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Volume 41, Number 4 | FEBRUARY 10, 2015
$4.25
PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER
www.grainews.ca
Reviewing the CTA
photo: lisa guenther
The Canada Transportation Act is under review. Prairie farm associations
are sending their views about grain transportation to the review panel
By Lisa Guenther
T
he Canada Transportation
Act (CTA) Review “is a
critical moment in time,”
Robynne Anderson told
delegates at Saskatoon’s CropSphere
in mid-January. Anderson was
speaking for the Prairie Oat Growers
Association (POGA).
It’s also a chance to create a
more fair, equitable and transparent system, said Anderson, founder
of Emerging Ag, an issues management and communications company. “And that will take a lot of
political will because the CTA is a
very large act.”
Last year’s logistics woes triggered
Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240
the CTA Review. The review panel
is looking at whether the transportation system is responding effectively to domestic and international
market needs and conditions. It’s
focusing specifically on grain transportation by rail, although some
provisions may apply to other commodities. The review is now taking submissions from stakeholders,
including farm groups. Some have
submitted reports, while others are
still finalizing their submissions.
Grainews pulled information
from Anderson’s presentation and
POGA’s recommendations. We also
talked to Blair Rutter, executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat
Growers Association (WCWGA).
And finally, we went through a
submission filed jointly by the
Saskatchewan Wheat Development
Commission, the Saskatchewan
Barley Development Commission,
the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers
and the Agricultural Producers
Association of Saskatchewan.
Following is each group’s position on five issues related to
grain transportation.
More information
POGA, WCWGA and the
Saskatchewan coalition all agree
on the need for more information
on rail movement.
Anderson told delegates the
playing field is not level. “If
you’re in a situation where you’re
looking at arbitration or you’re
looking at service level agreements, railways have 100 per cent
of the information. The handlers
themselves have a portion of the
information… And farmers are
lucky if they get one-tenth of that
information six months later.”
POGA wants better information
on cars shipped into the U.S.,
Anderson told delegates. Right
now cars are only tracked to the
border rather than to delivery
points in the U.S. POGA also wants
to see information on movement
by commodity.
Rutter said he’d like to see weekly
In This Issue
reporting on how much grain was
loaded, where it went, and market information that helps people
plan. For example, if the railways
are getting behind, people will
know not to put sales on the books,
he said. “That kind of information
allows for better decision-making
on the part of everyone.”
The Saskatchewan coalition
wants information such as weekly
port unloads, vessel lineups, outstanding orders of producer cars,
car movement by corridor, forward sales by commodity, export
price quotes by port and grade
and more.
» continued on page 4
Wheat & Chaff .................. 2
Features . ........................... 5
Crop Advisor’s Casebook . 8
Columns ............................ 17
Machinery & Shop............. 26
Cattleman’s Corner .......... 31
Manage your grain bags
stephanie grace page 10
Skid steer special
FarmLife ............................ 36
scott garvey page 27
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2
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Wheat & Chaff
STAMPEDEBY JERRY PALEN
Leeann
Minogue
I
’ve been using this space to
write about the farm organizations we’re funding. In
this issue: wheat.
I’ve already written about
the Western Grains Research
Foundation, which uses a checkoff of $0.30 per tonne on wheat
to fund wheat research. But
there are also six new wheatrelated groups that have sprung
up across the Prairies since the
end of the Canadian Wheat
Board monopoly.
Alberta
“Ruling out the obvious, I just thought I’d better
add some money to my chequing account.”
contact us
Write, Email or Fax
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Email [email protected]
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Since August 2012, the Alberta
Wheat Commission has been
collecting a refundable checkoff
of $0.70 per tonne from Alberta
wheat growers. This is in addition
to the $0.48 transitional checkoff
(the Wheat and Barley Checkoff)
that all Prairie wheat growers pay
to the WGRF and Cigi, for a total
of $1.18 per tonne.
The AWC’s mandate is to
increase profitability for Alberta
wheat growers “through funding
innovative research, market development and promotional activities, producer education programs
and policy development.”
There are 11 farmers on the
AWC’s board — two elected from
each of five regions, and one
member-at-large. Kent Erickson,
the current chair, was previously involved with the Alberta
Winter Wheat Producers. Tom
Steve, the general manger, is the
head of a total office staff of 10,
not including two that are currently on leave.
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan farmers fund
the new Saskatchewan Wheat
Development Commission
through a checkoff of $0.52
cents per tonne. This, plus the
transitional checkoff of $0.48
results in a total checkoff of
$1.00 per tonne.
Farmers were first elected
to run this commission last
January. It’s governed by seven
farmers, with Bill Gehl as chair.
Bill came to the SWDC from the
Canadian Wheat Board Alliance
and a role at the Saskatchewan
National Farmers Union.
I spoke to the Commission’s
general manager Harvey Brooks
about the SWDC’s priorities.
One important thing the SWDC
is doing is examining how farmers can be involved in varietal
development.
Harvey is very passionate
about farmer-driven ag research.
“The WGRF has a research report
that shows, on average, every
dollar invested in producerfunded varietal research returns
$20.40 in value to the producer,
and even larger returns to the
Canadian economy,” he said.
“Producers, generally, are very
supportive of research,” Harvey
told me. “The question is
whether or not we have enough
capacity in all areas of research
of interest to producers.”
What else will the SWCD be
working on? “The agronomic side
is a real concern,” Harvey said.
The SWDC and the Saskatchewan
Barley Development Commission
were initially set up under joint
management in one office. Then
they had an amicable divorce. Now
the two commissions collaborate,
as you’ve already noticed if you’ve
read the cover of this issue, they’re
both part of a coalition on grain
transportation. They had a joint
booth at the Crop Production
Show in January, Harvey said, and
“we’ve talked about other collaborative efforts.”
Manitoba
Instead of a “commission,”
Manitoba has a new Manitoba
Wheat and Barley Growers
Association. Farmers pay a
checkoff of $0.52 per tonne of
wheat ($0.50 per tonne for barley). This makes the total bill
for Manitoba wheat growers $1
per tonne, including the transitional checkoff.
Chair Don Dewar, told me
“We are the youngest kid on the
block, and the smallest.” (By the
time you read this, there will be a
new chair — Don planned to step
down at the February meeting.)
In Manitoba, rather than forming two separate groups to manage wheat and barley research,
they’ve gone with one. In
Manitoba ag research, “we have
an awful lot of CEOs,” Don told
me. “We’re spending over half
a million dollars (annually) in
Manitoba. Can we do a better job?
I don’t know what the answer is.”
This new Association won’t
be tackling ag policy. Don is a
former chair of the Keystone
Agricultural Producers (KAP),
which is already representing farmers’ policy views. And
other Association members,
Don points out, are members
of the Western Canadian Wheat
Growers or the NFU.
B.C.
It’s so much simpler in B.C.
B.C. wheat growers pay the $0.48
per tonne transitional checkoff,
and also pay one-third of one
per cent of their gross wheat
sales to the B.C. Peace River
Grain Industry Development
Council that’s been in place
since 1990.
Cereals Canada
Cereals Canada is a new
national group. If you’re growing wheat in Manitoba, Alberta
or B.C., some of your checkoff dollars are forwarded on to
Cereals Canada’s head office
in Winnipeg. They have other
members too: crop development
companies, seed companies and
grain handlers.
General manager Cam Dahl,
refers to this as the “three membership pillars.” Crop development and seed companies make
up 25 per cent of the board.
Grain companies and exporters
have another 37.5 per cent of
board positions, and farmers get
37.5 per cent of the seats on the
board. “That’s the same split as
the budget,” Cam said.
Cereals Canada’s priorities
are market development, support and innovation. “And then
there’s just basic industry leadership,” Cam said. “Ensuring
that the industry can speak to
our customers and governments
with one voice.”
The SWDC is not a member.
Cam said that, as a temporary
measure, “We have requested that
the Saskatchewan government
nominate a Saskatchewan producer to represent Saskatchewan
producers on our board.”
Harvey Brooks said the SWDC
board “has decided to defer a
decision on the national grower
organizations for the time being.”
The SWCD will be under pressure
to make a decision. On Jan. 27,
the Wheat Board Alliance sent
out a press release urging the
SWCD not to join Cereals Canada,
and berated Saskatchewan agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart for
suggesting that they should. In
the release, Alliance spokesperson
Kyle Korneychuk said: Cereals
Canada “cannot reflect the
interests of farmers. It has only
three western farmers on a Board
largely composed of representatives of multinational grain and
agro-chemical companies.”
Clarifications
and corrections
When I write about farm
organizations rather than what’s
happening on our farm, I get
fewer complaints from my husband but more suggestions from
readers.
Angela
Ebsworth,
senior
communications adviser with
the Canadian Transportation
Agency, pointed out a mistake
in a previous column about how
the decision was made to transfer railway overcharges to a fund
within the WGRF. I wrote that
the CTA made that decision in
2000. Actually, Angela wrote,
“that decision was made by
Transport Canada in consultation with Agriculture Canada.”
Don Dewar called about my
summary of farm checkoff history. I wrote that the new transitional were previously collected
by the CWB. The truth is more
interesting. The portion of the
transitional checkoff that goes
to the WGRF used to be deducted
from farmers’ final payments on
wheat and barley. “This caused
the organization problems in
the years there was no final payment,” Don said.”
As for Cigi and the Canadian
Malt Barley Technical Centre,
Don pointed out that these
organizations were not funded
through checkoffs, but “funded
directly by the CWB and thus
were directed by the CWB. The
funding was an expense of the
CWB doing business, and farmers who sold wheat or barley
through the CWB had no say, or
opportunity to ask for a refund.”
Unless we know our history,
we’ll never understand where
we are. Thank you, Angela and
Don. †
Leeann
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
Wheat & Chaff
Photo contest
Farm safety
GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT
This picture came from Suzanne Paddock, from
Baldur, Manitoba.
Suzanne says, “This is our donkey, Ivan, who enjoys
taking my hat off my head every chance he gets, then
drops it and runs! He is holding it here like he wants
me to come and get it.”
Thanks for the photo Suzanne. We’ll send you a
cheque for $25. We think you should use the cash to
buy Ivan his own hat.
Send your best shot to leeann.minogue@
fbcpublishing.com. 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
Safeguards on the farm
P
hysical safeguards on the farm are one
of the most effective injury prevention
tools. Restricting access to danger-zones,
machine guards and personal protective
equipment are all ways to prevent injuries on the
farm. Oftentimes these simple solutions are overlooked, but it’s worth revisiting these safeguards to
reduce risk on your farming operation.
One of the most incredibly effective ways to prevent injuries is to restrict access to danger zones. It’s
common sense to keep poison out of the hands of
children and we have to think that same way about
other areas where unauthorized people could get
hurt or injured on the farm.
Making farm work areas no-go-zones for children
is a simple and effective barrier to injuries. Moving
machines, chemical storage areas, lagoons and
dugouts, livestock pens, and grain storage areas are
all places where children and others can become
injured. Creating both physical boundaries (like
a fence) and policies (rules about where children
can and cannot go) go a long way in preventing
accidental deaths or injuries. These restricted access
policies just don’t apply to children; they also
apply to visitors or others on the farm who don’t
understand the hazards and risks associated with a
farming operation.
Machine guards on farm equipment like tractors,
mowers and combines are important to reducing
the risk of injury. A guard is a physical barrier that
prevents access to a danger zone that is created by
the motion of the machine components. There are
a multitude of hazard points on farm equipment.
Areas like chain drives can be pinch points. A pinch
point can easily sever fingers or hands. Wrap points
exist wherever there is an exposed, rotating shaft.
These shafts can wrap clothing, hair or even jewelry
causing entanglement injuries. Shear points exist
where the edges of two components move across
each other in a scissor-like motion, an example of
this would be the point where the auger flighting
enters the tube. Crush points are created when two
components move toward each other or one object
moves toward a stationary object like hydraulic
components or jacked up equipment. Farm machinery can also create thrown objects, a prime example
of this is debris propelled by mowers. Lastly, freewheeling parts like fans or cutter heads create a hazard as even after shutting down, they will continue
to rotate, creating a hazard if people are too close or
attempt to stop the motion.
First and most importantly, good safety habits
will go a long way in preventing injury. Disengage
the power, shut off the engine and remove the
key before performing any maintenance. This
F
You might be from the Prairies if...
By Carson Demmans and Jason Sylvestre
Northern lights
When winter nights are cold,
northern lights are bold.
or most growers, canola yield pays the bills. So
it’s important to get things right and look beyond
last year’s yield data to get a complete picture of
a variety. Here are the top three factors I look for
when reading my provincial canola guide.
First is yield stability. It’s an indication of how well a
hybrid is likely to perform in good and bad years. You
want a hybrid that produces good yields under high-stress
growing conditions, not just under ideal conditions. So
when you read provincial trial results, look at several years
of yield data and see if the results swing dramatically.
Look for a consistent performer.
Second is disease resistance. You can manage most
blackleg and clubroot with the right varieties, especially
important with today’s tight rotations. Remember that
blackleg is more problematic to control now, so consider
varieties with multiple blackleg-resistance genes (or a fungicide application to support the genetics if your field has
a history of blackleg).
Last is standability. It can be an indication of how
easy and efficient your harvest will be. Plus it can be a
broad but indirect reflection of the variety’s ability to
withstand yield robbing stresses, like wind, and stem and
root diseases. †
Michael Hutton, product evaluation scientist, oilseeds for Syngenta Canada Inc.
Canadian Agricultural Safety Association — www.casa-acsa.ca.
Weather Lore
Agronomy tips… from the field
Choose the right canola
step is incredibly simple and sometimes overlooked. However, not all farm work is performed
inside the cab of a tractor or combine. This is
where adequate guarding becomes important. If
shields or guards are removed to perform maintenance, take the time to replace them. Perform
assessments on the farm equipment, identify
any missing or damaged shields and guards and
replace them. Proper guarding on farm equipment can prove to be life-saving.
Lastly, Personal protective equipment (PPE) is easily
one of the best and most cost-effective ways to prevent
illnesses and injuries on the farm. PPE is not limited to
apparel worn when using crop-protection products like
pesticides, but also refers to other equipment like fall
protection, respirators, safety boots, googles, ear plugs,
hard hats and gloves.
Sharp edges, falling objects, flying debris, noise,
chemicals and many other potential hazards exist
on almost every farm. Controlling hazards are the
best way to protect workers on the farm. However
eliminating the hazard isn’t always possible and that’s
where PPE comes in as the last line of defense.
PPE is used to reduce or prevent exposure to
health and safety hazards when other controls
can’t. Understanding what hazards exist and what
kind of PPE should be used is integral to the effectiveness of this injury prevention tool. Not all
farming operations are the same and therefore not
all PPE applies to each farm setting. (For example,
lifejackets and personal floatation devices are
important to cranberry farmers, but not so much
to cattle ranchers.) But there are some basic guidelines that are applicable to all farming operations
when it comes to hazards and PPE. These guidelines are:
• Identify the hazard,
• Identify and purchase the
appropriate PPE for the hazard,
• Train workers on the use
and care of the PPE
• Maintain and replace
any damaged PPE
• Evaluate and update the
effectiveness of the PPE
The best way to prevent injuries is first of all restrict
access, maintain safeguards (like equipment shields)
and use personal protective equipment. Continually
revisiting and evaluating the safeguards you have in
place on your farming operation will lessen the risk
and create a more productive work environment.
Canadian Agricultural Safety Week is March 15-21,
2015. For more information about how you can “Be
the Difference,” please visit agsafetyweek.ca. †
A
n old weather belief that the northern lights or aurora borealis are
an illustrator or forecaster of cold
weather is not quite true.
The aurora occurs when gaseous particles in
the Earth’s atmosphere collide with charged
particles released from the sun’s atmosphere.
This can happen at any time but is easier to
see in a cloudless sky; cloudless winter skies go
with colder temperatures.
The most common aurora colour, a pale
yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth.
All-red auroras are produced by high-altitude
oxygen, at heights of up to 200 miles. Nitrogen
produces blue or purplish-red aurora.
For more information, try www.northernlightscentre.ca.
I couldn’t find a verse expressing this adage so
I wrote this one myself. †
You have three different versions of the
“Last Saskatchewan Pirate” on your iPod.
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 FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Cover Stories
Grain transportation
» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Reviewing
the Canadian
Transportation Act
Service level agreements
In a 2009 survey of 262 shippers, 62 per cent of shippers
reported financial consequences
because of poor performance
by Canadian National (CN) and
Canadian Pacific (CP). POGA
cited the report, conducted by
Transport Canada, as evidence of
the need for service level agreements. Shippers need to be able to
seek arbitration and be on equal
footing, POGA’s submission states.
The Saskatchewan coalition
wants a dispute resolution process
to “resolve rate and service issues
quickly and efficiently.”
Rutter said it’s vital for shippers
to be able to get service agreements with performance clauses,
standards and penalties built in.
“That’s something we pushed
for in the last go-around, and
we’re pushing for now, is to make
sure that penalty provisions are
subject to arbitration,” he said.
Maximum revenue
entitlement
All three groups want a review
of the costs built in to the maximum revenue entitlement.
The revenue entitlement is a formula that determines how much
CP and CN can earn hauling regulated grain. The formula takes
into account cost inflation, average haul length, and how much
grain each railway moves. It only
applies to grain sent to West Coast
ports, Thunder Bay, or Armstrong.
Armstrong is north of Thunder Bay.
The Saskatchewan coalition
notes there are fewer shipping
points and more elevators that can
handle unit trains.
Because of that efficiency, “we
expect dramatically improved
railway profitability from statutory grain movement and hence
the rationale for lower producer
rates,” the Saskatchewan coalition’s report states.
Rutter agreed the review should
look into efficiencies the railways
have gained. “Now as part of that
review, I think what we should
also do is compare the returns
on grain to other commodities so
that we know where we stack up,”
he added.
Both the Saskatchewan coalition and POGA want to keep the
revenue entitlement. The coalition
notes eliminating the entitlement
would allow railways to charge
“monopoly rent” to move grain.
The WCWGA also wants the
revenue entitlement to stay put,
at least for now. In the long term,
the WCWGA wants more processing facilities and livestock on the
Prairies so grain farmers don’t rely
on rail as much. In that scenario,
rate regulations could be relaxed,
Rutter explained.
But for the next decade or so,
“some form of rate regulation will
be required,” Rutter said.
Both WCWGA and POGA recommend creating a financial
incentive for railways to move
more grain when demand is greatest after harvest.
“They have a built-in incentive to have an equal amount of
grain shipped every month. And
all we’re saying is, let’s give them
a greater incentive to add capacity
during the peak shipping season,”
said Rutter.
POGA recommends setting grain
movement targets based on crop
production forecasts and expected
rail car demand and capacity. CN
and CP would collect a bonus if
they exceeded targets by 30 per
cent. And if grain movement fell
10 per cent or more below targets,
set car allocation models or arbitration would kick in, depending
on the shortfall’s severity.
Mandatory movement levels
would kick in only if grain movement plunged 30 per cent below the
baseline. Anderson said it would be
“an extraordinary measure in a scenario where we had extraordinary
failure of the system.”
WCWGA proposes a threshold
based on normal shipment levels
during the peak shipping period
for grain. This threshold might be
based on historical averages, and
might be raised as grain production or rail shipments increase.
If railways move five per cent or
more grain cars than the baseline,
the revenue entitlement would be
increased by increments.
WCWGA doesn’t recommend
adding performance penalties to
the revenue entitlement. Instead,
performance issues should instead
be dealt with through service level
agreements, the group believes.
Producer car orders
Both POGA and the Saskatchewan
coalition want provisions for producer cars.
Anderson said there was a huge
increase in producer car requests
for oats last year. “We know that
producers were looking for any
way that they could get their
oats down to the United States.
And producer cars are part of
that mix.”
POGA recommends special
treatment for producer car orders
of 10 or more, to boost efficiency.
The group’s report notes producer
cars are vital for small shippers,
such as oat growers.
The Saskatchewan coalition
wants the CTA review panel to
make sure producer cars and short
line requirements are recognized
in legislation. The group worries that main line railways and
grain companies “will reduce their
access to the infrastructure and
remove this competitive tool for
producers.”
The coalition suggests establishing an oversight or planning
group to determine producer car
demand and make sure short lines
receive adequate service.
Rutter said the WCWGA board
hasn’t yet discussed producer
car access. He noted that 100-car
shippers are rewarded with a rate
break, while single-car shippers pay
higher rates. All shippers, including
producer cars, suffered during last
year’s lengthy delays, he said.
“It is a good question — to what
degree should they get access to
cars on the same basis as other
shippers?” he said.
Rail line abandonment
The WCWGA isn’t seeking
changes to the rail line abandonment provisions, Rutter said.
“There are provisions where the
province and municipalities have
an opportunity to acquire lines if
the railways wish to abandon it.”
The Saskatchewan coalition
would like to see the Canadian
Transportation Agency investigate
and rule on a railway’s operational
interested in unused or underserviced lines that other groups
have shown interest in buying.
If the agency rules the main line
companies don’t have an operational interest, the line should be
decommissioned and sold. Lines
should be transferred before they
deteriorate or shippers make other
long-term plans, the coalition’s
report states.
POGA believes rail line discontinuance requirements are
too weak. The group notes
that railways control traffic on
lines and can create conditions
needed to close them. The economic impact on nearby communities should be considered
before lines are closed, POGA’s
submission states.
The CTA Review Panel will
review submissions and submit a
report to the minister of transport
by December 24, 2015. Transport
Canada ultimately decides which
recommendations to act on.
Rutter said he’s very optimistic.
“I think we’re going to get to a
better place. Will we get to where
we need to be? Probably not. But
it’s all about making progress and
improving our system and getting
greater competition. Getting better service, better capacity.”
For more information on the
Prairie Oat Growers Association’s
submission, visit www.poga.ca. The
Saskatchewan coalition’s report can
be found at saskwheatcommission.
com. The Transport Canada report is
online at www.tc.gc.ca, or can be easily found by Googling “Rail Freight
Service Review.” †
Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based
at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.
Tip of the issue
Certified seed saves harvest headaches
By Dave Harwood
C
anada’s certified seed
system has a hard-won
reputation for being
among the safest in
the world. Our growers have a
long history of demonstrating a
strong system that has become
an integral part of our brand as
a trusted major exporter of grain.
But with that power comes
the responsibility of keeping it
clean, for Canada’s reputation
and grower protection. Here’s a
look at why certified seed is the
best option.
Genetic gain is important
Canadian seed companies are in
the business of creating “genetic
gain.” They invest millions of
dollars each year in producing
better varieties. They make it their
business to produce higher-value
material: with higher productivity, improved stability and quality. When growers buy certified
seed, they’re buying a truly better,
more advanced product.
Export Shipments
are tested
There is always the potential for an importing country
to examine grain for residues,
transgenic traits and deregistered
varieties. Mandatory seed certification does not exist in all countries. It is important to Canada’s
entire system that our shipments
maintain the integrity importing
countries have come to expect
from Canadian product.
Deregistration happens
As seed companies develop new
technology, they deregister old
ones. Varieties can be deregistered
at any time, and some export markets are pickier than others about
what they will accept. For example, some canola end-users are
gravely concerned about blackleg
presence. If a shipment gets turned
around, growers are on the hook
for significant fines — something
nobody wants to risk.
If you’re not sure if the seed you
have is registered, find the listing available from the Canadian
Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).
The fastest way to find it is to use
Google. Search for: CFIA registered varieties.
In the case of canola, using
common seed that lacks a blue
certified tag risks that by the time
grain is delivered, the variety from
which it originated will no longer
be registered. Look for the blue
government label on the bag.
Certified seed provides peace of
mind that once your crop is harvested at the end of another growing season, it has a viable market waiting to do business. The
Canola Council of Canada has
a good fact sheet that describes
the importance of assuring your
crop is “Export Ready.” www.can
olacouncil.org/crop-production/
keep-it-clean/. †
Dave Harwood is technical services manager
at DuPont Pioneer.
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5
Features
Farm management
Terminating your forage crops
There are many reasons to take forage crops out of production, and also many ways to do it
By Leeann Minogue
B
rian Nybo is a researcher
with the Wheatland conservation area in Swift
Current, Sask., and also
a farmer. He’s been researching
the best ways to take forage crops
out of production, and has set up
a demonstration at the research
station near Swift Current.
“It can be fairly difficult,” he
told farmers at the Agri-ARM
research update at the Crop
Production Show in Saskatoon
in January. “There are some challenges involved.”
“A lot of producers are taking forages out of production
for a number of different reasons.” This includes switching to
annual crops, taking out forage
as part of a rotation, or wanting
to establish a more productive
forage in that field.
There are three main ways to
terminate a forage crop.
If you’re choosing to terminate
your forage stand in the spring
with a chemical application, Nybo
said, “You have to wait until
those plants are actively growing before the chemical will be
effective.” This will delay seeding.
“The spring time termination isn’t
really recommended,” Nybo said.
If you terminate your stand
in the summer, the best timing
will depend on which method
you choose. With tillage, “you
want to terminate them when the
plant energy status is relatively
low.” Again, he said, “multiple
passes are required.”
If you’re using chemicals to terminate your stand in the summer,
you should wait until the plants’
energy is high, and they’re start-
ing to store energy in the roots.
You could do this pre-harvest,
before your final cut, “and then
harvest your crop after the chemical’s got down into the roots,” he
said, “or you could do it post-harvest.” This might require a followup application for volunteers.
With fall termination, “we’re
taking advantage of not losing
a year of production.” You’ll be
able to take a second cut of your
forages without worrying about
winter kill, since you’re going to
terminate the stand anyway.
If you’re using full tillage, multiple passes are required. “You’ll
probably need one or two or three
applications in the fall,” Nybo
said, “followed by one or two
applications in the spring.”
If you’re using chemicals, don’t
wait too long. You’ll need to apply
the chemicals before the temperature falls below 15 C. If you get a
frost, he said, “you’ll want to wait
at least three days for that plant
to start growing again.” You may
need follow-up applications in
the spring.
If you’re using a mixed strategy, Nybo suggests a post-harvest
application of glyphosate, followed up by tillage, or perhaps
multiple tillage applications.
Costs of termination
Nybo cited data from the
Saskatchewan Agriculture website. “I think these are kind of
minimum costs,” he said. For
2012, the estimated cost of four
tillage operations and one harrowing operation was $25.19 per
acre. You might require more
operations, Nybo said.
For chemical termination,
Saskatchewan Agriculture’s estimated cost was $25.29 per acre,
based on three applications.
The cost of a mixed strategy
was estimated at $31.76 per
acre. This included pre-harvest
glyphosate, two tillage operations, and a pre-seed glyphosate
burnoff.
Costs will be different on each
farm. “These will change, with
fuel prices changing and chemical
prices changing,” Nybo said. †
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews.
What’s better than
maximizing yield potential and quality?
1. Full mechanical tillage
“This method works good for
levelling and drying the seed
bed,” Nybo said. It will also help
control volunteers. “However, it
does require five or six tillage
operations.”
So, Nybo says, it will take “quite
a bit of horsepower, quite a bit of
fuel, and lots of manpower.”
There are other concerns: intensive tillage can destroy the root
channels that the plants have
built and dry out the soil. “If
you’re in a dryer area like Swift
Current, this can be quite an
issue,” Nybo said.
Salinity can also be a problem.
“There’s a lot of soil salinity in
the province,” Nybo said — about
11 per cent of Saskatchewan soil.
“And it’s not all white land,
either.”
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2. Chemical termination
Forages can be terminated
chemically with no soil disturbance. The root channels are left
intact, and the moisture is conserved. “There’s a lot of roots that
go deep down into the subsurface
of the soil,” Nybo said.
“Regrowth might be an issue.
You might need a second chemical application.”
As well, Nybo said, when you’re
seeding, “You will need a narrow
knife opener.”
3. Minimum tillage
combination strategy
“Is this the best of both worlds
or is it the worst of both worlds?”
Nybo asked. In this mixed
approach, he said, “we’re replacing one or more tillage operations
with a herbicide application.”
Getting the timing right
No matter which method you
choose, it’s best done in the summer or the fall before seeding the
spring crop.
If you decide to terminate your
forage stand in the spring, you’re
going to have to go over it many
times, in a short time frame. And,
it’s going to be tough to break up
the lumps to get a smooth seed bed.
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6
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Features
Grain contracts
Know your grain contracts
Cheryl Mayer explains 10 steps to better understanding and profiting from your grain contracts
By Leeann Minogue
I
n a 2013 study, Jared
Carlberg, a professor at the
University of Manitoba,
found that only 17 per cent
of farmers read their entire grain
contracts.
This matters. How can we know
whether or not we’re getting a
good deal if we don’t know the
details in the documents we’re
signing?
At a session at CropSphere in
Saskatoon in January, the Canadian
Canola Growers Association’s
director of policy development,
Cheryl Mayer, gave a presentation
about understanding contracts.
To make sure they knew exactly
what farmers are dealing with,
Mayer and other CCGA staff collected
copies of actual contracts
SEC_KIND14_T_GN.qxd
1/22/15
from major grain buyers across
the Prairies. Her presentation was
a summary of what they found
when they read these sample contracts, and how farmers can be better prepared to do business with
grain buyers
1. Read the whole thing
Mayer stressed that it’s important for farmers to read the whole
contract. This is going to take a
while — there will be a lot of fine
print and legal jargon.
Here’s why it’s important: there
is no one standard grain contract.
The terms and conditions at the end
of each contract vary substantially
from buyer to buyer. “It’s the small
print that we’re talking about here,”
Mayer said. “There’s some common
elements, but the way they say
thingsPM
is very
different.”
1:25
Page
1
Another reason to read your con-
tracts regularly and be familiar with
the terms they include is that the
contract terms can change without notice, and it’s quite possible
that no one at the company will
tell you. “If you’re reading them
from year to year, you’re going
to notice,” Mayer said. Knowing
about the changes will give you a
chance to ask your buyer about the
changes. “They are not going to
point it out to you.”
A final good reason to read the
whole thing is that usually, when
you sign your name, you’re signing a statement that says you’ve
read and understood the contract.
If there’s something in there that
you don’t understand, Mayer said,
“it’s not a negative thing to have
to ask questions.”
Don’t forget: once you’ve signed
a contract, the conditions are
legally binding.
2. Get it in writing
“It’s really risky to have a verbal
commitment,” Mayer said, even
though she knows that many farmers often do business that way.
If there is something that you
and your grain buyer have agreed
to, “what you can do is ask that
that is written into your contract.”
There is often a “special remarks”
section or other blank space in a
contract where this can be done.
If you have a specific verbal
agreement with you buyer that’s
not written into the contract, and
something goes wrong, the head
office does not usually have to
uphold that agreement. Typically,
the contract will include language saying that the entire agreement is laid out in the contract.
(Something like, “This contract
includes the entire agreement
between the parties…”)
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3. Get the whole thing
Many companies do business
using two-part contracts. The
front part will usually contain the
key sale points, like the date, the
price, the amount and the delivery
location. The “terms and conditions” section usually includes the
other details.
Sometimes, the grain company
will only fax you the front section.
Mayer has seen examples where
the “terms and conditions” section of the contract is only available at farmers’ request.
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you do need to access those terms
and conditions, you probably
don’t want to go into the elevator
later when you’re having a problem,” Mayer said.
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Although you sign a contract
to deliver a specific grade, some
contracts have a clause that lays
out what will happen if you deliver
grain that is below the quality specified in the contract. Sometimes,
this “schedule of discounts” is not
included in the contract.
Mayer suggested that you also
may want to specify what will
happen if you deliver grain that is
a higher quality than you’ve specified in the contract.
Mayer also suggested that farmers get familiar with the Canadian
Grain Commission’s grading
guide. “Having a sense of how
your grain is graded can be really
beneficial, because you should be
observing your grain being graded.
That is your right.”
If you are in a situation where
you don’t agree with your buyer
about the grade, under the Canada
Grain Act, “you can request that
a sample be sent to the Canadian
Grain Commission for a grade
and docking decision.” The CGC’s
decision will be binding.
For now, this right to a CGC binding grade is only available when you
deal with a primary elevators. “So,
for canola producers, this means
it’s not available at process or crush
plants,” Mayer said. If it’s passed by
the federal government, Bill C-48
would extend this right to farmers delivering to process elevators,
crush plants, container loading sites
and grain dealers.
5. Be clear about
the delivery terms
After reviewing several grain
contracts, “the one thing that we
did notice is that the delivery
terms vary widely,” Mayer said.
Mayer found that some contracts
allow grain companies to change
the delivery location. While some
of the sample contracts she read
included a clause that would require
the buyer to give 24 hours notice
and provide the grower with compensation for delivering to a different location, not all contracts were
as helpful. One contract allowed the
company to “change the delivery
location from the delivery location
set out in the contract, by notice to
the customer…”
6. Understand
the delivery period
Since August 1, 2014, as required
in the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers
Act, grain companies are required
to include a clause laying out compensation rights for farmers when
grain is not called in before the
end of the delivery period.
“Everyone should be aware of
this and should be checking their
contracts for these clauses,” Mayer
said.
However, the delivery period
may be longer than you think it is.
Most companies’ contracts include
a clause extending the delivery
contract beyond the delivery
month. This is usually called the
“extended delivery period.” Mayer
has seen contracts allowing for an
extended delivery period of anywhere from 30 to 180 days.
Generally, grain companies have
written the compensation provision so that it doesn’t apply until
the end of the extended delivery
period. For example, if you had
contracted to deliver your grain
by the end of November, and the
company has a 90-day extended
delivery period, compensation for
late delivery wouldn’t apply until
after the end of February.
“The provision the government
has provided for is really broad,”
Mayer said. She’s seen several different clauses included to cover
this requirement. One example
called for a payment to the farmer
of $2/Mt/month after the end of
the extended delivery period. In
that case, the contract specified a
180-day extended delivery period.
So, with a 100 tonnes contracted,
a farmer holding this contract
would receive an extra payment
of $200 if the grain was called in
four months after the end of the
delivery month.
Another contract Mayer
reviewed allowed for $0.05/Mt/
day plus interest, after the end of
the extended delivery period.
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
Features
One sample contract Mayer cited
required the grain company to pay
the farmer a one-time lump sum
payment of $10 if the grain was
not called in before the end of the
extended delivery period. “That’s
not overly generous,” Mayer said,
“but they have fulfilled the provision that is required.”
Mayer suggests reading this
clause carefully, and negotiating
with your buyer if something is
important to you. For example, if
you’re paying interest on inputs
bought from that same company,
you might try to get them to
insert a clause saying that you
won’t have to pay interest on
your inputs if the company hasn’t
called in the grain for delivery by
a certain date.
7. Understand
the default risk
Most contracts include clauses
outlining “liquidated damages” —
how damages will be calculated
if you default on your contract.
These clauses vary widely from
company to company. “Typically
it’s an administration fee plus
the difference in the price at that
time,” Mayer said.
If you find yourself short on
a contract, “it’s important that
you talk to your grain buyer right
away,” Mayer said. In fact, some
contracts specify that you must
notify the company as soon as
possible.
There’s another benefit to getting in early: if you’ve had a production problem, chances are that
some of your neighbours have too.
“You’re going to want to the first
or second one in there talking to
your grain buyer about what the
solutions might be, as opposed to
the 50th one.”
Get the
book
T
he Canadian Canola
Growers Association
has prepared a brochure to help farmers through the quagmire
of contracts. It’s called A
Practical Guide to Navigate
Grain Contracts.
To put the book together,
the CCGA collected contracts
from major grain buyers
across the Prairies. They read
through these contracts, and
summarized what they found.
To get your copy, download
it from the CCGA website
(www.ccga.ca) or phone them
at 1-866-745-2256. †
Knowing
what’s in
your grain
contract
is just as
important
as knowing
what’s not in
your grain
contract.
a practical guide to
navigate
Grain
contracts
Leeann Minogue
400-1661 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3J 3T7
Phone: (204) 788-0090
Toll-free: 1-866-745-2256
www.ccga.ca
8. Be aware of set-offs
Set-offs are common in grain
contracts. In these clauses, you’re
agreeing that the company can
assign money from your grain sale
to take money that you owe to the
seller, or to an affiliated business.
For example, companies may take
money from your grain sale to pay
for your crop inputs.
9. Read about
the Acts of God
“These contracts typically do
contain Act of God clauses, but
they’re not there in favour of the
farmer. They’re there in favour of
the buyer,” Mayer said.
Generally, these contracts
excuse the buyer from their
contractual obligations. “It’s
extremely rare,” she said, for these
Act of God clauses to be extended
to problems at the farmers’ end. If
the Act of God is intended to protect farmers, it may be offered at
a premium, or there may be other
requirements. Read carefully.
10. Hope for transparency
According to Jared Carlberg,
only 12 per cent of farmers agreed
that their rights are protected
when using contracts. “We hope
to see that statistic change over
time,” Mayer said.
The CCGA would like to see
more transparency in grain contracts. “It would be great to see
companies have their terms and
conditions on their websites.”
There was one company that
did this last year, she said, “But
they don’t anymore.” †
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews.
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8
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Features
Crop Advisor’s casebook
Inconsistent wheat development
By Raeanne Denomie
Casebook winner
D
uring the last week
of August, I was crop
scouting for Gerald,
who farms 6,000 acres
of wheat, barley, oats and canola
just north of Wadena, Sask. I was
recording the severity of fusarium
head blight in one of Gerald’s
wheat fields when I noticed something unusual.
It was well into the growing season and shortly before
harvest, but the field had an
uneven heading or maturation
look to it. Some plants appeared
to be further along than others, but they were contained
within strips that ran in straight
lines down the entire length of
the field rather than in random
patches.
In spite of the fact that Gerald
had sprayed a fungicide for fusarium head blight earlier in the
season, the disease was heavily
present in some of these strips,
while in other strips it was hardly
noticeable.
D
avid Heinrichs
is the Casebook
winner for this
issue. David is the
market and channel development officer for Agriculture
Financial Service Corporation
at Red Deer, Alta. Thanks for
reading, and thanks for entering! We’ll renew your Grainews
subscription for a year and
send you a Grainews cap. †
Raeanne Denomie is a sales
agronomist with Richardson
Pioneer Ltd. at Wadena, Sask.
Some plants appeared to be further along than others, but these plants
were contained within strips that ran in straight lines down the entire
length of the field rather than in random patches.
When I called Gerald to point
out the problem, he wasn’t quite
sure what to think of the situation.
“Your guess is as good as mine,”
he said.
I assessed possible causes such
as nutrient imbalance, poor seed
quality, and environmental damage, but they were all ruled out
— if any of these were to blame,
a patchy pattern would have been
the result, not the straight lines I
saw in Gerald’s wheat field.
Herbicide burn was also disregarded, due to the fact that the
leaves of the plants throughout
the crop appeared to be in good
shape aside from some leaf disease
development.
It was only when I inquired into
Gerald’s seeding methods that
spring that I began to zero in on
the root of the problem.
If you think you know what’s
going on with Gerald’s wheat crop,
send your diagnosis to Grainews,
Box 9800, Winnipeg, Man. R3C
3K7; email leeann.minogue@
fbcpublishing.com or fax 204-9445416 c/o Crop Advisor’s Casebook.
Leeann Minogue
The best suggestions will be pooled
and one winner will be drawn for
a chance to win a Grainews cap
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. †
Raeanne Denomie is a sales agronomist with
Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Wadena, Sask.
Crop advisor’s solution
Tan spot causes sickly looking wheat
By Jeneen Burnett
I
t was mid-June when I received a
distress call from John, who grows
wheat, canola, flax, peas and lentils on
his 5,000-acre grain farm just west of
Swift Current, Sask. He’d been out spraying
peas when he spotted trouble in his wheat
field just across the road — the plants were
brown and appeared to be dying.
When I arrived at John’s wheat field to
have a look, I could see the plants were
stunted and yellow-green in colour, with
older leaves that were brown and starting
to die off and newer growth beginning to
show the same symptoms. A closer inspec-
tion of a damaged plant revealed small,
dark lesions with tan-coloured halos that
appeared to be growing in size.
Initially, I suspected that tan spot was to
blame; however, I hadn’t seen any signs of
this fungal disease when John and I had
scouted the same field just a week previously, and I didn’t know what could be
causing this kind of damage to happen so
fast.
I found my answer when I came across
a 20-acre patch in the middle of the field,
where the plants were dark green and
much healthier looking. This was where a
fire the previous fall had burned 20 acres
of stubble just after harvest.
This indicated tan spot had been present
in the field in plant residue, possibly from
the last time he’d planted wheat there,
with the exception of the area where the
stubble had been burned away. Recent
warm, wet weather, coupled with the
wheat plants being injured from a wind
whipping they sustained the week before,
had contributed to the aggressive outbreak
of the disease.
Fortunately for John, there was enough
time left in the season to combat the tan
spot problem. I recommended that he add
a fungicide to his in-crop herbicide application to help get the disease under control.
The field started coming back and, follow-
ing a second fungicide application at the
flag leaf stage, the wheat crop rebounded to
the point where there was no loss of yield.
While John didn’t lose his wheat crop,
he did gain a valuable lesson about the
importance of scouting and keeping vigilant. Fungal diseases like tan spot can
proliferate very quickly if the conditions
are right, so it’s important to keep an eye
on crops throughout the season. In John’s
case, he’d be wise to also pay close attention to crop rotations and field history
so that the proper precautions for disease
prevention can be carried out. †
Jeneen Burnett is a Regional Sales Agronomist with
Richardson Pioneer in Reed Lake, Sask.
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9
Features
Farm management
High land prices hurt new farmers
Price increases may be slowing, but it’s a tough time for farmers to buy land
By Julienne Isaacs
W
estern Canadian
farmland has never
been more expensive. According
to J.P. Gervais, the chief economist for Farm Credit Canada
(FCC), which provides data at
the national level for Statistics
Canada, farmland values continued to increase throughout 2014.
“In a few months the report
will be released, but we know that
farmland values have continued
to increase throughout 2014. The
extent of the increase is unsure,
but I would suggest that we’ll see
something lower than what we
saw last year, because last year
was a record year,” says Gervais.
Gervais says local factors have
an impact on farmland prices,
and at the provincial or national
level, two things matter: crop
prices and interest rates. “With
grains and oilseeds coming
down, especially in the last six
months, we expect farmland values to go up at a lower pace than
we saw last year. That would be a
good thing,” he says. “The worst
case scenario would be to see the
drop in grains and oilseeds that
we’ve seen as well as interest
rates going up.”
Last year, values went up across
Western Canada, but the increase
was greatest in Saskatchewan,
which was still catching up to the
increase in Alberta. Manitoba,
he says, is partly influenced by
trends in Ontario as well as those
in Alberta and Saskatchewan,
and as a result has shown rapid
increase in the last couple of
years.
By historical standards, farmland is priced at the highest level
it has ever been. Gervais says
that farmland values on average
are not unreasonable if you look
at crop receipts and low interest
rates over the last couple of years.
“The farms that have old generational equity, because they’ve
gained that equity over two generations, they can pool enough
money and expand and buy more
land,” he says. “I think it’s just
about impossible for new farmers
to get into the business now.”
A Saskatchewan view
Franck Groeneweg grows spring
wheat, Durham wheat, canola, flax,
peas and favabeans half an hour
northeast of Regina. He started his
operation 12 years ago, when fairly,
good quality land was selling for
between $35,000 and $75,000 per
quarter section, or $500 per acre.
Lower quality land sold at the time
for roughly $300 per acre.
Now, he says, the lower quality
land is about $1,500 per acre, and
higher quality land is between
$2,000 and $2,500 per acre —
about four or five times more
than in 2003.
He says a number of factors
have contributed to the increase.
In the 1990s and early 2000s,
farmers had poor commodity
prices influenced by the U.S.
Farm Bill, overproduction of
commodities and poor optimism.
Additionally, in Saskatchewan,
land ownership was restricted to
Saskatchewan residents.
“Coming into the late 1990s
and early 2000s, the U.S. Farm
Bill changed and put more
emphasis on subsidies to ethanol, and this created an inter-
national demand for grain,”
says Groeneweg. Other factors
also contributed to this, he says,
including increased commodity
prices, and the relaxation of
land ownership regulations in
Saskatchewan to make it available to Canadian citizens regardless of residency. And demand
went up.
“All of this generated some
decent revenues for farmers, and
then once that happened, there
was renewed interest from the
younger generation,” Groeneweg
says. “In the mid-2000s young
people came back to the farm. So
instead of farms for sale we had
farms that were looking for land
to buy.”
This means it is much tougher
now for young farmers to get
started, he says.
The situation in Canada is arguably better than that in the U.S.,
particularly in the Corn Belt,
where land can cost between
$15,000 and $20,000 per acre and
gross revenue at the farm gate is
approximately 10 per cent or less
of the highest land costs.
But Groeneweg says the U.S. has
much deeper pockets in terms of
farm support.
“If we get into a bind, which
looks likely, growers in the U.S.
will have the ear of their legislatures, but we won’t here in
Canada,” he says. †
Julienne Isaacs is a Winnipeg-based freelance
writer and editor. Contact her at julienne.
[email protected].
Potato farming
gets expensive
According to Gord Visser, a
potato grower near Edmonton,
Alta., prices of good potato farmland have skyrocketed over the
last several years, to the point
where farming is becoming unsustainable for farmers and prohibitive for young farmers hoping to
get into the business.
“When I started in 1987 I
bought some land for $900 per
acre. My best land, where my farm
is situated, was $820 per acre. That
land is now worth over $25,000
per acre,” he says.
“I can only speak for land in
the greater Edmonton area, where
there’s a large potato-growing
area,” he says. “A lot of the really
good agricultural land, especially for potatoes, happens to be
located around civic centres like
Edmonton, and so with that land
there’s a lot of pressure just from
growth.”
Visser, a third-generation farmer,
says he’s accumulated acres over
the years, all of which are paid
for, but if his operation were to
buy another quarter section, they
wouldn’t be able to make that
land work for him with regard to
capital costs.
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10
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Features
Crop protection
Keep wildlife away from bags
As grain bags become more popular and are in use for more time, farmers
are looking for new ways to keep wildlife away from their grain
By Stephanie Grace
T
photo: bailey enns
Because bags are most likely to be damaged at the ends, one farmer
suggests, contrary to manufacturer’s directions, placing the middle of
the bag at the crown of a hill, to reduce the risk of water running in and
along the entire bag.
he amount of grain
being stored in bags
has increased greatly in
recent years. This winter, producers are faced with
the task of preventing damage
to the 2014 crop still stored in
bags. Many producers are asking
what the most effective, simplest and economical means of
reducing damage are because, as
one farmer said, “It’s not just
the upfront cost of spoiled and
downgraded grain; there are a lot
of hidden costs in moving grain
from the field, repairing bags,
fencing and so on.” While each
farm faces unique challenges,
some methods do seem especially
effective. The key, some say, is to
start early and train the wildlife
through consistent maintenance
and monitoring.
One Peace Country farmer
said his management practices
were copied from a fellow producer who has a great deal of
experience raising wild game
such as bison, elk and deer. He
said his method is to, “Put up
fences immediately after each
bag is full to provide the best
training before the cold and
snow reduces the effectiveness
of electric fencers.”
Wildlife are much more eas-
ily trained to avoid fences
when alternative feed sources
are readily available during the
time between the end of harvest and the beginning of winter. Keeping any holes patched
and spills cleaned up also helps
to avoid attracting animals to
bags. The fences he uses consist of a single fence with three
strands of electric wire (powered
by a high-voltage, solar fencer)
placed about a foot away from
the bag. These temporary fences
are fast and easy to build and
successfully train deer and bears
to avoid fences when they try
to reach through. Deer will not
jump these relatively short fences
(approximately four to five feet),
as they would land on the bag.
Other crop-saving
suggestions
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Electric fences work well for
deer and bears, but farmers say
these measures are less effective for elk and obviously don’t
work at all for ravens. Bird-scare
cannons seem to be an effective means to deter herds of elk,
but ravens require a different
approach. Rumour has it that a
practical alternative to reduce
raven damage is to hang a dead
one from the surrounding fence
or cover the tops of bags with
net wrap.
Start early
and train
the wildlife
For those who need to store
grain for longer periods of time,
an effective and largely maintenance-free option is using bale
fences to surround areas. Bale
fences have the added advantage of deterring ravens, possibly because they cannot view
approaching predators, but it
is still advisable to check these
fences periodically as deer seem
to be especially notorious for
squeezing through tight spaces
to access feed as winter drags on.
One drawback to this method is
the mice that bales attract, especially if bags are left in the field
until spring, the damage may be
difficult to detect.
One final note that a Peace
Country producer shared is that,
“Bags are most likely to be damaged at the ends, so contrary to
the bagger manufacturer’s directions, placing the middle of the
bag at the crown of a hill reduces
the risk of water running in and
along the entire bag.” Grain bags
are a great way to store grain without needing to build costly bins,
but just like bin storage, bags do
present some unique challenges.
If you have to store grain in bags,
start training early to keep wildlife out before their regular feed
sources become scarce. †
Stephanie Grace is a writer and student from
B.C.’s Peace River country. For more from
Stephanie or to contact her, please visit her
website at www.stephaniegrace.org.
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
11
Features
Grain storage
Defend against deer with a 3-D fence
When tried and true methods just don’t work, a 3-D fence can keep deer out
By Kevin Elmy
W
ith the increasing
number of grain
bags in the countryside, deer have
learned that there is a feast waiting for them in grain bags. Once
a bag is opened, other animals
join the buffet. Never mind what
gets eaten, but storage losses
from moisture entering the bags,
excreta, downgrading factors
and foreign material add up in
a hurry.
Scare crows, boom cannons,
and other deterrents have been
tried, but none seem to work
effectively over time.
One option is to create a 3-D
fence around the grain bags.
This will create a physical barrier around the bags to keep
animals from sneaking through
and starting to damage the bag.
Deer are excellent at seeing in
two dimensions at long range.
At close range, their depth perception is diminished. The key
is to set up two electric fence
wires, one hot, one grounded
or hot and then a separate hot
wire about 30 to 36 feet (75
cm to 1 metre) outside of the
two wire fence. On the inside
fence, the top hot wire should
be about 24 to 30 feet (60 to 90
cm) off the ground, while the
lower wire should be around
10 to 14 feet (25 to 35 cm) off
the ground. The second fence,
the wire should be between the
other two wires for height, say
18 to 22 feet (45 to 55 cm) high.
Gallagher Fencing has two
products, B10 and B11 Energizer
that runs on six ‘D’ batteries,
which lasts for three months, or
a 12 V battery. It will energize
just over a half mile (one km) of
fence. The key is to have a good
ground, so having a three foot
galvanized ground rod into the
ground before freeze up would
be advantageous. Using fibreglass
posts or rebar and screw-on rod
insulators would give the most
flexibility of creating the fence.
As the snow gets deeper, the insulators can be moved up the post
to maintain proper ground clearance to keep the animals out.
The wire
For the wire, there are options.
Wire is ugly to handle, but it
transmits electricity the best. Wire
is usually used in more permanent situations.
Polywire can work well and
is easy to work with. It can be
ordered on a reel, so when you
need it, unroll what you need,
when you are done, wind it up.
The problem with it is, like wire, is
hard to see so without extra flagging on it, someone might drive
through it.
Tape is another option. It is
visible and like polywire, rolls
nicely. The issue is that when it
flaps in the wind it may wear and
short out.
Going to a rope type gives a
longer life (about 25 years), still
is nicer to handle than wire.
Visibility is still relatively low for
vehicles so it should be flagged.
The other negative, it is bulkier
than the tape or polywire so the
reel will be larger for the rope.
Once it is up, as long as electricity is flowing through, it should
keep animals out. If smaller animals are getting through and creating damage, add another hot or
ground wire on the inside fence,
giving you a least two hot wires.
Having something conductive
flapping on the fence will bring
in the curious animals to sniff
graphic: courtesy of gallagher power fencing systems inc.
The key is to set up two electric fence wires, one hot, one grounded or
hot and then a separate hot wire about 30 to 36 feet (75 cm to 1 metre)
outside of the two wire fence.
it. Once the nose touches, their
appetite disappears, and they have
a good memory. As for ravens and
other birds, there is netting used
for berry farms, electrical poultry
nets, all creating more work.
This is another way to try to
protect your grain piles. It will
work for other things that you
want to protect, like shelter belts,
fruit trees, and hay bales. It is a
cost effective and flexible system
to control animals. †
Kevin Elmy operates Friendly Acres Seed
Farm, along with his wife, Christina, and
parents, Robert and Verene, near Saltcoats,
Sask. Contact him at 306-744-2779 or visit
www.friendlyacres.sk.ca
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/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Features
Grain storage
Made-in-Sask. grain bag roller
Grain bags are a great affordable, temporary solution to your grain storage
problems. Until it’s time to get rid of them. Here’s a new solution
By Andrea Hilderman
G
rain bags have
increased in popularity
over the last few years.
Grain bags are a relatively inexpensive temporary storage option that offer a number of
benefits. One downside, however,
is what to do with the bag once
it is unloaded. There’s almost 300
pound of agricultural plastic film
in one bag. Add to that some grain
left behind and each bag adds up
to a lot of waste.
This problem was not lost
on the Brown brothers, Jason,
Jeff, Mike and Brady. They
farm grain, pulses and oilseeds
with their father at Milestone,
Saskatchewan. “We had the same
problem as every farmer using
grain bags — how do we dispose
of them?” says Brady Brown.
“They blow around if you don’t
get them gathered up. Burning
them is not a good idea at all. So
we started looking for another
way to deal with them.”
The Brown brothers also have
a winter business in Brown Bros.
Welding and Fabrication. So, they
took their problem with grain bag
disposal into the shop in the winter. “We found an irrigation plastic
roller, a lighter, smallish roller and
used that as a guide to design and
fabricate what eventually became
our grain bag roller.” The Brown
brothers knew they needed a
sturdy roller that could stand up to
the work of rolling grain bags. They
also incorporated a tying mechanism using baler twine so the operation to roll and tie the used bags
was completed in one operation.
“We mounted the grain bag
roller on a trailer,” says Brown.
“We haul it to where we are
unloading bags and roll them
right away. The bags are hauled
in right on the trailer and we
take care of disposal when we
have time. A 250 to 400 pound
plastic bale is not going to blow
away anywhere until we decide
to move it.”
The Brown brothers posted a
video on Youtube.com showing
the grain bag roller in operation,
and their website, www.brownbroswelding.com, has pictures of the
roller, and you can see the skid
steer mounted option for the grain
bag roller. “There is the option
to mount the roller for operation
from a skid steer,” says Brown.
“However, our own experience is
that most guys favour the trailermounted option as it makes transporting the rolled bags easier.”
The Brown brothers are selling
grain bag rollers in all three Prairie
provinces. They have also found a
market in the oil industry, rolling
frack pond liners. Frack pond lin-
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The Mosaic Company, is proven to increase yield compared to traditional fertilizer.
ers are about three times the thickness of grain bags so the Brown
brothers built an even heavier
duty roller for that application.
Disposing of grain bags
Where do farmers dispose of used
grain bags? They could be hauled
to the landfill but that is becoming more difficult. They could be
buried on the farm. Burning is
illegal. Highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are released into
the environment when plastics are
burned at low temperatures such as
seen in a burn barrel. A better solution was needed.
The Provincial Council of
Agriculture, Development
and Diversification Boards
in Saskatchewan, now known
as SimplyAg Solutions Inc., is
a nonprofit whose mandate is
to provide education, programming and information to the
Saskatchewan agriculture industry. They have numerous partners, including government.
Grain bag recycling in the province is one of their projects.
How do
we dispose
of them?
GET YOUR HEAD IN THE DIRT AT MICROESSENTIALS.COM
“We piloted the project in
2011,” says Travis Quirk, ag plastics co-ordinator at SimplyAg
Solutions Inc. “Six grain bag rollers were purchased from Brown
Bros. Welding and Fabrication
and set up at six locations to
compact the grain bags and
provide a point from which to
collect bags and bring them to
a recycling depot. We also collected twine at this locations.”
The project has grown in scope
and volume since the 2011 pilot.
Now, silage plastic and net wrap
have been added for recycling.
“From the start of the pilot up
until the end of March 2014 we
collected 0.5 million pounds of
plastic grain bags,” says Quick.
“From April 2014 to date, we have
collected two million pounds.
Not only are more people participating in the program, those
farmers have more to recycle.”
Recycled plastic grain bags are
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72970_MES-0733_CanolaPrintAd_GrainewsRv_k2_NSPR.indd 1
8/5/14 12:07 PM
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
13
Features
photos: brown bros. welding and fabrication
There’s almost 300 pounds of agricultural plastic
film in one grain bag. The Brown brothers knew
they needed a sturdy roller that could stand up
to the work of rolling them, so they took the
problem out to their shop. To make their roller
work, they incorporated a tying mechanism
using baler twine so the operation to roll and tie
the used bags was completed in one operation.
a very versatile plastic. “A low
density polyethylene plastic that
is relatively clean is pretty desirable,” says Quick. “It’s recycled
into things like household garbage bags and plastic lumber.”
The recycled market is not yet
enough to sustain the program
although the demand is there, so
it still receives funding from various sources including Growing
Forward. For more information
on the recycling program and
to sign up for various events go
to www.simplyag.ca or contact
Travis Quirk at 1-866-298-7222.
Grain bag recycling programs
are available in Alberta administered by counties. In Manitoba,
cleanFARMS, another nonprofit
industry stewardship organization, is conducting recycling
pilots. “We are receiving funding from Green Manitoba,” says
Shane Hedderson, project manager
at cleanFarms. “They are a special operating agency of the government in Manitoba and their
mandate is to provide programs
to reduce waste. The work we are
doing will reduce plastic waste on
farm.” Information on programming for 2015 will be available on
cleanFarm’s website in the New
Year. “We are planning to have two
blitz-style collections in spring and
fall,” says Hedderson. “There will
be six sites across the province.
From these pilot programs we hope
to iron out the logistics of getting
the plastics from the farm to the
collection point and shipped on
into the recycling market.” †
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Andrea Hilderman has her master’s degree
in weed science and is a member of the
Manitoba Institute of Agrologists. She writes
from Winnipeg, Man.
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/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Features
Farm management
Knowing production costs is important
Calculating your costs to produce grain is an important part of marketing your production
Lee Hart
H
aving a good handle
on the production and
marketing side of their
south Saskatchewan
farm is obviously important, but
Jake Leguee says one of the most
useful tools in overall management
is knowing their breakeven point.
The Leguees keep close tabs on
their inputs and returns per acre for
each crop. While they obviously
target optimum yields and the best
price opportunities, if crop quality
takes a hit or a market weakens,
knowing their breakeven point
helps to still keep a profit in sight.
“We spend a lot of time planning to grow the most profitable
crops where they are most productive,” says Leguee, who along
with his parents, Russ and Sharon,
and older sister Sarah, operates
a 12,000 acre, grain, oilseed and
pulse crop farm between Filmore
and Weyburn. “It is disappointing
to have down graded wheat due to
fusarium head blight, for example,
but if you know your cost of production and breakeven point for
that crop, then perhaps you can
still find a market that is going to
earn you a profit.”
Leguee and his wife Stephanie
are third generation on the family
farm. It was a mixed farming operation for many years, but the cattle
were sold in 2009. Today the threefamily farm focuses on producing
canola, durum wheat, peas, lentils,
soybeans, flax and winter wheat.
The Leguees have paid particular
attention to the cost and returns
per acre for the past five years. The
first step in planning, along with
keeping a proper rotation in mind,
is to select crops with the most
market potential. And the next is
to plan that production on fields
best suited to a particular crop.
For example, they’ve decided
not to grow any spring wheat in
2015. Disease is an issue and the
market just isn’t favouring wheat
this year. They do have 2,000 acres
of winter wheat in the ground.
It worked well for them during
the 2013-14 growing season, so
planted it again last fall. Red lentils can produce a good return,
but with successive years of excess
moisture during the growing season, Leguee is careful to select
fields with higher ground, better
suited to the crop.
They’ve just started to work
with soybeans. It is a crop that
can handle the moisture and
with lower inputs “is one of
the easiest crops to grow,” says
Leguee, but at the same time
yields haven’t been what they’ve
expected. They’ll keep trying
them, but Leguee is looking forward to the development of earlier maturing (lower heat unit)
varieties.
The farm follows a direct seeding, minimum tillage approach
to crop production. In areas with
heavy cereal crop stubble they
make one pass with a Salford vertical tillage tool in the fall, which
does little soil disturbance, but
does help to breakdown crop residue. In the spring they apply a
pre-seeding glyphosate treatment,
and depending on the weed mix
and the field it may be tank mixed
with other herbicides for specific
weed control.
With their fertility program they
follow soil test recommendations
to determine fertilizer rates. They
are beginning to work with variable rate fertilizer technology (VRT)
application in order to be more
efficient with fertilizer inputs.
With both deeded and rented
land, they so far have developed
VRT for about 20 per cent of their
own land.
“We have a lot of solenetzic soils
which has a limit in yield potential,” says Leguee. “And generally
there can be a lot of soil variability
over the acres we farm.”
Variable rate technology
Working with private agronomist Marilyn Kot of Green Acres
Tech at Frances, Sask., they have
developed VRT prescriptions. On
selected fields, mapped out with
up to five different production
zones, they apply about 80 per
cent of the recommended fertilizer
rate at time of seeding. And then
as the growing season progresses
they use VRT to top up with liquid
fertilizer.
“We have been working with
this for a couple years and are still
in the experimental stage,” says
Leguee. “We may take it to the
whole farm, but we want to evaluate it further. The whole idea is to
try and optimize inputs and hopefully increase yields.”
Small-seeded crops such as
canola and flax are seeded with
a SeedMaster seeding system,
while cereals and pulse crops are
seeded with a John Deere hoe drill.
On-board monitors keep track of
fertilizer and crop seeding rates and
those figures are later compared
with the amounts actually bought.
We spend
a lot of time
planning
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“We maintain good records for
the whole farm which gives us a
very good picture of the actual
input cost per acre for each crop
seeded,” he says. At the end of
the season they collect yield data
from combine monitors and also
compare that to the new crop
inventory stored in grain bins or
grain bags.
Reviewing their costs and yields
per acre per crop along with market outlooks helps them determine
their seeding plan for the coming
year. “We spend a lot of time deciding which crops to grow on which
fields for the best return,” says
Leguee. “We identify those areas
where crops will or won’t work and
probably drop those crops that are
the least profitable per acre.”
Crop planning also has to
include good agronomic practices.
Particularly with increasing disease pressure often fostered by wet
and humid growing season conditions, the plan has to consider
proper crop rotation. Fusarium
head blight in wheat, blackleg and
sclerotinia in canola, sclerotinia in
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
15
Features
Young farmer connects
to the world on social media
I
photo: lee hart
Jake Leguee, who along with his parents, Russ and Sharon, and older
sister Sarah, operates a 12,000 acre grain, oilseed and pulse crop farm
between Filmore and Weyburn, Sask.
lentils and root rots in peas can all
be a factor depending on growing
season conditions. Fungicides are
used as needed.
“We try to follow a proper crop
rotation to reduce the risk of disease
development,” says Leguee. “And
we also work with an outside agronomist who helps us with fertilizer
recommendations, field scouting
and herbicide selection. Rotation
and crop diversity is important to
minimize disease risk. We aim to
have a timely application of herbicides and follow a proper rotation
with those products, and so far we
have been able to avoid any herbicide resistance issues.
The plan ahead for the farm is
just more fine-tuning, says Leguee.
“We have the land base to support
three households, so we are not
looking to grow more acres, but to
grow production on the acres we
have. We need to properly manage the agronomic side to optimize yields, and then make good
marketing decisions, to maximize
returns. We need to manage cash
flow to make the farm business as
financially solid as possible — it
is about managing crops for more
profitability.” †
Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in
Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by
email at [email protected].
f you want know how the
farm year is progressing in
the Filmore area of southern Saskatchewan, check
out Jake Leguee’s blog at southsaskfarmer.com.
The young Saskatchewan
farmer has been writing about
farm life for the past couple
years. It’s not a lot of drama or
earth-shattering news, but just
about the every day trials, tribulations and successes of being
part of a 12,000-acre family farm
on the Canadian prairies. His
blog, “A year in the life of a
farmer,” is aptly named.
“I write the blog mostly
for myself,” says Leguee, 27.
“Personally it is just a good outlet for me to talk about what we
do here every day, and also to
share some thoughts on issues
affecting the agriculture industry.” He has a new blog post once
or twice a month.
“Part of it is also a way to
connect with other farmers
and to explain to people who
don’t farm what agriculture is
all about, “ says Leguee. “A lot
of people think once the crop
is in the bin in October that
you are done for the year. But
in reality this is not just a seaT:10.25”
sonal industry
as some people
photo: lee hart
This photo posted on Jake Leguee’s blog last fall shows part of the
harvest crew. From left: Jake’s wife Stephanie, Jake, brother-in-law
Erik, Leguee’s younger sister, Amber, his older sister Sarah, Jake’s
parents Russ and Sharon Leguee, and Dominika and Honzik (a Czech
Republic couple who worked on the farm last year).
think. When you’re not growing a crop you’re busy trying to
market one or planning to grow
the next one. And it is important that anyone who doesn’t
farm is aware of that. There are
other farmers who read it, but
is intended to explain to people
who aren’t farming why we do
what we do.”
The University of Saskatchewan
graduate with a degree in agronomy, who also works as an agronomist for the local Top Notch
Farm Supply in Fillmore, when
he’s not out in his own fields,
says he finds value in the social
media connections. Along with
the blog, he also has a Twitter
account, which helps him connect with a wide range of people
all over the world.
“I actually get a lot of valuable information from Twitter,”
he says. “I am connecting with
quite a few other farmers and
there is a back and forth flow
of information.” Follow him on
Twitter at: @legueefarms. †
Lee Hart
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16
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Features
Farm management
Friendly Acres’ 2014 wrap up
Regular Grainews contributor Kevin Elmy sums up 2014 at his east-central Saskatchewan farm
By Kevin Elmy
I
am tired of rubber boots. This
was Year 5 of well-abovegrowing-season rainfall.
May started off with lots
of water. The plan was to seed soybeans, grazing corn, a grain corn
trial, brown mustard, spring triticale
and cover crops. By the end of May,
we had seeded 600 acres of soybeans, 1/3 of an acre of grain corn
trial, and six acres of grazing corn
(we’d intended 35). A field of alfalfa
was to be taken out and into cover
crop, and our sainfoin field was still
producing.
On November 2013, we dormant-seeded 150 acres of alfalfa
into canola stubble and cover
crop. Canola has exited our crop-
ping plans. Just because we had
made money in the past, the risk
is not worth growing it.
From the last couple of years’
experience, we do not like or want
to mud a crop in. If we mud it in,
we are only two inches of rain
away from having it drown out.
The next plan was to seed a cover
crop into the unseeded acres, use
moisture, create vertical drainage
into the soil, recapture nutrients
leached into the soil, or potentially
off the field, and create stubble to
seed winter triticale into.
June was a write off for trying to
seed anything because of frequent
rains. Then June 28 rolled around.
Seven inches of rain overnight.
Water stopped running across our
fields by the middle of July. The one
dormant seeded alfalfa field was set
back with the flooding, and foxtail
barley took over so we worked it
under. Two acres of our six acres of
grazing corn flooded out.
Haying season resulted in getting stuck once, I got smart quick,
but left some lower areas. The first
year alfalfa looked like a field of
sow thistle, but underneath we got
a good catch of alfalfa. It didn’t get
cut as early as I would have liked,
but it got done.
We had 120 acres that we could
not get to prior to the showers.
By the end of July it as overgrown
with foxtail barley. The only
option we saw was to disk it under
with a 14-foot disk. It proved to be
an adventure, like everything else
— we got stuck numerous times.
With the drier conditions during end of July and early August,
the soil dried out enough to
allow us to seed cover crops.
We seeded 120 acres of straight
tillage radish and 425 acres of a
blend of tillage radish, red proso
millet, sorghum sudangrass,
crimson clover and sunflower
the first 10 days of August.
Our initial goal was to get a cut of
greenfeed off of the five-crop blend,
but Mother Nature had other plans.
The straight tillage radish crop was
seeded to see if it would smother
out weeds.
Tillage radish is a crop unlike
any other. If it grows for more than
six weeks without a frost, clipping,
mowing, or graze, it will bolt and
want to flower. Cutting the plant
It PAYS to Study Ag
CABEF offers six $2,500 scholarships to Canadian
students enrolling in agricultural or agri-business
related programs.
resets its clock. If a frost occurs, the
plant will stop trying to be a spring
annual to become a winter annual.
As a spring annual, it will bolt,
flower and try to produce seed. As
a winter annual, it will produce a
larger root and tuber to store nutrients and energy so the plant and
try to overwinter. Three nights of -9
C kills the plant. If it has bolted, it
will be harder to work with because
the bolted plant will have more
lignin in the stem.
The key is to seed tillage radish
within six weeks of frost. At a six
to eight pound seeding rate, it
will cover the ground after three
weeks, assuming there is moisture.
Until the snow got too deep
too see the radish by the end of
November, they were still green.
The tubers were from one to
three inches in diameter, six to 12
inches long.
We got some Luoma winter triticale seeded into the cover crop
land. Tillage radish got a little
too leafy for my liking but made
it work. Next year, I will include
more sunflowers in a blend that
we are using as a cover crop. We
like how it gets quick height, has
better salinity tolerance and is
killed with the first frost.
Corn grazing did not last long.
20 animals cleaned up the four
acres in 30 days. Corn does not
like to be flooded. Since there was
too much variability in production, this is the first year we will
not generate any yield data off of
our corn. Where it stayed out of
the water, it did well.
Soybean harvest was delayed due
to the late September rains, but
went smoothly. Early optimism was
dashed when we went from the
higher land to the lower land. The
higher land was yielding between
35 and 50 bushels per acre. Lower
land that got extra water ran around
10. Overall we had a 28 bushel per
acre average, 38 per cent protein
and 19 per cent oil.
Next year, if Drew Lerner’s early
2015 prediction is correct, may
get us back into our normal rotation. We will give Azuki beans one
more chance and I am looking for
some sesame to try. Canola still is
not on my list of crops to grow.
Keeping on with soybeans, alfalfa,
sainfoin, grazing corn, and winter
triticale. †
Kevin Elmy operates Friendly Acres Seed
Farm, along with his wife, Christina, and
parents, Robert and Verene, near Saltcoats,
Sask. Contact him at 306-744-2779 or visit
www.friendlyacres.sk.ca
Deadline for applications: March 1, 2015
Apply at cabef.org
@CABEFoundation
CABEF is a registered charity (#828593731RR0001). For more information on all registered charities in Canada under
the Income Tax Act, please visit: Canada Revenue Agency, www.cra-arc.gc.ca/charities.
photo: kevin elmy
Kevin Elmy is tired of wearing
rubber boots.
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
17
Columns
App Quest
The iForeman grain cart scale app
If you’re using the Avery Weigh-Tronix SmartLoad system, take advantage of this free app
Jay
Peterson
I
f you have read any of my
previous articles you will
know that I am a fan of
consolidating data onto my
smart devices. Avery Weigh-Tronix
has a product to accomplish that
task for grain carts with their iForeman application for Apple iOS supported devices.
This app lets you wirelessly track
all your cart and trucking operations, and moving grain into the
bin, from the comfort of your
Apple devices while also eliminating the need for in-cab wires or a
scale monitor/printer.
The first question that usually
comes up when adding a wireless
component to any piece of equipment is the “how.” Downloading
and attaching apps to the equipment once it is set up is the easy
part. This set up is about as plugand-play as you can get with a
piece of farm machinery.
You need an i60 serial processor
from Weigh-Tronix. This plugs into
the junction box connected to the
weigh bar and is mounted in your
most convenient location on the
cart. This takes the signal from the
junction box and turns it into a
Bluetooth signal that is wirelessly
transmitted in a 400-foot radius
around the i60 processor. Connect
your smart product to this signal,
fire up the app and you are on
your way. One of the great benefits
of the i60 is that you can connect
to it from an unlimited number
of device. This means that all the
combine or truck operators can
keep track of all this information.
It also allows things such as yield
calibration in combines or just the
general monitoring of load weights
for the trucks.
C
M
Y
Using the app
CM
MY
The app has a very easy to
use touch-and-go interface with a
pleasant green background.
I suggest using a stand-alone
smart product with this app like
an iPad mini or just a regular iPad.
That way, you can make sure all the
information is properly recorded.
The main display acts just like
a regular scale monitor — seamlessly showing what is in, added
to or removed from the cart. Crop
moisture, temperature and bushel
weight are also inputs you can add
to make your tracking operations
more accurate. These inputs are
located just above the task bar at
the bottom of the task bar at the
bottom of the display screen and
can be changed simply by touching
them and inputting a new value.
One thing this app tracks —
unlike a conventional scale — is
the field, truck and bin. Once
these parameters are set up, the
app will automatically record all
the transactions for those parameters. When something changes,
just select or add the new parameter and let the iForeman do the
recording work for you. The field,
truck and destination selections of
this app can be changed by selecting the icon in the task bar.
These are definitely handy fea- voltage of the processor is also
tures for tracking production for available in case trouble shooting
either crop share rental purposes is needed in the occasion that the
or crop insurance needs where the app, processor or scale is not workmore documentation you have the ing correctly.
The iForeman is a great addition
better. The documentation that
iForeman produces can also be eas- to any Avery Weigh-Tronix scale
ily emailed out and then printed for package with its simple set up
paper copies of your records as well. and easy to use interface. Anytime
The iForeman also allows you you can gain this much informato work with the units you like tion digitally that automatically
as well. In the settings menu you records you will never go wrong.
can select from the most common With the iForeman you can give
units for weight and temperature. an information edge to not only
You can even change the year, to your cart, combine and truck opertrack-year-by-year weights coming ators but accurately track your
off of the land and note where it production from the field, to the
all was stored. iForeman also allows truck and into the bin.
Cost: Free. But this app is not
the general cart calibrations and
Android. 2:49
† PM
zeroing we
are all accustomed to available1 for2014-10-02
NSG CA Print Ad Moosomin 8.125x10.pdf
in the device menu. The battery Jay Peterson farms near Frontier, Sask.
The Avery Weigh-Tronix app lets you track cart and trucking operations.
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18
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Columns
Farm financial planner
Bachelor farmer seeks retirement plan
With no spouse and no children to take over the farm, this single farmer needs to decide
when he can retire, then create his retirement and inheritance plan
By Andrew Allentuck
F
red, as we’ll call him,
has farmed in central
Manitoba for four decades, often adding to farm
income by working for his neighbours. Over time, he has sold off
parcels of his operation — once
480 acres — and is now down to
160 acres. He uses his land for
producing hay, custom grazing
and feeding his own herd of cows
which varies from 50 to 200 head,
depending on the price of calves
and what he thinks he can get for
cows in spring. Now age 61, he
looks back at what he has built,
what it will take to retire, and
how to structure his business to
make retirement feasible.
Fred’s operation has had a
bumpy ride. In 2003, he was
devastated by the BSE crisis. Feed
was too expensive that winter,
so he sold his entire herd at a
$100,000 loss.
With fewer cows to feed, he
decided to sell 320 acres of land
in 2004. The decision was tough,
for he could have sold his RRSPs
to get cash to keep the herd
going. Sale of RRSP assets would
have attracted tax. Selling the
cows at a loss was his best move
at the time.
The present farm with 160 acres
of land for hay and grazing now
supports 50 cows. Fred adds 10 to
20 cows each season to increase
the herd. That has allowed him
to cut back the hours he works
for his neighbours and to build
up $75,000 equity, which he uses
as working capital for the feeding
business.
Fred went to see Don Forbes
and Erik Forbes of Don Forbes
Associates/Armstrong & Quaile
Inc. in Carberry, Manitoba to
determine when he might be
able to retire with an assurance
of being able to have $2,000 a
month after tax.
Getting to retirement
Fred’s largest asset at present
is his $210,000 of mutual funds
divvied up into technology and
growth stocks and resource plays.
He pays more than average 2.6 per
cent management fees for these
funds which, because of their narrow focus on individual and currently declining sectors are more
volatile than broad market funds.
His portfolio has produced a long
term average return of 8.5 per
cent for the last 10 years, but it’s
been a roller coaster ride. First
move, Don Forbes suggests, is to
move money into broader funds
with lower fees.
Many low cost managed funds
with fees of no more than one
per cent a year are available, Don
notes. The selection includes
large cap, dividend paying familiar names and investment grade
bond funds. Investment grade
bonds issued by the Government
of Canada and provincial governments tend to rise in price
when stocks fall, thus providing stability to the portfolio. The
goal is to create a portfolio with
acceptable risk. “While higher
risk funds may produce the best
overall rates of return, they can
be less beneficial for income and,
when markets drop, frightened
investors tend to sell, reducing
their future returns,” Don Forbes
explains. Diversification among
asset classes tends to stabilize
portfolios and to allow investors
to ride out falling markets with a
degree of peace of mind.
Fred could retire at 61. If his
RRSP were converted to a RRIF,
it would produce an average of
$12,000 a year for the next three
decades, Erik Forbes estimates,
with actual payments climbing
from 3.45 per cent of portfolio value at Fred’s age 61 to 20
per cent of portfolio value at
age 94. Fred’s other source of
income will be Canada Pension
Plan benefits which will be $520
per month if he takes it at 61.
However, he can afford to wait to
age 65. If he does that, he would
have payments of 64 per cent of
the present maximum of $1,065
a month or about $720 a month.
He can afford to wait and should
do so, Don Forbes recommends.
Postponing application will work
if Fred’s farm operation can make
up the difference, that is, pay
about as much as CPP at age 61.
Fred has $75,000 of equity tied
up in his cattle feeding business.
He could liquidate and then put
the total limit as of 2015, $36,500,
into a Tax-Free Savings Account.
He has no TFSA at present. The
remaining $33,500 could be
invested in a taxable investment
account or used to replace his old
half-ton pickup.
There is a final question of
Fred’s legacy. He has neither children nor spouse. His remaining
160 acres of farmland should
be sold. It would bring about
$288,000. He should qualify for
the farmland capital gains credit,
meaning that he would keep all
the money from the sale.
Timing is everything
If Fred retires this year at age
61, his income will be $1,000
a month from his RRIF, $520 a
month from CPP, $300 in farm
income if his land is not sold
for total income of $1,820 a
month. He would pay 12 per
cent average income tax and
have $1,600 a month to spend.
That’s 20 per cent below his
$2,000 monthly after tax retirement income target.
If Fred delays retirement to 65,
he would have $1,500 a month
RRIF income depending on
By jonny hawkins
Country Chuckles
“Postmodern Farmers”
growth of its investments $720 a
month from CPP, $564 from Old
Age Security and $500 a month
projected income from renting
his 160 acres. That’s a total of
$3,284 a month or $39,408 a
year. After 18 per cent average
Manitoba and federal income tax,
he would have $2,700 a month to
spend, well above his $2,000 after
tax monthly target.
Fred
could retire
at 61
It would be possible for Fred to
boost his income by doing part
time work in retirement and thus
reducing his draw on financial
assets. The advantage to continuing working is that he will need
to draw less and thus may be
able to extend the payout period
of his assets. If he also is able
to increase the cash flow from
his investments by shifting from
risky growth stocks held in high
fee mutual funds to low risk, dividend rich investments his liquidity can grow. A financial adviser
could help make this transition
from high cost to low cost funds.
With time on his hands, Fred
could also take a do-it-yourself
approach and study capital markets, stocks, economics and so on
so that he will be more the master
of his financial fate and less a
victim of it, Don Forbes suggests.
Considerations
for singles
The Income Tax Act could be said
to be unfair to single persons. Fred
cannot share costs or split eligible
pension income such as Registered
Retirement Income Fund payouts
with a spouse or anyone else in an
equivalent to married situation. He
cannot use the typically younger
age of a spouse to reduce and
extend RRIF benefits.
Given his lack of beneficiary,
Fred should think of distant family
members, charities or other good
causes to endow at the end of his
life. Certain property can be predonated as well in exchange for
tax-deductible donation receipts
from qualified charities. A will is
an essential instrument for achieving these goals. Along with a will,
Fred should have a health directive drafted to instruct a trusted
person on how funeral and estate
matters should be handled.
“This case shows that you don’t
have to be wealthy to have a
secure retirement,” Don Forbes
says. “If you keep your retirement needs to $2,700 a month
after tax, your present assets, with
modest growth, will support you
to age 95.” †
Andrew Allentuck’s latest book, “When Can I
Retire? Planning Your Financial Life After Work,”
was published by Penguin Canada in 2011.
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
19
Columns
Understanding market bulls and bears
Is the basis a fair deal for farmers?
Changing basis levels at local elevators can leave farmers wondering if today’s markets are
working fairly or not. Learn more about what you can learn from basis
Brian
wittal
W
ith current wheat
basis levels, are we
being ripped off?
This is a question
many farmers have asked over
the past couple of years, since the
demise of the Canadian Wheat
Board as a central marketing
agency, and even more so this
last year when we saw basis levels
go to historically wide levels due
to weather and market problems
across the Prairies.
Let’s review the situation with
wheat as it was and as it is today to
shed some light on what a basis is
and how it should work in today’s
marketplace.
Back when the CWB was “The
Single Desk Seller” of wheat, you
were provided with a pooled basis.
This pooled basis was determined
by the CWB, taking into consideration what they believed their costs
to market and sell wheat would be
for that particular pooling period.
They would average the cost over
time and offer farmers the average
basis. Seeing as the CWB had the
monopoly control to sell the wheat
there was no immediate competition, so the CWB did not need to
adjust its basis very often, if at all,
during the pooling periods.
The CWB controlled the flow
of grain through contract acceptance. Grain companies would take
the grain in if they had space
and, or when they had shipping
for that grain. They would buy
the grain from the farmer on the
CWB’s behalf, and the CWB paid
the grain companies storage for
holding the grain in their facilities until it was shipped. The grain
companies did not have cash tied
up buying CWB grains as they
were reimbursed relatively quickly
by the CWB, once inventory and
purchase reports were filed. They
made money by handling and
storing grains for the CWB, which
was a big part of their revenues
each year.
Basis now truly
reflects what is
happening
The new world
Since the demise of the monopoly powers of the CWB, we now
have numerous grain companies
competing with one another to sell
the grains they buy. They are also
competing against one another to
buy grain from you to meet their
sales. Which company is successful
in the bid to fill a sale will play a big
part in what you see for basis levels
at elevator facilities in the country.
TOUGHER
EASIER
Look at the basis
Reviewing basis levels regularly
will tell you a number of things.
If the nearby (sooner) basis is
better than the forward (further
in the future) basis, that is telling
you there is an immediate need for
grain to meet sales now.
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How has this impacted wheat
basis levels and why?
Basis has moved from being
a relatively static number based
on an averaging of sales costs in
a pooling environment to being
the gate keeper to control the
flow of grains in and out of our
grain handling system.
What do I mean by that?
In today’s world, grain companies must take ownership of the
grain and put up their own cash to
buy wheat from farmers to fill the
sales that they have made. They
don’t get paid for storage when
they’re holding grain, like they
used to from the CWB. These factors add risk and costs to the grain
companies’ bottom lines.
To best manage their cash flow,
sales needs and facility space utilization, grain companies need to
control the flow of grain they buy
through managing the basis levels
they offer farmers.
If grain companies don’t have
sales to fill they don’t need to buy
grain from farmers —this will just
eat into their cash flow and take
up space in their facilities. The best
way for them to discourage farmers
from selling grain is to widen out
the basis to the point where farmers refuse to sell. Conversely if they
need grain to meet a sale they will
narrow the basis to attract deliveries
to cover their sales commitments.
Grain companies will use basis
to help protect them against future
potential sales. If futures markets are
rallying but grain companies don’t
have sales to fill, they will widen
their basis out to stop farmers from
selling — they don’t want to own
grain in a rally if they aren’t sure
they can sell it later for a profit. If
farmers still sell at those high basis
levels, then the grain companies
are making extra margin to protect
themselves in the event that they
end up selling the grain later into a
lower priced market.
Grain companies buy and sell
wheat based on U.S. wheat futures
markets. The only way they can
differentiate themselves from one
another when buying grain is to
vary their basis levels.
AND SAVE
BEFORE
MARCH
20th
If the nearby basis is worse than
the forward basis, the nearby needs
have been filled and they want you
to contract grain for future delivery
when they have sales to fill.
If there is a wide variability in
the basis levels offered by different
grain companies, that is often due
to the fact that one company has
made a sale and another company
did not. Or one company’s sale is a
lower price, so they must set their
basis accordingly to fill those sales.
There will always be some variability in basis levels between companies and/or different delivery points
within a company due to rail freight
rates and handling charges.
Where things can get confusing is when you are comparing
basis levels between companies.
They sometimes quote different
grades, making it hard to compare apples to apples.
Most grain companies use No. 1
CWRS 13.5 per cent as their base
pricing grade while others use
No. 1 CWRS 13 per cent or No. 2
CWRS 12.5 per cent or 13 per cent
as their base pricing grades.
To compare properly, you need
to ask for the current grade and
protein spreads, then do some quick
math to be able to see who is offering the best basis and thus the best
price. Or, ask them all to give you a
price for the same grade and protein
and save yourself the math exercise.
Basis levels: fair?
So to answer the original question, no, I don’t think you are
being ripped off on wheat basis.
There is enough competition out
there to keep grain companies
adjusting basis levels constantly as
their sales and the markets dictate.
Basis now truly reflects what is
happening in the market place.
Watching basis levels closely and
locking them in when they’re at
attractive levels is the best way
to keep from being forced to lock
in a poor basis when they widen
out. Grain companies may try to
extract more profit by widening
out their basis but competition
and your due diligence to monitor
basis levels will keep them in line.
Last winter’s historically wide
basis levels were spurred on by
a number of factors that came
together in a perfect storm. Cold
weather stalled out the rail transportation system which put grain
companies at risk of not meeting sales commitments or losing
future sales, plus paying demurrage costs on waiting vessels.
To protect themselves, they widened out the basis or refused to
take deliveries until they felt they
could continue doing business as
usual. Basis did eventually come
back down to more traditional levels after a few months, which shows
that the marketplace is competitive.
It’s just unfortunate that the situation caused so much angst for so
many across the entire industry. All
we can do is hope we don’t experience a similar situation and that
we’re better prepared to manage
such a situation should it happen
again. †
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).
20
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Columns
Soils and Crops
Water quality: Part 2
of a three-part series
There is a lot of talk about water quality issues, but not
all of the commonly-cited information is accurate
source: manitoba water stewardship
Figure 1. A widely used, but very misleading map, shown as Lake Winnipeg Watershed.
les
henry
N
ote to readers: Before
you read this article, I
suggest you check back
to page 14 of the April
15, 2013 issue of “Grainews.” The
headline was “The Truth About
Lake Winnipeg.” There will be
some overlap with this piece.
Water quality
There are many aspects to
water quality. For irrigation use,
salt content is the most important, for household washing
hardness is a big deal. For drinking water, total minerals, especially sulphate, is an issue. Low
nitrate is important, especially
for babies.
The most important aspect
of water quality for human
consumption has nothing to
do with chemistry — it’s the
biology. The disaster of E. coli
contamination of groundwater
at Walkerton, Ontario and the
parasites in North Battleford,
Sask., water sharpened the
focus on water. In the decade
plus since those outbreaks, all
water utilities and regulators
have upped the game substantially to prevent future events
of those types.
But the water quality issue we
will deal with here is the issue
with algal blooms on surface
waters, particularly recreational
lakes. It is now known that phosphorus is the main nutrient that
is limiting in lakes. When the
phosphorus level increases the
algae have a picnic.
Back to the 70s:
The Qu’Appelle River
When environmental concerns
became a concern, the Qu’Appelle
system in Saskatchewan was
the subject of a major study.
There were no intensive livestock operations at that time
but Saskatchewan Agriculture
did an inventory of all cows in
the Valley. Some thought that
all cows should be taken from
upstream to keep the Qu’Appelle
Lakes from getting algae in the
hot “swimming” months.
The major study was completed and the results rest comfortably in a report in the government documents section of
the University of Saskatchewan
Library. It showed that over 90
per cent of the phosphorus in the
lower Qu’Appelle system came
from the cities of Regina and
Moose Jaw. Shortly after that
Moose Jaw converted to a sewage
effluent irrigation system.
The big picture:
Lake Winnipeg
In the past decade the large
and ugly algal blooms on Lake
Winnipeg have been a topic of
much discussion. Folks that rely
on Lake Winnipeg for resources
or very important summer activities are justifiably upset. It took
me a long time to realize that
very low levels of phosphorus are
all it takes to create a problem.
So we must all be vigilant and do
our part.
But let us first look at where
that phosphorous comes from.
Figure 1 shows a widely used,
but misleading map of the Lake
Winnipeg Watershed.
A December 2006 report
to the Manitoba Minister
of Water Stewardship entitled
“Reducing Nutrient Loading
to Lake Winnipeg and its
Watershed” makes the following
statement on page 13: “Within
the Lake Winnipeg drainage
basin, there are nearly 55 million hectares (jlh: 136 m acres)
of farmland in the three Prairie
provinces, of which more than
half is under crop production
and the vast majority is part of
the Lake Winnipeg watershed.”
That statement is a very
large misrepresentation of the
actual situation.
Figure 2 shows non-contributing areas. All areas in red
in Figure 2 do not contribute
to external drainage, based
on median annual runoff. In flat lands the area
would be increased in
high runoff years but
even then very large
areas have nothing
to do with Lake
Winnipeg. Large
parts of “pothole country”
have no connection to
any external drainage.
The phosphorus load in Lake
Winnipeg is sourced as follows:
47 per cent — Man.
33 per cent — the U.S.
12 per cent — Ont.
8 per cent — Sask./Alta.
Very little would be from
Alberta.
This data comes from a presentation made by Mark Lee,
Manitoba Water Stewardship, to
the newly-minted Assiniboine
River Basin Initiative.
Phosphorus loading is well
documented and any sources
should be made as small as
possible. But the work must
be concentrated where
the problem originates.
For example, some
recent research on the
Pipestone Creek area
of Saskatchewan has
shown significant
phosphorus losses
from the field
edge of bale grazing systems.
But, no one
got on a
horse or
quad in
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21
Columns
In dealing
with water
quality issues
we must
use a rifle
approach, not
a shotgun
spring to follow the water to see if
any of it even reached the Pipestone
Creek, let alone Lake Winnipeg.
The first water body of concern
on the Pipestone Creek should be
Moosomin Lake. Lake Winnipeg is
a long distance and many reservoir
areas removed from the Pipestone.
Research on farm management
practices to reduce phosphorus
loss anywhere in the Canadian
Prairies is simply too broad a
brush and a waste of precious
research funds.
Lake Winnipeg: The
constipation theory
bundles.
ebates.
waiting.
The Nelson River is
located at the northeast
corner of Lake Winnipeg
and drains the lake
to Hudson Bay. But,
Manitoba Hydro
has several hydro
dams along that
drainage route.
Some folks
claim that the
flow restriction from
the dams
kidding.
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Figure 2. Map of non- contributing areas within the gross Lake Winnipeg watershed area. Original map
produced by the former PFRA.
affects the residence time of water
in the lake. That results in nutrient
retention that “juices up” the algae.
I have no basis or facts on which to
base any opinion on that theory.
Lake Diefenbaker
In Saskatchewan we have
three major dams on the
Saskatchewan River system but
Lake Diefenbaker is the most
significant.
It is no surprise that Lake
Diefenbaker is a stated priority for the University of
Saskatchewan Global Institute
of Water Security and the
School of Environment and
Sustainability. You can imagine my disappointment
when I attended a grad student presentation dealing with phosphorous in
Lake Diefenbaker. The
project was trying to
relate phosphorus levels in the Lake to fertilizer use statistics
for the surrounding
Saskatchewan crop
districts.
The South
Saskatchewan
River in Saskatchewan is not
even a river
— it is a canal. (Credit for
this goes to Kevin Shook, who
used the canal label in a talk
recently).
Very little of the water in the
South Saskatchewan River or
Lake Diefenbaker is added in
Saskatchewan — 98 per cent of the
flow originates from Alberta via
the Oldman, Bow and Red Deer
Rivers. They all join to become
the South Saskatchewan just
before entering Saskatchewan.
After the disappointing seminar, a few mouse clicks provided
the answers I was looking for.
In 1998: 87.5 per cent of phosphorus in the Oldman River came
from the City of Lethbridge. In
2000, after tertiary treatment by
Lethbridge, the phorphorus contribution to the Oldman River
was reduced to 23.6 per cent.
Similar numbers can be
obtained for Calgary and the
Bow River. With that kind of
reduction one might expect a
reduction in phosphorus load to
the South Sask.
In 2012 the newly minted Water
Security Agency of Saskatchewan
produced a report entitled “ State
of Lake Diefenbaker: That report
said this about nutrient loading:
“Nitrogen and phosphorus have
been measured since the late
1960s by the Prairie Provinces
Water Board (PPWB) at their
Alberta/Saskatchewan border sites
on the South Saskatchewan River
and the Red Deer River. The length
of this record allows for assessment of long-term trends. … The
PPWB recently undertook such an
exercise and found slight but significant decreasing trends for total
and dissolved phosphorus concentrations at both the Saskatchewan
and Red Deer River sites.”
Given the Alberta data showing major reductions in phosphorus load by cities the decrease
makes sense. The details of that
statement should be provided.
Soils in feedlot alley in
Alberta are extremely high
in available phosphorus.
Alberta Agriculture and
Environment folks have done a
lot of good work in documenting
the phosphorus in soils, surface
water and groundwater of that
area. But, as yet I have not seen
an actual phosphorus load factor
for that specific area.
The Future
In dealing with water quality
issues we must use a rifle approach,
not a shotgun. A quality problem must be traced back to the
source(s) and dealt with at those
sources. Describing non-point pollution as everywhere does not cut
it. Generic research on an area that
is not part of the problem is of
little value. Water does run down
hill and it can be traced. There
has been a lot of doubtful research
money spent on the basis that all
of Canadian Prairie agriculture is
somehow magically dumping all
the way to Lake Winnipeg.
In Saskatchewan, Diefenbaker
Lake is a priority for us, and
monitoring work must be ramped
up to at least what it was in the
past. And, all information has to
be readily available at the click of
a mouse. Research work must first
assemble and analyze all historic
data. There is much useful data
not being used.
The Assiniboine system is also
a priority because what we do in
Saskatchewan impacts Manitoba.
As Saskatchewan drafts new legislation to deal with drainage
questions the Assiniboine system will be a major priority.
None of us know how long
this wet cycle will last. By the
time we become more adept
at handling the excess Mother
Nature may well turn off the
tap. †
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 third 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.
22
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Columns
Reporters notebook
Farm reporting has its charms
For Lisa Guenther, farm reporting is more than just a job
By Lisa Guenther
B
ack when I was a teenager
brimming with that special too-cool-for-you attitude, my friends’ mom
tried to impart some basic agricultural knowledge. While chauffeuring us in the summer, she’d quiz
us on the crop type in the fields as
we whipped by.
My friends, who were growing up
on a grain farm, were pretty adept
at identifying crops, from what I
remember. I was a ranch kid and
couldn’t distinguish one green field
from another on the fly. Although I
was clearly hopeless, she displayed
a Yoda-like patience. I doubt my
15-year-old self would have believed
I’d someday be a farm reporter.
It turns out I enjoy farm reporting. Well, besides the threat of public gaffes that reveal I still know next
to nothing about crops. Agriculture
is a very diverse sector, filled with
interesting people. I get to talk to
farmers and ranchers, scientists,
CEOs and commodity traders. I’ve
covered stories in all three Prairie
provinces and on both coasts.
Sometimes information sticks in my
brain and I actually learn stuff.
Here are a few of my favourite
experiences while working for
Grainews and Country Guide.
Chicago
Last winter, I talked to Tom
Button, Country Guide editor,
into letting me write some sort
of story on the Chicago Board of
Trade (CBOT).
I loved the city of Chicago. The
architecture, the art, the music,
the laissez-faire attitude towards
jaywalking downtown all warmed
my heart.
Chicago also has a long history of agriculture and trading.
Farmers and merchants have been
trading in the city since the 19th
Century. In 1898, the Chicago
Butter and Egg Board began offering contracts in ag commodities.
It then started offering futures
and morphed into the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange (CME).
Today CME Group runs the
exchange out of an art deco skyscraper, built in the 1930s, in
downtown Chicago. CME also
includes markets in New York and
Kansas City.
When I tell people I visited
Chicago’s trading floor, anyone
who’s been to CBOT tells me
I should have seen it back-inthe-day.
But early March 2014 turned
out to be an interesting time to
visit. For one thing, Russia was
moving into the Crimea, and so
commodity markets were lively.
And although the future pits are
like ghost towns, traders filled the
corn options pit. They waited quietly for the markets to open that
morning. When a buzzer droned
exactly at 8:30 a.m., they erupted.
Shouting. Hands flailing. A small
taste of what the trading floor was
once like.
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It was interesting to talk to
CBOT veterans about electronic
trading, especially since they
were still in the middle of that
change. They told me how electronic trading has shifted the
culture of CBOT and changed
the way people do business. It’s a
complex picture.
I was feeling fairly intimidated
about visiting CBOT because I
know so little about markets.
And it seemed like an aggressive environment. But everyone I
spoke to that day was respectful
and seemed happy to talk about
what they did. I really appreciated that.
I don’t cover markets on a regular basis. But visiting Chicago
gave me a little better understanding of the markets and sparked
an interest in the agriculture
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I’m not sure what this says
about me, but discovering that
aphanomyces was lurking in my
backyard was one of my more
exciting professional moments.
Aphanomyces is a pathogen
that causes root rot in peas and
other legumes. Chickpeas are relatively tolerant, and some fababeans have resistance. Until fairly
recently, it’s been largely undiagnosed in Western Canada because
fusarium tends to move in after
the initial infection.
I pulled in information from a
range of sources for this story. There
are scientists doing good work to
further everyone’s understanding
of the disease. But this story really
highlighted how important farmers’ field observations are.
In 2012, Bernie McClean, a
Medstead-area farmer, realized
something was wrong with his
peas early enough to get an accurate aphanomyces diagnosis. His
neighbour, pedigreed seed grower
Ed Seidle, observed the disease’s
progression and possible links to
its spread that year. Both Bernie
and Ed are astute people willing
to investigate what’s happening
on their farms. I suspect Ed reads
scientific journals the way some
people read mysteries. When
their knowledge is combined
with research from universities
and government, we can start
to see some links to the disease,
such as water-logged soil.
Farmers and scientists are still
studying this disease, so I’m sure
there will be much more to come.
There’s a lot of work to do, but
hopefully they’ll come up with
management practices and resistant
varieties to rein in the infection.
Even after writing about aphanomyces last spring, it didn’t
occur to me that I should plant
my garden peas in new ground.
They yellowed part way through
the summer. I pulled plants and
found they had poor nodulation.
My amateur diagnosis was aphanomyces and/or fusarium.
Rotation, rotation, rotation.
Winnipeg in December
Another highlight for me
was an icy trip to Winnipeg in
December 2014.
I rarely get to visit Winnipeg,
3823 BY_Genuity RR Canola-CoMon-Contest-FINAL-GN.indd 1
Client: BrettYoung
Project: A World of Knowledge...
2015-01-05 11:59 AM
Publication: Grainews
Size: 8.125” x 10”
Agency: ON Communication Inc
Agency Contact: Jen Grozelle
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
23
Columns
photos: lisa guenther
Left: Lentil-enriched pasta in Cigi’s pasta plant. Cigi staff measure
everything from colour to biting quality, through machines and taste
panels. Right: A machine designed to measure the force needed to bite
through a noodle at CGC.
and if you’re interested in the
agriculture industry, there’s a
lot to see there. I went there
specifically for Field on Wheels,
an annual grain transportation
conference. While I was there, I
took a day to tour the Canadian
Grain Commission (CGC) and
the Canadian International
Grains Institute (Cigi). Both
agencies are in the same mushroom-shaped building in downtown Winnipeg.
Whether you’re talking about
grading grain or baking bread,
consistency seems to be the
word. Customers don’t want to
adjust their equipment or processes because they’re working
with huge batches. They need
to know that each shipment
meets either the regulatory
grades or their own specs, and
they need to know how each
variety and each year’s crop is
going to perform.
There are many details that
go into ensuring that consistency. For example, on the grading
side, the lighting has to be stand-
ardized so it doesn’t throw off
the colour. Each noodle market
demands a certain colour and texture. Crumb structure is important in bread.
The other term that springs to
mind is supply chain. What you
do on the farm affects the final
product, as does the weather, the
varieties available to you, and
many, many other links between
the field and table.
The people at Cigi are finding
new uses for Canadian crops. I
T:10.25” Western Red
learned that Canada
Winter (CWRW) is a good fit for
steamed breads, popular in Asia.
CWRW’s low ash content makes
for bright bread, which is what
consumers in Asia want. And Cigi
staffers are blending pulses into
everything from pasta to snack
foods. I took home a little package of rotini made with 25 per
cent red lentil flour and it passed
my taste test.
If you ever have a chance to
visit Cigi and CGC, do it. Cigi
brings in farmers through their
three-day Combine to Customer
program over the winter. The program includes everything from
variety development to grain grading to flour milling and customer
requirements.
Agriculture is a complex industry that’s always changing. As a
farmer said to me recently, the
more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. That makes it
a challenging sector to work in,
but also an interesting one. †
Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews based
at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@
fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.
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/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Columns
Kelly’s AgExpert Tips and tHings
Year end with AgExpert Analyst
If your accountant uses AgExpert, learn how to create an accountant’s copy of your
files at year end. Or, find out which AgExport reports to take to your accountant
Kelly
Airey
O
nce you have taken
steps to prepare your
data file for year-end
and created a new fiscal year to work in, you’re ready
to take the information to your
accountant.
If your accountant uses AgExpert,
you can simply send them a copy
of your data file by creating an
“Accountant’s Copy.” This allows
your accountant to review and
make necessary modifications and
adjustments in the old year, while
you continue to work forward in
the new year. When complete, your
accountant can return the file back
to you, so you can import any
changes and notes that were made
by your accountant.
Steps of “importing” that revised
accountants copy will be covered
in next article. If your accountant
does not use AgExpert in their
office, then I will provide you with
a list of reports to send.
Making
the accountant’s copy
1. In AgExpert, choose File>
Create Accountant’s Copy.
2. Enter your divider date. This
divides the part you’ll be sending
from the part of the file you’ll continue to work in. Tip: The divider
date is usually the last date of the
fiscal year.
In your copy of the file: On
or before the dividing date, you
can only view the transactions.
After the dividing date, you are
free to add or edit transactions
(including payroll) and keep
working forward with your newyear data entry.
In the accountant’s copy of the
data file: On or before the dividing
date, your accountant can add or
edit transactions (with the exception of payroll transactions.) After
the dividing date, accountant can
only view transactions.
3. Click save. The software
then provides a link to the
accountant’s copy of the data file.
The accountant’s copy of the file
is automatically formatted with
the file extension “.agacctransfer” and is usually placed in the
Analyst/Data folder on your hard
drive. Clicking on the blue link
will take you directly to where
the accountant’s copy is located.
From here you can move the file
to another location, such as to
a memory stick, to give to your
accountant. You also have the
option of picking the file from
this location and emailing it as an
attachment to your accountant.
4. Click “okay” to close the
window. In the title bar of
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AgExpert at the very top, take
note that it now displays your
data file as “Client’s Copy” and
displays the dividing date.
5. You may continue to enter
data in the new year. When your
accountant has made necessary
changes to your old year in their
accountant’s copy, they will send
the file back to you, so you can
import the changes into your data
file.
Undoing the
accountant’s copy
1. If, for any reason, you need
to undo the accountant’s copy,
click on File > Undo Accountant’s
Copy. A warning message appears,
saying that this will remove the
restrictions on your file that prevent you from working on transactions on or before the divider date.
Tip: If your accountant is currently working on your file, you
won’t be able to import any of
their changes. However, if you
haven’t sent the accountants
copy to the accountant yet, and
you want to make a change on
or before the divider date, this is
an easy way to undo the accountants copy.
3. Click yes to the confirmation message that appears, and
the divider date and all restrictions will be removed from your
data file.
3. When you’re ready to create
another accountant’s copy, follow
the above steps again.
What to take to your
accountant
If your accountant’s office does
not use AgExpert, here is a list
of reports you may need to send
your accountant for income tax
or to complete your financial
statements. Go over this list with
your accountant, and ask them
which reports they require for
your operation. Your accountant
may already have a checklist of
required documents to help you
gather the required information
at year end. Make sure to keep
all your year-end source documents, such as year-end bank
statements, readily available.
Under Reports > Report Console
> Accountant Reports, you can
generate these reports:
1. Cash-based income/expense
report for income tax reporting
2. Cash-based general ledger for
income tax reporting
3. Accrual-based detailed
income/expense report for financial statement purposes
4. Trial balance report
5. Capital asset schedule report
for sales and purchases
6. Detailed and summary
inventory report
7. Advanced inventory detail (if
your tracking for agristability)
8. If your accountant requires
this, under Reports > Reports
Console > receivables and payables summary and detail.
Next issue: Importing the
accountant’s copy. †
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.
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
25
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Off-farm investments
Oil and gold on
different paths
Oil and gold prices are moving in different directions,
but Andy Sirski thinks their paths could soon reverse
ANDY
SIRSKI
A
s I write this, on January
25, the price of oil has
dropped over 50 per cent
from its high last summer and may or may not be forming a bottom. The price of gold
has had higher and higher lows
and higher and higher highs since
November. The price went through
the normal ups and downs; peaked
in February, 2014,bottomed in
June, peaked in July and bottomed
in November 2014.
Since then the price of gold
has been moving higher from its
November low of about $1,130 in
spite of a higher and higher U.S.
dollar and tax loss selling in late
2014.
What’s ahead?
I think sooner or later the price
of oil will come back up. I don’t
think it will climb to $100 per
barrel any time soon, but odds
are good that eventually the price
will hit $100 and go higher. Here’s
why: if this downturn lasts more
than a few months a lot of oil producers will go belly up, broke and
out of business.
They might not produce a lot of
oil individually but the group does
produce a lot of oil at the margin.
When supply is short just a little, it
can move the price up a lot. If the
supply is over demand just a little,
it can drive the price down a lot.
To me all the
matters is
what the price
is doing
During an extended downturn
even big companies will see their
equipment age, their employee
count drop and exploration for
new supplies will drop. It will
take time and money to get production going again. Some oil
is being stored on big ships by
speculators but that supply will
be limited. The price of oil could
spike up by $100 very quickly by,
say, the next two years after the
demand supply comes back into
balance.
I personally won’t count on
that prediction: to me all that
matters is what the price is
doing. So when the price of oil
and oil stocks dropped through
the 10-day moving average I
sold out. I do not and will not
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a bit above the 10-dma. That should
be a warning signal. Still, gold is in
it seasonal period so I don’t expect
a big drop, but ABX could drop
to $11. I could have sold a call at
$12.50, made some money and had
some downside protection. I expect
I will do that next week.
This is not likely to be a catastrophe but it might take a week or
two to get back to profits.
As for going to cash, and doing
smaller weekly trades, I have
missed out on some capital gain
but have also missed out on some
losses. I’m not saying this is a strategy for you, but it sure is a relaxed
way of making money for me.
Technical indicators
I use a lot of technical indicators but I can distill them down to
three readers who are not as “into
them as I am.”
own any oil shares until I see a
definite bottom. February often
is a strong month for oil so
we should be careful not to be
fooled by a head fake rally.
Gold and silver
The price of gold and silver has
had higher and higher lows and
higher and higher highs. Gold and
silver are in season from about the
end of December until the Chinese
New Year. Of course, one of these
years, when or if the world is facing extra huge fear or inflation,
the seasonality may not work and
the price of gold and silver could
just keep going up and up like the
gold bulls say it will. That is why I
like to rely on the price for my buy
or sell signals, not the calendar.
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In Switzerland
Some time ago, the central
bank in Switzerland decide to
peg its currency to the Euro but
as the Euro kept falling the cost
of supporting the Swiss Franc
became more and more expensive
so, without warning, the Central
Bank decide to end support. The
Swiss Franc went up something
like 20 per cent overnight so people went shopping in neighbouring countries where goods were
suddenly cheaper. This higher
Swiss franc value will hurt Swiss
exporters and it’s going to slow
that economy down.
That unannounced move by
the central bank shocked the
financial world and several institutions that were short the Franc
went broke. Some of their customers were leveraged to the hilt,
as much as 200-to-one. When the
price turns against you on that
leverage you are a goner. †
Andy is mostly retired. He helps look after
granddaughters, does taxes and manages his
family’s investments. He also publishes an
electronic newsletter called StocksTalk and
if you want to read it free for a month send an
email to [email protected].
eight trades, seven wins
In December I sold most of my
stocks and went to cash. I had
some tax work to clean up, the
market was tricky and I didn’t
want to think stocks over the
Christmas holidays. It was quite
relaxing to have no stocks, even
though I don’t usually lose sleep
over my stocks.
Since January 1, 2015, I started
to do two or three smaller trades
per week. I’m made only $90 to
$400 per trade but as of January
23, seven trades have made me
money while one lost. Some of
that profit was capital gain and a
lot was cash premiums from selling covered calls on Gilead, Barrick
Gold and maybe one or two other
stocks. Number 8 cost me money.
On January 22, I bought 200
shares of Gilead and sold calls for
the next day and collected $127.
They got exercised so I will keep
$84 over night.
I also bought 2,000 shares of
ABX, because the 2,000 I owned
The first moving indicator is
Rate of Change (ROC). At a setting of nine it changes direction
faster than most indicators so I
look at that first but I don’t often
do much.
Next to change will be the
10-day moving average.
Finally, the ADX will have the
green line cross the red.
So if we have one, then two
and then three indicators going
up we can be pretty sure the
stock is going up. If all three are
heading down then we can either
sell or sell a call deep in the
money. It’s almost that simple.
If you have questions call me at
1-204-453-4489.
would be exercised. I paid $12.93
per share and sold a call for $0.08
to collect $165. That would have
been $127 + $165 = $292 overnight which would have been
nice. Minus $86 if both were exercised. As it turned out Gild got
exercised, ABX did not, so we kept
$249 overnight.
But ABX dropped. I picked up
about $400 on the weekly calls
for the week before but now the
shares have dropped enough to
take that away. If I had looked
harder and closer at ABX I might
have avoided that loss. Here is
what I overlooked.
First the price of gold had gone
up ahead of the European Central
Bank announcement on Thursday.
The saying is “buy the rumor
and sell the fact.” I should have
expected the price of gold to drop
after Thursday and it did.
Next, on a chart the price of gold
and ABX was getting stretched quite
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26
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Machinery & Shop
Shop class
How to test an electric switch
We demonstrate how to use a multimeter to determine if a switch is functioning properly
By Scott Garvey
W
With the multimeter’s dial set to (Ohms), its internal battery sends a small
amount of voltage through one lead. If the leads are neither connected
to each other nor touching a closed wiring circuit current won’t flow, and
the digital readout will indicate an open loop, a “1” on this meter.
photos: scott garvey
When the meter leads are connected to the posts of this ignition switch
with the key turned on, current is able to flow back through the other
lead and the readout changes to indicate how much resistance there is.
The 000 readout indicates a complete (closed) circuit with no resistance.
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hen an electrical problem pops
up in a vehicle or
machine, you need
to know if the switch that activates the problem circuit is working properly. A multimeter will
help you figure that out.
Set the multimeter’s dial to the
(Ohm) position. The meter’s internal battery will then send a tiny
current out through one of the
leads. Attaching the meter leads to
each end of an electrical circuit or
individual component will allow
you to measure any resistance to
current flow. Things like rusty
parts or partially broken wires will
increase resistance. (Be sure the
circuit or component you’re testing is disconnected from any other
power source.)
The setting also helps you
establish circuit continuity,
which means it will clearly indicate if there is a complete break
in the wiring. And it can help
you trace wires.
To demonstrate that, we’ll use
those features to test an ignition
switch. In this example we need
to not only figure out if the switch
works properly, but also which
posts on the rear are live with each
key position. The switch we’re
using belongs to our ongoing Jeep
restoration series, Project CJ3A.
The switch only has three key
positions: accessory, off and run.
It is meant to be used along with a
separate starter button, so it has no
“start” position.
By placing the multimeter leads
on the unmarked posts at the
back of the ignition switch, we
can establish which posts are activated in each key position. The
meter allowed us to determine
that the centre of the three posts
is where power from the battery
needs to connect. With one meter
lead on the “power in” post, it’s
just a matter of touching the
other lead to each of the remaining two posts with the key in different positions and checking the
readings.
If the post is live and current
is flowing, the meter gives a
digital readout of the amount
of resistance. The closer to 0,
the better the circuit. If there
is no current flowing (an open
circuit) our meter’s readout indicates that by displaying a “1.”
That might be a little different
on other meters, which may display “OL” instead.
On this switch when the key is
in the “accessory” position, battery
power is routed only to the left
post. When the key is in the “run”
position, current flows to both the
right and left posts. The meter readings also let us know the switch is
in excellent condition with virtually no internal resistance.
Now we now know how to route
wiring to and from the switch.
From the right post (the “run”
key position), we’ll connect leads
to the coil in the primary engine
ignition system and the alternator.
From the left post (the “accessory”
key position), we’ll connect any
vehicle accessory systems. That
will allow them to work with and
without the engine running. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
27
Machinery & Shop
Skid steer special feature
Terex introduces Gen2 skid steers
Terex says its newest skid steers offer more than 100 improvements
photos: terex
Left: Terex introduced two redesigned skid steer loaders in
September. It claims there will be others introduced soon with
larger capacities. Right: The company says the control layout
of the new Gen2 models is now much more ergonomic.
By Scott Garvey
I
n September Terex introduced its re-engineered
“Gen2” line of skid steer
loaders. The brand claims
the more than 100 improvements incorporated into the new
design were the direct result of
customer feedback.
Some examples of those
improvements include an
improved quick-attach pin profile, a cylinder seal package that
includes three additional sealing
surfaces to eliminate potential
leakage, and wear bands added
to reduce side-load strain. Gen2
models also include new hightorque, stainless-steel clamps,
upgraded hydraulic couplers,
one-million-cycle hoses on all
high-pressure applications, new
standard and heavy-duty “W”
style crimps on loader and drive
hoses along with improved O-ring
installation processes.
There are two new skid steers in
the Gen2 line with rated operating capacities of 910 and 1,045
kilograms of lift. And it claims
additional models with capacities
of up to 1,636 kilograms will be
introduced in the near future.
The most powerful model,
the V230S, has a rated operating
capacity of 1,045 kilograms at
50 per cent tipping load (2,090
kilograms). It uses a 60 horsepower, Perkins turbocharged diesel engine with load sensing, variable flow hydraulics. The engine
and hydraulic combination on
the V230S offers 3,842 kilograms
of tractive effort.
The smallest model, the 50
horsepower V200S, has a rated
operating capacity of 910 kilograms at 50 per cent tipping load
(1,820 kilograms).
The V200S, like its bigger
brother, is designed to provide
266 millimetres (10.5 inches)
of ground clearance and a 28.4°
rear angle of departure, which
improves its ability to operate
on soft or uneven terrain. If you
have to get somewhere fast, the
Terex models claim the highest
top speeds in their class: up to 20
km/hr.
When it comes to servicing,
these models have a tilt-up ROPS
to improve access to components
and tilt-out coolers. “Mechanicalfaced” axle seals help protect
bearings. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
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28
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Machinery & Shop
Project CJ3A
We paint our restoration project
Finally, we’re nearly finished with Project CJ3A. Now it’s time for a splash of colour
as we move the Jeep’s body into the paint shop for its fifth new colour
By Scott Garvey
N
Putting on the paint
o stage of a restoration
project seems to provide more satisfaction
than seeing it painted
for the first time — other, maybe,
than driving the finished machine
out the workshop door. And our
project Jeep’s body has at last hit
the paint stage.
All those hours of sheet metal
work, filling and sanding should
now pay off by providing a
smooth, blemish-free surface to
lay colour over for the ideal finished appearance. Well, that’s the
theory, anyway. When we started
this project, we had visions of
creating a like-new appearance
for CJ3A. But as we got into the
job up to our elbows, we realized
that while that was certainly still
doable, it just wasn’t practical for
this machine.
To give it a like-new appearance
we really would have needed to
replace the entire body (at a cost
of nearly US$4,000), or spend a
ridiculous amount of time and
effort on the old one, much more
than we budgeted for on this
project. The old machine suffered
a lot over its life and the body
shows the scars. So our dilemma
was this: replace nearly all the
body parts and make the Jeep
look like new, or hold onto that
rugged “patina” and give it the
equivalent of a few Botox injections, leaving it with a dignified
appearance.
We opted for the latter.
So with all the panels repaired,
touched up and relatively
smooth, we hung each piece on
high-legged workhorses built
especially for the painting process. That allowed us to hang and
spray each one separately for
complete coverage.
For paint, we selected DupliColour Deep Blue Metallic paint,
which is ideal for any DIY automotive project where you don’t have
access to a full professional spray
facility. To do the best job possible
we observed these basic rules.
First, keep your work area
spotlessly clean. Stirring up dust
while working will cause it to
settle on the body and mar the
final finish. It’s best if you can
seal off the painting area and
have filtered air flowing through
it. Remember that an atmosphere full of atomized paint can
become explosive, so keep lights
and flame sources outside of your
sealed-off area. Good air flow
helps minimize that problem
and also makes it easier for a
respirator to keep feeding your
lungs clean oxygen.
Second, thoroughly clean the
surfaces to be painted. Use a wax
and grease remover to eliminate
contaminants and ensure good
paint adhesion. Then lightly rub
them with a tack cloth to remove
any final dust.
Third, dress for the occasion. If
you don’t have a fresh-air breathing system — and you probably
don’t — wear a respirator that
uses a pre-filter and a charcoal
filter rated for organic vapours.
Cover up as completely as possible, because solvents can enter
your body through contact with
skin. Painter’s coveralls and nitrile
gloves are cheap protection.
Fourth, pay attention to your
spray technique. Some paint
comes with best practice spray
procedures printed on the can.
Ours did, and we followed them.
Generally to get good coverage,
apply a light coat first. Then come
back again with a medium “wet”
coat. Finally, mist a light third
coat over top to ensure complete
coverage. (Holding the gun a little farther from the surface and
moving it quickly accomplishes
that.) Following these steps will
also minimize the risk of creating
runs in the paint.
Use a 50 per cent spray overlap. That means each following
pass covers half of the previous
one. Keep a nice even movement
as you always aim the nozzle
of the gun squarely at the surface, ensure you keep the distance
between the gun and the surface
consistent.
After letting the paint set up
for a couple of days we lifted
the body back onto the chassis,
with a little help from our friends
Corey and Wayne. Now, CJ3A is
truly in the homestretch as we
begin bolting all the pieces back
together. †
Wear protective clothing and a respirator when spraying paint. Notice
how the painter has the air line draped over his shoulder, this helps
prevent accidentally dragging it over the freshly painted surfaces.
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
Purpose-built high-legged workhorses suspended the small body panels
during painting.
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photo: melroe bobcat
With the body finally back on the chassis, our coat of Deep Blue Metallic
paint is the fifth this Jeep has worn. Sanding showed it left the factory
wearing “Hampshire Green.” Then it was blue, black and finally red
when it arrived in the Grainews workshop. Now, it’s time for reassembly.
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
29
Machinery & Shop
Skid steer special feature
Bobcat expands its M Series
Bobcat’s new compact S450 skid steer is designed to fit into tight spaces
By Scott Garvey
T
he new S450 has just
joined 10 other models
in Bobcat’s M Series line
of skid steer loaders. This
compact version is less than five
feet wide, designed to work in
tight spaces.
With a 1.8 litre, 49 horsepower
engine the S450 replaces the previous K Series S130. And it gets an
emissions compliant engine that
doesn’t rely on a diesel particulate
filter (DPF), so owners won’t have
to add servicing or replacing that
component to their to-do list.
Bobcat says the non-DPF solution was achieved by designing an “ultra-low particulate
combustion (ULPC) engine,”
which uses a specially designed
combustion chamber to reduce
particulate matter right in the
cylinders. Therefore, there is no
need for a DPF. In addition to
eliminating the need for a DPF,
the new engine gets increased
torque over a wide range of
engine r.p.m.
On previous Bobcat models, if
some of the engine parameters
went out of range, an automatic
shut down system was activated.
With the new engines, the shutdown feature is still included.
Instead of shutdown being the
only solution, the system monitors coolant and oil temperatures
and manages the engine to pre-
photo: melroe bobcat
Melroe added a new smaller model to its M Series skid steer loaders in
November, with the addition of the S450.
vent reaching a point where shut
down is necessary. The company
says this helps prevent engine
damage and minimize component wear.
The brand has also introduced
a cold weather safety feature.
Anytime the engine temperature
is too low, the loader will temporarily limit maximum engine
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One-millionth
Bobcat
O
n July 12th, the
one-millionth
Bobcat loader to
be built rolled off
the company’s assembly line
in Gwinner, North Dakota.
The ceremony included such
events as a “Bobcat square
dance,” in which the dancing
machines were operated by
long-time factory employees.
The current skid steer concept is the result of an evolution that began with a threewheeled design the Melroe
company bought the rights
to in 1958. In 1960 it modified that original machine
and began producing the
first four-wheeled, skid steer.
Melroe will be selling limited edition “one-millionth”
special edition loader models
through dealers in 2015. †
Scott Garvey
photo: melroe bobcat
On July 12, 2014, the onemillionth Bobcat skid steer
loader rolled out the factory
doors in North Dakota.
r.p.m. to prevent premature component wear or failure. Engine
idle speed is also raised slightly
to reach operating temperature
faster. As soon as the engine
warms up, the protection mechanism will deactivate.
To deliver engine power, there is
an optional two-speed drive, which
hits a maximum of 6.2 m.p.h. in
low and 9.3 in high.
Just because this is a compact
model, don’t expect to have to
squeeze into tight quarters to
operate it. The company claims
it, like the other models, gets one
of the largest cabs in the industry. And the S450 uses the “cabforward” placement that puts an
operator closer to the bucket for
better visibility.
brandt.ca 1-866-427-2638
You can equip the cab with
HVAC or a deluxe control instrument arrangement that includes
a full-colour, five-inch monitor.
And to make you feel like you’re
flying a fighter jet, you can opt
for a joystick control instead
of the standard pedal and lever
arrangement.
To improve loader performance,
the S450 gets a 3,300 p.s.i. hydraulic system. Bobcat says that significantly improves response. The
S450’s pump puts out 63.2 litres per
minute (16.7 gallons). Maximum
loader lift height to the hinge pins
is 2.7 metres (9 feet, 2 inches).
For more information visit
Bobcat.com. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.
Contact him at [email protected].
30
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Machinery & Shop
Skid steer special feature
JCB uses single loader boom
U.K.-based JCB has taken its own path with skid steer loaders
By Scott Garvey
O
n first glance a JCB skid steer loader
looks like any other, but it soon
becomes apparent there are major differences between that brand’s design
and the configuration that has become standard
in the industry. Most notably, JCB uses only a
single loader boom on the right side of the chassis. That allows the cab to be offset to the left and
offer a side entry. There is no need to climb over
the bucket to get into this machine.
The side-mounted cab provides a wider, 270°
field of vision for the operator with the boom
arm lowered, which the company claims is 60
per cent more than the industry standard 165°.
The brand offers two chassis sizes, the five
large-frame models use JCB’s own 74 horsepower
EcoMAX diesel engines, while the five smaller
models use a 48, 56 or 62 horsepower diesel
engine built by Kohler. All those engines can
be mated to a one- or two-speed transmission
(except on the smallest model which gets just
the single-speed). The two-speed transmission
offers a much higher road speed, up to 21.7 km/
hr. on the largest model.
In addition to the main hydrostatic drive
pump, there is a dedicated loader and attachments hydraulic supply pump. It’s available with
a “high flow” option that pushes flow rates to
51.4 gallons per minute on the small-platform
models and 64.2 on their bigger brothers. †
Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at Scott.
[email protected].
photo: scott garvey
Left: JCB’s skid steer models offer a unique singleboom loader design. Right: Operators gain entry to
the JCB cab through a side door rather than climbing
over the loader bucket on standard skid-steer designs.
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FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
31
Cattleman’s Corner
FARM MANAGEMENT
Managing yardage — The silent profit killer
BY SEAN MCGRATH
ment cost that has happened quietly over time. Machinery depreciation is another good example.
However the very best example is
unaccounted for operator labour.
I
was running rations on
Cowbytes beef management program the other
day, which is an interesting
and important process around our
ranch. Through proper feed testing and ration balancing I can
correct and solve potential dietary
deficiencies ahead of time and also
have enough lead time to find
least-cost solutions to one of our
largest expenses, feeding cattle.
This process also helps me to set
some expectations of performance
in both our cow herd and our
retained calves that I can use to
measure the plan versus the actual
animal response as we are feeding.
Further, knowing our animals are
properly fed and cared for helps
me to sleep at night.
Through the process I also like
to calculate my yardage out for
different feeding options and planning future scenarios. There is a
pretty good yardage module in the
program, but yardage is not really
that difficult. It can be defined as
every cost of feeding cattle that does
not include the cattle or the feed.
Yardage is labour, fuel and electricity to heat the water bowl, parts
to fix the tractor, depreciation on
equipment and facilities, the cost of
building and fixing corrals and the
cost of cleaning corrals. If it is not
the feed or the cow, it is yardage.
IT’S A PROFIT KILLER
Yardage is a highly dangerous
profit killer for a variety of reasons,
including:
• Yardage happens every day.
A few pennies a day over a few
head of cattle, over a few days all
SO WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT?
photo: file
Developing a winter feeding system where cows can feed themselves
can reduce yardage costs.
of a sudden becomes significant
if you are feeding cows all winter.
For easy math, if we took a 100head cow herd working on $0.75
per head per day for yardage for a
200-day feeding period, we would
be looking at $15,000. That is a big
number, and what is even more
intimidating is that realistically
many operations have yardage
costs that are well over $1 without
even paying the operator for their
time. If you can find a mere $0.05
per day savings in this situation
you have just saved $1,000.
• It can be hard to track yardage because of the nature of the
costs. For example, the initial construction cost of facilities may be
several thousand dollars, but the
cost is really spread out over all
the years you can use the facility.
We just have to remember that
we have to include repair costs as
well. That new bundle of slabs also
counts towards yardage.
Another good example would
be corral cleaning. This may occur
long after cattle are out of a feeding facility, but it is a cost that is
incurred by feeding the cattle.
Part of the fuel bill, the electric
bill and interest costs may all contribute to yardage costs. To give an
example of how quickly a small
seemingly insignificant expense
can tack onto yardage, consider
a single 1,500-Watt floating tank
heater. If the heater is plugged in
for 200 days and you are buying
electricity at $0.08 per kilowatt
hour that single heater costs $2.88
per day or $576. If you can water
from one trough, instead of two
and use a single heater, you have
saved nearly $600. On our 100cow herd that is $6 a cow.
• Yardage costs are often not readily visible; this is particularly true
with depreciation, which sneaks
up on us. We don’t notice too
closely when the new fence starts
to weather, until one day the wind
blows it down. It is one big replace-
The first thing to do about yardage is to accept that it is important
and work to understand it both at
a higher level and for your specific
operation. Without having any idea
of what your costs are, it is tough
to say if you are making progress
or backsliding. The importance of
being cautious with yardage is that
in times of good markets it is often
one expense we let slip by. But it is
a cost that bites into profit and may
make us unprofitable when markets
move downward.
One of the most obvious ways
to reduce yardage is to feed more
cattle with the same resources.
This is how modern feedlots work
and part of why many of them
have grown so large. For example,
a $20,000 tractor spread over 100
cows is significantly more than if
that same tractor is used to feed
200 cows. If we are feeding 20,000
the math changes again.
While this seems obvious, just
getting more cows may not be
the solution for everyone. Some
options could be neighbours or
family pooling cow herds in the
winter so that one set of equipment and facilities feeds more
cows. By trading labour it is even
possible that each cow herd owner
gets a “winter holiday.”
Different feeding systems can
also work wonders. One winter
when we lived in town while
my father was recovering from
surgery. We fed calves weekly by
putting feed into three different
pens and closing gates. That way
we could run the tractor once a
week for a couple of hours and in
five minutes every two days we
could feed the calves. The amount
of yardage it saved by preventing
an hour of road travel and two
hours of tractor time every day
amounted to a huge sum.
To really combat yardage we
need to continually look at alternatives to the “way we always do it.”
While not always an option some
of these solutions may also include
alternative grazing systems such
as swath and bale grazing which
greatly reduce the need to move
both feed and manure and can
dramatically drop costs including
labour and machinery costs.
As a personal example, I can
place approximately 100 bales an
hour in the fall for bale grazing
and will not touch them again all
winter. We track all of our labour
and last winter we fed nearly 400
head averaging just over four
hours a week in labour, without
running the tractor. There is no
corral cleaning cost.
If you want a good start on
information about yardage, do a
quick Google search for livestock
or feedlot yardage. To make real
inroads though, simply work on
tracking your expenses at home.
To find the Cowbytes program
visit the Alberta Agriculture website at www.agric.gov.ab.ca and
type Cowbytes into the search
box, or just go to Google and type
in Cowbytes. †
Sean McGrath is a rancher and consultant
from Vermilion, Alta. He can be reached at
[email protected] or (780)853-9673.
For additional information visit www.ranchingsystems.com.
MARKET FACTORS
Crude oil price has little impact on cattle market
A review of the numbers fails to show any correlation between the two
Jerry
Klassen
Market
Update
O
ver the past month,
I’ve received many
inquiries from cattle
producers in regards
to the relationship between crude
oil prices and the cattle market
in Western Canada. Cattle prices
have remained near historical
highs while crude oil values have
dropped by nearly 60 per cent
since the summer of 2014.
Often we are confident that we
notice everything that happens
in front of us but fail to see outside this realm. This is because
we are focused on certain factors,
such as beef supply and we don’t
notice other factors. This is often
referred to as a “Black Swan” variable or “illusion of attention.”
During the recession of 2009,
all commodities and equity markets drifted lower as the economy
contracted. However in our current environment, certain world
economies are struggling, but the
U.S. has managed to continue
on a moderate expansionary
phase and has somewhat been
enhanced by the lower energy
prices. The extra income obtained
for the average consumer due to
lower energy values has kept consumer spending relatively strong,
which is the largest component
influencing beef demand.
If you ask three different analysts about the effects of lower
crude oil on the cattle market, you
will probably receive three different answers and that is because
it is very difficult to forecast. As
I studied this issue further I had
mixed views as well. Sometimes, it
is a good idea to take a step back
and look at the whole economic
picture in order to have a better
idea of future price behaviour.
ALL ABOUT
CONSUMER SPENDING
First, it is important to remember that consumer income and
spending is the largest factor
influencing beef demand. When
consumers have more money to
spend on food at home or away
from home, beef and cattle prices
tend to move higher.
I’ve mentioned in previous articles that as U.S. GDP rises, cattle
prices also rise because nearly 70
per cent of U.S. GDP is consumer
spending. This is especially important for beef because nearly 50 per
cent of the carcass is consumed
by people with average to aboveaverage income. During the latest recession, consumer income
deteriorated and cattle prices
fell. However, once the recovery started, beef and cattle prices
started to trend higher and there
has never been a significant pullback in the cattle market since the
lows of 2009.
If consumer spending is the
largest variable influencing beef
demand, then it is important to
also look at equity values. In this
simple study, I looked at the Dow
Jones Industrial average since it is
a very broad view of the overall
economy and consumer spending. I simply took the monthly
closing prices of the Dow, NYMEX
crude oil and CME live cattle
futures back to January 2008.
WHAT AFFECTS SPENDING?
I ran a correlation between
the Dow Jones industrial average
and live cattle futures prices. The
correlation coefficient was 0.93,
which is quite high and also to
be expected. If the U.S. equity
markets move higher, cattle
prices will also generally follow.
However, when I ran a correlation between live cattle futures
prices and crude oil prices, the
correlation was only 0.27 which
is quite low. From that I can conclude that crude oil prices have
very little influence on the cattle
market. If the correlation coefficient is close to or at zero, then
there is no relation between two
sets of data.
I even tried to look for patterns by lagging the data. For
example, does the cattle market
follow the crude oil for to six to
eight months later? The correlation coefficient was even lower.
Therefore, I basically came to the
conclusion that there was very
little if any direct influence of
crude oil on the cattle market.
For interest, I ran a correlation
between the monthly closes on
the Canadian dollar and crude
oil prices. The correlation coefficient between monthly closes
was 0.70 which is quite high and
also to be expected. Given our
dependence on the U.S. market
for cattle and beef products, this
is one positive aspect for cattle
producers of weaker crude oil
prices. As crude oil prices grind
lower, our exchange rate with
the U.S will also deteriorate due
to lower demand for Canadian
dollars.
In my view, the price of crude
oil has very little, if any, effect
on the cattle and beef markets.
The minor influence of weaker
crude oil on the overall economy
will be largely offset and more
with the benefit of the weaker
Canadian dollar. Secondly, consumers will have more income to
spend on food products due to
lower energy prices.
Cattle producers can conclude
any major factor that increases
consumer income, will have a
positive effect on cattle prices.
We may see government spending contract due to lower income
from oil companies, but the
effect on the bulk of the population will be minimal. †
Gerald Klassen analyzes cattle and hog markets
in Winnipeg and also maintains an interest
in the family feedlot in Southern Alberta. For
comments or speaking engagements, he can
be reached at [email protected] or call
204 899 8268.
32
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Cattleman’s Corner
wildlife management
Birds of a different feather
BY MIKE LAMB
A
lberta bird hunters were given the
opportunity this past season to
shoot at visitors from Wisconsin.
As part of a provincial put-andtake program, some 13,000 rink-necked
pheasant roosters from a Wisconsin hatchery were released across the Alberta prairie
to augment the province’s fluctuating wild
bird population.
At one time the ringnecks came from
the Alberta government’s own Brooks
Hatchery. Built in the late 1970s, it was
capable of raising nearly a quarter of a million birds a year in a then-high-tech “factory,” and in 80 acres of adjacent irrigated
wire-covered flight pens. Worn down, out
of date, and mothballed now, the Brooks
Hatchery, built during the Getty administration, was once touted as a legacy gift to
sportsmen.
Pheasants, not native to North America,
were first planted in the Brooks area
in 1906, and the first hunting season
was launched in 1932. By then southern Alberta was alive with the colourful
birds, which thrived across irrigation districts. Bird hunters including numerous
Hollywood celebrities helped make Brooks
synonymous with hunting success, boosting local economies by more than $10
million annually, according to statistics
available at the time.
Wild pheasant numbers dropped, however, in the 1960s and 70s, due to several factors, especially intensive farming. In
response, beginning in the 1980s the province flooded southern Alberta with more
than 100,000 birds annually from its own
hatchery in an attempt to rekindle the days
of old. That didn’t last long. The economy
slipped and so did attention, upkeep and
production at the hatchery.
During an austerity sweep in the 1990s
the facility was sold to a newly incorporated
firm, The Canadian Pheasant Company,
which used the aging hatchery and extensive rearing barns to raise pheasants not
only for hunters, but restaurant fare as well.
The number of birds released, though, was
a tiny fraction of 1980 levels.
As time went on it became more and
more costly to hatch, raise and distribute the birds from the aging facility.
The Pheasant Company eventually sold
it to other private investors interested in
making a go of it, but it’s remained idle
since. The owners and Alberta government couldn’t agree on an acceptable
price per bird.
Pheasant hunting fees which were imposed
in the 80s to offset some of the original
hatchery expense are still charged today. In
2010, long after the province abandoned the
hatchery business, it was still collecting nearly
$300,000 a year in bird hunting charges.
A NEW SOURCE OF BIRDS
Today the Alberta Conservation Association
is releasing birds from MacFarlane Pheasants
Inc. of Janesville, Wisconsin, the largest
hatchery in the United States. The Wisconsin
birds are wilder and hardier than any birds
raised at Brooks, and are “substantially less
expensive,” said Mike Uchikura, ACA coordinator and habitat biologist.
“This whole thing has been an eye-opening experience, “he says. “Since McFarlane
deals with huge volumes of birds with
full-time geneticists and labs, we are getting birds far warier than any we released
before.” That, he says, gives Alberta nimrods what they’re looking for “a challenge.” The new and improved genetics, he
adds, may also help the surviving hunted
birds last through Alberta’s tough winters.
Of utmost importance, he emphasizes,
is restoring a strong 4-H presence in the
Alberta pheasant business. Only 3,000
birds were raised and released by 20 of
the agriculture students last summer. The
target for next year is 10,000 4-H birds.
“It’s about more than just releasing
colourful birds for hunting, it’s about
photo: file
Writer Mike Lamb with his dog Lark and an
up-and-coming pup after a successful hunt.
improving habitat they can survive and
thrive in,” he says. “The 4-H students
know how to deal with that, and as a
result we should end up producing more
birds and protecting more habitat for all
types of wildlife… something that can
benefit everyone.” †
In memory of Mike Lamb, a longtime southern Alberta
writer and frequent contributor to Grainews who passed
away in late January at the age of 65.
Anyone can start farming
There is a fit for grass-finished beef
Some on-farm experimenting shows genetics plays a big part in tenderness
Debbie
Chikousky
W
hen we started raising grass-finished
cattle, part of the
decision was based
on a reduction of input costs. We
don’t grow grain and feeding it
would involve a lot of infrastructure (troughs and equipment) as
well as feeding labour. Since the
cost of feed grains was increasing
we were sure there had to be a
better way.
We also had a lot of people
telling us there was no way grassfinished beef could be as tender
and flavourful as grain-finished.
We had to consider the public
might think grass-finished is the
way they want us to produce our
animals, but would it be sustainable if the end product tasted
gross? In our own experience we
have found it very possible.
As with most of our farming
decisions we spent time talking
with our elders. When I thought
about how my grandfather finished a steer, we realized that
people hadn’t always fed like we
do today. He used to put the steer
in a box stall, and feed it a fourlitre pail of grain ration a day for
six weeks prior to butchering. Our
4-H children were being advised
to feed up to 20 pounds of grain
a day on a finishing ration. So we
decided to head back to the past.
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It quickly became apparent not
all of our genetic lines performed
the same. Some of our cow families were just not equipped to
grow on forages alone. The problem we encountered most was
heifers that were too small to
breed at 15 months in order to
achieve their first calving as twoyear olds. Some grass-finished
producers accept this and just
have them calve at three but that
added too much to our feeding
costs. Our choice was to cull hard
and only keep replacement heifers from cows that fit our production model.
When we decided to focus on
a totally forage-based diet we
chose a Shorthorn bull. Our original cow was a Shorthorn cross
which we had been breeding to
purebred Black Angus bulls. We
learned that within breeds there
are genetic lines that will perform
solely on forages and those that
just don’t.
The first Angus bull we had
at the time needed at least 10
pounds of grain to maintain his
weight unless he was fed second
cut alfalfa and his heifers were
the same. So the first thing we did
was cull all of those cows/heifers.
We then purchased a new Black
Angus bull that had been raised
without grain (on mostly a potatoes and forage diet). We stopped
retaining any heifers born from
daughters of the problem bull.
Then we slowly started butchering the hard keepers. With six of
us at home, including four hardworking men, the experiment was
an easy one to handle.
This experience taught us a lot
about how much about meat quality is really determined by an animal’s genetic potential. Meat tenderness is actually related to marbling — the fat running through
the meat — that helps make it
tender and flavourful. The amount
of marbling is influenced by both
genetics and feeding.
An excellent tool for studying genetic potential is the EPDs
(expected progeny differences) of
the herd sire. Bull genetics, as
shown by the poor-doing bull
we once had, had an influence
on half of all his offspring. The
EPDs are produced for sires’ traits
such as marbling, rib-eye area,
carcass worth, maternal traits and
growth. In the United States there
is a category for cow energy value,
which predicts how much it will
cost to keep the cow fed.
KEY IS IN SELECTION
We believe the key to grass finishing is in choosing the “good
doers,” as the old timers would
call them. We chose the replacement heifers from our best cows.
Those cows that calve every year,
without assistance, milk heavy
and do not need supplemental
grain to remain in acceptable
shape. We expect them to lose
some weight but not get skinny.
We only feed loose cobalt salt and
a high-quality mineral.
To achieve the highest amount
of fat cover the animals must be
processed when they still have
their pasture fat. The fall of 2014
was the culmination of many
years of hard work. All our finished stock were sold to private
buyers, processed through our
local abattoir, with all customers ordering again for next fall.
Our goal is to have our steers
marketable at 18-24 months old
depending on when they are
born. Spring-born calves are usually overwintered as weanlings
then leave the following October.
Fall-born calves are often marketready at two years of age.
Grass-based management has
photo: debbie chikousky
This newborn calf is ready for his first meal. His mother is a typical cross
that is predominantly Black Angus with a Shorthorn influence. There can
be good forage-based genetics in every breed.
proven to be a healthier way of
life for the cattle. Not only are we
saving on feed bills we are also
saving on vet bills. We are finding
the cattle are healthier without
the grain supplementation they
had before. I have also started
reading a lot of research on why
eating this grass-finished beef is
healthier for people.
Scientists are telling us that
the ratios of omega-3 to omega-6
fats from this beef are a healthier
balance for us than in grain finished. They also contain conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which
research is showing has promise in areas including the suppression of cancerous tumours
and the ability to moderate
body weight, body composition,
glucose metabolism and the
immune system. There is some
research showing that for full
health benefits, grass-finished
beef animals should be butchered when mature — at a point
where the animal is no longer
putting nutrients into growing
their own healthy body.
If lower feed costs, less health
problems and fewer chores (don’t
have to haul those grain pails)
isn’t enough to convince people
they need to explore grass finishing then the fact that consumers
are willing to pay more for this
kind of beef should also be considered.
Our family is sold on this management system. We want to continue raising beef cattle and with
low prices and high feed costs this
is the only way we can see our
herd making it into the future.
We would be very pleased to have
our breeding stock find homes on
other farms where they can help
others make a living and stay on
the farm. †
Debbie Chikousky farms with her family at
Narcisse, Manitoba. Visitors are always
welcome. Contact Debbie at debbie@
chikouskyfarms.com.
BUILDING TRUST IN CANADIAN BEEF
Antimicrobial resistance:
Take a deep breath
Beef producers should think positively and responsibly rather than overreact
As the battle over antimicrobial resistance continues and livestock production is in the crosshairs,
how should beef producers respond?
Calvin Booker thinks that despite negative talk,
there are a lot of reasons for beef producers to
think confidently, positively and most importantly, responsibly about this issue.
Booker has a unique perspective. He’s manager of and a shareholder in Feedlot Health
Management Services in Okotoks, Alta. The company provides health programs for 2.5 million
cattle in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. About half
of those are in Canada.
As a veterinarian he sees the issue from a technical and professional perspective.
“People ask how we use antimicrobials in
our feedlot production work and I’m actually
pretty proud to tell the story,” he says. “In our
case, we use group medication in high-risk
populations, but that involves a veterinary
risk assessment, and corresponding action
based on that assessment. And we use largescale field studies to tell us what we should be
doing and when.
“Is everybody doing that in the beef industry?
Likely not, but more and more cattle fall under
those kinds of oversight.”
Issue in focus
So where to start on the antimicrobial issue? The
first message to society has to be that antimicrobial resistance is important, he says. In humans
or animals, diseases need to be managed in a
way that we don’t unnecessarily cause resistance.
This is a shared responsibility for those working
in human, food and companion animal health.
Second part is that this is a very complex
issue and there are no “smoking gun” overuses that should be banned or simple fixes
that the medical and veterinary professions
can do to make the problem go away. In spite
of what is often written, quoted, or alluded
to elsewhere.
There is progress. Doctors in human medi-
Dr. Calvin Booker says research should identify the top opportunities in food, companion
and human medicine that will really make a difference.
cine are not as quick to overprescribe antimicrobials. On the animal side, producers,
accused by some as using antimicrobials as a
crutch, think more carefully today about how
and when antimicrobials are needed to control,
prevent or treat disease.
Programs, management skills
Programs can drive management skills. VBP
has done a good job of putting together a broad
framework of base management principles,
says Booker. Whether you have a few cows or a
50,000-head feedlot, those apply.
“Companies like ours help people add layers
to continually improve the production system,” he says. “They want to be on the leading
edge of progressive practices, evaluating new
technologies and management practices. And
identifying which ones really bring advantages
to the system.”
Research and future solutions
In resistance research, the beef industry continues to be a leader.
As far back as 1998 work started on understanding how antimicrobial use in feedlot production affected animals and workers. “Several
studies to date show there’s just not a whole
lot of impact of our current use on antimicrobial resistance of concern to human or animal
health,” says Booker. “That’s good news but we
have to continue to plan accordingly so that we
don’t have a big negative impact sometime in
the future.”
Fast-forward and today a multi-disciplinary
team is looking at run-off water to determine
if there is something bigger going on, he says.
“We’re trying to get baseline knowledge to not
only shape future research but also to influence
policy and regulations.”
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34
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
The Dairy Corner
Coming
Events
Avoid too much fat for
early-lactation cows
PETER
VITTI
I
n the last year, there has
been a few supply-management incentives for dairy
producers to increase milk
and milk fat yield in their milk
cows. Because nutrients such as
energy largely drive dairy performance, many people are
increasing dietary energy density
by adding different types of edible fats to early lactation diets.
Despite being a successful way
to meet incentive days/coveroffs; dairy producers should be
aware of the dire consequences
of feeding too much fat to dairy
cows, while insuring that maximum feeding limits are always
followed.
Adding safe amounts of edible fat to total mixed rations
(TMRs) of early-lactation cows
has been common advice given
by dairy nutritionists and veterinarians for years. It is effective in
eliciting positive milk and milk
fat persistency and often slows
down rapid weight loss in dairy
cattle during the first 100 days of
milk production.
That’s because dietary fats
contain more than 2-1/4 times
the calories of those found in
carbohydrates (barley or corn
starch). Common fat sources
include oilseeds such as full fat
soybeans and whole sunflower
seeds (20 to 40 per cent fat)
and 100 per cent fat sources,
namely pork tallow and canola
oil. A third group of dietary fats
are commercial manufactured
“bypass” fats.
The overall rule for adding
these fat supplements to an
early-lactation dairy ration is
take in account all the natural
sources of fat already present and
add in these latter fats; making
sure not to exceed five to six per
cent total fat of the entire dairy
diet. One can follow this rule
by breaking the dairy diet down
into three sections:
• 50 lbs. of forages mixed with
defatted proteins (soybean or
canola meal) and grains contains
three per cent natural fat — 1.5 lb.
• Supplement vegetable oil or
tallow (100 per cent) — 0.75 lb.
• Supplement inert rumen-protected fat (99 per cent) — 0.75 lb.
Total = 3.0 lb. or 6.0 per cent
total fat
The chemical structures of
unadulterated fats found in forages, grains, and pork tallow and
canola oil are very similar. Long
chains of fatty acids are linked to
a triglyceride molecule or exist as
free fatty acid chains. The fatty
acid chains are of two types,
either saturated or unsaturated.
Saturated fatty acids are “saturated” with hydrogen atoms,
while unsaturated chains have
one or two hydrogen atom pairs
missing. Saturated fatty acid
chains pass through the cow’s
rumen largely untouched, and
are digested in the lower gut.
Pork tallow contains about 50
per cent saturated and 50 per
cent unsaturated fatty acids
while canola oil is almost completely made up of unsaturated
fatty acids.
THERE IS A LIMIT
Generally unsaturated fatty
acids such as found in canola
oil are relatively toxic to rumen
microbes, particularly foragefibre digesting species, but that
doesn’t mean that canola oil
and other unsaturated vegetable oils should not be fed to
dairy cows. Fortunately, most
rumen microbes have the ability to detoxify and reduce the
toxic effects of unsaturated fats
through a process known as
“bio-hydrogenation” (re: hydrogen is added to the unsatu-
rated fats and turns them into
rumen-protected saturated fats).
However, excessive amounts of
unsaturated fats and oil added
to a dairy diet (re: over one
pound or 450 g/head/d) often
overwhelm this process and as
a result interfere with rumen
fermentation.
To compliment added saturated and unsaturated from
natural feedstuffs in early lactation diets, commercial “rumen
bypass” fats are designed to be
chemically inert in the rumen,
to be digested and absorbed as
energy source in the cow’s lower
gut. One group of bypass fats
achieves protection by locking
the fatty acids chains to a calcium molecule to form a ruminal
insoluble calcium salt. This bond
is broken during digestion in the
small intestine. Another group of
bypass fats hydrolyzes normally
unsaturated fatty acids (such as
palm oils) into rumen inert saturated fatty acids.
Regardless, the kind of fat
supplement finally chosen and
added to the dairy diet, it is
important to avoid overfeeding
fat in one capacity or another
to lactation dairy cows. It is
also important that these dairy
diets still be balanced with available carbohydrates such as sugar,
starch and effective forage fibre
(20 to 22 per cent eNDF) in the
diet as well as protein, minerals
and vitamins in order to support health and normal activities
of the resident microbes in the
rumen.
PROBLEMS TO AVOID
Here are problems that might
be experienced when feeding
excessive fat to lactating cows:
• Inconsistent and/or low dry
matter intake — Some research
indicates overfeeding fat to dairy
cows may quickly satisfy their
natural appetite for feed (much
like us eating a greasy ham-
burger and fries). Some speculation may also involve reduction
in the rate of feed digestion
and passage (bypass fats) in the
lower gut. Other explanations
might involve digestive upsets
in the rumen (unsaturated fat
toxicity).
• Milk fat depression (MFD) —
As mentioned, unsaturated fats
are toxic to many fibre-digesting
rumen bacteria; cause reduction
in acetate/butyrate production
that contributes to milk fat production. It is also believed too
much tallow or vegetable oil can
coat forage fibre particles in the
rumen and allow incomplete fermentation. On a different note:
University of Illinois demonstrated that two to four per cent
tallow caused acidotic conditions
in the rumen of dairy cows fed
corn silage and MFD, but both
conditions were alleviated when
corn silage was replaced with an
alfalfa-based diet.
• vHigh milk urea nitrogen
(MUN) — It is conceivable that
supplying too much bypass fat
to the lower gut, while literarily starving the rumen microbes
of available starch energy could
cause incomplete protein digestion and large amounts of urea
to be released in the rumen.
High MUN levels are linked to
lower conception rates in dairy
cattle.
Such quantifiable adversity
might not occur if dairy diets are
well balanced with just the right
amount of fats coming from different edible sources. Adding any
fats should also complement the
rest of the dairy diet, particularly
for early lactation cows, which
helps them get a good start with
milk and milk fat production.
Such success should contribute
to the profitability of the dairy
barn. †
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].
photo: file
Adding fats to forage-based diets can be effective. But excessive amounts of unsaturated fats and oils can interfere with rumen fermentation.
Forage & Crops for Profit —
Feb. 17: Alberta’s Grey Wooded
Forage Association is hosting a
one-day workshop on Forage
and Crop Agronomy for Profit,
at the Forshee Hall, just north
of the west-central Alberta
community of Bentley. Olds
College instructor Jack Payne
will be giving two talks — one
on using fertilizer and controlling weeds, and the other
on understanding soil quality and soil tests. Ag Canada
researcher Neil Harker will give
a presentation on herbicideresistant weeds and the value
of forages in rotation, while
business management specialist Ted Nibourg will have useful
advice on tools to assess the
financial benefits of changing
practices. Registration is $25
before and $30 after Feb. 12.
To register contact the GWFA
office at 403 844-2645 or email
[email protected].
Holistic Management
— F e b . 1 5 : T h e We s t e r n
Canadian Holistic Management
Conference is coming up
Feb. 15 to 17 at the Manitou
Springs resort in Manitou,
Saskatchewan. Open to both
new and beginner practitioners
of holistic management, keynote speakers during the three
days include: David Irvine, a
consulting psychologist specializing in family relations; Jodie
Griffin, with Saskatchewan
Livestock Prince Insurance
Program; Blaine Hjertaas, a beef
producer from Redvers, Sask.;
Linda Edgecombe, a motivational speaker based in Kelowna,
B.C.; Greg and Lisa Smith,
ranchers from Canwood, Sask.;
Don Campbell, a rancher from
Meadow Lake, Sask.; and Debra
Murphy a communications specialist talking about the role of
social media. As well there will
be a producer panel discussion
on sustainable agriculture. The
conference costs $200 per person or $120 for students. And
to register contact Nadia Mori
at 306-946-3219 or email nadia.
[email protected].
Advancing Women Conference — April 6: After a
successful single location
in 2014, the second annual
Advancing Women Conference
for women in the agriculture
industry will be offered in two
Canadian locations in 2015.
The Western Conference will
be staged at the Hyatt Regency
Hotel in Calgary, April 6 and 7,
while the Eastern Conference
will be offered at the Westin
Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto
October 5 and 6. Speakers
at the Western Conference
include Alanna Koch, deputy
minister of Saskatchewan
Agriculture; Debbie Travis,
a home improvement TV
personality; Courteny Wolfe,
a venture capitalist specialist;
Susan Blair, executive director
with Boehringer Ingelheim;
Gwen Paddock, senior manager
with the Royal Bank; Kirstine
Stewart, with Twitter Canada
and Trish Jordan, public affairs
director with Monsanto Canada.
For more information on the
conference and to register
visit their website at: www.
advancingwomenconference.ca.
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
35
Home Quarter Farm Life
SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Write the Love Letter today
Will help release negative feelings and allow more loving communication
Elaine
Froese
T
his is from my friend
Dan Ohler’s newsletter at
www.danohler.com:
The Love Letter Technique
One of the best ways to release
negativity and then communicate
in a more loving fashion is to
use the Love Letter Technique. To
write a Love Letter, find a private
spot and write a letter to your partner. In each Love Letter express
your feelings, of anger, sadness,
fear, regret, and then love. This
format allows you to fully express
and understand all your feelings.
As a result of understanding all
your feelings you will then be able
to communicate to your partner
in a more loving and centred way.
When we are upset we generally have many feelings at once.
To find our loving feelings, many
times we need to first feel all our
negative feelings. After expressing these four levels of negative
feelings (anger, sadness, fear,
and regret), we can fully feel
and express our loving feelings.
Writing Love Letters automatically lessens the intensity of our
negative feelings and allows us to
experience more fully our positive
feelings. Here are some guidelines
for writing a basic Love Letter:
1. Address the letter to your
partner. Pretend that he or she
is listening to you with love and
understanding.
2. Start with anger, then sadness, then fear, then regret and
then love. Include all five sections
in each letter.
3. Write a few sentences about
each feeling; keep each section
approximately the same length.
Speak in simple terms. (Keep it
short, three to five minutes per
feeling, two or three sentences per
feeling.)
4. After each section, pause and
notice the next feeling coming up.
Write about that feeling.
5. Do not stop your letter until
you get to the love. Be patient and
wait for the love to come out.
6. Sign your name at the end.
Take a few moments to think
about what you need or want.
Write it in as a P.S. (The whole
process takes about 20 minutes.
This is adapted from Chapter
11, How to Communicate Difficult
Feelings in Men are from Mars,
Women are from Venus, by John
Gray, PhD:
Love Letters work because they
assist you in telling the complete
truth. Merely to explore a part of
your feelings does not bring about
the desired healing. If you focus on
only one or two of your feelings
you may get stuck in that feeling.
Love Letters guide you in writing
out the complete truth about all
your feelings. We must feel each of
the four primary aspects of emotional pain, anger, sadness, fear and
regret to heal our inner pain.
Love Letters do not have to
be shared to be helpful. The
P.S., “what I would like now,”
at the end can be very helpful
in clarifying for yourself what
you want and how you might
go about helping your partner
meet that want. You can write a
Love Letter to an intimate partner, a friend, child, parent, family member, business associate
(in most cases Gray would not
recommend sharing it) yourself,
God and more. There are times
when it may be useful to use an
emotion other than anger as the
starting point — we may feel
guilty, upset, confused or disappointed. All of these can serve as
a starting point for a “love letter”
that explores the complexity of
our feelings about an issue.
Now that you have reached a
feeling of love by going through
the love letter process, write a
love letter to your spouse that
you will deliver. My mother-inlaw, Margaret Froese kept her love
letters to her husband Abe in a red
foil box. The handwriting is beautiful, both Margaret’s and Abe’s.
The letters first crafted in l945 at
the end of the war years can still
be savoured and enjoyed by her
grandchildren today.
Letters are very powerful because
they can be reread and treasured
for many years. Emails tend to
get deleted quickly, or by mistake,
and then vanish into cyberspace.
Letters also comfort when we
grieve the loss of loved ones.
My husband’s love language is
acts of service, not words of affirmation, so cards and letters don’t
really do much for his sense of
being loved. He would prefer hot
meals, and a clean pickup truck!
Alas, I still write him love notes
and I really love it when he writes
me a love letter. I don’t mind making a special request for one. The
special cards and letters are kept in
a wooden box in my office.
Words are powerful. It costs very
little money to document your
feelings and inspiration on a nice
piece of paper or blank card. Don’t
put it off this February, because
next month your loved one may
not be here. I know this all too
well. There have been times when
I have had very strong promptings
to call someone, write a card of
encouragement or make a hospital
visit. I have never regretted following those nudges, but I do regret
the fact that I did not call Ralph in
early December. Rev. Ralph Clark
was my minister when I was a teen
in Dugald. He officiated at my
father’s funeral in 201l, and toured
me around his log home in Lauder.
He shared his books, but he also
told me directly that he was proud
of me, and that he loved me. I
would love to have kept a note
from Ralph, but I remember how
good it felt to be told that I was
loved. Rev. Ralph Clark’s 85 years
of life were cut short in a snowstorm in late December 2014, and
hundreds of people gathered in
Hartney to honour his legacy. On
the funeral table was a Christmas
letter he had written to friends
to tell them of his love and care.
Thanks Ralph for taking the time
to write the letter. We are thankful
for your love, and for letting us
know in many ways.
Each day is a gift. Write your
spouse a love letter today and
deliver it with a kiss! Happy
Valentine’s Day! †
Elaine Froese writes from her farm near
Boissevain Manitoba. Her love language is
verbal affirmation, and meaningful touch. Visit
www.elainefroese.com or call 1-866-848-8311
to connect. Buy her newest book, Farming’s
In-Law Factor, to encourage your farm team.
Don’t forget the three Rs in the kitchen
Here’s some reminders about reducing, reusing and recycling
BY JULIE GARDEN-ROBINSON
NDSU EXTENSION SERVICE
“
M
om, do you know how long
that plastic jug will last in
the landfill?” my 11-yearold daughter asked me.
“No, I don’t know,” I replied.
I had a feeling I was inviting a lecture
on recycling. She pulled a handout out
of her backpack and began reciting how
long various containers last. I knew we
would need to recycle the piece of paper,
too.
Our conversation was a good reminder
of the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle.
I felt a little guilty as I looked around
our kitchen at the various items that
seemingly last forever in the environment. I reminded her that we recycle
cans, cardboard, newspapers and glass.
The next day, I bought some laundry detergent. She grinned in approval
when I picked up the “pouches” of
detergent to refill the large plastic bottle
we have at home. After all, I now know
that a plastic jug may last one million
years in the environment.
I also bought a large bag of dog food
instead of a smaller one, and we saved
some money, too. We carried our items
from the store in cloth bags that we
brought from home.
I looked up some additional information for this article online. I will let
my eco-friendly daughter know that I
didn’t print any copies. I think she will
be proud.
Public health entities have provided
lists on the estimated length of time
items last in the environment. For
example, a banana will decompose in
three to four weeks, a paper bag will
break down in a month and a soup
can will last up to 100 years. A soda
pop can may last up to 500 years, and
Styrofoam containers may last forever
in the environment.
We can reduce waste in many ways
in the kitchen and potentially save
some money in the process. When you
are wondering what’s for dinner, check
what you have on hand in your cupboards, refrigerator or freezer. Using
food while it is still in its “prime” can
help prevent waste.
What are some ways we can reduce
waste? These are some ideas to consider:
• Buy refills for dish detergent or hand
soap to fill the containers you have.
• Use a reusable lunch bag to take to
school or work.
• Use cloth grocery bags instead of
plastic. Recycle plastic bags or use them
for other purposes.
• If you are a frequent coffee consumer, you might want to purchase a
refillable cup instead of getting a disposable one. Be sure to wash it, though.
• Whenever possible, use washable plates and cups instead of paper
or Styrofoam. Yes, the washable ones
require water and electricity. If you have
a dishwasher, run it when it is full and
use the most conservative settings in
terms of water use.
• Use disposable items for other purposes. A glass jar or plastic container can
become storage containers for various
items. †
Julie Garden-Robinson, PhD, R.D., L.R.D., is a North Dakota
State University Extension Service food and nutrition
specialist and professor in the department of health,
nutrition and exercise sciences.
y! .
da e d
to it
er lim
st s
gi g i
Re atin
Se
“ Very well done! Variety of topics was
great! Can’t wait for the next one!”
- Haley R., Regina Saskatchewan, 2014 AWC Delegate
Capitalize on your opportunities and reap the benefits of your growth! This conference could change your life. Join women
from Ag and related businesses as they reveal the secrets to their success. Attend in Calgary or Toronto - or both. Early Bird
and Group Rates available now. Register today! Visit advancingwomenconference.ca or phone 403-686-8407.
HYATT REGENCY CALGARY, APRIL 6 & 7, 2015
WESTIN HARBOUR CASTLE, TORONTO, OCT 5 & 6, 2015
Advancing Women Conference / Grainews 10.25” x 3” / Saskatchewan Quote
36
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Home Quarter Farm Life
FROM THE FARM
More on gluten free
Debbie
Chikousky
O
ur family sur vived
Christmas without
gluten. We actually
quite enjoyed our
Turkey Stuffing made with cornbread (Grainews Dec. 2) so now
with Valentine’s Day coming our
family was motivated again to
explore some new tastes. There are
many gluten-free products on the
market but most have other ingredients that cause our family digestive distress, such as xanthan gum.
Our journey with gluten allergies
has revealed many hidden sources
of contamination. A friend couldn’t
get the health results she desired
only to discover that her shampoo
was a source of gluten. We have
been told to check all supplements
and that some foods such as soy
that do not actually contain gluten
can still cause the same reactions.
We also discovered that breathing
in grain dust could be just as bad
as eating it. Much to my husband’s
displeasure I insisted he wear dust
masks for chores. He just couldn’t
understand how a little bit of oat
dust could be contributing to all his
health issues plus they aren’t easy
for people wearing glasses to use in
the winter. After a week or so we
started seeing positive things so next
trip to Winnipeg we got a lifetime
supply of heavy-duty face masks
from Peavey Mart. Another possible
issue is supplements. Selenium, for
example, can be a trigger for some
people because yeast is often used
in the growing process. So, instead
of using selenium supplements we
switched to Brazil nuts.
One Brazil nut a day contains a
day’s requirement of selenium for
most adults. In addition to selenium, they contain very good levels
of other minerals such as copper,
magnesium, manganese, potassium, calcium, iron, phosphorus,
and zinc. Copper helps prevent anemia and bone weakness (osteoporosis). Manganese is an all-important cofactor for the antioxidant
enzyme, superoxide dismutase. This
was a doctor’s recommended addition to his diet.
One way to omit gluten is to
switch to either gluten-free grains or
legumes in their place. This option
works for cooking low carb also.
Since discovering soy is not an
option in our house we have been
experimenting with lentils.
Lentils are a powerhouse of
nutrition. They are a good source
of iron, having over half of a person’s daily iron allowance in a onecup serving. Lentils also contain
dietary fibre, folate, vitamin B1,
and minerals. Although not neces-
sary for cooking, to reduce their
phytates it is recommended to soak
them overnight in warm water
then drain and cook in fresh water. Phytates reduce the body’s ability
to absorb minerals from foods.
The birthday meal most asked
for in the Chikousky house is pizza.
With the current limitations we
were pretty excited when we found
a recipe for Lentil Pizza Squares at
www.bulkbarn.ca. The Lentil Purée
that is needed for it also reminded
us of a Lentil Cream Pie we have
made in the past which could be a
birthday dessert option too.
LENTIL PIZZA SQUARES
1/4 c. canola oil
(we used 8 tsps. of coconut oil)
3/4 c. chopped onion
1 c. sliced mushrooms
1 garlic clove, minced
4 eggs
1-1/2 c. lentil purée (recipe below)
1-1/2 c. low-fat sour cream
(we used yogurt)
7-1/2-oz. can tomato sauce
(we puréed home-canned tomatoes)
3/4 c. cornmeal
1 tsp. crumbled dried basil
1 tsp. crumbled dried oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 c. grated low-fat
cheddar cheese
1-1/2 c. grated low-fat
mozzarella cheese
1/2 c. sliced pepperoni or salami
(we used a pound of ground lamb)
1/2 c. diced sweet green pepper
In a skillet, heat oil and add
onion, mushrooms and garlic.
Sauté until onion is translucent
and excess moisture is removed
from mushrooms. Remove from
heat and let cool. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs. Blend in
lentil purée, sour cream, tomato
sauce, cornmeal, basil, oregano,
salt and mushroom mixture. Stir
in the cheeses. Spoon batter into
a greased 9x10-inch baking dish.
Garnish with pepperoni and green
peppers. Bake in a preheated 350 F
oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until
firm to touch. Let stand 10 minutes
before cutting. Cut into 12 squares.
Mix all ingredients and pour into
two unbaked gluten-free pie shells.
Bake at 325 F for 45 to 50 minutes,
or until firm. Cool and top with
whipped cream.
We have found that buckwheat flour (from the rhubarb
family) makes a very good crust
for cream pies of all kinds. Bulk
Barn sells most of these but if
we want fresh organic buckwheat
the farmers we contact are Gerry
and Marie Deruyck of Treherne,
Manitoba. They have freshly processed organic buckwheat products
available and can be contacted at
1-204-836-2755.
BUCKWHEAT PIE CRUST
1-1/2 c. buckwheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. lard
3 tbsp. water (approx.)
LENTIL PURÉE
3/4 c. lentils
2 c. water
Rinse the lentils and drain.
Cover with water and bring to a
boil. Reduce heat and simmer for
45 to 50 minutes. Drain off any
excess liquid and mash the lentils
with a potato masher.
LENTIL CREAM PIE
2 c. lentil purée
2 eggs
3/4 c. honey
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Salt, to taste
1/4 c. milk
2 tbsp. brown rice flour
Mix flour and salt in a bowl.
Cut in shortening until mixture
resembles coarse mealy crumbs.
Add water and gently mix to form
dough. Add more water if necessary. Roll out and put in pie pan.
If pre-baking: Preheat oven to 425
F. Prick bottom and sides and bake
10 to 15 minutes.
The important thing we have
learned with all of this is that
there are many nutritious options
for foods that we are used to.
Some have taken a bit of adjusting to but life is fun when it has
adventures. One thing for certain
— we are not bored here on the
farm! †
Debbie Chikousky farms at Narcisse, Manitoba.
Looking for some ag inspiration?
Watch the AgCanada TV video series online now.
Gain a new perspective on your farm, your family
and your future with this informative video series
from Farm Credit Canada.
INFORMATIVE:
INSPIRATIONAL:
Watch reviews of the latest ag products.
From vehicles, equipment and services to
emerging ag technologies.
Listen to such noted speakers as Rick
Hanson and many others discuss the
challenges and rewards of farm living.
Current AGCanadaTV topics include:

Know Your Options: Take the Risk Out of Grain Marketing
Tyler Russell, Cargill National Grain Marketing Solutions Manager shares
how farmers can mitigate grain marketing risks and go from price takers
to price makers.
Trade
in the Canadian Agri-food Industry
Hear about the resiliency of Canada’s agri-food industry and its
importance in the Canadian economy from FCC Chief Agricultural
Economist J.P. Gervais.
Grainews
looks at Ford’s all-new, aluminum-bodied F-150
Grainews field editor Lisa Guenther talks with Trevor Boquist about the
features on Ford’s 2015 F Series truck.
When you’re ready to be inspired & informed…
visit www.agcanada.com/video
AGCanadaTV is sponsored by
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 grainews.ca /
37
Home Quarter Farm Life
POSTCARDS FROM THE PRAIRIES
Life’s secrets, according to you…
Janita
VAN DE VELDE
I
’ve thought about this one
some more — my strong
desire to take a peek if given
the choice. Why, I wonder?
What could I possibly find out that
would change how I live my life
now? It’s quite the dilemma — if
I choose to look now, then I could
map out my future so as to ensure
that the road ahead is as smooth
(and long) as possible. Conversely,
I could hold off and acknowledge
that the future is not guaranteed,
forcing me to embrace life and live
each day as though it were my last.
I guess therein lies the philosophical debate. One could argue
that if you’re living your life with
purpose every day, then knowing
shouldn’t make a difference. If I
think that seeing something bad
would force me to lead a fuller
life now, then that begs the question as to why I’m not doing that
now anyway. If I were to see that
a loved one was no longer here,
would I visit them more often
now? Shouldn’t I be making time
to spend with those I love, regardless of how long they’re here for?
And maybe I’d want to know the
end result of my bad habits over
the years — the cumulative result
of poor eating, too many years
of smoking and drinking, and
the complete lack of exercise. We
all know that indulging in these
things is like playing with fire — I
guess in the end, we just want to
know if we really do get burnt.
The biggest downfall of looking?
I would miss out on the fun of
imagining what might be coming
my way. Not knowing what the
future holds is like having one giant
present handed to you each and
every day — and what a reminder
to enjoy it. Maybe the lyrics to the
popular song from 1956 said it best:
Que sera, sera, whatever will be,
will be… the future’s not ours to
see, que sera, sera.
Here forthwith are your final
responses to whether or not you’d
take a peek.
Of course I wouldn’t take the peep
show! Who would read a book if
they already knew the ending? All
the stuff in between seems kind of
useless then, doesn’t it?
No. As tempting as it is, I want to
enjoy the ride and not be steered
in any particular direction.
No. It would make me attempt to
alter my current life and I would
risk changing what I saw, maybe
for the worse.
Yes. If I am not in a good place
then I would know that I would
need to do some things differently
to get to where I want to be.
Nope. The fun is not knowing
where your journey will take you,
and you can’t live and enjoy life
the same if you know too much.
No, it would lead to too many
questions.
Yes, gladly.
Hmmmm... not sure about this one.
I would not. Because everything
works out the way it is supposed
to. Plus, if that glance revealed
something that I didn’t like, I’d
spend all of my time trying to
change the outcome.
I would not look at my life in
the future. I don’t know why I
wouldn’t, but I am absolutely
certain of this one. It’s set me
thinking.
Nope. Our lives are gifts, meant to
be taken one day at a time. Even
if I was able to see into the future,
it doesn’t mean that I could
change anything about it.
No, I worry enough as it is, and if
something wasn’t how I wanted it
to be, I’d be sick for years!
Only if I was also given one
opportunity to change it as well.
No. If it’s really good, knowing
ahead of time would ruin the
journey to get there. If it’s tough
times, knowing ahead of time
would ruin the journey to get there.
No, definitely not. I want to take
each day as it comes.
I would not take it. I want to
experience everything in life for
the first time as it comes. I don’t
want to be afraid to live my next
10 years if that one-minute glance
wasn’t good.
No, I would not take it. I don’t
want to know what’s in the future.
Probably not. I might not have all
my marbles.
No. It might make me lazy! Or
I might not be around. Who
knows? We are not all given a
long life, so each day is a gift.
No! If my stomach grows as much
in the next 10 years as it did in
the last 10 years, it wouldn’t be a
pretty one minute.
Yes, if the glance could
guarantee a jam-packed show
with the moments that escaped
my memory, I would love that,
because it would be like that
moment reminiscing with an
old friend when they tell you
some awesome story… but
unfortunately you can’t
remember that it even happened!
Yes! I would look at my life. Heck,
I read the end of the book after I
have read the beginning. I would
be so curious to know all that has
happened.
No, I would not have a one-minute
glance because I love my life and
believe whatever I am doing at any
given time is meant to be.
Yes, I would take it. If it’s good
it will calm me, and if it’s bad
then I better enjoy now and try to
change it.
Absolutely — because I’m a
narcissist and I’m concerned that
I’m on a course that’s selfish and
dangerous to my family, and that
it will leave me empty.
Yes. Then I can fix everything I
need to work on.
No. I don’t want to spend the next
10 years worrying about how I
could change what I saw! Plus, I
can’t get any better than this.
No. Life can change so suddenly
and I wouldn’t want to live every
day anticipating something in
my future (good or bad). It’s
important to take each moment as
it comes and be happy with what
and who you have in the present.
Absolutely. I am proud of the
woman I have become and I
know that my life is in His
hands. I’m not in a rush to grow
older, but I am excited to see
what else God has in store for me
and my family.
Nope. If I didn’t like the “view”
I’d spend the rest of those 10 years
dreading what was coming. If I
loved the “view,” I’d spend the
next 10 years wishing it would
hurry up and get here. Either way,
I would waste 10 years and not
live in the moment.
No way! I like surprises.
No! Because there’s very little
chance I’ll still be in the
highlight reel. †
Janita Van de Velde grew up on a farm near
Mariapolis, Man. She holds a bachelor of
science degree in agricultural economics
from the University of Manitoba, and has
worked for a financial institution since
graduating. She lives in Regina, Sask., with
her husband Roddy and their children Jack,
Isla and James. Her first novel, Postcards
Never Written, was the recipient of the
Saskatchewan Reader’s Choice Award and
also listed by CBC as one of the top funny
books in 2009. She donates a portion of
proceeds from the sale of her book to World
Vision to help those less fortunate. For more
information, or to order her book, visit her
website at www.janita.ca.
LOVE HEARING FROM YOU
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a special-diet need? Share some of your meal ideas.
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ALREADY
FARMING
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UNBLOCK SUCCESSION
Ranchers have no beef with
new antibiotic restrictions
HUGE PROFITS, BUT THINK TWICE
BEFORE INVESTING IN ARGENTINA
Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240
Health Canada pushing to end of routine use of antibiotics important in human medicine because of resistance threat
BY ALEXIS KIENLEN
AF STAFF
H
ealth Canada’s move to
end the use of “medically
important” antibiotics as
growth promotants won’t hurt
livestock production, say an Alberta producer and industry experts.
“There won’t be as much
restriction as we first thought,”
said Camrose rancher and Canadian Cattle Association president
Dave Solverson.
“(But) there will be a little more
consultation with veterinarians on
the use of antibiotics.”
The North American livestock
industry has been a heavy user of
a class of antibiotics called antimicrobials, notably ionophores and
tetracycline. The former is not
used in human medicine and is
exempt from the new rules, but tetracycline is a key drug used to treat
pneumonia, other respiratory tract
infections, and other conditions.
It is feared — although the science is not definitive — that using
human medicinal drugs for raising
livestock is hastening the spread of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Solverson has used tetracycline
to treat sick cattle, but not as a
growth promotant.
“We don’t use it mixed in with
feed or anything,” he said. “Very
few producers do.”
SOLID-STATE DIGESTER SHOWS PROMISE
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SEE ANTIMICROBIAL  page 6
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New limits on antimicrobials won’t be too restrictive, says Alberta rancher and CCA president Dave Solverson.
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PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER
www.grainews.ca
Farmers tweak rotations
to reflect markets
RECAP, RESULTS AND REFRESH, Farming Smarter
PLANT PATHOLOGY THEN AND NOW, Ron Howard
GRAIN MARKETING ACROSS THE LINE, Mark Ritchie
Farmers contacted for the February Farmer Panel are making
changes to get the most from a falling market in 2014
For many farmers, wheat in the $5.50 to $6
bushel range doesn’t pencil out well at all.
PHOTO: JOYCE BARLOW
BY LEE HART
W
hile the high rolling wheat, barley
and canola prices
of the past couple
years are into a market slump
in 2014, that doesn’t mean western Canadian farmers are making
major changes to their cropping
plans this coming year.
Some adjustments, yes, as they
PAmi reseArcHes
summer cAnolA
storAge
Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240
» Pg 31
consider crops with lower inputs,
or bring back specialty crops they
haven’t grown for a few years.
Some say after pushing rotations
hard for a few seasons, the market
slowdown is giving them a chance
to get proper or at least better rotations back on track.
For some, wheat in the $5.50 to
$6 bushel range doesn’t pencil out
well at all. For others, canola in
$9.50 to $10.50 bushel price range
still offers an acceptable, albeit not
exceptional, return.
Here are what farmers contacted
for the February Farmers’ Panel
had to say about their cropping
plans for 2014:
DUSTIN WILLIAMS
SOURIS, MAN.
plies to work through the system,
Dustin Williams says he will be
cutting back on both wheat and
canola acres in 2014.
Williams, who farms at Souris,
Manitoba says with higher prices he
has been pushing canola rotations
in the last couple of years. “We
have been bumping the acres to pay
the bills, but I think we’re also seeing a bit more disease pressure out
there, so cutting back a bit may be a
notHing to
In This Issue
crow About
Realizing it will take a while
for excess wheat and canola sup-
infertile roosters in the u.s. » Pg 12
good thing,” he says. “We can work
toward a more realistic rotation.”
As he scales back on wheat and
canola, Williams says he plans
to bring sunflowers back into his
rotation, and grow more oats and
flax. “Unfortunately as wheat and
canola have fallen off, many of the
other commodities have too,” he
says. “While prices are dropping,
» CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Wheat & Chaff ..................
2
Features ............................
5
Crop Advisor’s Casebook
10
Columns ........................... 18
Machinery & Shop ............ 29
Cattleman’s Corner .......... 34
Herbicide-resistant
weeds and pulse crops
Alfalfa
seed production
KARI BELANGER PAGE 6
july 17, 2014
SerVinG manitoba FarmerS Since 1925 | Vol. 72, no. 29
short-term
aid, longterm solutions
needed
204-825-2000
www.seeddepot.ca
The province is
assessing whether
AgriRecovery can be
triggered
New “Straight Cut”
|
$1.75
FarmLife ............................ 39
LINDSAY GRIFFITH PAGE 12
manitobacooperator.ca
CARDALE
We would like to
provide complimentary
cardale seed to CFGB
growing projects
“More Wheat...Less Shatter”
Less Fusarium
By Allan Dawson
FREE
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R
& BREA ATION
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co-operator staff/brandon
S
pecial programs will
be needed to help
compensate far mers for nearly 3.5 million
acres of cropland either
unseeded or drowned out
by flood waters, Keystone
Agricultural Producers said
last week.
Manitoba farmers need
short-term aid through
AgriRecovery to offset an
estimated billion dollars
in losses caused by flooding and excessive rains
and longer-term efforts to
mitigate future flooding,
including establishment
of the Assiniboine Basin
Commission, said Keystone
Agricultural Producers
(KAP) president Doug
Chorney.
“I don’t think anyone
expected it to be as bad as
this,” Chorney told KAP
delegates attending their
general council meeting
here July 10.
“There is a case to be
made for some type of
assistance for the producers affected.”
Frustrated KAP delegates
MAFRD’s Rejean Picard was spreading the word about drones and the required certification for flying them at the recent Crop Diagnostic School.
photo: Laura rance
get a permit before
flying that drone
see COMPENSATION on page 7 »
Whether you’re looking for a
comprehensive article on a specific
crop, or a recipe for muffins, start your
search at the AgCanada Network.
Transport Canada deems field-scouting activities as commercial and
therefore a Special Flight Operations Certificate is required
By Allan Dawson
co-operator staff
Publication Mail Agreement 40069240
F
armers flying drones
to check their crops or
livestock could get their
wings clipped by Transport
Canada if they don’t have
a Special Flight Operations
Certificate (SFOC).
“It is Transport Canada’s
policy that UAVs operating in
Canada must meet equivalent levels of safety as manned
aircraft,” Transport Canada’s
website says. “Requirements
for the operation of a UAV fall
under the Canadian Aviation
Regulations (CARs).”
It can take 10 to 20 business days to get an SFOC, said
Martin Eley, director general
of civil aviation at Transport
Canada, in an interview July
11. The process can take
longer if the applicant doesn’t
clearly explain where and
when the proposed flight or
flights are to occur. And the
operator needs to have liability insurance.
Every time
In some cases applicants have
to apply for SFOC every time
they want to fly, which would
be impractical for farmers.
However, Transport Canada
has issued certificates allowing applicants to fly in different areas, multiple times
under certain circumstances,
Eley said.
“If the farmer wants to fly
over his own fields that’s one
thing, but if he wants to go to
see DRONES on page 6 »
AlfAlfA: How to reduce drying time » PAge 8
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38
/ grainews.ca FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Home Quarter Farm Life
SINGING GARDENER
What causes boiled potatoes to blacken?
Plus, willow water wonder and some more Ted Tips
ted
meseyton
B
efore beginning my word
trek along the green and
growing garden path, I’m
settling down to a cup of
warm and pleasant orange-spice
thyme tea, plus a slice or two of a
classic Icelandic favourite.
Can you relate from personal
experience to the following?
“When I boil potatoes they often
turn black and I don’t know why.
I’ve tried different varieties, both
homegrown and store bought.
This gardener needs help!”
Also, have you heard of willow water? Ted tells straight ahead
what it’s for and how to make
your own.
One of my teachers in early
grade school must have been a
gardener. She taught the entire
class to memorize “The Glory of
the Garden,” by Rudyard Kipling.
Follow me and read his poem just
before my closing tag.
It may be too early in the year
to tiptoe through the daffodils and
tulips unless you’re in Victoria or
somewhere near Vancouver on the
south coast along the lower mainland. But now, let me grip and tip
my welcoming hat to the Grainews
Singing Gardener page.
MY NEIGHBOUR ASTA
… makes the finest vinarterta
I’ve ever tasted. In Iceland, layered vinarterta prune torte is made
for the Christmas, New Year and
winter holidays. It can be nibbled all season long, thanks to its
extended shelf life. Vinarterta torte
has been a standard holiday classic
for generations of families and the
recipe is eagerly shared by folks
of Icelandic heritage. Traditional
prune filling has occasionally been
replaced with other fruits such
as strawberry-rhubarb or apricot.
But in Gimli, Manitoba — dubbed
the “Heartland of New Iceland,”
— substituting any other fruit
for prunes flavoured with ground
cardamom in vinarterta filling is
strictly not allowed. There are also
size variations ranging from five
to seven layers and perhaps more.
FROM PAM HALL NEAR
YORTON, SASK.
She writes: “What causes potatoes to turn black after being
boiled? We did not have our own
potatoes due to flooding and have
to buy ours this year. One bag of
red potatoes seems to be especially bad for this. However, even
some of the white ones are now
turning black after being boiled.
Sometimes they have a stale smell,
but sometimes they smell all right
but still start to turn black. We
have never had a problem like
this with our own potatoes. The
one bag of red potatoes I bought
looked so nice but we can’t even
eat them. The potatoes were all
bagged but we always dump them
out of the plastic bags and then
into the bin in our cold room.
Sure hope you have some suggestions. They are a staple in our diet.
I am still using the same type of
pot to cook them in. We have a
reverse osmosis water system in
our new house. I would appreciate
any information you could give
me on this.”
Ted’s observations are from a
gardener’s perspective and feedback from others. Such a condition is referred to as “after-cooking
darkening (ACD).” It’s a widespread, undesirable characteristic
of both commercial and homegrown potatoes.
Something happens when
cooked potatoes are cooling. Iron
in spuds combines with other natural compounds resulting in grey,
black and other off colours. Of
course we all want a quick resolution and that’s not easy to come
by, but here are some suggestions
that may prevent, or at least moderate or lessen unwanted colour.
There are various opinions about
cooking utensils. Some use only
stainless steel; others say, “never
use an aluminum pot.” Some folks
cook potatoes only in bottled or
distilled water and won’t use city
tap water nor well water. Try adding some lemon juice or vinegar
A crown of fresh thyme sprigs circles this plate of ready-to-serve
traditional Icelandic vinarterta torte. More than two dozen choices exist
in the thyme family group and uses range from culinary and medicinal
to attractive and decorative.
photos: ted meseyton
Sprout seed potatoes by arranging them in single layers on moist sheets of newspaper placed in cardboard
or wooden boxes; then keep in a warm, well-lit area. Begin about three weeks prior to planting time in the
outdoor garden. If you have heavy clay soil, add peat moss mixed into individual holes about six inches deep.
Top dress with additional peat moss or some dried pine needles. Both have propensity to discourage formation
of potato scab.
to the water while potatoes are
boiling. Or, wait until potatoes are
done, then drain well and squirt
in a small amount of lemon juice
and cover the pot with a tightfitting lid. Do some experimenting
to determine how much lemon
juice is needed to reduce the darkpigment formation.
Stored potatoes and potatoes in
transit that are kept too cool [less
than 5 C (40 F)] can turn black
after a time. Potatoes that are handled or dropped when too cold
can end up with bruising and turn
black once boiled, fried or baked.
Environmental conditions, cultivation and nutritional factors
are a consideration. Producers, the
potato-processing industry and
researchers continue to develop
agronomic approaches to minimize
the problem. Over time it may be
possible to predict the severity of
ACD in potato tubers in late-stage
storage. There’s continued interest
in finding innovative ways, varieties and crop methods to prevent
after-cooking darkening.
overnight. (Sounds sort of the way
I make herbal drinking tea except
I don’t steep it that long.) Next
day, soak tips of cuttings for several
hours in cooled, drained-off willow
water. Pot up cuttings into individual two- or three-inch pots containing soilless mix. Poke a pencil into
the centre to create a hole, insert
the bottom tip of the cutting, firm
the growing medium around it and
moisten with some willow water.
Next step is to keep each planted
cutting humid by placing a glass
jar or plastic bag as a tent on top,
held intact with an elastic band.
Place in a warm, bright location
but away from direct sunlight.
Open the bag or remove the glass
covering daily for a half-hour or so
to provide ventilation and prevent
damping off. The latter happens
when a started seed or cutting
suddenly topples over as though
cut off at ground level. This can
occur due to poor ventilation and
growing medium that’s kept too
moist. Keep that old bit of advice
in mind. Avoid overwatering.
WILLOW WATER WONDER
SOME TED TIPS
No need to buy rooting hormone
to start your cuttings. Use homemade willow water instead. Sound
far fetched? Not at all! Thousands
of gardeners take cuttings of fresh
young growth from indoor overwintered plants. This is usually the
time of year to start and geraniums
are a good example.
Now let’s make some willow
water. Harvest some willow (Salix)
twigs about as round as a cigarette
or a little larger. Willow stems contain a natural rooting hormone
that stimulates growth. Snip willow branches into one- or twoinch lengths and then carefully
split each length in half with a
knife or other appropriate tool.
Half fill a saucepan with water
(distilled is preferred) and bring to
a boil. Remove water from the heat,
add the prepared willow pieces,
cover with a lid and allow to steep
Sprinkle a thin layer of dry
powdered cinnamon on soil surface of indoor house- and office
plants. Doing so destroys insect
pests that burrow into soil, suffocating their eggs. Cinnamon
breaks down after a few waterings
and becomes plant food.
Both indoor and outside plants
can attract aphids and where
there are aphids, gardeners often
find ants. The latter feed on a type
of honeydew nectar that aphids
secrete. I have found a misting of
lime water made from a tablespoonful of fresh lime juice thoroughly
mixed into a litre of plain water
usually takes care of aphids. A bit of
experimentation may be required.
If too strong, reduce the amount
of lime juice. If not strong enough,
add more lime juice to plain water.
Here are some best hardiness
and productive soil planting dates
for root crops such as carrots,
potatoes and tubers. If you enjoy
working in moist, fruitful soil for
good root growth try May 3, 4,
11, 12, 13, 16 and 17; or with less
moisture, yet productive earthy
soil consider May 7, 8 and 9, 2015.
KIPLING’S GLORY
OF THE GARDEN
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and
God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work
is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you
can wash your hands and pray,
For the Glory of the Garden, that it
may not pass away!
Speaking of kneeling in the garden I, Ted, recommend getting a
pair of Kneelo Knee Pads. They are
suitable for both men and women,
lightweight and flexible plus easy
to walk in and oh so comfortable
on which to kneel. Or, you can
get a Kneelo Kneeler Pad. Place an
order for either or both of these
from West Coast Seeds, Delta, B.C.
V4K 2Y1 by dialing toll free 1-888804-8820. †
This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener
and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie,
Man. Will gardeners ever know all there
is to know about gardening? I think not and
that includes me. We are not magicians
yet there’s something magic about being a
gardener. Remember the tooth fairy when
you were a kid? In every gardener there is a
child who believes in the seed fairy. Seeds
and plants always give back more than they
receive. Gardening is a good addiction to
have when one considers the many not-sogood choices in life. My email address is
[email protected].
See the lAteSt
in the FielD
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