GHSCIA 2018 Winter Local.Pages
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Golden Horseshoe Soil and Crop Improvement Association Winter 2017/18 goldenhorseshoe Inside This Issue: Leosta Farms Around the ‘Horseshoe Restored 1930s combine Rockton World’s Fair CROP TALK & OSCIA News A Word from the Editor GHSCIA EXECUTIVE ! President: Gary Mountain It seems the weather is what all the talk has been Past President: Steve Sickle about as this harvest season is wrapping up across 1st Vice President: Brad Nimijohn our area. It has been another challenging growing 2nd Vice President: Ed Kisielewski season but I’m hearing that there are some good Secretary/Treasurer: Ingrid Sikkens surprises on the yield monitors. I hope this is the ! case for all of you. GHSCIA Board of Directors As we finish in the fields, we start to turn our Gordon Alblas, Rosemarie Haegens, John Hussack, attention to meeting season. Annual meeting Paul Kerr, Greg Kitching, Holly Loucas, John Nurse, Adam Parker, Arpad Pasztor, Andrew Pattemore, Scott details are coming together for many of our Ruppert, Ed Russell, Gerry Veldhuizen, Cathy Vitucci. counties, with some great speakers being lined up. Watch for more details in your mailbox, ! inbox, on the website and Twitter, and try to get PROVINCIAL DIRECTOR out to learn, network and participate with your Steve Sickle local soil and crop organization. It’s also ! membership renewal time for all of our counties, EDITOR so don’t forget to renew your membership. Janice Janiec Elections for local Boards of Directors happen at ! these annual meetings, so consider putting your OMAFRA REPRESENTATIVES name forward and helping out at the local level. Christine Brown and Jake Munroe And, it’s also the time to put forward any ! resolutions for the provincial Annual Meeting and goldenhorseshoe is published four times a year by the Conference, happening February 13 & 14 in Golden Horseshoe Soil and Crop Improvement London once again. Association and distributed to the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association members within the counties/ Mark your calendars for NutrientSmart and regions of Brant, Haldimand, Halton, Niagara North, FarmSmart in January once again. More details Niagara South, Norfolk, Peel and the City of Hamilton are provided in the newsletter, with the full (formerly Wentworth County). program available on the FarmSmart website. ! Looking forward to seeing you out and about the GOLDEN HORSESHOE SOIL AND CROP Region at some of these upcoming events! IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION c/o Janice Janiec Wishing you & yours the best of the upcoming PO Box 887 holiday season, Rockwood, Ontario, N0B 2K0 ! Janice J. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter or want to change your address, please contact the editor. (h) 519-856-2591 (c) 519-994-8619 Comments, ideas and sponsorship welcome. E: [email protected] ! T: @GHSCIA Contact your local/county secretary for Ontario Soil & W: www.ghscia.me !Crop Improvement Association membership rates. Undeliverable Canadian mail return to: Golden Horseshoe Soil & Crop Improvement !Association address above Canadian Publications Mail Agreement 42798038 !2 Provincial! Director Greetings:! Wow,! where’d all this corn come from? It’s shaped up to be a good! crop after a challenging growing season, with more yield! than expected. September was a God-send, with good weather! allowing the corn to dry and mature. ! There’s! lots to learn at upcoming annual and winter meetings.! Just when I think I’ve got some things about soil health! figured out, I realize the learning curve is still steep! My !overall soil health is good, as is clear by residue being broken! down by microbiological activity. But, some cover crops! have been difficult to establish and this year presented a huge! challenge managing slugs. While we often hear about the! soil health and cover crop successes, I think we need to talk! more about the challenges and how to overcome them. On !behalf of GHSCIA, I’d like to congratulate Larry Davis of Daveland! Farms as our regional Forage Masters winner. You can! read more about the revised Forage Masters program in the! Provincial News section of the newsletter. Larry will be recognized at the Brant SCIA Annual Meeting! in Burford on January 11, 2018. ! As you! plan your County Annual Meetings, don’t forget to apply for a Tier 1 grant, or even a Farmland! Health Education grant, if applicable. These funds can be used to offset the costs of those! high caliber speakers we like to learn from. There is also a new membership pamphlet from OSCIA! that all county secretaries have received, and a regional banner that can be used at events, as we! renew existing and attract new members for the coming year. ! Good! luck with the rest of harvest! Steve! ! ! ! GHSCIA! President’s Message ! This! beautiful fall weather we’ve been enjoying has been great to help mature the bean and corn! crops after the unusually cool wet summer. It has allowed many of us to plant early winter wheat.! So…Now is the time to hop on your ATV and get some soil samples before the ground freezes.! On another note, many of the county level clubs renew their memberships at this time of year.! Please be sure to renew your local club membership and encourage your farming !friends! and neighbours to do so as well. Here! are two important dates you will want to mark in your calendars: ! Friday, January 19, 2018 for Farmsmart in Rim Park, Waterloo ! Saturday, January 20, 2018 Farmsmart Conference at Guelph University ! ! I encourage! you to carpool with a neighbour so you may share the local news on the ride. continued on page 4… !3 Here are some events you should also plan to attend: -Local club annual meetings !-Neighbouring County annual meetings AND…Another meeting that is very worthwhile attending, is the OSCIA Annual Meeting in London, Ontario held in early February for two days. Consider volunteering to be a delegate or an alternate delegate representing your county !club. Speak to your local club President. Throughout the winter there are always many agricultural related meetings and workshops to attend. Keep an eye on your local club news and communications for details. Please enjoy some family time before the preparing for the next crop year. Perhaps, we will !have a snowy winter to enjoy skiing, snowmobiling etc…… !In closing, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy NEW YEAR in 2018. Gary Mountain GHSCIA President ! Leosta Farms Kylene & Nik Oreskovic Kylene and Nik both come from farming families and knew they wanted to farm together, for both the job and the lifestyle. They purchased their property near Binbrook in 2012 and needed to decide what kind of farming to pursue. They looked into all kinds of options, and ultimately decided to raise dairy goats, and to grow forage and field crops on their 150 acre farm. This fit well with their backgrounds – Kylene comes from a dairy farm and Nik from a field crop and pourty farm. They also farm in cooperation with Roy-A-Lea Farms – Randy, Michelle and Andrew Spoelstra, Kylene's family – with Nik fulltime on the farm while Kylene also works fulltime as a teacher in Hamilton. They have 2 small children- Klara is three and Blake is 15 months. The Oreskovic’s milk 210 goats, referred to as ‘does’ or ‘nannies’ when milking. They have 130 doelings, 80 dry goats and keep 4 breeding bucks or ‘billy’ goats. They raise Alpine, Saanen, Nubians and LaMancha, some of the most common dairy breeds. The size and disposition of goats works well with their young family. Chores take about 2-1/2 hours morning and evening to milk and feed, allowing time for Nik to focus on field work, some balance for Kylene between teaching full time and farming, and for raising their young family. The couple have neighbours who regularly help with chores and some casual, part time help as well. continued on page 5… !4 continued fom page 4… Nik and Kylene got in fairly early, as the industry has exploded in size and production over recent years. This is largely due to the short gestation period for goats, so herds can grow quickly. Leosta Farms started with 150 and now have more than 400 goats in total. There are about 200 dairy goat farms in Ontario, ranging in size from 60 to over 400 goats, according to Farm and Food Care Ontario. The largest herd in Ontario is about 1200 goats. There are two other dairy goat operations currently in Wentworth (City of Hamilton). Dairy goats allow Kylene and Nik to translate much of their dairy experience, as there are similarities between the goats and a dairy herd. Both cows and goats are ruminants. Milking is essentially the same, although the goats only have two teats and are quite a bit smaller, so the parlour is set up accordingly. Goat milk is priced based on butterfat, and like cows, some breeds produce higher butterfat than others. The same milk testing and regulations apply, just with different threshold limits. Goat milk is typically picked up once or twice a week when the minimum 500 litres is being produced. But there are differences too. Despite its rapid growth, the dairy goat industry lags far behind the “The dairy goat industry is one of the fastest dairy industry in medicine, technology advancements growing sectors in Canada, particularly in and genetics, by as much as twenty or thirty years Ontario. Ontario supplies 42 million of the according to some. Most meds are not labelled for 49.7 million litres of the goat milk produced goats, so producers work with their vets to come up in Canada. With 200% growth in the goat milk with dosing rates based on sheep and cows, and volume in the past 10 years, the dairy goat sector has moved quickly from niche to double the withdrawal period.