1400 farmers from across western Canada and northern U.S., met at the Regina Exhibition Park, February 11 and 12, to attend the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association's annual Direct Seeding Conference. This was our largest direct seeding conference ever. This is also the second time the conference has been soldout (the 1993 Conference in Moose Jaw also soldout).
"The purpose of the conference was to bring farmers together to get the latest information on direct seeding and how to implement these practices on our farms," says SSCA president Bernie Niedzwiedz. "Farmers had the opportunity to have their questions answered by researchers, industry experts and other farmers," says Niedzwiedz.
This year's conference featured keynote speaker was David Irvine, a family planning consultant. He talked about the six "willings" to build a healthy, sustainalbe environment in your home and to find balance in your life:
The conference had five sessions which offered a mixture of farmers and researchers to provide both experience and first hand information. This year's sessions covered topics on precision farming, crop rotations, fertility, weed control and direct seeding equipment. Speakers talked about how to integrate all this information into a successful direct seeding system.
Once again, the informal evening "Bear Pit" sessions were well attended. There were five concurrent "bearpits": How to Start Direct Seeding, Crop Management in Direct Seeding, Direct Seeding Equipment, Precision Farming and Conserving the Family. These sessions provided farmers with the opportunity to have their questions answered by experts in less formal, smaller groups.
The trade show had 80 exhibitors showing the latest in crop production technology and information related to direct seeding. The trade show continues to be a major attraction of the conference.
Due to the large crowd at the conference this year, we don't have any extra copies of the conference proceedings for sale. However, we plan to to have the proceedings available at our web site *http://paridss.usask.ca/consgroups/ssca/sscahome.htm* soon. Plans are already under way for the 1999 annual meeting and conference in Saskatoon, February 17 and 18, 1999.