Peggy Revell
A brand new seed counter is a welcome addition at the Emo Agricultural Research Station (EARS) now that the summer growing season is well underway there.
“We’re very grateful that we got money to buy this machine,” said EARS technician Kim Jo Bliss, noting the new machine cost $13,699.53, including taxes and shipping.
Some $3,000, or 22 percent of the price tag, came thanks to the Rainy River Future Development Corporation’s Local Initiatives Fund, with the project endorsed by the Rainy River Soil & Crop Improvement Association.
The importance of the seed counter comes in collecting and calculating data once the growing season is over and everything is combined, explained Bliss.
“To calculate seeding rates, we often need to know the weight of a thousand seeds because that will give us the correct seeding rate,” she noted.
“So this machine can do things in a couple of different ways.”
Bliss said EARS did have a seed counter before but it was neither quick nor accurate—likening the old machine to one used in a pharmacy.
“The fall is when we bring in all our samples and every sample has to have a thousand seed rate done on it,” she remarked.
“In the past, our old seed counter was a huge hold-up. We’d be done doing all the data collection from the whole trial, but we were still counting seeds and counting seeds.
“So this thing here will be incredibly quicker, and accurate. That’s a really important number at the end of the year—the kernel rate,” she stressed.
As well, the old machine wouldn’t allow station staff to count out smaller seeds such as canola, meaning all these seeds had to be shipped away to be counted.
The new unit can handle counting the smaller seeds.
“So not only are we going to be happier, the people who used to get our seeds to count will be happier, too,” Bliss reasoned.
Meanwhile, despite the fickleness of Mother Nature, this season has been going well at the research station.
“Despite that it seems like winter, it actually has been a really good year for us,” Bliss chuckled.
“We are really, really actually quite up to date on everything—everything was planted in really good time, and we’ve done our first-cut yields on all our forages.”
Yields so far have seemed “really good” considering there wasn’t much heat until now, she noted.
Heading into a second year of trials is miscanthus, also known as “Elephant Grass,” which is similar to switchgrass or reed canary grass, and which can be used for biomass boilers.
“The miscanthus is actually doing really well, and I’m really shocked at that, too, because it likes heat and we haven’t had a lot of heat,” said Bliss, estimating the plants are around knee high right now.
This will be the first year they actually take yields, added Bliss, although this won’t be done until the fall.
Station staff also have been facing off against weeds this year—and have a small research trial on annual grass control.
“These last wet years have really brought on a lot of grassy weed, and they’re a problem,” Bliss noted.
“They’re a problem, especially in the cereal trials, because there’s not a lot of chemicals you can spray in the cereal trial to control grass because they’re the same plant family—there are some but they’re limited and expensive, too.”
As well, a couple of sunflower blocks have been planted, which hopefully will grow—unlike last year.
This is mainly for rotation and not for yields, said Bliss, adding hopefully birds will stick with the sunflower blocks instead of with the other plots.
Otherwise, they haven’t “really done anything new,” other than some new soybean trials, fertilizer, and row spacing trials.
Making a return for a third year is the vegetable gardens, with carrots, lettuce, and corn planted.
Also this year, the station is still working on its biochar trials—spreading charcoal onto the plots.
“Those plots are re-planted again so we’ll see if there’s any yields,” Bliss said.
“There wasn’t any difference in yields last year, but we’ll continue that onwards,” she stressed.
“Things have to be done for about three-four seasons to make sure.”
Larry Lamb has five favourite oats at the station (oat strips and larger strips, too) while Philip Krahn donated some alfalfa and Timothy mixture seed, which is supposed to be really good for this zone and district.
“So we have new seeded alfalfa that looks really good at this point,” remarked Bliss. “Which again, I’m actually quite shocked at how things have went because of the lack of heat.
“I did the weather for May, and the average temperature was 10 C for May, which is cool.”
Looking ahead, EARS is planning to host its annual open house on Wednesday, July 27 starting at 7 p.m., with the Rainy River District Soil & Crop Improvement Association holding farm tours earlier in the day.
