Equipment
Seeding - Early and Accurate
We utilize zero or minimum till for all of our dry land seeding. Sometimes tillage may be used on the irrigation. Our two primary seeding units are Case IH wheeled tractors teamed up with Bourgault 65’ Paralink Air Drills. The drills are equipped with mid-row banders which facilitates the safe placement of fertilizers at seeding. Small amounts of fertilizers are also placed with the seed. Both granular and NH3 fertilizers are applied and are varied if need be throughout the field by prescriptions entered into the units computers. 550 bushel seed carts and 3000 gallon anhydrous tanks are towed behind the air drill.
We are very happy with these drills for their accurate seed and fertilizer placement and their robust construction.
Spraying - Accurate, Timely and Safe
Spraying never seems to stop. First is seed bed weed control then in crop weed control, next fungicide applications and on some crops desiccation at harvest. The sprayer has become a critical machine for today’s farming. Extensive use of safer chemicals has greatly reduced the need for cultivation, which in turn significantly improves the quality of the land.
Our primary unit is a 120 foot CaseIH High Clearance Sprayer. With Aim Command it keeps a steady droplet size regardless of sprayer speed providing excellent coverage and consistency. It has Auto-boom height and Auto Fold. Sectional Control automatically shuts off boom sections when they overlap previously sprayed areas, in headlands or on odd shaped fields.
We trailer it to most fields and supply water with an 8,000 gallon tanker. A second truck pulled lower tech sprayer is kept at the ready should weather conditions ever put our spraying program behind schedule.
Harvest - Timely, Efficient, Recorded
We have three 8120 CaseIH Rotary combines. Each is fitted with a 40 foot header for straight cutting dry-land wheat, barely and field peas. The combines all have GPS and yield map every acre they cover. They also have field recognition. Once the type of crop for each field is entered into the combines computer the combines will automatically changes all of the settings on the combine for the field that the GPS has recognized the combine is entering.
For dryland canola and irrigated crops the combines are fitted with pickup headers to pickup the windrows made by two Macdon swathers outfitted with GPS auto steer.
Grain Cart - Fill it, Weigh it, Dump it
The Grain Cart picks up from the combines and delivers it to one of our Super B Bulkers at fields edge for transfer to bins. Equipped with scales, it weights every bushel that is harvested which in turn is saved on a data card and later transferred to our main database. A reconciliation of all 2012 grains weighed at harvest and later sold showed a discrepancy of less than ½ of one percent, so it is very accurate.
Irrigation Equipment
We irrigate 2000 acres of land with pivots. All of our pumps are vertical turbines and we draw water directly from Twin Valley Reservoir with one pumps site below the dam on the Little Bow River. All pivots have computer panels and within the next year we hope to have them wirelessly linked so they can be controlled from our smart phones. We are private irrigators, meaning we have water licences directly with the province. We do not belong to an Irrigation District nor do we pay district water delivery fees. We have however had to pay for all of the irrigation infrastructure, pipelines, power lines, pumps and pivots ourselves. Our irrigation roughly doubles the per acre production of dry-land.
Miscellaneous Equipment
As with any farm we have a variety of other equipment to get the job done. This includes two more four wheel drive tractors, double disc, heavy harrow, cultivators, a VTA for cutting pea straw, pulse roller, harrow packer, service truck, fuel truck etc.etc. For moving dirt we also have a Hi Hoe, Midi-Hoe, 18 yd. pull scraper and pull grader.
