How We Direct See Our Rotations on Heavy Land

Dale Heenan

Grand Coulee, Saskatchewan

I have been practising direct seeding for sometime. For several years it was just seeding with my air seeder, wide sweeps and harrow packing once or twice. Because of my aging tractor I liked the idea of seeding with knives or small shovels for reduced horse power requirements. I found small shovels and wide shovels distributed the ground similarly.

By far the most successful was the Dutch Eagle spreader tips. This provides:

• low disturbance
• low horsepower requirements
• no stepping
• even emergence
• smoother fields
• seed and fertilizer at the same time
• one pass system
• little or no harrowing on lentils and peas
• incorporates Avadex and Edge
• less wheel tracks
• less soil drifting
• edge on shank
• rotary harrow on Concord
• shallower seeding

SPRAYING

• Roundup 0.4 - 0.75 litre, no ammonia.
• Good foam marker is a must.
• Weed control with spraying dandelion, flixweed, dockweed.
• Spraying - seeding delay hours of herbicides.
• Spray 1/2, custom 1/2.

ROTATION

• Generally one cereal, one pulse.
• Depending on crop prices.
• Wet or dry years - less peas more lentils.
• Durum or Canaryseed.
• Different downgrading factors of crops in wet vs. dry years.
• Different dollar loss from adverse weather.
• Lentil - pea rotation.
• Pea - lentil rotation - Pursuit for buckwheat control.
• Canaryseed - lentil rotation - volunteer canaryseed problem.
• Lentil - canaryseed or durum rotation.
• Pea - canaryseed or durum rotation - nitrogen benefit from pulse crops.

HARVESTING

• Straight combining.
• Desiccation with Reglone.
• 2188 chopper & Kirby for residue management.
• Harrow Master in fall.

FALL WORKING

• Harrowing if needed.
• Avadex & Edge - does it work?.
• Fall urea & Avadex spreading.

HEAVY CLAY PECULIARITIES

• Soil doesn't flow like a loam soil.
• Colder soil in spring for weed growth.
• Climate effects and weed diversity.
• stepping is more of a concern.