My Last full day in Canada

My last day of my Nuffield trip to Canada was a busy one. In the morning I drove to Carberry to meet Trevor Thornton whose company Crop care consultancy is heavily involved with Precision Farming and the agronomy involved with it. The Carberry region grows a lot of potatoes, as the soil type in the area is light and there is water available to irrigate.

Potatoes near Carberry, Manitoba

 

We talked about how Crop Care soil sample, and the merits and pitfalls of zone sampling against grid sampling, Trevor's preference was for grid sampling, as he has seen better results from this method. The soil sampling data is never used in isolation, but will build in a yield target value, to create a prescription nutrition application map. As Trevor is producing these maps himself he is able to tailor the map to the specific needs of each farmer or field. Trevor was also using organic matter maps to create seed maps, with seed rate and organic matter levels inversely related. Organic matter measurements is something that we don't pay enough attention to at home.

 

Trevor is also experimenting with an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to capture images of crops with digital cameras and sensors, to identify weed areas and for variable rate applications.

 

The UAV that Trevor is using

 

 

After lunch I went to visit a family that I have not seen for over 10 years, since they emigrated from Shropshire to Manitoba.

 

 

 The Walker family farmed the next door farm to me in the UK, so I was looking forward to meeting up with them again. As I approached the farm, a sprayer was coming down the drive, and out jumped my old next door neighbour Richard Walker. It was great to see him again, whilst he did some spraying I went and had a "proper" cup of tea with his wife Frances. After a good catch up Frances had to go to work, unfortunately, but Richard soon returned and then I went with him spraying.

Applying Herbicide and Fungicide to GM Canola

 

After finishing the spraying, Richard and I had chance to look around the farm and equipment, which are very different from the machines he had in the UK. I was glad for him and his family that they have settled so well in Canada and are enjoying their new life, it was a brave decision at the time but obviously the right one for them. Later on I got to catch up with Richard and Frances's two sons, Lawrence and Joel, who are both now grown men and not little boys, but unfortunately I missed to see their daughter Amanda. After having some food we all headed over to Lawrence and his new wife's house, I got to drive his jacked up truck which was nearly as uneconomical as it was loud!

I thoroughly enjoyed spending some time with them all and would liked to have stayed longer, but an early start in the morning to fly to the USA was next.

 

Nice Plate

 

Lawrence's "little, quiet" Truck

Joel, Richard and Lawrence Walker

 

 

I had a wonderful time in Canada, a Huge Thank you to everyone that helped me and gave me time to meet them, and I hope to welcome you to the UK in the future.

 

 







Onwards to Manitoba

Having left Saskatchewan behind I headed into my 3rd and final province of Manitoba, to go and stay with my fellow Nuffield scholar and friend Clayton Robins and his wife Rebecca. It is a wonderful thing about Nuffield, even when you haven't known someone very long or even at all, you will be made very welcome when you visit.



 

This sprayer was parked up and I had to stop and take a picture

 

 

 

Clayton and his family farm near Rivers, Manitoba, raising cattle and growing some crops. Clayton is also a 4-H director. 4-H is organisation that encourages young people to get involved with agriculture. The goal of 4-H is to develop citizenship, leadership, responsibility and life skills of youth through experiential learning programs and a positive youth development approach. Though typically thought of as an agriculturally focused organization as a result of its history, 4-H today focuses on citizenship, healthy living, science, engineering, and technology programs.

 

Clayton showed me around his farm. He has a herd of cow calf (suckler cows), mainly angus, Gelbvieh and Simmental, and uses a shorthorn bull. Clayton employs a fairly extensive grazing practice and is extremely passionate about pasture health and balance, and is the first person I know to study the shape and structure of cow pats!

 

Clayton with his Cows and Calves

 

A group of weanling steers

 

The area that Clayton farms is near to the little Saskatchewan river, and some of his pasture runs down to the river in a steep wooded valley and over to the valley bottom the other side. This is an excellent environment to summer the cattle as they can keep out of the heat and away from flies. Unfortunately some buffalos from a local farm had recently got out and decided that they would rearranged some of Claytons fences, so there ware some fences to repair before the cattle to go to their summer pasture.

Top of the valley overlooking the Little Saskatchewan River

 

Clayton used to keep sheep, which are rare in Canada, as they can't be kept outside in the winter the same as cattle. Also there are a lot of Kyote's and wolves have been know in the area, so the sheep need guarding. This was the job of Claytons donkeys and Luxxor his lamma, who is still on the farm, but doesn't like the cattle much.

 

Clayton and his guard Lamma, Luxxor

 

We came across a crop of  "Peaola" on our travels, which is a mix of peas and canola. The theory is that the peas will climb up the canola and not go flat. The whole crop is then harvested as a dry pea crop and then the Canola is cleaned out of the peas. The results have been variable so far, but a good example of trying something different.

Peaola a mix of peas and canola

 

I am very grateful for Clayton and Rebecca welcoming me into there home and looking after me so well during my stay, Many Thanks and I look forward to returning the favour in the future.

 





 Clayton and Rebecca



Aberhart Farms, Langenburg, Saskatchewan

Terry and Lichelle Aberhart

I arrived at Aberhart Farms to be greeted by the Aberhart family of Terry, Lichelle and their three children Sarrikah, Ascilline and Holden. Terry has a guy from England, John Turner, working with him, who kindly put me up for the night. We had some fabulous Alberta beef cooked on the BBQ, drank Boddingtons beer and sat around a campfire talking farming well into the evening, a fantastic welcome.

 

Aberhart farms is a family run business, cropping 9500 acres of winter and spring wheat, canola, peas and Flax (Linseed), they have trucks hauling grain all year round, Terry also has an ag consultancy firm, Suregrowth Technologies Inc, which is part of the Agri-Trend group. Terry has been heavily involved with precision farming techniques, for several years, and is using some progressive techniques.

 

Terry has done extensive work on variable rate application of fungicides on Canola. The method he has uses, is to collect an image of the crop from a plane and then convert it into an application map with 3 zones, full rate, 3/4 rate and zero rate. As the sprayer is working from a prescription and not in real time, a lead time can be set so the rate controller on the sprayer looks ahead. Terry has shown that low yielding Canola does not respond to a fungicide spray but high yielding canola gives a good yield response, which more than justifies the variable rate application costs. The same technique is also being used on peas, and Terry is starting to site specifically apply herbicides, in crop.

 

After spending a lot of time looking at data and maps, (that's Precision Farming for you), we headed out to look at some crops. Technology was not only limited to the fields and office. Terry has recently put up some more grain silos, which have automatic temperature and moisture sensors in them, which are linked to his office computer.

New 1400T silos with wireless crop monitoring

 

We went to see some seed rate trials in the field, and as seems to be the norm in canada, you can't go crop walking (scouting) without a phone or a tablet. The trials were not marked out at all, but terry had them mapped in google earth on his ipad, so the gps in the ipad told us where we were in the trial. He uses this same technique when he comes to harvest the trial plots.

Crop Scouting Canadian Style

The trial plots are marked in Yellow and Blue, and we are the blue dot.

 

 

Terry was growing both winter and spring wheat, not all of the winter wheat had survived the cold Canadian winter, but what had looked good and was coming out into ear. The winter wheat will be harvested first, before the peas, spring wheat, canola and flax. Flax is grown as it not susceptible to frost and it holds it's quality if the harvest is late.

Ear of Winter Wheat

 

Before leaving Aberhart farms, I had a look at Terry's yard scraper which is used to grade ditches and water slews in the fields, as well as levelling the farm yard. When you see the size of it, it is no surprise levelling the yard doesn't take very long.

 
  

The Yard Scraper

Tom Wolf, Spray nozzle expert

Jake and I arranged  to meet up with Tom Wolf, who was also based at the University of Saskatoon, just a few doors from Western Grains. Tom was working for PAMI,The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute,  http://pami.ca/ , Tom's expertise is in nozzle technology. Tom had recently returned from the farm progress show in Regina, and said that the "buzz word" from the show regarding sprayer technology was "Turn compensation". Turn compensation is when the application rate can be varied along a sprayer boom from nozzle to nozzle to allow for the fact that the further out the nozzle is the faster it is going over the crop as the sprayer turns.

Tom Wolf

 

The technology that allows turn compensation to happen is know as Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). PWM means that the nozzle is turning on and off 10 times per second, this allows the application rate to change by varying the amount of time per second that the nozzle is either open or closed, which means that the application rate and pressure can be held constant as the forward speed is varied. This leads to a uniform droplet size, increased efficacy and reduced drift. It is claimed that by using individual nozzle control you can reduce overlap by 6% over standard automatic section control. This is a large saving, and when added to the better droplet size control makes it very interesting.   

PWM nozzle setup

 

After visiting Tom, it was time for Jake and I to go our separate ways until we meet up again in the US. It was really good to have Jake as company for the start of the trip, but also exciting to be off on my own now. Jake stayed in Saskatoon and I continued heading east to Langenburg, to meet up with a farmer Terry Aberhart.

A quiet road heading east across Saskatchewan.

 

Alberta to Saskatchewan

We left Three hills Alberta and were bound for Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Everyone told us it would be a boring drive across the prairies of Canada, but for a pair of farmers from the UK who enjoy looking out across other peoples crops, (without being told to keep your eyes the road from other passengers!) it was great.

A reminder of my daughter Hannah!

 

 

As we drove across the prairies it is the sheer vastness and openness that was so striking, coming from England, with small twisting roads with hedges and small fields, interspersed with small villages and large towns, the contrast between the two countries is massive. They say a camera never lies, but it also can't do this landscape justice.

 

Every big town that we drove through there would be large machinery dealerships, dominated by John Deere and Case, with rows of tractors, combines and sprayers, old and new lined up ready to be sold. The temptation was to great and we had to get out and kick a few tyres!

 

 

 

After a few hours we reached the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan, so we had to take some photos of the road signs, I am sure other motorists, there were a few, thought we were strange taking photos of signs.

 

 

Having crossed the border we headed to Saskatoon, to meet up with Garth Patterson and Gina Feist, from Western Grains Research Foundation, www.westerngrains.com at the University of Saskatoon. It is very impressive how much research into and teaching of agriculture is happening in Canada. It shows how important agriculture is to the Canadian economy, and that it is still seen as an industry that young people want to be involved with.  As it was friday afternoon, we conducted our meeting in the beer garden and had a great discussion on the current state of Canadian agriculture and how Western grains are facilitating agricultural research. Afternoon turn to early evening, and it was time to find our way to our host for that evening, Barb stefanyshyn-cote's house,but not before we had our picture taken with the band, Whiskey on a Sunday, that had been entertaining us.

 

 





Day 2 in Three Hills with Steve larocque

 A beautiful summers day in Alberta

Perfect conditions for crop inspections

 

 

Our second day with Steve, in the morning we headed out to see some crops and meet up with some of Steve's clients. After some interesting discussion about current options in the Canadian, GPS guidance market and how the problem of salinity can be addressed, we arrived at a field of Canola. Steve has been comparing conventional air seeder planted canola and using a precision vacuum planter. The conventional plot had been planted at a seedrate of 5kg/ha, which led to a plant count of 50 plants/m2, which was a 45% seed mortality rate. Therefore nearly half the seed didn't grow, for a number of reasons, seed placement, crop competition or maybe mechanical damage.

 

 

Conventional Air Seeder

 

The precision vacuum planter seedrate was 3.5 kg/ha, which led to a plant count of 65 plants/m2 and a 7% seed mortality. This is a much lower seed mortality, and means that the seed rate could probably be reduced some more, and still give an adequate plant count and good crop canopy density, at the same time as reducing the seed cost. This method does require a specialist drill for the canola though, so it is not all positive, that's farming for you! The vast majority of Canola grown in Canada is GM, and is made up around 100 different varieties which fall into 3 distinct herbicide tolerant groups (Roundup Ready, Clearfield and Liberty Link). Along with the herbicide tolerance other growth traits are built into the GM breeding such as drought and heat tolerance, maturity date and stem stiffness.

 

After inspecting the canola trial we met up with one of Steve's clients, Allen Jones. Al was farming around 5000 acres and growing wheat, canola and for the first year Faba Beans, which were just starting to flower to our surprise.

 

Looks like Al, Jake and Steve are deep in thought

inspecting Al's new crop of Faba Beans

 

 

Al also has a herd of 200 Hereford (Herfud, as the Canadians like to pronounce it!) cattle, we didn't get to see them unfortunately. The cattle are all kept outside all year round, and Al has designed a straw and chaff collector that fits on the back of his combine. When the collector is full it tips the straw and chaff out in piles, then during the winter the cattle feed on it, seems like a good way to deal with the crop residue and feed cattle outside.

 

 

After lunch we meet some more of Steve's clients along with some representatives from Bayer in a local bar, I think I could get used to agronomy in Alberta. We chatted about the different fungicide programs in the UK and Canada. Stobilurins are still widely used in Canada, as there is little resistance to them unlike the UK, Triazoles are also commonly used. At the moment no SDHI fungicides are used in Canada. No Growth regulators are used at the moment either but, interest is growing as Canadian farmers are trying to increase yields without having lodging issues.

 

 

At the end of the day we visited another farm belonging to the Hilton Family, near Strathmore.

 

  

 

We met Spencer Hilton and his son Dane, who had only recently come back to the family business. The Hiltons had land that was very spread out and was 100km from end to end, but with large roads and not too much traffic the distance is manageable and sometimes an advantage if the weather is stormy. The Hiltons ran a very efficient business and were geared to allow opportunities for younger members of the family to join if they wanted to. We even got to drink some beer made in California with their barley whilst we talked farming and Nuffield.



 





Controlled Traffic Farming and Interrow Seeding in Three Hills, Alberta - Day 1

We travelled north from Strathmore for about an hour without changing roads or direction, to Three Hills, where we were met by a Canadian Nuffield scholar, Steve Larocque. We had previously met Steve and his wife Vanessa at Niagra, during the CSC (Contempary scholars conference) in march. We were made very welcome at the Larocque household, and even the children accepted us after sizing us up for a while.



Me, Steve and Jake









Steve did his Nuffield, on Precision farming also, and ended up focusing on Controlled Traffic farming (CTF) adoption, and is now one of the leaders in CTF in Canada. CTF is where the all machines follow the same wheelings across a field, leading to trafficked areas and non trafficked areas of the field. This should lead to a better soil structure and ultimately better yields. CTF is only possible if you use the highest level of GPS guidance RTK (Real time Kinetimatic), as repeatability is a necessity. Steve showed us some Canola plants that had been grow under CTF (2 years), and some non CTF, the comparison was dramatic. CTF is harder to adopt in the UK than in Canada for two main reasons, UK fields are smaller and have a larger proportion that is headland, and secondly getting all UK machines to be the same wheel track width is difficult.

   L: Non CTF                        R: CTF

Steve is an agronomist as well as running his own farm, his agronomy company is called Beyond Agronomy,(http://beyondagronomy.com/). Steve has a core of 10 clients and covers around 37,000 acres, he has also designed and sells apps for smart phones, such as seedrate calculators and Herbicide tank mix calculators.

Steve took us to see some of the machines that are commonly used in his area, at a local John Deere machinery dealer. The scale of the equipment is what first strikes you, but once you get beyond that the machines have some very good design features. Such as sectional control on the air seeders to reduce overlap and seed requirement, to a simple method for keeping the wheels on the air seeder free from soil in wet conditions. We looked at several tine (shank) type drills, I was most impressed by the Conservapak, as it had a short arm for contour following ability, low soil disturbance and reconsolidated to the side of the row rather than on top.



High Clearance Sprayer, with wheels retracted

Sectional control on an Airseeder

Simply wheel cleaning design

Conservapak seeding shank (Seed & Fertilizer)

After a Pub Lunch sponsored by Syngenta with some of Steve's clients and other farmers, (a free lunch and wet days have the same response all over the world!), we headed out to Starland Hutterite colony, and met farm boss Peter Stahl. The Hutterites area originally from Austria and there are now colonies all across Canada. Starland colony farmed 15,000 acres, growing crops, raising cattle, pigs and chickens (no sheep after they learnt how to start the auger from Peter's seed bins for a midnight snack) and embraced all new technology, from mobile phones to RTK Guidance on all there large modern equipment. It was a great pleasure to visit the colony and spend time with Peter, he made us very welcome and gave us food and wine to take with us. Steve showed us an example of inter row seeding at the colony, with wheat having been planted between the previous years canola rows.

Wheat inter row seeded between last years Canola