Sustainable

Spring Break and the Royal Winter Fair are here already here and that means it is the end of March. Where did the time go? The geese are making their way north, some ducks are settling in on the wetlands and for some calving is done or just starting. The weather is still nice for this time of year although we did get some snow this week as well as some rain. I hope we get a bit more as seeding draws nearer. I was out in the field the other day on my own farm leveling molehills and dragging some pastures and it sure felt good. A lot of our inputs are bought here at MZTRA so all we have to do is drag the airseeder out of mothballs and grease it and hopefully we are ready to go. We have been busy behind the scenes here with final reports and protocol planning for the upcoming season. We have some innovative trials coming this year and more details will follow as the protocols and some of the finer points worked out. We are looking at some sustainable methods for growing some nitrogen on your farm as well as some fungicide trials this summer. All these trials are aimed at keeping more dollars in your pocket. We have thought about it and we could come up with the latest and greatest thing in agriculture but if it did not make economic sense then who would ever do it. So we have been trying to come up with research that makes economic and agronomic sense.

This next part is so important that it deserved a new paragraph. It also has to be sustainable. What a buzzword that is now sustainable; hmm let’s think about that for a few minutes. It can make economic sense short term to tighten up a rotation and go with what makes money now but what about the long term health of your farm. Think for a minute what was left to you and by whom. The land may have had stones picked so now you can grow soybeans it may have had some drainage done so you can farm the low spots or it may have had some bush cleared so you can now farm it with a larger implement. Are we paying enough attention to the soil and the health of our land? Are we paying attention to the organic matter and microbes in the soil and feeding them what they need to improve our soil health. Are the tight rotations compromising soil health at the expensive of LONG TERM profitability? I am not saying that you should compromise the whole profitability of your farm in one season but what if you could apply lessons that we learn here at MZTRA to a few acres or your farm at one time? What if you could take a drop in production for a year but that would allow you to use fewer inputs in the future? Would you? Many don’t or wouldn’t. We see those people that do that as not normal. How can someone grow 110 bushel corn without added fertilizer? That won’t work on my soil or on my farm. What happens if it would and would lead to long term economic benefits? I think I would do it. As a matter of fact here at MZTRA we are looking at doing things like that. You have questions we want to find the answers.

Fast Friday

Here we are in March and the weather has been beautiful so far this spring. It gives us the itch to get into the field. However the only thing we have taken to the field so far was the quad. On my own farm however I have done a bit of pasture work with the tractor, so I scratched that itch for some field work. I think it is a bit early for seeding myself but if the weather is nice come April 25^th or so call me on my cell phone because I will be in the tractor. This early though Mother Nature could throw us a curve ball by way of a snowstorm in early April and those storms could change the flooding picture if they did materialize. So we are going to take advantage of the spring by cleaning up the yard and getting the equipment ready to go that way hopefully we can cruise into seeding and coast into summer with a lot of the work already done. That is the plan anyway. However on a farm, things rarely go as planned. I would assume that it is because we have so many variables to contend with. That is what makes farmers resilient, that ability to change things on the go and as conditions, markets or other factors dictate. At MZTRA we are excited by this upcoming year. We just hosted a successful Annual General Meeting with a super line up of speakers. We talked about intercropping, variable rate fertilization, weather and a whole other bunch of topics that we will expand on in following blog posts and our newsletter as well. We are excited because the farm is in good shape heading into this coming year. We have cleaned up the yard and have the equipment serviced and ready to roll. Most of our inputs are bought and the seed is booked. We are excited because we have a good bunch of guys on our board that are behind what we are doing. We are making inroads into having industry partners and academic partners as well. It all adds up to big things in the coming year. Because it is Friday I will keep this short. The bottom line is we are excited about this year and we hope to share that excitement with you and hope that you get involved with MZTRA and bring your research ideas and passion for agriculture.

Ideas and Meetings

Well here we are after Valentine’s Day already it seems like only yesterday that the first blog post was done. We were hoping to blog about everything by now but the time has slipped by this past month so fast. It has been a good month here at MZTRA all things considered. We are finalizing some research plans and trials, buying inputs, and going to meetings and seminars. We were at Ag Days and met a lot of people with some good ideas and a lot of concerns about agriculture. We also gave out a lot of candy and newsletters. We had a great time and also met a lot of other exhibitors. We had a new booth which we had a lot of comments on and that was great as well.

So with all the meetings and networking we have done we hope to make MZTRA a dynamic place with friends and influences from all over. There are so many people out there with great research ideas and questions about agriculture. At MZTRA we love questions. They mean that someone is thinking outside the box or it means they want to do something better or easier or both. Better can mean they want to make more money or do something in a more sustainable way or both. It is the times when both things occur that we feel we have succeeded. Should we stop there? The quick answer for me is no. As farmers things are always changing and one year is never exactly always changing and one year is never exactly like the last one. So we should never be just satisfied with the status quo. As farmers we can always do better, either economically or environmentally.

That brings me to the point of my first paragraph. Those meetings, booths, products and people can all be contributors to the success of your farm. Now I am not saying to try everything that you read about in the latest issue of your favorite farm paper or to run out and try everything that you hear about at a producer meeting. However if open your mind to the ideas and put them into your own farm context some of those ideas might not be so far out there. There are as many ways to do something as there are farms and farmers. Without that idea there would be no Prairie Farm Report to keep us occupied on Sunday afternoon. Those guys had an idea, some welding rods and a pile of scrap metal. An idea or concept is born. Sometimes in an agronomic sense those ideas are hard put in a tangible sense because something like increasing the soil organic matter doesn’t happen as fast as welding some metal in the shop. We have to stick with projects like that because those projects that don’t have an immediate result can however lead to long term sustainable health of our farms and economic returns based on lower amounts of inputs used. Those projects may not pay off as fast as welding something in the shop but long term they can pay us back.

Ideas like that come from meetings and producers who have done it or have asked the right questions. They have tried it on their own farms or have been involved in a board such as MZTRA where we have producers with questions that we turn into demonstrations and trials. I was told by someone a while ago that in agriculture it is a mix of what you know but also who you know. Thanks Pam. That is true as the ag community shrinks. We have fewer people involved so our ideas are even more important to research and put into action. So once again to blow our own horn here at MZTRA that is what we do.

So get involved in a producer organization, get out to some meetings keep your mind open, sort through that pile of ideas in your mind like that pile of brochures we got all picked up at Ag Days. Find out what might work and try a small part of your farm with something new. Get involved in MZTRA and have us try it.

Don’t forget our AGM on March 20 at the Riverbank Discovery Center in Brandon at 9am

2012

Happy 2012

I think that is the first time I have actually written the New Year on any sort of document. It sure looks strange to see it the first few times you print it. With that new date comes our hope for a good and safe year for all our friends, neighbors and farmers. We sure had a challenging start to 2011 with the wet spring and then a beautiful fall but the lack of moisture made us wonder who turned the tap off. So far the winter has been beautiful with the mild temperatures and here we are in the beginning of January and winter seems half over. However it is Manitoba and that is probably wishful thinking.

We waited until 2012 to launch our blog because we wanted to start the New Year off right. We here at MZTRA have a renewed spirit and are looking forward to the new opportunities and challenges that we face in agriculture. As a farmer directed organization we have members that farm and face the same challenges that everybody else does in their operations so that presents our organization with a lot of good research ideas and even more good questions. We are proud to say that we are leaders in sustainable agriculture and we take that line seriously. Agriculture is a foundation for Western Canada and indeed a primary resource for the Canadian economy. MZTRA wants to help improve agriculture and make farmers more profitable. More profits mean more money in the rural economy and a healthy rural economy. Therefore we appreciate the magnitude of our task to help farmers make more money but also help them become more sustainable in their agronomic decisions. How do we improve soil health? What about compaction in a zero till system? What about vertical tillage? Is variable rate fertilizer the next step? How about variable rate seeding? What about all these products that promise yield gains? Things that matter to farmers on a field scale are what matter to us.

We want to use this blog to share our findings and ideas. We want to use it to share other information we find from various sources and offer different perspectives. We want to share pictures and up to date information here. The world is turning into an instant information sort of place. If we find something in the field we want to share it right away not a month from now. We want our success to become your success and our failures to become a lesson. So Amanda our Science Coordinator and myself Earl will use this to keep you informed and perhaps entertained with the goings on at MZTRA.

We have a newsletter in the works a website that is great and a Facebook page. We hope that this is another way we can connect with you. We hope to see you at Ag Days. We will post more updates before that though and reminders to come see us at our booth and share your research ideas and what matters to you. Make the most of the winter meeting and seminar season. What a great opportunity to network and share. We hope to see you at some of these meetings. The first reminder of our AGM is now. Mark your calendars for March 20 2012.

Thinking outside the plots