August 2008 Archives
Scott Garvey is working on an article on the new Case IH Class 9 combine for the October Grainews, but I want to give you a teaser. Case IH unveiled the combine this week at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa. (I wasn't there.) Model 9120 has rated horsepower of 483 and maximum power of 523. The grain tank is 350 bushels. You can also get Case IH Quadtracs on the front axle.
Case IH now has six Axial-Flow combine models. The others are 8120 (which replaces the 8010), 7120 (replacing 7010), 7088 (a new model in the simpler "heritage" 88 Series), 6088 (a smaller Class 6 model) and 5088 (the smallest Axial-Flow). Look for more on these new models in Scott's October article.
Debbie Chikousky writes a great column in each Grainews about her family's efforts to squeeze a living from cattle, sheep and goats. In her latest column, which will hit mail boxes in a week to 10 days, she expresses considerable worry that they won't have enough hay. It just won't stop raining. Manitoba's Interlake region is getting rain after rain, and hay fields are drenched.
I talked to Debbie today (August 27) and they have only put up 54 bales. Last winter, they used 750. It is a nice sunny day today, but the Chikousky farm had a few tenths of rain last night on top of 3.5 inches late last week. A neighbour had six inches last week. "I seriously just sat down and cried on Thursday when it just wouldn't quit coming down," she told me.
Debbie holds out hope that the weather will turn and they'll be able to cut and bale what's out there right now, but quality will be an issue and 750 bales seems so far away at this point.
The situation presents two major problems. One, the Chikouskys budget on producing their own hay, so when that have to buy it, it's cash out of pocket. And two, because many livestock producers in the Interlake are in a similar situation, finding hay nearby will be almost impossible.
Debbie is hoping the Manitoba government will come through with some disaster assistance plan. One thought is that the province will help pay to have hay trucked in, but producers will still have to buy the hay itself. Debbie says it could cost them $25,000, which means they'll have to live all year off what she makes writing and what her husband makes driving the bus.
In an e-mail she sent earlier this week, Debbie wrote: "What is really going to kill us I figure is that people are already starting to dump cattle. Most of the guys we know close to retirement are pulling out so the prices are sure to tank. Apparently Virden is already booked with herd dispersals this coming sale.
"As our neighbour explained, our net worth is all tied into our farms. If you sell too far down on breeding stock, you can no longer be viable and hey there just aren't that many jobs out there. Last Thursday/Friday when it just wasn't stopping, it was a very scary place to be. I am really getting worried about the mental state of a lot of people. Way too depressed."
At the end of our phone conversation, Debbie said that anyone in Manitoba who has extra hay can e-mail her at gdchik@mts.net.
Here is your chance to have someone you admire get the attention he or she deserves. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is seeking nominations for the 2008 Canadian Agri-Food Awards of Excellence. These national awards celebrate outstanding achievement in youth leadership, innovation, awareness and education, environmental stewardship, export performance and voluntarism.
Nominations will be accepted until Monday, September 15, 2008. The awards will be presented on Monday, November 10 at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto. Winners will be notified in advance. Selection criteria and nomination forms are available at www.agr.gc.ca/awards or by contacting Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada by phone at 1‑800-410-7104 or email info@agr.gc.ca.
I was away the past two weeks on a family vacation. We drove to my parents' in southwest Manitoba for week one and then to Thunder Bay and Duluth in week two. In total, we traveled 3,000 km. No wonder my kids were squirrelly.
Rocks were a major theme. During week one, we went to the Rock Shop in Souris, skipped stones in Chain Lakes, and brought home my grandmas old rock polisher to shine up a bunch of agates my dad gave to the kids. Then in week two, we went to an amethyst mine north of Thunder Bay, then picked up a few litres of lake-smoothed rocks from the beaches at Grand Marais, Minnesota (top photo) and beside our hotel in Duluth's Canal Park. I loved these pebble beaches. They are a geologists dream. As for me, I skipped stones to my heart's content while watching sailboats and big lake freighters.
A little lesson in agritourism
While driving from Thunder Bay to Duluth, we stopped at Thunder Oak Cheese Farm about 15 minutes south of Thunder Bay. The family farm makes its own gouda cheese in the fashion Margaret Schep, the farm’s matriarch, learned while growing up in the Netherlands. The Schep farm also has a small retail counter and viewing area. I watched while Margaret’s son Walter, who runs the cheese side of the business, curdled the milk solids, drained the whey, then pressed the curds into round cheese molds. Once the rounds are formed, they sit in a vat of brine for a few days before going into a cooler for aging. While Walter worked, Margaret (bottom photo) gave a short explanation of the process from our side of the glass.
This window into the cheesemaking process gives the farm a chance to market itself as a tourist destination, bringing people into their retail shop. They make cheese three days a week, always at the same time, and they advertise this time in tourist books. It seems to work. In the half-hour we were there, at least a dozen others came and went.
So what makes this a tourist stop? Simple. It’s the invitation. The Schep family invites people to come watch as they go about their business of making cheese. It helps that the Scheps are the only family dairy in Ontario making gouda, but any farm can come up with a hook. My wife was the one who suggested we visit the farm, and we bought $30 worth of cheese that we would not have bought otherwise. The woman in line ahead of me spent $90.
Grainews will be running some articles from the European farm equipment mag, Profi. European farmers use equipment differently, including tilling and planting in one pass with a seedbed prep tool at the front of the tractor and a drill at the rear. European farmers — some of them at least — also use the Unimog truck/tractor hybrid for various field applications. And European farm papers provide a different perspective on common machinery, such as combines.
To get you primed for Profi, I've included here a sample of one of their regular features. Farmers send in photos of farm machinery disasters, just like this one. Here is the cutline for the photo: "Mailed in from Austria, this Deutz-Fahr combine harvester was left at the top of a hill without its brakes properly applied. So, we all know what happened next. Off the Deutz trundled down the slope, narrowly missing a house along the way, until she finally came to rest in amongst the trees. Harvester extraction was not a quick job."
Of course this wasn't funny for the combine owner or operator, but it makes everyone else thankful it wasn't them. If you have the heart to send me your photos of equipment disasters, I'll put them on my blog or in the paper.
Jack Pick from Macoun, Sask., phoned this morning. He wanted to talk to Les Henry about phosphorus fertilizer and whether he really needed to apply it every year. Jack says lots of farmers in his area are thinking about going without phosphorus priced at $2,000 a tonne. Jack admits it's tempting. "I like to save money, too," he says.
Jack farms 5,000 acres with his son, and their fertilizer bill doubled last year. Their total bill for 2008 was hundreds of thousands of dollars, so to chop out or at least reduce their phosphorus would save them a bundle in up front costs for 2009. But when he mentioned this to his banker, who also farms, "the banker just started shaking his head," Jack says. So Jack wants to get a second opinion from a man he respects: Les Henry.
Les of course is a regular columnist in Grainews, often writing on the topic of soils and crops and fertilizer. So I phoned Les to chat about the topic and line him up with Jack in Macoun. Les says phosphorus is an investment in the long term viability of your land, but in any given year you should be able to get away with a reduced rate. He has heard of farmers in Saskatchewan who have never used phosphorus fertilizer and they seem to be doing well.
Fertilizer use will be a huge topic this fall, winter and spring, so I've asked Les to write his opinions on phosphorus for his September or October column. I will also track down some farmers who skip out on phosphorus and see how it's working for them.
While at the Pike Management Group’s AgProgress conference in Saskatoon in July, Alberta farmer Allan Murray asked me what ever happened to Harvey Gjesdal. Allan had read my update on Alf Bryan a couple of months ago and thought I should do the same for Harvey.
Harvey, a farmer and machinery inventor from Birch Hills, Sask., wrote for Grainews regularly from 1976 to 2004. His articles were usually about some sort of machinery, often his own. He developed a tractor-powered snow shovel in 1948 that sold 1,700 units over the years. And he developed a farm-scale seed cleaner that Flaman still manufactures.
I phoned Harvey in August to catch up. He’s 86 but by the sound of his voice, I would have guessed he was 65. He still works about six hours a day on the farm, which his daughter now runs. At harvest time, he’ll work the combine while she trucks the grain. He says crops this year are the “nicest he’s ever seen.” He estimates that 75 per cent of his area is seeded to canola and it “looks tremendous.”
Before I said good-bye, I told Harvey that he'd be welcome to write a few articles a year if he's up for it. Or, I said, he could pass the torch to his daughter. We'll see what comes of my invitation.
