Alberta Day 4 - Beyond Agronomy

Our second day out with Steve started with a visit to Al Jones, who's family has been farming in Alberta since 1903.  Al runs about 5,000 acres with his family.  A herd of 200 Herefords (Herfuds) cattle also run on the farm.  We looked at some of Al's crops after a tour of the workshop.  Steve and Al are trialling precision rape seeding with very low seed mortality compared to the usual air seeding.  The photograph above shows the young canola seedlings growing fantastic root structures very quickly.  Al doesn't practise CTF (controlled Traffic Framing) but has been zero till for a long time.  Again what stood out was the lovely soil, very well structured even after a lot of heavy rain.

Al is also trying a field of Faber Beans this year to see how the crop develops and to get a handle on its Agronomy.  The crop was just starting to flower and in need of a herbicide, but weather delays, due to rain are frustrating the operation. (Sound familiar?)  Beans would be a fairly new venture in the area to add further diversity into the rotation.

I put this picture in of a huge tractor, used for seeding to demonstrate the low ground pressure that they are using when travelling on the fields.  These tires would run at 7psi on the front and 8psi on the rears. It helps that the tractor is duelled up but the attention to traffic and soil protection is a credit.  Getting the soil wrongly managed can be a disaster especially on the soils around Alberta.  Here's what we saw when driving to Saskatoon the following day, not a customer of Steve's!

After an agronomists lunch we headed out to visit Spencer Hilton who has land spread over a 100Km  strip end to end.  I bet it's quite a sight at harvest moving men and machines along the highway.  Spencer had a great business, succession and planing are the key.  Weekly family management meetings and regular staff meetings all made for a very well run business.  The staff were empowered that if they weren't happy, for a safety reason, they could shut the operation down, the management would sort it out and they would move on.  With the removal of the Canadian Wheat Board new markets were developing and Spencer was taking full advantage.  They are contracted to grow malting barley for an American brewing company where the risk was shared between the two parties, in the form of an area value rather than a bushel value.

A huge thanks to Steve and Vanessa for putting us up and showing us around the Three Hills area of Alberta, it really was a terrific visit!

Alberta Day 3 - Three Hills with Steve Larocque

Day 3 and we've been very well looked after by Nuffield Scholar Steve Larocque who runs his own company with wife Vanessa called Beyond Agronomy.  Steve lives and works around the town of Three Hills in Alberta.  The town has a population of 2,500 and somewhere 19 churches!  Most of the farms in the area are about 3,000-4,000 acres and have been zero tilled for about 20years.  The soil is loamy, almost sweet smelling and with the great advice Steve is offering to his clients, yields are moving on up.

I was very interested in the planting methods used for zero till so we headed to the local John Deere dealership Evergreen's at Drumheller.  In the yard was a Seed Hawk planter with a seed hopper for fertiliser and seed that could carry 20T.  Bearing in mind nearly all of the fertiliser for the crop is applied at seeding, these rigs were huge.  All pulled by over 500hp of tractor either on duals, triples or tracks, with widths of up to 66'.  Even transport widths were hovering around the 5m mark!  We also looked at the John Deere ConservaPac opener which placed the fertiliser and the seed almost down the same drill row, seeding tine behind fertiliser tine, reducing soil disturbance creating a very even drilling depth and capable of following uneven topography, with short leg length.  Drilling speeds of around 4.5mph are common, so relatively slow compared to our drilling speeds but reduced soil disturbance is key to the system.  

After some lunch we headed out to visit a Hutterite Community at Starlands.  The we were met by 'Farm Boss' Peter Stahl.  It was a very slick operation and Pete was keen to show us around the farm.  The investment was huge with 3 big drilling rigs each worth somewhere near $750,000.  Each of these systems is capable of planting 350 acres in a 24 hour period, and with 14,900 acres (of all crops to plant), seeding can be completed in 14 days.  The infrastructure was impressive too with grain store, hog yards, dairy, beef and chickens.  The community share everything between each other, so all 93 souls get a share of the wealth.  At the communal kitchens we met Pete's wife and daughter who were busy preparing the fresh chicken for super that evening.  It's a shame I couldn't take any pictures but the I will certainly remember Pete for his warm welcome, generosity and openness into the way they live.

We called in to look at some of Pete's crops and the picture above show wheat plants being planted between the rows of Canola stalks.  This is using the guidance on the tractors (RTK) to the fullest and means the new roots and follow the old crop root channels down without all the stubble stalks being ripped up.  It also acts as protection to some degree to the young shoots as they emerge.  Another great day; meeting interesting people, more tomorrow.

Alberta Day 2 18th June

Day 2 and we are out on farm.  Today we were visiting the team from Agritrend who are a group of independent crop coaches (agronomists) who all work under the Agritrend umbrella  The company was started by Rob Saik in 1997 and is now involved in many aspects of farm business from agromomy,  business development and precision farming (incl data management) to grain marketing and many other aspects.

After meeting Warren Bills and Matt Gosling  (and a footlong sub for lunch), we headed to the fields in Wheatland County.  There are 1 million acres in the county and 3% of that land would be classified as the best soil in the province of Alberta, with about 1/3 of that land on the farm we visited.

The spear Matt used very easily went down 18" of no-till soil before he pulled out it out to reveal the black organic soil that smelt incredible.  The soil had just been direct drilled for about 20 years and was in a great condition.  Then he put the probe back into the hole and took out the next 18" down which was a more bodied clay but also very free draining and very accessible to the plants roots.  The crops here only have a very short growth period, maybe only 150 days from the middle of April until the middle of September when the first frosts kill off the crops.  They go through the growth stages very quickly.  The stem extension stage can take as little as 10 days (GS30-GS40)  At home that can take over 35 days.  Only 2 fungicides are applied as the crop grows so fast and the majority of the fertiliser is applied in the soil at seeding.  There are no growth regulators which limits the amount of fertiliser farmers can apply, effectively pegging yield as the crops need to stand.

The drilling rig here is about 21m wide (66') and the seed trailer at the back has 5 compartments.  One for seed and the other 4 for different straights of fertiliser so each nutrient can be variably applied, to a recommendation based on soil sampling, yield prediction and previous history.  The rotation is all spring cropping with OSR (Canola) then wheat followed by barley which is whole cropped to feed to the cattle.

The cattle feed lot, where 10 years ago they would have finished 22-25,000 head of beef now they finish 11,000 head due to the economics of beef production in Canada.  There are fewer processors to sell to so a proportion of the beef is shipped to the US for sale.  The cattle will travel down to Nebraska, Utah and Washington from here.

A huge thanks to Warren, Matt and Rob for showing us around the operation and also to Marissa for the excellent home cooked ribs we had for supper.  After leaving Matt's house we headed north towards Three Hills for the next leg of our journey.

Alberta Day 1 - 17th June

On our first full day in Canada we ventured out into the Rocky Mountains along the main East-West Trans-Canadian Highway (Number 1).  We headed into Canmore, then onto Banff where we had lunch before heading further into the mountains in search of lake Louise and Lake Moraine and the Valley of the 10 Peaks, that tower over the crystal clear  glacier water.  The view took our breath away and after the torrential downpour with accompanying thunder and lightening in Banff, the sun shone and it really was spectacular! 

We were lucky enough to see this little fellow at Lake Moraine a young male Grizzly beer, just grazing grass near the car park, completely unmoved or disinterested with the 50 or so lenses pointed at him.  He looked up occasionally but decided dandelion's were a better option than tourists!  Just as well as they can run at 60Km/hr and with huge claws they obviously need to be treated with respect.

We headed back to Calgary via the Bow Valley Parkway which runs through the National Park and is a stunning drive, twisty roads, fabulous views and probably the longest train I have seen!  This train was  empty heading East to the Potash mines in Saskatchewan.  It was about 170 carriages long and was doing  about 60Km/Ha. There could have been over 10,000 T of Potash fertiliser on the train when full, with a farm gate value of over £3.5 million!

The Dodge Charger was just the beast for taming the twisty roads!  No number plates on the front though which we thought was strange.

We rounded the evening off down at the local pub with our Nuffield Scholar host Ryan Bonnett, his girlfriend Helaina and room mate Scotty.  Early start tomorrow to surrender the Charger, get a local mobile phone and head out East into some fields.

Welcome to Calgary

Well we have finally left the country!  After a farewell at the airport with Andrea, we headed into Terminal 3 at Heathrow for our flight.  As we checked in the lady asked us if we minded taking a later flight as the flight we were booked onto was over sold.  We looked, and thought and finally agreed, the compensation was to be about £500, another trip somewhere we thought; but as it turned out we weren't required to 'volunteer' to be delayed.  There was no upgrade either!  The flight took about 9 hours and when we arrived and headed onto the road the first thing that struck me was the space.  Wide open space, except for the huge mall's but a big blue sky.  I'm sure the photo's this trip won't do it justice but we're underway.

Our host for the first couple of nights is 2012 Nuffield Scholar Ryan Bonnett who works for BASF and is based just outside of Calgary in a town called Airdrie.  After settling in, meeting Scott and Helaina and unwinding with a game of 'throw the bean bag in a hole' (which we got thrashed at)

and chatting constantly we headed to the pub; just around the corner for a beer before turning in for the night.  Tomorrow is another day with lots more to discover.

Nuffield Adventures Part 2

So it's finally here, take off day.  The first leg of my Nuffield personal study to investigate whether or not it is possible to grow a 20T/Ha wheat crop in the UK in the next 20 years.  It's been a long time in the planning stages with e-mails and skype messages, even finding contacts through twitter, but today is the day I head to Heathrow to set off for the first stop Calgary.  So if you are in Calgary and see a couple of lost Nuffield Scholars do stop us and hello!  I am travelling with Andrew Williamson from Bridgnorth in Shropshire for the first few days which I'm looking forward too.  It will be great to share some of the experience with a mate.

I'll be looking at growing wheat in the Canadian Prairies, the Great Plaines, the Palouse and the Dakota's of America, talking to farmers, scientists and agronomists.  It will be a great adventure as well as bringing some important messages back to UK Agriculture and new ideas for the home farm.  I will try and update the blog as much as I can to keep you all posted about the journey I'm about to embark on! 

All Covered Up?

Well this year is certainly making me think long and hard about the long term benefits of cover cropping when there is no other crop planted in the ground.  It is also making me think about leaving ground bare and I'm coming to the conclusion that we should be having crops growing all the time.  The soil microbes, fungi and bacteria all need to be fed to keep them healthy, this would seem logical wouldn't it?  Keeping the soil microbes healthy recycles nutrients within the system, keeps the soil structure maintained reduces soil erosion and increases water quality. It can also dry the land out faster and more evenly.  It also provides a great habitat for  our wildlife, I see an abundance of brown hare; we have skylarks serenading me as I walk the fields and lapwing swooping down to ward of visitors from their nests and young fledglings.

The field above is a mixture of Phacelia, Fodder Radish and a mixture of winter and spring beans.  The beans can, with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria, turn atmospheric nitrogen into a form that the plants can use later in the season or it should be available for the next crop.

This is a fodder radish plant that has a tap root very similar to a parsnip by the looks of things.  It is penetrating the soil with the equivalent force of 400lb/square inch.  The picture above shows the root development 5 weeks since the crop was planted in a very cold and difficult spring (aren't they all these days).  I am hopeful that where the crop has established well there will be no need to subsoil this year.

As the cover crop plants die; the following crop, in this case winter wheat, their roots will be able to follow these roots down to the moisture in tracks already provided.  This means the wheat will use less energy to produce their roots enabling more efficient use of energy.  All in all there is no immediate financial return for doing this but the long term benefits will pay back with better yields and we'll have a farming system that is more resilient to the challenges of climate change that are all to obvious.  There will also be opportunities for moving livestock around the farm, returning more organic manure, I just have to work out how!