We arrived early at Robert Ruwoldt’s farm for breakfast. His agronomist Andrew Newell was there too and a few neighbours. Unfortunately it was raining and had been all night so Ruwy was not able to harvest. We were able to look at his machinery including his new super secret openers – no pictures allowed. Hopefully we’ll get some to try in Alberta in the next few years. Ruwy has spent many hours designing these. He has also designed a new toolbar.
He has a 3:1 system – 120 inch trams, 30 foot seeder, 30 foot header and 90 foot sprayer. He seeds canola and fababeans on 30 inches rows and it looked very good. Cereals and pulses are on 15 inches rows. He does seed his tramlines. His soils are cracking clays and red loams. The red soils are coarser in texture, do not hold as much water and erode easier. Most of the land we saw was fairly level and erosion in the wheel tracks was almost nonexistent.
Ruwy is probably a CTF purist so he pays close attention to details and getting everything right when setting up his equipment. However he compromises where necessary. So for example headlands are a bit of a sacrifice. Tramline repairer
Peter Walsh is a neighbor of Robert’s. He has a 7 M system (35 feet) and uses a Daybreak seeder. He has added an extension to his chaser. Like most of the guys he is pretty handy in the shop.
Our last visit of the day was with another of Robert’s neighbor’s, Robbie Cowan. He is gradually developing his system and does quite a bit of custom work. He has a tine seeder and is very cost conscious as he makes changes. He has a liquid fertilizer system and mixes product at home. Robbie has a 12 (40 feet) meter planter. He is working on residue spreading issues and unloading issues with the chaser, given his wider system.
We are quite interested in the moisture probes being used to track soil moisture, water use and rooting depth. There is a potential to see if changes are occurring over time in the soil profile. This could also be tied into a weather station.
Quite a few of Ruwy’s neighbours came for an evening BBQ. It’s pretty stressful for them, given the deluge of rain, extensive flooding, harvest difficulties and crop loss. This comes after around 13 years of drought and the promise of great crops that were almost in the bin.
No comments:
Post a Comment