Heading to North Dakota Day 25

After the very hectic day yesterday with Dwayne Beck at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm today was a more relaxed day driving the 200 miles north to Bismark in North Dakota.  We took our time to stop off several times along the way to 'poke' around in many different field and machinery dealerships along the way.  Our first place to stop was Ohae Dam  It was started in the 1940's and is used to generate hydro electric electricity for the region.  There was also a plan to move the lake water 200 miles by canal to the East to irrigate crops when there rotation was wheat, summer fallow, wheat summer fallow etc.  This rotation caused the dust bowls, similar to those at Oklahoma and Kansas in the 1930's.  With zero tillage adoption pushed by Dwayne among other reasons the plan (thankfully) was scrapped.  We called in to kick some tyres along the way.  This is the flag ship Quadtrac, weighing in at 600 hp it was quite a beast!  The keys were just sitting in the tractor cab, unlocked, so we had a sit in and marvelled at the size and the power, bristling with gadgets and the latest technology.

Along the way we stopped at a few fields, of biotech soybeans, very clean crops, no sign of weed resistance and zero tilled helping reduce that problem.  I've learnt that by not disturbing he soil surface, you get less weed germination, so you can reduce herbicides, incur  less costs and improve the environment buy not applying herbicides all the time for weed control, which we have to do.

We also stopped at some spring wheat, zero tilled into corn stubble and it looked fantastic.  The corn stalked had mulched the wheat seeds, reducing weed development and retained the rain, reducing soil erosion and keeping the water where it's needed for these crops, the soil.  The wheat was very clean and I suspect it had not had any fungicides as there were no tramlines to be found.  You can see the previous crop residue at the bottom of the picture.  You need a special drill/planter to get through that kind of trash.

We headed up the road still further to find more examples of late night country entertainment.  This one is shooting at the road signs, as shown above, with the numerous bullet holes peppering the sign.  This wasn't the only peppered sign, they were everywhere!

On the outskirts on Mandan we found the North Dakota Veterans Cemetery so we spent a few quiet moments wandering around reading the grave stones of people who had served the United States over the last 100 years.  It was very hot by now, over 90 degrees Fahrenheit so we got back into the car and headed north.  It was a lovely site and was perfectly manicured and laid out.

We headed onwards and stopped one last time to watch some cows and calves relaxing in a watering hole.  It was so hot I felt like hopping in and joining them!  There seemed to be plenty of water and the cows and horses seemed quite able to cope in the warm weather.  Once through Bismark we headed  East out to Brown's Ranch where our journey into soil health continues tomorrow morning.

Day 7 - A Day of Rest? Nope

Pancakes for breakfast with maple syrup which I have to say is a great way to start the day. After a catch up on the terrible flood at Calgary and Canmore (where we were on Monday) a neighbour of Ian's came over to say hello.  We chatted about crop marketing after the dissolution of the Canadian Wheat Marketing Board.  A move that was well over due and has freed the market up substantially.  Farmers are now able to grow what the customer desires.  Jeff is growing milling wheat specifically for the local mill, can organise the price, transport and when he wants to sell it.  Previously the movement period was dictated by the CWB, and only 80% of the expected value was paid on delivery.  The balance paid at the end of the season.  Seems a crazy really, farmers were even put in prison for selling wheat across the border to the US.

Here's a new crop for me, lentils.  These has some ascochyter developing on the lower leaves due to the wet humid weather.  The crop should be flowering in about a week and will, like everything else grow very quickly.

The crop below is a crop of 'Roundup Ready' Canola.  There are three main types of herbicide resistant Canola used in Canada, Roundup Ready, Clearfield and Liberty.  Each of these varieties are resistant to their specific family of herbicides.  This makes great sense to me.  Take our crops; they could potentially receive 4 different herbicides, with 4 different application timings and here they do just one.  Think of the fuel savings; in the pocket, but also a saving for the environment, of application fuel and manufacturing petro-chemicals.  To me there seems no problem with 'Biotech' crops from an agronomy point of view.  There is resistance to watch out for but we have that to manage now anyway.  There are over 100 different varieties of biotech crop.  The first stage in planning is to work out which family you want to use (best practise is one different to last time, so the volunteers are susceptible in the next crop), then you can choose for different traits, drought, yield, cold hardiness, shedding resistance etc, just as we would for conventionally bred varieties.  Imagine if we could use these crops in the UK and have them resistant to fungi, rusts, slugs or insects, we could cut down or reduce the amount of chemicals we currently use.  Imagine that no insecticides! Why should we take the moral ground in the EU and allow imports of selected GM produce, and have farmers elsewhere in the world growing them.  If it's safe for them to grow then it's safe for us.

Back to this crop.  It was planted on the 15th May and after 39 days it was at stem extension with green bud showing.  The stand was very even and the field just went on for a far as the eye could see.

When I got back to Saskatoon after fixing a puncture on the way; and driving 50Km very slowly on my mini wheel, all part of the Nuffield experience, I headed out with my host John Cote to a large auction house. Ritchie Bros has fairly regular auctions all over the province.  It was an incredible sight with 38 combines, 33 large sprayers, 24 swathers, trucks, trailers, augers, backhoes, rollers, seeders and the list goes on.  It was a very impressive sight.  I made it back to the auction on Monday but unfortunately missed the main items being sold.

I quite fancied a bid on the little McCormick below, obviously there were no green ones there, and I guess the haulage home might be a little inhibitive, never mind there will always be another time and place.