Pencil it in
This year's International Plowing Match and Country Festival runs from Tues., Sept. 17 to Sat., Sept. 21. Gates open at 9 a.m. and close at 5 p.m.

Take a map
Less than one hour's drive south of Hamilton, the plowing match site is in Haldimand-Norfolk region near the shores of Lake Erie, just south of Highway 3, at the intersection of regional roads 12 and 3. Look for signs from Highway 3. See map above.

Take a wallet
Alfalfa-field parking and hay wagon express are free, but it will cost you $10 to get through the IPM gate. Teens and kids under 16 get in for $5 each.

Tented City
Rising from the Field of Friendship will be a 100-acre tent that will cover hundreds of displays and entertainment. More than 600 exhibitors are expected to be under the tent, promoting everything from tractors to chainsaws and clothing to crafts. A 40,000-square-foot exhibit on Haldimand-Norfolk will highlight the region's agriculture, industrial and tourism-based economy. Visitors will be able to check out multimedia displays, specialty crop exhibits and a stylized shipwreck.

Putting the "oomph" back into plowing
Match officials will be putting extra emphasis on the plowing competitions this year. Watchers will see the great strength of the horses and view the skill and commitment of the plowers. A broad range of matches will be held close to the Tented City, including an antique tractor class, modern tractor and a good old fashion horse plow.

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Plowing veteran gives oxen a try

Plowing is a lot like Haldimand clay in a wet spring. Once you're in it, it's hard to get out of it.

"Plowing gets into a fella's blood just like any sport does," says Haldimand-Norfolk International Plowing Match and Country Festival (IPM) ambassador Sandy Clay. Outside of IPM circles, Sandy Clay is known as Rainham beef and cash crop farmer Wray Reichheld. His pseudonym symbolizes the two soils of Haldimand-Norfolk. Norfolk is known for light, sandy ground while Haldimand has stiff, heavy clay.

"It can be real difficult to plow Haldimand clay," says Reichheld. "Many counties think they have clay ground but I don't think there is any county in Ontario that has clay ground like we experience in Rainham township."

Reichheld, 62, has plowed with horses and tractors and two-furrow, three-furrow and four-furrow plows at the IPM. But this year, he will try something new: Holstein oxen plowing. Lion and Bright, believed to be the only two Holstein oxen in Canada, pull Sandy Clay's promotional wagon through local parades. The twin steers weigh 2,700 pounds apiece and are owned by Norwood Keddy, of Lowbanks. The oxen have regularly been used for wagon rides but never plowing. Sandy Clay will be plowing regularly at his mini-farm at the centre square at the IPM, using a locally-produced Miller plow. The plow has a sentimental value for Reichheld. Freeman Nixon, a prized plowman in his day, once owned and competed with the plow Sandy will be using. It was at Nixon's request that Reichheld, 15 at the time, got started plowing with the inter-county team for the Haldimand Plowmen's Association.

"It's an honour for me to plow with the same plow [Nixon] used," says Reichheld.

When he's not promoting the local match, Reichheld is found at his 130-hectare (325 acre) beef and cash crop farm. However, the majority of his farming career has been spent with Holsteins. Up until 1991, he and his wife Mildred milked about 40 cows.

Reichheld expects those visiting Haldimand-Norfolk this fall will notice a diverse agriculture community.

"There's so much difference in farming in Norfolk than Haldimand," says Reichheld. Norfolk is known for tobacco, ginseng, fruit and produce, whereas Haldimand is more traditional with corn, wheat, hay and soybeans.

"If you farm it right, you can make a decent living off Haldimand clay. The big thing is to stay off it when it's wet," says Reichheld.

After four years of promoting Haldimand-Norfolk's Fields of Friendship, Sandy Clay remains enthusiastic and committed to the IPM.

"I loved it as a boy and I've loved every minute as an ambassador," he says. "It's going to be quite a shock to the system when the plowing match is over and we go back to our old ways."

Reichheld was the natural choice as the IPM goodwill ambassador, says IPM chairman Warren Burger. "Wray Reichheld is the type of individual who has the natural qualifications in his demeanour, his commitment, his attitude and certainly in his deep-seated relationship to agriculture," says Burger. "He has been doing a wonderful job over the last three years." - KH

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Clay soil's a challenge for match host farmers

Selkirk is not unlike other rural, small towns in Ontario.

Everybody knows everybody, many are related and farming is the common occupation. But later this month, when Craig and Arlene Yager's farm is transformed into a country festival, Selkirk will join a small number of communities which have the distinction of hosting the International Plowing Match (IPM). "We're just a tiny, little part of this," says Arlene Yager. Actually, the Yagers' part in the 1996 IPM is substantial - 100 acres and three years.

"Our farm has been out of cash crop for three years for the match," says Craig Yager. "A lot of areas can plant a forage crop in the spring. But it's kind of iffy on our clay ground so we started a year earlier."

When not hosting the IPM, the Yager farm produces soybeans, wheat, barley and canola. He admits Haldimand clay is a "challenge" to farm. Through crop rotation and fertilizer, Craig says he is pleased with the crops he gets.

The Yagers were first approached to host tented city in 1990. Area IPM enthusiasts Elroy Thompson, John Reid and Jim Peart approached them with the idea. Thompson says he considered the farm as a possible site because it is nice and flat.

"At first we thought it was kind of far-fetched," says Craig. "But then we got thinking about it and decided we might as well."

The farm, which is in its sixth generation as a Yager farm, is not completely new to multiple uses. In the past, Vernon milked Holstein cows and also raised beef cattle at the farm. From 1956 to 1976, the family operated a John Deere dealership on the property. The farm machinery manufacturer wanted the Yagers to expand but they decided against it.

"At that time, you either got bigger or you got a whole lot smaller," says Craig, who now works full-time as a mechanic at a local John Deere dealer, W.J. Heaslip. Craig has not considered returning to livestock farming full-time, something his wife supports.

"I'm a city person. I can drive the lawnmower but that's about it. If it wasn't for Craig's dad helping him we would be in real trouble," says Arlene, who works at a jewellery store in Dunnville. The couple have four daughters: Ann, 25; Jennifer, 23; Laura, 19; and Susan, 15.

The mayor and first lady of tented city are both active on various IPM committees.

"Some host farmers may sit by the wayside as things happen and they don't get the enjoyment out of it. We've been part of it all along," says Arlene. "It's been very exciting."

Between attending meetings, hosting huge chicken barbecues and naturally keeping an eye on the progress in their backyard, the Yagers find they do not have much spare time. However, Craig has developed an interest in collecting antique plows in the last few years.

He has about 30 one-furrow walking plows, many of which were made in the Haldimand area in the 1800s and early 1900s. All the plows have a narrow bottom, indicative of Haldimand clay soil.

Six of the plows have been restored and painted and will be featured on a "Plow-go-round". The display will be the central exhibit in the grandstand area at the IPM.

Many of the old plows have disappeared. Craig has an Evans plow, made in Rainham Centre, which is the only one he has ever seen. A Miller plow, made in Jarvis, is the best-known of the antique plows. The patent for the Miller plow was purchased by Massey Harris. Some of Craig's plows will be used in the antique plowing competition, but he won't be behind them.

"I have plowed with the one-furrow, walking plow," Craig says. "It certainly wasn't plowing match style but it turned over." One of the challenges Craig faced in becoming tented city mayor was the sunflower tie.

"Craig wasn't to crazy about the sunflower tie to begin with, but it's growing on him," says Arlene.

"It's gotten so I've seen so many sunflowers that I don't even see them anymore," Craig says.

Both say they would agree to host the IPM again if they had the decision to make all over again. But Yager has concerns about getting his clay land back on rotation.

"We're going to have a lot of soil compaction," he says."There's been some pretty heavy trucks in here and we're just getting started."

Although providing the geography for the IPM, the Yagers are quick to recognize the volunteer efforts that make the match possible.

"It makes you aware how many good people there are," says Yager. "It's a community effort."-KH

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Rock farming real blast

By BRIAN SLEMMING   Special to Farm & Country

Alan Reid is a rock farmer. Instead of tilling fields, he blasts his crop from his granite quarry in Madoc in eastern Ontario. The lump rocks Reid 'harvests' are pulverized into a coarse power, blended with rock dust imported from the U.S. and sold as a mineral additive and a compound to build up the soil structure.

The idea of using powdered rock is not new. Farmers in the tropics have been doing it for over 200 years. In the late 1800s, Julius Hensel, a German chemist, wrote and published "Bread from Stones" in which he advocated the use of rock powder as a means of adding minerals to the soil.

"It shouldn't surprise anyone," Reid says. "After all, where did our soil come from? Glaciers crushed the earth's rocks and then deposited the resulting sediment as the glaciers moved across the globe. That became our soil. All we are suggesting is that if the soil came from rock, new rock additions must improve the existing soil."

Reid is not alone in his belief. In the U.S., quarry owners, who have long worried about disposing of the "finings" (the small fragments left over from their quarrying), have joined with the United States Department of Agriculture to conduct a series of trials to assess the value of using rock powder in agriculture and horticulture.

Experts are sharply divided on rock dust, but on one thing they all agree: Rocks do contain plentiful supplies of minerals and nutrients. Whether they can be released quickly into the soil from powdered rock is debatable.

Ward Chesworth, professor of geochemistry at the University of Guelph, claims Canada's climate does not allow for rock to weather fast enough to provide any nutrient to an annual crop. "There have been no replicated tests that demonstrate powdered rock releases any nutrients over a short period," says Chesworth. Guelph University is not working on the use of rock in Canada, but for the past 10 years, Chesworth and his colleagues have been working in East Africa with the use of volcanic rock and ash. Results are promising, but the humid climate and high temperatures provide an environment in which breakdown can occur rapidly. "Those situations do not occur in Canada, and the use of rock dust or powder would only benefit plants over a long period of time, perhaps as much as five years," he says.

One hard rocker is Gary Wilson, a supplier of powdered rock in Toronto. Wilson started using powdered rock three years ago and became so convinced that he began selling a selection of powered rock products.

"Science cannot prove everything, and powdered rock definitely improves the health of the soil and the plant and the ultimate consumer - us."

In the meantime, Alan Reid is co-operating with a group of southwestern Ontario Mennonite farmers who have 20,000 acres of corn and fruit being treated with a cocktail of about 30 rocks. Reid claims that his "super rock blend" is providing all the minerals needed to improve plant quality, and even makes fruit sweeter.

The major drawback for farmers using rock dust or powder in Ontario is that there are few suppliers. Global Stone of Ingersoll operates a limestone quarry and has developed a growing agricultural trade in "Ag-lime", which sells for just over $8 a ton at the quarry.

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Rock hunting? Try a quarry

So you're going to roll some rocks? Before using rock dust, do a soil test to check for mineral deficiency, say suppliers. Rock dust is often available at local stone mason or nearby quarries.

Different rocks provide different nutrients. Remember: the finer the mixture, the more quickly it will break down and start releasing the minerals.

Here's a list of the more popular types:
- Crushed Granite and Greensand - Both add potash to the soil; the greensand releases it more quickly than granite;
- Phosphate Rock and Soft Phosphate - Adds phosphorous as well as a number of trace elements;
- Dolomitic Lime - A source of calcium and magnesium;
- Black Basalt - A rock that is chock full of nutrients, and has the advantage of weathering and breaking down more easily than the granites.

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Sawmill is farm use, board rules

By STEPHEN LEAHY   Special to Farm & Country

The verdict's in: Farmer's do have the right to operate sawmills on their property.

The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) recently ruled that Ed and Marie Vincent's farm sawmill in Durham Region can re-start after having been shut down two years ago following noise complaints from neighbours. The case had been watched closely by local and provincial farm organizations since hundreds of farmers currently earn extra income from their own mills. "We're delighted with the decision. There was strong support for farming from the OMB," says John Holmes, the Vincents' son-in-law.

The case arose from a new Brock Township by-law allowing farmer-run sawmills on agricultural land. The bylaw was contested by Brian and Lorraine Whitehead who lived next to the Vincent farm where their home-built sawmill had averaged 200,000 board feet a year.

The Whiteheads had complained about the noise from the mill to township officials in 1994. Under local bylaws at that time, farm sawmills were not specifically permitted. The Vincents were charged, taken to court and fined in 1995.

That same year, the Vincents, with the support of the Durham Federation of Agriculture (DFA), requested that Brock make a general amendment to allow sawmilling operations within agricultural areas. After a series of public meetings, the new bylaw passed.

The Whiteheads subsequently launched their appeal of the new bylaw. The OMB listened to arguments for and against for several days in May of this year and made its decision to support the township bylaw in late summer.

While the legal barriers for Durham's farm sawmills appear to have finally fallen with the OMB's decision, one still remains. During all the legal wrangling it was discovered that under Durham Region's official plan, sawmilling was not permitted on agricultural land.

In what the DFA calls a "complete oversight", the Region had apparently forgotten that farming involves a lot more than growing crops or raising animals.

At the DFA's prompting, Region officials are moving quickly to make an amendment to permit what they have termed "farm-related industrial uses".

The Whiteheads, whose original noise complaint was never considered by the courts or the OMB, have sold their home and moved.