Agronomist Notes

We’ve all been going great guns since last week and have made a tremendous amount of progress. Winds blowing in the 25 to 50 km/hr range every day (and night) have made it next to impossible to spray. Then again, the decision whether to spray or seed has been easy! In such windy conditions, the soil is drying out in the top three quarters of an inch but with good stubble and residue coverage, evaporation is limited.

Seeding progress from Calgary east to Three Hills and Drumheller is now 35% complete. We are well behind normal but thankfully moisture is good and temperatures are warm, so crops should emerge quickly. We planted barley last week and its popping out of the ground already.

In this week’s newsletter, we’ll discuss the top five tips for spraying in the wind brought to you by the spray doctor himself, Dr. Tom Wolf from Ag Canada. Next, we’ll look at the value of inter-row seeding in a year like this. We’ll also look at how a Beyond Agronomy News reader used our air tank efficiency information to gain an extra 20 acres per fill!  I’ll review our seeding progress in our second year of CTF and we’ll finish with a CWB seeding progress update and grain market news.  

Pictured above: Tony Pliva seeding wheat on May 13th, 2011, near Drumheller, AB.

Agronomy

Top five tips for spraying in the wind

1. Choose an herbicide that can handle large droplets so you can follow Tip #2. Glyphosate products that have contact actives in the mix, like CleanStart or Heat, are less likely to perform well with big droplets than those that contain Group 2 and 4 mixes.

2. Use a low-drift nozzle. Low-pressure air-induced nozzles like the Air Bubble Jet, Greenleaf AirMix, Greenleaf TurboDrop XL, TeeJet AIXR, Hypro Guardian Air, Hypro ULD operated at about 50 - 60 psi will be very low-drift, as are pre-orifice nozzles like Wilger SR, MR, and DR.

3. Keep your boom low. All you need is the minimum 100% overlap, which is for the edge of one nozzle pattern to spray into the centre of the adjacent pattern. For most nozzles, that is close to 20 inches.

4. Know what's downwind. When you have a choice, avoid fields that have sensitive areas downwind such as water, shelterbelts, pastures, people, etc.

5. Take the wind from the side if you can. Going straight into the wind creates a lot of extra drift.  Spray when the sun shines if you have a choice. Early morning, late evening, or cloudy days increase the distance that drift moves. When it's sunny, the drift cloud disperses quickly and causes less damage.

If you feel that drift is unavoidable and someone might be impacted by it, talk to those people fist. For example, spraying Pre-Pass beside a field that may be going into canola can kill emergence and create a sticky situation if you’re not careful.

Source: Dr. Tom Wolf, Ag Canada, Saskatoon

Inter-row seeding shines in a spring like this

By now we’ve experienced 8 days of relentless 25 to 50 km/hr winds. Fields with little residue cover or seeded on the diagonal or not inter-row seeded are starting to dry in the top inch. I stopped to see Tony Pliva, a client near Drumheller, AB, who has been inter-row seeding for three years now to look at his soil moisture and stubble retention. I was amazed at how much moisture was still available in the top inch where his wheat was planted.

Every spring you’ll see producers seeding across the stubble or on a diagonal as they try to avoid uneven seeding depth in the wheel tracks or even out the field from wheel ruts. Naturally, seeding across the stubble leaves little stubble standing and wind speed increases across the soil surface taking soil moisture with it, not to mention the stress on newly emerged seedlings. This cost growers tens of thousands of dollars each year in lost yield, especially in a year like this.

Let’s run the numbers on soil moisture loss from short stubble. If you lose an inch of moisture from evaporation caused by heavy winds and dry weather, research has shown that wheat yields can be reduced by 6 bu/ac, canola by 4 bu/ac and barley by 7 bu/ac. Work out those figures and you’re looking at a loss of $28 to $48 an acre by losing just one inch of soil moisture caused by heavy winds and evaporation during the spring.

Inter-row seeding into tall standing stubble is a key to moisture retention. Also, leaving your stubble taller means you’re spreading less residue at harvest time which subsequently allows the soil to warm up faster in the spring. If you haven’t begun to inter-row seed yet, consider that at least $28 an acre could be yours in a year like this. SL

Picture: Tony Pliva seeding wheat inter-row into wheat stubble with a 2” opener on 10” spacing.  Photo source: Steve Larocque

Air tank maximization success story

I recently had a Beyond Agronomy News reader call to tell me how he tweaked his Flexicoil 4350 air tank to gain another 20 acres per fill this year. I love that kind of phone call! Remember the April 5th issue when I wrote an article on air tank maximization? Mike Imler from Okotoks applied to his system and recalculated how many acres per fill he could get if he put seed in tank 1 at the front and his blend in tanks 2 and 3 in the middle and back. Flexicoil and New Holland tanks are set up to deliver fertilizer below the seed from the back tank and deliver product from the front and middle tank on the same plain. Depending on the seeding and fertilizer rate, this may not be the optimal set up for maximum efficiency. 

In Mike’s case, with his fertilizer and seeding rate he could only get 62 acres per fill using the factory set up with a Flexicoil tank. He decided to move the seed to the back tank and the fertilizer blend to the front two tanks. The switch was simple, all he had to do was move the hoses from the back tank located at the bottom of the manifold (see photo), and switch them to the top. This generated an extra 20 acres per fill or 60 acres per day.

With an average 20-day seeding window, Mike will be able to finish four days sooner by generating another 20 acres per fill. At this time of year with a 1% yield loss in canola, wheat or barley per day, that’s roughly $4,800 in yield and more if it creates an increase in grain quality. Every air tank is set up to deliver seed and fertilizer differently, so be sure you’ve got yours set to deliver the maximum amount of seed and fertilizer to increase seeded acres per day. Thanks again for the call, Mike, and all the best for a great season. SL

Photo source: Steve Larocque

A year-2 controlled traffic farming update on seeding

Mitch and I finished up barley today and are moving on to canola. The wet spots in second year tram lines were a little hairy but we managed to get through them making a few ruts. We’ll need to fashion a tram line renovator this fall to repair the damage in a few areas. The inter-row seeding, offset hitch and tram lines have worked out and the RTK has kept us within an inch of last year’s tram lines. The inter-row seeding has been good but our new Gen paired row openers leave very little room to move between rows which has caused some canola stubble to dislodge. I can’t wait to start seeding canola into tall wheat and barley stubble next. 

Our fuel consumption is down 5% year over year but we’ll need more time to really see the true impact. We have shanks seeding inside the tram lines so it does cause some extra draft and seed placement issues. We put shims on the shanks inside the tram lines and decided to switch the seed and fertilizer tubes around to improve seed placement. Originally, we were placing the fertilizer into moisture in the tram lines and leaving the seed in the dust. With the switch, we are now placing seed into moisture and the fertilizer in the dust which should work fine. Pre-burn spraying has been really dreamy this year with tram lines to follow and for reference, we only using 0.88L/ac in fuel. We didn’t get to pre-burn last year due to the wet spring and late start due to sprayer and hydraulic issues.

We had to do another steering alignment on the air tank after offsetting the hitch again. The offset hitch must have caused the air tank to pull on a slight angle and it was tracking eight inches outside of the tram line this year. Four cranks on the tie rods and it was back on track, literally. We’ll have to do the same thing next year when we offset the hitch the other direction. 

The RTK signal has been letting us down a lot more than last year. Can-Net, our wireless RTK provider has had a few issues with degraded signals which stops us dead in our tracks. We cannot operate without it so we need to improve the consistency, perhaps through other providers. The cellular Ag3000 modem also fizzed out one night, forcing us to shut down. A two-hour parts run and a new modem and cable later and we were back in business.

I can see the challenges ahead for those who forge into CTF in the coming years: RTK GPS reliance and reliability, residue issues, logistics and most of all efficiency. Thirty feet of drill is small and to really make it work, we need to go faster because 16 to 18 acres per hour is ridiculous. I still see the 2:1 60 ft CTF system working well here in Canada since the ideal seeding window is maximum 20 days long.

All in all, I’m very pleased with the way an old Steiger PTA with articulated steering can hold the line within an inch using RTK autosteer and the way our openers are tracking between the stubble. Seeding has had its challenges and we’re not finished yet but I look forward to updating you on herbicide spraying and crop progress throughout the summer. SL

Photo source: Steve Larocque

CWB Prairie seeding progress report

Favourable weather in Alberta and western Saskatchewan, as well as in parts of eastern Saskatchewan, led to a dramatic increase in seeding progress on the Prairies last week, which is now being estimated at about 20 per cent complete by CWB weather and crop analysts (up from four per cent last Monday). Farmers in drier areas of Manitoba, mainly in south central and southeastern parts of the province, have also begun to plant. However, producers in many parts of Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan will need another week of dry weather before seeding can begin. Aside from a system that may create scattered showers in Alberta and parts of southern Saskatchewan, the forecast looks good for seeding into the long weekend. Normally, the Prairies are just over 50 per cent seeded by this time of year.