Agronomist Notes
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Direct Seeding Advantage conference in Nisku. The entertaining key note speaker was Robert Ruwoldt from Victoria, Australia. Robert has been practicing zero-till, controlled traffic and inter-row seeding technology for many years. In fact, he was using variable rate fertilizer for six years until his cropping system allowed him to drop his fertilizer requirements so low that he could no longer justify the time and expense of VRT. He’s challenged my way of thinking when it comes to issues like compaction as you’ll read in the article below.
I had a chance to tour the 20/20 Seed Labs facility in Nisku and look through their seed testing processes. I came away with a new appreciation of how vigour tests play into my seeding rate calculations and will explain a couple scenarios further on in this newsletter.
I’ve had a fellow Nuffield Scholar who farms in Lincolnshire, England visit with me over the last week. We’ve had great conversations about the differences and similarities in our farming systems. How would you like to use 40 litres of fuel per acre at $1.20/litre to go over your fields nine times with the sprayer, four times with fertilizer and five times to prep and establish the crop? Top it off with a well-policed requirement to document every activity and rate of product you apply so it can be audited at any time. Nothing like a little perspective to foster appreciation for the country we live in!
This week we’ll revisit our assumptions of soil compaction and discuss our options. We’ll also look at the costs and returns of farming in England. We’ll investigate a fine way of increasing canola harvest efficiency through a unique swathing technique. Finally, we’ll finish off with international crop weather news.
Agronomy
Re-analyzing our assumptions on soil compaction
I’ve been harping on about soil compaction for the last few years after watching an excessive amount of wheel track damage during our wet springs. In the past, I’ve recommended duals on the air carts and in some cases the sprayers to help provide a larger footprint and reduce compaction. After listening to Robert Ruwoldt from Victoria, Australia talk about soil compaction and the benefits of controlled traffic, I believe I should rethink my theories.
We’ve always operated on the assumption that our winters and frosts take care of most of the soil compaction we create. Robert would say that’s “rubbish” and his extreme heat, dry and wet cycles would do the same expansion and contraction as our frosts, but either do very little to alleviate compaction. In fact, research shows that yield reductions in our soils can occur 10 years after the initial soil compaction occurs. The only way to truly understand how much yield is lost from compaction is to stop compacting. Using a controlled traffic system provides a solution to soil compaction because it uses RTK GPS guidance to move equipment across the same tracks each year. Compaction is then reduced to 4% of the field instead of 70, 80 or 90% in our current farming systems.
Controlled traffic has allowed Robert to cut back his fertilizer inputs significantly over the years and produce more with less. He’s dropped his fuel consumption by 35% because he no longer drives on soft clay but hard packed tram lines. For his equipment set up, Robert has a JD 8530T 4WD, a 30 ft disc drill with 15” rows, a 90 ft sprayer, combine with a 30 ft header all using RTK guidance auto-steer. Even the grain cart has RTK guided auto-steer which was possible after fitting an auger extension on the combine to reach over to the next tram line.
Roberts’s presentation gave me lots of food for thought. Perhaps we need to look more closely at controlled traffic systems. SL
The cost of farming in the UK, an example from Lincolnshire, England
I had the opportunity to sit down with Nick Ward from Lincolnshire, England to discuss the costs and returns of growing wheat and canola. In Canada we hear about the big yields they seem to harvest but rarely here about the costs and returns. If you read my comments at the beginning of the newsletter, you would have counted their 18 passes across the field per season in order to grow a wheat or canola crop. I think that speaks volumes for what I’m about to list as their costs and returns. High input equals high output!
The Ward’s grow a rotation of canola, wheat and beans on 2,500 acres. The wheat and canola are winter varieties with canola planted August and harvested in July and wheat sown in September or October and harvested in August and September. Beans are planted in February and harvested in September. The average canola crop will yield 67 bushels per acre (3.7 T/ha) and their feed wheat will yield 150 bushels an acre (10 T/ha). Hard white milling wheat will yield 25% less than feed and usually won’t make milling grade because of weathering. The average rainfall in his area is 26 inches (650 mm) per year.
To give you an example of the intensity of their farming practices, minus the intricacies, a wheat crop will receive four fungicide applications, two to three growth regulators and two to three herbicide applications. Field preparation includes a combination of deep ripping and cultivation in one pass, seeding and rolling. Canola typically requires two less passes by using a till-seeding technique that works the ground at the same time as seeding.
The cost of producing a wheat and canola crop last year was in the area of $300 an acre just for the variable inputs, not including fixed costs which could easily run another $350 to $450 per acre. The average gross return on wheat this year, which is still to be determined is roughly $750 per acre leaving very little profit in the end. The bottom line, even in a heavily subsidized farming economy like the EU, the returns on investment are challenging and producers continue to struggle with profitability. SL
Straight cutting swathed canola revisited: a technique from the UK
Nick Ward, who farms in the UK, was showing me his harvest pictures when, low and behold, I see a photo of him picking up canola swaths with a straight cut header. You may remember reading one of my articles several weeks ago about a local producer creatively using straight cut headers to pick up windblown canola swaths. Well, here’s a similar idea from across the pond that greatly improves harvest efficiency.
With a 16 ft swather shown in the photo above, Nick uses GPS guided auto-steer to cut one straight swath going north, skips a row going east, comes back south and heads back north beside the original swath so he always has two swaths side by side laying in the same direction. Then, with his NH 9080 twin rotor combine with a 30 ft rigid auger-style straight cut header, he picks up two swaths with one pass, as seen in the photo below. Not only does he ramp up harvest efficiency but he also eliminates the need for a pickup header.
Nick went from traveling 5.4 mph picking up one swath to 3.6 mph picking up two swaths. The pickup losses have been minimized from travelling at a slower speed and he’s cut harvest time down significantly. At 5.4 mph and a 16 ft swath at 85% efficiency, he could attain 9.86 acres per hour. By slowing down to 3.6 mph and picking up two swaths, he could achieve 11.8 acres per hour, an increase of 2 acres per hour or 20%.
In this example they were harvesting a 60 bushel canola crop with a 16 ft swather. We don’t get the yields they do on average and you won’t find many 16 ft swathers in our country either but here’s my pitch:
In our area, if we had a 30 ft wide swather and the windrow could be as wide as 10 ft some years, you would need a 40 ft straight cut header to pick up both swaths (30ft + 5ft + 5ft). If the average width of a swath was 8 ft wide and you had a 20 ft swather, you would need a straight cut header that’s at least 28 ft wide. I’ll leave the math to you because every farm produces a different sized swath. The way I see it, picking up two swaths at once obviously leads to savings in fuel and time. I realize that increasing swathing time by 30% doesn’t excite anyone but the cost of running a swather per hour is much less than running a combine. SL
Using the seed vigour test to choose between bin run and certified seed
One of the challenges I face when targeting plant stand densities is choosing the correct seedling mortality rate. After my tour of the 20/20 Seed Lab last week I really appreciate the value seed vigour tests add to improving seeding rate accuracy.
Simply put, the vigour test is completed by placing 100 seeds in a container of moist sandy soil and grown out at a constant 5oC to simulate cold soil stress. The seeds are grown for 7 days and once completed, the plants that emerge are counted and a percentage is given.
I’m a big fan of the combining the germination and vigour test results to give you that added level of security that your seed not only has enough energy to germinate but to emerge from the ground. I believe this is a more reliable way of determining seedling mortality. In fact, I believe that vigour may offer us a better way of calculating seeding rates and enable us to compare the true costs of bin run seed versus certified. I’ll give you an example:
Seeding rate calculation: lbs per acre = desired plant population/ft² × 1,000 K wt. (g) ÷ % seedling survival rate ÷ 10.4
Bin run seed: $0.11/lb for seed ($6.50/bu) with 94% germination and 87% vigour
30 plants/ft2 × 35 grams ÷ 87% ÷ 10.4 = 116 lbs/ acre
116 lbs x $0.11/lb = $12.76/ acre
Certified seed: $0.15/lb for seed ($9.00/bu) with 98% germination and 92% vigour
30 plants ft/2 x 35 grams ÷ 92% ÷ 10.4 = 110 lbs acre
110 lbs x $0.15/lb = $16.50/ acre
In this example, it would cost you an added $3.74 per acre to use certified over bin run seed. Sending away seed lots after harvest would allow you to compare your farm saved seed versus certified each year to make a more informed decision. If seed vigour is a measure of the plants that are able to emerge in cold soil temperatures, then I’d want the biggest, most vigorous seeds I could find. Now we have an opportunity to calculate whether to keep our seed or when to trade up for certified. SL
Market News
International Crop Weather News
United States: Pockets of unfavorable dryness persist in winter wheat areas of the interior Northwest. On the Plains, mild, dry weather is favorable with respect to winter wheat development and late-season fieldwork activities, including cotton and sorghum harvesting. In the Corn Belt, snow is spreading across the Great Lakes region, especially in the vicinity of Lake Michigan. By dawn, new snow accumulations of at least 3 inches had been reported across eastern Wisconsin. Elsewhere, rain showers are aiding soft red winter wheat in previously dry areas of the eastern Corn Belt, while late-season corn harvesting continues in the western Corn Belt. In the South, cool, dry weather favors fieldwork in the southern Atlantic States. Meanwhile, showers across the interior Southeast are boosting topsoil moisture but providing little relief from long-term drought.
Europe: Locally heavy rain persists in England, France, and Italy, providing additional topsoil moisture for emerging winter wheat and rapeseed but slowing late summer crop harvesting. Dry weather in the Balkans promotes winter wheat planting and emergence.
Former Soviet Union: Dry weather continues in Ukraine and southern Russia, helping late-season summer crop harvesting.
East Asia: Seasonably dry weather eases wetness for winter rapeseed in the Yangtze River Basin. Light showers provide favorable moisture for winter wheat on the North China Plain.
Southeast Asia: Seasonably dry weather aids rice and corn harvesting in Thailand. Showers in Indonesia favor developing rice.
South Asia: Tropical Cyclone Khai-Muk hampers summer crop harvesting in southeastern India.
Middle East: Generally sunny skies promote winter crop development.
Northwest Africa: Rain in Algeria slows winter grain planting but maintains abundant topsoil moisture for crop emergence.
Australia: Mostly dry weather favors winter grain maturation and harvesting across the Australia wheat belt. Sunny weather in eastern Australia benefits germinating to emerging summer crops.
South America: Seasonal rains improve planting prospects for soybeans and other summer crops throughout central and northeastern Brazil. Warm, dry weather persists in Argentina’s eastern and southern summer grain and oilseed areas, reducing moisture for emerging corn, sunflowers, and soybeans.
South Africa: Locally heavy rain provides moisture for summer crop germination across the corn belt.
Mexico: Conditions favor winter wheat planting and the harvest of corn and other summer crops.
