tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43750486002651526612024-03-13T07:19:32.105-07:00The ramblings of a Nuffield ScholarAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-22391388652050464192014-07-07T17:15:00.001-07:002014-08-31T18:15:22.472-07:00Touring through the Dakotas<div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The first day was mostly driving as we headed to Bismarck in North Dakota with farmers, researchers and advisers from South Africa, Brazil, France, Nepal and Australia.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">However, on the way we did make a couple of stops. The first was at the Irvin Goodon International Wildlife Museum in Boissevain, a little town in Manitoba just north of the US border. It has a fantastic display of taxidermy with many of the animals propped up in real life situations. Tracey's father and 2 uncles run New Zealand's largest taxidermy business, so here a few photos for you Nevin (and Lance and Kerry).</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMrx0k4RBc5sj1s3cGIXCIESZzvNUIZ1PvdvcjBJ9z7tGbXyMiFbNGP0JTkqKQNE56wlcy17SeM6nTSq0B_ac19cSn-OvC90pKtWuEIf6BlJKhuNYG1pfEYEkSRnnXPoDiqLtqlyy5rDFc/s640/blogger-image--1134262466.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMrx0k4RBc5sj1s3cGIXCIESZzvNUIZ1PvdvcjBJ9z7tGbXyMiFbNGP0JTkqKQNE56wlcy17SeM6nTSq0B_ac19cSn-OvC90pKtWuEIf6BlJKhuNYG1pfEYEkSRnnXPoDiqLtqlyy5rDFc/s640/blogger-image--1134262466.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wI5A_1Rq40tX1oa1fsYm8nhhk-7ZUzBO7uSJfr7dud7jR4VggWMOz3s9_YlmQH1i6R2VnINyqPPj9SvXqEkxQ_Y8a15wN2lZMrYb1FS69YiENNYlxeyVebbZXMwRYlPuXxHgzgz1NavJ/s640/blogger-image--888927282.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wI5A_1Rq40tX1oa1fsYm8nhhk-7ZUzBO7uSJfr7dud7jR4VggWMOz3s9_YlmQH1i6R2VnINyqPPj9SvXqEkxQ_Y8a15wN2lZMrYb1FS69YiENNYlxeyVebbZXMwRYlPuXxHgzgz1NavJ/s640/blogger-image--888927282.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4h8eW2xjmME2Iy1NbpnzLsIoU0J4-6G8uJbkxnfbavG_NTlrDDjB65QbbJgDujdvKy0jX6y32B0BbpyutWipjZcAoQZvC4NfqNmPBNgyy-n-UZqo3VGiZbYSm6b0fdKXCW7cpjdRK1UX/s640/blogger-image--26820154.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4h8eW2xjmME2Iy1NbpnzLsIoU0J4-6G8uJbkxnfbavG_NTlrDDjB65QbbJgDujdvKy0jX6y32B0BbpyutWipjZcAoQZvC4NfqNmPBNgyy-n-UZqo3VGiZbYSm6b0fdKXCW7cpjdRK1UX/s640/blogger-image--26820154.jpg"></a></span><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "> Not sure what the significance of the ninja turtle was! </span></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9UDfAjJRYb2SneDEeUCj60MSHdcHZ28OY0Lvda89PT67TxWTB0VEu-Y-R3K2DKvQR1j2QihCaitl3JxCgMNCTbxtWUa9L0ecfLxRBUTgr0noarGGfl_X3VzTvoolbb2rHYtXDRD4EfBS/s640/blogger-image-655056574.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9UDfAjJRYb2SneDEeUCj60MSHdcHZ28OY0Lvda89PT67TxWTB0VEu-Y-R3K2DKvQR1j2QihCaitl3JxCgMNCTbxtWUa9L0ecfLxRBUTgr0noarGGfl_X3VzTvoolbb2rHYtXDRD4EfBS/s640/blogger-image-655056574.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div></div></div></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> Self propelled sprayer - North Dakota style! </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">The second was at the Peace Gardens on the US/Canadian border for lunch - great fried chicken! I think the Peace Garden was purposefully place on the north side of the border because if you haven't spent time there chilling out, you could get very frustrated when your bus takes over 2 hours to clear immigration when all the passport details had been forwarded the day before to fast track our crossing! We had to feel sorry though for the person who was held up because they had "misplaced" his passport! I think the Canadians are a bit easier to deal with when heading north. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Our only agricultural stop for the day was at </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">the USDA ARS (Agriculture Reserach Service) Northern Great Plains research farm at Mandan (just north of Bismarck). </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> One research project has looked at soil organic carbon levels across different rotations and the results have shown that the dynamic rotation has responded best and especially under the worst conditions. The higher soil C levels are driven by the corn biomass, a common theme we were to here for the next few days. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLDfZVmyOd6Qjs0f_SPxOkL7LBU9Bj5AFVb_A4zGxcZAO6LAGYVlc3_l1WFhjylITx9rYleN2sNQL_lSHEHP9t05LNNUL4ed0IgV4g1_SAnXWFYqvcGqbVTflrM_KQrmDc7IzDPHAg8Z4s/s640/blogger-image-1745536181.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLDfZVmyOd6Qjs0f_SPxOkL7LBU9Bj5AFVb_A4zGxcZAO6LAGYVlc3_l1WFhjylITx9rYleN2sNQL_lSHEHP9t05LNNUL4ed0IgV4g1_SAnXWFYqvcGqbVTflrM_KQrmDc7IzDPHAg8Z4s/s640/blogger-image-1745536181.jpg"></font></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Corn seeded into alfalfa (lucerne) at USDA ARS Mandan </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The question is can I put a short season corn into our rotation somehow/somewhere? Hearing how wet and backwards the crops are going at home while I am away with the rain and waterlogging, I'm thinking this might be the year to put some strips in to see what happens. Sorghum, millet, safflower and sunflower are other options to grow and I have grown all except sorghum in a summer crop trial in 2009/10. Sorghum will probably be a better option than corn as less costly and more likely to get to yield in a Mediterranean environment.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">They have a paddock with 31 continuous years of wheat. That's it, I didn't take any notes on it and there was nothing in the handout - I will follow up to see what the results have been.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The USDA team cooked up a great BBQ for dinner - certainly wasn't the chopper beef that Australia sends to the US. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtsSm85YJdY8oUcICXV8HwAtYFNLIA7GC3IJTDtwgEXBlOwYNS2lBXlFfvD8hp_V6CNORkYeA1RmEq0EnSGzsjHa5u97_hEjyd-u_MedrE61Gp-v4nQe-LNM9PuKc_7cE9kNmQYSUQ2g3A/s640/blogger-image--1124379377.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtsSm85YJdY8oUcICXV8HwAtYFNLIA7GC3IJTDtwgEXBlOwYNS2lBXlFfvD8hp_V6CNORkYeA1RmEq0EnSGzsjHa5u97_hEjyd-u_MedrE61Gp-v4nQe-LNM9PuKc_7cE9kNmQYSUQ2g3A/s640/blogger-image--1124379377.jpg"></font></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Think this is the continuous wheat paddock. My note taking did get better.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Spent the night at the Seven Seas Inn in Mandan, appropriately named as that's about how many attempts it took to find Annieka </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Paridaen from Southern Farming Systems a</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> room that wasn't occupied by others! Really, how hard can it be to look at your bookings list and find a room without a name against it. One room had a guy half dressed, another a carton of beer and bourbon cans on the bench - so what was the problem Annieka, too many choices? </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So while Tracey and I were getting to meet the local North Dakotans who joined the tour at Bismarck, Annieka was back and forward for a couple of hours. To top it off, just as she had got into bed, the front desk called asking her to come down and pay the tables bill for the drinks, which they found we had left on the table - but did Annieka get an apology??</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Brown Ranch, Bismarck, North Dakota</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The second day started at Gabe, Shelly and Paul Brown's property at Bismarck where we were joined by Jay Fuhrer, District Conservationist with NRCS (Natural Resource and Conservation Service) and long time advocate of no till and cover crops. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Gabe is widely known for pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with no till, cover crops and the integration of livestock of livestock (cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens) into a system he described as "beyond organic" (he still uses the odd herbicide but not any synthetic fertiliser). His approach over the past 21 years of no till has been to try and mimic nature as closely as possible, and with 140 species in his native pastures (of which approximately 90% are native), it as good an example of a revived native pasture I have seen. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbx64_Q_h9BXMifGQEUidMRDntNGxxZXvswdDnGs_mAWZvn-0JXClggdgbv11G_lKww0rg_590Z2LHwA3RaTW4ZUwTd-PuT8b7D5X_1L1UHGVoJZ281ZjjsN5aKTaWZ9TseCBW-EyPQlfM/s640/blogger-image-1958285709.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbx64_Q_h9BXMifGQEUidMRDntNGxxZXvswdDnGs_mAWZvn-0JXClggdgbv11G_lKww0rg_590Z2LHwA3RaTW4ZUwTd-PuT8b7D5X_1L1UHGVoJZ281ZjjsN5aKTaWZ9TseCBW-EyPQlfM/s640/blogger-image-1958285709.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Paul and Gabe Brown with Jah Fuhrer in the background</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">The Brown's don't use glyphosate, GMO's, fungicides or pesticides and uses high stocking rates with cell grazing, where most pastures are rested for 360 days after grazing. The use of cover and companion crops has allowed the livestock to be integrated into their holistic system, something which they see as mimicking the bison that used to roam the prairies each year, grazing each area once before returning the following season.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWO2Hz7Xd0t67HCPh1GFXYwhWGrlzxK0GVSExUYmaNCoH63yNAmlj04eBGAiWgKPvaO4PtCp0O69IXtOHkLvdwUqGcwCTlkxq93-o9bad_XaPkxTTbVqoWzrnXR_s9dLG3pnvaueVhY-x6/s640/blogger-image--836978600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWO2Hz7Xd0t67HCPh1GFXYwhWGrlzxK0GVSExUYmaNCoH63yNAmlj04eBGAiWgKPvaO4PtCp0O69IXtOHkLvdwUqGcwCTlkxq93-o9bad_XaPkxTTbVqoWzrnXR_s9dLG3pnvaueVhY-x6/s640/blogger-image--836978600.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Strip grazed triticale crop - cover crops to be seeded in the next couple of days.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHwgY4grk2cobRbaMuVtq_Bkgzq8WwOkmDV8BOBCFqeXYP277uE0V-reGKe7xjDGhBM3TsTOJROUOc0qdyIKviFbhDWUXaJ6pgjtadwDB9Avx_JgITJA1gcxTBRMCp9iY0-AHj9bs7QYDh/s640/blogger-image--996937263.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHwgY4grk2cobRbaMuVtq_Bkgzq8WwOkmDV8BOBCFqeXYP277uE0V-reGKe7xjDGhBM3TsTOJROUOc0qdyIKviFbhDWUXaJ6pgjtadwDB9Avx_JgITJA1gcxTBRMCp9iY0-AHj9bs7QYDh/s640/blogger-image--996937263.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Soil good enough to eat!</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Browns sell beef and eggs at local farmers markets in Bismarck at a significant premium. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><br></span></div><div>Menoken Farm, Bismarck, North Dakota</div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The next visit was to Menoken Farm, a 150acre (60ha) educational site owned and operated by the Burleigh County Soil Conservation district and which Jay Fuhrer is involved in it's operation. It was established in 2009 and the condition of the soil highlighted a number of areas of concern common to most soils in the district after decades of continual cultivation - lack of soil cover, minimal biological diversity, poor nutrient cycling, infiltration and soil structure, low soil organic matter levels and little beneficial insect habitiat. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">The farm has 10 large demonstration plots looking at a range of cropping systems targeted at soil health and aiming to eliminate the use of fungicides, insecticides, GMO's, and commercial fertiliser while minimising the use of herbicides, soil disturbance and fossil fuel use. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">These include seeding companion cover crops with cash crops (sunflowers or corn) either in alternate rows or as a mixture in each row. Cattle and sheep have been introduced recent years to cycle nutrients and control weeds while chickens and pigs are being considered. Perennial grasses, legumes and forbs have been introduced this year to increase the plant diversity and to provide a continuous living root. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1v3V3SSFaihb0mdB5zahdUc621DZ2Q7l-ZToJCJm9pkB9N2MOhM-0RD0J_UUoi_3UXOhetH95fZvhhau7Tkikj-rTGQMngGWgGMa2OTUeVh42Vy2fOaIzMIlYz5tGHBajQ9aKiyolUapI/s640/blogger-image--76483994.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1v3V3SSFaihb0mdB5zahdUc621DZ2Q7l-ZToJCJm9pkB9N2MOhM-0RD0J_UUoi_3UXOhetH95fZvhhau7Tkikj-rTGQMngGWgGMa2OTUeVh42Vy2fOaIzMIlYz5tGHBajQ9aKiyolUapI/s640/blogger-image--76483994.jpg"></a></div><br></div></div> Sunflowers interseeded with companion crop</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">A no till demonstration garden was set up in 2011 growing corn, beans and squash as companion plants, known as the 3 sisters by the native Indians, such as the Mandan Indians whose reconstructed village we </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">visited later in the day. The Mandans weren't nomadic like most Indian tribes who followed the Bison herds across the prairies for food, shelter and clothing. The Mandans lived in villages along the Missouri River in North and South Dakota from the early 1500s until the 1880s, when they were virtually wiped out by small pox. They</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> cultivated the three sisters garden (using over 14 different types of corn) as well as caught fish, hunted Bison and collected native plants and fruits. They stored produce in cache pits, a ancient form of refrigeration where a bell shaped pit was dug in the ground and produce buried. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhirsyAMsJEM6jw0eE_xUCd87oxjEUDYeGVSxAcxVryWt4AHo2SAxm4VZg9xfcXcKMGLj0qJ7ocR6KyOBVLoK_lPAVmirOwJMq7y-HthBZCpvx1UZijpf0DRQTJ0NQrisI9gpb1J0fFU8dy/s640/blogger-image-645420330.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhirsyAMsJEM6jw0eE_xUCd87oxjEUDYeGVSxAcxVryWt4AHo2SAxm4VZg9xfcXcKMGLj0qJ7ocR6KyOBVLoK_lPAVmirOwJMq7y-HthBZCpvx1UZijpf0DRQTJ0NQrisI9gpb1J0fFU8dy/s640/blogger-image-645420330.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> The three sisters garden at Menoken Farm </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXDWzPU_o2P-jsNGeFz7EwyonGOAmAy6dlYO7kf_tftZajhYTW6EA85e8-cvfuAV8qR2kDrTL3lVt9dPYMmerABtDxK2wjIVRwxAoASTYvTeHhKJN7uudYklsJ0iiL07DbuQYoXxyIFkmJ/s640/blogger-image-589958355.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXDWzPU_o2P-jsNGeFz7EwyonGOAmAy6dlYO7kf_tftZajhYTW6EA85e8-cvfuAV8qR2kDrTL3lVt9dPYMmerABtDxK2wjIVRwxAoASTYvTeHhKJN7uudYklsJ0iiL07DbuQYoXxyIFkmJ/s640/blogger-image-589958355.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcz6aX2O5Ze8Pyo4Q6BRzIwA2ttzaSq0L24ZkEs0HK8Lu3y_TypdK8f6j9XSn7_-TatOxxgfcrQ6ma73Df-0pSnmkUFErmofSXYF53HPhyijTlcUusktzFEWpEQ39Re4QKCyxGVo2GPjPx/s640/blogger-image-2122543679.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcz6aX2O5Ze8Pyo4Q6BRzIwA2ttzaSq0L24ZkEs0HK8Lu3y_TypdK8f6j9XSn7_-TatOxxgfcrQ6ma73Df-0pSnmkUFErmofSXYF53HPhyijTlcUusktzFEWpEQ39Re4QKCyxGVo2GPjPx/s640/blogger-image-2122543679.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> The infiltration and run off demo comparing different soil covers after 1" (25mm) of </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> simulated rain (high intensity). Interesting the amount of percolation of water (rear jar) </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> through the soil between cover crop and various pasture treatments. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl8hyphenhyphen8k2w5xev0IwY-jL_hyLhViRvR1QVGEPcU_Ofyjdz3-vr5-EaYAJFecsvmJL2GWDDvRVMOCvY4tWzAKpjRnTVYI78QzSmH4N5KbaIYlf7bI5z-6aiob2lyQvYyKyMzDQP8YmEU0NjM/s640/blogger-image--979714795.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl8hyphenhyphen8k2w5xev0IwY-jL_hyLhViRvR1QVGEPcU_Ofyjdz3-vr5-EaYAJFecsvmJL2GWDDvRVMOCvY4tWzAKpjRnTVYI78QzSmH4N5KbaIYlf7bI5z-6aiob2lyQvYyKyMzDQP8YmEU0NjM/s640/blogger-image--979714795.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"> Cross section of a cache pit for storing produce - the original esky/chilly bin/cooler!</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXGIH884zRuTNcnPwOJ-OJiklTB1FqTweSbXHWc0FVt0bikvbH9htZZTYfiyUJ8hv7OgNR7r8hKV2CVEQdEVRcPxUqsEDLHw8ABbItrLiYCExp3nHNTCzhu36D2L2wVY5EQnzfOvdytKs/s640/blogger-image--1623236328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXGIH884zRuTNcnPwOJ-OJiklTB1FqTweSbXHWc0FVt0bikvbH9htZZTYfiyUJ8hv7OgNR7r8hKV2CVEQdEVRcPxUqsEDLHw8ABbItrLiYCExp3nHNTCzhu36D2L2wVY5EQnzfOvdytKs/s640/blogger-image--1623236328.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> Mandan earth lodge - above and below</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3jPjCNh_T-pACkt0iywuk4e4zj_64LqA-hS06rtMtdKR9YcFJEffl8hr0gghgg4GXlsAMkB5_ZL8WtyEKqxynz87sz10hrCcXdh-O_0sHPxUgBbmgBChKrWNDI6RVb0-H5Vby5Nmhg5lU/s640/blogger-image-1932362821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3jPjCNh_T-pACkt0iywuk4e4zj_64LqA-hS06rtMtdKR9YcFJEffl8hr0gghgg4GXlsAMkB5_ZL8WtyEKqxynz87sz10hrCcXdh-O_0sHPxUgBbmgBChKrWNDI6RVb0-H5Vby5Nmhg5lU/s640/blogger-image-1932362821.jpg"></a></div></div></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Miller's Ranch, Mandan, South Dakota</div><div><br></div><div>Our final visit for the day was to Ken Miller. Ken works at Mennoken Farm and farms on the weekend raising beef cattle, corn, alfalfa (lucerne), cereals (wheat and triticale) on both irrigated (pivot) and dryland - not a bad effort for a weekend farmer! </div><div><br></div><div>Ken uses cover crops, high intensity grazing and bale grazing as strategies in his operation to achieve maximum profits, not necessarily maximum yield. Bale grazing is where round hay bales are placed in paddocks over winter and the cattle are strip grazed on a number of bales at a time, instead of being placed in sheds over the winter. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh53-c3Mxr4INyewwjWXYrfWPQfJ73RbEF9baIzkuuaAHg93qrx9rK0oEMtLDwOAvisM52mxZ3Q8uQ-0bmJG0At6LMFLDmU9renonEArneD3bh0g6AfB9V0r2-y_5bl0nTWK26DaPcGtPH/s640/blogger-image--1503379191.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh53-c3Mxr4INyewwjWXYrfWPQfJ73RbEF9baIzkuuaAHg93qrx9rK0oEMtLDwOAvisM52mxZ3Q8uQ-0bmJG0At6LMFLDmU9renonEArneD3bh0g6AfB9V0r2-y_5bl0nTWK26DaPcGtPH/s640/blogger-image--1503379191.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div> Ken in an lucerne (alfalfa) paddock. What are you doing hiding behind Chandra Gerard?</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBHAO-7Xg_0yAdZ8q-2SB0zUl5ALim6THEhZWYvOQh1civTYPQ3adS926rngmbgCSOB1-LvfoPAVhvuphnPt8IZqWWZv-GEQBzW7TgNd2KsEKVFMr_adTN8p34ytv1x9PPCXljau-H0usx/s640/blogger-image--618676232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBHAO-7Xg_0yAdZ8q-2SB0zUl5ALim6THEhZWYvOQh1civTYPQ3adS926rngmbgCSOB1-LvfoPAVhvuphnPt8IZqWWZv-GEQBzW7TgNd2KsEKVFMr_adTN8p34ytv1x9PPCXljau-H0usx/s640/blogger-image--618676232.jpg"></a></div><br></div> Bale grazing - an alternative to over wintering cattle in sheds all winter</div><div><br></div><div>His winter cover crops mixes are based on forage barley, field peas and vetch with turnip, daikon radish, ryegrass, sunflower and sweet clover, while his spring cover crop mixes are a mixture of cowpeas, soybean, millet, Sudan grass, corn, sunflower, pasja turnip, radish and sweet clover. </div><div><br></div><div>Ken has set up grazing cells on his pivot for rotational grazing, a sight common in dairy, but not so in beef herds. If the numbers hadn't stacked up, I guarantee Ken wouldn't be doing it!</div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">We spent the night at the Prairie Knights Casino on the local Indian reservation, just out of Fort Yates. It wasn't anything exciting as they only had poker machines, no tables or high roller rooms, not even a tribute show to the band that once did covers on Roy Orbison - must have been booked in the next night! </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Don't ever think there is a correlation between a meals price and the amount of food served in the US - I had that many ribs I couldn't finish even after sharing with the rest of the table. With not much to keep us entertained, we had an early night and listened to the storm roll in over the prairies during the night - disappointing really after the anticipation in the the bus that afternoon for everyone to get together for a night out on the town to really get to know our touring buddies - next time maybe. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Bieber Farm, Trail City, South Dakota</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">The next day we headed to Rick Beibers farm about 30 minutes west of Mobridge and Lake Oahe. Rick first started in no till in 1987 and by 1991 the whole </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">farm was no till, a legacy of his family's heritage of soil conservation. His grandfather visited the Senate in Washington and lobbied for all counties to have conservation offices, which they still have today. Soil salinity has become a major problem in the county, with most farmers just giving up acres to the problem as it takes hold, whereas Rick has the approach that farming caused the problem, so farming can fix the problem. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Rick farms with his son and a number of South African workers who come out for 7-8 months each year. They farm in a 16"/400mm rainfall and use a combination of cash crops (corn, wheat, sunflowers, radish seed, millet, cover crops seeds), cover crops (4000ha/10 000acres in 2013) and a cow/calf operation where soil health has become the driver of profitability on the farm. The industry rule of thumb is around a pound of nitrogen fetiliser is required to produce a bushel of corn, but Rick is getting close to only using half a pound of commercial nitrogen to produce 150bu corn crops, while his water use efficiency has been improved by around 50%. Such is the success of the system, he still harvested successfull corn crops in the devastating drought of 2012 whilst neighbours crops on conventional cultivation were decimated.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzg8eeTN7E8Cl9r1DXfSvSTxJ6f5jRtNtL1yAaYC1ktW_f7gf8YM0VFbl4foIH_RDDjNGxrpRbN5d5ImpCKg9JYsHn2QUBrh5VrZV6OZV1BOSiY7t8u0X5YI7K9k02qTxsmobEq-N4wAC/s640/blogger-image--2122580501.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzg8eeTN7E8Cl9r1DXfSvSTxJ6f5jRtNtL1yAaYC1ktW_f7gf8YM0VFbl4foIH_RDDjNGxrpRbN5d5ImpCKg9JYsHn2QUBrh5VrZV6OZV1BOSiY7t8u0X5YI7K9k02qTxsmobEq-N4wAC/s640/blogger-image--2122580501.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div> Rick in his corn - he is one passionate advocate of soil health! He was going to drive the</div><div> tour bus across this paddock after 3" (75mm) of rain the previous night except it was only </div><div> a single drive - that's how confident he is of his soil health and structure.</div><div><br></div><div>Rick is a great believer in the 25 second fallow - that's how long it takes for the crop to go in the front of the combine and the straw come out the back end - after that time the seeder is ready to follow behind and start seeding a covercrop. </div><div><br></div><div>One thing Rick isn't a believer in is controlled traffic farming - they have tried it in the past but the nature of his soils combined with high intensity rainfall events has resulted in severe washouts and gully erosion, as often happens on the cultivated farms in the county. Something the guys on the Darling Downs in Queensland might want to arm wrestle him over! 'Horses for courses' is what I'd say. </div><div><br></div><div>One thing I picked up on is Rick using a blend of urea:sulfate of ammonia, the SOA giving the crop a growth boost which increases the chlorophyll concentration of the plant and increases the uptake of the urea nitrates. POST SCRIPT Have just put out this mix in trials across the farm to compare with urea.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxua9zIzKwYLt-b11WdAeEcGvN4_F3Bzb-GnCTPqd4SGikGTbG6XICwuERGfVX7nVPU2QkdYyXBoqUsL1BhMx8AHlXwZVoL3_1eooaneZjKRT34h41f-08KrJNVnKkA_LZQ364rHY7iyNR/s640/blogger-image-303806521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxua9zIzKwYLt-b11WdAeEcGvN4_F3Bzb-GnCTPqd4SGikGTbG6XICwuERGfVX7nVPU2QkdYyXBoqUsL1BhMx8AHlXwZVoL3_1eooaneZjKRT34h41f-08KrJNVnKkA_LZQ364rHY7iyNR/s640/blogger-image-303806521.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div> Example of gully erosion on cultivated land. Rick has spent $250 000 in the past year </div><div> repairing washouts on his farms alone, so imagine the soil loss that has occurred on </div><div> cultivated paddocks. Some gullies have been 6'/1.8m deep. </div><div><br></div><div>The county has experienced it's fair share of population decline as farms have consolidated and many farms are owned by remote owners who farm from a base 100 miles or further away. Rick has undertaken a project to reverse this and to give young farmers-to-be a hand to get onto their own farm. In conjunction with a business partner, land is purchased and the young farmer is financed into taking over the farm while still working for Rick. He considers the success he has had with his system can be shared to teach others a better way to farm and as a result get them into a farm whereas in other circumstances it would be virtually impossible. </div><div><br></div><div>Holzwarth Farm, Gettysburg, South Dakota</div><div><br></div><div>Our next visit was to the family of Ralph, Jenny and Teddy Holzwarth. We were welcomed with a fantastic home cooked meal, thanks to the generosity of Northern Plains, their local grain and input supply co op. </div><div><br></div><div>In similar fashion to Rick, they started no till in 1989 and were completely no till in 1992, farming in a 18-19"/450-475mm environment. </div><div><br></div><div>They don't have a set rotation but use a combination of both spring and winter wheat, corn, sunflowers, soybeans and use cover crops after winter wheat and corn crops, consisting of peas, radish, barley and oats. They have gone to a base rotation where they are using stacked rotation <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">(2 successive crops) of wheat-wheat-corn-corn-soybean. </span> </div><div><br></div><div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgMklTHDDT_iSH9CV0jNV6r2pJ8Co53WeUgwhlSHuczSEK7fF3OaDmPPbb16pR4wd2qFwGRrkb3nUKBJ76bnq-p9R2L65toDLnEVNPlf2LMeGqiL6NNUUXsAnIP7YTOSVEMSewdYv4fIpp/s640/blogger-image--1007254989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgMklTHDDT_iSH9CV0jNV6r2pJ8Co53WeUgwhlSHuczSEK7fF3OaDmPPbb16pR4wd2qFwGRrkb3nUKBJ76bnq-p9R2L65toDLnEVNPlf2LMeGqiL6NNUUXsAnIP7YTOSVEMSewdYv4fIpp/s640/blogger-image--1007254989.jpg"></a></div><br></div></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> Dwayne Beck with Teddy and Ralph in Teddy's shed. Note the bar in the background </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> - also had 3 flat screen TVs and a pretty handy ski boat. A man cave to die for! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwinuWuoMqjMhGxjITUmJK7RPp7d7atWjBzQwZyn_kKBxhQKxSDU6Lhi-_3owlKh1ZuasZ3NoN-ndMIiKS1I9bRaf6d8ptmQIxER_mQ9dIX4P8g_eNc0HemVkhWvT6tq_WUq0AJq7H6S_/s640/blogger-image-278675785.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwinuWuoMqjMhGxjITUmJK7RPp7d7atWjBzQwZyn_kKBxhQKxSDU6Lhi-_3owlKh1ZuasZ3NoN-ndMIiKS1I9bRaf6d8ptmQIxER_mQ9dIX4P8g_eNc0HemVkhWvT6tq_WUq0AJq7H6S_/s640/blogger-image-278675785.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> Corn in spring wheat stubble - missed getting in winter wheat the year before so only</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> has low residue levels. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggMHSdtnRTGghehFRso59qiIyKPyNFZ2HIykQy9jkQ9k_iRUIw2BkLaaEwr9KOycS_qHVJyNk8tlRRoJTSnFybUE5tIKPElQpCcbTqiSWbv-GdHSGoNs3iU31uFkWJiRV-xdccnsC6SMWz/s640/blogger-image-252369836.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggMHSdtnRTGghehFRso59qiIyKPyNFZ2HIykQy9jkQ9k_iRUIw2BkLaaEwr9KOycS_qHVJyNk8tlRRoJTSnFybUE5tIKPElQpCcbTqiSWbv-GdHSGoNs3iU31uFkWJiRV-xdccnsC6SMWz/s640/blogger-image-252369836.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> Sunflowers in corn stubble</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Cronin Farms, Agar, South Dakota</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Our next visit to Cronin farm, owned by Mike and Tye Cronin, was hosted by Dan Forgey, who has worked for the family for 45 years. I found an article on alternative fertiliser equipment before we left for the trip that Dan had written 12 years ago. I was going to try to track him down but thought what was the chance he was still working on the same farm - pretty good as it turned out. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">That's a credit to both parties the relationship has endured that long! I think it might have something to do with Dan's enthusiasm, he just doesn't stop! First met Dan in Winnipeg and I could tell from the 2 presentations he gave that he was not just an employee, but a key part of the farms progress and success over the years. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">I know this is starting to sound a bit repetitive, but Cronin Farms are long time no tillers and have been using CC for 12 years, including cover crop seed crops, as well as running a 800 head cow & calf operation. If it has been tried as a cover crop, chances Dan has tried it. Given it had rained the morning we visited and it was too wet to get out into the paddock, Dan had spent the morning driving around and digging up a few plants of all the crops growing on the farm. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirkldyDdBZdfJKXRiAxin0W2CYT7tnALxHbvpDjzgDE_PBuqCNELI_h-lYeyTNtf5ba8SXXNd9x-fzM2TFJFdY5adGDstbMOMAQQ7tgIERZTau6IezIHgrG1oSnriRLqx86WBPj6fzVSB5/s640/blogger-image-1885501394.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirkldyDdBZdfJKXRiAxin0W2CYT7tnALxHbvpDjzgDE_PBuqCNELI_h-lYeyTNtf5ba8SXXNd9x-fzM2TFJFdY5adGDstbMOMAQQ7tgIERZTau6IezIHgrG1oSnriRLqx86WBPj6fzVSB5/s640/blogger-image-1885501394.jpg"></a></div><br></div> Dan and his paddock tour in the workshop. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Cover crops represent about 10% of the farms rotation and are usually grown after winter wheat or cut silage. Dan likes to diversity in his cover crop mixes and includes oats, flax, lentils and sunflowers. He has tried the approach of Mennoken Farms and has seeded forage soybeans in alternate rows to corn. Now I know there will be plenty of you going 'yeah, that's all great, but who wants to grow less corn?' Fair point, you might think, but the 'proof is in the pudding' moment came in the 2012 drought when much of the corn crop was decimated but look at the 2 photos below. The corn had hung on better where the forage soybean was grown as a companion crop. Why that is, no one can exactly say but it appears it has to do with that hazy area of symbiotic relationship between plant roots. But really, if it works, who cares how - leave that to the researchers and scientists to work out.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaKQtCNr01JH4l4rcAP_2HWh7vRFoIqx0ZkAtZ58cqJ7qx5_0wZsh59j5XySWft8_1T8cqvpNckF20fqWACn0C6rFObpImu4OjSg9txhXDKXsM6htLVsmXC9z3Bpyb-Q2ftTvXjSiyQxW/s640/blogger-image--334054895.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaKQtCNr01JH4l4rcAP_2HWh7vRFoIqx0ZkAtZ58cqJ7qx5_0wZsh59j5XySWft8_1T8cqvpNckF20fqWACn0C6rFObpImu4OjSg9txhXDKXsM6htLVsmXC9z3Bpyb-Q2ftTvXjSiyQxW/s640/blogger-image--334054895.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> Corn in the 2012 drought - things aren't always what they seem.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">The farm doesn't use any insecticide seed treatments on wheat but does use seed fungicide treatments as Dan avoids using foliar fungicides, as they affect aphid and grasshopper control - stay with me here! According to both Dwayne and Dan, fungi infect and kill aphids, but not where fungicides are used obviously. Grasshoppers need bare ground to warm their bodies, so no till helps reduce this whereas fungi infect grasshoppers as they do aphids. As often is the case, controlling one problem has effects in other areas. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">One new cover crop that Dan is trying is Teff grass, which is not a great competitor but once established has a great fibrous root and cut be cut for hay like lucerne (alfalfa). </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Kent and Brain Tinkler, Pierre, South Dakota</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">The final visit of the day was to Kent and Brian Hinkler's farm. The farm used a traditional summer fallow - small grains rotation until the drought in the 1980s which saw the introduction of no till and by 1994 the whole farm was in no till. The area farmed has remained constant around 4000 acres (1600 ha), but the harvested area has increased by around 30% as the introduction of cover crops and new cash crops has allowed for more crops to be sown and harvested. This has also enabled the workload to be spread out and labour to be utilised more efficiently. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Kent wanted to buy a new planter a few years ago and when he started looking at what was available, he couldn't find one he was completely happy with, but liked components of various planters. So in the name of farmers ingenuity, Kent bought al, the components and built his own 60' (18m) planter on 20" (50cm) rows. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtsklFYQ4ALbuYe1m5cA8DAmXzPy3shzDI1pWpc-ZcuXMXm95WqEVcy-ULvPyGvWXT0wbQ-chGr_LpxDfYLbkA-USElLLO-eo9xjEJOPyghUtgp-q22-VXzwYcjirW1ritM3Yl1TUcc8kF/s640/blogger-image-1355709565.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtsklFYQ4ALbuYe1m5cA8DAmXzPy3shzDI1pWpc-ZcuXMXm95WqEVcy-ULvPyGvWXT0wbQ-chGr_LpxDfYLbkA-USElLLO-eo9xjEJOPyghUtgp-q22-VXzwYcjirW1ritM3Yl1TUcc8kF/s640/blogger-image-1355709565.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> "Just happened Max, you know, a p-p-piece from here, a p-p-piece from there", the mechanic in Mad Max (classic Australian movie from the 1979) on describing to Max how he out together the V8 Interceptor.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz9P2l0HviwX8vVj7UP46lsL3-ywLB32yQl2B52wPuNfHNKigvJ33VJwpvKlR9a56TPOUGjVtGXRnVnsCty8BRaLY8LkbWY1V-4AobH06jhU2HgSqPRQnVCGZhDzMS1efM32PvVutNmd5v/s640/blogger-image-907099723.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz9P2l0HviwX8vVj7UP46lsL3-ywLB32yQl2B52wPuNfHNKigvJ33VJwpvKlR9a56TPOUGjVtGXRnVnsCty8BRaLY8LkbWY1V-4AobH06jhU2HgSqPRQnVCGZhDzMS1efM32PvVutNmd5v/s640/blogger-image-907099723.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> It's an all liquid affair - except for seed, still working on that one! Front tanks are phosphorus, rear quad tanks and front toolbar tanks are nitrogen and rear toolbar tank is seed. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Third time lucky with the last days notes! Thats been my excuse why its taken so long to get the next chapter of my blog out. The first time I lost them the iPad went flat before I hit the save button and then last time I logged on I had been told someone had accessed by blog 9 days prior (sure it wasn't me), so had to reset the password, but then discovered it had lost the last blog addition I had done. A hard lesson learnt - twice!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">So here we go.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Our last night was spent in Pierre, the capital of South Dakota with only about 14000 people. It's a historical thing, the towns declared each states capital haven't always progressed to be the biggest city in the state, and and no one wants to give it the title to their big brother, do they? </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">It was a touch of déjà vu arriving in Pierre, having stayed there almost 10 years ago on a bus trip through the US and Canada with Bill Crabtree, a no till consultant from Western Australia. And guess who was on bus trip with us, No Till Bill himself! Although Bill must have been a bit excited about being back in Pierre visiting Dwayne Beck as after a couple of pre dinner wines he started doing impersonations of his alter ego, Sméagal (aka Gollum) from Lord Of The Rings over dinner. I would show a photo but thought I don't want to scare any young children (or old ones for that matter). Great to see you still in fine form Bill. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">After dinner we enjoyed a few drinks at the Legions club overlooking the Missouri River, knowing from my last visit that if we saw out the closing hours there, we could go across the river for another hour of drinks overlooking the river. The Missouri is the border for Central and Western time zones. Luckily we decided to go bed instead (unlike the last visit, but that's another whole story that involves local farmer Ed, his pick up, stock whip, lasso and the beer in his cooler parked on the front lawn of the motel with the sun coming up!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiutDWZ0Agt__sRBHqi6fjAlPPIfnW2Pnilo00JrvAbiBLRhnlODuzxuea-Y2Uz6XSEjrcJCZD73dnNDbA9ZRlZJeLIYKYlXIG6jnRDOUAZa7evFHRqXVOm0zprMbPAvJwMkEGKl8rIhGT8/s640/blogger-image--244023921.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiutDWZ0Agt__sRBHqi6fjAlPPIfnW2Pnilo00JrvAbiBLRhnlODuzxuea-Y2Uz6XSEjrcJCZD73dnNDbA9ZRlZJeLIYKYlXIG6jnRDOUAZa7evFHRqXVOm0zprMbPAvJwMkEGKl8rIhGT8/s640/blogger-image--244023921.jpg"></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Bill was put on rations! </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2XUOrlF_EniXh04H6nO1InykgdKrTdrIz4C96Z0qtAXDxVgAs7syIKVoeUsaDCPUBehyQGatqcPwhAgUUo5CNoT7kUNltpSqu0FQcVPx1955p8zGHh7mbxCP-DyLRYcHHG6lPBO2N1Eim/s640/blogger-image--1988830936.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2XUOrlF_EniXh04H6nO1InykgdKrTdrIz4C96Z0qtAXDxVgAs7syIKVoeUsaDCPUBehyQGatqcPwhAgUUo5CNoT7kUNltpSqu0FQcVPx1955p8zGHh7mbxCP-DyLRYcHHG6lPBO2N1Eim/s640/blogger-image--1988830936.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">This sign was at the motel Bill and I stayed at 10 years ago. Perhaps this could be the new Nuffield logo??</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Our final day of the tour was on the Sunday morning with Dwayne Beck, manager at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm. It was my visit here 10 years ago that was one of the major influences in changing my thinking and approach to looking at our rotation and farming system and where opportunistic summer cropping and/or cover cropping could fit.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">The aim of the farm is to "identify, research and demonstrate methods if strengthening and stabilising the agricultural economy". The farm, originally owned by South Dakota State University, is owned by a not for profit group comprising local farmers (including all of those we visited) which owns the land and plant and equipment. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">The South Dakota State University conducts and manages the research on the farm and the production side of the farm provides roughly 80% of these funds, therefore the farm needs to be profitable to fund research. This model of production funded research, set up in 1983, was established to minimise the effect of external influences, including commercial and political groups.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">The farm was originally a conventional tillage research farm and when the current model was established in 1983, a substantial investment in land, labour and machinery would have been required for production to be able generate sufficient income to support research. The plan to overcome this limitation was to use diverse crop rotations combined with no till, which would enable high water crops (eg. corn), normally considered marginal under tillage, to be grown. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">I guess this is one train of thought I have had for a number of years since I established a full stubble retention no till system. Can the no till system be leveraged by adding a wider range of crops at different times of the year when moisture allows, but realising this will mean changing our seeding management from a static (only thinking we can seed in April - May) to a dynamic system (being ready to seed at anytime of the year).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Dwayne's philosophy is that research is all about systems, it goes beyond the agronomy. This holistic approach was adopted from the start as there was little research into the the farming practices the farm was intending to embark on, so research needed to fill the gaps as they went along.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">The main change in thinking that has taken place at the farm and for surrounding farmers has been the realisation that long term farm profitability and sustainability is based on natural cycles and principles, which are an ally not an enemy. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Warm season grass, warm season broadleaf and cool season broadleaf crops have been introduced to the traditional cool season grasses (winter cereals) that have been grown. Stacked rotations (where a crop is grown 2 years in succession and has a long break until grown again) have been developed based on a corn-corn-soybean-soybean-wheat-wheat rotation with cover crops grown in between. The aim of this rotation is to keep the crop sequence and interval diverse, compared to the rotation many of us use (wheat-canola, cereal-canola-legume in various combinations), where weeds and insects adopt life cycles on this regularity, which is the basis for any resistance in a population.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">One of the trials that has been conducted on the farm for a number of years is drought resistant corn. The yield difference between dryland and irrigated plots across other sites has been 40-50%, but on the research farm, it has only been 10%. The company suspected Dwayne was running the irrigator over the dryland plots! So what does that say about the soil health that has built up over the years for this systems approach. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Another interesting aspect of the farm is that all soil P levels are <5ppm (Olsen). Starter fertiliser is used in all crops but the soil mycorrhizae network developed with the rotation is a major source of P to the plants, accessing the P normally considered unavailable to plants.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">The organic C levels have been raised in the soil surface but not at depth (>25cm) so lucerne (alfalfa) has been introduced to look at building C levels deeper in the profile. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Not all the research on the farm is directly related to agriculture. The farm has set a target to be fossil fuel neutral by 2026, so are looking at technologies to reduce their fossil fuel use. Various building insulation materials are being assessed in situ in the workshop wall as well as adopting low energy heating systems for the workshop. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Dakota Lakes Research Farm under Dwayne's guidance has made a significant contribution to the understanding of how agricultural systems can learn from the local natural systems and adopt practices and systems to suit. Dwayne always said the buffalo is the worlds best seeding system! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">So our tour of the Dakotas came to an end and we parted ways, although one of our South African friends Peter was left in Pierre hospital as he had been unwell for a couple of days. Hope you got better Peter and made it home safely.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaCAGW1OCG8VVXZMmSKw_TlDBqQ3eakYAJB3e8hBO_LkIo84_Q4e9h96F_ctuHJPm3Ji9SnefdYi9ok_iNVOfWog38TGisHxtAT-aKf_b03XTGSvsllgscP6MxrmARG7AUlLVgJfreHZ8l/s640/blogger-image--1608382522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaCAGW1OCG8VVXZMmSKw_TlDBqQ3eakYAJB3e8hBO_LkIo84_Q4e9h96F_ctuHJPm3Ji9SnefdYi9ok_iNVOfWog38TGisHxtAT-aKf_b03XTGSvsllgscP6MxrmARG7AUlLVgJfreHZ8l/s640/blogger-image--1608382522.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "> Agricultural enthusiasts from around the world.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">Tracey and I together with Annieka headed back to Fargo with Abbey, the soil doctor (as we called her) from NDSU (North Dakota State University) for the next part of the trip. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; ">More to come soon!!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; "><br></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-33182255736658707432014-07-03T06:02:00.001-07:002014-07-07T17:43:40.162-07:00Canada and the World Congress of Conservation AgricultureMy first stop on this last Nuffield trip was to the World Congress of Conservation Agriculture in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Tracey and I flew out on Thursday 19th to Winnipeg via Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver - a marathon 41 hour trip from the time we drove out the gate from home. It was a good weekend to land in Winnipeg with the jazz festival and the aboriginal day celebrations and concert with Billy Ray Cyrus as the headline act. So I am proud to say I have still not seen Billy in concert. <div><br></div><div>The congress was attended by nearly 400 people (including 7 other <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">Nuffield Scholars) </span>from 40 countries. I guess I should start by defining what conservation agriculture(CA) is in case some of you are scratching your head and wondering what it is, even though you know what it means. The 3 principles of conservation agriculture are, as defined by the FAO, are : </div><div><br></div><div>1. Seeding with a no till system</div><div>2. Permanent ground cover, either as living crop or crop stubble/mulch</div><div>3. Minimum 3 crops in rotation. </div><div><br></div><div>It is estimated their is 155 million ha of CA in the world, approximately 11% of arable land with 51% in the developed world and 49% in the developing world. On top of this, there is an extra 20 million ha of no till in the world that isn't true CA (eg. rice in India). </div><div><br></div><div>The opening address was by David Montgomery, the author of 'Dirt - The Erosion of Civilisations', which looks at the extinction of civilisations due to the degradation of the soils that supported their existence. Most civilisations have lasted <a href="tel:800-2000" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors-result="0">800-2000</a> years and the development of the plough changed the balance between soils formation and soil erosion. </div><div><br></div><div>Soil loss is a problem not because we farm, but because of how we farm. </div><div><br></div><div>Areas of the Palouse region in Washington state which have loess soils on steep slopes lost 5' (1.5m) of soil from 1911-1961. World soil erosion losses was estimated in 1992 to be 23 billion ton/year, equivalent to 0.7% of total world soil. For the last 500 million years, soil loss has been estimated at 1" (25mm) every 1400 years, while it is presently estimated at 1" (25mm) every 500 years. </div><div><br></div><div>So the question is can we build soils quicker than nature? It has been done with the Plaggen soils in Europe, where soils have even established on reclaimed sea beds (saw that in the Netherlands last year) and the Terra Presta soils in the Amazon. This is the ultimate aim of any farming system one would hope and I believe that incorporating a production system that utilises no till, diverse rotations and cover crops will reach this goal over time, not just maintain the status quo. </div><div><br></div><div>The conference was a mix of panel and concurrent discussions and some of the key points I took from it were as follows. </div><div><br></div><div>Kristine Nichols, USDA soil microbiologist, presented on water use efficiency (WUE) in no till wheat in North Dakota. The WUE for a dynamic rotation was 16-17% better than 3 and 5 year set rotations, 19% better than continuous wheat and 62% better than the fallow-wheat rotation. Our natural inclination is that water or fertility is the limiting factor whereas really carbon is the limiting input, it is the driver of soil biology and health, which supplies nutrients on demand as opposed to artificial fertilisation which is trying to mimic this process. </div><div><br></div><div>The question is how much water does a plant need when comparing a monoculture versus a cover crop system. </div><div><br></div><div>Jill Clapperton spoke on the need to think of soil productivity as more than just yield, it includes the provision of nutrients for plant uptake which in turn are required for human nutrition (see Evan Ryan's Nuffield Scholarship report on fertilising with trace elements for human nutrition for more information). Soil C from roots retains and forms more stable aggregates than plant carbon. </div><div><br></div><div>Frederic Thomas, a farmer and no till/cover crop consultant from France, had two great quotes :</div><div><br></div><div>"Don't find excuses, find solutions", in respect to critics of cover crops, and </div><div><br></div><div>"Replace steel by roots, fuel by photosynthesis, and urea by nodules".</div><div><br></div><div>There has been a push in France and Switerland, in particular, to develop a system where cover crops are used to virtually eliminate the use of glyphosate. Easier said than done, but they are pursuing it. </div><div><br></div><div>Blake Vince, a fellow Nuffield Scholar studying cover crops, made the point that as farmers, we are after financial yield, not just production yield. Higher yield doesn't always mean higher profitability (I'll talk more about his later when I get to the farm tour).</div><div><br></div><div>Emit Roy, President and CEO of the International Fertilizer Development Centre, outlined the development of deep placement of urea in rice paddies in Bangladesh. A pressing machine is used to produce urea briquettes which were pushed in deep between 4 plants and resulted in less weed growth and better nitrogen uptake and reduced losses. The placement is hard physical work so an applicator was developed, which while not increasing the speed of application, makes it easier for whoever is doing it. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfFU7ryixcLhS70U4UWjjVr_3G_lO5P_gh3xdrlhpqSekqp3eAsrWmGwYoI3fhQAg4PYm0AauxNjCsnT6HVN2NL2XQQRZ3RryD4aXzySB8SUfKS0fQE-Qwnfb0xvvOtD_EOZysfXe4LZj/s640/blogger-image-1761037939.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfFU7ryixcLhS70U4UWjjVr_3G_lO5P_gh3xdrlhpqSekqp3eAsrWmGwYoI3fhQAg4PYm0AauxNjCsnT6HVN2NL2XQQRZ3RryD4aXzySB8SUfKS0fQE-Qwnfb0xvvOtD_EOZysfXe4LZj/s640/blogger-image-1761037939.jpg"></a></div> </div>A Bangladeshi farmer using a self loading deep placement applicator Photo IFDC</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWG6gcCDuCGNVzFPbFUaeu_p5MvhtRPxme7jRbsyYYqWDaCyTj7SAlsuMtmDpC4TP1G4SPYzoiNS48o6hsSoNaoYj2M_jhUH9ezyk4bBVSrCf_ZoG12KSeymGVP_qYJllEmBPrISBtGV9/s640/blogger-image-2073075814.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWG6gcCDuCGNVzFPbFUaeu_p5MvhtRPxme7jRbsyYYqWDaCyTj7SAlsuMtmDpC4TP1G4SPYzoiNS48o6hsSoNaoYj2M_jhUH9ezyk4bBVSrCf_ZoG12KSeymGVP_qYJllEmBPrISBtGV9/s640/blogger-image-2073075814.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Manual seed and seed/fertiliser applicators developed in China - USD$17 and $20 each! </div><br></div></div><div><br></div><div>Nick Betts from Grain Farmers Ontario, which represents 28 000 farmers with $9 billion of sales from corn, soybeans and wheat, spoke of the different meanings of sustainability between farmers and consumers.</div><div><br></div><div> Lee Moats, a farmer and former chair of Pulse Canada, questioned what is sustainable sourcing, a term starting to be used by companies in their marketing programs. In terms of response to consumer demand, his mantra was "don't tell me what to do, tell me what you want".</div><div><br></div><div>Stephen Loss, an Australian working with the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Northern Iraq around Mosul is working with local farmers to adopt no till systems which has led to small scale manufacturing of a locally designed drill. Such is the state of unrest and violence around Mosul that the three farmers that were going to attend the conference couldn't leave their families. Martin also works in Syria where the use of no till continues for as much as anything that it is safer then ploughing - less time spent in the paddock reduces the chance of being shot. It really is a different world that we live in!</div><div><br></div><div>The only speaker that was able to fill every seat of the congress was Howard Buffet, farmer, philanthropist and son of Warren Buffet. Howard farms with his son on 1500 acres in Illinois, along with a number of research farms around the world. They have used no till for 20 years and cover crops for 6 years and Howard believes US farmers are being back by attitudes to CA and they have been given a free ride for a long time. This is in reference to the continuing problem over 20 years of nutrient runoff from farms that drain into the Mississippi River and end up in the Gulf of Mexico. Unless the problem is addressed by farmers, will the government regulate for control? </div><div><br></div><div>The political landscape in the US is changing with the numbers moving away from farmers, as it is in most countries, so a collision course on water issues needs to be averted by farmers or they will be defeated and regulated. In this respect, government needs to be an agent for change (the carrot rather than the stick).</div><div><br></div><div>In response to a question on whether subsidies to US farmers are preventing the adoption of CA, his response was that the majority of US farmers are "lazy" as a result of the subsidy programs. Generally, those countries with the poorest and/or least subsidised farmers are the most innovative and efficient, they can't afford to be anything but. I don't think Australian farmers would disagree! </div><div><br></div><div>I got a chance to ask him a question regarding how to address the growing divide between farmers and consumers. his first response was that is it's very hard to rebut correct information on social media and as farmers, we are often portrayed in a light that is far from what we do by all sorts of self interest groups. The problem with any accused is that even if you are innocent, the tarnish often never goes away, and the more you protest, the more people think you are guilty. We here it all the time, but agriculture does need its own spin doctors, and that includes each of us speaking up whenever we get a chance. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7UhpJ9Qf5AtztrB-Jc0tiB27f4ZVDzTNCym3siwyDaPWWgqpkyVD6sWDo2UKj6DJg75_9vAu9bo5yCbmmGtvB3fpJtV5qvZr-YjBfyiUVeBpeEJV-NH1tW-t0OlFhjOvkK2v0DrclG2j/s640/blogger-image--1258414536.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7UhpJ9Qf5AtztrB-Jc0tiB27f4ZVDzTNCym3siwyDaPWWgqpkyVD6sWDo2UKj6DJg75_9vAu9bo5yCbmmGtvB3fpJtV5qvZr-YjBfyiUVeBpeEJV-NH1tW-t0OlFhjOvkK2v0DrclG2j/s640/blogger-image--1258414536.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Not every day you get a photo with Warren Buffet and get to ask him a question! </div><div>With Amir Kassam, FAO, UK, Karen Scanlon, CTIC, Canada, Howard Buffet and Bill Crabtree, Australia.</div><div><br></div><div>We visited Kelburn Farm, a showcase farm and crop development centre established by the Richardson family after the Second World War when it was initially used to research cattle breeds. Caught up with Kay Meyer, whose farm I visited in 2010 on the Cross Slot tour of Washington state as her husband Tye was our guide for the tour - small world. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-NamSMOkvh_dZtwEIb6qNAlObyzBDtF-Q0Y8hpfZUZEYUMt5l1ttoqGqLcAlXRSUUA1UZC6q5Xb-iNOf46Q9J-gKLrNp0MwKRt_R7IEe4uH75R_YELKU-RmlY1c0Os11Wf3PmMFqZ2Boa/s640/blogger-image--268445097.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-NamSMOkvh_dZtwEIb6qNAlObyzBDtF-Q0Y8hpfZUZEYUMt5l1ttoqGqLcAlXRSUUA1UZC6q5Xb-iNOf46Q9J-gKLrNp0MwKRt_R7IEe4uH75R_YELKU-RmlY1c0Os11Wf3PmMFqZ2Boa/s640/blogger-image--268445097.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Dinner at Kelburn Farm with Seth Watkins, USA, Richard Heath, Australia, Kay Meyer, USA, Annieka Paridaen, Australia and Tracey</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLEFWl239Aoxn_CcCI-UI2R7OpQhtsUQs6G5t7oM5l2vAb7LjMU3L-fJQA0u10sgcaIKJKLzV0gFsnRg0N48lj7CO8pgmvGoQPzFut4-4K6l4WhAPm7SOXFi8CfqAOQjwhfI7Lvjs8z-Ep/s640/blogger-image--80891656.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLEFWl239Aoxn_CcCI-UI2R7OpQhtsUQs6G5t7oM5l2vAb7LjMU3L-fJQA0u10sgcaIKJKLzV0gFsnRg0N48lj7CO8pgmvGoQPzFut4-4K6l4WhAPm7SOXFi8CfqAOQjwhfI7Lvjs8z-Ep/s640/blogger-image--80891656.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Four wheel drive track articulated tractor - North American Style (note the drive cog in the track)</div><div><br></div><div>The diversity of attendees that attended the conference was it's strength and I made contact with many people that I had little time to speak to but will be able to follow up when I get home - perhaps not straight away, I might have some work to do and a house to finish renovating. </div><div><br></div><div>Following the conference, we joined a 4 day tour of farms and research stations in North and South Dakota. More on that to come. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-34575751052217077282014-03-30T00:20:00.001-07:002014-04-11T15:55:58.876-07:00The UK squeeze<div>Having left France without a visit to Paris on our honeymoon (oops!!), we flew to Edinburgh on Friday (the 21st - 3 long weeks ago) for a weekend of sightseeing. For those who haven't been before, Edinburgh is a beautiful city full of history and fantastic old buildings. It is split into the old town and the new town, built in the 1700's, with torture and hangings the most popular form of family entertainment in years of old. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-ZBE8ntRz_yxxxpXnTmJqtolF-6lkaUCK571r8XIRLBuY9tp0mTOpC4mIuhRN2vlaTZ00QTMRHlMDT853lEEvCZ3oeEstWY1pG-m3qTjraFkNUOn_kovXFdBL3odc65gJg05kHf-CxeV/s640/blogger-image-440433533.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-ZBE8ntRz_yxxxpXnTmJqtolF-6lkaUCK571r8XIRLBuY9tp0mTOpC4mIuhRN2vlaTZ00QTMRHlMDT853lEEvCZ3oeEstWY1pG-m3qTjraFkNUOn_kovXFdBL3odc65gJg05kHf-CxeV/s640/blogger-image-440433533.jpg"></a></div><br></div>This is the view of George Heriots school (one of Scotland's most prestigious schools - and Zom is the IT director!!) from Greyfriars cemetery next door - both venues inspiration for JK Rowling and a series of books she wrote! </div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfaj738_xeOSBlMai__mUIAa6LKt1YF6h08AzVa0eRnj_IRQNtSduz_Co9zbhrNCcjIZ04yRBQzl9UsVMBe8Qt5Z4P8jR1Q19DoVgqUZS-nimCStM2Fxem1ugo9tgEaoichYCMBgfQpKE/s640/blogger-image-201916335.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfaj738_xeOSBlMai__mUIAa6LKt1YF6h08AzVa0eRnj_IRQNtSduz_Co9zbhrNCcjIZ04yRBQzl9UsVMBe8Qt5Z4P8jR1Q19DoVgqUZS-nimCStM2Fxem1ugo9tgEaoichYCMBgfQpKE/s640/blogger-image-201916335.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br></div><div>View Of Edinburgh Castle</div><div><br></div><div>While we we there, we also caught up with two friends from uni days (University of New England), Zom (Adrian Semmler) with his wife Gillian and daughter Georgian, and Nudge (Grant Jones) and daughter Olivia for lunch at their local pub, reported to have had a licensed premises operating on the site since 900. Yes, that's 900, not 1900, making it the oldest pub in Scotland if not the UK. And to boot it has its own skittles (bowling) alley.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRhhhjwFOS9WxxOC_WJT4nCrhM0qzV2H3VSZl63qgFqSoDlVCEBfOj5sz8l4Ix-MhI4bBXhz1NZlNX4HDxVsDi1V6uc3m1LLMYozZQRAp3eim_sfzhALjSLkxN6i67OGn1SrhlF4txQbE/s640/blogger-image-539243100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRhhhjwFOS9WxxOC_WJT4nCrhM0qzV2H3VSZl63qgFqSoDlVCEBfOj5sz8l4Ix-MhI4bBXhz1NZlNX4HDxVsDi1V6uc3m1LLMYozZQRAp3eim_sfzhALjSLkxN6i67OGn1SrhlF4txQbE/s640/blogger-image-539243100.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Zom, Tracey, Gillian, Olivia and Georgina (sorry Nudge, you didn't fit in) in Scotland's oldest pub.</div><div><br></div><div>Made our way on Sunday afternoon to stay at with Ross and Caroline Millar and there kids Finlay and Sophie on their farm just out of Dundee. Caroline is a 2013 Nuffield scholar too and runs The Hideaway Experience, three 5 star self catering apartments on the farm that are superb with a great view of the valley below. We were lucky enough to get a night in The Honeymooners, a treat that was thoroughly enjoyed, especially the hot tub and a starlight sky on Sunday night, only after I had helped Ross check the ewes that had just started lambing. Monday we had a look around the farm and did a drive down the coast road to St. Andrews (just another golf club, right?), before dinner at the local pub next to Glamis Castle. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKwpR2VOru3qRJS7kY8a5tojE7rNSWAwl9qJ814h-Kk3-9EbdCjqQgv1PvoGV61yBPHcpQFY94F1YzHORkasSa00SgH6RkXfhzYVFYik-RpT5ARzBD_UP_NLui-BM9qiCZLvLTto81NFNJ/s640/blogger-image--240361782.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKwpR2VOru3qRJS7kY8a5tojE7rNSWAwl9qJ814h-Kk3-9EbdCjqQgv1PvoGV61yBPHcpQFY94F1YzHORkasSa00SgH6RkXfhzYVFYik-RpT5ARzBD_UP_NLui-BM9qiCZLvLTto81NFNJ/s640/blogger-image--240361782.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>The Honeymooners cabin and The Hideaway Experience - we could have hidden there all week! </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAR6FHjhe4R3KrvHBBoqz6m_iy23wFUXfWTUzH3KqfDDuqlJdUWAWKA7eHEchpYDHx7xrdkR2tZem-iZH7tjn7E9OV7OMA_Qx6JTJq0r_xuRyDgCbsIwT-a7gt0aFt3vnS26UidrBD1SAy/s640/blogger-image-1449006410.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAR6FHjhe4R3KrvHBBoqz6m_iy23wFUXfWTUzH3KqfDDuqlJdUWAWKA7eHEchpYDHx7xrdkR2tZem-iZH7tjn7E9OV7OMA_Qx6JTJq0r_xuRyDgCbsIwT-a7gt0aFt3vnS26UidrBD1SAy/s640/blogger-image-1449006410.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Helping Ross check the ewes!</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA8bTGKKoTxinAf6fYlpBpkZR6Dp5sqzFIkFUujV7me9wq9FywlzfDZWCe2pNOUSiUIjKf9S-8a5tlCHqaxkBm2gleJRnk3V6BfJKvXmVCzK86-1RAKJHLyX8G0CLr50eptHN8lNXTkCzj/s640/blogger-image--7465065.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA8bTGKKoTxinAf6fYlpBpkZR6Dp5sqzFIkFUujV7me9wq9FywlzfDZWCe2pNOUSiUIjKf9S-8a5tlCHqaxkBm2gleJRnk3V6BfJKvXmVCzK86-1RAKJHLyX8G0CLr50eptHN8lNXTkCzj/s640/blogger-image--7465065.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>The future Mayoress of Dundee - although she might not have time to fit it in. </div><div><br></div><div>The problem with the UK is that there are two many scholars for the size of the country, you literally can't drive more than a hour and not have passed someone, and that's just from my year of 2013. Unfortunately, we had to put our blinkers on and head south on Tuesday and got to visit Jake Freestone, near Tewkesbury, Hampshire, another 2013 scholar, as are the two other farmers we visited the next day - get to them soon. It rained most of the way to give us the sort of weather we expected to get but haven't had so far.</div><div><br></div><div>Jake is the farm manager for Overbury Estate, privately owned by the same family since the early 1700's. The farm consists of 2000ha (5000acres) of land, but did I mention the Estate also owns the village of Overbury and about 60% of the neighbouring village - now that's diversification. The Estate has a historic site on the top of the hill of the estate (946'/300m high) dating back over 2000 years where huge banks have been dug creating moats in front of them to protect the stone buildings and their inhabitants from invading neighbours. The sheer cliffs on the other two sides were the natural barriers to invasion. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhirkLR_oXmRe5vLHve2h3ePUXk1wcarVNXuWhiUfkJDI8LfYBKGMEjfpjNaRIOHPsGUk3x5MYmyYoBGZFHT_7fLoOh0BDD3ymRJeI-UIhCqnmS7w2MFk0Dd9dNdch1tktomQSC1ps02Xtr/s640/blogger-image-336614195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhirkLR_oXmRe5vLHve2h3ePUXk1wcarVNXuWhiUfkJDI8LfYBKGMEjfpjNaRIOHPsGUk3x5MYmyYoBGZFHT_7fLoOh0BDD3ymRJeI-UIhCqnmS7w2MFk0Dd9dNdch1tktomQSC1ps02Xtr/s640/blogger-image-336614195.jpg"></a></div><br></div> Bank and moat fortifications built 2000 years ago</div><div><br></div><div>Jake is Mr Organised, managing the 6 staff with 1200 ewes and the cropping program in between his social media commitments of blogging, tweeting and facebooking. I don't know how he keeps up. Jake has taken a liking to no till (currently using a contractor with a Cross Slot) and cover cropping, where the cover crop is grazed and then sprayed out before a spring seeding. Cover crop mixtures used in the last couple of years, based mainly on forage turnips, fodder rape, forage rye, oats and phacelia. One of the problems he has in getting enough growth out of the turnips when seeded after harvest in August, so has used forage rye this year with more feed available. The cost advantage of the no till is about a third the cost of establishment of conventional seeding, so Jake is expecting to increase the area to no till. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy7YXndBPnwec23qk64PDzYXmwhYZbB30Ag_AqLkP9MGDu1-BeLN5qS3ZXOWTcqP79jrTWYqVvK0ac5Pf1Q3w-jYjKUXJN6qiLiEo4yQ-UQaHYr-RwLyEB8l0OApRi0MYkHNosDOT7a4-V/s640/blogger-image--2033710515.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy7YXndBPnwec23qk64PDzYXmwhYZbB30Ag_AqLkP9MGDu1-BeLN5qS3ZXOWTcqP79jrTWYqVvK0ac5Pf1Q3w-jYjKUXJN6qiLiEo4yQ-UQaHYr-RwLyEB8l0OApRi0MYkHNosDOT7a4-V/s640/blogger-image--2033710515.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>One of Jake's cover crops - wheat seeded into right half.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8292ewb2iV1-CPvisWq0cdxungcntfjWDUDADmKVg6oRzyGSH5HqMKGChYBhLzSR4GLKQH6NCfMMIKzUlR300_Ce_RrZ-iSTJofmS-Rp3EnNpdq7LObeE1A-ajaXpi6VDMYxZljjUSN0/s640/blogger-image-2124444174.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8292ewb2iV1-CPvisWq0cdxungcntfjWDUDADmKVg6oRzyGSH5HqMKGChYBhLzSR4GLKQH6NCfMMIKzUlR300_Ce_RrZ-iSTJofmS-Rp3EnNpdq7LObeE1A-ajaXpi6VDMYxZljjUSN0/s640/blogger-image-2124444174.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Jake in OSR/canola with unexpected cover crop - a result of Jake's absence last spring </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">at the Nuffield conference in Canada.</div></div></div><div><br></div><div>We finally had a decent meal in Europe (only joking to everyone who has fed us) - roast lamb and vegetables with mint sauce - with a potato bake delivered by Michelle, the Estate Manager, on her horse - now that's service!! I got to do another night check on lambing ewes - lucky all was good. Once they get into the peak of lambing, a uni student will do the night shift to keep an eye on everything, a bit more attention than those who run paddock based systems would give. </div><div><br></div><div>Our final day of visiting farms saw us visit the Andrew and Jenni Janaway, just out of Winchester, Hampshire (1 hour south west of London) and Tom and Sarah Sewell, just out Maidstone, Kent (1 hour south east of London).</div><div><br></div><div>Andrew, with his 2 brothers and parents, run what can only be described as a truly diversified farm, but its not all about farming. Their main enterprise is potatoes, all 800ha of them, spread across 2 properties with seed potatoes grown on a property in Scotland not farm from Ross and Caroline, where they also run beef cattle. Winter and spring crops are grown in rotation with the potatoes on a minimum tillage system. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOq8q1Mm3wJWhsSgRkH_USY0h54kasLWDqRd1waWd93brIDxP84SQYUByMf_mLJ2vLQ7-0RHPTloDdbC-7rO8coW4W6bc25mhZXPrTyGN7FXPNPUBMWsjAWgYJgA6Oq7Tnz5d-Nd3TGtSk/s640/blogger-image-864241587.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOq8q1Mm3wJWhsSgRkH_USY0h54kasLWDqRd1waWd93brIDxP84SQYUByMf_mLJ2vLQ7-0RHPTloDdbC-7rO8coW4W6bc25mhZXPrTyGN7FXPNPUBMWsjAWgYJgA6Oq7Tnz5d-Nd3TGtSk/s640/blogger-image-864241587.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Andrew and his new venture - just something to keep the grey matter ticking.</div><div><br></div><div>As it seems to be common on some UK farms, if you have a spare shed and can't fully utilise it, it gets rented to some one who can and will pay rent. So Andrew has business' including an engineering works, fertiliser spreader contractor, skip hire company, joinery, chemical supplier renting sheds on the farm. The pick of the tenants is Riverford Organics who grow, pack and deliver fruit and vegetables (and some meat) to local consumers as part of a national ordering and distribution system. The arrangement has led to Andrew renting a 250 acre farm for organic potato production to supply Riverford, while establishing a 10 000 hen free range organic operation, with Riverford taking all egg sizes - a suppliers dream. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8vP-zlVwK1qrMK4FhTqNNLyILarguoBjMRyMhEUi7CQYRbnBE-xrCrYeNTmTTNVdRNy0hyLu7zaSQXVmLFl-bPmjXCRJZFiSn9IXZupvgYh15Fk6M2s_AHgP1zktiQ_7OMpp6zsaggJJB/s640/blogger-image--10634894.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8vP-zlVwK1qrMK4FhTqNNLyILarguoBjMRyMhEUi7CQYRbnBE-xrCrYeNTmTTNVdRNy0hyLu7zaSQXVmLFl-bPmjXCRJZFiSn9IXZupvgYh15Fk6M2s_AHgP1zktiQ_7OMpp6zsaggJJB/s640/blogger-image--10634894.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Andrew's organic chicken sheds that towed between paddocks every 12 months - built on skids.</div><div><br></div><div>Tom and Sarah with Toms parents run a cropping and contracting business based on winter and spring seeded crops on land they own, rent and sharefarm. With land pushing £10 000/acre (urban demand and intensive agricultural production in tunnels (berries)) and land able to be rented for £125/acre, renting is a good option. Tom has been no till seeding for a couple of years <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">with a tined drill, having</span> being doing min till since 1991 and is just abut to take delivery of a Cross Slot seeder on 9"/22.5cm spacing, which is going against the norm for the majority European farmers on 6"/150mm spacing. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9HavIR_R2zTiJwZ7NIwLkuucFOO7wHIz7GVibFpU5bwCDz_pqYQxzx_RmLi987HTS3F8JucEz_DoQHw_qTjZwePqNS1F_fp3ZUdINPdKJQ3440YmhA4Mz3sV7c5H458RQwpg4m7K85O-/s640/blogger-image-674163562.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9HavIR_R2zTiJwZ7NIwLkuucFOO7wHIz7GVibFpU5bwCDz_pqYQxzx_RmLi987HTS3F8JucEz_DoQHw_qTjZwePqNS1F_fp3ZUdINPdKJQ3440YmhA4Mz3sV7c5H458RQwpg4m7K85O-/s640/blogger-image-674163562.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Tracey, Sarah and Tom</div><div><br></div><div>Tom's rotation based on wheat, OSR/canola and faba beans is the same as mine, while he has just started using cover crops (oats, phacelia, fodder radish and mustard) between his winter canola and winter wheat and the winter wheat and spring beans. For the past 17 years all the straw has been chopped and spread at harvest, with no bagged P or K fertiliser haven't been applied in that time, but he uses liquid phosphite with lots of trace elements. The system is working because fertility levels are either holding or going up and the worm count is around 1200/sq. m. Tom is dedicated to no till seeding, a rarity in that part of the world, so it will be interesting to see what the neighbours think looking over the fence. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGaiJNb3xl8gXkZFuOKirrQcm77tPkGy7xJZ278srF9HvBbtQiZ0tGGXQnVqojld6Bdd0OIJ4qOfR98szWoFJEW1DEwQaJQocXBN9Of1K18ugWizV3R1nc8x6HwePLYFsyw3V4X_Bfun79/s640/blogger-image-1266486438.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGaiJNb3xl8gXkZFuOKirrQcm77tPkGy7xJZ278srF9HvBbtQiZ0tGGXQnVqojld6Bdd0OIJ4qOfR98szWoFJEW1DEwQaJQocXBN9Of1K18ugWizV3R1nc8x6HwePLYFsyw3V4X_Bfun79/s640/blogger-image-1266486438.jpg"></a></div></div><div><br></div><div>Tom's no till canola on a wet English day! </div><div><br></div><div>Tom has built two grain sheds with in floor aeration (3500T capacity) while being a member</div><div>of a local grain marketing co op that allows direct delivery of grain or it is picked up ex farm, </div><div>sometimes only hours after it has been harvested and loaded into the shed. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSSeut1J1ysEj4kHSNPOF4Vh_KcVevv2kciwQLvXHf7pdyOaggjeRgygmvVQvdtx3jPXNKDHDpgOG0r7-SExmrvzxajvKyPuzfe7kwlnA1YDQFUE3vzUbllwy4Hn1lkNflcCqHpEnQCsi8/s640/blogger-image-1555493020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSSeut1J1ysEj4kHSNPOF4Vh_KcVevv2kciwQLvXHf7pdyOaggjeRgygmvVQvdtx3jPXNKDHDpgOG0r7-SExmrvzxajvKyPuzfe7kwlnA1YDQFUE3vzUbllwy4Hn1lkNflcCqHpEnQCsi8/s640/blogger-image-1555493020.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Perhaps I need to get a bit more professional. </div><div><br></div><div>We finished off the trip with two nights at the Farmers Club in London, just around the corner from Scotland Yard and a stones throw from the Thames. The club was formed in 1842 as a place for farmers to visit to share their experiences in new technologies and management practices of the day - farmers have always been prepared to help each other out, something that is quite unique to agriculture even though we are competitors in the market to each other. </div><div><br></div><div>Arriving after dark on the first night, we had been well advised by Andrew Janaway to visit one of his many haunts, Gordon's wine bar, the oldest wine bar in London, with not a beer or cocktail in sight. </div><div><br></div><div>We spent our last day wandering the streets of London, had lunch at great little deli, Ottolenghi (some of the tastiest salads we've ever had) but the last thing we got to do on our trip was to head to a meeting on regenerative agriculture (<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">http://www.breakthroughcapitalism.com/regenerative-agriculture.html) </span>It had a world class line up of speakers including Dwayne Beck (US), Ademir Calegari (Argentina), Frederic Thomas (France), Daniella Ibarra-Howell (US), Odette Menard (Canada) and our own No Till Bill, Bill Crabtree from Western Australia. I was on Bill's no till tour to the US and Canada in 2004 (where I met Dwayne Beck and got a taste for covers crops) and I think I was the last person Bill expected to see at the meeting- great to see him after all these years. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtBc2cOqabigIxIdpwbXNXqht5mDSQe_Dwkbd4o3xAMjkAdAMetNBeUPUyOfcpxCpUBaVE56bmrTF2buASHV61SsLv7kkWXXW2DYP5vB4rUk7tNTzjrq3ixPGdsfeMS0_WWwA7CtnQ8ufV/s640/blogger-image--2119965373.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtBc2cOqabigIxIdpwbXNXqht5mDSQe_Dwkbd4o3xAMjkAdAMetNBeUPUyOfcpxCpUBaVE56bmrTF2buASHV61SsLv7kkWXXW2DYP5vB4rUk7tNTzjrq3ixPGdsfeMS0_WWwA7CtnQ8ufV/s640/blogger-image--2119965373.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>I'm not big on taking photos of what I eat, but if you ever get to London, you've got to try Ottolenghi.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAT5b9t63tMPtF5xqRlmRObZPA0GPBg3GnVJyc7uQ_SfsYXdakxgLce0VRxMBQaj7PFlc3EJAaFF_bjdDDDz7Dl5rm_qtKa4RK89wfydzV8uJeGOFSWXRxgX923Mzt2fkKaJTx-iQlm8Os/s640/blogger-image-1614626830.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAT5b9t63tMPtF5xqRlmRObZPA0GPBg3GnVJyc7uQ_SfsYXdakxgLce0VRxMBQaj7PFlc3EJAaFF_bjdDDDz7Dl5rm_qtKa4RK89wfydzV8uJeGOFSWXRxgX923Mzt2fkKaJTx-iQlm8Os/s640/blogger-image-1614626830.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>What an impressive line up!</div><div><br></div><div>Had dinner before the meeting with Tom Sewell and a couple of his mates involved with cover crops and no till, Guy Eckley and Andy Howard, and an Aussie working in soils and crop nutrition in Norfolk, Danny Sherlock (thanks for dinner Danny!)</div><div><br></div><div>One of the quotes I took away was from Daniella, "management of complexity yields results". This to me is what what going through a Nuffield Scholarship is all about - looking beyond the status quo and realising that the variables encountered every day in agriculture can be harnessed in ways not previously considered, but it takes planning and effort to see it through to the final result.</div><div><br></div><div>We flew home the next day via Abu Dhabi and as much its great to be travelling, its also good to get home. It was a whirlwind three weeks, given we drove nearly 4000km through 6 countries. A huge thanks to all those that had us visit and/or hosted us for a night or two - it was great that we only spent a week in hotels. We look forward to repaying the hospitality some time in the future. </div><div><br></div><div>The next (and final) leg of my travels is to South America, Canada and the US in June and July. All that has to be done between now and them is get the crop In the ground and the house renovation kick started again. </div><div><br></div><div>Until then, that's all for now! </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-30113694339267976162014-03-27T03:19:00.001-07:002014-03-27T03:36:22.996-07:00Belgium and FranceOops, forget we spent our last day in Germany in Cologne. Didn't leave Ulrich's until 3pm and got in at 8pm without a hotel booked, but stumbled on one near the Rhine and city centre - more luck than management. Had dinner in the hotel bar and the guys next to us where doing tequila slammers but with orange and cinnamon with Tequila Gold - new one to us. Had a look around the city the next day - the cathedral was amazing, think the tallest I have seen. Tracey loved all the shoe shops but couldn't find a pair to fit!<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Unfortunately we had to leave Cologne by mid afternoon as we wanted to get to the Menin Gate Last Post ceremony at Ypres in Belgium, held every night at 8pm since the memorial was opened after WW1. I attended the ceremony last July on the Nuffield Global Focus trip, but hadn't realised at the time that my great uncle and four of his cousins had died there and were on the wall, so I was pleased to be back. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju6SzukzWcE7nS4cUaoY9RBhL32BZzS5liAKs2Qb1LiXtpwQuh3vPFVPz_fmE51lhU6dtuAdIev-lqBLlmDw2ezrUtdidSfLSqQ1xDBquwyBlqlhlPZ7L3bhgDkEy_TV57Ie8rg4-1bqFy/s640/blogger-image--487331733.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju6SzukzWcE7nS4cUaoY9RBhL32BZzS5liAKs2Qb1LiXtpwQuh3vPFVPz_fmE51lhU6dtuAdIev-lqBLlmDw2ezrUtdidSfLSqQ1xDBquwyBlqlhlPZ7L3bhgDkEy_TV57Ie8rg4-1bqFy/s640/blogger-image--487331733.jpg"></a></div><br></div>The Last Post Ceremnony</div><br></div></div><div>We went thought the Flanders museum the next morning and visited a few of the historical sites around the town before heading for the home of Antoine Bertin and his parents in Normandy, France, not far from Giverny where Monet's garden is. </div><div><br></div><div>I was hoping to meet up with Peter Jan in the Netherlands about covers crops and Thierry Tetu in France to look at his research on nitrogen fertiliser efficiency, but both were unavailable so will follow up when I get home. </div><div><br></div><div>Arrived at Antoine's with only a day of seeding left to finish their spring program, which was lucky for Antoine as we weren't the only visitors. Susan and Kate Hodge from near Spokane in Washington State, USA had dropped in for a few days. Susan works for the Randy and Lisa Emtmann near Spokane, who we have met through Cross Slot conferences and their son Greg stayed with us a couple of years ago.</div><div><br></div><div>If anyone is wondering what these Cross Slot conferences are all about, once a year owners are invited to attend a conference/bus trip where we go to a country where the seeders are being used and visit them and other farmers in the region that are pushing the boundaries in whatever agricultural enterprise they are involved in. I try and go each year as I see it as a great chance to look outside the farm boundary and see at what's happening in the world of agriculture - it's my annual week of professional development! </div><div><br></div><div>Antoine owns a Cross Slot with his friend Gregoir and he is currently doing 60ha of no till out of the 300ha of crops he grows, but is aiming to increase the area. He is using cover crops wherever he can based on oats, tillage radish, phacelia, field peas, faba beans and Niger and the mix is dependent on the following crop. His rotation includes wheat, barley, faba beans, field peas, canola, sugar beet and linen (same family as linseed/flax), with most autumn/fall sown. The region is the main linen producing area in the world. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNH5YznlTBGI_JG3aq3EGy-Rkr6KNLlRkoDwiTqKaDrTabstndggpTon1SNrFoP4CoEBffd-g9AKbsby942l8EQes7oeHPw8HkG9ygpCuyvoEbOzvzI6QfRzuGMZsSxbdHdAN2X8uQ_IXw/s640/blogger-image-377267590.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNH5YznlTBGI_JG3aq3EGy-Rkr6KNLlRkoDwiTqKaDrTabstndggpTon1SNrFoP4CoEBffd-g9AKbsby942l8EQes7oeHPw8HkG9ygpCuyvoEbOzvzI6QfRzuGMZsSxbdHdAN2X8uQ_IXw/s640/blogger-image-377267590.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Antoine with Tracey, Susan and Kate - barley sown into cover crop</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_zq7SQZj7gX_xot35Zu574Jm2B71PyDJxRvvMlMdARugqsPuJSgKHKY2wn6vgNZo1HlAzNn3i0zZAVCiNu85BbR4ksu_mGwjG6TsPv6CQcFRSFz51mIsDM8NYymZ2fGhMnwXGRoUBNAEh/s640/blogger-image--1090492836.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_zq7SQZj7gX_xot35Zu574Jm2B71PyDJxRvvMlMdARugqsPuJSgKHKY2wn6vgNZo1HlAzNn3i0zZAVCiNu85BbR4ksu_mGwjG6TsPv6CQcFRSFz51mIsDM8NYymZ2fGhMnwXGRoUBNAEh/s640/blogger-image--1090492836.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Good root growth from the cover crop</div><br></div></div><div>It was great to see Antoine and his parents, as we spent a weekend with them in 2012 and wished we could have stayed longer then, as on this trip. Antoine took a liking to meat pies when he worked in Australia and New Zealand, and wanted me to cook him one on our last visit. So the girls and I took over the kitchen and did a combined Aussie/Kiwi/Yankee meal of meat pie and mashed potatoes/salad with chocolate blondies and bread pudding for dessert. I don't think if Madame Bertin ever thought her kitchen would be the same! Your turn now Antoine with the pie making. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhns8DkNCEc2lWaPG2mh4IK-0921Hh1n5TsPLmyLd1tXGdd2teEKoeD5sGcxcAgScqQ6XqVrkNvdqxUXVXcIAofptKa9PuSBTEKidh1VyiktTeqOuOGCzGP4HIzZi-ipUqJv8tnYZqi9WDX/s640/blogger-image--79701998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhns8DkNCEc2lWaPG2mh4IK-0921Hh1n5TsPLmyLd1tXGdd2teEKoeD5sGcxcAgScqQ6XqVrkNvdqxUXVXcIAofptKa9PuSBTEKidh1VyiktTeqOuOGCzGP4HIzZi-ipUqJv8tnYZqi9WDX/s640/blogger-image--79701998.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Nice pie Antoine! <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-48089414503864665602014-03-23T01:58:00.001-07:002014-03-23T02:43:02.922-07:00Germany<div>We left sunny Switzerland and headed north into southern Germany where we met Hermann Schumacher, who was involved in research into the CULTAN system with the Dr Karl Sommer, the man who developed the system. CULTAN, Controlled Uptake Long Term Ammonium Nutrition, is based on using a concentrated band of ammonium nitrogen fertiliser in the soil that is available to plants on as needs basis. In contrast, where nitrates are used to fertilise, the plant doesn't regulate the uptake in the same way which can lead to excessive uptake and growth. </div><div><br></div><div>Anhydrous ammonia drilled in prior to seeding is a classic CULTAN system, but is available in limited areas in Australia. Alternatively, ammonium sulphate could be drilled prior or at seeding, but the logistics of seeding high rates of granule fertiliser (475kg = 100kg N) is a issue. The third option is injection of liquid ammonium fertilisers. Ammonium sulfate dissolved in water is only 8% N, but when mixed with urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), 15% N is achieved. A stainless steel wheel with 12 spokes mounted on a boom sprayer has been developed to inject concentrated amounts of liquid into the ground 5cm deep at 15cm spacings. Units are spaced generally twice the row spacing apart. </div><div><br></div><div>Although high rates need to be applied to achieve a comparable rate of N from urea, only one pass is required, it is not reliant on follow up rainfall and the efficiency uptake of the N is commonly 90%, much greater than the 40-50% used for urea. </div><div><br></div><div>I know one of the biggest complaints I hear from cropping farmers is the amount of N being used on crops, so possibly the CULTAN system has some merit. I am keen to get the 3 CULTAN spoked wheel injectors I have a home up and working to see what happens in the paddock. </div><div><br></div><div>Hermann and his wife Petra were generous hosts in putting us up for the night and giving us a tour of Frieburg and taking us to a great little Italian restaurant off the beaten track with the best Tiramisu. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXiTJXGSDO9Ygv_G2NVaYhVWWECCifQ5U6S7WPcGakxHIaV_ZcoA_F8gMVUmY9KHFcrR-Yywu8gaQUqnxOxNd8PoWyv3UV-1-E_LD1YEj8sH7u-WrbRUjlaDyAjMrU8L5eEl7Mvu5qUjU/s640/blogger-image-776582087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXiTJXGSDO9Ygv_G2NVaYhVWWECCifQ5U6S7WPcGakxHIaV_ZcoA_F8gMVUmY9KHFcrR-Yywu8gaQUqnxOxNd8PoWyv3UV-1-E_LD1YEj8sH7u-WrbRUjlaDyAjMrU8L5eEl7Mvu5qUjU/s640/blogger-image-776582087.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Tracey with Petra and Hermann overlooking Frieburg</div><div><br></div><div>Having left Frieburg, we headed north to Harsewinkel, home of the Claas family and agricultural machinery company. The factory builds headers/combines and jaguar choppers. We were the only English speaking visitors for the day and we had Willie Schultz, a 50 year veteran of the company <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">and who grew up in a house (still standing) on the grounds of the factory, </span>as our personal tour guide. Willie is <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">almost part of the family having started his apprenticeship with August' son and after he retired in 1997, he has been involved in factory tours ever since. </span></div><div><br></div><div>From beginnings in a blacksmith shop in 1913, August Claas and his two brothers founded the company that developed a knotter for binders that wouldn't break the paper twine that was in use following WW1 due to a shortage of twine. As Willie described it, the knotter was "the money maker". From there the family controlled company that has always focused on harvesting technologies has grown to a company that had a turnover last year of €3.8 billion (approx $5.7 billion) turnover employing 11 000 people around the world. </div><div><br></div><div>The tour through the factory floor was fascinating - the logistics of keeping the supply of parts up to production (no more than 2 days supply of engines on hand) was impressive. The line can turn off 15 headers per day in a single shift and smoking is allowed in the factory whenever workers want! </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3geUdDKwMQP47Dp83WHGgfPD6a0WWvf5zWYpfSvyW2M1N-2Y11ZZhpVCX9PYEVflenylTGDRm5-5CDJHr1CDwca0Us5VsW0HU9LY_PSneBvwJhXDFdArCVIkbzBYG6sm48WQKcLcZsfwn/s640/blogger-image-2125740941.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3geUdDKwMQP47Dp83WHGgfPD6a0WWvf5zWYpfSvyW2M1N-2Y11ZZhpVCX9PYEVflenylTGDRm5-5CDJHr1CDwca0Us5VsW0HU9LY_PSneBvwJhXDFdArCVIkbzBYG6sm48WQKcLcZsfwn/s640/blogger-image-2125740941.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Which toy do I play with today?</div><div><br></div><div>From Harsewinkel we back headed eastwards towards Dresden to visit Ulrich and Beate Tink and their son Clemens at Seidewitz and Tomas and Astrid Sanders and their family Johan, Paulina, Sophie, Magdalena, Maria and Karl. We have met both families through Cross Slot conferences in the US and Germany in 2010 and 2012.</div><div><br></div><div> They live 70km apart and there isn't one other no till farmer between them - they are shags on a rock, as are most no till farmers in Europe. Ulrich and Tomas both gave the same reasoning when I questioned then why German farmers aren't looking at no till. It's all about not getting off the tractor! The plough goes out to the field, followed by the cultivator, followed by the seeder, in an attempt to create consistent conditions, whereas no till is a little more dynamic than that and requires more monitoring. </div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Jp9sqfgUvJ-hZy47vG4y_HJ0ZBOQq5zAgQrbhQPM22SSUWxj6IHWWYfcYBxtsI-HPZ0QubR_xiAWxdQt6eRC4JAhDn6tjQ_IBcIEmHKqTXD-vMnlYae5dXRrf2CfwiLgAJOJJTXopj6Z/s640/blogger-image--209111428.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; "><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Jp9sqfgUvJ-hZy47vG4y_HJ0ZBOQq5zAgQrbhQPM22SSUWxj6IHWWYfcYBxtsI-HPZ0QubR_xiAWxdQt6eRC4JAhDn6tjQ_IBcIEmHKqTXD-vMnlYae5dXRrf2CfwiLgAJOJJTXopj6Z/s640/blogger-image--209111428.jpg"></a></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div>Ulrich needs both feet to get the shovel into the neighbours conventionally ploughed paddock.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw_2QwdLqcibE4u05K9Oi3GNF5CeZpfx0wtM0P3RcSSiO3j668uS-4D2_G7HL9Xexe60Zhyaft0t2GHNLI_daeP5GemeS-Z-mYFeKz_U6T1llC6irAdqlpqGLkvUP8P0CVlO87xxzOIKmq/s640/blogger-image-1156380653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw_2QwdLqcibE4u05K9Oi3GNF5CeZpfx0wtM0P3RcSSiO3j668uS-4D2_G7HL9Xexe60Zhyaft0t2GHNLI_daeP5GemeS-Z-mYFeKz_U6T1llC6irAdqlpqGLkvUP8P0CVlO87xxzOIKmq/s640/blogger-image-1156380653.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Soil structure is completely different under cover crop and no till system. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouYRxl9LGEq4OB0BxzIeldgdF2gg8Xf1f56IZYUNgiw1GCVcvTG_BBx2-vGRlweTv7sSqAPAHrK7mXOYB2mlRetRTMKD7dFEjFZCK2wk-893QXSvrZOSnuDdBmK7mUkFP6wE1PtpjKTUu/s640/blogger-image--1349158920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouYRxl9LGEq4OB0BxzIeldgdF2gg8Xf1f56IZYUNgiw1GCVcvTG_BBx2-vGRlweTv7sSqAPAHrK7mXOYB2mlRetRTMKD7dFEjFZCK2wk-893QXSvrZOSnuDdBmK7mUkFP6wE1PtpjKTUu/s640/blogger-image--1349158920.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">100 v 300kg/ha N applied with CULTAN in the fall/autumn - can you pick the difference?</div></div></div></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JET0kczG5E-G_TO4WugCPhmW_PTJQ_woKQqHIoBwmmxAXuwEHrMgPQ0qJ68ytrlOd6dIivqxo438xv8GVY-fG1afCVmoNKLcVeGToNreRPRcj6vZbU-Cf7shmea95U4GlKgQnz_40X13/s640/blogger-image--487693890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JET0kczG5E-G_TO4WugCPhmW_PTJQ_woKQqHIoBwmmxAXuwEHrMgPQ0qJ68ytrlOd6dIivqxo438xv8GVY-fG1afCVmoNKLcVeGToNreRPRcj6vZbU-Cf7shmea95U4GlKgQnz_40X13/s640/blogger-image--487693890.jpg"></a></div><br></div>With Ulrich, Beate and Clemens</div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Both farms have a wide range of crops sown in rotation including wheat, barley, field peas, faba beans, sugar beet, maize and soybeans, whilst using cover crops in between winter sown and spring sown crops. Cover crop mixes are made up of oats, faba beans, peas, lentils, phacelia, tillage radish, lupins, buckwheat, vetch and rye grass. One of the down sides of their adoption of cover crops has been the introduction of red fescue grass in some of their earlier mixes but which has ended up being a serious weed, especially in lighter soils. </div><div><br></div><div>Ulrich seeds all his crops with his Cross Slot, even in the paddocks following where the sugar beets have been lifted (harvested = dug out out of the ground by a 60t harvester). Tomas has changed his seeding operations and is precision planting his sugar beets, maize, soybeans and canola with a precision seeder after the stubbles have had a Kelly Chain over them twice before seeding, while using his Cross Slot for cereals and legumes. </div><div><br></div><div>Great minds must think alike because both Ulrich and Tomas have adopted the CULTAN system, with Ulrich contacting to local farmers (including Tomas), while Tomas is working on a new design frame for the CULTAN wheel based on a walking beam and a trailing boom. Tomas likes making as much farm machinery as he can - he is a former organ maker turned farmer/agricultural engineer who has made his own CNC machine for cutting steel 50mm thick. He is just trying to work out how to program it to make it work! </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQcb3fwNlIC66-11Htd3KomxQqKFsT_Xu5y8xJcTJxmcvmkljM6iXpI3e6GqC-Ft8ZTMxJ2U0tUG1A1WRYHTNtJBmXT6wGV37yFu8PTTq8vhr6GhJVBW5yaeFr0vLj1Dkbn7sWbuJ-bHid/s640/blogger-image--30378827.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQcb3fwNlIC66-11Htd3KomxQqKFsT_Xu5y8xJcTJxmcvmkljM6iXpI3e6GqC-Ft8ZTMxJ2U0tUG1A1WRYHTNtJBmXT6wGV37yFu8PTTq8vhr6GhJVBW5yaeFr0vLj1Dkbn7sWbuJ-bHid/s640/blogger-image--30378827.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Tomas and his home built CNC machine - picked up the frame at the tip!</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDVb57bXc3rNfkkfWSFFMIY3wFgM8gz7AZPJytk6kQv_0p2vtFxIzYaPEsDC0CYIyTadL876XndduksSlzJvz7ObihBHf2BgjlF9aRhK0z_bPmUbsXeq3LoPxWuP8LEMhdMz49-j3-13-/s640/blogger-image--900558527.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDVb57bXc3rNfkkfWSFFMIY3wFgM8gz7AZPJytk6kQv_0p2vtFxIzYaPEsDC0CYIyTadL876XndduksSlzJvz7ObihBHf2BgjlF9aRhK0z_bPmUbsXeq3LoPxWuP8LEMhdMz49-j3-13-/s640/blogger-image--900558527.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Tracey with Astrid and Paulina on a Sunday morning crop inspection - their enthusiasm waned as the rain and wind set in! </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT2n2vVLyySfe-KSPagU0tJhXzWqKUZaTjUbKMSwTM1GavsVG-Wemi7iVtFTHQAtwiWMYw7X5ZBDCfrzZlpwUTfn871nmTUzCtnm-FezRm_Qyml-8WCbCyGlb0Nn04gJGEv9PkYNgHt7RT/s640/blogger-image--281797688.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT2n2vVLyySfe-KSPagU0tJhXzWqKUZaTjUbKMSwTM1GavsVG-Wemi7iVtFTHQAtwiWMYw7X5ZBDCfrzZlpwUTfn871nmTUzCtnm-FezRm_Qyml-8WCbCyGlb0Nn04gJGEv9PkYNgHt7RT/s640/blogger-image--281797688.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>All the family minus Johan</div><div><br></div><div>They use a mix of liquid ammonium sulfate and UAN at rates between 500-1000L/ha (75-150kg/ha) although Ulrich has done some strips this year on canola in autumn/fall at 100, 200 and 300kg/ha to see if there is any affect on canola growth and to date their is no visual difference in the plots, which I would expect if we had used urea at be same rates. This is one of the benefits of the CULTAN system - the plant only takes up the N as required, as opposed to nitrate N where excessive early growth would be expected if the same rates were compared. Farmers are restricted to how much N they can apply in the autumn/fall to avoid leaching of nitrates over the winter, but Ulrich has done the rates to let researchers look at how the CULTAN system might differ. Currently they only use the system on wheat because in early spring to much damage is done to the canola, so being able to apply to canola in autumn/fall would be an advantage.</div><div><br></div><div>We got to see Ulrich's machine working (18m wide), applying 1000L/ha at 6km/h. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsUWFgHqWs0SX7N4aVukGzPe9xtexZiMxn2DLFbvkXVvHjsPZuO6lTnq3dQIH9IBmvPHA41iRX-zj6UvKhsEf1NVJhUjyByrQsS6rTd0qVXgavgif8cxgqQkTMa1iLSAHcqfsOv86Fq2ZB/s640/blogger-image-686071436.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsUWFgHqWs0SX7N4aVukGzPe9xtexZiMxn2DLFbvkXVvHjsPZuO6lTnq3dQIH9IBmvPHA41iRX-zj6UvKhsEf1NVJhUjyByrQsS6rTd0qVXgavgif8cxgqQkTMa1iLSAHcqfsOv86Fq2ZB/s640/blogger-image-686071436.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvlBoMz6bLPRweA0XelxjuhDfY0eyUsQddF_SA9f-wqwCGOcJEAdZ1r11ODKyqQXBJNTGvYTODgh5FIXFvTZlRnn8Ld-z9Y5rDLvjvArG63h7YZNQuTpBR_baPQRZpQm2xLDm5ZerQEtBX/s640/blogger-image-201337529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvlBoMz6bLPRweA0XelxjuhDfY0eyUsQddF_SA9f-wqwCGOcJEAdZ1r11ODKyqQXBJNTGvYTODgh5FIXFvTZlRnn8Ld-z9Y5rDLvjvArG63h7YZNQuTpBR_baPQRZpQm2xLDm5ZerQEtBX/s640/blogger-image-201337529.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-19465644067202517282014-03-16T06:44:00.001-07:002014-03-16T10:48:19.180-07:00Welcome to Nuffield 2013To say I was excited when I was awarded my Nuffield Scholarship in October 2012 is an understatement. I had a few recent scholars encouraging me to apply, and I finally did while in Europe in June 2012 in the middle of a farm tour/holiday. <div><br></div><div>I am very proud to be sponsored by The William Buckland Foundation and to have been selected by Nuffield Australia to represent them. </div><div><br></div><div>I am planning to study the role of cover crops in dryland farming systems and what application systems and fertilisers might be available to increase nitrogen efficiency. </div><div><br></div><div>Change is never easy, especially for farmers in a cost driven production system, but unless change is looked for, it will never be found (that's about as philosophical as I will get).</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-71372098156311660732014-03-16T06:26:00.001-07:002014-03-16T11:03:29.046-07:00Switzerland - March 2014Having only been married for 12 days, Tracey and I headed to Europe on Thursday 6th March, 2014. straight off the plane in Zurich on Friday morning at 8am after nearly 30 hours of travel and 3 hours of sleep, we were met by our good friend Wolfgang Sturny, who is on the committee of Swiss No Till and works in soil conservation (Office of Agriculture and Nature) in the Canton of Bern. <div><br></div><div>We headed straight to Geneva to meet Nicolas Courtois, an agronomist for AgriGeneve in the region to adopt no till and cover crops and to push the boundaries of how they can be used. Different cover crops mixes have been developed to follow various crops grown but Nicholas had gone a step further. He is working with growing the cover crop with the main season crop in the autumn, so when the cover crop is killed over the winter by the cold temperatures, the crop is left to harvest in the spring. The interesting combination he has grown is a mix of buckwheat, canola and red clover sown in straight after harvest (July), with the buckwheat harvested in late autumn (November), the canola in the summer (July) and the red clover in the autumn (October) the year after the buckwheat. </div><div><br></div><div>Nicholas' general observation has been the higher the percentage of legumes in the cover crop mix, the higher the yield in the following crop. The effect of the cover crop is often seen in the second year crop and this varies between between crops.</div><div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqfCc3rWj530XtILjHS7K16UaKFHaykAvhY0tU0xFD-Lx6ecTFVjD5wDaEtCdqZhRwMoJbRpT-Mw5LxO4Sp3nLVpdUDK_3mnds4JiVLsO3cYKZ58iXEJ3Gt-tE5VxR9OSY1HUnDc4FeXjK/s640/blogger-image--1908562881.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqfCc3rWj530XtILjHS7K16UaKFHaykAvhY0tU0xFD-Lx6ecTFVjD5wDaEtCdqZhRwMoJbRpT-Mw5LxO4Sp3nLVpdUDK_3mnds4JiVLsO3cYKZ58iXEJ3Gt-tE5VxR9OSY1HUnDc4FeXjK/s640/blogger-image--1908562881.jpg"></a></div></div><div><br></div><div>Canola in winter killed cover crop</div><div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBCldjIR8lHTwCNsrjVAEY8dKXVRqCAA9CmtDcb7HEBoRLyuk3j403DhtdJFf2VmFAwAVYRqjMXFtR2J3-KsrPurwCVq3MNGn88l-6OdPUtuo0GJqCneLPFnnAOU6VfGWE70dcCpbKkoV7/s640/blogger-image--324175510.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBCldjIR8lHTwCNsrjVAEY8dKXVRqCAA9CmtDcb7HEBoRLyuk3j403DhtdJFf2VmFAwAVYRqjMXFtR2J3-KsrPurwCVq3MNGn88l-6OdPUtuo0GJqCneLPFnnAOU6VfGWE70dcCpbKkoV7/s640/blogger-image--324175510.jpg"></a></div></div><div><br></div>Wolfgang Sturny, local no till farmer Jonathon and Nicholas Courtois<br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The weekend was spent with Wolfgang and his wife Iris, wonderful hosts who took us to Jung Frau ('The top of Europe' at 3454m) and into the Valais region, the main wine region in Switzerland, where we visited one of the local wine makers and friend of the Sturny's. Their is never time to stop when Iris organises a weekend away - we had a great time eating, drinking and laughing with them. We finally got to meet Reuben and Veroniqhue and it was great to catch up with Cedric again, although we didn't meet his girlfriend - next time. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjadyPhejYi5eePvjPucXsEmm3KWQ3wazi4hNUZ7G2vTDG02tLMPytpElTFWSGMs83mozLM3khGkxbytnhnyMs6DO6jzqT1z28P4DB0IzNNIcseDjWtCRa69azIL7TJpCqwlRmLvqM0W9-b/s640/blogger-image--2117422509.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjadyPhejYi5eePvjPucXsEmm3KWQ3wazi4hNUZ7G2vTDG02tLMPytpElTFWSGMs83mozLM3khGkxbytnhnyMs6DO6jzqT1z28P4DB0IzNNIcseDjWtCRa69azIL7TJpCqwlRmLvqM0W9-b/s640/blogger-image--2117422509.jpg"></a></div><br></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Iris, Wolfgang and Tracey at Jungfrau</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">We also caught up with Hanspeter and Lillian Lauper and his family. Hanspeter is president of Swiss No Till and showed us his new JD seed drill which he has adapted to steering with RTK auto steer. He has set up his corn planter for auto row shut off but wants to convert his seed drill to auto row shut off for seeding all crops, given the small paddocks he works in as a contractor (as small as 1ha). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0fA0oHcZwJ9Z2S0AlZtXi2r0N-JKzoAvceknUbwvVgzKG2QwSXnzVYSsmGUttmZ55xNa0EvI72WmftaTnMbyp58YcDRKNgQHXwQsf1dyxOYNrnwPlcr-cR-WtbIcAS2-i-nqcPtg8AbgO/s640/blogger-image--86910199.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0fA0oHcZwJ9Z2S0AlZtXi2r0N-JKzoAvceknUbwvVgzKG2QwSXnzVYSsmGUttmZ55xNa0EvI72WmftaTnMbyp58YcDRKNgQHXwQsf1dyxOYNrnwPlcr-cR-WtbIcAS2-i-nqcPtg8AbgO/s640/blogger-image--86910199.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Hanspeter and Lillian - take note of the schnapps being poured out of the auger. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">We </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">visited two other researchers involved with cover crops while in Switzerland. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Bernhard Streit, Professor for Agricultural Mechanization at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, is involved in looking at the establishment of cover crops and like Nicholas, he is interested in seeding the covers crop at the same time as the main crop. With the subsidy system in Switzerland, farmers get paid to use no till seeding, but there is also a payment now being made if they can grow a cover crop/main crop without glyphosate. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Due to nothing being available on the market for establishing cover crops with a precision planter, Bernhard has purchased his own precision planter (on eBay) so he can look at modifications to achieve this. Bernhard is also working on a project looking at </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">robotic seeding on a small scale. The average Swiss farm size is 20ha, so the cost of owning machinery is uneconomical for may farmers, so the Bernhard is building a tracked machine with 4 openers for full automation of seeding including filling the seed and fertiliser. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Bernhard also teaches at the university and one of the lessons he does with the students is to show them the difference between ploughing and no till in terms of draft requirements. He literally hooks up enough students to a single mouldboard plough in the paddock until they can operate it (usually about 14) and then does the same with a single no till opener (1-2 students). A very effective way of learning.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIR5Tj0JFjJgV1A-iDlxbuq_23xgrhTTTTLAQe4dp6F7IKF_Yl7Nz4OIdUfRfLkCeAuI7h56sgfwydrm9c5LDbd3EsnvwGEUEWWvm5aE_ux8Xy1vixdg84JnjS4BQCwMLyxC6atxDaQQ0/s640/blogger-image--2118028551.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIR5Tj0JFjJgV1A-iDlxbuq_23xgrhTTTTLAQe4dp6F7IKF_Yl7Nz4OIdUfRfLkCeAuI7h56sgfwydrm9c5LDbd3EsnvwGEUEWWvm5aE_ux8Xy1vixdg84JnjS4BQCwMLyxC6atxDaQQ0/s640/blogger-image--2118028551.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The robotic seeding project workhorse</div></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Raphael Charles is based at Agroscope, Nyon and is leading the research into assessing the suitability of different species as cover crops, having originally started with almost 50. The species in his current trial are lentils, peas, white and brown mustard, berseem clover, tillage radish, vetch, Avena strigosa (Brazilian oats), turnip, linseed, buckwheat, phacelia, Niger, sunflower and sorghum. </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Crops are assessed for traits including DM production, soil temperature regulation and weed suppression, with a crop sown into the residue to evaluate yield responses. He is </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">He also oversees a long term seeding trial (wheat-canola-wheat-maize) in 1969 comparing ploughing, minimum tillage and, since 2008, no till. Fertiliser stratification, where nutrients are concentrated in a narrow band at the depth they are placed at seeding over a long period, has occurred in the minimum tillage and is beginning to occur in the no till plots. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaV31CLjL_vJXMDOFp8QeisSZWijRrvSwfPmb6a0xF4vFDOmb8yYFBDVEAlVGNuyGZwUoRQR03gbyt3QotdLmn1YltdHYn7M5Ckm-2WxSP_z1z7BEAOgfa5_8_78YwVAGXlENn-L_cKs5w/s640/blogger-image-436712408.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaV31CLjL_vJXMDOFp8QeisSZWijRrvSwfPmb6a0xF4vFDOmb8yYFBDVEAlVGNuyGZwUoRQR03gbyt3QotdLmn1YltdHYn7M5Ckm-2WxSP_z1z7BEAOgfa5_8_78YwVAGXlENn-L_cKs5w/s640/blogger-image-436712408.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Brown mustard cover crop with Wolfgang and Raphael</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Our last visit in Switzerland was to the Meier family near Olten, having had Lukas stay with us in Australia in 2012 after we met him at a Swiss No Till meeting in June that</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> year with</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> Wolfgang. We arrived at lunchtime with another great Swiss meal of rosti and sausage with the whole family (thanks Rita) - something they do most days except when they are very busy. The family has 20 ha which they crop, but Lukas and his brother Philipp also have a contracting business for seeding (</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">built their own no till seeder) and</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> fertiliser and slurry spreading. They run 70 sows and 8 000 chickens which are grown out under contract to 2.1kg. Miriam (Philipp's wife) taught Tracey how to make the traditional plaited breakfast bread Zopf, while Christian, their father is the craftsman of the family, making some great furniture from their own forest timber. And we couldn't forget little Ben keeping us entertained. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyScWjAQhmeTSOvUDN4icV_ZNU2kt_gdVKaLmOPPSSywCDsxzhtfQUz9dp4NwXWtdtHsDPbMsDTAfK_ekFD6u6ZqE2Tlazx1YzLhxmZBd79Wchz1SK_5Pj4VbEXQcs7onCRbd5xB34hYTd/s640/blogger-image--1574910717.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyScWjAQhmeTSOvUDN4icV_ZNU2kt_gdVKaLmOPPSSywCDsxzhtfQUz9dp4NwXWtdtHsDPbMsDTAfK_ekFD6u6ZqE2Tlazx1YzLhxmZBd79Wchz1SK_5Pj4VbEXQcs7onCRbd5xB34hYTd/s640/blogger-image--1574910717.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Lukas, Miriam, Ben, Philipp, Lukas (the farm apprentice) and Tracey</span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0bkSVCPX8CXwu2d-j8TBFHrVsSRVAnMWXe5v3WZM7ffShcVWicqFLSNHdNXgTnUqq74zV6lNwHWOUEzDJzfuX8dv2IRKBIl7RAzofDpns2DnnfpXpz-vE1T3N4y9smLts2LZJCNWNVsa1/s640/blogger-image-1800888122.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0bkSVCPX8CXwu2d-j8TBFHrVsSRVAnMWXe5v3WZM7ffShcVWicqFLSNHdNXgTnUqq74zV6lNwHWOUEzDJzfuX8dv2IRKBIl7RAzofDpns2DnnfpXpz-vE1T3N4y9smLts2LZJCNWNVsa1/s640/blogger-image-1800888122.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Tracey making Zopf</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375048600265152661.post-17185278087971678962014-03-16T01:45:00.001-07:002014-03-16T10:49:44.437-07:00The nuts and bolts!I farm at Shepparton with my wife Tracey and parents Neville and Wendy, approximately 2 hours north of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia). The farm is 1055ha, comprising what we own and share farm for 3 neighbours. The crop rotation is based on wheat, canola and faba beans with millet having been used opportunistically in the last 5 years as a cover crop/cash crop due to wet summers. <div><br></div><div>The cropping program is based on a full stubble retention system using a Cross Slot No Till seeder. A 3m controlled traffic system is used with 9m (seeder, combine/header, lime/gypsum spreader) and 27m (SP sprayer, urea spreader) working widths. All crops are direct headed. </div><div><br></div><div>The soils are predominantly duplex and range from fine sandy clay loams to light clays and the annual rainfall is 500mm/20", with the majority of the rain falling from March to October. Seeding occurs in April/May with harvest in November/December.</div><div><br></div><div>I became interested in cover cropping/opportunistic summer cropping after visiting Dwayne Beck in South Dakota in 2004 and seeing the trials with summer crops in a low rainfall environment (350mm/14" from memory) and the trials showed positive crop responses in the following wheat crop after sunflowers and millet compared to the stubble fallow treatment. The lesson I remember from Dwayne was to plan for failure in the rotation - it was better to have something growing in the paddock and have it fail. The adoption of a no till system with full stubble retention 4 years later gave me the opportunity to test the system if the opportunity arose.</div><div><br></div><div>A summer crop trial was established on my farm in spring 2009 with University of Melbourne and the National Water Commission looking at the potential for sunflowers, mung beans, white French millet, lab lab and safflower. The crops were seeded into a wheat stubble and with above summer rainfall, all crops were harvested except the lab lab, which had DM cuts taken off it as it is a forage crop.</div><div><br></div><div>The millet crop was the standout financially and given we had wet harvests the 2 following years, shirohie millet was sown as a cover crop, but both years the crop was harvested for seed due to the high summer rainfall. As in the trial, the millet crops were the the best ever gross margins and wheat was able to be seeded straight back into the millet for a double crop. </div><div><br></div><div>The cover crop interest has developed as I look at how to increase the diversity in the rotation of </div><div>3 main crops currently grown. With the cover crops/summer crops, the seeding window is opened up from 2 months to potentially 8 months of the year with the various crops we can grow. Although in an area where farmers wouldn't traditionally consider growing summer crops without irrigation, the variability and intensity of out of season rainfall may allow increasing opportunities for seeding. There are many potential benefits from the cover crops, the question is what role they can play in a farming system such as ours. </div><div><br></div><div>As with the cover crops, I have been interested in managing Nitrogen (N) in the farming system. The faba bean part of the rotation obviously plays an important role in N supply for the following 1-2 crops, but as there are four crops until the following faba bean crop, the need for artificial fertiliser is required. urea is the main N fertiliser used and is spread on the crops, according to a N budget for each paddock, just before a rain front to minimise volatilisation losses. The efficiency of urea uptake is only 40-50% in this system, so I am interested in what options there are in terms of application equipment and fertilisers to increase this N efficiency. The CULTAN (Controlled Uptake Long Term Ammonium Nitrogen) system I saw in Germany in 2012 and was impressed with the technique, and so I am interested to see what application it could have for Australian conditions.</div><div><br></div><div>The opportunity to undertake travels around the world under the banner of a Nuffield Scholarship is a fantastic opportunity not to be missed. I am always looking at how and why we do the things we do, and I'm sure I will be able to provide some options and answers to these questions. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00430813155165268822noreply@blogger.com0