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.

 

Rothamsted Research Facility

Yesterday I attended a fantastic site in Hertfordshire with our regional (West Midlands) Combinable Crops Board for the National Farmers Union (NFU)  The site is all over the newspapers at the moment due to the GM wheat trials that are being run there.  The site is of course Rothamsted where they have been at the forefront of Agricultural Research since 1843 when experiments were first conducted there by Sir John Bennet Lawes.  These experiments are still running today, known as the Broadbalk Experiment, and is testament to the incredible foresight of these pioneers of science and those that have followed.  Standing on the site with other farmers it is very easy to imagine farmers 100 years ago (and more) on the same spot thinking the same thoughts and try to solve, I suspect, very similar problems.  The trial site has some plots that have received no nitrogen for 160 years, other sites have received farm yard manure every year (hope they're not in a NVZ) and many different management regimes travel across the plots with different herbicide or pesticide applications on to see what impact they have.  The water draining from the plots can also be collected and monitored.

The trees in the distance are also part of the experiment, to see what would happen if farmers just abandoned the fields, how long it would revert to woodland and what species would thrive?

The plot above shows very clearly the effect of herbicide taking out many of the weeds that are taking nutrients and water away from the wheat crop.  Each year samples of straw, soil and grain are collected and stored for future examination. In total over 250,000 samples have been collected.  The soil could tell us when the Chernobyl accident occurred with increased radiation, with a time lag of 6 months.  It really is an incredible place.  It is only fitting then that the scientists there should be trialling the first GM trials in the country for nearly a decade.  The team led by Prof. John Picket CBE DSc FRS is trialing wheat that has been modified to give off warning pheromones (from a mint plant) that when released repel aphids and attract their natural enemies the parasitic wasps, who then lay eggs in the aphids killing the few stragglers off.   We as a country in line with the rest of the EU are lagging behind in the experimental research into these crops.  The EU is happy to import products that contain GMO's but do not want us to grow them here.  If there is a risk then why are we happy to export that risk to other countries?  It does seem a bit crazy to me. Food prices have increased by over 30% in the last 4 years and will only increase as the world population increases and weather effects limit the supply of food to the worlds population.  Only when the price of food; or the lack of it, puts pressure on the system will the EU then allow farmers to use this technology but by then it might be too late, with much of the research being conducted elsewhere in the world.

We were very lucky to actually be allowed onto the trial site, although the crop of Cadenza Spring Wheat, had only just been planted and therefore there was nothing for us to see.  The fencing, security and camera's have cost over £120,000 in a bid to try and keep any protesters out.  I just hope that the team are able to get through the trial so that we can actually learn about these techniques and see what advantage they offer us in a bid to feed a lot of very hungry mouths in the future.