When you work from a home office, it’s easy to forget what daylight looks like.
In the dead of winter I can go days without leaving my apartment. My only exercise might be the long walk from my desk to the fridge.
So when spring finally arrives and the crops are in, I’m more than ready for field tour season. It’s basically my chance to re-enter society.
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Field days can be a mix of things.
Sometimes it’s a farm tour, where we get a close look at one operation of note.
Other times it’s a research plot visit hosted by the University of Manitoba or a producer group, where research agronomists unveil their latest projects.
Either way, the format is usually the same: pile a bunch of farmers, researchers and ag journalists onto a trailer pulled behind a tractor, add some makeshift seats (often hay bales) and hope nobody falls off. All aboard the Hay Bale Express. It’s not glamorous, but it gets you there.
Still, these are some of my favourite days of the year. Not only do I get to see other human beings, which, for a home-office hermit, is a thrill in itself, but I also get to reload my arsenal of story ideas.
A field day is like a buffet for an ag reporter: conversations with farmers, agronomists, students, professors and researchers all serve up fresh angles. And if I’m lucky, I’ll stumble across a project so cutting edge it feels like peeking into the future of Prairie agriculture.
Of course, research plots don’t always co-operate. Sometimes a trial flops, and sometimes drought wipes out the season. This year, the dry conditions were so widespread that failure itself became the story. Not exactly the glossy research breakthrough you’d hope for, but still worth writing about — and often more relatable to farmers than the perfect trial.
I recently went on what I expect will be my final field day of the season. This one was focused on two research plots a short distance apart. No Hay Bale Express required for this outing.
Still, I felt that same little pang as the season wound down. Soon enough, I’ll be back at my desk, staring at a computer screen while the snow piles up outside. But for a few months each year, field tours pull me out into the sunshine, into conversation, and, thankfully, out of my office chair.
