ON-FARM THOUGHTS: What a difference a year makes
by Larry Wegner, MFGA Past-Chair
It is so beautiful to see the difference that one year can make to our forage crops. I think it is almost safe to say the drought is broken and is behind us. It sure feels that way. The countryside is full of color after arriving on the heels of a slow, chilly spring. The wild roses are just now in full bloom, three weeks later than normal. Sunshine and timely rains seem to substitute for each other.
We can now look back to see the difference last year and previous year’s management has made on this year’s crops. There is a big difference for someone that stops and takes a close look. The first rule to assess a forage crop is to stop and look: How much bare ground to you have? There is a direct correlation: the less bare ground, the better forage stand you have. How many different plants can you count in one square metre in front of you? Is the forage dark green or light green? Are there any signs of disease or lack of nutrients that usually show up in leaf color? Are there seedlings coming up? A forage assessment gets easier each time you do one. In a hay stand you want only a healthy plant species for ease of harvest. In a pasture stand, the more different species you have the better it is for the soil, the plants and the animal’s health. You want different shape leaves and at different heights to catch as much sunlight as possible. The goal is to not let sunlight hit the ground but be absorbed by the growing plants.
Over the course of late winter and spring 2022, the five weekly Colorado Lows that doused our farm operation near Virden in western Manitoba in the form of rain, sleet and snow, brought in the much-needed moisture to break our drought and replenish our ground moisture. It was hard to measure how much moisture we received this year - at least so far - as most of it came down hard and at a flat angle to the ground. With the rains, the downpour was mostly varied from farm to farm on how much came down. Made chatter good around the coffee shop talk as everyone had a different story. But all, at least from a grass perspective, were excited for the return of the rain.
We have seen many seedlings coming up in our forage stand. A vast variety of legumes, alfalfa, clovers, vetches, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Cider Milkvetch and Black Medic have come from the soil seed bank. There are several tame and native grasses coming up, but I need a seed head to say what they are, although most of the time leaf color and leaf shape will get me to the family name. There are many different types of forbs growing this year giving us a rainbow of colors through blooming yellows, reds, blues and purple. It picks up one’s heart to see the positive reaction to our planned grazing management for the last 15 years. Yes, the drought set us back, but our recovery has been an absolute wow experience to see nature working her wonders.
In my jaunts and along the roads near our farm, I have stopped to take a look over the fence at other pastures and do not always see the same response as we have seen. There is no right or wrong pasture management, we must all do what it takes to stay in business. As a family, we made hard choices to de-stock and manage for the forges and looked at the cattle as just a way to harvest the forage. Now we are seeing positive results from our hard decisions. Other producers chose to maintain herd size and to feed longer than normal, last fall and this spring. I’ll always remember that one of my big takeaways from a long-time-ago Ranching for Profit workshop is that the most stressful time in a drought is after the bills for the extra drought feed come due. Remember to reach out to family and friends to ask how they are doing and start the conversations on any concerns or stress around drought recovery.
The winter of 2021-22 was one of the longest and coldest on record for Manitoba. As many of us are aware there is talk in every area that several local beef producers may be looking to exit the industry. The lack of a profit and no up-turn in sight has left many producers either wanting to leave or heavily considering it. After the long-feeding winter and the required increase in feed supplies we all endured, it is easy to understand why they are looking for the door.
Heading into the summer of 2022, many producers must have a good year in the fall sales just to cover last winters feed cost as many cow/calf producers spent in areas near $1,000.00 per cow to bring them through the winter. Whether you had your own feed, or you bought feed, you must use the market value of the feed you used in addition to the cost of twine and fuel. At the outset way back in the day, Manitoba’s livestock industry was based on cheap and abundant feed supplies. Those days are gone. What will the price of hay be if it must compete with a $20/bushel canola and $8/bushel barley? Is $.10/lb. of hay the new normal or will it be higher?
The simple truth is we have let yield-based profitability rule our farming choices. There is no value in doing the right practices and losing money for doing them. In Regenerative Ag we talk about soil health, plant health, animal health and increasingly, the links to human health. If the money does not flow back to the producer, how can they stay in business? One great tool for understanding my costs and make business decisions that improve my profitability is via Manitoba Agriculture’s Cost of Production (COP) Calculators.
These calculators highlight the practices that work for us. We graze longer than the average producer and each year we make a solid attempt to graze longer. Last year, including winter, we grazed all 365 days. For a 90-day period we sent our cow herd to custom graze a corn field. Including hauling charges, our winter cost was $300/ cow. When the herd came home in mid-March, they went out to graze our native pastures around the Snowberry bushes and the Wolf Willow and on the same grass they did not want last fall. We did not force them to go out and graze it was their choice, the gates were open and we had lick tubs and hay bales in the feeders. Only on cold or stormy days did they come home. They came home from the corn grazing in good condition and maintained good condition till calving in May. We could have fed straw and pellets for the same money, but we would have had to factor in all the labor on top of that. This scenario is what made the most sense to us and it worked out.
On a personal development front, I recently finished Nicole Masters’ Integrity Soils course. In late April 2022, we all got together for the final part of the course at Bozeman, Montana. It was an honor to be selected to be part of the first course that Nicole has offered. There were 20 regen ag practitioners selected to be in the first class, 16 from the United States and 4 from Canada and an age range from early twenty to seventy. I had my eyes opened to the different ways we can be regenerative from agriculture to health care to golf courses and healthy food. With the circular economy gaining momentum rapidly in talks and planning, indeed there is a place for regenerative agriculture in that model.
There were four people who led different parts of the course with Nicole as the glue that held it all together. To me, the power and ability of the instructors and coaches to bring such a diverse group into out-of-the-box thinking for the course was real leadership. I learned so many different new and exciting things and to be exposed to how other people think through complex problems and resolve them absolutely changed my life. Check out Create Coaching online to learn more about the course. I have two of my classmates locked down as speakers for our fifth annual MFGA Regen Ag Conference on November 14-15, 2022, in Brandon, Mb. Nicole’s second group recently started classes at the end of June in Montana and the third group will be in Australia in the near future.
At the end of June, as a result of pressures put on by ranchers and farmers and an effective lobbying campaign by the groups that represent us, we heard the labeling of all single source animal ground meat by Health Canada had been withdrawn. This is very good news. On a similar note, the New Zealand government has a proposed tax to go on all ruminating animals in the country, the tax will be for the carbon emissions the livestock do to the environment. We cannot do anything over in New Zealand, but we should be informed of what is happening there. I keep my fingers crossed that the benefits of cattle TO the carbon cycle will one day be the norm, instead of the constant villainizing of any emissions attributed to ruminants.
In early June I had to drive halfway across the province and it gave me a chance to see what the world looks like off our farm. I was amazed at all the water sitting on the land as I drove east, and the further east I went the more water was on the land. On the way home, it hit me that the fields are full of water but the marshes and big potholes were not full - there was water in them - but they were not full. The only reason that could happen was a broken water cycle. How much of the flooding could have been prevented if our water cycle was working? There would have still been some flooding but not as much and possibly a quicker recovery. Hopefully some of these flood acres can be seeded to green feed for livestock or cover crops planted to use up the excess water and make the land more farmable for next year.
In earlier blogs, I wrote we had planned to put in some cover crops for feed. As with so many well laid-out plans, things did not go exactly as expected. This was due to cold and rain and we did not plant till early June. We put in a 15-way mix and used a no-till drill to put the seed into sod. We used Folic Acid with glyphosate (generic Roundup) at a one-litre rate and were overwhelmed at the results - it was like we used 2-3 liters an acre. The Smooth Broome grass was 3-5 inches tall, and the Kentucky Bluegrass was starting to head at 3 inches tall. The Folic Acid cost us $1.80/ acre plus the cost of custom application. It took five days to start to yellow and that is when we seeded, we have had a seedling pop up but that is expected. It also took out the Snowberry but took 15-20 days to work through the plant. The existing Alfalfa turned off-color but grew out of it. The Alfalfa is not a problem to us, it will make great feed in the cover crop mix. The seeding into sod was a new experience to us as we have plenty of stones and we did not want to bring them up to the surface. The emergence of the crop has been patchy, but it is all coming up and it will make cow feed. I am asking why this has not become a common practice? We need to engage in open discussion on what we as producers can do to improve the bottom line. We are in an industry where expense will match or out-match income if we are not adaptive.
I want to thank all the readers who send me a note after reading my Blog or share it with family and friends. It always makes me feel like I am doing something positive and it sure makes it worth my time to write. I very much appreciate your time taken to read my thoughts.
Best regards,
