2023 McGregor Research Tour

    I always find this to be an interesting tour.  Cat and her crew do a good job.  Take home points for me this year (June 13th)  are the following:

    --Canola:  A large trial plot with a number of different cultivar from different companies.  The plots all looked good, well into flowering.  The plots, visually, looked significantly better than the canola field that bordered the plots.  The field was streaky with, generally, thinner stand with fewer flowers, and the streaks being shorter and flowers turned white, and I didn't notice pods developing.  The cooperator prepared the field and plot area the same, applying 80ppa N, 10ppa S.  The field was seeded at 5ppa of canola seed.  The plot was seeded a week later and had an additional 5gpa of Kickstart for fertility, and was seeded at 6ppa of seed.  That is a lot of seed.  My preliminary information indicates that the Kickstart was the only difference, other than the type of drill used.  I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of Kickstart showing that much difference, but it was obvious right to the border that encircled the plot site.  Maybe waiting a week later helped the plot site.  Foliar feeding has shown some potential benefit, with the best timing being early rosette stage before rapid biomass increase.   [ Earlier, I conversed with Brian Caldbeck, of Caldbeck Consulting.  A couple of useful comments were: --1) he likes 6-7 established plants/sf, and not to count emerged plants because some will not survive.  --2) space the seed out.  When seed clumps together only one or two seeds will germinate.  The others just sit there doing nothing.  --3) hybrids tend to divide out as tall with slender branch spread and shorter with wider branch spread.  He prefers tall/slender on 7"-10" spacing and short/wide on 10"-15" row spacing.

--Wireworm:  They infest a lot of crop acreage and can do damage to yield.  Wireworms are the larva form of the Click Beetle.  They emit a clicking sound, and are highly attracted to the color of white.  An easy check is to park a white pickup in/by the field you are scouting, --if they are there, they will be all over the pickup.  Wireworms prefer soil temperatures in the 55-75ºF range with moisture.  They dive deep when soil temperature reaches ≥ 80ºF.   McGregor has found that a lot of perceived chemical damage is actually wireworm damage.  Wireworms are more widely spread then we realize.  Click Beetles survive in grasslands and crop residue.  Natural predators are: rodents, birds, bats, frogs, lizards, predatory beetles, predatory wasps, predatory mites,  Lacewings, spiders, and preying mantises.  Seed treat with Terassa is quite effective for control.  

--Seed Treats:  Terassa seems effective for wireworm control.  Systiva seems effective for Rhizoctonia.  Relenya seems effective for Bunt Smut.   The Guardian Blend controls 20 diseases, but not wireworm.

--Fertility:  Zinc is best applied to seed compared to in row, side band, broadcast.  Zinc is the #1 limiting micronutrient in Pacific Northwest.  Nitrogen applied at Tillering stage is best timing; however, stabilized N applied at time of seeding has given best yield.    Use foliar feed for needed elements found through SAP testing at flag leaf stage.

--Wheat:  Early-Late seeding.  Best yields appear to develop when seeding early with a late maturing cultivar, and when seeding late, choose an early maturing cultivar.  Winter wheats:  Shine is highly susceptible to dryland foot rot while Blackjack is tolerant to dryland foot rot.  M-Pire has high tolerance to grassy herbides.  --with an awned wheat, awnes indicate developing kernel.  A stubby(short) awn is questionable for development.  An exercise Cat had us do related to early-medium-late seeding of winter wheat.  Seeding dates for the same cultivar was Sept. 15th, Oct. 15th, Nov. 15th.  In all cases the heads were very similar in development.  The main difference was the number of tillers.  The lesson here was, plant higher seed rate as you go farther into late fall to compensate for lack of ability to tiller.

--Herbicide treatments:  This trial consisted of some common herbicides with different mixes and sprayed across several cultivar types to see the crop reaction.   Effectiveness of the treatments varied.  It was pointed out that Clethodim, Paraquat, and Glyphosate needed water conditioning to improve effectiveness.

--RO Water:  Like last year, I think Cat used distilled water in 2023 and called it RO (reverse osmosis) water, but it's not!  McGregor's interest in RO water came about because of the buzz around a few operations using processed water and cutting chemical rates.  The trials looked poor and their warnings about escapements and potential for developing resistance are valid.   In 2023,  there are 9 active water processing units serving ~ 14 farm/ranch operations in eastern Washington and northern Idaho.   Since 2020 a group of us have been looking into the Pursanova Water System.  This system first filters the water, then run it through a reverse osmosis (RO) unit, and then on through "structure" tubes containing beads of specific types of ores.   These are not random rocks.  For more information about water see my posts on "Pursanova -- RO/S Water" by clicking on the "water" label.  There is a lot more to water than we generally recognize.

Crop Summary for 2018

      Four years ago, with all commodity prices in the good to excellent range, it was a lot easier to maintain a good diverse mix of crops in our rotation.  Now, that goal is more challenging with most commodity prices in the dumper.  We are all limited on the short term monetary loss one can adsorb for the long term benefits of an expanded crop rotation.   In 2018, we were down to three crops, alfalfa, winter wheat, and spring canola, with only winter wheat and spring canola in a regular crop rotation.  Our alfalfa in a long rotation is more than eight years old.  It's very important for successful longterm no-tilling to have diverse crop rotation for weed, and disease control.  You get a wider selection of chemistry, and many soil borne diseases can decrease in severity.  The closer you get to mono-cropping the closer you get to a mono-chemical reliance.

     2018 Winter Wheat:  We started seeding the 10th of September at 80#/a, and went into the winter in great shape with several tillers.

     Yields were great with the ranch average breaking 100bu/ac, and some exceptional areas going over 150bu/a.  We have never had a farm average of 100bu/a, but normally have exceptional areas going 140bu/a, --there were more of them in 2018.  There were still ridges and eroded hilltops that were in the ~30-60bu/ac range.  It's really difficult to get top yielding crops on ground that is eroded or continuing to erode regardless of commercial inputs.  I didn't think we had any spring nights with frost, but there apparently was.  The wheat showed definite frost damage along with other issues.
      Brundage 96 replaced Madson winter wheat in our operation many years ago, and has performed very well.  While scouting our fields this past year I noticed that there were a lot of deformed heads, some missing meshes, different kernel size within meshes, some missing meshes along the head, --just odd appearing.  After having a couple of people look at it, no real conclusion could be made; however, it was suggested that maybe Brundage 96 has run it's course.  The fall of 2018 we seeded certified seed of Brundage 96 and NorWest Duet.  We'll watch the two cultivars and decide whether to continue with Brundage 96 after the 2019 harvest.  Part of the value of Brundage 96 is that it is not a propratory cultivar and we can save back the seed, which costs from a third to half that of buying a certified proprietary variety, --which they all are now.

      2018 Spring Canola: Winfield HyClass 730 was seeded the first week of April @ 5#/a.  The crop emerged very well, and I could see that it was way too thick.  Unlike 2017, the bloom lasted for a good three weeks.  The year looked perfect to me for growing both winter wheat and spring canola, --but not.  Canola is considered quite drought tolerant, and I concur with that after the long hot dry spell in the critical growing period of 2017.  Heat tolerance may be something else though, and heat may be dropping the yields below our expectations.  I'll have to check into that.  With the moisture that canola pulls, I'm thinking that our high plant population negatively effected our yield.   As we grow and learn more about this crop we'll get a better understanding.
      2018 Alfalfa:   The stand is old but production has not, in the past, slackened.  This years alfalfa crop was only about 50%.  The first cutting took close to a month to get off the field do to several rain events.  Starting with the first cutting, the other two cuttings cascaded down respectively in both tonnage and quality.   

Canola Information 2018

 < Canolawatch.com >  great source of information from Canada.  How much is transferrable to our operation is a question at this point, but it's someplace to start.

Market:  8/15/18--Near term looks bearish. Soy prices are dropping, and there is a good canola crop in US and Canada.  Price recovery will probably not happen until January or beyond.
Harvest prep:  Three dry down products are diquat, saflufenacil, and glyphosate.  Diquat stops development nearly immediately.  With diquat, the crop needs to be 90% brown seed on the entire plant, --main stem and branches.   Saflufenacil can be applied a little earlier with the crop at 75% brown seed on the main stem.  Glyphosate offers the earliest application with plants at 30% moisture.  The product is good for variable maturity in a non roundup tolerant crop.
Storage: To store long term have clean canola (not weedy) that tests at 8% moisture or lower, (preferable 5-6%).  Can cut and store clean canola, with aeration, to ~12%, but need to watch carefully for hot spots.  Clean canola at 8% can be store in non-aerated bin without much worry (check bin on regular basis).  If canola measures 8%, but there are high moisture spots that is part of the harvested crop, consider rotating bins to redistribute material. 
Delivery: Have some kind of contract on file with Viterra indicating approximate quantity so space is saved at the plant for harvest delivery.  Harvested weedy canola needs to be delivered directly to theWarden plant for immediate cleaning and crushing (call prior to cutting or delivering product to Warden plant). 

SPRING SEEDING 2018

<--Last year our spring Canola never had this much color, --and our yield reflected the fact.  Last year, three weeks of +/- 100 degree heat beat up all spring crops in the area and caught our canola at the start of bloom.
       This pic shows a week of bloom.  It appears to take about a week to reach maximum color. Hopefully we will see this for another couple of weeks (or more).

    This spring we seeded spring canola, and a field with a cover crop mix.  No other spring crop was drilled, neither cereal or legume.   At SJ/Ewan we seeded canola at 5#/a on 10" rows @ ≥1" and Thornton we seeded 5#/a on 10" @≤1" depth with the CrossSlot drill.  The cultivar was a HighClass RR variety so that we could get another whack at Rattail Fescue and Downy Brome with Roundup.
   Early Field evaluation:
       In general, it appears that 5#/a provides  a high population, --good/bad(?)
       We have holes in the stand.  The small in-row holes are likely do to the low seeding rate of a very small seed metered through our old valmar air delivery system.  Any motion or attitude change of the drill will cause slight deceleration or acceleration of seed delivery with this type metering system.  
        The Large holes involving several openers or the whole drill width are a different story.  The tall heavy residue is playing a part.  Scouting and evaluating the canola stand the past 2-3 weeks have led us to the conclusion that we should leave a seeded field with the residue flat on the ground, and seed no shallower than 1.25".  The canola stand at SJ/Ewan is very good, but Thornton is a different story.  There are a lot of holes.  There are plants struggling through tangled, half height  residue, and areas where the seed didn't get into the ground sufficiently.  Thornton fields were wet and cold.  We shallowed up the seeding depth and reduced opener down pressure, --a mistake!  When we think back over the years of planting with the CrossSlot, we have never had a problem of emerging a crop from seeding too deep, --the problems, when developed,  have always been from seeding too shallow.  
        The technology developed in the CrossSlot opener has the ability to emerge a crop from greater depths than is normally acceptable under the "conditions", but it is difficult to break the mindset of shallowing up seeding depth with cold wet soil.  With a "seasoned" field (one with years of low disturbance no-till), which we have, water drains rapidly, --and the soil warms quickly when disturbed in the drilling process.

<--This pic shows a Thornton field with tall, heavy residue. You can see holes in the stand, which, unfortunately, there are many.  At first we thought it may be chemistry since this is an area that had an abundance of Canadian Thistle.  It turns out to be that the seed was placed too shallow, or the mat to thick.  That's easily corrected for another year, --set the drill a little deeper and apply a little more down pressure.
    The Flea Beetle has been a problem in some fields but we don't see any evidence of that pest.  One symptom of their presence is where they severe cotyledons leaving bare patches in the field.  Cold, damp, slow growing conditions favor that type damage.  

<--This pic, taken earlier, shows the visual difference between tall, heavy residue in the background and no residue in the foreground.
The canola in the background looks rough, but it actually is a good stand.  In a week or two,  I'll add a pic from this same location. 
      The lack of residue in the foreground  makes the field look a lot better, --but I think it is only visual.  This piece (foreground) is new to us, very wet, never direct seeded.  This area had some standing water when we did our preplant Roundup application, but we were able to drill it without difficulty. 
      At SJ we also have ~50a where we replaced our regular fertility with fish, sea salt, humid acid.  We're participating with a group to learn more about "biologicals".  I think I've called these "snake oil" in the past.  I'll address our experience with this later in another post.  At this point in time it isn't impressive, --we'll see.

<--[Update: 6/27 pic]  The same area as above with canola in full bloom.   This pic is zoomed out further.  Both the foreground and background looks very good.  We have experienced good weather for the canola bloom this year.  Some areas on the plants are showing evidence of some cold nights.
     Unfortunately there are two other fields that don't look this good.  Recent evaluation of these fields haven't changed our earlier conclusion, --seeded to shallow for the amount of residue that exists on some of the areas.  Canola doesn't like wet feet, but this condition was short lived as other wet areas with good stands attest.

    Evaluating the Cover Crop field:  I updated the "Cover Crop" page to reflect what has been done for the spring of 2018.  Another update will be added when we decide how and when we will terminate the stand.
                 

2016 Harvest Update

   This year has been the most confusing of my 60+ years of farming.  The weather looked like it was going to treat us pretty good, but, mostly after the fact, we found it wasn't as good as it first appeared.  I thought we missed the frost in April, but as it turned out, not quite.  The moisture was coming along just fine, then it shut off.  The years moisture was just short of our long term average.  The heat wave in May, although not real hot, apparently did damage depending on where the crop was in it's development.  The temperature for this growing and harvest season was quite comfortable.  A relatively mild winter, and no 100+ days. Very different from 2015's long stretch of 100+ temperatures.  All in all everything was looking pretty good.  Looking back on Art Douglas' prediction, I think he was right on for my immediate area.  There apparently was a big swing of temperature in the April-May period that set us up for falling number issues depending on area, and wheat cultivar.  I knew when it happened but didn't think anything about it, --not severe, not unusual.  Everything I hear is antidotal; however, I'm of the opinion that the test is badly flawed.  Inconsistency in the ability to replicate the numbers, even in a relatively narrow range, is wide spread.  It appears to me that the milling industry has found a way to purchase high quality grain, --cheap, and at our expense.  Hopefully, this will be addressed before another harvest.  I have been hearing of some fantastic yields, but some are pretty mediocre,  and some fields have very low FN's, but not all of them.  With the quality issues and plummeting prices, this will be a year we hope to never repeat.
     Now, for our farm.  ---Wheat yields were good, but not exceptional, --with exception.  The FN's varied across the fields ranging from 279-330.  Wheat yields ranged from 83 to a little over 100.  This yield range is close to norm for us at this stage,--slow but steady gain over time.  We have a variety of soils ranging from very complex shallow ground to deep Athena soils.  Our cover crop ground was the 83 and we consider that fantastic.  This is the worst ground we have with complex soils and large areas that have a couple of inches of soil over fractured rock, and infested with Rush Skeleton weed.  This area was seeded to a multiple cultivar (brassica/legume) cover crop last year and used 3" water compared to our CF.  This spring there was less than an inch (0.8") difference in moisture.  There were variations in yield over the CC area but none of the shallow spots showed significant drop as was expected.  Was this unexpected yield do to the cover crop?  Too early to tell!  One year doesn't make a trend, but since it wasn't a flop, it's encouragement to expand the practice.  Our experience is paralleling the experience of other farmers in the area, --covers used 3" moisture, yields didn't collapse.  This also matches the literature on the subject.  The remainder of our Brundage 96 looked exceptional through harvest, but didn't end up yielding exceptional.  The Puma went over a hundred.
--- The mustard was a disappointment.  Yields ranged from ≈680 to 870#/a.  The stand emerged well with an OK population.  Quality was good.  It was harvested with the stripper head.  The field Rep. indicated that they were finding similar results region wide, and no real explanation as to why.  In our case, my thoughts are: --we should seed 8-10#/ac instead of the 5-6, and that we seeded to shallow.  we had emergence over too long of time span.  I'm guessing that another factor was that the little heat wave in May hit the mustard at the wrong time in it's development.  I didn't see frost damage during emergence.
--- The winter peas were problematic from the start.  They yielded 1262#/a.  One field was destroyed because of contamination with Billy Beans.   They were all dormant seeded in November.  They came up this spring looking great and high population.  With no experience in dormant seeding we didn't put on the pre-emergence chemistry.  Bad mistake!  Spring applications of grass and broadleaf herbicides were a total failure.  Dormant seeding of winter peas has great potential, but make sure to get the pre-emerge chemistry applied.  We ended up with an even over-story of Jim Hill Mustard, that proved to be challenging to harvest.  An IH8230 with MacDon header had no easier time than our N7 and standard head.  A very slow grind.  The crop grade showed high percent of hard seed which was subtracted from the germ making it un-usable as seed stock.  Our supplier had only one field that returned seed quality winter peas, and they were seeded in the spring, --so missed the environmental condition that caused the hard seed.  We will likely see Austrian peas show up for several years because of this hard seed issue.  Fortunately they are not difficult to remove.
----The spring peas were fantastic at Thornton.  Thornton was DRY.  They were ≈6" below normal, but the yields were very good.  Most communities north and south of Thornton had fairly normal precipitation.  Except for the rainfall, the other environmental conditions favored a good crop in 2016.  Our "Ginny" peas ranged from 2400-2980#/a, depending on the field.  The normally high yielding low ground tallied as much as 6500#/a.  They stood way too long for a green pea; however, the bleach, was insignificant, and seed coat damage was reasonable.  Normally green peas will have significant bleach if they stand beyond maturity.  Ginny is a great cultivar.  We harvested them with a standard head w/o pea lifters.  A slow harvest and in areas some peas were left on the vine (too deep in the track).  Our old wheat residue was left intact and we had a lot of pea residue left in the field.  We expected we would process all the residue, leaving exposed ground, which is normal with pea harvest, --but didn't.
--- Our DNS (Glee)@ 42b/a was ok.  Heavy weight, but only 13+% protein.  Stand was good but maybe it needed to be thicker.  Consider increasing seed rate, --we had 2-3 tillers and don't want more than two.  Probably needed more N to get protein.
--- Our SB (Lenatah) @3030#/a was ok.  Heavy weight and quality was excellent.  Stand was good, but may consider increased seeding rate.
--- We had a Viterra test plot of 6 new spring canola cultivars for the area.  Most were a GMO of one type or another.  They all had excellent yields ranging between 1700-2700#/a.  The plot was in the flat in front of our house.  The trial was not limited in moisture, and had a high pH (8+) in much of it.  We seeded the plots after the mustard and before moving to Thornton.  The seeding rate was ≈4#/a.  The stand developed over about 3 weeks,--it didn't seem to effect the outcome.  The canola probably stood too long; however, there was very low shatter on all the cultivars.  The quality of the stand didn't allow much movement within the crop canopy.

BROADCASTING FERTILIZER - Spring 2016

Recent conditions offered an opportunity to broadcast liquid fertilizer, --early in the season, firmed up ground, heavy residue to help support machine and product weight, and rain every other day.  March 1st, Kye put 30# phosphorous and 20# sulfur  on alfalfa (streaming ammonium poly phosphate 11-37-0, and ammonium thio sulfate 12-0-0-26.  On the 4-5th, he put 60# nitrogen and 10# sulfur on ground that will be seeded to spring mustard and canola (streaming URAN 32% and ammonium thio sulfate 12-0-0-26.
      --I'm not a fan of broadcasting fertilizer on the soil surface.  Phosphorous does not move into the soil profile well, and nitrogen sources are exposed to potential loss into the atmosphere.
              In the future we need to look at the spoke-wheel applicator from Oregon.  With it's capability of placing fertilizer four inches into the soil profile, and it's very low surface disturbance, the spoke-wheel offers a potential solution to resolve all issues related to applying fertilizer in a growing crop, or for a sensitive crop.  Currently though, spreading phosphorous, nitrogen, and sulfur during the 1" rainfall we have received the past six days, has allowed us to do the second best option with minimum loss.
               My understanding is that in our heavy residue mat, it's preferable to use dry fertilizer.  The theory is that more dry product will work through the residue to the soil surface than a liquid product.
      --I am confused about fertilizing a tap rooted plant.  Last December at the Wheat Academy, there was a presentation on fertilizing various cultivars. Pictures illustrated a serious problem with a concentrated nitrogen band below or near a cultivar with a tap root.  It appeared that a similar effect was present in cultivars with fiberous roots; however, because of the rooting type (not dependent on a tap root), the yield hit was significantly less.  
                I have attended two oil seed conferences since the December meeting, and not a word was mentioned that would indicate a concern over the proximity of concentrated nitrogen.
                In the past we have put all our N down in one pass with the mustard seed.  We have not been satisfied with our yields.  Was that due to frost damage, which we have had every year, or have we had damage from the concentrated fertilizer band?  We'll try broadcasting the fertilizer and dig roots this year.  We'll also reseed frost damaged areas instead of waiting and watching to see if the stand will recover.

Streaming N & S in the rain.  In this case it is a timely application where the rain will move the N into the soil profile, minimizing loss of a volatile product.  The ground condition supports the equipment quite well.   

OOPs!, --I watched this happen in two blinks of the eye.  Notice the track coming down over a grass patch behind the GVM.   There is no difference between residue, or rubber at the interface with soil, --if the interface is wet, it's lubricated and gravity wins.  Our soil has good surface cover and a high infiltration rate, but rolling across steep ground with a heavy machine in the rain, will send you to the bottom.  Kye had most of these steep places fertilized the day before when no rain was falling.

SEEDING WINTER CANOLA- AUGUST 19, 2014

 [Update 10/31/14] -- see updated to post titled "CHEMICAL FALLOW", 7/22/14
        This is our first serious attempt at seeding canola (winter or spring).  We have started out with Amanda.  With the new ultra slow seed transmission, we have easily accomplished 3 pounds per acre.         -----The crop is being seeded on 20" row spacing, using the front gang of openers.  The back gang is being locked in the high position with no product being put through them.
-----We have switched the deep band fertilizer tubes with the starter and are adding ≈ 25gpa of water in the area where the seed should be.  We are putting down some P in the deep band.  We probably should have added B as well.
-----I have yet to find one seed.  I wish the seed was dyed yellow.  The yellow mustard was not hard to find.  We are relying entirely on the opener position and what the electronics are telling us.  The seed roll is moving too slow, and the volume to low, to be seen easily with the mounted camera.
-----We are putting the seed at 2.5" depth.  The moisture is thinning out on the ridge lines.  We're hoping that the added water will help emergence.  The lower slopes have better moisture closer to the surface.
-----The residue is tall and heavy.  The openers are maintaining depth much better than I was expecting, even though the ADF system is not working properly.  Baker Ind. has to work on better reliability of that system.  It's getting irritating.  The residue is no problem to penetrate.  The hydraulic valves for the back gang have to be upgraded.  The openers slowly leak down and grab residue and quickly make an unsightly pile.  Kye has had very few working openers plug and drag.
-----With only one half of the openers in the ground, much of the stubble is left standing.  This should be helpful for winter survival of the winter canola crop.
-----We have divided our seed hopper into two 29bu bins.
-----We are seeding ≈ 30ac of canola (RR), on 20" spacing using the front row of openers.  The back row of openers will be seeding a spring pea on 20" rows at ≈ 75 pounds per acre.  The intent is to use the legume to produce N for the canola.  This, as it turns out, is more complex than I imagined.  It's not just growing peas to their maximum nodulation and killing them for later release of the N produced.  I'll do more research and make some decisions before the peas reach bloom this fall.  Right now we hope to get emergence along with the canola.
-----There will be upgrades to this post.
-----I will write another post on "GROWING NITROGEN" in the near future.

Pic above shows seeding winter canola on winter wheat stubble that was harvested with a stripper header.