Agronomy: The Science (and Art) of Field Crops and Soil Management

To say that we farm in a unique manner would be an understatement. Anyone who has driven by many of our fields in the Claresholm area will notice that our fields have taller stubble than the rest of the fields in the area.

This is because we use a unique harvesting tool called a stripper header. A machine composed of a rotor with specialized fingers on it that picks the grain off the plant without pulling the standing straw into the combine creating many unique agronomic advantages.

Due to the increased length of our stubble (also known as residue) and our desire to do the best job possible at seeding time; we also use disc drills to seed our crops. The ultra low disturbance seeding job done by a disc drill, sometimes makes it hard to tell if we have seeded until the crop emerges.

We are firm believers in the power of crop rotations and believe many of the agronomic problems affecting agriculture on the Canadian prairies are a result of poor crop rotations. Long term rotations have been the key to our success and will continue to be vital to our operation in the future.

Cover cropping and incorporating cattle into our annual crop land is something we have been doing in the past and by using more cover crops and new methods to seed them we hope to be able to increase diversity and reduce our reliance on synthetic inputs.