Now, with the fall fairs behind us, fall thoughts take over, with drastic family changes for many.
Suddenly, everyone realizes they’re a year older. Children are now entering a new phase in their life. Some youngsters are just starting daycare or pre-K, while others are into a new classroom with new friends, a new teacher, maybe going to a different school. For some, it’s off to college and a large change in their lives. More new friends to sort out and new responsibilities that they never had before.
It’s suddenly a shocking change for parents to realize that those little kids are growing up faster than the ever realized. Yes, they all have been thinking for some time that these changes are coming fast, but when a child goes out the door or drives out the lane for the first time by themselves, a little tear comes to that parent’s eye. We pray a little that they will be safe and meet every new challenge with optimism and a smile.
Then it’s thoughts of cleaning out the garden, making salsa, pickles, and preserves. Checking out the snow tires to see if you can get another winter out of themn or start looking for new ones. Maybe you have already taught your college children how to check the oil and winterize a car. Did you show them how to hide a key on the car just in case they locked the keys in the car? No, the leaves haven’t fell off the tree yet, but is the snow-blower ready for winter? Is the calcium base saturation high enough in the lawn to discourage dandelions and those tasty white grubs that the skunks might dig up the lawn next spring to eat? A pail of calcite lime spread now is much less expensive than fixing the lawn next year after the skunks have done digging up the lawn or buying some dandelion weed killer next year.
Is that chimney clean and the furnace serviced for the winter, or is it time to think about a heat pump or electric furnace? It’s always time to pick up and put away anything that might get stuck in or damage the snowblower or get pushed into the snow pile with that first foot of snow that come unexpectantly. If you need a tradesman of any kind (carpenter, plumber, electrician, trucker, contractor, etc.), from now until snow time is their busiest time of the year.
Farmers live with the seasons every year, but fall is always is the busiest period. Beef farmers are sorting out “keepers” (the best mother cows and best heifer calves of the best cows) and weaning calves (a very noisy time) to get ready for the fall stocker sales. Dairymen are checking out the barns for any doors, curtains, windows ventilation that must be repaired before cold sneaks up on them. Farmers have been watching moisture in the corn, in both grain and silage corn, so harvest is done at the best moisture level (about 60 per cent for corn silage). Most corn silage and haylage is treated with micro-bacteria to help break down plant fiber before it is fed to the animals, so animals produce better with less-expensive grain supplement. Most corn silage is now put through a chopper-mounted processor that not only breaks up the small cob pieces and cracks the kernels, but also scuffs the waxy coating on the leaf and stock pieces so they digest more quickly in the cows’ stomachs (a cow has four stomachs). This helps farmers produce more milk and beef with fewer animals.
Small grains (oats, barley, wheat) are already harvested, soybeans are being combined after the leaves fall off the bean stocks, and corn silage has started on many farms. Please watch for those very large, slow combines and corn choppers (often 16-30 feet wide). They don’t make any money driving on the road and will get back into a field as quickly as possible. Corn combines will be seen from October on (corn kernel moisture must be down to 14 per cent before it can be stored without drying, and the propane gas used for corn drying is expensive just like for your car or truck).
From now until the snow comes, you may see farmers working long into the night and they will make a lot of dust and noise and sometimes the lights of those giant machines may shine into your windows while you are trying to sleep. Believe me, those farmers would rather be in their beds too, but there are thousands of acres to harvest in only a few weeks. About 30 years ago the Quebec government passed “the right to farm bill” which allows farmers to make dust, noise, light, and even smell spreading manure at certain times of the year under normal farming practice (farmers’ associations lobbied for this because of many nuisance complaints when cities grew too close to farms).
You will notice that there is much less moldboard plowing in fields these last years. There are several reasons for the switch to no-till, reduced tillage, and even zone-till where soil is only tilled in the narrow rows in which the plants are planted. Conventional tillage (plowing, disking, cultivating, harrowing, and then inter-row cultivation) requires much more fuel and labour before a crop is planted and harvested. Also, the little bacteria in the soil (as many as a billion micro-bacteria per teaspoonful) live at different depths in the soil, and deep tillage turns these micro-bacteria’s lives upside down and kills many of them. Those micro-bacteria break down organic matter and even dissolve small soil granules into plant food for the crops, reducing the need for expensive commercial chemical fertilizer.
Farmers must also be ever-conscious of some of the sprays they use to reduce tillage. Some sprays contain bactericides which also kill some of those beneficial micro-bacteria. Scientists are constantly helping farmers produce more least-expensive food for our consumers while reducing the carbon footprint to improve our planet by reducing climate change.
Yes, food is expensive now, but did you realize that in North America less of a wage-earner’s income is spent on food than in any other country in the world?
Chris Judd is
a farmer
in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations