A rented Haybuster drill for seeding winter wheat enabled Churchbridge area farmers, Warren and Roger Kaeding, to direct seed for the first time in 1980. At the time, the Kaeding's had already decided they wanted fewer tillage operations on their farm. As they moved from press drills to a hoe drill and then to an air seeder, they were getting closer to their goal. But it was the drought of 1987 & 88 that convinced them to move the entire farm to a direct seeding system. "We were doing high disturbance direct seeding until 1992," said Warren. "Then we equipped our Flexi-Coil 820 with knives and we haven't looked back."
The Kaedings' move to less tillage and direct seeding coincided with their move into the seed business. Wagon Wheel Seeds began growing seed in 1982 and the seed cleaning plant was built in 1984.
As the seed business grew, the need to pay attention to crop rotation also grew. When I visited Warren this fall, I asked him about his crop rotation and how he can manage in the seed business without any tillage. Warren indicated that volunteers are a seed grower's worse enemy and that he has to be careful with the varieties he grows. Wheat is the anchor of the Kaeding rotation. "We grow Hard Red spring (HRSW), Canada Prairie Spring (CPS), and winter wheat," said Warren. "We also grow canola, pulse crops and sometimes, slip oats into the rotation." Sunflowers, the early season, short stature variety are seeded on a small acreage. Warren's comment about growing sunflowers was, "I love them." He explained that they can be seeded late and left to stand in the field until there's bin space in the fall. Another advantage to growing sunflowers is their tolerance to mild salinity. They also do a good job of drying out the ground so an oat crop the following year in saline soil does pretty well.
The Kaedings grow a variety of other crops on small acreages including corn, dry beans, perennial rye grass and nutraceuticals such as evening primrose and willow herb (most commonly known as fireweed).
Of the 5600 acres the Kaedings farm, only 80 of those are in fallow each year. Warren said, "I can keep a check on the volunteers through rotation and herbicides but for some of the high status seeds, I like to put them on the summerfallow. In Year 2, I seed pedigree canola and in Year 3, a Foundation cereal goes in."
In terms of weed control, Warren said that the direct seeding system has enabled them to clean up a lot of perennial weeds. He used quack grass as an example. The farm has moved from having a problem with quack grass to being able to grow registered grass seed. On the other hand, he feels direct seeding has changed the microclimate enough to encourage the growth of different weeds. "We're seeing increases in the populations of narrow leafed hawk's beard, chickweed, wild buckwheat and ball mustard, weeds we didn't have to contend with before." They started using zero incorporated Edge in 1999 so they expect to see better control of some of these now that they have re-introduced the pre-emergent.
A good fertility program has always been part of the Kaeding plan. For years, anhydrous ammonia was applied in the fall with knives and the phosphate went down with the seed. Then in 1997, the Kaedings began using a more complete fertilizer blend. They continue to apply anhydrous in the fall but are now using a blend of 20 lbs N - 25 lbs P - 20 lbs K - 20 lbs S, at seeding. In order to apply the blend, they replaced the knives with Flexi-Coil single side band openers. Generally, the blend has shown good results although they are questioning the value of sulfur for all their crops. "I'd never again seed an oilseed without sulfur and it appears the CPS wheat also benefits from it," said Warren. "We're not sure that we're getting any value from applying sulfur to the other wheat or pulses". Increasing the potash rate on the cereals is something the Kaedings are considering for the spring. "Since we've been using the potash, we've seen a lower incidence of disease, improved straw strength and a great reduction in the amount of lodging we have to contend with", said Warren.
Warren cites a number of reasons for staying with direct seeding. The first is the cost. Warren said that after he did a rough analysis, he concluded that his fuel and labour costs, using current values, are roughly 60% of what they were 10 years ago. The difference would be even greater using real dollars.
Another reason became obvious in the wet spring of 1999. Warren indicated that if the farm had been in a conventional tillage system that year, they would have lost one third of their acres due to the excess moisture. Direct seeding enabled them to seed all their acres in decent time.
Change is the norm for the Kaedings at Wagon Wheel Seed Farm. The spring of 2001 will see its own changes. Gone is the air seeder. It will be replaced with a Flexi-Coil 5000 air drill, single side band openers and 3-inch rubber packers.
Direct seeding and the seed business can co-exist with good management and crop rotation. Wagon Wheel Seeds is yet another example of a farm that's doing just that.