Ed Douglas has always enjoyed a challenge. Farming a fairly large tract of land in heavy clay soil conditions is one of those challenges. Ed and his wife Elaine farm in the McTaggart area of Saskatchewan, and have witnessed the changes in operating techniques of their neighbors and friends. Ed learned early from his father Don, not to be just a follower, but a leader. Ed was educated in engineering at the University of Saskatchewan and worked for a time in Manitoba, before coming back to the family farm.
They tried continuous cropping before many others in the area. Neighbours watched their practices with some skepticism. Eventually, many neighbours adjusted their thinking. They attempted many new specialty crops with varying degrees of success. They always thought a good rotation helped the soil function better. This began rebuilding the organic matter in their soils.
Soil health and management became the main focus of the farming operation. Economic health and realism were always in the forefront of decisions made concerning the farm and so the gradual accumulation of a larger land base proceeded. The family was also growing and eventually found employment opportunities off the farm. This left Ed and Elaine with time management problems involving the logistics of covering the land in a timely fashion.
One son is now a veterinarian, another son is an Ag. Engineer, and the daughter is a lawyer. All this combined with Elaine working actively as a Registered Nurse and doing farm work put even more pressure on the farm. Meanwhile Ed continued to increase his computer business and sit as a director of the Weyburn Inland Terminal.
Something had to change and seeding seemed to be the logical conclusion. For many years, they fall banded liquid fertilizer and seeded the following spring with discers. This combined with the traditional harrow-resulted in an overworked seed bed, in Ed's opinion. His dad still preferred a "good black looking field" and didn't particularly like the appearance of a crop emerging in a stubble row. He thought it looked as if nobody farmed there. The Douglas' always tried to achieve the maximum yield possible. Ed decided after choosing a Flexi-Coil Air Drill that he wanted to modify the unit to allow for additional liquid fertilizer to be applied mid-row. This was supported by the fact they already had large tanks on the farm to serve the fertilizer availability and form they wanted. So Ed's engineering thinking came into play again. He had a separate cruiser tank and pump system manufactured to properly place the amount of fertilizer where he wanted and still do the seeding operation in one pass. This can be managed by basically one person with a trucking assistant.
The neighbors are still watching them closely and wondering how they achieve the yields. Change has not been without some difficulties, but Ed and Elaine are comfortable with their operation as it stands. This past year they put it to the test by taking on some more land in the area. It was a challenging year with somewhat delayed seeding because of excessively wet, cool conditions and an even larger land base. The family was able to give some fall harvesting help and everything turned out pretty good at the end of the day. Ed will always be prepared to adjust and progress to achieve good sound goals that suit their farm plans.
You can contact the Douglas' at McTaggart 306-842-7133.