From IFAO President, Kevin Eisses
Fall is a wonderful time of year to be involved in agriculture. Harvest on the farm is in progress and all our energy is put into that work. It is also a time for reflecting. What could be done better or differently? There is always some looking back on the crop year and what happened.
I hope this letter finds you in good health and you are having a prosperous year. 2008 will be remembered as one of those years you tell your grandchildren about with its extremes in weather, price volatility, and challenges in every other possible way. It has been a good year for the Innovative Farmers Association of Ontario and it is my privilege to share that with you.
At our 2008 conference, IFAO launched its latest research project — a tillage database that is a compilation of over 30 years of Ontario information. It is now available on-line. It is highly interactive and allows you to enter variables for each individual cropping practice and show yield results. It also has producer profiles of many different pieces of equipment and systems used in the database. You can find this website at www.tillageontario.com.
IFAO’s mission statement “The mission of IFAO is to facilitate a forum to identify innovative agricultural ideas and to transfer new information.” One of the ways IFAO does this is with our Marketing Meetings being held this year on December 10, 2008, in Morrisburg, and December 11, 2008, in London. Both will offer valuable information on how to market better in the future.
The final touches are being put on the 2009 conference, “Keeping Pace in a Fast-Changing Farm World”. The organizing committee has worked hard on putting a quality conference together and this one will be no exception. This event will be held on February 18-19, 2009 in London. Special thanks go to our conference chair, Sonke Claussen, for his hard work in pulling together such a great list of speakers.
These events along with more research projects and a revamped website have kept the Board busy. Your feedback is always welcome.
Here are some of the committees IFAO has been a part of:
•
Greenhouse and OFEC Climate Change working group
• Soil Conservation Council of Canada
• Ontario Weeds Committee
• Ontario Field Crop Research Coalition (OFCRC) Kevin Eisses IFAO president
Kevin Eisses
IFAO president
Have you missed marketing opportunities?
Do you feel you understand all your marketing options?
This will be an opportunity to really understand your market options at the IFAO full day marketing workshops with Todd Ross and Steve Kell from Parrish & Heimbecker.
Dec 10/08 – MacIntosh Inn, Morrisburg – 9 am to 3:30 pm
Dec 11/08 – Best Western Stoneridge Inn, London – 9 am to 3:30 pm
Remember: a one cent move on one contract of grain is $50. Invest this penny, have a great meal, and learn something about yourself and others.
For additional workshop information and registration.
IFAO Fungicide Survey
IFAO is conducting a quick survey on the use of foliar fungicides in cereals, corn and soybeans. We’d really like your input. Please take a few minutes to complete the short questionnaire. All responses are confidential and will remain anonymous.
Click here to begin the survey.
Thanks for your participation.
Innovative Farmers of Ontario 2009 Conference
“Keeping Pace in a Fast Changing Farm World”
Wednesday, February 19, 2008
Thursday February 19, 2009
London, ON
An exciting line-up of speakers from all over the world.
For more conference and registration details.
Wheat Yields over 200 bushels per acre???
The current genetic potential for wheat is believed to be well in excess of 300 bu/ac. In fact, average field yields over 200 bu/ac have been achieved in Western Europe and New Zealand. The current world record wheat yield averaged on a field is currently held by a farmer in New Zealand. This record yield was verified by university representatives with the yield from two fields averaging 228 bu/ac.
Phil Needham, who will speak at the 2009 IFAO Conference, states “…such yields illustrate that potential is there for the taking if fields are managed and manipulated to take advantage of rainfall, weeds, insects, diseases, growing season and everything else that mother nature throws at them.”
Needham is the owner of Needham Ag Technologies, a family owned agri-business and agronomic consulting company based in Kentucky. A native of Great Britain, Needham has professional agronomy experience with dealers, farmers and manufacturers in Canada, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Sweden, China, Romania, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Needham considers himself to be a vehicle of technology and brings many crop management practices and systems to producers across the Central Plains, to help them increase their yields and profits.
Needham helps producers eliminate weak links in their production systems and the impact of his team’s work can be seen in his home state of Kentucky. USDA data show that Kentucky’s average wheat yields more than doubled over a 15-year period from low 30’s (bushels per acre) to the low 70’s (bushels per acre), with some farmers seeing wheat yields in excess of 100 bushels per acre on fields and farms. Many producers are concerned about increased production costs, but Needham is confident that improved management does not always dictate higher input requirements. He is skilled in identifying weak links, such as improved previous crop residue distribution or uniform seeding depth that may not cost anything to improve, but can significantly increase yields and profits.
New Tillage Website Helps Farmers Evaluate Tillage Options
by Matthew Setzkorn
Some say tillage is the lifeblood of crop production. Successful tillage practices prepare soils for planting, maintain soil structure and reduce erosion potential. But beyond trial-and-error, how can anyone know the best tillage options for individual fields?
The Innovative Farmers Association of Ontario has compiled over 30 years of Ontario information into a tillage database that is now available on-line. It is highly interactive and allows you to enter variables for each individual cropping practice and show yield results.
With this online tool, farmers can evaluate the feasibility of implementing different tillage practices on their operations. It allows them to enter information on individual cropping decisions and provides potential yield results as well as cost comparisons between different tillage methods, based on years of Ontario tillage research.
Tillage Ontario was the brainchild of IFAO directors who envisioned a place where results from decades of tillage research and innovation conducted throughout the province could be stored.
After years of work assembling data and designing the website, Tillage Ontario was officially launched at the annual IFAO conference in February, 2008.
Researchers Greg Stewart of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Ken Janovicek of the University of Guelph developed the database, which can be accessed at http://www.tillageontario.com/ or through the IFAO’s website at www.IFAO.com.
Since 2006, the IFAO has worked with Stewart and Janovicek to collect tillage data dating back to the mid-1980s. The Tillage Ontario website makes data easily accessible and provides a practical tool for farmers, agronomists and others looking to evaluate or improve their tillage practices.
“The new tillage database houses the most significant collection of tillage research that has ever been assembled for Ontario,” Stewart says.
“Bringing all this research data together and allowing for multi-site comparisons between different tillage systems puts statistics around crop yield and revenue, and gives Ontario farmers a starting point from which to make better informed tillage management decisions,” says Janovicek.
Tillage Ontario also displays tillage innovation profiles on select farmers, featuring 34 of Ontario’s leading tillage innovators. Their tillage systems are examined through photographs and in-depth analysis.
IFAO President Kevin Eisses says the researchers did a superb job of using the internet to help producers find a tillage system that works best in their operation. “The tillage information profiles highlight the pros and cons of many different types of tillage equipment, which directly benefits producers looking for hands-on, in-the-field information that will relate to their farms.”
Eisses says the IFAO is proud to be involved in the project. He believes the new database will have substantial impact on innovation in Ontario agriculture.
The tillage database project is funded in part through contributions by Canada and the Province of Ontario under the Canada-Ontario Research and Development (CORD) Program. It’s an initiative of the federal-provincial-territorial Agricultural Policy Framework, designed to position Canada’s agri-food sector as a world leader. The Agricultural Adaptation Council administers the CORD Program on behalf of the province.
Interactive Weed Identification and Herbicide Treatment Websites
Ontario farmers now have free access to a couple of great website resources for weed identification and recommended herbicide treatments.
www.weedpro75.com – You pump in the information including field size, variety, soil conditions, leaf stage, weed information and this site provides herbicide treatments listed by most profitable treatments, as well as rates, precautions and other product information. This is a very user friendly site that allows you to choose the herbicide recommendation that will work best on your farm based on what kind of control you want and how many dollars per acre you want to spend. At this point the site only supports corn, however there are plans in the works to extend to other Ontario crops.
www.ontarioweeds.com – This is a terrific resource to assist Ontario farmers in identifying weeds. The site includes an extensive weed index with images and descriptions and a powerful search tool. Assembled by an impressive team (including weed scientists, extension specialists, ecologists, plant taxonomists and an environmental management expert) and constantly updated as new research is published – this is a first rate website resource for Ontario farmers.
“Controlling weeds in agricultural crops is a constant battle for farm managers. The first step in any war is to know your enemy.”
Subirrigation: An Innovative Way To Save On Nitrogen
by Matthew Setzkorn
Skyrocketing prices of nitrogen fertilizers are a headache for many farmers anxious about already-strained pocketbooks. Shawn McRae, however, shows that agriculture’s dependence on these sources of nitrogen can be reduced or completely eliminated, simply by implementing wiser land and water management practices.
Shawn McRae, of McRae Farms Ltd. located near Glengarry, Ontario, spoke at the Innovative Farmers Association of Ontario conference in February 08, using his experiences with no-till, crop rotation, drainage, and subirrigation systems to explain nutrient cycling, soil quality and nitrogen savings.
“As crop values and fertilizer prices go up, it makes that much more sense to retain nutrients and use nutrients more efficiently,” says McRae. “Looking for ways to recycle nitrate back into soils and cropping systems is largely economical for producers wanting to reduce costs.”
The McRae family has always pursued new and innovative ideas on their farm. One of the experimental projects McRae is pursuing involves controlled drainage and subirrigation, controlling the water table through use of existing drainage tile networks and flow controls.
By blocking the outlet for a tile drainage system and installing flow controls that accommodate variability in surface gradients, it is possible to monitor the depth of the water table precisely, and efficiently provide for the water needs of crops from below the soil surface.
Implementing subsurface irrigation can eliminate drought stress in plants. This results in greater utilization and uptake of nutrients such as nitrate, and efficiently boosts fertilizer use in crops. Ultimately, higher crop yields are possible. In addition, any nitrogen that leaches through the soil profile is held in this water storage area until it is taken up by plant roots, instead of flowing from tile networks into surface waterways.
Controlling the water levels in soils through subirrigation, however, is only one piece of the puzzle when considering ways to reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizers and maximize nitrogen use efficiency.
“Successful management of agricultural crops, nutrients and water requires a holistic, multifaceted approach,” says McRae.
Water infiltration, soil colloid stability, crop health, water quality and nutrient retention and bioavailability are all factors to consider when planning sustainable cropping systems and managing nitrogen use in agriculture.
“It’s about managing soil ecology,” McRae says, “understanding soil chemistry, soil biology and soil physics are inextricably linked to soil quality.” Soil quality then regulates plant pathology, plant nutrition, food quality, environmental quality and, inevitably, human health, he says.
Recognizing the importance of soil quality, McRae has worked to reverse soil degradation on his farm, implementing conservation tillage and crop rotation practices. By using manure, cover crops, no-till and legume crops, and by switching to a five-year, five-crop rotation, McRae Farms Ltd. was able to reduce nitrogen fertilizer use from 60 pounds per acre to 25 pounds per acre in the 2007 growing season.
Subirrigation and tile drainage flow controls have the potential to conserve water and nitrogen further, while at the same time contribute to higher yields. But the costs and rewards of such a system depend heavily on topography, existing infrastructure, capital investments and management, says McRae.
For more detailed information on nitrogen savings associated with the tillage, drainage and cropping practices of McRae Farms Ltd., visit www.buymywaterfront.com/progress.pdf. McRae also recommends that farmers search www.drainagecontractor.com for other innovative ideas related to water management and drainage designs.
Agricultural BusTour 2008 and plans for 2009 Bus Tour
by Jim & Lorraine House
The 2008 Innovative Farmers Bus Tour was unique in that it began and ended in Omaha with twenty-nine participants. “We learned and saw so much. I know it’s a tired saying, but “you had to be there.”
Plans are already in the works for the 2009 Bus Tour with tentative plans to go to:
Thanks to DEKALB for their financial support of the IFAO bus tours.
Here is an outline of the 2008 Bus Tour trip experiences:
Day 1 – Bright and early we boarded the bus and traveled to Halran, IA, to visit a large enterprise called the Weihs Group where we saw a unique system of housing sheep. The sheep were housed in a cover-all type building, on a slatted floor approximately ten feet off the ground, which totally reduced loss from predators, and made manure handling less labor intensive. The Weihs group also showed us their 5,000 cow dairy barn which comprised 12.5 acres with ventilation fans maintaining a 7 mph cross ventilation effective at keeping flies and odor away. After lunch we visited the VanMeter Feed Yard in Guthrie Center where they have a 12,000 head capacity and offer custom feeding and data collection. On the drive to Norfolk, NE we had time to enjoy the scenery and visit amongst the group.
Day 2 –The first stop was with researcher Dan Gillespie (National Research Soil Conservation representative) who farms 750 acres. Dan uses an airplane to fly on cover-crops on his 20% slopes. Extensive use of soil moisture sensors has resulted in more efficient use of his pivot irrigation. The second stop was at the Abengoa Bio-Energy plant in York NE, where there were two plants on the site. The first is a traditional corn ethanol plant. The other is a cellulose ethanol plant. Our last stop was at the farm operation of David Vetter, who produces organic pet food in Marquette NE.
Day 3 – Our host from the US Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) came to our motel and escorted us to their facility. The slogan at the MARC Center is “From conception to consumption.” Topics covered were waste management, sheep research, beef research, meat quality, food safety, and a facility tour. The tour of the 35,000 acre center showed us their various livestock research pens and how they collect data. An interesting sideline was the ammunition storage bunkers on site which are a relic from the cold war era. There were literally thousands of them; and at one time they contained munitions of various sorts but are now used as farm storage facilities for grain and equipment. Later in the day we toured the farm of Joel Douglas a long term no-till farmer who is receiving payment for carbon credits. While there Randy Pryor, a researcher who is very involved with carbon sequestration and carbon credits, addressed the group and researcher Paul Hay talked about earthworms and no-till.
Day 4 – First we visited with Paul Jasa, who interseeds soybeans into standing wheat. Paul showed us a soil pit, which was dug across a plot comprising both conventional tillage and no-till and compared the differences in the no-till vs. conventional soil structure. Also Loren Giesler talked about soybean rust. Next we stopped at the Agricultural Research and Development Center (ARDC) near Swedenburg NE. The ARDC consists of approximately 9,663 acres (3,912 hectares). Over 6,000 domestic farm animals used for research and teaching reside at the ARDC. Down the road was the Mead Cattle Feedlot which has 30,000 cattle and was associated with the E3 ethanol plant which is now closed.
Day 5 – Roy Smith, a broadcaster and forecaster known as SoyRoy, invited us to join him at his neighbor’s, the Wiles Brothers, who were hosting an appreciation breakfast for their customers. The Wiles Brothers farm and run a farm supply business and showed us some of their machinery, including a combine with an angled grain table designed for steep slope combining. The group enjoyed the breakfast and SoyRoy’s talk as well as the opportunity to talk with U.S. farmers and compare notes. Our last farm stop was at the Stock Seed Farm, which offers an extensive array of seed varieties for ground cover erosion control as well as grasses for cellulose ethanol production. After lunch, we toured the Strategic Air and Space Museum. Our guide George showed us many of the aircraft used in various wars with an enthusiasm and dedication that really added to his tour.
Thanks again to DEKALB for their financial support of this trip.
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