As participation in on-farm research grows across the Prairies, researchers are working to strengthen how strip-trial results are analyzed so farmers can make more confident decisions.

A recent panel at Ag Days in Brandon offered a snapshot of where on-farm research stands today.

Farmers involved in Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers’ On-Farm Network shared their experiences and why they continue to participate.

WHY IT MATTERS: Improving how those trials are designed and analyzed can make the results more reliable and help growers make better management decisions.

Simon Hodson, who runs Rosebank Farms in Lenore, Man., said the value isn’t necessarily a breakthrough yield response — it’s confidence.

“It’s not an emotional choice, it’s a data-backed decision,” he said.

A null result can still be useful

Andrew Doerksen of Beaver Creek Farms at McGregor, Man., and Jayden Buchanan, who farms near Crystal City, Man., echoed that sentiment.

Several panelists pointed to “no statistical difference” results as some of the most useful outcomes. While that finding can feel anticlimactic, it often confirms that an added input or higher rate isn’t delivering enough return to justify the cost.

Soybean planting rates were one example.

Trials showed similar final plant stands across a range of starting populations, giving growers confidence to reduce seeding rates and save on seed costs.

Inoculant trials also showed little consistent yield benefit in many cases. With tight margins and rising input prices, those null results translated directly into savings.

READ MORE: On-farm research translates crop breakthroughs into ‘farmer speak’

Chris Forsythe, on-farm network agronomist with Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, said most trials do not produce dramatic yield differences.

“Maybe 10 to 20 per cent of the time there is a difference, but 80 per cent of the time there isn’t,” he noted. Used carefully, that information helps growers avoid unnecessary inputs, extra passes or equipment purchases.

In one Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers trial on Doerksen’s farm, residual nitrogen spikes proved less consequential than expected, suggesting soybeans may tolerate more fluctuation than previously assumed.

Other trials have revealed subtler insights. In a wheat PGR trial on Hodson’s farm, yield did not change, but plant height did.

“If we weren’t working with the agronomists, we wouldn’t have been able to gain that information, and we might not have realized the value in that product,” said Hodson.

Strengthening trial design

Across the panel, the common thread was not chasing yield gains but narrowing uncertainty. Replication across multiple farms and public reporting strengthened certainty that findings were not local anomalies.

However, realism comes with a tradeoff.

WATCH: AgGronomyTV: Evaluating on-farm research

Field-scale trials capture the variability farmers live with, yet that same variability can make results harder to interpret. Long strip trials, differences in soil zones and yield monitor lag — the delay between crop entering the header and yield being recorded — can all mask real treatment responses.

A project funded by the Western Grains Research Foundation, SaskOilseeds, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers and SaskWheat and led by University of Saskatchewan professor Steve Shirtliffe, is focused on improving how on-farm trials are designed and analyzed.

Research officer Racquelle Peters, who manages the project, said on-farm research fills a gap that small-plot trials cannot. While small-plot research provides generalized recommendations under controlled conditions, field-scale strip trials reflect commercial realities.

“It feels more real to them, and there’s a good reason for that,” said Peters.

READ MORE: A whole new approach to on-farm research

“When you have that small plot research, which is also very valuable, they’re able to provide generalized recommendations, whereas, with the on-farm trials, you get specific recommendations, and that is very meaningful to farmers.”

Most on-farm trials follow a structured strip-trial layout designed to compare treatments fairly across a field. Improving how that framework performs under real field conditions is a central goal of Shirtliffe’s research team.

“What we’re doing is that we’re looking at ways to optimize that, using data that already exists,” said Peters.

Part of that effort involves re-evaluating older trial data with updated analytical tools, testing whether different approaches can strengthen the conclusions drawn from farmer-run trials.

Working at field scale means working with the variability farmers manage every season. That realism can make subtle treatment effects harder to detect.

The project is exploring approaches intended to improve sensitivity without sacrificing the practical advantages of on-farm trials.

Improving field-scale sensitivity

One method, the modulated on-farm response surface experiment, replaces single-rate strips with smooth ramps of application rates within a single pass. That allows researchers to analyze responses as a curve rather than a simple comparison of averages, improving sensitivity when identifying optimal input rates.

“I think of like turning one strip into a dozen mini-plots without any borders,” said Peters.

For fixed-rate decisions, such as fungicide application, the project is also testing precision strip trials that alternate treated and untreated segments within a single pass.

READ MORE: Sask. producer learns from his own on-farm trials

Varying the length of those segments helps account for yield monitor lag and allows spatial analysis to separate real treatment effects from background noise.

“It’s kind of like an on-off treatment system,” Peters said.

Keeping trials farmer-friendly

Peters said improving trial design isn’t about making on-farm research more complicated for growers. Most modern equipment already supports variable-rate prescriptions and precision application, so many of the improvements focus on making better use of the data already being collected.

That matters because on-farm research only works if it fits into normal operations. At the Ag Days panel, growers repeatedly stressed that trials must be practical and easy to integrate into busy seasons.

“The goal is to get precise, trustworthy recommendations that reflect their local conditions,” said Peters.

The post Prairie on-farm research programs refine strip-trial methods for clearer results appeared first on Grainews.

While rock pickers take the sweat out of clearing fields of stones, they can’t handle every rock-picking job. Large, partially-buried boulders are beyond their capabilities and still need to be dug out some other way.

That is where this invention shines: it merges a rock digger and rock picker into one unit that can save time in the field.

The attachment is capable of digging out very large rocks and carrying rocks up to three feet in diameter. It mounts directly onto a commercially available rock picker.

Other rock diggers on the market are usually designed as separate implements — so when an operator comes across a large buried stone, that means returning to the yard, unhooking the rock picker and going back out with a digger. But this invention streamlines that process down to one implement capable of both the picking and digging.

“There’s a synergy that happens when you fasten the rock digger to the rock picker,” Hundeby says.

Once a large rock is pulled out, the hole it leaves has to be filled in. The digger and picker combination makes that job easier too.

“You can use the grate of the rock picker and paddle as a bulldozer… scraping soil toward the hole and dumping it in. Then you back up and cut the tractor to the right, and the rear and front wheel of the tractor pack the soil you just dumped in the hole. If more soil is need, the process is repeated.”

Hundeby built the first digger attachment prototype in the spring of 2022 and mounted it to his Schulte reel-type rock picker. He has used it on his own farm near Saskatoon regularly since then, so it has logged a lot of use and he believes it has proven itself by saving time.

The digger attachment has now been patented in four different variations. The model Hundeby built pins to the rock picker frame on one side and has its own third wheel on the other. The tractor hitches to the digger, and the rock picker’s hitch tongue is pinned to the rock digger frame.

Another simpler variation in the patent eliminates the need for the extra wheel and allows the digger to simply be part of a rock picker frame using a rigid mounting system. The rigid-mount makes for a simpler, more compact design.

“In my opinion that would be the preferred (design),” he says. “So whoever takes it on (to manufacture commercially) could have two options. The machine could be sold as a combined rock digger and hauler — or sell the rock picker by itself, but the frame is ready for the rock digger attachment. Down the road an attachment could be purchased (separately).”

The digger could also be retrofitted to an existing rock picker a farmer might already have, by welding a suitable mounting bracket to the rock picker frame.

Once a rock is dug out of the ground, it can be released from the digger claw, then pulled into the rock picker hopper in the usual way if it’s small enough — or it can be carried directly to a rock pile and dumped there.

Hundeby has been using a 144-horsepower 4250 front-wheel assist John Deere tractor on the combination picker-digger unit, and he says the tractor has been able to handle the power and traction requirements without any problem.

As the inventor and patent holder, Hundeby says he’s interested in licensing the design to a fabricator or implement manufacturer for commercial production. Anyone interested can contact him directly via email.

The post Inventor’s digger attachment improves rock-picking efficiency appeared first on Grainews.

Farmers don’t get directly paid for this help, but being involved in the process to monitor crop diseases, weeds and insect pests becomes integral to the work of researchers producing accurate maps, pest-severity forecasts, and potential treatment and management options. The hope is that all this information comes together to help farmers to better protect their crops.

Farmers and landowners can help researchers in a couple of different ways, says Brent McCallum, a plant pathologist at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Research Centre at Morden, Man. He specializes in wheat leaf rust disease and chairs a relatively new initiative, the Prairie Biovigilance Network (see sidebar below).

Allow access

One important area where farmers can help is to allow access to their land, McCallum says. Farmers make it known through their agronomist, provincial ag rep or commodity organization that researchers and technicians can visit fields to check for pests, whether it be weeds, insects or diseases.

This doesn’t mean hordes of people will be trampling or driving over standing crops, he says. It usually involves one person walking into a field from the road, wearing phytosanitary boot covers and making a quick inspection on random fields. Whoever makes the inspection always calls and double-checks with the producer before they come.

Boots on the ground

The other important area where farmers can help is to provide researchers with information on what they see in the fields. Their reports on crop disease symptoms, new or suspicious weeds and insect activity all help to complete the crop pest severity picture.

“It is all totally voluntary,” says McCallum. “But farmers are the front-line people and as researchers we are always interested in what they are seeing in their fields.” They may be able to submit photos, collect and submit samples, or just provide a report on crops or a pest situation.

All information collected goes into a database to produce maps showing distribution of each crop pest, helps researchers determine the severity of a given pest, and contributes to recommendations on treatment or management of a particular disease, insect or weed.

Producers helping researchers isn’t a new idea by any means, McCallum says. Farmers, landowners and others from non-scientific communities have been providing feedback to agriculture researchers for more than 100 years.

Saskatchewan Agriculture, for example, has a long-running program where farmers can sign up to be Crop Reporters — essentially reporting on crop conditions. More recently the department created a service where farmers can sign up to help with pest monitoring. Farmers interested in making their fields available for monitoring in that province can get more information here.

“Farmer involvement continues to be important in helping to monitor and measure pest conditions, assess the risk and then develop recommendations for treatment and management,” says McCallum.

Voluntary and confidential

Some key points for producers interested in making their land or themselves available to collect information on crop pests:

• It is totally voluntary.
• If a farmer does make their fields available to random inspections, the researcher or technician making the inspection will call ahead of the visit to confirm.
• All information is totally confidential and farmer identity is protected. If there is a disease, insect or particular weed identified, it will be mapped or go into the database as being within a region or municipality with no connection to a particular farm.
• Often the researcher is able to provide the producer a confidential report of what they do find in the fields, for their own use.

“There are hundreds of farmers across Western Canada who open their fields and provide information to researchers, now,” McCallum says. “But in some respects it is getting more difficult to connect with producers.”

For example, “farmers get a bit leery in providing information to someone, concerned that down the road they may have to pay for some tool or service. And with an increase in rural crime in recent years, farmers are concerned about trespassers and who has access to their land, and there are also privacy concerns — who is going to see and how is this information to be used?”

McCallum emphasizes that visits to farm fields to assess crop pests are planned with minimal inconvenience to the producer and the producer’s right to privacy is well protected.

The information collected is valuable to the broader farming community in determining the degree of severity or risk of various pests, and is key for formulating management plans as needed, he says.

Connecting with researchers

So, how can producers connect with researchers within the Prairie Biovigilance Network? Here are three of the researchers with specialties in insect pests, weeds and crop diseases who welcome any and all producer co-operation:

Meghan Vankosky

Entomologist, AAFC Saskatoon

Researcher Meghan Vankosky, at AAFC’s Saskatoon Research and Development Centre, says having the co-operation of producers to be able to monitor fields for insect pests is essential to get a handle on pest distribution and severity.

Vankosky, co-chair of the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network, says over the past 10 years it has monitored 5,000 to 6,000 sites (fields) annually, collecting information on insects and other pests.

“With changes in provincial government trespass laws as well as changes in government policy it is becoming more difficult to access farm fields to conduct these surveys,” she says. “And every province is a bit different.

“When it comes to grasshopper surveys, for example, most of the time we conduct our sweeps in the ditches which gives us a pretty good idea of grasshopper numbers. However, for other pests we do need to check pea or canola fields, for example, and for that we need farmer permission.

“Once we have permission it is pretty straightforward; a survey only takes about five minutes. We walk into a field make our sweeps and then we are gone. But producers do need to provide permission.”

Vankosky’s research and field survey work aims to monitor seven key insect pests affecting western Canadian field crops: grasshoppers, wheat midge, wheat stem sawfly, diamondback moth, cabbage seed pod weevil, pea leaf weevil, and bertha armyworm.

Farmers willing to provide permission to have fields checked can contact Vankosky directly. They can also contact one of the provincial specialists, watch for notices on social media platforms, and in Saskatchewan can sign up online to provide pest monitoring permission. Here are those contact points:

• Prairie Pest Monitoring Network
• PPMN monitoring protocols
• Meghan Vankosky, AAFC Saskatoon
• Amanda Jorgensen, Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation
• Shelley Barkley, Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation
• James Tansey, Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture
• John Gavloski, Manitoba Agriculture
• Volunteer sign-up information on how to authorize access to your farmland in Saskatchewan
• The online form for the Saskatchewan program

Charles Geddes

Weed scientist, AAFC Lethbridge

Farmer involvement is also welcome as Charles Geddes, weed scientist at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre, monitors the weed situation across Western Canada.

Geddes, who chairs the Prairie Weed Monitoring Network, encourages producers to make fields available for weed abundance surveys, which are conducted annually. He also urges farmers and agronomists to be vigilant, particularly following weed control measures, to identify plants that may be showing signs of herbicide resistance. Over the past four years the weed abundance survey has checked about 4,000 sites and another 1,600 sites have been monitored for herbicide resistance in weeds.

The weed abundance survey involves randomly selecting about 1,000 quarter sections of cropland per season across Western Canada that will be checked for weed types and population. For the herbicide resistance survey, about 200 quarter sections pre-harvest and 200 quarter sections post-harvest are checked to identify any signs of herbicide-resistant weeds.

“We select quarter sections at random and then approach the landowner for permission to check those fields to identify weed populations,” Geddes says. “It is totally voluntary and we are very respectful of producer wishes, but we’re hoping producers will allow our technicians access to survey the weed population.

“These surveys are an important part of identifying what weeds are out there and their density in any given area,” Geddes says. “That all contributes to the greater good of helping producers and the industry identify problems and management practices.”

Producer confidentiality is protected, so weed types and population data cannot be traced to any particular farm. A report on the results of a weed survey, however, will be given to the producer so they know what weeds have been identified on their land.

Along with research through the Biovigilance Network, Geddes, whose main research area is herbicide-resistant weeds, also has a couple of projects underway, relying on producer assistance, to help identify new cases of resistance.

“The first project relies on farmers and their agronomists to help identity potential cases of herbicide resistance that they see in their fields,” Geddes says. “After a burndown application, and particularly after an in-crop herbicide treatment, we are asking them to be watching while field scouting for any signs of weeds that haven’t been affected by the herbicide.”

The ideal time to do so is about three weeks after the herbicide application. “It is particularly telling if they observe weeds that have been controlled, as well as some that appear to unaffected. That is usually a good indicator of herbicide resistance.”

If herbicide resistance is suspected, Geddes encourages producers to contact him. He will send out an information kit, with the end goal of asking the producer to collect mature seeds from these unaffected plants and have those seeds submitted to Geddes for testing.

“If test results do identify herbicide resistance we can then work with that producer to develop a management plan to hopefully contain the issue before it becomes a bigger problem,” he says.

The second project related to identifying herbicide resistance in weeds, involves a new genetic test that can be made on plant tissue during the growing season, which can provide more timely results.

The testing technique, which looks for genetic markers — the genetic mechanism that confers herbicide resistance — has been proven, and Geddes is now working to identify labs across Western Canada that can provide the test. It’s hoped the test and a list of qualified labs will be available in coming months.

For background and reports from the Prairie Weed Monitoring Network, visit its website.

Kelly Turkington

Plant pathologist, AAFC Lacombe

The Prairie Crop Disease Monitoring Network (PCDMN) is being developed as a one-stop shopping site for everything producers need to know about identifying and managing cereal, oilseed and pulse crop diseases, says Kelly Turkington, a AAFC plant pathologist and chair of the PCDMN.

While the PCDMN has an excellent website launched in mid-2024, it also offers a crop disease reporting tool available for use on smartphones — first, to help farmers identify diseases in their crops, then if they so wish, with another click they can add that sighting to the larger disease map for the benefit of other producers and agronomists.

The Quick Disease Reporter Tool is available on an app. Farmers need to download the Survey 123 app (for Apple or Android) from ArcGIS, which builds interactive online maps. Next, scan a QR code for the reporter tool (it’s an app within an app).

The tool is designed to be used in the field, says Turkington, who is based at the Lacombe Research and Development Centre in central Alberta.

Once on the app, farmers looking at suspected disease symptoms can identify the crop type, suggest a specific disease, and take at least one digital picture of what they’re looking at. This can all be done without internet service.

When internet service is available, the app digitally tags the photo to the municipality, not the farmer’s field. The information is verified before a diagnosis and the municipality is added to an online map. Producers can submit the information anonymously or request a chat with a disease specialist.

“If producers chose to report a disease it doesn’t identify their farm, just the municipality, so producer confidentially is protected,” Turkington says.

“Our main message is to first of all let farmers know that the website for the disease monitoring network is available. It provides a great deal of information in terms of managing crop diseases.”

Launched in mid-2024, the PCDMN’s website provides information — text and photos — on disease identification, as well as disease risk assessment and best management practices for dealing with those diseases, Turkington says.

Key files include in-season updates, cereal rust risk, surveillance protocols and scouting tips. There’s also a free subscription option, which provides news and disease alerts directly to your email address.

Here are direct links to some of features on the PCDMN website:

• In-season updates
• PCDMN cereal rust risk reports
• Scouting protocols
• Scouting tips
• An in-season update for 2024 for the PCDMN Quick Disease Reporter Tool
• To subscribe

The scouting tips on the site include Disease Scouting Playing Cards — panels describing common cereal, oilseed and pulse crop diseases along with clear, colour photos depicting different stages of each disease.

MORE INFO: What’s the Prairie Biovigilance Network?

Brent McCallum, a researcher at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Morden, Man., is leading a diverse group of experts in plant pathology, entomology, weed science, economics and agronomy in creating a network to share knowledge about the range of pests affecting Western Canadian field crops.

This collaborative effort has been dubbed the Prairie Biovigilance Network, with the goal of helping researchers and farmers quickly and holistically minimize crop losses due to weeds, disease and insects.

It’s hoped the multidisciplinary approach will help everyone better understand new agricultural farming practices, new crops and the impact of climate change on plant health and combat the negative effects of newly introduced pests.

The PBN involves researchers working together but also relies heavily on input from producers.

“We want to raise awareness and get producers participating with us,” says McCallum. “We don’t just do this work in isolation, it’s something we need to do with the producers. They’re the ones who are on the front lines and generally the first to notice pests cropping up in their fields — their contributions to the network are crucial.”

According to AAFC, “biovigilance relies on a continuous cycle of awareness, identification, assessment, and understanding … to ensure that solving one problem doesn’t lead to another.”

“The idea of the network is to break down the silos of individual pest management programs and create an integrated, holistic and collaborative approach to managing pests,” McCallum says. Hopefully the new approach will help to mitigate potential threats from plant diseases, weed species and insects before they become much bigger, more costly problems.

With the co-operation of a multi-disciplinary team of AAFC research scientists, the focus is on improving co-ordination of pest surveillance programs in Western Canada, helping producers to respond quickly and efficiently to crop pests with reduced environmental impact and fewer unintended effects.

Within the overall structure of the Prairie Biovigilance Network, there are three other networks monitoring more specific crop pests. They include the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network (insects), the Prairie Weed Monitoring Network and the Prairie Crop Disease Monitoring Network.

Along with McCallum, researchers involved in the network include Vincent Hervet, an entomologist also at AAFC Morden, specializing in insect pests affecting stored crops; Meghan Vankosky, entomologist at AAFC Saskatoon, focusing on integrated pest management of pulse and oilseed insects; Charles Geddes, at AAFC Lethbridge, a researcher in weed ecology and cropping systems, specializing in herbicide resistant weeds; and Kelly Turkington, at AAFC Lacombe, a plant pathologist focusing on diseases in cereal and oilseed crops.

The post How farmers can help map, monitor and forecast pest outbreaks appeared first on Grainews.

Not only has the pace of introducing new products and technology been unrelenting, but at the same time ongoing budget cuts at all government levels have reduced or eliminated the valuable network of independent crop and livestock researchers who for decades provided reliable feedback on the efficacy of new technology.

And for producers, the stakes are getting higher. As management consultants such as McKinsey & Company point out in published reports, the cost of agricultural inputs has increased globally between 80 and 250 per cent in the last few years. South American farmers have been the hardest hit, at about 247 per cent, while Asia’s input costs (around 82 per cent) are the least affected. The point being it is costing farmers more to produce agricultural products.

So when it comes to the value of great new ideas, where do producers place their input dollars to optimize production and still realize a satisfactory return on investment?

There is no silver bullet answer to that complex question, say several independent consulting agronomists across Western Canada working to provide clients with useful and relevant recommendations for their farms. Each consultant applies different strategies to evaluate new products, practices and technology. All aim to help producers make more informed management decisions.

The three Rs

Long-time southern Alberta crop consultant George Lubberts says professional agronomists need to ask the same questions about new products or technology as any consumer.

“I believe we need to apply the same scrutiny and due diligence whether it is the consultant, the farmer or the average consumer,” says Lubberts. “I’ve boiled it down to three Rs — we need to be looking and asking for independent research, local research results and return on investment for the grower.

“If someone comes along with a new product or service or new technology they want me to recommend to a producer, they need to be able to show me the independent research they used to evaluate that product or service. They need to be able to show me the local research results that make that product relevant to this geographic area and my client’s farm. And they also need to provide a cost-benefit or show the return on investment to my client. And if they can’t do that, then maybe it is a product or technology we need to avoid. They are asking me to endorse their product, but it is my reputation that is on the line and as independent agronomists, our reputations are important.”

Lubberts says independent research results are important because company-generated research can be biased. Local research and crop-specific research results are important as well.

“A new product might work well on durum wheat in central Saskatchewan, for example,” says Lubberts. “But how is it going to perform on hard red spring wheat in southern Alberta?”

And what about return on investment? “Is a 10 or 15 per cent ROI sufficient?” he asks. “A 15 per cent return might be great if you have money invested in a savings account, but with all the variables and risks of farming if you spend $100 per acre, is an extra $15 return sufficient? It is up to the producer to decide, but perhaps they should be looking at a 100 per cent return. I remember years ago an economist saying ‘Spending on fertilizer should produce a 3:1 return —you get $3 back for every dollar spent on fertilizer.’ It is important to look at the ROI and determine if it is worthwhile.”

And Lubberts also points out that not every benefit revolves around money. Does a new technology save time or improve efficiency? He points to the value of applying growth regulators to cereal crops. They don’t increase yield directly, but if they reduce crop lodging, that can increase the amount of grain that goes in the bin and reduce the stress of combining.

“Maybe using a new product or new technology just helps a person sleep better at night,” says Lubberts. “That can be worth a lot.”

Lubberts has also hired independent research organizations to help sort out questions about certain production practices. In 2020, for example, he contracted Farming Smarter to conduct research over two growing seasons to determine the best time to roll barley fields after seeding. Fields need to be rolled to push down rocks and flatten clumps of dirt to reduce damage risk to harvester headers as crops are cut for silage. But when should fields be rolled — soon after the crop has emerged? Or, should producers wait until the fourth leaf of first node stage, which was believed to produce a better silage stand?

“It was important to have some replicated trials to determine the best time for rolling fields,” says Lubberts.

The two-year trials showed that there were disadvantages to later field rolling. “My advice today is to roll those fields as soon as the farmer can see plants growing in the drill rows,” says Lubberts.

The research Lubberts funded prompted Farming Smarter to secure provincial research dollars to continue the research for three more years, looking at the time of field rolling on other crops.

“Yes, it costs money to hire contractors to conduct research, and it’s not something I can do on every question. But I look at it as an investment that helps me provide more relevant recommendations to my clients.”

Artificial intelligence compiles research

As a consulting agronomist as well as an instructor of precision agriculture at Lethbridge Polytechnic, Scott Gillespie says it is a challenge to stay current on rapidly changing agricultural products and technology.

The owner of Plants Dig Soil Consulting Ltd. based in Taber, Alta., Gillespie says his first step when it comes to new products and technology is to see what’s available in terms of independent, third-party research results.

“I can’t rely too much on company trials or even farmer testimonials,” he says. “Those results are interesting, but I really need to look for third-party research trials to see what work has been done.

“It is a challenge. There is just so much new stuff coming out that it is hard to keep up with the information and for research to remain relevant. For example, in some cases, a new product may be introduced but if it takes four or five years to plan, complete and evaluate a three-year replicated trial, that product might have been replaced by something else.”

Gillespie says research results collected by applied research organizations as well as commodity organizations across Western Canada are an excellent source of information.

“They develop properly designed research projects, often conducted as field-scale trials,” he says. “They provide very useful information that can be passed along to producers.”

When it comes to evaluating new production practices, it becomes even more of a challenge, because the practice may require investment in new equipment. Gillespie says evaluating, for example, strip tillage and precision planters, involves buying new equipment.

“For some things, I may need to look at well-established research from further afield, such as in the U.S. And from that you can see if the new practice or technology would be of value under southern Alberta growing conditions,” he says. “If it seems to make sense, then maybe more research is needed here to help with fine tuning that practice for local growing conditions. I can use that existing research to give me some idea whether something might be adapted locally.”

And again, to deal with an avalanche of information on new products and new technology, Gillespie is hoping that artificial intelligence can help with research efforts.

“For my own consulting business, as well as for teaching students about precision agriculture, there is just so much information out there. And how do you sort out what is the most relevant?” says Gillespie. “AI has just exploded in the last couple of years, so a year ago, I tried using ChatGPT to help sort through the research information. You can pick a topic, ask ChatGPT some questions and see what it comes up with.”

He uses ChatGPT but notes that Google, Microsoft and several other platforms have similar applications as well.

Gillespie says initially he found ChatGPT was making a lot of mistakes. But in the past year, as the program and database have improved, so have the ChatGPT results. “I can go to a topic such as soil health tests, for example, and ask it what kind of tests are out there, what are the pros and cons, what are the benefits and what are the critics saying, and it produces a fairly decent report.

“Today ChatGPT is able to cite its reference sources, so you can go to those research reports and determine how relevant they are. It is useful to have those references. It still has a ways to go. You still need to verify things, but it helps narrow things down. It is better than a Google search that just provides a list of websites. It narrows things down and you are able to find information faster.”

Along with artificial intelligence technology, Gillespie says he also reads several online magazines and farm newspapers to keep current on products and trends.

Turning to the U.S.

As he provides agronomy services to clients in southeastern Manitoba, adjacent to the North Dakota border, Adam Funk has found he often has to look to the U.S. to find new products, new varieties and agronomic research most relevant to his farming clients.

Funk, who owns Borderline Agriculture Inc., lives and farms near Winkler, about four miles north of North Dakota and just west of the Red River Valley. The valley floods every year as snowmelt and spring runoff from Minnesota and North Dakota move north through the valley toward Lake Winnipeg.

“There are agriculture research facilities in Manitoba about an hour north of where I live, but most of their research pertains more to crop production in western Manitoba than it does to eastern Manitoba,” says Funk. “And there is bean breeding work at an Ag Canada research centre, but it’s not keeping pace with new, higher-yielding varieties being developed in the U.S. So, for research information and new varieties relevant to producers in this area, I rely more on extension services from North Dakota State University as well as agriculture research in Minnesota. This part of eastern Manitoba with the Red River Valley has more in common with farming in the northern U.S.”

While soybeans were once grown widely in southeastern Manitoba, Funk says his clients have now found that corn and dry beans are the most profitable crops. To keep his clients as up-to-date as possible on new corn varieties, Funk works with producers to establish field-scale, replicated variety trials.

“Depending on the width of the planter, we will place seed of new corn varieties in four or six rows across the planter and then make at least two passes with the planter a half mile long,” says Funk. “Each variety within these field-scale replicated trials are harvested separately come fall, and usually the top performing varieties will be the ones recommended to producers for the following year.”

Similarly, with dry beans, he works with bean buyers who have access to U.S. markets and varieties. The buyers will select U.S.-developed new black, pinto or cranberry bean varieties, for example, and then obtain the minor use registration needed to evaluate those varieties in Canada.

Working with some of his clients, Funk will organize trials of these new varieties. Information on the top-performing varieties in Canada will be passed along to the bean buyers who will then advocate for the registration of those varieties in Canada.

When it comes to crop protection products, Funk also keeps a close eye on what products are working to control weeds and diseases in U.S. corn and dry bean crops.

The situation is complicated for many farms within the Manitoba Red River Valley flood plain as weed seeds such as waterhemp, kochia and Palmer amaranth are carried into Canada by floodwater from northern U.S. states. Some are familiar weeds in Canada while others are fairly new.

“For many years the challenge was dealing with herbicide resistance in wild oats,” says Funk. “But now we are seeing more broadleaf weeds with herbicide resistance.” He keeps an eye on what herbicides are used by U.S. farmers and then sees if there is comparable herbicide chemistry registered in Canada that can be used by Manitoba farmers.

“There are a few older, registered products that can be used with dry beans,” he says. “If there is a new product in the marketplace, we have to rely on the chemical companies to obtain minor use registration. The agronomists working for the chemical companies in this area do an excellent job.”

And herbicides aren’t the only weed control option. “One practice I have seen more of in the past couple of years on about 10 to 15 per cent of the acres farmed by my clients, is that farmers are pulling their cultivators out of the bush and using the cultivator to control weeds on some of their row crops,” says Funk. “They are weighing the option of making an $8 per acre cultivator pass versus perhaps a $50 to $100 per acre treatment with herbicide.

“Some long time agronomists are saying that farming has gone full circle, from tillage to zero-tillage and now back to tillage again,” says Funk. “I don’t believe that conservation farming practices will disappear, but tillage may return as one of the tools in the toolbox.”

Working with clients, he’s evaluated fall cover crops as a way to control weeds, but with generally long-season crops in rotation, there isn’t always time after harvest to get cover crops established. He’s also working with a group of farmers who have teamed up to buy a field sprayer, with plans to use John Deere See and Spray or green-on-green technology that uses sensors to differentiate between crop and weeds. As the sprayer makes a pass, weeds can be essentially spot sprayed or controlled more selectively.

“With it costing crop protection companies hundreds of millions to develop and register a new molecule for weed control, for example, it takes time for new chemistry to come to the marketplace,” says Funk. “It is important to also be looking at cultural control practices and other new technology such as robotic tillage and laser-guided weed control tools which perhaps 10 years down the road will be in common use.”

The power of a network

As a long-time consulting agronomist, as well as being part of a large family-run farming operation, Terry Aberhart has two objectives in mind as he evaluates new products or production practices.

“We are interested to see if this product has a fit for our own farming operation, but also to determine if it is something I can recommend to my clients,” says Aberhart, founder of Sure Growth Solutions Inc., located at Langenburg in east-central Saskatchewan.

“Usually we establish some field-scale replicated plots on our farm and we will monitor the results of those trials for three growing seasons. That information will give us a good idea if this is something we want to use on our farm, or if it has a fit with our clients.”

He also looks for any relevant research material about the product or technology, and often asks other agronomists if they’ve had experience with a particular treatment.

Over his consulting career, Aberhart says he has always found value in talking with other agronomists about their experience of what works and doesn’t work. With that in mind, he and six other consulting agronomists from across Saskatchewan and Manitoba formalized an agreement in the fall of 2024 to be part of the MNP AgIntellect service.

Each consulting agronomist will still “do their own thing” in terms of providing consulting services to their clients, but being part of MNP’s AgIntellect will provide an opportunity for them to share their knowledge and experience with each other.

MNP describes AgIntellect as “an all-in-one approach to farming.” With expertise in accounting and business planning, the company, by tapping into a network of consulting agronomists, can now add a new level of information to agronomic field decisions and ag technology provided to MNP clients.

“As a group, we’ve only been part of this for a few months,” says Aberhart. “But it has been great. It’s been an excellent opportunity for us to share our knowledge and experience with each other. Every consultant does things a little bit differently — uses different software, for example — and we each have our strengths whether it be in technology and data, or crop planning, or disease and weed control. And there is even a consultant with more experience in working with Hutterite colonies. So, as we share our knowledge, hopefully that will help us provide better service to own clients.”

The Saskatchewan and Manitoba consultants involved in the network represent clients cropping about 1.5 million acres of farmland. Aberhart says discussion is underway to invite Alberta consultants to the network as well.

Down the road, he sees opportunity for the network of consultants to organize research trials in their respective areas, which again will provide useful information on a product, production practice or technology that can be shared with clients.

“I believe there is great power in being involved with a network of your peers,” says Aberhart. “There is power in being able to share information, which helps to increase our knowledge and experience and makes our individual businesses more valuable. It all leads to providing improved services to our clients.”

The post Evaluating new tech, products and practices appeared first on Grainews.

You won’t get any argument on that count from Ron Tone. He founded Tone Ag Consulting in 1996, following a 17-year career as a farmer. His independent agricultural consulting firm specializes in damage claims, crop scouting and manure management, and works with dozens of clients throughout Manitoba.

Tone was one of the featured speakers at the 2024 Manitoba Agronomists Conference, held Dec. 11 and 12 in Winnipeg. Fittingly, the theme of his presentation was tough conversations to have with farmers and how both new and seasoned agronomists can best handle those difficult discussions.

Tone recalled one particularly challenging conversation he had with a client 10 years ago. The farmer had filed an insurance claim alleging his flax crop was damaged by drift from glyphosate sprayed on a neighbouring farm.

Tone visited the farm to gather information for the insurance claim. There he met with the owner and the neighbouring farmer and patiently listened to what both sides had to say.

While the two farmers were friendly toward each other when they were together, each had a much different take on the situation when Tone spoke with them separately. That’s why he recommends agronomists speak with both parties independently when dealing with insurance claims and spend some time analyzing the data they gather before making a recommendation to the insurance company.

“I go and take that information and usually sit down and think about it for a while after I’ve seen the claim, go over the two responses and then try and make a decision,” he said, adding he and staff will usually review things, such as wind speed and direction, before rendering a decision.

“The lesson there is (it’s best) to talk to them separately.”

Tone started his career in agriculture working as a representative for an agricultural company in Ghana, West Africa, for three years. He returned home to Manitoba after that to operate his own farm near St. Pierre-Jolys but decided to get out of the business in the 1980s when interest rates started to skyrocket.

A career in agronomy had always been in the back of his mind. He decided the time was right to pursue it since there weren’t many sources of independent advice available to farmers in the area.

Tone said one of the biggest challenges for him when he was starting was understanding how to build relationships with farmers with whom he had no prior contact.

“At first I didn’t realize how important it was,” he said.

“I thought, well, I’m coming in with all this information. My head (was) nice and big. I thought, ‘I can tell the farmers here what to do now and how they should be doing it.’” But over the years, he realized it’s important to build and strengthen relationships with each farmer “because as you get growing with confidence in what you’re doing he’s going to listen to you more and more.”

A key part of building those relationships, Tone said, is earning the trust of the client and developing a two-way dialogue with them. “That’s where you build your relationship.”

As farmers get to know you, they trust you, and you can tell them what you need to, he said.

“I’m always careful about doing that, going in and (right) off the bat telling them, ‘This is what you should be doing.’ By understanding your client, you can get an idea how far you can go in these things because you can turn them off pretty fast… if you start coming in with a big head like you know everything.”

Tone recalled how he put thousands of kilometres on his truck during the first couple of years after starting his business. When he wasn’t meeting potential clients at their farms, he was attending community meetings and ag shows where he got to know people and explain how he could help make their operations more efficient and profitable.

Those face-to-face meetings and the word of mouth they generated played an essential role in helping him build the business.

“The approach that I usually use (with clients) is to say just how much can you do on your farm. I’m basically here supplying an extra set of eyes,” he said.

“Yes, in some years where there is no crop disease or very little or the farmer already has his plans, he’s going to spray regardless in his canola and beans so he doesn’t really need a crop scout.”

But in tough years, when, for example, “weeds start coming in,” agronomists can help, he said. “We go out there on a weekly basis to make sure things are growing well and if the chemical didn’t work, we see that right away.”

One of the toughest conversations for an agronomist to have with a farmer can be when they are asked why they should pay for their services when the local ag retailer input company can provide the same thing for free.

Tone’s advice to fellow agronomists is to highlight exactly what kind of services they provide to clients and how they differ from those provided by input companies.

“I basically lay out the different things we do: coming out once a week and then giving them a report, showing them what I saw out there, plant populations, how the crops are doing, what we’re following up with after spraying is done,” he said.

“There’s a whole list of things I go through to show them what we do. We’re going across the field. We’re not just going and stopping the pickup truck on the edge of the field and walking in 50 yards or whatever and saying this is what you need… in that part, but the rest of the field is great.”

Again, Tone said it all comes back to relationship building and that’s something that doesn’t happen overnight.

“There’s (got to be) patience there too. I would say I used to be a person who would jump out and get upset and angry about things,” he said. “I’ve learned over the years that it’s probably not the best thing to do. Patience pays off and (helps build)… a relationship where they can see you’re somebody they feel they can work with.”

The same advice holds for agronomists working with producer organizations, Tone said. Tone has first-hand experience with that. He played a key role in helping the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers develop the On-Farm Network in 2014. The network conducts research on new products and practices to provide growers with answers to an assortment of production-related questions including disease-fighting tools and fertility treatments.

Tone said the inspiration for the network was that provincial and federal governments were cutting back on the funding they were providing for research at the time, and pulse and soybean producers didn’t know where to turn to get answers on subjects such as how much inoculant to use and the best time to apply it.

One of the toughest conversations an independent agronomist can have is often with themselves: When do I want to retire and what kind of transition plan do I want to put in place for the business?

Tone found himself in that spot about eight years ago. He was looking to cut back his workload and was interested in selling off a majority interest in the business. Luckily, two of his employees made an offer to buy the business and he now works for them.

“They took over and it’s been quite a neat transition.”

The post Having those tough conversations appeared first on Grainews.

His field observations in the 2021 growing season, followed by on-farm research trials through 2022 and 2023, produced data to support a recommendation to leave taller crop stubble. Even a couple of extra inches will trap more snow, which will increase soil moisture and lead to higher yields.

“The research showed that every extra inch of stubble height can serve to trap more snow and lead to more moisture for the crop the following year,” says Palmier, owner of Max Ag Consulting at Plenty, about 70 kilometres northeast of Kindersley. “Our 2023 research showed that every extra one inch of crop stubble can increase canola yield by 1.1 bushels per acre.”

He notes there are several variables — there must be snow to start with — but the field trial showed that grain stubble left even two inches taller can result in a canola crop producing two more bushels of oilseed per acre. At about $13 per bushel, that’s a value of about $26 more per acre. The only management change needed is to raise the combine header two inches higher.

Palmier’s look into the value of stubble height began with a couple of harvest situations in fall 2021, which led to the on-farm research trial in 2022. The growing season was dry in 2021, but in one area there was moisture before harvest that caused a lot of volunteer regrowth in one canola field. It was difficult to harvest the standing crop, resulting in a lot of tall stubble.

In another situation, again due to the dry growing season, a producer left part of his canola crop unharvested because of poor yields. Both cases left tall or fairly heavy standing crop residue that trapped and held snow.

“In the early part of harvest in 2022, the yield data showed that something was affecting yield on these fields that had standing stubble and unharvested crop from the previous year,” says Palmier. “Were higher yields in these areas due to taller stubble trapping more snow and ultimately more moisture for the subsequent crop?”

Working with the producer, he launched the on-farm research trial that fall to find out.

Good support from client

Palmier was working with a client who was anxious to learn more about the value of crop height and trapping snow to improve yield. That producer had already invested in two types of harvest systems — two combines equipped with stripper headers and one with a conventional header.

The plan was to establish field scale plots of about 20 acres with varying stubble height in a field of durum wheat. Some plots were harvested with the stripper header, leaving stubble as tall as possible, and other plots were harvested with a combine equipped with a conventional header.

“It’s common for many producers to leave stubble about eight to 10 inches tall,” says Palmier. “The producer I was working with didn’t want to cut the durum crop that short. He was pretty confident that taller stubble could trap more snow, so he wanted to capture as much moisture as possible and still provide a comparison.

“So, the stubble with the conventional combine was cut a bit taller than average but not as tall as the stripper header stubble.”

Palmier says durum stubble height was 18 to 20 inches in stripper header plots and 12 to 14 inches in the conventional header plots. The producer was already using variable rate technology in his fields.

A VR mapping system had identified 10 different production zones on the field and research plots were established in several of those zones. The producer was already using Bayer’s Climate Fieldview technology with GPS tracking, so it was used to measure and mark 20-acre plots for the project.

The durum field was harvested in fall 2022 with 20-acre plots all in the same field. Some were harvested with the stripper header and others with a conventional header. All that was needed was snow, and it did come.

“There was a fairly early snowfall in the fall of 2022, which was captured in the stubble,” says Palmier. “And prevailing winds are important as well. Typically, in this area, winds are from the west, but in the winter of 2022/23, we also had winds from the east. As winds change direction, they help to carry more snow into the stubble.”

He says it is important to note that the 2022 growing season and harvest conditions were extremely dry, so there was no immediate topsoil moisture heading into winter. Without moisture, the soil didn’t freeze so it was receptive when the snow did melt. There was no run-off.

Measuring snow density

The field was left for the fall and winter until February 2023, when Palmier measured the amount of snow and moisture held in the various stubble heights.

“For the snow survey, we collected 10 snow samples from both conventional and stripper stubbles to weigh for snow density,” he says. “We also measured 30 points in both stubbles for snow heights to estimate the average snow height in both treatments. By combining both these measurements, we could then understand what our average snow water equivalent was in the two treatments.”

Palmier noted snow density in the stubble varied between the two harvest treatments. The snow in the stripper header stubble had about 25 per cent moisture, while the conventional stubble had about 27 per cent moisture. He suspects the difference in density was due to the conventional stubble moving more with the wind, allowing the snow to settle, while the stripper header stubble was more rigid.

“Even though the snow in the conventional stubble had more density, there was less of it,” says Palmier. “Whereas the snow caught in the stripper stubble was less dense, but there was more of it due to increased stubble height. Ultimately the stripper header stubble held 20 mm more moisture than the conventional stubble.”

After the snow survey, the field was left until seeding. As spring approached, snow in the stripper header stubble melted sooner than that in the conventional stubble, likely because there was more exposed stubble on the stripper header plots to attract solar energy. Because the ground wasn’t frozen, any moisture went straight into the soil.

Soil moisture probes are key

The final bit of important technology needed to monitor the research project was an on-farm weather station outfitted with soil moisture probes. The project used a Crop Intelligence RealmFive weather station that wirelessly connected to two John Deere moisture probes.

“We set the weather station up at the edge of the field and placed the two soil moisture probes in the same field. One was placed in the stripper stubble plots and one in conventional stubble plots,” says Palmier.

The field was seeded to canola with a disc drill on May 16, and the soil moisture probes were installed May 21. The probes were connected wirelessly to the RealmFive weather station by a flex station, which pulls data from the probe. The station contains a modem and SIM card, where it can upload data to the cloud. It is stored and processed on Crop Intelligence’s platform.

The John Deere soil moisture probes have six sensor points at varying depths along the 100 cm length of the probe. Palmier used a three-inch diameter handheld auger to create a hole the right depth for the probe. To ensure proper soil contact, he first made a slurry of soil and water to fill the hole and then pushed the probe into the slurry.

Once in soil, the probes’ sensors provide soil moisture readings at intervals from 10 cm to 20 cm, 30 cm, 50 cm, 70 cm and 100 cm (from four inches to 40 inches). He says it is important to know the soil type to understand its moisture-holding capacity. Clay soil, for example, will have a plant wilting point with a reading of 20 per cent soil moisture and a maximum moisture-holding capacity of 50 per cent moisture. Sandy loam, on the other hand, will have a wilting point of eight per cent moisture and a maximum holding capacity of 32 per cent moisture.

“It is important to know soil texture,” says Palmier. “The probe will only tell you how much moisture is present, so if it says 32 per cent and you have sandy loam soil, you know the soil is at moisture-holding capacity, but if it is 32 per cent and your soil is more clay, you know you are a long way from moisture-holding capacity. “

For the 2023 growing season, Palmier measured about 20 mm (roughly 0.8 inch) more plant available moisture at the start of the year on the stripper header strips than on the conventional header strips.

The rest of the growing season was not particularly kind to the crop. From May until mid-August, there were just over 82 mm (three inches) of rainfall. The biggest rainfall after June 3 amounted to 11 mm, or less than half an inch. Overall, it was about 39 per cent of the average growing season rainfall. And on top of dry conditions, there were plenty of hot days. Between June 5 and Aug. 15, 22 days were 30 C or hotter.

On the field with alternating strips of crop grown on tall and shorter stubble, canola plants showed a difference in growth pattern. Palmier says the roots on two treatments reached the 10- and 20-cm depths at about the same time. After that, the crop seeded on the stripper header stubble reached 30 cm two days earlier, and 50 and 70 cm depths six days earlier than the short stubble crop.

“That tells me the crop on stripper header stubble appeared to be more vigorous. It had moisture but also the taller stubble most likely helped to reduce abiotic stress factors by providing more shade to plants and protecting plants from the wind and other stressors,” says Palmier.

He also found that the crop on the stripper header stubble started the year with more moisture and ended the growing season with less soil moisture than the shorter stubble crop. Again, it was an indicator of more robust plants that developed more roots and used more moisture.

Overall, the crop with taller stubble yielded six to eight more bushels per acre than crop grown on shorter stubble.

Palmier says not every farm can handle stubble that’s 15 to 20 inches tall, because not every seeding system can work through that much standing crop residue.

“But the point is, if a producer can leave stubble even two or three inches taller — go from eight to 10 or from 10 to 12 inches — it can make a difference in how much snow is trapped and how much moisture is available to the crop.”

“There are only so many things we can control, but we can set things up to take advantage of snow and moisture if or when it does come,” says Palmier. “And particularly during extremely dry conditions, every little bit helps. Small changes in management can make a difference.”

Palmier planned to monitor fields with crops seeded into different stubble heights during the 2024 growing season as well.

The post Research confirms value of taller crop stubble appeared first on Grainews.

Both producers were involved in the relatively new Plot2Farm program developed by the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions.

In 2020, Ellis, of Ellis Agriculture Ltd. at Olds, Alta., did a yield comparison between AC Foremost, a former CPS wheat that is now classed as Canada Northern Hard Red (CNHR), and AAC Goodwin, a newer CPS variety. And then, in 2021, he evaluated the effect of Moddus plant growth regulator on malt barley.

At McAllister’s Antler Valley Farm near Innisfail, the field-scale research project in 2021 evaluated the difference between seeding wheat on 15-inch row spacing versus 7.5-inch row spacing.

Results on these on-farm research projects (details to follow) were relevant and useful to these two farms, but what really made the information valuable is the way the field studies were organized.

They weren’t just simply side-by-side, treated versus untreated comparison strips seeded in the spring and harvested in the fall. As part of the Plot2Farm program, they were much more structured trials than that, says Jeremy Boychyn, agronomy research extension specialist with the Wheat and Barley Commissions and co-ordinator of the Plot2Farm program.

The idea is to conduct these studies on a field-scale basis but under proper research protocols, says Boychyn. That means they are properly laid out, each research treatment is replicated four times on the farm, a uniform piece of ground is selected to conduct the study, but the field-scale plots are randomized over that field. The project is monitored throughout the growing season, and at harvest the yield from each plot is collected and properly weighed in a weigh wagon. The program also provides funding to cover the cost of a professional agronomist to work with each farm to set up and monitor the project during the year of the research trial.

Applications open ’til February

The Plot2Farm program got off the ground in 2020, and last year involved eight producers who implemented on-farm research trials on their farms. The program is looking to involve more producers in the 2022 growing season.

“We have been easing into the Plot2Farm program and this coming season we are hoping to expand it further,” says Boychyn. Based partly on input from commission directors, Plot2Farm has about a dozen protocols (project ideas) of its own involving both wheat and barley crops. And Boychyn says producers who are members of the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions are welcome to suggest other research ideas as well.

“For the 2022 growing season, any producers interested in being involved in on-farm research can apply through the program website at Plot2Farm.com,” says Boychyn. Farmers can select one of the protocols listed or suggest something more specific to their farming operations for consideration. The deadline is Feb. 1, 2022, for applications for the coming growing season.

Boychyn says while there is no specific number in mind, there is a limit to how many producers the program budget can accommodate for 2022, but producer members from across the province are urged to apply.

Some of the existing research ideas or Plot2Farm protocols for wheat in 2022 include variety trials, evaluation of Manipulator plant growth regulator and assessment of enhanced efficiency fertilizers. Some of the barley protocols include looking at increasing nitrogen fertilizer rates for malt and feed varieties, malt and feed barley variety comparisons and fungicide timing, to name a few.

Producers are urged to apply, and a number of projects will be selected. Then, the Plot2Farm program will provide farmers with step-by-step guides on how to implement the trials on their farms. And professional agronomy services will also be available for all successful projects.

What the research showed

Back to what farmers Ellis and McAllister learned from their on-farm research trials.

On his farm near Olds, Ellis was looking to find a different CPS wheat variety to replace AC Foremost. He had grown the high-yielding AC Foremost for years when it was originally classed as a CPS variety, but in a reclassification program in 2015, the Canadian Grain Commission moved AC Foremost into the new CNHR class and into a different (lower value) market.

Ellis figured for this first Plot2Farm project he would set up a research trial to compare AC Foremost with AAC Goodwin, a CPS wheat developed at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research centre at Swift Current. Could AAC Goodwin be an economic replacement for AC Foremost?

Working with the guidelines provided by Plot2Farm and with assistance from Jeremy Boychyn, a uniform field was selected for the trial, plots were laid out and flagged. The plan called for four plots of AC Foremost and four plots of AAC Goodwin, randomly placed over the field.

“Once we got it laid out, basically the plots were a drill-width wide and the length of the field, which was about a half-mile long,” says Ellis.

The trial was seeded using a 50-foot Bourgault 3320 Paralink with three-inch paired openers, 10-inch row spacings and mid-row banders. The target plant stand was 30 plants per square foot. Seeding rates were determined using thousand kernel weight, germination percentage and mortality percentage. Seeding rates were 146.4 pounds per acre and 169.5 pounds per acre for AC Foremost and AAC Goodwin, respectively. Three weeks after seeding, the actual plant count for each variety came in very close to the target of 30 plants per square foot. AC Foremost plots had 29 plants per square foot while AAC Goodwin came in at 28 plants per square foot.

At harvest, data was collected from a single combine pass within each research plot. Yield measurements were taken using a weigh wagon. “We took a full header width down the centre of each research plot and weighed that grain,” says Ellis.

Bottom line from this research project — the AC Foremost outyielded AAC Goodwin by 23 bushels per acre (123 bushels per acre for AC Foremost versus 100 bushels per acre for AAC Goodwin). For Ellis, those results were a no-brainer. AAC Goodwin is no doubt a good CPS wheat variety but yield-wise it was not a replacement for AC Foremost.

In the second Plot2Farm project in 2021, Ellis looked at the effect of Moddus plant growth regulator (PGR) on malt barley. “Lodging can be an issue on our farm, so we are interested in a treatment that allows us to maintain fertility to optimize yield and yet reduce the risk of lodging,” says Ellis. Moddus is a relatively new PGR developed by Syngenta, ideally suited for barley, and a product accepted by malting companies for use on malting barley.

Ellis says for this on-farm research trial he seeded a uniform field to AAC Synergy malt barley, and within that field four plots to be treated with Moddus PGR were marked out, while leaving another four plots untreated. Again, the location of the plots was randomized.

The fertility package for the whole field included 87.5 pounds of actual nitrogen, 33 pounds of P2O5 phosphorus and 39.1 pounds of potassium per acre. Again, the crop was seeded with a 50-foot Bourgault 3320 Paralink drill with three-inch paired openers on 10-inch row spacing.

Boychyn helped with the plot layout and seeding. He also monitored crop staging with the PGR applied to the designated “treated” plots at the optimal plant growth stage 31.

Ellis says while he learned something about the PGR, 2021 probably wasn’t the ideal year to test Moddus because of the dry growing conditions. “None of the malt barley lodged this year because it was so dry,” he says. His area saw about five to six inches of moisture during the growing season, which is about half of normal.

All of the malt barley stood well for the entire growing season; however, at harvest, the Moddus-treated plots did produce a 5.1 per cent yield increase (about four bushels per acre) over the untreated or check plots of barley. The Moddus plots had an average yield of 88.2 bushels per acre, while the untreated plots averaged 83.9 bushels per acre.

While the Moddus-treated plots had higher yield, the quality was a bit off, with fewer plump kernels, more thins, and more peeled and broken kernels. The quality factors were statistically significant, however, not serious enough to affect malt acceptance.

What about row spacing?

The big question for McAllister and his brother, Scott, at Antler Valley Farm was whether they could seed a profitable wheat crop on a wide 15-inch row spacing. Their rotation most years is primarily canola, wheat and barley, although they sometimes grow hybrid fall rye and are just starting to include peas.

The brothers were among some of the first in Western Canada to buy a new 60-foot SeedMaster Ultra SR drill. This is a single rank implement, which is much simpler to use, and with lower capital costs and lower horsepower requirements; however, on their fifth-generation farm, the question was can they seed a profitable wheat crop on 15-inch row spacing?

The concern with wider spacing, according to McAllister, involved getting the wheat crop dense enough to reduce or prevent tillering and ideally produce more seed on the main stem.

“We really didn’t have any concerns about the canola because on the wider row spacing, plants just branch out and produce more pods on more branches,” says McAllister.

The idea with the Plot2 Farm project was to compare wheat on 15-inch row spacing with wheat seeded on 7.5-inch row spacing. McAllister says since it is hard, if not impossible, to find a drill with 7.5-inch row spacing, they opted to seed their whole on-farm research field first with the new drill at 15-inch spacing and then come back using RTK guidance and make a second pass on four plots seeding between the rows, to create those plots with crop seeded on 7.5-inch row spacing.

They applied the same fertility to the whole research area, which included 198 pounds of 46-0-0 as well as 129 pounds of 11-52-0 per acre. Seeding AAC Penhold CPS wheat, the brothers targeted a seeding rate that would produce 38 plants per square foot on both spacings.

A plant count 21 days after seeding showed about 33 plants on the 7.5-inch row spacing and 38 plants on the 15-inch spacing.

The plots were monitored for the growing season and then the yield from a combine width the length of each plot was weighed. The final figure? The wheat crop grown on 15-inch row spacing yielded three bushels less per acre than wheat grown on the 7.5-inch spacing. That was a win as far as McAllister was concerned.

“Going into this research, I figured the wider spacing might produce a lower yield, but I was prepared to see a five-bushel yield difference,” he says. “Three bushels was better than I expected.” He doesn’t anticipate any yield loss using the same drill to seed both canola and barley.

McAllister says the benefits of being able to use this drill and wider seed row spacing for all crops on the farm far outweighs the value of three bushels of wheat.

“We’re not going to lose the farm over those three bushels,” he says with a laugh. “Often when we think about crop production it is all about yield, yield, yield. And it is important, but there are other factors to consider too. For us, the operational cost savings of using this drill are considerable. If we can spend less on equipment and perhaps only be short about three bushels of yield, we are definitely ahead of the game.”

More details on the economics of using a single rank, wide-row spacing drill on the McAllister farm will be featured in a February issue of Grainews.

Both Ellis and McAllister say the extra time and management needed to set up the Plot2Farm on-farm research trials are well worth the effort.

“It is just an excellent approach to on-farm research providing information we can trust,” says McAllister. “It allowed us to collect data specific to our farm. We tested how row spacing impacts wheat yield and quality. The trial results have helped us gain further understanding of our farm management and equipment changes.”

Ellis agrees. “The way the protocols are set up, it really adds value to the data that is collected,” he says. “The research plots are replicated and they are randomized, so the results are information you can trust. Plot2Farm takes on-farm research to a whole new level, making it possible to do research with our own equipment under our own growing conditions.”

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