Agronomist Notes

After a whirl wind week at FarmTech and touring two Aussie’s around for the weekend, it’s good to get my feet back on the ground.

The controlled traffic topic generated a lot of response and got people thinking outside the box. Robert Ruwoldt was excellent as always and gave people an insight into how he developed his CTF system and the tremendous benefits that followed. With the amount of push back we’ve had on CTF, it makes me think we’re on the right track- or tramline, should I say.

I’ve got controlled traffic on my mind this week so in this newsletter we’ll be looking at how to match economies of scale with controlled traffic farming. Next, Mad Michael Eyres from Injecta Pty Ltd, Australia will give the results on a row loading nutrient trial he did with one his growers last year. We’ll also be revisiting the unregistered use of liquid fungicides in furrow and the associated benefits. Last, we’ll finish with fundamental and technical grain market news.

Agronomy

Can you match controlled traffic farming with economies of scale?

One of the biggest questions surrounding controlled traffic is how we would adapt it to our large scale farming systems in Western Canada. We want the benefits of controlled traffic but we also want the profitability and efficiency gains we’ve made through economies of scale. To begin CTF on your farm you must look at it from the combine backward. Residue management and harvest efficiency is the limiting factor when designing a CTF system. Let’s look at 25 ft, 30 ft, and 35 ft combine headers and match them to drill and sprayer widths to find the most efficient set up for seeding and harvest.

I’ll start with the ideal CTF scenario: a 30 ft tramline, using a 30 ft drill and combine, and a 90 ft sprayer. There are three good reasons for this from the combine’s perspective. First, this enables you to run a grain cart in the next tram line at harvest and take grain on the go without having to move outside the tracks. A simple two foot extension auger on most combines will allow you to do this. Second, it provides some scale allowing you to harvest 30 ft each run. Third, the majority of combines can spread residue across 30 ft quite easily, which avoids the costly mistake of piling straw and chaff in one spot year after year.

Have a look at the diagram showing 30 ft centre tramlines above. Compaction has been minimized to just 20% of the field. Residue is properly managed and the grain cart can be used to unload on the go. The down side to the 30 ft system is the small scale of the air drill. Producers with over 3,000 acres may find it challenging to seed within the optimal 20-day planting window; using a disk drill capable of faster seeding speeds would be necessary.

The 25 ft system requires a 50 ft air drill, a 100 ft sprayer and a 25 ft header. Seeding power is improved but some harvest efficiency is lost with a 25 ft header. Residue management is acceptable but too much area is given up to tramlines. You can see in the diagram below, 33% of the field is removed from production because these areas are now in permanent tramlines. This is less than ideal as the yield gains from CTF may not be enough to offset the loss.  

Next, we have the 30 ft CTF system but with a 60 ft air drill, 30 ft header and 120 ft sprayer, maximizing efficiencies on all the equipment. Switching to a track machine like a CAT MT series, John Deere T series or Case IH Quad Track to get enough rubber on the ground would likely be necessary. However, 27.3% of the field would be in permanent tramlines and I’m not convinced the yield gains from CTF would offset it.

The 35 ft CTF system uses a 35 ft header, 70 ft sprayer and a 70 foot air drill. We’ve given up some sprayer efficiency by down sizing to 70 ft but we can drive down the same tramlines as the air drill and eliminate an additional track. Harvest efficiency is maximized but a little is given up on residue management as 35 ft in typical conditions can be challenging. Also, unloading on the go is very difficult. If structurally possible, you could build a 7 ft extension auger to make it work but that seems unrealistic to me.

To get the best of both worlds, we all want to bend and twist controlled traffic systems to fit comfortably into our economies of scale. Unfortunately, it seems that each width outside of the 30 ft air drill and 30 ft combine combination gives up too much area to permanent tramlines or sacrifices harvest efficiency. Moving to the 30 ft system while maintaining economies of scale would require you to move to a disk drill where seeding speeds could be 8 to 10 mph. You could cover 36 acres per hour with a 30 ft disk drill at 10 mph or a 60 ft drill at 5 mph. The bottom line is that economies of scale are difficult to match with CTF but I believe with a little give and take, striking the balance that’s right for your operationn will pay off. SL

Row loading for Canola

Submitted by Michael Eyres, Injekta Pty Ltd, South Australia

Tremendous gains in profitability can be realized by understanding how nutrients react, interact and relate to plant growth. True nutrient flow in any given season will depend on soil type, climatic condition, crop cultivar, crop rotation, sowing method, management style, and the list goes on. We use a row loading concept that combines a liquid nutrient delivery system in conjunction with granular fertilizer. This allows farmers to change fertiliser programmes based on dry or moist sowing conditions, sowing date, cultivar and many other variables. We also know that liquid nutrients can provide a far greater response than relying solely on granular fertility.

Attached is a photograph of a Tanami canola crop of Pete Kitschke’s in Jamestown in South Australia. This photo is interesting in light of the issues we face in the high potassium red clays typical of this medium rainfall farming area: high potassium, medium reserve acidity, high soluble aluminium at depth, low available zinc, low available copper and low sulphur levels. The green strip in the centre is a liquid only strip trial using a liquid phosphate mix with UAN, copper, zinc, manganese, boron, calcium and sulphur. The yellow flowering area is the normal practice of liquid trace elements and a urea/MAP Blend (32-9-0-0). The normal practice had more vegetation, a higher number of flowers but yielded the same as the liquid trial, though maturity was delayed at 1.42 MT or 25 bu/ac.

The liquid programme was 60 % of the cost of the granular with liquid programme but that is not relevant to the trial. What’s interesting is that the trial was done to see the effect of changing levels of minor nutrients. The effect is very dramatic!! We tend to think all cultivars have the same maturity and growth pattern under the same conditions. We’ve proven they don’t. From this trial we have worked out effective nitrogen rates, the effect of aluminium inhibition on sulphur uptake, value of zinc in furrow, the effect of boron on flowering and how the volume of P (and the form of P used) contributes to maturity of canola. It is only a paddock trial but we have done the soil and plant tests to follow the crops progress and this is the kind of simple data we use to fine tune cropping programmes for next year.

The canola trial at Pete Kitschke’s was a straight liquid program and offered an increase in gross margin of $48 AUS per hectare or $19.43 AUS per acre. We originally did the trial for boron response but we added a few more traces and sulphur, and ended up with a large visual crop difference. We will repeat and triple replicate this trial again this year.

Injekta is an Australian company developing and researching innovative products, techniques and solutions for everyday agronomic and environmental problems.

Row loading liquid fungicides at seeding

While attending a “Fertility of the Minds” seminar hosted by Omex in Calgary last Monday, I learned of another rogue agronomist, this one from the UK, injecting liquid fungicides like propiconazole (Tilt) and tebuconazole (Folicur) in the furrow at seeding. Chris Rigley from York, UK http://www.yorkshirearablemarketing.co.uk/ designed a nozzle system that sprayed liquid fungicide into the furrow at seeding. The nozzles were placed directly behind the opener on the shank and sprayed a stream of product into the furrow as the soil was closing over the seed. His trials showed a significant benefit in germination, emergence, disease control and cost compared to the regular use of seed treatment combined with in-crop fungicide applications.

I first heard of this method last year from Stewart Barden in New South Wales, AU. He pointed me to research done by 4Farmers Pty Ltd. in Western Australia that found tremendous disease control benefits from in-furrow applications of liquid fungicides, the same fungicides we typically use as a foliar treatment. Placing liquid fungicides in the furrow allows up to a 75% reduction in fungicide rates because the product is concentrated to the furrow instead of covering the entire field through a spray application. Uptake efficiency is also greater through the roots compared to an in-crop application on the foliage. In addition to a liquid system, 4Farmers research uses liquid fungicides to coat starter fertilizer which are then placed with or beside the seed. Research has found lasting results in disease control for up to 18 weeks in Australia by supplying the furrow with products like tebuconazole (Folicur).

With our rapid growing season, perhaps we could see up to nine weeks disease control and keep our plants healthy right up to flag leaf. We could potentially eliminate the need for an in-crop treatment and the costs associated with trampling crops. I can’t professionally recommend this practice as it is not registered for use but it sure grabs my attention. SL

4Farmers fungicide research: http://4farmers.com.au/library/The%204Furrow%20Package.pdf
For my previous article on 4Farmer’s research see the November 17th, 2009 issue of Beyond Agronomy News: http://www.beyondagronomy.com/newsletter/17_11_2009.htm

Market News

Technical Analysis

Canola: March Futures. The long and short term trends are down. Short term trend looks to have hit a bottom.
HRS Wheat: March Futures. Short and long term trends are down. Possible short term rally here.
Corn: March Futures. The short term trend is up and the long term trend is down.
Soybeans: March Futures. Short and long term trends are down. Look for possible rally here. 
Canadian Dollar: March futures. Long and short term trends are down.
US Dollar Index: March futures Long and short term trends are up. Possible market drop coming soon. 
Crude Oil: February futures. Short term is down and long term trend is up. Look for a choppy market this week.