Over the last twenty years, we have changed our cropping practices from crop/fallow to a continuous cropping system and from conventional tillage to conservation tillage systems.  

By doing this, we hope to improve soil tilth, microbial biomass, and soil stability.

Seeding Preparations

Flexi-coil Air Drill

We took the single largest step in this direction in 1996.  In that year, we first seeded much of our acreage through direct seeding with a Bourgault airseeder.  Over the last few years, we have expanded this to almost all of our acreage, with the replacement of the airseeder by a Flexicoil system.  

We have found that the change to direct seeding only initially increased the need for more invasive weed control mechanisms.

Spring Work

to create yield maps for some of our fields.

It will take several years to fully implement the rest of the system agronomically.  It is already technically possible for us to vary seeding rate, fertilizer rate, and chemical application rates by prescription.  Our Flexicoil airseeder and Apache sprayer already have the capability to interpret

The need for chemical weed control is now decreasing.  We feel that this is due in large part to reduced soil disturbance, resulting in less weed seed germination.

In the fall of 2001, we took our first step toward site-specific farming.

We have installed yield monitoring and GPS systems, which allowed us

variable-rate prescriptions in real time.  Now we just need to figure out what rates we want to apply in different areas of our fields.  We will first need to decipher the reasons for variations in yield before we are able to vary application rates.

We hope to learn which areas of our fields could do with significantly less (or no) nitrogen fertilizer. To

Ag Leader PF3000 Yield Monitor

do this, we have been conducting strip trials.  2002, being an extremely dry year, did not yield very useful information.  We are currently evaluating the results of our 2003 nitrogen strip trials.  We have already evaluated a  

We realize that, with the acreage we farm, it is not possible to produce crops of significant value without significant fertilizer and herbicide use.  However, it is possible to reduce the amounts applied, for the sake of the environment and the sustainability of our farm.

Sample yield map