Ontario's farm equipment dealers have seen a lot of change since they formed an association a half-century ago. But even some of the veterans were caught off guard last month when corn prices flirted with $5 a bushel and farmers at long last started signing on the dotted line at the dealership."It's the first time corn's hit $5 a bushel, and beans are close to $10. It makes a difference," said Allan Bryce of Chatham New Holland at last month's Ontario Farm Equipment Dealers Association (ORFEDA) 50th anniversary celebration in Toronto. Bryce is in heavy cash crop country, but dealers across the province were bullish about farm equipment sales heading into 1996.
Attendance was up at the ORFEDA convention, along with membership. In eastern Ontario, business is "booming" said Bob Weagant, of Weagant Farm Supply in Winchester and Brockville. "It's been a four-year cycle up. There's a stable dairy economy, a good crop yield, a good price, and an easy harvest. There's tremendous optimism."
Doug Arnott, of Arnott Farm Equipment, Lindsay, said business is "holding its own" going into 1996. Despite the trend to no-till, Arnott sees tillage sales growing. "My personal opinion is that no-till days are numbered. I've been 29 years in the business and on the farm for 45. I've seen the cycle all the time - it depends on the government programs." Jamie Lambert of W.J. Lambert & Sons, Beaverton, is looking forward to a good year. "There's a bit more optimism out there," he said. "There's lots of pricing. In general we're looking forward to a good year."
"There's a lot of good prospects, particularly in the grain markets, and dairy looks stable," said Wayne Feltz, Logan Ford Tractor, Mitchell. Bert Sanders, of Sanders Equipment, Watford, said 1996 looks better than last year. "Corn prices are up. They're going to make some money and they're going to spend it."
Numbers presented at the ORFEDA meeting bore out dealers' optimism. "1996 is looking great. It's got positive flags flying everywhere," said Bob Mann, with Case Canada Corp., as part of a forecast by the industry group Canadian Farm and Industrial Equipment Institute (CFIEI). Mann said Canadian farm cash receipts rose six per cent to $27.4 billion last year. Combine sales nation-wide rose 17 per cent to 2,082 units, he said, predicting a slight increase for 1996. "We believe farmers will continue to enjoy near-record prices, which will release some of the pent-up demand over the past 10 years. I think we're in for a great year."
Gross Domestic Product and farm prices are projected to rise, and interest rates to fall, said Barrie Smith, director of marketing for MacDon Industries, Winnipeg. "It's been a long time since so many things looked so positive."
Tractor markets will likely remain flat, said Tim Wagner, with AGCO Canada. In the 40-99-hp two-wheel-drive group, sales are depressed by poor beef returns. Sales of 100-hp tractors are slowed by the move to no-till, which requires fewer hours on the tractor, Wagner said.
While the dairy market is stable, "deregulation remains a concern," Wagner said. Likewise, CFIEI projects flat sales for balers, though there's a move towards self-propelled forage harvesters as farm size grows. - JMM
No price hikes, say companies
With soaring commodity prices, is there a tractor price hike in the works?Rumours were rife at the recent Toronto farm show that a tractor price hike in the order of 12 per cent would help offset any gains farmers made in extra income.
But industry officials say there's no way. New Holland and Case each had two to three-per-cent increases last year, but no major company admits to contemplating increases this year. "Margins are still thin. We don't see ever being able to pass on inflation," says Greg Clark, president of John Deere Ltd., Grimsby. "Build it cheaper tomorrow than we did today, that's what we'll do."
Bob Mann, with Case Canada Corp., also doesn't foresee a price increase. He does, however, say farmers will have to order in advance. Companies have chopped inventories from eight to three-months' supply.
Dealers, the middlemen between farmers and people such as Mann and Clark, don't feel they are overcharging either. "It's true equipment sales are up slightly, but, sadly, we still feel we work for nothing," Newcastle dealer Art Rienstra told the recent dealer meeting in Toronto. - JMM
White bean no-tiller stingy on diesel
By JOHN M. MUGGERIDGE
With his Case 3294 160-hp tractor and 200-gallon herbicide tank mounted on the back, pulling a coulter caddy carrying a 500-gallon plastic fertilizer tank, hitched to a 24-run United Farm Tools drill, and a 16-foot roller packer taking up the rear - Clinton cash cropper Bill Smith admits he'll have "quite a train" when he plants his 105 acres of white beans this spring.The 53-year-old no-tiller says he needs every one of his 160 horses, especially on hills, but he has no intention of turning the clock back to the days when it took five passes to get his white beans up and growing.
This year Smith will no-till 105 acres of white beans, 210 wheat, 340 corn and 350 soys in a wheat-corn-soy-white bean rotation. Getting the herbicide, 28-per-cent nitrogen, and white beans on in a single pass was only a start for this innovative farmer. Last year he also planted twin rows, with two 7.5-inch rows of white beans on 30-inch centres.
The idea worked so well in 1995, he'll try it again this year. Despite a five-inch rainfall on June 2 that forced him to replant white beans in mid-June, weed escapes, and a hot, dry July that left many empty pods, yields were a respectable 1,336 pounds an acre, versus 1,378 pounds for the Goderich township average.
"Everybody was amazed with the top growth of the beans. ...I was tickled pink with it," says Smith.
Thanks to his "train", what took Smith five passes now takes only two. He'll keep the Roundup for burndown and dry fertilizer co-application (5-25-30 at 330 pounds an acre for beans and next fall's wheat) by the hired bulk spreader. But he has eliminated two passes with a chisel and disc hitched together to incorporate Treflan. And a Pursuit-Afesin tank mix now goes on during planting, instead of after.
"I'm now down to two (passes) and have no intentions of changing anything. I was quite happy with it. Last year, I eliminated three trips, and cut my time in half," says Smith, who now has "everything" in no-till: "I don't own a cultivator or plow."
If he cut his time in half, he cut his fuel bill by two-thirds. Last year's planting took 500 gallons of diesel on 900 acres, at a cost of $1.10 an acre. His yearly fuel bill is now $4,000, compared to $12,000 when he used to fall plow. He also cut down implement expenses - cultivator and plow points: "Everything that goes into the ground wears out faster."
Since buying the UFT drill new in 1993, the only expenses were 24 new coulter blades, at $23.75 each, for a total of $570, or 27 cents an acre over 2,100 acres planted. The drill is used for soybeans, in 15-inch rows, white beans in twin rows, and cereals in 7.5-inch rows. Corn is planted in 30-inch rows with a Kinze six-row.
While he's considering purchasing a new New Holland combine, Smith says he'll carry on with his Case tractor, which now has 4,000 hours: "I'm not doing near the work with the tractor (that I was). I figure it will last."
The coulter caddy, used in white beans and corn, was invented by Lucan pork producer Joe McIlhargey. Smith plants at five to six mph, allowing the caddy's rippled coulters, spaced eight inches apart, to work a four-inch-deep zone where the white bean seed is planted at one to 1.25 inches.
Twenty-eight-per-cent nitrogen is banded on right in front of the rows, at 15 gallons per acre. The tankmix of 0.125 litres an acre Pursuit and 1.7 litres Afesin is brought back through hoses to the presswheels. White beans are planted at 70 pounds an acre. Reglone is applied with a Hi-Boy before harvest. Smith can go 10 acres before stopping to refill. The rig didn't take a lot of shop work. He also built a tongue to hitch the drill to the caddy.
Growers find garlic breath of fresh air
By COLLEEN MELLOR Special to Farm & Country
The secret is out about garlic. No other vegetable gets the public attention that garlic does, says David Stern, director of the New York-based Garlic Seed Foundation."We have watched this industry explode," he told a standing-room-only audience of 300 at the garlic session of the recent Ontario Horticultural Crops Conference in Mississauga last month.
The Garlic Seed Foundation has grown from 10 members in 1985 to 1,400 this year. Consumers have read thousands of articles about garlic and have a larger appetite for garlic's taste and its supposed medicinal properties: garlic is considered anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-thrombatic, Stern said. Ontario's market is ripe for local growers. Consumers ate 3,060 tonnes (six million pounds) of fresh garlic and 2,040 tonnes (four million pounds) of dried garlic last year, while Ontario growers provided only 306 tonnes (600,000 pounds), said Alex McDougall of the Ontario Garlic Growers Association (OGGA). He predicted that this year Ontario growers will probably produce close to 1,020 tonnes (two million pounds).
"It's a good crop and can make money, but cultivation practices are critical," said Stern, a 15-year veteran garlic grower. He and his partner Elizabeth Henderson grow 50 to 80 different varieties of fruits and vegetables for sale to a diverse market at Rose Valley Farm in Rose, New York. Plant no more than one acre of garlic, Stern recommended; garlic growing is labour intensive. Rotation is critical. Stern waits at least three years before replanting a garlic field. Most garlic growers plant in mid-October to harvest in July.
Prepare the ground with machines, but plant by hand because mechanical planters damage the cloves, he advised. Planting 85,000 to 95,000 cloves per acre takes about 150 hours and yields at best nine pounds to each one pound planted. Growers must also go through the field in spring to take off the scape, the green stalk that draws energy from the bulb. There are two types of garlic: the soft neck (sativum) and hard neck (ophioscorodon). After looking at hundreds of varieties over the years, Stern recommends the hard-neck varieties. "They have been the most consistent, and done the best for growing and marketing."
Look at more than size when choosing a variety, he said. Examine also storage life, market, peelability, and size of inner cloves.
Elephant garlic earns a good price in some markets (US$6.50 per pound in Ithaca, New York) but is the only garlic that's had severe winter damage, Stern said.
The year before planting, the designated field should be on a soil-building program, either a cover crop or a closely weeded crop such as carrots. He also adds compost.
To make furrows for planting by hand, Stern uses a tool bar with slanted discs to cut two slashes in the same spacing needed for cultivation. Weights are added to the tool bar to achieve desired depth. Traditional depth is two to six inches, depending on harvesting technique.
Before planting, Stern goes over the field with the disc to fill in furrows and add soil on top of cloves. He thinks more hilling is required to add winter protection; although hills are six inches high, by spring they've shrunk to one inch. Never plant garlic in bare ground just before winter, with no protection, he said. "From day one we get erosion in the field."
The next labour-intensive job is scape removal, taking off the bulb-like swelling at the top of the central stalk, usually in early June. "We take them off to preserve the plant's energy. You can expect up to a 30-per-cent drop in yield if you don't cut it off." Stern keeps scapes in a 25-pound carrot bag, washing some every few weeks and selling them in bundles as salad ingredients or to sautŽ in olive oil.
Harvest is about nine months after planting, mid-to-late July with October planting. He digs up a plant every few days to check for harvest readiness. When the space between the cloves at the centre is about 1/16th of an inch, it's harvest time. "If garlic overgrows, then you lose your crop to the market," Stern said; once the cloves start to separate, they aren't saleable. The crop is ready to harvest when the leaves start turning brown, but first-hand observation is advised.
To harvest, he uses a bed lifter that cuts the roots and leaves the garlic standing in the ground. He grades in the field and anything diseased or damaged is taken out right away. The rest is divided between large (kept for seed stock), medium (for sale), and small (rejected). Medium cloves are washed immediately with a high-pressure hose, dried for one day in the greenhouse, gathered in bundles of 25 to 30, then hung in sheds to dry.
After garlic has dried for 12 to 14 days, it's braided for sale.
Ontario growers have succeeded supplying garlic from average to gourmet, including elaborate garlic braids sold for $5 a pound. The Ontario Garlic Growers Association has between 40 and 50 members, but the actual number of growers isn't known, said Jody Bodnar, a horticultural crop adviser based in Simcoe. Bodnar said he has answered more questions about garlic over the last few years than any other vegetable crop. The conference's garlic session drew the largest audience in its 22 years.
Soaring crime shatters rural peace
By BOB REID Special to Farm & Country
For many residents attracted to rural living, the image of a safe and serene setting in which to raise a family has been shattered by the growing number of break-and-enters in rural homes across Ontario.Instead of feeling at peace with their natural surroundings, break-in victims say they jump at every sound in the house when they're alone at night and leave lights on because they are afraid of entering a darkened room. Their fears are often justified as thieves routinely return where they have enjoyed success.
Changes in rural lifestyle are making robberies easier. Once, nearly every farm property had a family living and working on it during daylight hours; long-time neighbours with their familiar vehicles, even their driving habits, were well known. Today, the majority of rural residents - including both the recent influx of non-farming urbanites and those working the land - drive to town every day to making a living, leaving their homes vacant for extended stretches of time.
Although few rural folks leave the key to the front door under a mat anymore, locked doors provide little security. Ironically, the thieves who do come calling during daylight hours most often use the ploy of asking for directions, says Sgt. Chuck Beatty, of the Sebringville OPP. If someone is there to give directions, they simply take them and move on to the next home that looks accessible - and unoccupied.
When no one answers, the door is kicked in and as many items as can be carried off are taken and sold, usually within a 24-hour period. Favoured among thieves are televisions, VCRs, stereos, microwaves, jewelry and, of course, cash.
"Stuff they can sell in the city," is how Wingham OPP Constable Mike Alexander describes the stolen goods. The loot is taken directly to a 'fence', the middleman who buys the stolen possessions for a fraction of their value.
Often the criminals will have a 'wish list' of items that are pre-sold so they search the house looking for them. In a series of robberies in Perth, Huron and Middlesex counties, groups of three or four thieves entered as many houses as they could in one area over a couple of days, and also blitzed another area in one night before moving on, Alexander says.
Perth county experienced a 4.5-per-cent increase in robberies last year, says Beatty. The force does not have a high 'clearance rate' or success in apprehending the criminals. The quickness of these crimes, the distance between rural properties and long travel times for police conspire to provide the thieves with a good head start.
Alexander says the Wingham OPP detachment has had better success in tracking down these criminals - a 70-per-cent clearance rate - by working with city police forces, since the thieves are frequently from Kitchener, Waterloo, Stratford and London areas.
Statistics on rural break-and-enters are of secondary importance to Sharon Graham, who lives near the crossroad hamlet of Amulree in Perth county's North Easthope township. The robbery at her house this fall turned her family's life upside down.
Graham and her husband, Doug, operate restaurants in St. Agatha and Waterloo. Before their home was broken into by thieves and $15,000 in property removed, daughters Amy, 14, and Rachael, 12, would be alone at home after school until their mother returned from work in the early evening.
Now the girls insist she be there to meet them when they get off the school bus at 4 p.m. They are afraid to be in the house alone, says Graham.
Doug Graham (no relation) of the Lucan OPP noted there is often at least one female member in each group of thieves. "It looks less suspicious then six guys riding around in a car." Usually, the female goes to the door asking for directions because it is less intimidating than having a male stranger knock on the door.
"The thing that angers me the most is that this is [my daughters'] home and they will never feel the same about it again."
She no longer keeps to a routine, other than meeting her daughters every day, so any thieves observing the house will not know when someone might be coming home. She locks windows and closes blinds. Although she doesn't want to, she may get a large watchdog.
Chuck Herold lives in the same township as the Grahams. His house was broken into one year ago at Christmas. All the family's presents were unwrapped, thieves taking the ones they wanted along with a computer, printer, VCR and stereo.
"It makes you feel a bit uneasy that they might come back," says Herold, knowing the thieves were never caught. In only 12 minutes, every room was ransacked. Several other robberies occurred in the nearby Tavistock area around the same time. Since the robbery, Herold always checks the yard for tire tracks when he comes home. He has replaced his smashed-in front door with a heavier one, added more locks and acquired a watchdog.
Farmer Pat Campbell, chairman of the Community Oriented Policing (COP) committee in North Easthope township, says break and enters, and thefts have become a priority for her. Campbell has two tips from police: don't try to restrain the crooks and record the serial numbers of as many household items as possible to help identify them if they are found. Const. Graham suggests engraving possessions directly, as many only have serial numbers on metal tags that are easily removed.
He notes there were fewer break-ins in areas with neighbourhood watch signs posted.
Another tip is to record the licence plates of any strange vehicles noticed making repeated trips down rural roads, something Campbell has done on occasion, even in the dust on the tractor cab as she works the fields.
"Thieves are learning that country folks are easy picking," she says. One way of fighting back is to report any unusual activity to police. If someone's suspicions prove unfounded, no harm is done, but it just may prevent a neighbour's home, or their own, from being robbed.
Mushroom profit awaits in woodlot
By A. WAGNER-CHAZALON Special to Farm & Country
There could be a fortune in your woodlot just waiting to be picked, according to a study recently released by a federal forestry researcher.Luc Duchesne, a fire ecologist formerly based at the Petawawa National Forestry Institute, has found that forests in Renfrew county produce wild mushrooms worth an average of $32 per acre; and in one case, he found a half-acre patch of morel mushrooms with a commercial value of $33,000.
Finding the morels on a burned-over site in 1994 prompted Duchesne to examine the commercial possibilities of harvesting wild mushrooms in Eastern Canada. Last summer, he set up test plots in 17 sites across Renfrew county. From August until October, he and his researchers gathered all the mushrooms they could find, identified, dried and weighed them, and assessed their market value. They found 25 species with medicinal or edible uses, with an average wholesale value of $50 a kilogram when dried. The mid-summer test plots produced yields as high as 1.1 kilos per acre - not including any of the valuable spring or early summer mushrooms, including the highly prized morels.
"The figure we presented is actually a small figure," says Duchesne.
Since the report was released, the county has gone mushroom mad. David Anderson, general manager of the Ottawa Valley Economic Development Department, says "the phone hasn't stopped ringing."
Duchesne says he has had more than 200 requests for reprints of his report. Given that the potential mushroom yield is worth more than the annual growth of pulpwood on the same sites, he is not surprised at the interest. "We're looking at the forests and saying we can double the output of these forests simply by picking something that's growing there all along," he says.
Wild mushroom gathering is well established as a commercial enterprise in Western Canada, with most mushrooms going to Europe and Japan, where the market is worth $650 million and $75 million a year respectively, says Duchesne.
Other groups are investigating the possibility of harvesting wild mushrooms in Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
All the mushrooms Duchesne studied are found across Eastern Canada, including the honey mushroom, chanterelles, and boletes. The most productive stands, he found, were old white pine and jack pine, old aspen, and black spruce.
Representatives from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Renfrew County Soil and Crop Improvement Association, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the county of Renfrew met in early March to discuss the next step.
"The scientific study has clearly shown there is some commercial viability, and the key now is to look at that commercial viability and determine what the next step is," says Anderson.
One possibility is setting up a mushroom pickers' co-operative to process and market the mushrooms. Some kind of drying facility would be needed to prepare the mushrooms for market, and buyers would require assurance that pickers were collecting the right kind of mushrooms.
At least one group of pickers has already got started since the study was concluded. Duchesne's research assistants decided there was money to be made in mushrooms, and set up their own picking business.
Dairying family opts for the pig route
By JOHN PHILLIPS
With the North American Free Trade Agreement still an unknown quantity, some farm families must play the odds. John Dalrymple and his son, Kevin, believe their dairy enterprise may yield diminishing profits over the coming years should U.S. dairy surpluses start entering Canada.The father-son team from Williamsburg, Dundas county, figures that hogs offer better long-term prospects. John, 27, a University of Guelph animal science graduate, says expanding their 27-milking-cow herd may be a risky commitment. Both he and John know that a two-family enterprise calls for 80 females in today's economy, a move that translates into $140,000 alone on additional quota.
John, brother of eastern Ontario swine specialist Jim Dalrymple, calculates that this type of investment, without the extra barn changes, needs 12 years before yielding a positive cash flow. For both the answer lies in hogs, even though the lack of meat-packing capacity in eastern Ontario is a decided disadvantage. On the other hand, lower land prices give them an advantage over western Ontario producers.
Acknowledging that brother Jim "may have influenced their decision," John says pigs call for a much lower investment than dairy animals. On the other hand, their move is not based on "buying sows on the cheap." They want top-notch genetics and asked noted Hastings county breeder Robin Carlisle to supply their immediate female needs: York x Landrace F1 gilts. Top-crossing Durocs come from Durham region breeder Henry deWolde.
They aim for specialized commercial hog production. Kevin says this means replacement stock will come from Carlisle since they do not have the resources to "play around with breeding. We'll leave genetic improvements to him, while we will concentrate on getting animals to market in the fewest number of days and with better and better feed conversion."
John and Kevin are doing many of the barn alterations, step by step. They have no intention of hiring outside contractors, so herd size is kept to around 60 females housed in a former veal barn. John still looks after the existing dairy herd, while Kevin works for a Purina feed dealer in nearby Brinston, to ensure a continued stable income.
John notes that the move into pigs still called for cash injections. Effectively, money normally used for the dairy cattle was used for extra farrowing crates and other pig equipment. "It was really a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul," he says.
Kevin thinks that, over the next year or so, the herd size may be pushed to 80 sows, although reality suggests this may have to be doubled as margins get tighter. But he likes his off-farm work as a feed adviser. Philosophically, he adds that "things will work themselves out."
He has also taken a hard look at a SEW arrangement, perhaps joining with other farmers in the area. On the other hand, its benefits could come from using the 14-day weaning principle and weaner decks in one part of the family farm, and then raising 55-pound youngsters in a nearby segregated area. "But first," he says, "let's get the pigs established... you can't do everything at once."
Right now most market hogs, averaging a 109 index, go to the St. Alexandre plant near Quebec City in a contract negotiated by the pork marketing board.
"Our experience, so far, suggests that dairy cows and pigs make good partners." A small number of animals also are bought by a local sausage maker who sells his products in Ottawa's Byward market. He usually pays 10 cents a pound over the board's pool price.
"I'm sure we've made the right move," Kevin says.