Bourgault explains reason for court action

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Published: August 28, 2008

Gerry Bourgault doesn’t believe his company’s mid-row banding system is equal to a side-band one pass seeding system. He believes it’s superior and thinks a research report should say so.

It’s one of the reasons Bourgault Industries has launched a lawsuit against two researchers and their employers who conducted a three-year study and wrote the report.

“To say there is no differences in systems and that they have similar performance is not supported by the facts and not supported by the analysis,” said Bourgault, who operates the company in St. Brieux, Sask.

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“In this study the mid-row banding system had significantly better emergence whenever there were significant differences.”

Bourgault believes the research done between 2000 and 2002 by the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute’s Gordon Hultgreen and by Agriculture Canada research scientist Guy Lafond, showed the benefits of his mid-row seeding system.

The difference in seeding emergence and yield data may not seem great, but it’s statistically important to note, said Bourgault, who hired a University of Saskatchewan statistical analyst to study the raw research data.

The third-party analysis showed the differences in emergence data all favoured mid-row banding, he said.

“It is not correct to say they are similar in performance,” said Bourgault. He believes more farmers would buy Bourgault equipment if the mid-row banding system was shown to be superior.

“The bottom line is, yes, we’ve been damaged by this. If farmers were aware of the facts, they would have made different choices.”

Dave Gullacher, president of PAMI, said the research and its report were peer reviewed and analyzed by different people before publication.

“In my opinion, the quality and reporting systems the research team has in place are solid,” Gullacher wrote in an e-mail.

The report said both systems of nitrogen fertilizer management are similar in performance and offer excellent choices for the one-pass seeding and fertilizer systems.

But Bourgault said the report shows the mid-row banding system was superior in dry and difficult seeding environments.

In canola, during one site year, the research showed a difference in plant populations greater than 15 percent in favour of mid-row banding.

Researchers believed this was caused by a seeding error with the side-band system.

Bourgault disagrees. He said there’s no evidence in the raw research data to discount the good mid-row banding results and plenty of evidence to show positioning of fertilizer is important with emergence.

“Farmers need to rely on these scientists to give them the true facts.”

Gullacher said since the differences between Bourgault and the researchers arose, the two sides have had at least 10 meetings and exchanged about 100 e-mails and written at least one major publication from the data, but the issues were still in dispute.

“When this process left some fundamental points unresolved, the two sides then agreed to put their opposing arguments to three independent experts, with the directive to suggest how the opposing interpretations could be resolved. It was while this process was underway that Bourgault initiated the legal proceedings,” Gullacher wrote.

Bourgault said the lawsuit was a “position of last resort.

“This is not a decision we made lightly. We believe we suffered extensive damage because of this, but farmers have suffered greater damage by not being told the problems of the side-banding system and how they can manage around those problems.”

Gullacher agreed farmers will suffer, not because of wrong data, but because research scientists will spend time in court and not in the field.

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