I was born and raised in Empress, Alberta. Empress is located on the Alberta/Saskatchewan border, in the dry brown soil zone. I started farming with my father after high school. We were in a 50/50 wheat fallow system, a tillage system that was handed down from my grandfather. Our soil ranges from a sandy loam to a clay loam, with some of the land quite hilly and rocky and some quite level and stone free.
The Red Deer and South Saskatchewan rivers join only a few miles south of our farm that results in the area having coulees, hills, and undulating topography. Our tillage system contributed to stony, eroded knolls and soil very susceptible to erosion after any sort of heavy rain. We would usually make three or four tillage passes per year plus a pre-seeding tillage operation to prepare a seed bed and to encourage the wild oats to germinate so we could kill them during the seeding operation. Our seeding equipment consisted of a set of 45-foot Massy Ferguson discers, and a 45-foot harrow packer drawbar.
This system was the norm for our area, until the wake-up call of 1988. That spring saw high winds and drought conditions which devastated the fields on my farm that were in summer fallow. To know that I was partially responsible for this unnecessary devastation was disturbing, and I made a commitment that day to change my farming practices.
Changing farming practices meant me adopting the zero-till system that was as foreign to me as learning a new language. I came from a system where my father and his friends always told me to work the soil to aerate it. If one does not understand the complexity of the soil, that statement does make sense- rip it up and air and water should penetrate better. We now know that this is not only erroneous thinking, but also unsustainable agriculture.
My father and some of my neighbours met my new-found system with scepticism.
I still remember early in the transition years going on a crop tour with my father and passing by a nice crop of lentils, and him asking me, "What in the hell do you have growing there?" Based on his and his father's past practices, my father had a difficult time understanding this new system of no tillage. He soon quietened some of his protests, once he learned that we would not have to spend countless hours cultivating and picking rocks every year. It was not uncommon to spend two full weeks every spring trying to get over the whole farm and clean up the rocks that we had pulled out all year long with the cultivator. This I found to be a colossal waste of time and picking rocks is one job I do not miss.
Moving to direct seeding not only required a change in my thinking, but also in my equipment. In 1989, I purchased a Versatile hoe drill and attempted to go direct seeding. The first year was a struggle, as I soon learned that the first thing I needed to do was to address the trash management. During the following winter I purchased Accu-Plant double disk openers and replaced the shanks on the drill as well as changing from 8-inch centers to 10-inch centres. This was a very time-consuming task, but when spring arrived we truly had our first zero-till drill.
This drill worked well for several years, but as more crops were added to my rotation, cleaning out and calibrating each 7-foot section of the Versatile drill was very time consuming and another change was again necessary. In the winter of 1994, I purchased a John Deere 30-foot cultivator and an already converted JD 665 tow-behind tank. I then met with Hugh Barton and purchased 36 Barton 1 disk openers.
The next step required much head scratching and welding, as I tried to make the openers fit on this cultivator. One of the biggest hurdles to make this work was to get the openers to fit in the center section of the cultivator. The problem here was the tandem walking wheels that were required to support the weight of the cultivator while in transport. To get around this problem, I mounted 4 openers on a beam on the hitch. The tandem walking wheels that were located in the wing sections were cut out and replaced with single wheels. That change and other small modifications to the wing sections allowed me to accommodate all of the openers in the wing sections.
Three years later I updated to the Barton II series and this is what I use today. After three years and about 6000 acres, the openers are in need of new disks and scrapers. Our soil is quite abrasive and I am surprised they have lasted as long as they have. New disks and scrapers will cost about $65 per opener for a total of $2340 to retool the whole drill, which works out to about $0.30/acre. All in all, this drill has worked well for me, as my prime objective was to protect my soil from erosion. With very little soil movement with the use of this drill, the surface matter I have accumulated is quite significant. Penetrating through this trash has actually become a problem at times, especially in years like the past year, when the moist soil was two or more inches below the surface. This resulted in some hair pinning and poor germination.
A positive aspect to the disk openers, besides not pulling rocks out of the ground, is how easy it is to pull. We seed at about 5 miles/per hour and at 1700 /rpm and have had very low fuel consumption. We seem to be covering 2 acres on one gallon of fuel. My father purchased a new Versatile 835 4x4 in 1981 and we are able to seed almost 300 acres on one tank of fuel. I believe the tractor holds about 150 gallons. In addition, we are still using the original tires on the tractor from 1981. All in all, I believe I have about $35,000.00 plus my labour invested in my homemade Barton drill.
Without the use of tillage, one tends to spend a great deal of time on the sprayer. I needed a sprayer where I could easily move around in a hurry. I purchased the Australian computer sprayer for $17,000.00. It is a 60-foot sprayer with a ground drive pump, which eliminated the need for a tractor. I pull it with a Ford ¾ ton 4x4 with a 460 engine and auto transmission. I can spray 160 acres in about 2 ½ hours at a speed of about 12mph and return home at 50 miles/hour. This eliminates the need to haul water several miles to refill the sprayer. This sprayer has allowed me the time to be able to manage the 17 quarters by myself. At times, spraying can be quite rough, as disc openers do not level the soil like a shank drill. I have spilled scalding coffee on my lap more than a few times after driving over a nasty gopher or badger hole. So beware!
The Barton openers work well seeding all kinds of crops. I have seeded everything from Kabuli chickpeas to alfalfa. I have also grown canary seed, coriander, brown and yellow mustard, canola, wheat, durum and several types of pulses. With inputs on the rise and commodity prices tending to go down, I, like many other producers, have introduced alfalfa to my rotation. Most of my neighbours have livestock and I am able to sell my alfalfa crop standing in the field. I now have 200 acres established and my plan is to increase these acres over the next few years. This has lightened my workload and has reduced my input costs at the end of the year.
On the rest of the farm I try to follow a cereal, pulse, cereal rotation, adding some oil seeds and spices when the prices are right. We have always kept roughly 600 acres or ¼ of the total acres each year in chemfallow to act as a bit of security. I watch the markets over the winter and try to get a feel for what crops have a good chance of a price rally, and then plant that into my chemfallow. Crops like canary seed and yellow or brown mustard have been good crops for me.
Pulse crops have always been profitable as well as being good for the soil, and so I try to plant about 500 acres per year. Specifically, Kabuli chickpeas and lentils do well in the southwest part of the province. Although crops such as these are profitable, weed control can be a challenge. While we rarely have problems with perennials such as quack grass and Canada thistle, we do have a heavy population of Kochia weed. I have had poor control with granular herbicides such as Edge, even though it is registered for no-incorporation in a zero-till system. Although Pursuit is not recommended for the brown soil zone, I am having success with a reduced rate of Pursuit of 30% (1 jug/120acres). This is my second year of using Pursuit at the reduced rate and I leave test strips each year so I can compare plant vigour or height in treated and untreated soil. I have noticed no reduction in plant height or yield.
There are countless issues facing agriculture, but the one issue that continues to be at the forefront is the environmental issue. We as farmers, rely heavily on fossil fuels and fertilizers, which are known to contribute to the greenhouse effect. However, farmers who direct seed have a unique opportunity to be able to sequester carbon dioxide in our soil. I have used some of the Prairie Soil Carbon Balance Project information to determine the amount of carbon I may have already stored, and I have established a conservative number of approximately 5000 tons of CO2 that I have stored since 1990. In the brown soil zone, it is understood that an acre of soil can store one half ton of C02 annually. I am not sure as to whether my carbon is worth $2.00 or $20.00/ton, but I am hopeful that someday I, and other direct seeders, will be compensated for what we are doing for the environment.
I suppose what I am most proud of after several years of direct seeding, is how much I have improved my soil. I have virtually eliminated soil erosion on my farm and I have increased the organic matter levels significantly. Soil tests over the last two years indicate levels as high as 3.2%. I consider this to be quite an achievement for the dry brown soil zone. I was able to compare my organic matter levels with my neighbour's tilled soil and found my levels to be at least 1% higher. During this past year of drought, I was able to vividly see the moisture use efficiency of my soil compared to a neighbour, directly across the road. I was amazed at how my stubble crop stayed green and lush, while his tilled summer fallow wheat crop suffered from the drought conditions.
After 12 years of zero-till, I could spend endless hours telling you about all the mistakes I have made. When I began back in 1989, there were few farmers who I could turn to for advice. Now we, as farmers, have unlimited resources to access on how to be successful in a direct seeding system. Groups such as the SSCA of whom I have been fortunate to be a part, work diligently at providing information and addressing issues facing agriculture today. Entering a new system such as zero-till is not without its challenges. However, with a little ingenuity and a whole lot of perseverance, direct seeding is financially rewarding in the long run as well as being advantageous to our environment.