarters of a mile of twostrand barbed wire. The high-tensile spool will roll three-quarters
of a mile of 12-gauge high-tensile
wire. Spools of old barbed wire
can be reused later after they’ve
been rolled up, Mohr says.
To roll up old wire neatly, Mohr
suggests putting some weight on
the end of the wire. “I recommend about 10 to 12 feet of
heavier chain. It just drags nice,
doesn’t bounce around.”
Some people use a tire or fencepost, he says. “It does work but it
gets bouncing and all of a sudden
it wraps around a post and you’ve
got trouble.”
The standard wire roller
attaches to a drawbar hitch, but
a three-point hitch option is also
available. “It’s all a steel hitch so
they can put it on a post-pounder
or skid-steer or whatever.”
The wire roller weighs in at
110 lb. “so it’s kind of a one-man
operation, too” says Mohr. It’s
“a pretty tough machine,” but
the guide needs to be lubricated
twice for every quarter mile of
wire it rolls, Mohr says. After the
machine has rolled five or 10
miles of wire, the shaft should be
photo: lisa guenther
The BAM level-wind wire roller hooks into your tractor’s hydraulics to
roll used barbed wire.
rotated a quarter-turn to move
the wear point, he says.
The level-wind wire roller is
largely a Saskatchewan product.
Mohr is based out of Avonlea,
in south-central Sask. Haukaas
Manufacturing, based in
Mortlach, Sask., does the welding
on the machine. Mohr sources
hydraulics out of Regina.
Ranchers interested in buying
the machines can contact Mohr,
and he’ll set them up with the
closest dealer. “And I can ship
them on the bus to anywhere in
Saskatchewan for 50 bucks,” he
says. For more information, visit
www.wireroll.com. †
Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews
based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at
[email protected] or on
Twitter @LtoG.
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
29
Cattleman’s Corner
herd management
Tips on selecting
female replacements
In reality, bulls are more dispensable than good cows
BY STAN HARDER
B
PREFERRED OUR OWN
eef producers place a
lot of emphasis on finding a suitable herd sire
as no one can dismiss
the importance of bull power in
the herd. As the overworked but
entirely accurate phrase aptly
illustrates, “your bull is half the
herd.”
However the “other” half
merits significant consideration
for the single largest livestock
investment is clearly a ranchers’ cow herd. Whatever genetic
success might be attributed to
individual bulls, without a powerful lot of females to breed,
these bulls will actually contribute comparatively little to
overall herd improvement in
the first generation.
It will likely be the second
or third generation following
that will begin to show measurable improved genetics since
heritable traits we wish to see
expressed are not necessarily
the ones actually or consistently
delivered. Some crosses simply
don’t work well and others might
not be friendly to our target
expectations. A $10,000 bull bred
to a $1,000 cow will not reliably
produce those “half the herd”
$5,000 calves, if ever.
Any bull can be discarded with
a relatively moderate asset loss,
but one’s cow herd as a whole
enjoys no such flexibility.
There are numbers of sound
reasons ranchers choose female
replacements entirely from
within their own herd or why
conversely, they may prefer to
out source all or a few. Arguments
can be made in each instance,
the primary issue being individual preferences dictated by whatever seems to work best through
experience.
We preferred the comfort of
knowing our home-grown replacements were more or less disease
free, backed by comprehensive
performance records of both sires
and dams which helped remove
considerable guesswork on a range
of A to Z traits.
A new producer is fortunate if
they can fall heir to a complete dispersal cow herd unsullied through
selective cherry picking in advance
of the sale. Older but proven performance cows have remained in
that herd for a reason and if the exiting breeder is someone of reputable
standing significantly more dollars
can be justifiably spent. However it
has been known to happen where
breeders seek to take advantage of
this principle by creating phantom
dispersal sales while retaining their
top genetics as seed for rebuilding
after the sale. That does the industry
a tremendous disservice.
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25
The main paradigm shift for
us was to shed the notion that
we are obligated to feed the
world. We are obligated to feed
ourselves, our family, and if
there is any surplus, our local
community. This belief affects
how we plan our farm businesses, how we make decisions,
how we evaluate our choices
and redo plans where necessary.
We no longer look at things
with a focus on pushing production. We look at everything
equally as part of a greater
whole, and feel a deep sense of
contentment in that, because
we have the satisfaction that all
three legs will be strong.
So please, free yourselves of
that yoke around your neck as
well. Free yourself of the burden that you are obligated to
feed anyone but your own family. If you choose to work extra
jobs, miss kids’ functions and run
yourself ragged, make sure you
are choosing it for YOUR own
reasons.
Maybe you want to save up
for a family holiday, maybe you
want to save up to pay off the
last of that loan on the tractor
Is it my job
to feed the world?
ers, that noble quest of feeding
the world, I think we could all
agree that it has focused most of
its energy by far, on economics.
Community would likely be chosen as a runner up, and environment has been largely ignored.
If you built a stool with that
type of mindset, would it stand
up? Would a three-legged stool
with a large fat leg, a medium
leg and a skinny weak leg hold
up, especially when you are trying constantly to make the fat
leg fatter?
My point with this essay is to
attempt at helping to educate and
enlighten people. It is certainly
not an attempt to paint farmers
as blind and stupid. I have been
blind and stupid many times over
the years, and still am far more
than I like. Our farm is a work in
progress as well, and I still work
away from home in the oilfield as
we build up the legs on our stool
equally.
WHAT TO LOOK
FOR IN A FEMALE
Like the search for a suitable
bull, the question of the day
becomes what to look for in a
reproductive female. Most ranchers have a fixed idea of what traits
a cow should have. What appeals
to one buyer may not to another.
By training or fundamental
inclination most people prefer a
specific strain of cattle. The best
advice I can offer is to go with that
type. You need to like what you
see and will find yourself more
tolerant of minor imperfections
than you might be if you had
been persuaded into buying into a
breed you find less appealing.
There are probably more differences of opinion on females than
in bull selection, but regardless
of traits the basics remain the
same. Look for sound feet and
legs, proper frame size for the
breed with moderate to fine bone
structure, widely spaced hipbones,
inherently good health, agreeable
temperament and of course wellbalanced four teat udders with
consistent fertility.
Heifer calves are the most difficult to judge for potential and it
is imperative their dams and sires
be examined even more closely
than the calves themselves. You’re
not going to get a reliable mental
print out of future performance by
simply eye balling the calf. ROP
records are useful, excluding (in my
considered opinion) EPDs, which
in our experience we found to be
considerably more of a distraction
than intrinsically beneficial.
LOOK FOR MILK FOLDS
There seems to be some consistency of belief that the absence or
presence of so called “milk folds”
in the upper udder portion under
the lower tail section in a heifer
is indicative of future milking
capacity. Numbers of deep folds
are very desirable and we found
this to be a good guide for us
when deciding whether to retain
or market a female.
We might not keep a heifer with
well-expressed folds for numbers
of reasons, but we would definitely not bring her into the cow
herd as a potential producer if
these folds were absent. I’m not
sure why this is relevant but if
you examine a male calf in the
same manner you will note the
absence of folds entirely. I suspect
the folds are somehow related to
traits involving femininity. The
logic of these folds might be that
an expanding high performance
udder needs room to do so at lactation, but it’s another guess.
Registration of sire pedigrees can
or the west pasture quarter. But
please oh please, as stewards of
the land and livestock, as ambassadors of the future of food, allow
yourself that choice, that you
work a farmer’s work, and live a
farmer’s life for yourself and your
family. It is a choice that provides your required production,
without putting extra strain on
the environment and the people.
To provide for your family, and
protect the world around you,
perhaps even improve it, is far
more noble a life to lead, than
living under the yoke of an obligation to push production at the
expense of your family, community and environment.
That belief in an obligation to
production has consequences that
affect us all. One last thought,
came from a friend recently who
after discussing this topic said,
“Asking how we find enough
food to feed this growing population, is like asking how we will
find enough wood to feed this
growing fire?”.
Do we reduce the flames, or let
it burn? †
Darcy Goodrich and his family farm near Rock
Creek, in southern British Columbia.
photo: stan harder
In any breed there are basic features to look for in a replacement female
be important to commercial buyers of females in that they will
indicate degrees of line breeding, if
any. Limited line breeding can be
extremely beneficial in crossbred
cows since it promotes a degree
of consistency in calf crops when
a cow is served by a purebred sire.
As much as we were opposed to
EPDs we were in considerable support of purebred line breeding with
advantages significantly outweighing potential problems, but only
where assured purity of genetics
permitted such mating.
EASE OF CALVING
Virtually every breed will advertise ease of calving and in reality each breed can credibly make
that claim if calving is done in
intensively managed hands-on circumstances. The definition of ease
of calving however needs some
latitude of interpretation. Clearly
some cows can and will calve successfully and consistently unassisted and unobserved on range,
while others need to be nursed
extensively from beginning to end,
but are still seen in rancher’s performance records as “easy calving”
using the criterion of no veterinary
intervention as an essential guideline. If no vet call is made its rated
as an easy birth regardless of any
other local calving aid employed.
BALANCED UDDER
The longer we raised cattle
the more insistent we became
on balanced udders. Aside from
presenting a pleasing appearance a well-proportioned udder
looks professional, as though
someone has taken the time
to manage his or her herd to
superior genetic standards. Two
badly undersized and two huge
teats may be marginally functional, but are also the root of
substantial problems beginning
with poor calf acceptance.
When a teat is as large as
the calf’s snout the chances of
it being brought into production in line with other teats is
small indeed. The calf may be
searching for another spigot by
chewing on the cow’s unclean
leg and frequently does. Calves
seem to be able to count to
four and four teats is what
they should have, not two sort
of serviceable units and two
engorged balloons.
As in other purchases, when
buying females for your herd you
get what you pay for. A cow, like a
bull, may be either an expense or
an investment and as always it’s
buyer’s choice. †
Stan Harder was a long-time beef producer in
northeast Alberta, now enjoying retirement in
Grand Forks, B.C.
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30
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Cattleman’s Corner
livestock handling
Handling emotions
key to handling cattle
If you’re chasing them, you’ve already lost the battle
BY STEPHANIE GRACE
M
ore beef producers are becoming
increasingly aware
of the importance
of low-stress livestock management as part of the time-honoured tradition of raising and
handling cattle.
Human instincts, however,
can present a major obstacle
by contributing to a lack of
control and the conflicts, anger
and frustration that commonly
accompany plans gone awry.
Dylan Biggs, a lifelong Alberta
rancher and clinician who has
worked in the industry conducting livestock handling clinics
across Canada and the U.S. over
the past 20 years, makes it clear
that learning new skills and
controlling human emotions are
two crucial aspects of efficient
herd management.
In a world where many are
faced with an urgency to achieve
maximum efficiency, hustle is
the name of the game. “The
reality is that once we have
control of our cattle, (through
slow and steady techniques) we
can achieve maximum results
with the least amount of time
and energy,” says Biggs. “We
may feel like we are getting a lot
done in a big hurry when we’re
running and chasing and everything is moving fast, but the
reality is that training cattle so
that you have control (is highly)
efficient.” When you don’t have
to repair fences or stop to fix
simple mistakes made in a hurry,
it is more cost effective and time
efficient in the long run.
Biggs and his wife Colleen and
family operate the three-generation TK Ranch near Hanna, in
eastern Alberta. The 10,000-acre
ranch, which has received animal
welfare certification, was established more than 50 years ago by
Dylan’s father Thomas Biggs.
BETTER WAY TO DO THINGS
Biggs believes there is a better
way of handling cattle than the
all-too-common story of frustration and angry outbursts. As an
individual who has experienced
and lived this story, Biggs says
when producers gain low-stress
handling skills, there is less of
a need to get so frustrated and
upset if or when livestock get
out of control.
“I’ve been thinking about this
for 25 years and I think that most
of it boils down to a lack of confidence,” says Biggs. “When we feel
insecure, we need to find someone to blame for our feeling a
lack of control.” Such a thought
pattern increases the likelihood
of conflicts and creates a situation where, “The cattle are already
upset and freaked out, so believing
that things are going to get out of
control often becomes a self-ful-
filling prophesy and the situation
erodes into a downward spiral.
“At my clinics I often ask,
‘Who gets yelled at? Who does
the yelling’ and everybody’s
hands go up. Everybody can
relate. If you make it into a joke,
everyone laughs, but beneath
the humour, everyone knows it’s
no laughing matter.”
When producers start to lose
control of their cattle, it is much
easier to lose control of emotions.
Learning to control livestock,
“solely through our movements,
proximity and position” pays off,
says Biggs. “Handling cattle isn’t
about waving our arms, yelling
or chasing. Those are all things
we resort to when we run out of
knowledge or options and when
we have exhausted our repertoire
of tools.”
NEED PATIENCE
Having patience can go a long
way toward changing the experience of handling cattle for all
involved. “Once people get worked
up and cattle are worked up,
human nature makes it extremely
difficult to step back, take the pressure off and let everyone relax,
but that is the biggest thing,” says
Biggs. “We have to learn to take
the pressure off when things are
going poorly. It is critical we learn
the proper position when working around cattle and understand
their movements.
Dylan Biggs understands that properly positioning yourself in
relationship to cattle, a calm demeanour and patience are key
elements in low-stress cattle handling.
“Typically we have a tendency
to spend way too much time in
an offensive position, pushing
cattle and not nearly enough
time being defensive. Often,
when we get closer to our target,
we get insecure about losing the
cows and try to hedge our bets by
pushing too hard. The increase
in pressure makes cattle nervous and they start to pressure
back on us and we want to push
more. Not many of us are naturally inclined to step back, take
the pressure off and let the cows
think about it a little bit.”
Every time you work with
your herd, you are training your
animals and setting the tone
for how handling will go in the
future. Biggs says keeping your
cool maximizes the benefits of
low-stress handling. †
Stephanie Grace is a freelance writer from
B.C. s Peace River country where she enjoys
farming and ranching with her family. To
learn more please visit her website at:
www.stephaniegrace.org.
weaning options
Easy weaning with nose flaps
heather
smith
thomas
E
very year, weaning time
is a stress on people and
animal. On our ranch, we
started fenceline weaning
about 25 years ago — separating the cows from the calves but
putting them in adjacent pens
or pastures so they could still go
to the fence and be next to each
other. It was a little easier on them
than the “cold turkey” weaning
we did earlier, leaving the calves
in a corral and taking their mothers to a far pasture, but they still
bawled a lot and were very upset.
In the fall of 2014 we tried
something different, using “nose
flaps” on the calves and leaving the
pairs together until the cows’ milk
started drying up. We’d heard great
reports about this method from
ranchers who use it, and I’d talked
to Joe Stookey, who invented this
innovative device at the Western
College of Veterinary Medicine,
University of Saskatchewan, about
10 years ago. The “nose flaps” are
now marketed as a product called
Quiet Wean.
Calves are very stressed when
separated from their mothers,
and stress can lead to immune
suppression and vulnerability to
disease, especially if the stress
of weaning is coupled with bad
weather and/or a long transport
when newly weaned calves are
sold. It always pays to try to
reduce stress on calves, but this
can be a challenge sometimes.
FOLLOWING NATURE
In nature, without human
intervention, calves are weaned
by their mothers kicking them
off before the next calf is born.
The big calf follows along and
stays with the cow, never losing the comfort and security of
her presence. He may still try to
nurse for a few days, but the cow
won’t let him, and he resigns
himself to weaned status.
When I talked to Joe Stookey
about nose flaps, he said it all came
about because of a student’s question. “One of our students asked
what does the calf miss most — the
milk or the mother? So we decided
to find out. When we did the
study and took away the milk by
creating this anti-sucking device,
none of the calves were upset,”
Stookey said. “Then when we took
away the mother a few days later
they didn’t miss her either, and
we realized we’d already weaned
the calves. We had weaned them
in the presence of the mother and
that was the big difference. It was
an amazing revelation about the
whole weaning process.”
These small plastic flaps can
be quickly and easily installed
in seconds, with the calves
restrained in a chute. Then the
calves are returned to their mothers. The flap hangs down over
the nose and mouth, preventing
the calf from getting a teat into
his mouth to nurse, but does
not hinder eating grass or hay or
drinking water.
The calf cannot nurse, but he’s
not emotionally upset because
he’s still with his mother. He
feels secure because he has her
companionship and protection
during the weaning process. The
cow starts to dry up, and the calf
adjusts to not having milk. About
five to seven days later, cows and
calves can be completely separated from one another and the
flaps removed from the calves,
and they are not stressed.
EASY PROCESS
We ordered nose flaps for our
calves last fall and put them in
one week before preg-checking
photo: heather smith thomas
The plastic Quiet Wean flap easily clips onto the nose of the calf.
our cows. It was humorous to
watch them afterward; they’d run
to mom and try to nurse, and
just stand there — and bunt the
udder in frustration — and get
kicked. Mom couldn’t figure out
why baby wasn’t nursing, but neither of them were stressed. They
kept track of each other and spent
time together, but there was no
desperation, no frantic pacing/
bawling like what happens with
other weaning methods.
By the time we took out the
nose flaps a week later, when
we ran the calves through the
chute again for vaccinations, the
cows were drying up and the
calves essentially weaned. We
put the calves in a new pasture
and took the cows to our upper
place to spend the rest of the
fall on mountain pasture, and
everybody was happy. It sure was
easier on everyone. †
Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her
husband Lynn near Salmon, Idaho. Contact
her at 208-756-2841.
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
31
Home Quarter Farm Life
SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Bully-free farming
Elaine
Froese
S
he came up to me quietly
after my presentation, looking tired and sad. “Elaine I
haven’t been off the farm
in months, and I don’t know who
is going to help us with seeding. I
am 70 and I cannot take this anymore. My husband is very verbally
abusive and won’t get help for his
depression. What do I do?”
This woman is a target of a
bully, according to the language
of author Valerie Cade who wrote
Bully Free at Work… what you can
do to stop workplace bullying now!
(www.bullyfreeatwork.com).
Bullying on farms is happening when targets are experiencing
repeated disrespectful behaviour.
The tactics according to Cade are
exclusion, unreasonable demands,
unfairness, verbal abuse and “crazy
making” (page 211).
Can you relate to these farm
scenarios?
A daughter-in-law wonders how
to get her name on the land titles
after 25 years of marriage and
years of working hard to make her
father-in-law’s farm succeed. Her
husband is not willing to stand up
for fairness and says nothing.
A farm mom is not getting any
support to get treatment for her
depressive husband and she feels
trapped. The exclusion from community is killing her slowly.
A wise widow who lives frugally
and wants to honour her husband’s wishes is not sure why her
adult children are making unreasonable demands for their inheritance. She is feeling threatened
and pushed into making financial decisions that may leave her
short of future family living funds.
She has no idea what her longterm health-care needs will be and
financial security is important to
her, especially as she ages alone.
A frustrated 40-year-old son
cannot get his father and mother
to sign business agreements that
share the farm assets and equity
with the next generation. He is
tired of the promise, “just trust
me,” and wonders if other farmers
work like slaves and get very low
wages for years.
The over-60 father has no intention of retiring, but knows that he
likely needs to share the decisionmaking with his successors. He
is not happy about the barrage
of verbal abuse he meets daily
when he asks questions and tries
to make a plan for the daily operations.
My question is, “Why are you
allowing the bad behaviour to
continue?”
Valerie Cade outlines the
experience of the workplace
hosting bullies as one where
“others say nothing, are not
sure what to do or say. The bullying behaviour is tolerated.” I
say, “You get the behaviour that
you accept.”
The bully minimizes the way
the target feels and over time the
farm team begins to think, “This is
just the way it is around here!” Bad
behaviour is ignored and slowly
the family (employees) become
distant , silent, and non-creative,
according to Cade.
Targets of bullying suffer emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Cade’s research finds that the
“target eventually quits (80 per
cent of the time). On farms this
gets very expensive with divorce,
and the loss of trained employees.
What to do? Bullies cannot
“flourish or they cannot even survive in organizations committed
to respect, open communication
and teamwork,” says Cade.
She suggests:
• Clarify your values and
communicate them;
• Use managers as role models;
• Develop more open
communication;
• Provide a complaint process;
• Train people about bullying;
• Support interpersonal
skills training and conflict
resolution;
• Punish bullies, don’t
hire bullies;
• Adopt an anti-bullying
policy.
Cade’s book has some great
tools, one of them being a selfassessment:
Are you being bullied? Does the
person you’re having challenges
with:
Ignore you? Not return your
phone calls or emails?
Dismiss what you are saying or
“put you down in the presence of
others?”
Spread rumours, lies, and halftruths about you?
Routinely blame and criticize
you?
In our book dealing with
Farming’s In-Law Factor, we came
up with a list of ways to address
the nastiness you might be experiencing on your farm.
1. Accept that there are various reasons that people are nasty,
some of which we will never know
or understand. You can accept the
reality of the nastiness, but you do
not have to accept bad bullying
behaviour.
2. Be curious not judgmental.
Address the root cause of the nastiness (e.g. depression, trauma,
health issues).
3. Think of a positive trait that
you can acknowledge them for.
4. Name the behaviour as nasty
or inappropriate. Some people don’t
realize they are being donkeys.
5. Pray or reflect on a new
approach or perspective to engage
the person.
6. Do not accept guilt or shame.
7. Create physical or emotional
space from the nastiness.
8. Set healthy boundaries.
9. Make requests. For example,
if you feel you are being excluded,
make a request. “I would like to be
included in the emails to be part
of the farm meetings.”
10. Write a heartfelt letter and
deliver it. Or burn it.
11. Give them an underserved
act of grace. Cade suggests to
respond with, “I understand. I see.”
12. Choose not to be melodramatic about the nastiness or
take it personally. Cade coaches
folks to move to the “I am being
bullied and I will now take steps
to protect myself” stage. “Notice
if you are feeling angry, frustrated or hurt. It is time to channel these feelings so they do not
take a toll on your body, mind
and well-being” (page 189).
13. Resist the urge to criticize,
as it can become a bad habit.
14. Realize that some people
act grumpy or mean (almost as
performance art in some cases) in
order to get attention or because
they have come to believe that is
who they are.
Spring on the farm is an exciting time of watching weather,
waiting for fields to dry and
warm up and “get ’er done”
planting in a timely fashion.
Buy a copy of Cade’s book and
a copy of our book Farming’s
In-Law Factor as gifts for
Mother’s Day, and for new farm
brides. Work towards a bullyfree farm culture. †
Elaine Froese is at www.elainefroese.com.
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/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Home Quarter Farm Life
PRAIRIE PALATE
Welcoming the first ‘fruits’ of spring
After a long winter we’re always eager to see signs of spring
and Kristiane Lien had first settled in
North Dakota but, unable to afford a farm
of their own, they moved north to take
advantage of the free homesteads offered
in Canada.
For the move, they packed everything
they owned into a rail car, including cattle, chickens, a team of horses and, yes,
a root of rhubarb, which provided many
memorable desserts over the years.
This recipe for rhubarb pudding, originally written in Norwegian, was found
among the keepsakes of Hans and Kristiane
that were passed down the generations.
It’s a delicious way to welcome the first
“fruits” of spring.
Amy Jo
Ehman
Y
ou may call them weeds, but
to the pioneers, dandelions were
dinner. After a long winter of root
vegetables — progressively shrivelling and even running out — dandelions
and other “weeds” were the first greens of
spring. Mother Nature’s salad bar.
Tender young dandelion leaves were collected by the pailful, as were lamb’s quarters, sorrel and purslane, also known as
portulaca. They were often eaten cooked,
either alone or added to a recipe such as
green borscht, a popular soup of potatoes,
dill, sorrel and sour cream.
One method of preparing dandelion
leaves went like this: whisk together an
egg with half a cup of sour cream. Cook
until thickened. Stir in a dab of butter and
two tablespoons of vinegar. Season with
salt and pepper. Toss in a good amount of
well-washed dandelion greens and cook
until wilted. Eat warm.
Of course, dandelion leaves and other
wild greens were not the only signs of
spring in the kitchen. Every farmstead had
a rhubarb patch which sprang to life before
the last vestiges of snow had disappeared.
Rhubarb was the first “fruit” of spring.
Back then, rhubarb was commonly
called the “pie plant” because, as we
all know, it makes an admirable pie. Of
Rhubarb Pudding
1 c. flour
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. butter
4 c. thinly sliced rhubarb
1 c. white sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
photo: amy jo ehman
Rhubarb Pudding
course, it also tastes great in a cake, crisp,
bread pudding, compote and a jar of jam.
Even though rhubarb grows like a weed
(try uprooting it!) it is not natural to the
Canadian plains. However, that tenacity
served it well during the time of the settlers. Many a pioneer arriving by train or
horse-drawn wagon brought a piece of
rhubarb root to set in their first Prairie
garden and were quick to share it with
immigrants from overseas who had travelled more sparsely.
Like dandelions, rhubarb is a good
source of vitamin C, which might have
been in short supply come spring, espe-
cially if the sauerkraut crock (also steeped
in vitamin C) was dipping low.
Before rhubarb became associated with
jams and pies, the root was used medicinally as a mild laxative and stomach
tonic. It was not until the 1800s, when
sugar from the West Indies became more
widely available and more affordable in
Europe that someone had the bright idea
of sweetening the sour stalks and eating
them.
The recipe below was provided to me by
Irene Hagel, granddaughter of Norwegian
pioneers who homesteaded near Weldon,
east of Prince Albert, Sask. in 1902. Hans
Mix flour and brown sugar. Rub in butter until blended. Put rhubarb in a buttered baking dish. Mix white sugar with
cinnamon and sprinkle over rhubarb.
Press flour mixture over top and bake at
325 F for 45 minutes. Serve warm or cold.
You can read the recipe in Norwegian on
my food blog HomeForDinner.blogspot.
com. †
Amy Jo Ehman is the author of Prairie Feast: A Writer’s
Journey Home for Dinner, and, Out of Old Saskatchewan
Kitchens. She hails from Craik, Saskatchewan.
EXTENDED OUTLOOK FOR THE PRAIRIES
Weather Forecast for the period of April 12 to May 9, 2015
Southern Alberta
Peace River Region
Saskatchewan
April 12 - 18
Blustery days usher in a few
mild, sunny days followed by
cooler, wet conditions.
Snow/frost in several areas.
April 12 - 18
Blustery days usher in a few mild,
sunny days followed by cooler,
wet conditions. Snow/frost is
expected in a few areas.
April 12 - 18
Highs in the teens most days
under sunshine, but cooler windy
intrusions bring some rain and a
chance of snow on 2 or 3 days.
April 19 - 25
Fluctuating temperatures are
expected. On cooler, windy days
there will be some rain and a
possibility of scattered snow.
April 19 - 25
Fluctuating temperatures with
highs near 20 in the southwest.
On cooler, windy days expect rain
and a slight risk of snow.
April 26 - May 2
Pleasant under sunshine and
milder temperatures, although
rain with a risk of snow/frost is
expected on 2 or 3 occasions.
April 26 - May 2
Pleasant under sunshine and
milder temperatures, although rain
with a risk of snow/frost is
expected on 2 or 3 occasions.
April 19 - 25
Pleasant, mild days are
interrupted by cooler, blustery
weather with scattered rain.
Scattered snow in central and
northern areas.
May 3 - 9
Variable weather as warm, dry
days interchange with cooler, wet
days and some frost. Chance of
snow. Blustery.
May 3 - 9
Variable weather as warm, dry
days interchange with cooler, wet
days and some frost. Slight
chance of snow. Blustery.
-3 / 9
Grande Prairie
19.8 mms
April 12 - 18
Mild and sunny days are
followed by cooler, wet days.
Windy at times. Frosty nights.
Periodic heavier snow in the
north.
April 19 - 25
Sunny with a few milder days in
the teens in the south. Scattered
rain and gusty on 2 or 3 days.
Some snow in the north.
April 26 - May 2
Mostly sunny aside from rain on a
couple of days with a chance of
snow in places. Frost most nights.
Often windy.
April 26 - May 2
Sunny, windy with variable
temperatures. Some highs hit
20s in the south, but frost on
many nights. Scattered rain.
May 3 - 9
Seasonal and at times cool with
nighttime frost. Sunny skies
alternate with showers or rain.
Windy. Risk of snow.
May 3 - 9
Seasonal to cool with occasional
frost. Sunny apart from showers
on a couple of occasions.
Chance of snow. Blustery.
Precipitation Forecast
-3 / 10
Edmonton
22.1 mms
-3 / 10
Jasper
21.2 mms
-3 / 9
32.4 mms
Banff
-2 / 11
Calgary
Forecasts should be 80%
accurate, but expect
variations by a day or two
because of changeable
speed of weather systems.
Manitoba
25.1 mms
NEAR
NORMAL
-2 / 9
North Battleford
-3 / 10
Red Deer
22.9 mms
0 / 13
Medicine Hat
19mms
cms
Lethbridge 26.0
35.9 mms
26 cms
-1 / 12
-5 / 6
The Pas
-4 / 8
Prince Albert
22.2 mms
NEAR
NORMAL
21.7 mms
-3 / 9
Saskatoon
19.7 mms
27.4 mms
-3 / 9
Yorkton
-4 / 9
Dauphin
-4 / 7
-2 / 11 20.3 mms 31.7 mms
-2 / 11
Gimli
Regina
39.2 mms
-2 / 10 Moose Jaw 20.4 mms
Swift 24.3 mms
-2 / 10
-3 / 9
Current
Portage -2 / 10
-2 / 11
Brandon 40.4 mms Winnipeg
24.7 mms
Weyburn
35.4 mms
35.9 mms
28.9 mms -2 / 11
Estevan Melita -4 / 10
33.3 mms
33.5 mms
Precipitation Outlook
For April
Much Above Normal Below Much
above normal
normal below
normal
normal
Temperatures are normals
for April 15th averaged
over 30 years.
Precipitation
(water equivalent)
normals for April in mms.
©2015 WeatherTec Services
www.weathertec.mb.ca
APRIL 28, 2015 grainews.ca /
33
Home Quarter Farm Life
FROM THE FARM
Time to start thinking of
outdoor family activities
Debbie
Chikousky
W
hen we lived in
the city and our
children were
small, spring
always made me start looking for
activities to get us outside. Now
that we live on a farm, spring is
filled with new babies. May of
2015 will be filled with lambing
so I know what I will be doing
for Mother’s Day. My day will be
filled with new life and all our
children will be home with their
children to help celebrate!
Growing up in Winnipeg my
family used to go fishing with
my grandparents many Sundays.
This year in Manitoba, Mother’s
Day and opening day of fishing season both fall on May 10.
Fishing is an excellent way for a
family to bond, getting fresh air,
sunshine and relaxation.
Family outings wouldn’t be
complete without food but it’s
important to be safe. The first
rule is to keep cold foods cold. To
do this place cold food in a cooler
with ice or frozen gel packs, storing at 40 F (4.4 C) or below to
prevent bacterial growth. Meat,
poultry, and seafood may be
packed while still frozen to stay
colder longer. Salads containing mayonnaise are considered
a high-risk food and should be
kept cold. To minimize cooler
opening and closing, pack beverages in one cooler and perishable
food in another.
Hot food should be kept hot,
at or above 140 F (60 C). Wrap
it well and place it in an insulated container until serving. Just
as with cold food, these foods
should not sit out for more than
two hours, or one hour in temperatures above 90 F (32.2 C). If
food is left out longer, throw it
away to be safe.
Don’t cross-contaminate. Be
sure to keep raw meat, poultry,
and seafood securely wrapped.
This keeps their juices from contaminating prepared/cooked
foods or foods that will be eaten
raw, such as fruits and vegetables. It is also a good idea to keep
them out of the beverage cooler.
Rinse fresh fruits and vegetables under running tap water
before packing in the cooler —
including those with skins and
rinds that are not eaten. To avoid
softening and mould growth if it
is a weekend trip, make sure to
dry the fruits and vegetables with
a clean towel.
Food safety begins with proper
hand cleaning — including outdoor settings. Before you begin
setting out your picnic feast,
make sure hands and surfaces are
clean. If you don’t have access
to running water, simply use a
water jug, some soap, and paper
towels. Or, use moist disposable towelettes for cleaning your
hands. Keep all utensils and platters clean when preparing food.
Manitoba is known for some
of the best catfish fishing in the
country. They can be a lot of fun
to catch but we always released
them and kept the jackfish for
supper. Lots of our Lockport fishing friends tell us catfish are delicious, but we don’t have recipes
for them. Our family has two
ways we enjoy other kinds of
fresh fish.
Fresh fried
The tastiest fish are the ones
that are cooked fresh out of the
water over an open fire. Many
people just roll the fish, once it
is cleaned and filleted, in flour
and fry in lard until the fillet is
golden brown.
Baked fresh fish
Get a big piece of heavyduty tin foil and smear butter
over the middle. Put chopped
onions, mushrooms and green
peppers on half of the foil.
Place fish on the vegetables and
with a knife smear on a generous amount of butter. Sprinkle
salt, pepper and lemon juice on
the fillets and the vegetables.
Put more vegetables on top and
sprinkle more salt, pepper and
lemon juice. Place a few pieces
of butter on top. Wrap the foil
over the fish and seal edges.
Cook at low to medium heat for
about 10 minutes. This same
method can be used to make
potato, onion and carrot packages for a side dish.
Whatever your family chooses
to do to celebrate your mother
our wish for you is that you create memories. †
Debbie Chikousky farms at Narcisse, Man.
photo: courtesy heiko breidinger
The smile on our friend Beckie Breidinger’s face proves what fun catchand-release family fishing trips are.
™
EmpOwEring FarmErS
 Ag in Motion brings innovation to the field
All fArmers know decisions are made in
the field. Imagine a place, an event, created to
empower farmers by providing the information
they need to make these important decisions.
A place where they can see the latest
equipment in action, in the field – operating in
the same environment it’s made for. A place
where farmers can see multiple varieties of live
crop plots growing side by side in the field.
This summer, such a place will exist.
Introducing Ag in motion, Western Canada’s
newest and only outdoor farm expo. Debuting
July 21 to 23, on a half-section (320 acres)
near Saskatoon, SK, it’s the only show that
provides an outdoor venue for progressive
farmers in Western Canada that want to
see and experience the latest agricultural
innovation, all in one place. Ag in motion will
feature field equipment demonstrations, live
crop plots and interactive exhibits such as “ride
and drives” and smaller equipment demos.
“Ag in motion will offer farmers a unique
opportunity to compare crop plots and
machinery, in action, and ultimately help
them make decisions about the best products
for their operations,” says Show Director
Rob O’Connor. “There’s nowhere else in
Western Canada where farmers can actually
see multiple pieces of farm equipment in
operation, take a test drive, or compare
different crop varieties all in one place.”
What does an outdoor show look like?
The Ag in motion team brings together the
expertise of seasoned farm show organizers.
The Expo is operated by Glacier FarmMedia,
who owns Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, the
country’s largest outdoor farm show held
annually near Woodstock, Ontario. Also part
of Glacier FarmMedia are Western Producer,
Manitoba Co-operator, Grainews, Country
Guide, Canadian Cattlemen, Alberta Farmer
Express and AgDealer. The team knows what’s
involved in delivering an outdoor show, and
the potential such a venue provides.
Now in its 22nd year, Canada’s Outdoor
Farm Show delivers 750 exhibitors and 42,000
visitors each year. Most attendees come to
see the newest technologies in agriculture. Its
success is based on the fact that active farmers
attend to do business – make decisions – and
the show is dedicated solely to agricultural
products, equipment and services.
Ag in motion is applying the same
model and will become a must-see event
by showcasing cutting-edge agricultural
advancements that empower Canadian farmers
to help meet their goals in producing high
quality, safe food in a competitive marketplace.
To learn more about how an outdoor show
looks and operates, view the videos on the Ag
in motion website, www.aginmotion.ca.
Live Demos and
Interactive Exhibits
The number of Ag in motion exhibitors is
growing steadily each week and includes
seed and crop protection companies, field
equipment and livestock handling
manufacturers, financial services, nutrition,
baling products, tires, fertilizers and much more.
SOmETHing nEw iS in THE FiEld. ViSiT ag in mOTiOn THiS SUmmEr - JUlY 21-23
For more information about Ag in Motion please call toll free: (800) 563-5441 or email: [email protected]
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www.aginmotion.ca
34
/ grainews.ca APRIL 28, 2015
Home Quarter Farm Life
SINGING GARDENER
Recipes to help control
apple maggots and ants
Plus, Ted shares a letter from Alberta
ted
meseyton
A
phrase taken from Isaiah
11:6 says, “and a little
child shall lead them.”
Most scripture scholars
agree the passage containing those
seven words has nothing to do
with children teaching or leading
adults. However, in our day-to-day
living we’re never too old, nor
too wise to know it all. We’re still
learning from each other; regardless of age.
Got lots to share about apple
maggot and ant controls, plus a
letter from Alberta Grainews readers. As gardeners and farmers we
stand on terra firma, (Latin) that is:
solid earth; a firm footing. Before
I meander any further along the
garden path, let me tip my hat and
extend welcome to all.
ture here, there and everywhere.
It seems to work best on hard
surfaces like cement, cobblestone,
sidewalk blocks, stepping stones,
etc. I actually put it on the painted
bottom board of our fence, behind
the grapevine. Keep replacing it as
it will harden up. Try it out Ted. It
was super effective in our yard. I
did not know that ants are more
prevalent where there are aphids
until you pointed it out in one of
your articles. — Judy Allan.”
Ted’s response: Judy also asks
about lime-water spray, so I’m providing some information about it a
little further along. Apple maggot
flies throw a one-two punch when
it comes to causing damage. The
first punch occurs when they lay
eggs on the apples resulting in a
weird, dimpled appearance on the
outer skin. After the maggots hatch
comes punch two. They tunnel
into the flesh of apples causing
a brownish breakdown with riddles and rot. The following should
help Judy (hopefully her husband
doesn’t have to cut down their
apple trees) and others in preventing maggot tunnels. Eradication
and control can be as high as 90
per cent; even higher.
FORMULA NO. 1
A LETTER LEADS THE WAY
Thanks to Judy Allan from
Edmonton who sent along three
pages of a typed letter. I’ve condensed it down to save space.
“Hi Ted: My husband and I love
your page in Grainews and never
miss reading it. We appreciate all
the gardening and other excellent
suggestions you and readers give
us. Some articles are just so informative and others just fun. We have
two apple trees, one is a Parkland
and the other a Norland; two
Evans cherry trees that have lots
of large, red semi-sweet cherries; a
plum tree that is just amazing and
a large grapevine covering about
20 feet on our backyard fence that
produces 50 to 60 pounds a season
of very good eating concord-like
grapes.”
Judy continues: “We’ve had
maggots the past two summers
and treated both trees with commercial apple maggot traps with
sticky-like glue and pheromone
lures. This has not been very effective. This year we will use your
apple maggot formula No. 1. We
are desperate and my dear husband has threatened to cut down
both trees if things don’t improve.
“I’m sharing an ant killer mixture we were given. Mix equal
parts of icing sugar and baking
soda, then add a small amount of
water mixing as you go until you
have a smooth, soft mixture that
slides off the end of a teaspoon
but stays together to form a small
circle the size of a quarter or loonie. I put down some of this mix-
Note: The three formulas that
follow are NOT a spray. Here’s
some preamble first. After mixing
stated ingredients together, pour
some of either 1, 2 or 3 into clean
plastic bottles, to just below a oneor two-inch square hole cut out on
one side about halfway up. Hang
six or seven such containers in
each apple tree after petals have
dropped, starting about early to
mid-July depending on weather,
or once fruits are fairly large. By
then maggot flies have emerged
from soil, mate and begin laying
eggs about 10 days later. Strain
contents of each trap weekly to
remove dead insects and other
debris. Solution can be reused several times, but make fresh batches
once it becomes smelly.
Mix one part blackstrap molasses diluted in some hot water so it
pours easily into eight parts plain
water and six parts white vinegar.
Cooking molasses may be used in
a pinch. An example of aforesaid
would be:
1 litre of molasses
8 litres of water
6 litres of white vinegar
FORMULA NO. 2
Combine one part molasses and
nine parts warm water to which
some yeast cake or yeast granules have been added on top. Mix
together once it stops working. Fill
containers with this bait and hang
in apple trees. Renew with a fresh
batch as required.
FORMULA NO. 3
This one is simplest and least
expensive. Mix it outdoors. To
each litre of water add 10 ml (2
teaspoons) of household ammonia
and a bit of liquid soap OR soap
powder (not laundry detergent).
Make a fresh batch weekly.
Baited traps will attract and
drown many adult maggot flies.
Unfortunately, some beneficial insects may also be attracted
and perish. Hang traps about 1.5
metres (5.0 feet) high mostly on
sunny sides of apple trees.
HOT PEPPER OIL
CONCENTRATE
All you need is a glass mason jar
that can be covered with a lid and
some dried hot peppers to make
a cold oil infusion. Wear disposable gloves to avoid burning skin
on your hands and protective eye
goggles. Slice open a dozen and a
half dried hot chili peppers. Some
of the seeds should be exposed as
they contain the hottest part. Place
prepared hot dried peppers inside
the jar and add one cup of olive oil
or canola oil. Cover with a lid but
not tightly shut.
If you notice any peppers or
seeds floating to the top or are
exposed to the air, add a little more
oil if needed or invert the jar a few
times. Pepper parts floating to the
top can take on mould and you
don’t want that, in which case discard and start with a fresh batch.
Allow hot peppers to soak in
oil for two or three days, then it’s
ready to use. Straining off the oil
(or not) and discarding the peppers
is your choice. The longer peppers
remain in oil without straining,
the more potent it becomes.
Label the jar contents as “Hot
Pepper Oil Concentrate” and store
high up, out of reach of children to
avoid a mishap, as it will burn. You
can usually also buy prepared hot
pepper oil at stores specializing in
Italian and European ethnic foods
and at some health food stores.
HOT PEPPER SPRAY
— PREP AND APPLICATION
Not all hot peppers are equal
in strength. Some are far more
potent than others. With that in
mind some personal experimentation will be required to avoid
burning anything that’s sprayed.
You may need to use a little less
concentrate or a little more when
preparing a spray.
Add 1/4 cup homemade hot
pepper concentrate to each clean
4-litre jug of water and stir in 1
tablespoon of liquid or powdered
soap (not detergent). You can also
add 2 tablespoons of baking soda,
or leave it out. It’s optional.
Be sure to wear protective clothing, rubber gloves and eye protection when spraying apple trees,
as it can easily drift back onto
your face and skin in the slightest breeze. As soon as it thaws in
early spring, moisten soil in a circle around base of each apple tree
with pepper spray for a distance
of five feet from each tree trunk
to stop emerging pests, especially
maggot flies. When spraying trees,
photo: ted meseyton
Since his early introduction to the garden as a youngster, Chris has
learned how special it is to pick an apple right from the tree that’s
free of maggots on the inside. Ted shares some apple maggot control
methods on his Grainews Singing Gardener page.
early morning or later in the day
when temp. remains under 25 C
is best time to avoid risk of burning anything. Cover all areas of
the tree including trunk, branches,
tops and undersides of leaves and
forming fruit every seven to 10
days. As well, reapply this spray
after rainfall or following heavy
dew. This spray is non-judgmental and kills both harmful insects
and any beneficials that may be
attracted. Use pepper spray selectively by applying it when bees are
least active.
ON ANOTHER NOTE
Be aware that hot peppers and
microwaves don’t mix. Here’s the
story of a person who placed hot
peppers on a moistened towel
to steam and soften them inside
a microwave. It was set for one
minute with disastrous results.
What happened next?
Within seconds the smell of hot
pepper filled the kitchen with an
overpowering odour; a form of
unintentional hot pepper scent
had permeated throughout. By
the time said person got to the
microwave, the entire kitchen
had taken on a lingering hot pepper scent. With burning eyes and
breath held; the individual opened
all windows and doors to air out
the house and then evacuated the
premises until the air was tolerable
again. It took over two hours to
refresh and clear the house so the
air was acceptable.
LIME JUICE IS AN
ORGANIC PESTICIDE
Create a mixture of 1/4 to 1/2
cup lime juice with 4 litres of
water and spray the solution on
plants where bug infestations are
prominent. This homemade spray
serves as an irritant to destroy and
keep away mites, aphids, sawfly
worms and other smaller insects.
One word of caution about lime
solution when overused. It may
alter pH levels (neutral acid-alkaline balance) in soil. Some plants
may like it; others will find it
disagreeable.
Stirring a few drops of mild
liquid soap into the lime juicewater makes it even more potent.
Remember you are experimenting
when using any homemade formula for the first time and adjustments may be necessary such as
hosing off plants with plain water
an hour after applying lime-water
solution. Do it early in the morning and only on plants infected
with unwanted pests; otherwise
beneficial insects are also harmed.
Keep in mind — the majority of
bugs is neither bad nor harmful.
This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener
and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie,
Man. I salute all gardeners and farmers
who help make our world a little safer and
more ecologically balanced, and who toil
to provide health-giving produce to others
who cannot produce their own. It takes
all sorts to make a world. One half of the
world doesn’t know how the other half
lives. The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr.
Quiet and Dr. Merryman. My email address
is [email protected].
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