The hallway going up the stairs in the Herndier home near Lemberg, Sask. is nicknamed Banner Hall.
That’s where the ribbons hang, acknowledging Rylan and Ben Herndier’s success in the Canadian Western Agribition youth sheaf competition.
Banner Hall is also the name of the Regina Exhibition Park site of the grain and forage exhibits, and the place where the Herndiers’ prize-winning entries are displayed throughout Agribition week.
Rylan, 19, has been entering the competition for about eight years. Ben is 17 and has entered for six years. And aside from their personal Banner Hall, they have a family room containing about 40 plaques.
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The boys began making sheaves after their father won a seed class and attended the auction at the Agribition sale of champions several years ago. A sheaf sold for $5,000 that night and that convinced him that his sons should try sheaf-making. The first year Rylan placed fourth out of four entries, but he said practice does eventually make perfect.
The key ingredients of a prize-winning sheaf are material, time and patience. The Herndiers use mainly locally grown crops, but favor the Regina area for flax.
“We just go out to the fields and pick out what we need,” Ben said. “We ask permission first.”
The brothers also make mini-sheaves and present them to the growers as a thank-you.
The perfect heads
Durum is Ben’s favorite, and the easiest to work with, he said. Lining up the heads takes the longest, the brothers agree.
It takes about two days to make a sheaf. Ben said the hard part is making sure it’s “perfect all the way around.
“They have to be certain dimensions or it doesn’t count otherwise,” Ben said.
The sheaves are glued together, bound by ribbons and shellacked so they will last.
Winning sheaves are auctioned at Agribition. The brothers split their proceeds evenly. Now that Rylan is 19, he is too old for competition requirements, but because of their arrangement he will continue to earn half of whatever Ben wins in the future.
Rylan said he won’t miss the tedious work, but he will miss the time spent with the family as they sorted through material.
“The whole family would sit down and talk and find out stuff about each other we never would have known,” he said.
