GrainsWest Winter 2020

Winter 2020 grainswest.com 27 ason Lenz has farmed long enough to know he must temper his excitement. In an industry all about gaining minute advantages to cushion thin margins, he takes a cautious approach. It’s why, in 2014, he started small when he decided to try Awaken ST, a zinc-ammonium acetate nutritional seed treatment from American manufacturer Loveland Products. At first it was a 40-acre side-by-side test on his hard red spring wheat. Results showed a five bushel per acre advantage through Awaken ST. In a trial the following year he saw about a three-bushel advantage and a 2.5-bushel gain the year after that. The last figure is currently his annual average. Today, he applies it to all his wheat and barley because all he requires is a one bu/ac jump to break even and anything above that is net gain. Money aside, Lenz farms at Bentley in west-central Alberta where wicked winds are a fact of life. “A heavier, thicker stem helps to reduce lodging,” he said of the improved cereals. “That’s almost as important to us as the yield advantage.” Another key for Lenz is a head start. “We feel we are getting a quicker emergence of the plant after seeding,” he said, adding his root systems are larger, as well. “What typically takes five to seven days, we’re seeing plants emerge in the four-to-five-day range.” Even one day can make all the difference in Alberta where several recent harvests have been plagued by rain, snow and early frost. Lenz, like many, treats his seed on farm in a mobile unit and believes he gets an evenness comparable to a commercial applicator. Farmers may opt for commercial seed-treating businesses, which generally can add multiple products onto the seed coat depending on the request. At Westlock Seed Cleaning Co-op, staff focus on Omex’s manganese-zinc formulation, annually treating anywhere from 32,000 to 39,000 bushels. Manager Wayne Walker said that figure plateaued in the last five years due to a lack of data. “Some people don’t think it does anything. Others are very much in belief that it does give you a yield boost,” he said. “We would like to see more concrete data come out on it.” Walker noted that when money gets tight, such micronutrients are the first line item to be blacked out. However, he said interest has continued to grow steadily on fungicide and pesticide seed treatments. For his plant, Walker explained that infrastructure investment would be no issue if it was clear there was a demand, but it’s not. “These additives, they’ve been around for a long time,” he said. “Why is there not more uptake? It’s kind of the same guys over the last few years doing it.” That molasses-like adoption rate is old news to Steve Larocque, though. The independent agronomist from Three Hills first noticed micronutrient products used for seed priming coming on-stream in the mid-2000s in Western Canada. Despite the long-standing availability, Larocque believes such lukewarm interest is a combination of J disingenuous products and salespeople along with a general lack of education of both seller and farmer. “There’s no doubt that seed priming fits on some soils,” he said. “You can do all the small-plot trials you want, but your farm system is unique … that’s why the uptake is slow.” Too often he hears horror stories of farmers being victims of an “end run,” where a salesperson goes directly to a farmer, skirting the agronomist, and sells them a product they may or may not need. “If you want traction, talk to the people who are getting paid to make recommendations,” he said of agronomists. “We’ll challenge, we’ll scrutinize, but hey, if your product works, we’re happy to try it.” While seed treatments, such as insecticides and fungicides are more accepted and perhaps better understood, for certain other products such as micronutrients, calculating a return on investment is arguably more difficult, explained Larocque. However, if you ask Abdel El Hadrami, CEO and director of R&D at Omex, it’s quite easy to calculate net returns, partially because western Canadian soils desperately lack a variety of micronutrients. The company is one of the country’s largest suppliers of nutrient primers, liquid starters and foliar fertilizers and has been in the domestic marketplace for more than 20 years. In 2004, a survey by Omex revealed a zinc deficiency in soil and harvested grain samples. Ten years later, another company report also revealed issues related to boron in soil and tissue tests. “The first nutrient the plant takes up from the soil before anything else is boron,” said El Hadrami. “The Prairies used to be grasses, then we switched to crops that are very hungry on boron. That’s where our fertility programs haven’t been adapted to crops. We’ve focused on macronutrients, not the micronutrients that could make a difference with yield and quality at the end of the year.” “We’ve focused on macronutrients, not the micronutrients that could make a difference with yield and quality at the end of the year.” —Abdel El Hadrami