Phil Needham projected his photograph onto a screen in a darkened Saskatoon meeting room. It was an instant hit.
Exclamations of “oh, wow,” and breathy whistles came from farmers attending a Concord seed drill owners meeting last week.
“Two-hundred bushel wheat crops tend to do that to them,” said Needham, an agronomist with Opti-Crop of Owensboro, Kentucky.
“Whether you get enough rain or a season long enough to grow 30, 50 or 100 bu. you can increase that yield big time … and not just at any cost. You can do it profitably, sometimes even saving production money,” he said.
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Opti-Crop began selling American farmers on European-style production methods in 1986.
The company now serves about 700 farmers in Australia, the United States and the former Soviet Union and would like to move into Canada.
Fees are $6 US per acre for the services of personal crop adviser who manages the crop and offers recommendations for each field.
“There aren’t any secrets here. We just follow the best practices and take each acre seriously. Often we manage to double yields by paying attention to the details,” Needham said.
Each field should be sampled in the fall after the ground temperature falls below 15 C.
“We can then write a prescription for the coming crop.”
Needham said the crop begins with the seed.
“Get a germination test done on each batch of seed. But don’t stop there. Have the vigour tested. It’s one thing to have it sprout at 80 F, another to have it grow in the low temperatures around 50 F. That is where they test for vigour.”
Needham said his company provides a formula for calculating seeding rates.
“In wheat, you have to count your seeds. They represent plants,” he said.
Under Canadian and northern U.S. dryland conditions, he recommends 450 to 500 heads of wheat per sq. metre. The number of plants required depends on the number of tillers normally produced by that variety.
“Near Winnipeg, lots of (wheat) crops are in the 1,000 heads range. Looks good, yields bad. Too much vegetative growth, not enough seed,” he said.
Seeding rates should be calculated by multiplying the number of plants desired per sq. metre by 4,048 (the number of sq. m in an acre) and dividing that by the number of seeds in a pound of the selected variety.
If 85 percent of the seed is viable, the total number of pounds should be multiplied by 1.15.
Farmers should treat seed in longer augers or have it done by seed dealers to get consistent coatings.
“Plant two or three varieties of everything. Early crops seeded last, late crops first. See which ones work best and always keep trying the new varieties. Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.
“We recommend sizing equipment and tire combinations to fit tram lines. If you are going to run over your crop repeatedly, why plant it,” he said.
Splitting and diverting seed and fertilizer from the lost tram line rows to adjacent runs using solenoid valves has not reduced yields by more than a few percent, according to Opti-crop’s tests.
“Neither GPS nor foam will get it perfect. But a tram line can and you can always see them at night when the wind is down for spraying,” he said.
Opti-Crop’s system involves “spoon feeding the N (nitrogen) to the crop.”
In-row starter fertilizer is applied at up to 30 lb. per acre. After that, liquid fertilizer is applied using streamer bars attached to sprayers.
“Even in really dry conditions last year in Aberdeen (South Dakota) with only four inches of rain, we saw amazing results from this strategy,” said Needham.
“We added 50 bu. to the acre on spring wheat versus a neighbouring field with a cost of only 2.5 lb. of N per bushel plus application,” he said.
“We don’t spray it on. That will hurt the crop. In wheat or barley, streamer bars like the ones used in Britain are best. The coarse stream they produce bounces off the leaves,” he said.
“It was about 30 gallons to the acre. But with the size of most of your equipment, you can cover a pretty big farm in a couple of days,” he said.
In an average year, producers may need to fertilize up to three times. Each time the rate can be chosen depending on moisture conditions.
“It actually costs less than putting all the fertilizer down in the spring and you will never burn a crop out if it doesn’t rain when you need it to,” he said.
Needham said company tests have shown a 10 percent yield increase in crops seeded at 2.5 centimetres deep versus five cm.
“Seed depth must be as shallow as you can get away with in any given year and precise. That whole crop needs to come out of the ground the same day.
“Otherwise spraying on (fungicides) to control scab won’t be effective over the whole crop. You’ve got a three-day window on that one. Same applies to any weed control or fertilizer, harvest – the whole yield benefits by being as even as possible with no timing compromises for any group of plants,” he said.
“And no recreational tillage. It wastes water, money and time.”