New Frontiers by Matt Hagny
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April 2008 • Volume 7 • Number 2 New Frontiers by Matt Hagny E FA U R R On the western T M A third-generation farmer near peas, and safflower with the stripper A E E R prairie province of F Lethbridge, AB, savvy Rod Lanier head. Alberta, a plucky set shifted to low-disturbance disc Late spring frost worse in high- R makes a go out of O R openers five years ago: “It’s working E residue conditions? Not necessarily, grain farming. While D L A N I great,” he reports. Lately he’s added says Rod. He cites research from “direct seeding” (no-till a Shelbourne stripper head, with syn- Reduced Tillage Linkages (the planting a crop without a separate ergistic effects: “There’s a beautiful fit Albertan ‘direct seeding’ organiza- tillage pass) is fairly common, only between a stripper head and a disc- tion) showing smaller temperature the more adventurous have adopted opener drill.” The reason, he says, is fluctuations in high residue than in continuous no-till with narrow knife “dramatically less hairpinning,” since black soil, due to the insulating effect openers. Extremely rare is the person all the stubble is standing at seed- of the stubble. Indeed, the Albertan running disc openers on their drill, ing time (which is almost always the experiences with frost damage are since the climate is so cool that soil case in their cool climate—the straw so contradictory in comparing disc warming is a persistent challenge, is slow to rot off at the soil surface). openers versus shanks (knives, etc.) and residue decomposition very slow. Lanier harvests all his wheat, field that a person could be forgiven for concluding there is no pattern at all. Contents New Frontiers ......................... 417 No-Tillage & Mulch Cover ..... 422 Field Ecosystems, Part II ....... 431 Controlled Traffic ................... 438 Winter Conference Recap ...... 439 Still Thinking .......................... 440 Photo by Rod Lanier. Lanier enjoying a good wheat harvest in Alberta. A Continual Quest .................. 441 If Summer Is on a Saturday accomplish the harvest on their 3,300 acres (plus some custom farm- . they have a baseball game! So ing) with a solitary MF 8680 con- goes the old joke about the brevity ventional combine, partly due to the of the Canadian thawed season. efficiencies of the 28-ft Shelbourne The farming session is greatly com- head. (Rod’s wife, Lori, has a back- pressed, with field peas being drilled ground in finance and marketing, anytime after April 1 (more typically and runs the farm’s office.) the second week of April), followed immediately by durum (a type of Lanier’s crop rotation has been stan- Editors: Matt Hagny spring wheat), and then an oilseed— dardized to oilseed (flax, safflower, Andy Holzwarth which for Rod currently consists of mustard, and canola) >>w.wheat Roger Long flax and safflower primarily (the >>“pulse” (a.k.a. legume, in his case Keith Thompson Lanier farm grew canola for 22 usually field peas) >>durum. The E-mail: [email protected] years, but hasn’t grown any the last oilseed is planted in the durum stub- Science Advisors: 3). All of this seeding must happen ble to repeat the cycle. In recent Dwayne Beck (SDSU: Dakota Lakes) in about 3 weeks’ time. Luckily, years, Rod has applied as much N Jill Clapperton (Agri-Food Canada) about 25% of Rod’s acres is already fertilizer as possible in the seed row Rolf Derpsch (consultant, Paraguay) (25 lbs/a of N) for wheat with his John Grove (U.Ky., Soil Science) in winter wheat, which gets seeded Tom Schumacher (SDSU, Soil Science) during the first half of September. single-shoot 36-ft JD 1890 drill on Ray Ward (Ward Laboratories) (Laniers have grown winter wheat 7.5-inch spacing, with the majority Subscriptions & Advertising: for decades as well, with long-term of the N (60 – 70 lbs/a of N) going Phone: 888.330.5142 yield averages of 30 – 35 bu/a, usu- out as top-dressed urea in March for $75 per year (U.S.) subscription rate ally limited more by dryness than winter wheat, and as a pre-seeding winter-injury or winterkill.) surface application for durum and No-Till on the Plains Inc. publishes Leading Edge oilseed crops. To apply dry fertil- three times per year. Harvest begins with field peas in izers, Rod has been running a farm- No-Till on the Plains Inc. early August, then winter wheat built 85-ft wheel-boom behind his P.O. Box 379 in late August, durum in early Wamego, KS 66547-0379 tow-between air cart, although he September, concluding with saf- 888.330.5142 notes that several companies now Website: www.notill.org flower (or canola) in late September. sell these booms. Rod has also been © Copyright 2008 No-Till on the Plains Inc. It is imperative that harvest be expe- All rights reserved. doing some coated urea (ESN) ditious, lest you fight snowdrifts, down the seed row for durum, since frost in combine sieves, increased No-Till on the Plains, Inc. is a non-profit orga- the tolerated rates are considerably nization under I.R.C. § 501(c)3, funded by fee- drying costs, etc. Rod, along with based activities and by generous donations from higher than with standard urea— one full-time person from mid- many individuals as well as organizations such as enough so that he can eliminate a Kansas Department of Health & Environment, March to mid-October, is able to Kansas Soybean Commission, Kansas Corn separate surface application. Plus, Commission, and Nebraska Environmental Trust. Disclaimer: Mention of trade names does not imply endorsement or preference of any company’s product by Leading Edge, and any omission of trade names is unintentional. Recommendations are current at the time of printing. Farmer experiences may not work for all. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Editors or Leading Edge. ——— V——— No-Till on the Plains Inc’s Mission: To assist agricultural producers in implementing economically, agro- nomically, and environmentally sound crop production systems. Objective: To increase the adop- tion of cropping systems that will enhance economic potential, soil and water quality, and quality of Photo by Rod Lanier. life while reducing crop production risks. Rod’s field peas flourish in low-disturbance no-till. 418 the delayed release of N allows him to capture protein premiums for the durum. Crop diversity in Lanier’s area is considerable. Rod has grown sun- flowers in the past, and a couple of other progressive no-tillers (e.g., Brian Hildebrand and Greg Bauer) in the region tried corn (for grain) in ’07 with good profitability despite a dry growing season. However, Rod thinks that if his operation expanded by another thousand acres he would probably add alfalfa. For ’08, he is planning to try proso millet, his first Photo by Rod Lanier. foray into warm-season grasses to Rod’s dry fertilizer boom. lengthen his rotation. As an interest- ing aside, much of Lanier’s safflower Ike had the last laugh out of that to top-dressing with ammonium is marketed through a birdseed deal: no-till really was quite effective nitrate, and in some cases applying company that he and 4 other farm- for them. Even though Roundup anhydrous in the fall with a crude ers own—the birdseed company cost $80/gallon in those days, there hoe opener. Eventually they went to sells about 3 million pounds of saf- were substantial cost savings with a slightly more sophisticated slender flower annually. no-till in the fewer trips across the knife for NH3, called a Bandicator, field. Moisture savings were also and the drill was upgraded to a Long Way There obvious, which allowed for better Flexi-coil 5000 air drill, but still Rod’s area is classified as a “brown crops and the gradual phasing out a knife opener. By the mid-’90s, soil zone” in Canadian lingo, which of summerfallow. The matter was Laniers were testing Flexi-coil’s is to say a sandy clay loam with soon settled: “The last Barton disc opener for anhydrous decent soil OM of about 2.5%. time we pulled application in the fall. Precipitation averages about 15 Then, in 2003, Rod bought the inches per year, which goes a long Deere 1890 and ceased fall anhy- way in such a cool region (low “It’s far easier to get canola, drous altogether, going totally to evaporation), but is extremely erratic flax, and safflower seed to top-dressing with urea. The 1890 from 6 inches to 20+ in any given come up from 1 inch with a is on 7.5-inch spacing, which Rod year. As you might imagine, these prefers to their previous 9-inch disc drill versus 1 inch with loamy soils were quite vulnerable drill spacing. Because of the crop’s to wind erosion when tilled, which a hoe drill.” cold tolerance, Lanier’s field peas was the primary impetus for Rod’s are planted into the heaviest wheat father, Ike, to experiment with stubble, and about 2 inches deep. anything wider than a 3/4-inch knife direct seeding of winter wheat into Canola, flax, and safflower are through the soil was in 1984. We oilseed stubble in the early 1980s. planted only an inch deep. Rod were totally convinced that no-till Rod says, “You can still see the wind comments, “It’s far easier to get the was the correct path. We never erosion effects [from decades past]. seed to come up from 1 inch with looked back.” That was an obvious reason to quit a disc drill versus 1 inch with a hoe doing tillage.” During the ’80s, the Laniers pri- drill.