AGvisorPRO is a new service for western Canadian farmers, launched in July. On one side of the service is an ever-growing bank of specialists and experts from different fields of expertise, from across the country, available to speak with farmers. On the other side of the service are farmers and ranchers with the free AGvisorPRO app on their smartphones, tablets or desktop computers who are dealing with some production or management question. They may or may not need an immediate answer. But they can use the app to connect with one of those specialists or experts — talk, text or video with them directly — and potentially have their question resolved within a few minutes.

Fee-for-service advice

It’s a fee-per-call service, ranging anywhere from $35 to $60 for initially 10 minutes worth of consulting services, with more time available as needed.

“AGvisorPRO is the uberization of knowledge and wisdom,” says Patrick Walther, general manager of AGvisorPRO, who advises people to take a moment to digest that concept. Similar to the Uber car-for-hire service that pools the resources of privately owned vehicles to be rented by individuals as a taxi service, AGvisorPRO pools the resources of some of the top agronomic, farm management, livestock production and ag mechanical expertise — making them available to be a phone call away from producers.

“A question or problem arises the farmer needs help with, and often timing is important, and they may not know who to call,” says Walther, explaining the process. “They can go to the AGvisorPRO app on their smartphone, enter a few key words, along with photos or short video, describing the problem. The system will then produce a list of AGvisorPRO professionals who have knowledge and expertise in that problem area and the farmer can select one to call for information. It is expected the professional will be in touch with the producer within 10 to 15 minutes or sooner.”

With the initial call, producers need to register their credit cards. The cost of the consulting service will be billed directly to the card for time used, based on 10-minute increments. The AGvisorPRO service, developed by founder Rob Saik, a well-known figure in the agriculture industry, will offer expertise in seven key areas: crops, livestock, machinery, technology integration, business management, human resources and mental health.

While there is a fee-for-service, Walther points out many of these advisors are some of the leading experts in their field and their time and knowledge is valuable. “At the same time if there is some problem in front of a farmer that can be resolved in a few minutes and get equipment back working in the field that is worth quite a bit too,” he says. After they finish the call, farmers are urged to rate the value of the information they received.

As of early August, AGvisorPRO had about 80 professionals and specialist in its pool of “agvisors” with the list growing steadily. In the first couple of weeks after the service was launched, between 400 and 500 farmers downloaded the app. The field of experts includes independent consultants, equipment specialists, technologists, government experts and industry professionals as well as farmers. “We’re always interested in signing up more specialists and experts,” says Walther. “And that can include farmers advising farmers.”

While most farmers have solid experience to share, the AGvisorPRO service is particularly interested in farmers with expertise in a particular area of crop or livestock production or farm management that may be helpful to another producer.

Complementing, not competing

Farmers will be able to connect with AGvisorPRO consultants through a couple of different avenues. There is the direct farmer connection to a professional through the cell phone app, but AGvisorPRO is also enlisting industry partners including grain companies, ag retailers, and chemical companies. Producers will be able to contact their ag retailer, for example, and connect through them with a consultant, with the cost of the consulting services covered by the industry partner.

“If a farmer or ag retailer already has a crop agronomist, for example, we don’t see AGvisorPRO taking anything away from that service,” says Dan Brewin, company co-CEO. Brewin has extensive ag industry experience in food production, crop input sales as well as grain and livestock marketing. “We see AGvisorPRO as an extension or complementary to that service. The local agronomist has excellent knowledge but for certain questions or when needed AGvisorPRO can connect farmers with a specialist.”

Brewin says the high-tech AGvisorPRO app virtually shrinks time and space. “We are starting the service largely with experts in Western Canada but we hope to expand that across North America and even other parts of the world,” he says. “You can be standing in your field someplace in Saskatchewan and speak to a specialist in another part of the province for a few hundred miles away. Sometimes you may need someone with local or regional knowledge. But when it comes to a machinery question for example that combine technician could be anywhere in North America.”

Brewin says the usage fee applied to each call reflects the value of service and information. “It’s surprising how much ground can be covered in a 10-minute phone call,” he says. “A producer may be looking for information to solve a specific and immediate problem, or they may be looking for an expert to bounce an idea off of before making a management decision.”

For more information on the service, visit its website.

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Rain may not have hit every acre of prairie cropland, in what was shaping up to be a year of widespread drought, but it certainly helped where it did fall. All panel participants described a growing season that got off to a rocky start — generally cool, dry growing conditions at seeding, resulting in uneven germination and a “stagey” crop stand, in some cases followed by infestations of crop pests. It was anything but picture perfect.

But with all producers reporting little or no rain since seeding (in some cases no rain for months before) various amounts of precipitation in the last two weeks of June at least has given crops a chance. Success will depend on growing conditions over the coming six weeks and whether frost holds off for what might be a later harvest season.

As we near the mid-way point of the 2019 growing season, here is what Prairie producers are saying about conditions in their area:

Robert Semeniuk, Smoky Lake, Alta.

Robert Semeniuk described it as somewhat of a “Bizarro” growing season in the Smoky Lake area about 120 km northeast of Edmonton.

“We went from quite dry conditions at seeding to where we are almost floating here today,” he says in a late June interview. “At and after seeding it was extremely dry and now, although it has been a bit spotty, we’ve had as much as seven inches of rain in June and most of that in the past week or so.”

Despite uncertainties about the canola market, Semeniuk says he pretty well stayed with their usual crop mix and rotation for 2019. That includes hard red spring wheat, Canadian Prairie Spring wheat, malting barley, peas and canola.

“The seed bed had some moisture when we seeded, but then it soon dried out,” he says. “It was cold, germination was slow and uneven. We usually have good subsurface moisture, so that wasn’t a concern, we just needed moisture to get the crop growing.

“Now with some rain, overall crops are doing quite well. They are not as even as they could be, but they are looking decent. It won’t be a bumper crop by any means, but it should be okay.”

Semeniuk says he hasn’t seen any serious pest problems, such as flea beetles or cutworms in his area, although he is seeing some aphanomyces root rot in peas.

Stewart Collin, Foremost, Alta.

Stewart Collin says in an area that has had a very dry spring, it is amazing the difference an inch of rain can make.

Although it was spotty across the region, his farm, about 100 km south of Medicine Hat, received about an inch of rain in late June which has helped bring crops back from the brink of a wreck.

“Driving around the country today you’d never know these crops were just a few days away from not looking very good,” says Collin. “We have no subsurface moisture and conditions were quite dry at seeding.” It was an early seeding season with Collin getting seed in the ground just before and after Easter (April 20).

“We did have about 1-1/4 inches of rain over the weeks after seeding which helped crops hold on,” he says. “Generally, in terms of moisture, it has been a hand-to-mouth growing season.”

With mustard, canola and durum wheat seeded on his farm, Collin notes a considerable increase in lentil and chickpeas acres on farms in the area. “When everyone was making final cropping decisions this spring there were no real winners in terms of what to grow, but it appears that the pulses were the go-to crops for many.”

While Collin says crops are generally looking pretty good after the inch of rain, more moisture will be needed.

Dallas Leduc, Glentworth, Sask.

With as much as five inches of rain over parts of a very dry southwest Saskatchewan, in late June, Dallas Leduc says it will definitely help crops that were moisture stressed, but it won’t fix uneven maturity.

“We have a very two-stagey crop out there I’m not sure how I am going to handle,” says Leduc who farms at Glentworth, about 170 km south of Swift Current. “You go down the seedrow and part of the crop is bolting and a few inches away it is just emerging. That will present some challenges.”

Leduc says while there was snow in late April, the area only had about 3/10ths of an inch of rain during May and most of June. At the end of June however, a fairly large area received anywhere from 2-1/2 to five inches of rain. “Depending on where you were it was anything from light showers to a downpour gully washer,” he says.

“It was getting pretty brown and sad looking,” he adds. “We were perhaps four or five days away from crops being a write-off. This rain has certainly brought a feeling of optimism. People are feeling happier.”

Leduc who is growing yellow peas, durum and flax this year, says the early seeded peas actually caught moisture from the snow and the crop is looking good in a fairly even stand. The durum and flax, however, are “really quite patchy.”

On a farm that has been straight cutting all crops for years, Leduc says he may be looking at swathing this fall just to allow crops to finish ripening. “I have the headers for the combines, all I need is to find a swather.”

Gerrid Gust, Davidson, Sask.

A couple of inches of rain in late June renewed Gerrid Gust’s optimism he may harvest a crop this fall, but it won’t be an easy crop to harvest and he’s keeping his expectations in check.

“There is still time for things to settle down and crops could do quite well,” says Gust who farms at Davidson, about 100 km southeast of Sask­atoon. But at the same time, he knows crops will need more moisture and he’s going to need a nice open fall with no early frost or snow so he can get what is growing in the bin.

“We haven’t had a drop of rain here since last fall,” he says. Crops were suffering before that two inches of rain in late June. Lentils are at full stage of growth, “but no taller than a beer can,” he says. Under more normal conditions they should be three times taller. Canola is very patchy with three or four stages of growth in the field ranging from bolting to just emerging, at the time of the late June interview. That’s going to be a challenge at harvest as well.

Concerned about the global marketing issues with canola, he switched a good part of his rotation to more durum wheat this year. Durum has actually been the best performing crop on his farm the past couple of years. But the markets aren’t co-operating for it either.

“It seems like everyone in the world is mad at Canada and doesn’t want our crops,” says Gust. “There seems to be so many marketing issues with several different countries.”

He says even though Italy needs Canadian durum, processors don’t want to pay for it. “The Italians seem to be mad at us for some reason,” he says. “I have bins full of a perfect No. 1 crop of durum from 2018, but they don’t want to offer a reasonable price. Unfortunately, it may end up going into the feed market, but I’d rather take the hit and help out a Canadian cowboy than a pasta maker in Italy.”

Overall Gust says he remains optimistic, noting he was born and raised in “next-year country. There is still time for the 2019 crop to be at least close to average, but we just have to wait and see,” he says.

Dennis Reimer, Hudson Bay, Sask.

Dennis Reimer was feeling better the last week of June than he was a few days earlier. About 1-1/2 inches of rain the weekend of June 22 helped crops on his Hudson Bay area farm about 350 km northeast of Saskatoon.

“We were getting pretty dry here,” says Reimer. “Dry for us doesn’t mean the same as dry means in other parts of the province, but the crops were needing moisture. What we got on the weekend was a real godsend.”

Reimer’s rotation includes wheat, barley, oats, canola and faba beans. Due to canola market concerns he did back off on canola acres for 2019. “We had been pushing canola pretty hard, with about half our seeded acres in canola. This year it is more like one-third.”

After trying faba beans on the farm in 2018, he included them in rotation again this year.

“We seeded about the usual time, and emergence was generally quite even,” says Reimer. “And we haven’t had any issues with crop pests. Our biggest concern now might be an early frost. Last year we had about 500 acres that got nailed by an early frost. Hopefully, we don’t have a repeat of that this fall.”

Dustin Williams, Carman, Man.

Dustin Williams had a qualified “our area is looking okay” description of crops in the Carman area about 85 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

After a fairly dry spring, “we have been seeing some rain the past couple weeks,” says Williams. “We’re not out of the woods yet, but at the moment we are sitting pretty comfortable.”

The season got off to a challenging start. Seeding was early, crops struggled with cold weather and when they did get growing he was faced with spraying to control flea beetles and cutworms. “The rain has helped pick things up, crops are looking much better. The rain was needed.”

Williams is growing canola, wheat, oats, soybeans and feed barley this year. He has grown grain corn in recent years but dropped it out of rotation for 2019. With concerns about the market outlook for commodity canola, he opted for a Nexera canola contract this year. “We usually grow Invigor varieties, but with Nexera at least we can lock in a bit of a price premium,” he says.

“Things are looking okay at the moment, but the crop is still a long ways from the bin,” he says. “And there also seems to be quite a bit of market uncertainty out there. The trade issues and risk of tariffs still make me a bit nervous. We’ll have to see how it goes.”

Kendall Heise, Beulah, Man.

After a rough start with a cold, dry spring, Kendall Heise says crops are looking much better following about three inches of rain in late June.

With many farmers starting seeding in late April in the Beulah area of central Manitoba, about 130 km north of Brandon, emergence was slow and patchy. “A lot of people had to do spraying for flea beetle on canola and as well as cutworms in wheat,” says Heise. “I waited to seed canola on May 13 and only had to spray the crop once.”

As of late June, producers were finishing up in-crop spraying, most cereals were in the flag leaf stage, and canola would soon be bolting. Aside from crop germination, one of the other issues of a cooler spring was a delay in weed emergence, which also affected the timing of herbicide treatments.

Heise, who produces wheat, canola, soybeans and peas, says he stayed with his usual rotation with no major shift in acres. “There seemed to be a lot of talk about outside market influences, but I don’t know if it really had an impact or not,” he says. “I was still able to lock in a price of $10 or more for canola, which I’m happy with.”

The post Farmer Panel: Rain in the nick of time appeared first on Grainews.

“And with Group 2s in particular, it’s just altering the target site,” says Geisel, BASF technical marketing specialist.

The target site, in this case, is the ALS enzyme, which the plant uses to build amino acids. Group 2 herbicides bind to the ALS enzyme, disrupting amino acid synthesis. The weed stops growing and eventually dies.

“When people spray Group 2s on a weed, it can take a long time for that weed to die,” says Geisel, adding it could be 14 to 21 days. The plant eventually starts to show symptoms such as purpling of the growing point and chlorosis before dying.

However, if the weed’s ALS enzyme has changed, the Group 2 might not bind to it. The plant will keep synthesizing amino acids and keep growing.

• Read more: Herbicide-resistant weeds: don’t be in denial
• Read more: Four tips to help prevent crop diseases

Geisel says Group 2 resistance is one of the most common types of resistance. Odds are higher that Group 2 resistance will show up than glyphosate resistance, for example. Kochia tops the Group 2 resistance list — Geisel says about 90 per cent of the kochia population is resistant. Cleavers and wild mustard are also problem weeds with Group 2 resistance.

While glyphosate and some Group 4 resistance come with a fitness penalty, this isn’t the case with Group 2 resistance, Geisel says. That means ceasing to use Group 2 herbicides for a few years isn’t going to bring that chemistry back once resistance develops. And while glyphosate resistance has a fitness penalty, Geisel says it’s used so frequently, it would be tough to remove it completely from the system.

How to manage resistance

Geisel emphasizes that having resistant weeds doesn’t make someone a bad farmer. Sometimes it’s a matter of awareness. There are also weed seeds that can travel quite a distance, such as kochia and Canada fleabane.

“Group 2s are still very important for western Canadian farmers, whether it’s in pre-seed or in-crop (applications),” says Geisel. Pulse growers rely on them heavily. Cereal growers also use Group 2 herbicides to control wild oats, he adds.

But farmers need to supplement Group 2 herbicides with other groups in the tank mix. Geisel advises farmers to think about multiple modes of effective action when dealing with resistant weeds. For example, when dealing with kochia, there’s little point in spraying a Group 2 and Group 9 tank mix, given the widespread resistance to Group 2 herbicides in kochia.

In fact, Geisel encourages farmers with resistant weeds to look at three modes of action. While three mode products aren’t often available in one package, Geisel says farmers can combine products.

For example, farmers growing Roundup Ready soybeans could use a tank mix of glyphosate (Group 9) and Viper (contains Group 2 and 6), he says.

There are two basic issues farmers run into when tank-mixing herbicides:

• Antagonism. Geisel says this is typically caused by a contact herbicide, as it works too fast for the translocation of a product.
• Different formulations aren’t compatible. This might, for example, turn the products into a gel in the tank.

Geisel suggests farmers check with retailers and manufacturer reps before tank mixing to avoid problems. “We do a lot of testing with different products to see which ones are compatible and which ones are not.”

Geisel advises farmers to think about how to rotate chemical groups within the year as well. For example, farmers might use a Group 14 or 15 before seeding, and then use other products in-crop. He adds farmers can also rotate tank mixes.

It’s also important to know which chemical groups are in a product. Geisel says that because there are different chemical families within chemical groups, people don’t always realize that two or three different products are all Group 2 herbicides. For example, Odyssey, Express, and Simplicity are all Group 2 chemistry, even though the active ingredients belong to different chemical families.

Geisel acknowledges that resistance management becomes complicated for farmers.

“It all becomes that complex system that we need to weave together. But herbicide resistance isn’t going away. It’s definitely something farmers are going to have to deal with for a number of years to come.”

Group 2 resistance in Western Canada

A report to the Saskatchewan Weed Committee sheds some light on Group 2 resistance in Western Canada. The report details the results of over 1,100 weed samples submitted to Saskatchewan’s Crop Protection Lab between 2012 and 2016 for herbicide resistance testing. The Crop Protection Lab has been screening for herbi- cide resistant weeds since 1996. Both Saskatchewan Agriculture and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada conduct herbicide resistance tests. Hugh Beckie, Scott Shirriff, Faye Dokken-Bouchard, and Clark A. Brenzil authored the latest report.

Among those samples, staff confirmed the following cases of Group 2 resistance:

• 54 cleaver cases (31 in Sask., 22 in Alta., and one in Man.);
• nine wild mustard cases in Sask.;
• seven stinkweed (six from Sask., one from Alta.);
• five shepherd’s purse, all in Sask.;
• one case of chickweed, in Sask.; and,
• one case of redroot pigweed, also in Sask.

Wild oat is the weed Geisel is most concerned about, as there are few control options available. His concern is well-placed. Of the weed samples submitted to the Crop Protection Lab for resistance testing, 87 per cent were wild oats. Group 2-resistant wild oats comprised 108 of those samples. There were 135 cases of Group 1 and 2-resistant wild oats, and 550 were Group1-resistant.

The post Developing resistance: Group 2 herbicides appeared first on Grainews.

Fungicide resistance shares some fundamentals with herbicides, says Jared Veness, field marketing manager at Bayer Crop Science. By applying fungicide, farmers are applying selection pressure to a pest. Within that pest’s population, there are likely individuals with mutations that allow them to survive the fungicide.

The survivors will pass on those mutations to their progeny. It’s a process common to any type of resistance, Veness says.

Resistance risk is a combination of agronomic practices, pathogen biology, and the chemical group. Veness says most western Canadian diseases are low risk.

However, septoria and ascochyta are considered medium risk by the Fungicide Resistance Action Committee (FRAC), a group of industry and academics that reviews resistance risk globally. Botrytis (grey mould/blossom blight) and powdery mildew are considered high risk, Veness says.

As for fungicides, Group 11 (strobilurins) has the highest risk of being overcome by resistance, Veness says. A single gene can confer 100 per cent resistance to strobilurins. Farmers can get good control in one application, and no control the next.

“And that has been shown through a lot of pathogens, globally,” says Veness.

Chickpeas provide an example of strobilurin resistance close to home. As chickpea acres ramped up in the early 2000s, resistant cultivars weren’t on the market. And farmers needed to control ascochyta.

“You combine your highest-risk fungicide with a medium- to high-risk pathogen, and you’re spraying it four or five times a year — that’s how you get a problem,” says Veness.

Still, not every pathogen is at risk of evolving resistance to strobilurins. For example, the mutation that confers strobilurin resistance to rust is lethal to the pathogen, Veness says.

Group 7 (SDHIs) are medium to high risk, and Group 3 (triazoles) are medium risk. Multiple genes are needed to confer resistance to a triazole, Veness says, so farmers would see an erosion of control over time.

Multiple mutations often come with a fitness penalty, Veness adds. That means that once the fungicide applications stop, the resistant pathogens won’t be able to compete with their non-resistant cousins.

But resistance can persist in other populations. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researchers have found that strobilurin-resistant ascochyta don’t incur a fitness penalty. Veness doubts that strobilurins would effectively control ascochyta to this day in areas with past problems.

Graham Collier, technical services manager for Nufarm, says seed treatment resistance is a bit easier to wrap one’s head around. He compares it to variety resistance to diseases such as clubroot. A clubroot-resistant canola variety can drop the infection level in a field drastically.

But if a farmer reseeds that variety to the same field every two years for six or so years, he would select for clubroot races that weren’t deterred by the resistance gene.

“So they went from being a very small percentage of the population in the soil to the only ones that were successfully reproducing,” says Collier.

Collier says the same type of thing happens with Metalaxyl seed treatments controlling pythium. Pythium includes several pathogen species. Metalaxyl controls some pythium species very well. But it doesn’t control all of them well, and the seed treatment selects for those insensitive species.

“And then if you have a year where that species is favoured, you have a whole ton of pythium infections, despite the fact that you treated,” says Collier.

“We don’t have any documented resistance in Western Canada yet, but it’s kind of one of those things that’s a safe assumption because we’ve used so much for so long.”

Some disagreement over resistance management

There is a fair bit of debate around resistance management in fungicides, says Collier.

Collier sees similarities between managing foliar fungicide and herbicide resistance. He suggests rotating modes of action when possible. Collier also suggests using products with multiple modes of action. As in herbicides, it’s important to make sure both active ingredients target the pest, although Collier says this is generally the case with fungicides.

But Collier acknowledges that it’s not easy to rotate modes of action, given the limited number of chemical groups in Western Canada. And Veness doesn’t see rotating chemical groups as necessary in most western Canadian farming situations.

Veness points out that not all pathogens overwinter. And those that do will need a host the following year to cause problems in that crop. For example, he says, a farmer who’s growing canola on wheat stubble doesn’t need to worry about using a Group 3 fungicide, even if she applied a Group 3 the previous year. The sclerotinia she is targeting in canola doesn’t infect wheat.

“So you’re not placing selection pressure on that pathogen multiple years in a row,” says Veness.

Collier acknowledges Veness’ point about a pathogen’s need for a host. However, he points out, resting spores can linger on stubble or in the soil.

Collier says academic research is finding that using a fungicide that is less effective puts less selection pressure on the disease population. The fungicide brings the disease under threshold level. “But you don’t go for 99 per cent control because that will erase your fungicide mode of action so quickly.”

That may seem counterintuitive. But disease populations are much higher than weeds, Collier says. “So if you’re controlling 95 per cent, that five per cent that’s left over is still millions of individuals.”

But although Collier is leaning towards this approach himself, he’s quick to point out the concept isn’t agreed upon. FRAC focuses more on the idea of using a high rate, to maximize control, and rotating chemical groups or using multiple modes of action. And there is research to support both concepts, he says.

What farmers can do

Veness says Western Canada is “in good shape relative to other areas” around the world for fungicide resistance. That’s partly due to the short growing window, which suppresses inoculum levels.

Still, both Veness and Collier agree farmers can take practical steps to cut their fungicide resistance risk.

Understand the pathogen you’re targeting and what the relative resistance risk is, says Veness. And don’t spray products with the same mode of action several times in one year.

Application timing also plays into resistance risk. It’s always better to apply fungicides sooner than later, Veness says. “And that’s because if you can apply early, there are fewer spores.”

Spraying when there are fewer spores protects the plant and yield. It also decreases the chances of resistance developing, Veness explains.

Cultural practices are important as well. Rotate crops, says Collier, to reduce inoculum. Less inoculum means a smaller disease population to deal with in future years. Tillage can also help, says Veness.

“Good rotations and good cultural practices will help prolong a fungicide for sure,” says Collier.

Both Collier and Vanier recommend using resistant cultivars. Resistant cultivars don’t guarantee that a farmer won’t have to apply fungicide. But resistant cultivars reduce the inoculum levels. That reduces the likelihood of resistance development.

“Likewise the selection pressure on the resistance genes can be reduced with a fungicide application — a layering of controls type approach,” says Collier.

The post Managing fungicide resistance appeared first on Grainews.

What I knew of Romania consisted of stories of those who took clothing to children’s orphanages, or of the report of corruption and hardship from a Swiss farmer who immigrated there. But Romania is so very much more than poverty and corruption. It is also big skies and expansive grain fields like in Western Canada, It’s a land of opportunity for many willing to work hard and overcome obstacles, and of great hospitality and friendliness. Of course, the tour’s intent was to show us journalists the best of Romania! Here are just a couple of my impressions of that trip.

Some years ago at Edmonton’s FarmTech Conference, a French farmer spoke of his planned move to Romania to grain farm on a large scale. Land was cheap but the investment would pay if Romania joined the European Union. Otherwise, he told us, he would lose big time. That farmer probably made good. If there’s one thing I picked up at every place we visited, it’s that phrase, “with European money.” The dairy farmer received EU money to build a processing plant for yoghurt and soft cheeses. The vegetable farmer built a larger storage shed with a packaging facility. The fruit farmer extended his orchards and built storage facilities. Irrigation equipment was installed with EU money, equipment with the newest technology purchased, animal genetics improved.

I asked Perrein Arnaud — also a French farmer who immigrated to Romania 25 years ago, long before it joined the EU — what changed for him and fellow farmers when Romania became a member of the EU. “Everything,” he answered. There is credibility now when doing business, a trust in justice. “I don’t have to bribe the police anymore or someone to come to do controls on my farm.” (Projects receiving EU money are also controlled according to EU standards.) Arnaud started out with 17 hectares (42 acres) and now farms 9, 884 acres, of which 3,212 are under irrigation. He receives EU subsidies of 230 Euros per hectare *(about $171/acre in Canadian dollars). Arnaud is one of those who operated for a long time without that help.

While we were on a tour of Arnaud’s fields, a man and his son drove by with the typical horse and wagon of the Romanian peasant (see photo at top). The Romanian journalists told us they were carrying sheep milk for distribution to the owners. Villagers typically own one or more sheep, which they hire a shepherd to look after and milk. In the evening the shepherd takes the milk to a central place for pickup by the villagers. A journalist asked if the boy went to school. The father told him, “No, he quit school when he was eight. He knows how to read and write; that is enough.”

Romania, where most farmers are subsistent, is home to the largest farm in the European Union. That farm is on an island in the Danube, near the Black Sea. The island was once a swamp until Nicolae Ceausescu (the leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989) ordered political prisoners to ditch and dike the island, turning it into one of the most fertile farms in the country. 57,000 hectares (140,850 acres) are on a 20-year lease from the state by Agricost, which is privately owned. General Manager Lucian Buzdugan took us on a farm tour. What impressed me is how well managed this mega farm is. One of the secrets is excellent staff, Buzdugan told me, and another that it is divided into 29 farms which are each a complete financial unit.

When I told all this to my neighbour here in Switzerland, she was surprised. They’ve often employed seasonal farm workers from Romania. These would tell her how they lived, on farms without a machine of any kind, all the work by hand and horse. She told me they live in extreme poverty.

Like I said, Romania is one surprise after another.

*an incorrect number appeared here in the print version of the Oct. 17, 2017 issue of Grainews.

Facts about Romanian agriculture

• Romania is the world’s eighth largest exporter of wheat.
• In 2014 there were 3, 629,660 farms in Romania, of which 92.2 per cent were under five hectares (12.35 acres) in size.
• 84.6 per cent of farmers earned less than 4,000 Euros a year ($5,823) in 2014.
• In 2014, 41 per cent of the farmers were over 64 years of age.
• That year, 44 per cent of the Romanian population of 20 million lived in predominantly rural areas, with 30 percent engaged in agriculture.
• Of the 1,218,264 Euros ($1.77 million) that the EU paid in subsidies, 65 percent went to farmers that received less than 500 Euros ($727) annually.
• Half a per cent of farmers received over 100,000 Euros each ($145,570). Half a percent of farmers received 20 per cent of the subsidies.

The post Romania: One extreme to another appeared first on Grainews.

In the 1960s I spent a lot of time on Massey 90 combines. They had a 36-inch cylinder that was easy to plug in heavy going. The body on top of the cylinder lifted off easily to give good access to manually dig the cylinder out. In tough straw such remedial action could be required many times a day. A young man’s game for sure.

• Read more: Combines I have known, Part 1

Massey Harris then became Massey Ferguson (MF). The MF Super 92 was a dressed up 90 — with a rad screen that lay down beside the combine and a belt that slapped back and forth to help the screen to clean. But, the screens still got plugged in very dusty conditions.

My brother-in-law Roy Gates at Milden, Sask., had two Super 92s plus a 90 for a few crops. Three combines in a field was rare back then and we especially enjoyed roaring down Railway Avenue in Milden on a field move. In one late fall Roy had his three Masseys, another 90 and a Cockshutt 428 on a large field of the farm I was raised on. What took days with my first old pull type took less than a day with that lineup.

The next advance in MF combines was the 410/510. That was the first MF sold complete with cab. It had more capacity but still had a gas engine — 327 or 350. The engine was up right beside the cab, noisy and hot. With no air conditioning the “phone booth” cab was like a sauna on a hot day.

My nephew Terry Gates and I had a 510 each on a hot August day on the home quarter where I was raised. We were down to our shorts and when the wind was right we opened the doors and steered for a while from the platforms.

MF’s next advance: the 750/760. They had an air-conditioned cab, diesel engine and 50- or 60-inch cylinder. My good friend Keith Ayres had two 750s and I spent many comfortable hours on a 750. It was when combining became fun and much of the drudgery of dust, heat and cold was gone. They were quite reliable and we could often run for hours on end with no trouble or stops. In the 1970s-80s the MF 750/760 and 850/860 were a common site in harvest fields in many parts of Western Canada.

On one memorable evening we pulled into a 60 acre field of swathed wheat with the two 750s at 9 p.m. We went one behind the other with a comfortable dust distance. Dumps were picked up on the fly with a Ford F 600 and a 10-inch auger at field edge was used to put wheat in a pile — no waiting for the trucker.

At midnight we pulled out of the field with 2,400 bushels of wheat on the ground. It was a 40-bushel crop — a decent crop in the 1970s. The thrill of that late evening run has stuck with me for all these years.

I wish you all a good harvest for 2017. So far it looks like the exact opposite of the harvest from hell of 2016. If the weather holds, many of you could be all wrapped up by the time this hits your mailbox.

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Hernandez is the lead researcher on a suite of projects measuring aspects of soil quality across different land use types in Alberta.

This spring, Hernandez published a research paper demonstrating that fractal aggregation is a promising way to assess assessing soil quality. Fractal aggregation puts a number on soil quality, Hernandez says, “and with that number we can assess how far along we are in a trajectory and whether we can recover.”

“There are different characteristics of the soil, and this specific method has the advantage of integrating several aspects of soil quality,” he says. “It’s very consistent and robust, and can separate good management from less beneficial management.”

Over the past three years, Hernandez’ graduate students have led four projects looking at soil quality across Alberta. The main focus of their work was the impact of converting native grassland into annual cropland on soil quality. They found that native grassland has superior soil quality.

Controlled traffic farming

One of the most practical aspects of Hernandez’ students’ work looked at the benefits of controlled traffic farming (CTF) on soil quality. Farming using CTF confine their machinery to permanent tracks in the field, year after year, limiting the impact of heavy equipment moving through the field.

Kris Guenette, Hernandez’ graduate student, worked with Controlled Traffic Farming Alberta, a network of eight producers scattered around Alberta. Each of these farmers compared random traffic to CTF in replicated farm-scale plots.

With controlled traffic farming, field traffic can be reduced to 15 per cent of the field or less, versus the typical 50 per cent seen with random equipment movement, according to Peter Gamache, project lead at Controlled Traffic Farming Alberta. The system requires sizing implements as a multiple of the track width (if tracks are 30 feet apart, equipment must be exactly 30, 60 or 90 feet wide).

CTF systems have been adopted by a handful of Australian producers looking to minimize impacts of drought on soil quality. Gamache says producers in the Alberta program have noticed improvements in water infiltration and soil quality.

“You retain those large pores and allow water and air to move,” says Gamache, “and you have a better environment for root growth.”

“Recurring compaction from equipment is a common factor in reducing soil health,” says Hernandez. Using the fractal aggregation soil test and other measurements, Guenette was able to demonstrate a significant difference between compacted soils in control fields and soils in CTF fields.

The tests showed improved porosity and hydroconductivity in the latter, says Hernandez.

Benefits and challenges

Steve Larocque, a private agronomist and owner of a small grain farm near Calgary, was the first producer to sign on to CTF Alberta more than seven years ago. His interest in the program was piqued, he says, after he did a Nuffield scholarship tour in England, New Zealand and Australia looking at CTF systems.

“You can’t just bolt on CTF and expect miracles,” he cautions. “Like no-till it takes years to see the benefits. With no-till we saw them quickly because we cut back on diesel, labour and power. With CTF we’re already fairly efficient, so it’s about improving soil structure and health.”

But Larocque believes there are significant benefits to CTF. His operation has close to 70 per cent soil porosity, he says, and holds a lot of moisture — “way more” than it did before.

In side-by-side trials looking at how quickly rainfall washes down in CTF versus non-CTF fields, Larocque notes that his CTF fields can handle about six inches of rain in under two minutes; one inch of rain can absorb in six seconds.

“It takes time for your soil to repair and to figure out what benefits you can achieve. For us the biggest one is timeliness,” he says. “How do you put a number on timeliness, getting onto the field when you want to? It could mean an application of fungicide for fusarium when you need it.”

Larocque believes more data is needed on CTF in Western Canada before more producers will sign on.

CTF Alberta’s final report (the project wrapped in early 2017) and Hernandez’ research on fractal aggregation soil testing are a start.

“Essentially we’re trying to come up with a metric to measure sustainability, and this is important for people trying to meet sustainability and productivity goals, and also for customers,” says Hernandez. “We need a solid, robust matrix for measuring the sustainability of our production systems.”

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“We’re selling our crops mostly into export, and our exports markets are very sensitive to residual levels of different crop protection products that we use,” said Alberta Wheat Commission chair Kevin Auch, who farms near Carmangay.

“If we don’t use them properly, we can actually endanger those markets.”

Maximum residue limits can differ from product to product and country to country. Some countries base their limits on the internationally recognized Codex Alimentarius, but others don’t — which can create some challenges when it comes time to market grain.

“It can be a fuzzy area to deal with,” said Sheryl Tittlemier, a research scientist with the Canadian Grain Commission.

“Many of these regulations are not easy to locate, and they may be changing or being re-evaluated. It takes effort to find the appropriate information — it can be challenging for us to get this information too, even with all of our experience.

“I can’t imagine the effort required for someone just beginning to wrap their head around this.”

While the Canadian Grain Commission randomly samples bulk export vessels for residues from more than 120 different chemicals, markets like China can test imports for over 400 chemicals, and have a zero tolerance policy on any residues found.

“An importing country that finds pesticides in grain coming from Canada that do not meet their regulations could see that as a health issue and take action against grain coming from Canada,” said Tittlemier.

“I would say that the likelihood of this appears low based on our monitoring data — we hardly detect any pesticides in Canadian grain exports. However, the potential fallout from a situation occurring is large, particularly if an isolated incident leads to a negative perception that spreads to all grain from Canada.”

In some cases, said Auch, shipments have got close to the maximum residue limits, so “it’s on the radar for some of these countries.”

“If we’re getting close to the maximum, probably there are some farmers who are exceeding those levels and it’s being blended in with guys who aren’t,” he said. “You don’t want to be doing too much of that. If everyone is exceeding those levels, then we will have problems in those markets.”

So far, no shipments of Canadian grain have been rejected because they exceeded the maximum residue limits, but “it could very easily happen if we’re not diligent,” he said.

“If farmers don’t realize it’s a problem, it’s not a problem to that farmer,” said Auch. “We’re trying to alert everybody that this could potentially be a big problem.”

Mitigating the risk

At this point, producers should talk to their grain buyers and “closely consider” which pre-harvest products they’re going to use, as well as making note of any other chemicals they used during the growing season.

“There are a number of products that, even though they are registered for use in Canada, grain treated with them is not going to be accepted at elevators,” said Tittlemier.

Members of the Western Grain Elevator Association, which consists of Western Canada’s major grain companies, won’t buy crops in the new 2017-18 crop year (which started Aug. 1) that have been treated with the following products:

• Chlormequat (Manipulator plant growth regulator) on wheat or any other cereal.
• Quinclorac (including Clever Dry Flow Herbicide) on canola.
• Metconazole (including Quash fungicide) on canola.
• Saflufenacil (Heat LQ) used pre-harvest on flax.
• Fluoxastrobin (including Evito fungicide) on soybeans.
• Benzovindiflupyr (Solatenol) (including Elatus Co-Pack or Trivapro Co-Pack fungicide) on soybeans.

(These five pesticides are listed in the Declaration of Eligibility for Delivery form farmers must sign before delivering grain to an elevator.)

Beyond that, producers should always read and follow the label directions.

“It’s almost cliché, but it is very important — make sure that you’re applying your crop protection products at the right rate and the right times on the right crop,” said Auch.

“If you don’t, that’s where the problems come in.”

With pre-harvest glyphosate, for instance, spraying too early can lead to low levels of the chemical in the grain itself — and “our buyers don’t want to be buying our grain with levels of glyphosate.”

“It should be common sense. But when a guy is busy and it’s harvest time, there is a tendency to cut corners,” said Auch. “Don’t cut those corners because it could jeopardize our markets, and we don’t want to jeopardize our markets. That’s the lifeblood of our farms.

“If we lose them, what are we going to do with 80 per cent of the crop that we grow?”

For more information, go to www.keepingitclean.ca.

– With files from Allan Dawson, this article originally appeared on the Alberta Farmer Express.

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