Efficiency boosters – Canola Digest

Andrea De Roo

Fairlight, Saskatchewan

Andrea De Roo’s farm bought a bigger air drill tank to carry urea, potash, monoammonium phosphate and seed in separate compartments. They don’t use blends anymore. A variable rate system using blends is possible, but it does not allow for optimal rates for each specific nutrients. Also, for logistical reasons, it is almost impossible to have a blend specific to the need of each field. A drill and fertilizer fill system that handles nutrients separately allows for maximum flexibility. The farm applies sulphur in a separate pass as BioSul or elemental.

De Roo hires Croptimistic to create prescription maps for variable rate. The system uses composite samples for each zone within a field. Croptimistic divides each field into 10 production zones, then pairs them up to create five management zones. De Roo bases her prescriptions on a composite sample for each zone. She doesn’t actually sample the high salinity zone because, for them, the fertilizer rate for that zone is zero. On the theme of adopting existing innovation, they are looking into tile drainage for those saline areas. They applied to the Water Security Agency for permits.

De Roo, who also worked until recently as an agronomist, encourages farmers wondering about variable rate to start with soil sampling as a relatively simple first step. When thinking about the complexity of variable rate, De Roo says, “it is so easy to get overwhelmed and not do anything at all.”

The common approach to soil nutrient analysis is one composite sample based on a collection of soil cores from mid slope or average-yielding positions throughout a field. Another approach is to pick one benchmark location for each field and go back to that same acre each time you sample.

“These soil samples show what the field offers in terms of a foundation to build the crop on,” she says. “For example, if a field is very low in phosphorus, consider how much phosphorus fertilizer you can afford and set a realistic canola yield based on that amount.”

Owen Orsak

Binscarth, Manitoba

Owen Orsak expects continued uptake of variable rate applications. “I’m a huge proponent,” he says. He started in 2018 and took a few years to get into it. His land is highly variable, hilly with up to 200 feet of elevation change across the farm. And while the soil is primarily clay loam, he does have areas with a low of gravel or shale or sandy loam. In one more extreme field, organic matter varies from two per cent on hill tops to 14 per cent in bottoms.

Orsak applies all of his fertilizer and some seed by variable rate, and he makes it work, logistically, by spreading out application timing and using a combination of liquid and dry at the time of seeding.

He applies variable elemental sulphur by floater in spring on wheat acres so it has a year to breakdown before canola, the crop with high sulphur demand. In some cases, only 15 per cent of a field needs sulphur. In other fields, he may apply across whole area but at different rates. “Why put sulphur on acres that don’t need it?,” he says. “Sulphur may be a small cost relative to nitrogen, but that savings alone pays for all of my prescriptions for the year.”

Orsak applies liquid nitrogen (UAN 28-0-0) at the time of seeding. He also applies dry phosphorus at seeding, split between seed row and band.

As for innovations he’d like to adopt in the near term, Orsak likes the idea of unmanned spraying but says it doesn’t have to be an aerial drone. “We don’t have to take the big step of going to a drone right away when an unmanned ‘ground drone’ can carry a 1,200-gallon tank,” he says.

Orsak mentions the Global Unmanned Spray System (GUSS) sprayers that vineyards currently use to spray grapes. He could see a field version spraying on its own, solving labour shortages while he and his dad are seeding, for example.

Amanda and Curt Hazlett

Red Deer, Alberta

The Hazletts adopted a few innovations “to be as efficient as possible with grain handling,” Amanda says. This is important, she says, because they used to have three drivers with a Class 1 licence, now they have two: Curt and his dad. One strategy is to move as much grain as possible – based on contracts, elevator space and market risk – off the combine so they don’t have to handle it twice. The other strategies are related to gear. Here they are:

Hoppers for flat bottom bins. “No one likes to shovel in a flat bottomed bin,” Amanda says. And grain vacs are high maintenance and somewhat scary. “We have a high capacity vac, and if you get your arm stuck in there, you won’t get it out,” Curt says. He’s had a foot go in, and has had a phone and gloves go through. “For safety, we need to have two people around when running the vac,” Amanda says. Hoppers are a lot safer and easier.
Rodono telescoping swing augers on bin-loading augers. This helps with unloading efficiency because one person can park the truck then position the swing auger. For harvest, they keep one person in the yard unloading trucks and another person shuttling trucks to the field and back. With the Rodono swing augers, unloading is truly a one-person job.
Gasoline-powered fan to keep the auger operator space cool and dust-free. The Hazletts bought the fan from a neighbouring farmer who used it to inflate hot air balloons. He doesn’t balloon anymore, so the fan was available. They’re similar to fans fire departments use to suck smoke out of buildings, Curt says.

Big auger engines. The Hazletts want their 13” by 90’ bin-loading auger and 12” by 40’ truck-loading auger working at max capacity, so they powered up with Wisconsin four-cylinder 175-cubic-inch engines.

Jonah McGrath

Leroy, Saskatchewan

Jonah McGrath used a guidance system called Ditch Assist to accurately cut a 1.5-mile channel to drain a large slough. Instead of only 240 productive acres across the half section, the field now has 310.

The kit includes a harness, module and iPad-based program to guide the ditch depth. It also has a calibration system built in that matches with any unit to guarantee accuracy, McGrath says. He operated the Ditch Assist-equipped scraper to manage the cutting depth. The primary machine was a pull-type hydraulic 18-yard scraper. They used “pulldozers” for finishing.

The new swale has just enough slope – 0.1 per cent grade – to move water slowly to a reservoir on their own land. “It is a long, smooth channel we can drive the combine or sprayer through,” he says. At one point along the 1.5 miles, they did need to cut through a six- to eight-foot hill.

Another innovation the McGraths adopted is a deep ripper to shatter hardpan compaction that is “slowly getting thicker,” he says. The deep ripper cuts to 16” depth and has shanks on 30” row spacing. “This gets air into the soil, and lets the roots penetrate,” McGrath says. “It does move around a lot of ground, so you need to go over the field with harrows afterward.”

Jennie Parsonage

Baldur, Manitoba

Jennie Parsonage and her husband’s family adopted a farm management innovation that she wished they would have done 10 years ago – an ATCO trailer for the farm office.

The office had been in their house, which has some benefit with little kids. Parsonage could work while they played, or jump into the office for a quick hour after they went to bed. However, it was also where the in-laws and anyone else did the office work. “If they’re working, you feel like you should also work and not sit on the couch,” Parsonage says.

The ATCO trailer is a neutral space that provides “a level of separation,” she says. The new office sits about 100 feet north of the family home, hidden on the other side of a row of trees. Her in-laws are on the north side of the same yard.

The ATCO trailer has white metal siding and the typical yellow band around the top. It has a larger room in the middle and two smaller offices at each end. Features include heat, air conditioning, fridge, coffee maker and Internet. It does not have a bathroom, but the shop nearby has one.

They bought it used for around $45,000 and put it down on a concrete pad. It took about a month to get it wired and up and running. If they like the separate office idea and want something better, they can sell the trailer and build a permanent wood-frame building.

Ryan Gauthier

Donnelly, Alberta

Ryan Gauthier uses Climate FieldView from Bayer to collect data on seeding, spraying and harvest operations.

Gauthier mentions nitrogen. “We have portions of fields that run out of water before they run out of nitrogen,” he says. So they will use data to create prescription maps that reduce nitrogen fertilizer in those areas.

Financial analysis helps them identify breakeven points on specific inputs and rates. For example, they can identify where it makes sense to aim for wheat yields of 85 bu./ac., and where 65 is a more reasonable target. The same goes for canola and other crops. They use on-farm fertilizer rate trials to test different yield targets.

In 2024, Gauthier also ran a canola variety trial with Corteva and another trial to compare five fungicides on their peas. For all of these on-farm trials, FieldView data management software helps him take proper notes. “It is my remembering tool,” he says. FieldView maps have all the trials marked.

Another essential tool for on-farm trials is their grain cart, he says, with a scale so they can record data accurately.