Machinery Sizing Amongst Direct Seeding Farmers

Adrian Johnston, P.Ag.

SSCA Director-at-Large, Melfort

During the 1995 Innovators conference in Saskatoon, participants were invited to fill out a questionnaire on their seeding operation. The questionnaire asked about machine size, acreage farmed, crops seeded and in what order, and days to complete the seeding operation on both a normal year and late year. Working with Agriculture Economics graduate student Cecil Nagy and Prof. Dick Schoney the survey results were compiled and summarized in a short report.

Farms were divided according to acreage seeded and whether they were located in the Prairie (Brown and Dark Brown soil zone) or the Parkland (Black and Gray soil zone) region. We assigned the designation large farms for those producers seeding an average of 3600 acres, 2000 acres for medium and 1200 for small farms. In general, farms represented by Parkland producers at the meeting were larger than those in the prairie region (see Table 1).

Not surprisingly, the larger the farmer, the larger the tractor, seeder and number of acres seeded each day. Parkland farmers were very consistent in their rate of seeding, at 4 ac/day/ft of implement, while seeding rate ranged from 3 to 5 acres/day/ft amongst prairie farmers as they became larger. While the differences were marginal, prairie farmers tended to seed fewer acres/ft of implement and fewer acres/hp unit than in the parkland, indicating that parkland producers are sizing their seeding implement better for acreage farmed.

However, there were some similarities between all farm sizes and regions. For example, all producers report an average of 6-7 hp/ft of seeder, regardless of soil zone or farm size. This result indicates that seeder sizing with power unit is very consistent across the province amongst direct seeding farmers. It is also interesting to note that medium and large farmers reported similar number of seeding days in both normal and late seeding years. While small farmers spent more time putting their crop in on normal years, there was little difference with medium and large farmers in a late, or short, season.

Questionnaire participants were also asked to respond to, if given the opportunity whether they would change their seeding equipment. More parkland farmers viewed their seeding system as being undersized compared to their prairie counterparts. On average, 1/3 of all producers questioned would consider increasing the size of their seeding system. All of these respondents had lower seeded acres/day/ft than average. Similarly, those farmers who would increase their tractor size had lower tractor hp/ft than average.

Fertilizer placement is an important part of one-pass direct seeding. When asked about the importance of side band application of fertilizer at seeding, 87% of parkland producers rated it as a high priority, while only 57% gave it a high rating amongst prairie farmers. Higher fertilizer N rates in the Parkland have a profound effect on the ability of producers to seed place all of their fertilizer N.

The results of this survey questionnaire indicate that the participants in general are not over equipped for their seeded acreage. In a future article I will review the survey responses to questions on crop rotation and harvesting.

Table 1. Farm and machinery sizing data collected at 1995 SSCA Innovators Conference, Saskatoon.