Direct Seeders may have come to kick tires or make sure they attended the speech presentations in the general sessions of the recent SSCA Direct Seeding annual workshop held in Regina, but when it came to asking questions, they made sure they attended one of the three bearpit sessions to ask their chosen questions of the podium speakers leading the bearpits.
An enthusiastic discussion took place over the merits of narrow placements versus the spread technique for fertilizer and seed in the machinery bearpit. Many questions were posed for the leaders about which was the best opener and why it worked where it did. Gordon Hultgreen gave some very good information about a study that PAMI has been jointly conducting over the past years in collaboration with other scientists and some cooperating opener manufacturers. and restated his findings on row spacing and seeding rates in direct seeded fields.
Precision fertilizer applications and the fall monitoring of yield and protein values also generated a lot of questions for Kelly Johnson, a producer from southern Saskatchewan.. Kelly has been working with the technology for the past three seasons on his own and surrounding custom operated farms.
The "Mapping The Future" precision farming conference and field day is being held in conjunction with the Western Canada Farm Progress Show in Regina on June 19 and 20, 1996, to present and demonstrate these technologies to farm producers.
Questions about sprayers, application methods and weed control took up some of the remaining time, and participants seemed hesitant to leave even as the bearpit session came to a close. Many farmers came to the front of the room following the formal session to ask even more questions and hear the remaining comments of the speakers. They said they were very pleased with the bearpit, because they had learned much from it. They are looking forward to next years annual workshop and to the SSCA's summer field days being held at Wilkie and Regina respectively.