The Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association welcomes Lyle Wright, producer from the Kerrobert area, to fill the west central regional director position. Lyle was elected by acclamation in the recent Board elections. The SSCA would like to thank outgoing director John Bennett for his efforts and commitment to the Board.
Lyle earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan. After earning his degree, Lyle worked at the Ag Canada research station in Swift Current as a technician in the cereal-harvesting program. The main aspect of this research was to determine the proper time to swath and straight cut cereal crops. This preliminary work, under the watchful eye of Murray Dodds, determined that at 35% moisture content or less, there would be no reduction in quantity or quality of the cereals investigated - wheat, barley, oats and rye.
Before moving back to the farm southeast of Kerrobert, Lyle and his wife Carol enjoyed traveling in Europe. They have two children - one married daughter Trisha, who works in the oil patch in Alberta, and one son Michael, who is a commercial pilot. The children are not currently involved in the farm, and Lyle and Carol are neither encouraging nor discouraging their involvement.
Lyle and Carol moved back to the farm in 1974. They farmed approximately 2500 acres throughout the late 70's and early 80's with Lyle's brother Harold and his wife Sally, as well as their parents. In 1988, Harold's family moved to Kelowna to pursue other ventures, and Lyle bought his brother's share of the farm.
Lyle remembers when he started farming in the dry land region of the dark brown soil zone. The rotation was a 50/50 crop-fallow rotation, and the crops grown on the farm were wheat, barley, mustard and flax. The seeding equipment included discers and hoe drills. In the early 90's, Lyle decided to move away from the 50/50 rotation and began experimenting with continuous cropping - even though west central Saskatchewan tends to be a moisture deficit region. Lyle says he was frustrated with the bare soils and depleted soil organic matter on his farm. He began to experiment with low disturbance direct seeding equipment and, over a five-year period, rented various low disturbance drills. Some of these trials were arranged by the local ADD Board soils technician. The drills included the Morris Maxim, Flexicoil, ConservaPak and Bourgault air seeders and drills. Following this experimentation, Lyle decided to invest in a Bourgault 5710 seeding tool.
To help reduce the erosion concerns on their farm, Lyle and Carol planted 80,000 trees on the majority of the farmland. Lyle stated that this equates to 15 miles of shelterbelts. This initiative was a community effort. Three farmers built the tree planter, capable of watering as they planted. In addition, the hedgerows were hand hoed for the first three years. Since then, the planter had been used on numerous farms. In the mid 90's, Lyle and Carol also seeded 500 acres to perennial forages on some of the lighter, variable or saline land. The perennial forages are used for both grazing and forage production, along with the production of grass seed. Lyle uses alfalfa for forage production, an intermediate wheat grass for seed production, and a grass plus legume mixture for grazing.
Because of the drought the past three years, Lyle and Carol have ventured into certified organic crop production. They currently have two quarters that are certified organic, and plan to move the entire farm into certified organic status. Their neighbours have been successful in organic production, and were keeping input costs down, using fewer pesticides and selling their production at a premium. Lyle hopes to marry low disturbance seeding and certified organic production. He currently single pass seeds with his drill with either sweeps or 2" spoons, depending on the weed growth, and then runs a rod-weeder across the field prior to crop emergence. He says the rod-weeder helps roll weeds onto the surface while still leaving significant trash cover (if there was enough moisture to grow a previous crop!) on the soil surface. With the venture into certified organic production, Lyle's main conservation concerns include maintaining soil fertility with the inclusion of pulses and chickling vetch in the rotation, controlling weeds, and preventing wind and water erosion.
Lyle decided to get involved with the SSCA because of the organization's leading role in soil conservation. He stated the SSCA should be proud of its annual trade show and convention format, as well as its success in providing information to farmers.