The Rural Voice, 1999-09, Page 10CHRYSLER DODGE
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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Scrap Book
Rebuilding long -life humus in the soil
Ontario agriculture has been living off
humus built up by the decaying of
plant material on the floor of hard-
wood forests over hundreds of years
but sooner or later new humus must be
created to build soil, say researchers at
the Department of Wood and Forest
Science at Laval University.
Cultivating of soil and pesticides
destroy the fertility of soil. say C.
Caron, G. Lemieux and L. Lachance
of the Co-ordination Group on Ramial
Wood, who point out that compost
and manure and plant residue create
short-term humus which decomposes
back into its basic elements within a
year or two. Humus derived from
hardwood trees, however, is much
more stable and can last more than
1,000 years before completely
breaking down into elements.
The reason is the lignin in the
wood, an organic compound found in
the cell walls of plants. The type of
lignin that gives rigidity to the cell
walls of woody plants like trees and
shrubs, produces stable, long -life
humus when consumed and digested
by soil micro-organisms.
The team has been experimenting
with rebuilding soil fertility with
"ramial wood", a term given to twigs
of less than 7 cm in diameter. Branches
and brush traditionally have little
value in the modern forest economy.
Yet more than 75 per cent of a tree's
nutrients are stored in its twigs. When
these are chipped or crushed and
applied to the top few centimetres of
soil, the earth's micro-organisms
digest the nutrients from the wood and
convert them into stable humus.
Ramial chipped wood must not be
composted before being applied and
must not be ploughed under, the
researchers say. It should be spread in
a layer no thicker than 4 cm (1 5/8")
with 2.5 cni (1") the optimum — that's
a rate of 150 to 200 cubic metres per
hectare. It should be worked lightly
into the soil surface. A single treat-
ment will last for three years under
Canadian conditions and can be renew-
ed by addition of 10-20 cubic metres
per hectare in the fourth and sub-
sequent years. Autumn is the best time
to apply the wood. Sandy -silt soils
with some clay content benefit most.
Red oak, sugar maple, beech,
yellow birch, linden and ash give
much better results than poor -quality
deciduous trees like red maple or
poplar. Coniferous trees contain
inhibitors designed to eliminate
competitive growth.0
— Eco -Farm & Garden magazine
Turn off that steer when you're through
Automation, it seems, is hitting everything, even the wild, wild west. A
couple from Manitoba who conduct horse handling clinics have created a
mechanical steer to teach steer roping.
Brad Smith and Kim Dalman had found steer roping was a great teaching tool
but they had one complaint — it took too long to round up the unco-operative
steers after each turn. So Lew Dalman came to his daughter and son-in-law's
rescue and invented a mechanical steer for them that won't run away after being
chased.
The Steer Trax is a 270 kg fibreglass steer installed on top of crawler tracks,
complete with horns and feet for the ropers to lasso. Using a remote control from
as far as 60 metres away, an operator can send the mechanical steer "running"
across the roping arena as fast as 28 km per hour. It can instantly turn left or right
and can make 360 -degree turns. Dalman has filed a patent on his invention.
The trio believes Steer Trax will not replace real steers in rodeo events, but it
will be a big help to ropers and their horses working on improving technique.
"We can go out and practice roping with just two people, on on the horse and
one operating the steer," Kim said.
For bull -dogging events, ropers can jump off their horses and grab the
mechanical steer by the horns and twist it over, just as they would a real steer. To
make this maneuver possible the Steer Trax has an over -centre spring that will
twist and allow the roper to pull the "steer" over.0
— Source: The Western Producer