FARMING SMARTER EXTENSION FUNDING REPORT 2016

Farming Smarter Extension

Funding Report 2016

NIGHT SPRAYING MODULE -- #1 RANKED MODULE AT #FSFS16

This year Farming Smarter hosted around 1100 people on the Farming Smarter Field site during various events in 2016.

We participated in or hosted a number of new events, including Tactical Farming Conference, CanoLAB, Science-o-rama, Medicine Hat Plot Hop, and Alberta Open Farm Days!

During the year we reached 2,224 people during conferences, workshops, field days, etc.

Our partnerships contributes directly to our success and we truly value our relationships! You are one of the reasons we can provide information relevant to southern Alberta farmers.

Annual Growers Meeting On February 25, 2016 we held our annual business meeting with an auditor’s report and Board elections. We also shared breakfast with our board of directors and 65 members at the exhibition grandstand. We presented a recap of Farming Smarter activities from 2015, a promising partnership with the Lethbridge College, and two guest speakers talked about soil fungal diversity and soil microbes.

BTAP Training The Blood Tribe Agricultural Producers brought 22 members to our site March 30, 2016 to learn about soil variability, EC and texture.

BTAP TRAINING PARTICIPANTS

Medicine Hat Plot Hop For the first time we hosted a plot hop in Cypress County at the Medicine Hat site on June 2, 2016. About 30 people learned about Scott Lehr’s successes and trials. Lehr told participants how the winter cereal plots fared last fall, during winter grazing and this spring as they re-emerged. Farming Smarter planted duplicate plots and fenced one set off to protect it from grazing. Therefore, participants were able to see how the cereals look both with and without winter grazing pressure. Next the group motored down to Lavern Gill’s where Brian Beres talked about seeding dates. As everyone could see, it’s better to wait until September or later to plant winter cereals. Jamie Larsen covered

KWS and Rob Graf talked about winter wheat regional variety trials.

June 9 Plot Hop Seventy people joined Farming Smarter in the field to hear from federal and provincial agricultural researchers. Dr. Brian Beres examined the economic benefits of enhanced efficiency fertilizers. He walked participants through the Fairfield north site and talked about his preliminary findings with various nitrogen fertilizer products. Dr. Hector Carcamo talked about flea beetles in canola, scouting crops and making sure you only spray if you must because beneficial insects are also present and susceptible to pesticides. He showed participants his test plots and talked about ways to determine economic thresholds. Autumn Barnes and Ken Coles talked about planting canola with a precision planter versus an air drill. The plots also vary row spacing and seeding rates. Mike Harding from Alberta Agriculture & Forestry talked about the staging and timing of fungicide applications. He talked about both blackleg and fusarium illustrating what he was talking about in the plots behind him.

A Great year!

FARMING SMARTER EXTENSION FUNDING REPORT 2016 2

Just under 300 participants joined experts in the field during the Farming Smarter Field School on July 5-7, 2016.

Weather to Spray

Included a presentation from Andrew Thostenson from North Dakota State University and Ken Coles from Farming Smarter. Andrew demonstrated the principles behind temperature inversions and Ken demonstrated the difference in nozzle types and water volumes.

The Weed Whacker’s

Bob Blackshaw, Eric Johnson, Mathew Vercaigne & Nikki Burton led participants through plots where they could test their knowledge of herbicide symptoms, mode of action, groups, resistance, herbicide rotation and weed ID

Select-a-Session

Knowledgeable speakers talked about malt barley agronomy, malting and craft brewing; Irrigation scheduling, soil moisture and sensors; Farm Health & Safety; Plant health lab and testing capabilities; Gopher control strategies; Pulse agronomy, pathology, breeding and pulse treats!

There’s a bunch of farmers near Medicine Hat that know a lot more about rain-fed grain corn, signs of crop trouble, canola pests and precision planters.

The Medicine Hat tour had 40 people wearing bright blue booties and wandering the Farming Smarter plots just off Hwy 41A.

Lloyd Van Eeden Petersman talked corn. Doug Brodoway led the group through a Crop Science Investigation (CSI) where participants had to guess what went wrong with wheat, pea and canola crops.

After coffee, the group went to visit Farming Smarter’s precision planted canola plots to see the difference seeding rates, row spacing and liquid phosphorous can make over the crop stand.

Then Dr. Carcamo talked about the pests active at this time of year in the region; what to watch for in sweeps and economic thresholds.

TLC farms catered an excellent lunch and participants left with full bellies and expanded minds.

Farming Smarter Field School

Medicine Hat Field Day

FARMING SMARTER EXTENSION FUNDING REPORT 2016 3

About 60 people spent the day learning about wheat varieties, breeding programs and emerging varieties. Participants heard about the hail damage recovery project and crop pest management strategies.

Ken Coles, Farming Smarter General Manager, began the morning showing everyone the hail simulator and explaining the 3-year project currently on its 1st year.

A bus took the group north to Carmangay to visit Kevin Auch who added no till and winter wheat to his rotations to recover blown fields and is very happy with the results.

Jolene Noble & Jamie Larsen made the bus rides to and from Lethbridge fly by talking about farm sustainability and rye breeding respectively.

Chef B’s food truck served a great lunch to revive everyone after the busy morning.

The afternoon had the group in the field with biologist Dr. Haley Catton, winter wheat breeder Rob Graf, agronomy research scientist Brian Beres, and spring wheat breeder Harpinder Randhawa. Randhawa mentioned that he has 19,000 plots growing this year!

As a parting treat, Sugar Daddy’s ice cream truck showed up to give everyone a cold one for the road. The root beer float was scrumptious!

July 28, Farming Smarter took 40 people for a swishy ride through mud tracks to learn about canola pollination, canola and wheat diseases and to see how our purposefully hail damaged crops are recovering.

Sam Robinson, AAFC, gave a detailed talk about southern Alberta pollinators that work on commodity and seed canola crops. He explained that seed and commodity canola have different pollination requirements.

Ron Howard took participants through the five major diseases of canola and offered some tips for identifying and controlling them.

Ken Coles explained the methods used to simulate hail damage on canola and wheat. Participants got to see up close different recovery treatment results on different damage levels at different growth stages.

Dr. Reem Aboukhaddour led the group through identifying and controlling wheat diseases before everyone climbed out of the mud and back to the quonset for an excellent lunch.

Alberta Wheat Day

Disease Plot Hop

FARMING SMARTER EXTENSION FUNDING REPORT 2016 4

As part of our industry partnerships and in the interest of Growing Knowledge whatever way we can, Farming Smarter hosts demonstration plots for several companies. We take care of the plots so that they can teach people about what they have to offer southern Alberta farmers. During July and August six companies hosted 13 events and brought over 260 people to learn in the Farming Smarter field.

Alberta Open Farm Days provided an excellent opportunity for Farming Smarter to open its gates to our urban neighbors. We partnered with the Canola Council of Canada and had a great day of activities for attendees to get up close with farming and agricultural research.

Over 130 people visited our site to learn about crop production, farm equipment, pollinators and so much more

Industry tours

Alberta Open Farm Days

FARMING SMARTER EXTENSION FUNDING REPORT 2016

Farming Smarter hosted 223 people at #FSC16. It was a good time to be indoors with peers, agricultural researchers and academics because it was nasty outdoors! As

always, our 19 speakers covered topics related to crops, technologies, pure science and applied science. We heard flax facts, durum dialogue, nano-biosensor development, plant language translations and much more. We had some laughs and some a-ha moments.

We thank all 40 sponsors that made so much possible including a Trade Show worth browsing during all the breaks.

Everyone in the room adds something to the discourse & value of the event. You made it a great event – delegates & sponsors. So kudos to all of you for making #FSC16 in Medicine Hat a great time for everyone.

Southern Region 4-H

We raised $10,349 for Southern Region 4-H through a live auction led by Sheldon Smithens and a silent auction. We gave some great young speakers a forum for stage fright and not one of them showed any fear! Well done!

Farming Smarter Conference & Trade Show