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Home My WebLink AboutTimes Advocate, 1991-12-04, Page 22Page 22 Times -Advocate, December 4, 1991 ERM4JPDATF-. Huron Soil and Crop meeting Gerald Poechman of Hanover was the guest speaker at Thursday's annual Huron Crop Improvement Association banquet in Vama. He is at the right being welcomed President Peter Feagan and Huron's farm management specialist Brian Hall. Soil and by Huron • am :ne Riot in the Furrow By Hob "1`roltr>r Where is Pierre Trudeau what farmers need him? It was Trudeau, I believe, who urged farmers to grow all the grain they could and he would sell it. We got grain coming out our gra- naries, spilling out of every storage silo in the country. If it could be sold -- and some of it is being mar- keted internationally no thanks to Trudeau -- farmers would not get much benefit anyway because the prices are about the same as they were 20 years ago and who do you know that is making the same to- day as they were 20 years ago? I have been accused of short- sightedness by some of my con- temporaries because I believe argi- culture in Canada is well worth preserving and senior governments should be doing all they can to help farmers. Whenever I am with a group of people, either rural or ur- ban -- or both -- and some have read my deathless prose, someone always suggests that a totally free market, a laissez-faire economy, should prevail in agriculture. Then, the argument goes, most of the farmers in Canada would be forced out of business because we have too many now. We are also producing many products incom- patible with our climate, they say. Leave fruit -growing to Californi- ans, they say. Checking the program prior to Thursday's Huron Soil and Crop Improvement Assocation annu- al meeting in Varna are soil and crop advisor Alan McCallum and resources management spe- cialist Brent Kennedy. Low input agriculture plan described at Soil and Crop VARNA - "Strategies for low in- put agriculture" was the topic of Hanover area farmer Gerald Poech- man as he spoke Thursday night in Varna at the annual meeting of the Huron Soil and Crop Improvement Association. Pocchman said, "I'm sort of in the middle of the stream. My practices are not completely organic. Al- though I use pesticides my philoso- phy is to build up organic matter to fulfill the needs of the soil." He continued, "I believe in com- posting and using cover crops and organic matter to reduce our depen- dency on fertilizer and reliance on the farm supply industry." Pocchman uses strip crop practic- es on a small scale to see which works out the best. Reports were given on Partners in Nitrogen. This is a co-operative ef- fort between farmers, the Fertilizer institute of Ontario, the University of Guelph, the Waterloo Centre for Groundwater Management and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Data from a number of sites are used to calibrate the Ontario Nitro- gen Soil Test Recommendations. All plots included five different ni- trogen rates replicated at least twice. Zero nitrogen rate strips be- tween treatments were used as a check. Several Huron farmers ran side by side plots to compare their usual nitrogen application rates to those recommended by the Ontario Nitro- gen Soil Test. These plots were rep- licated at least twice with zero checks between treatments. These co-operators were Brad Carnochan, Ron Dougall, Jerry Ja- retzke, Steve Carruthers, Tom Hayter and Jack Kroes. In most of the plots, the recom- mended nitrogen rate was fairly close to the maximum economic rate. On Steve Carruthers' plot the recommended rate was significant- ly less than what was needed. It appears that a nitrogen soil test at planting will not detect.all the ni- trogen *Teased form a plow down crop such as red clover or alfalfa. In the Huron corn study group the best yields reported were 180 bushels by Steve Carruthers of the Seaforth area and Bill Roy of Lon- deF5oro. Ron Dougall of Exeter re- corded 163 bushels per acre. A crop rotation variety trial was held on the Clinton area farm of Don and Murray Lobb. This field has been managed un- der two different rotations. The management has been on-going since the mid 1980's. The differenc- es in rotation were examined to de- termine what advantages, if any, there were. The data was only for one year but the trend is definitely there to support the use of long term rota- tions in no -till. ONTARIO GOVERNMENT NOTICE MEETINGS PERIODIC MANDATORY COMMERCIAL VEHICLE INSPECTIONS (P.M.C.V.I.) Monday, December 9, 1991 Owen Sound Coliseum Arena 8th Ave E. At 10th St. E., Owen Sound, Ontario Tuesday, December 10, 1991 Best Western Conestoga Inn Colonial Room 1333 Weber St. E. Kitchener, Ontario Thursday, December 12, 1991 Royal Canadan Legion Victoria St. W., Wingham, Ontario Monday, December 16, 1991 Sunnydale Community Centre 277 Sunnydale Road (At Anna Street) Barrie, Ontario FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: OWEN SOUND (519) 376-1341, KITCHENER (519) 650-0123, BARRIE (705) 7394626 ALL MEETINGS START AT 7:00 P.M. Ontario Ministry of Transportation Ministere des Transports - - i'4 inimmumume • Build houses on the Holland Marsh and forget about growing vegetables, they say. We eat too much red meat and dairy products now. These products are not condu- cive to a healthy body anyway. This talk scares me. Consumption of beef in Canada in the last 15 years has already dropped dramatically from 113 pounds a year to 83 pounds a year. Egg production has dropped along with a drop in consumers consum- Going for grey OTTAWA - The Grey Genera- tion is emerging in full force, with significant effects on all sectors of Canada's agri-food industry. A re- cent Agriculture Canada article out- lines what the swelling ranks of the over -50 set means for food proces- sors, retailers and food service managers. For example, the special needs of the aging population will call for more nutritious products, easy -to -open packages and smaller product sizes. Ing eggs. The cholesterol scare has had a dramatic effect on how many eggs are eaten. Our farmers are also well aware that consumption of rye whiskey has dropped and that has meant less demand for rye. What is also traumatic for Cana- dian farmers is the fact that many counties around the world who once bought our products have be- come self-sufficient in this green revolution. Those same customers who lined up for Canadian farm products 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago are now competing with us for sales. India is the classic example. Twenty years ago, that country was eager to buy our wheat. It is now an exporter of wheat. Our farmers have been too good. Korea is about to export hogs and those farmers are exporting because they bought the wonderful foundation stock from Canada. The same story can be repeated in many other products. Our great Macintosh apples, for instance, have become a glut on the market because European counties are pro- ducing more apples. So, we allow all our farmers -- or most of them -- to be absorbed into the economy. We let our land re- vert to to what it was 100 year ago. Then, a major drought hits Europe or India or Korea or the United States or wherever. The products we bought on the world market are no longer availa- ble. We, who now eat fruits and salads, the ingredients of which are imported, are no longer able to get those ingredients because we have sent the message to our farmers that they are no longer needed. So, we starve, And that is a prospect I dislike. I got into the habit of eating when I was very, very young. It is now im- possible to break it. i We need our agriculture, our 4 farmers in Canada, and I ani pre- , pared to sacrifice a great deal to keep them in business. i Wier4001640.4trAWAViiNg p;j; THE RUGGED, DEPENDABLE 111 z(. Test Drive One ?t ; Today and You will 1 Know • A Why.. I( its Attention All Farm Gream Pog, Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Limited announces new prices for farm separated cream effective December 9, 1991, picked up in pails at your farm. Special Gra $5.41 per kgs ui erfat For additional information and route pick-up times in your area, please call Teeswater Creamery at (519) 392-6864. Gay Lea Foods is a co-operative business owned by Ontario Cream and Milk Producers. .1 41 Hyde's ... We cfldn't Invent NaTILL, We Just perfected it! Yetter New for '92 Weight transfer system 11 coulter tool bar... From Yetter Adapt your pull type drill to no till with unique system Hyde's are No -Till Dealers for... 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