How we could actually cut fertilizer and not cut production.

[furrowtickler]

My yields went up when I got out of cows,30 years ago, income too. 1/2 section of sandy pasture, broke up and planted to wheat grossed more than the entire calf crop usually did. We collected chaff too , seeded green feed, baled ditches. Cows =Lots of work , little money.
I thought the whole theory was that big healthy plants and trees extracted CO2 from air and sequestered it in the soil.
A spindly plant ain't doing much of that.
Sounds like N fert.should be a neutral factor.
Are they even counting that?

There is a lot of corn used for ethanol, but then you have to pump more oil to replace it.

In Reducing N , the poorest people will lose the most, shortages will drive the prices higher. We might not be any worse off money wise .
The whole idea is just plain dumb,
Especially here on the arid prairies

Absolutely agree and well said

[sawfly1]

My yields went up when I got out of cows,30 years ago, income too. 1/2 section of sandy pasture, broke up and planted to wheat grossed more than the entire calf crop usually did. We collected chaff too , seeded green feed, baled ditches. Cows =Lots of work , little money.
I thought the whole theory was that big healthy plants and trees extracted CO2 from air and sequestered it in the soil.
A spindly plant ain't doing much of that.
Sounds like N fert.should be a neutral factor.
Are they even counting that?

There is a lot of corn used for ethanol, but then you have to pump more oil to replace it.

In Reducing N , the poorest people will lose the most, shortages will drive the prices higher. We might not be any worse off money wise .
The whole idea is just plain dumb,
Especially here on the arid prairies

https://regina.ctvnews.ca/no-consultation-sask-producers-caught-off-guard-by-federal-government-s-emissions-targets-1.6001991

[fjlip]

another way ; compost liberals, then spread

Everyone I know has the solution, but it can't be typed...

[foragefarmer]

Being that you are a “forage farmer” you would see firsthand the cow business has been shit for years. With mandated reductions in nitrogen use it is worrisome the cattle industry will be the baby thrown out with the bath water because of less grain grown. I seen cows were going nowhere 6 years ago and halved the herd. I do not regret it. Talking with a friend who is more gung ho about cows and he’s talking about halving his herd because it’s a money hemorrhage. Even $1800 steers this fall isn’t enough to wipe the stink off this industry.

Hearing from a cattleman such as yourself spelling out the truth about the cow calf industry is exactly who needs to be heard from on this thread.

My brother in-law in Sask. is seriously thinking of getting completely out, or a the very least cutting the herd in half.

Why work your ass off 365 days a year and get screwed by the packers on up to the grocers.

Another important factor really hurting the expansion of the beef is the the price consumers have to pay at the check out counter. It's getting to the point they can't afford beef and there is also the other meats competing with beef especially supply management who are guaranteed farm gate prices.

If cow calf guys are pulling the pin, there goes the shit along with it.

Sorry to those who are sensitive I'm just calling it as it is that is all. Why sugar coat it.

[checking]

Nutrient mining.

This is the downfall of the cattle industry when hay price can't compete with grain price.

I'd rather leave it stand than allow a ton of hay be hauled away from its field location, just on its fertilizer value this year. You could not synthetically replace it with the selling price that the cattle raiser could afford. Someone goes broke, and that is before you even consider the costs of harvesting the feed.

On that type of trade alone, the government has the livestock industry checkmated.

[TOM4CWB]

Figuring out how to convert n2 from the air, in: corn, cereals, canola, and flax, would help immensely. We are about 25% of the way there by the looks of new n2 fixing products.

Saw an electric weed killer last night from the EU, they can 100% desiccate pre harvest now, about 3 years away by the looks of the machine 12m wide now... working on a 30m proto-type machine for N.A. this year. Was on RFD TV last night. Big Gen on the tractor.

P2O5 from rock phosphate and crystal green plus; in products like Tag Team have been here for decades, hard to cut them by 30%... now...

Pulses release Nox.. but they might let those emissions be exempt... perhaps...

How we more effectively harvest and fix N from electrical lightning storms, into our crops needs serious research. Like I said earlier the Nox from big summer storms must be something wild... 'uncontrolled' releases of any amount of nh3 must by law be reported to provincial environment Dept.

Sectional control helps some... but we already have deployed it some time ago on our farm.

Blessings and Salutations.

I have thought for decades that there should be a way to kill the in soil germination pre-seeding which would resolve a big weed problem combined with he electric desiccation machine now coming.

[TOM4CWB]

Sorry to have offended you forage. Not sure why you are so hung up on this one issue.


We both agree that there is no profit in cattle the way it is done now.

And I'm saying one of the easiest ways to cut fertilizer inputs is to keep the grain or hay etc. close to home, instead of exporting those nutrients. Beef Cattle aren't the only livestock. Pigs, chickens, dairy, turkeys, sheep, goats etc. Right now we export feed grain, hay, silage even to the middle east, China, Japan, Korea, etc. They don't return the nutrients,. Feeding those livestock here and exporting the finished product is the easiest loophole to close.

We have cattle here, I spread my own manure, and have arrangements to get manure from many of my neighbors too. I can't count how many aspiring cattlemen I have as neighbors who can't compete for land, can't justify the cost of the feed, but they are working their tails off on farm and off farm to subsidize their dreams. I'm saying don't compete, work together. In my travels in western Canada, there is a huge amount of unused land within every grain farm that could be pasture, or hay. There is also huge amounts of chaff, straw, off grade grain, stubble, weeds, hailed/frozen/droughted/drowned out crops that don't get salvaged, and crop insurance only makes it worse. Cattle farming could actually be profitable if instead of renting or buying expensive pasture, and buying expensive inputs and diesel, and feeding most of the year, they use what is already going to waste. My cows rarely have the luxury of eating hay, let alone alfalfa hay. And they get fed for as little as 4 months of the year. They only get to pasture land that is completely unfit for cultivation. They eat silage from frozen or hailed crops, or greenfeed from hailed crops, or slough hay, or straw and off grade grain, and they graze stubble, they have eaten chaff in years past. When we no longer have cows, I will offer this same arrangement to anyone who is willing.

If we really want farmers to go organic, then integrating livestock is a necessity. Accepting that not everyone wants to be married to cows 24/7, partnering with someone who does could be a good fit.

I have said in the past that we started down the road to going organic. But this grey wooded soil is naturally devoid of all nutrients, it can't be mined for very long at all, so most of the production would need to go through a cow to keep the soil productive. I worked out how many cattle I would need to make efficient use of cover crops and how much hay would need to be in the rotation, and came up with a number of cows that was not at all appealling. Profitable, yes, but it would require multiple full time jobs to manage.

Figuring out how to convert n2 from the air, in: corn, cereals, canola, and flax, would help immensely. We are about 25% of the way there by the looks of new n2 fixing products.

Saw an electric weed killer last night from the EU, they can 100% desiccate pre harvest now, about 3 years away by the looks of the machine 12m wide now... working on a 30m proto-type machine for N.A. this year. Was on RFD TV last night. Big Gen on the tractor.

P2O5 from rock phosphate and crystal green plus; in products like Tag Team have been here for decades, hard to cut them by 30%... now...

Pulses release Nox.. but they might let those emissions be exempt... perhaps...

How we more effectively harvest and fix N from electrical lightning storms, into our crops needs serious research. Like I said earlier the Nox from big summer storms must be something wild... 'uncontrolled' releases of any amount of nh3 must by law be reported to provincial environment Dept.

Sectional control helps some... but we already have deployed it some time ago on our farm.

Blessings and Salutations.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Sorry to have offended you forage. Not sure why you are so hung up on this one issue.


We both agree that there is no profit in cattle the way it is done now.

And I'm saying one of the easiest ways to cut fertilizer inputs is to keep the grain or hay etc. close to home, instead of exporting those nutrients. Beef Cattle aren't the only livestock. Pigs, chickens, dairy, turkeys, sheep, goats etc. Right now we export feed grain, hay, silage even to the middle east, China, Japan, Korea, etc. They don't return the nutrients,. Feeding those livestock here and exporting the finished product is the easiest loophole to close.

We have cattle here, I spread my own manure, and have arrangements to get manure from many of my neighbors too. I can't count how many aspiring cattlemen I have as neighbors who can't compete for land, can't justify the cost of the feed, but they are working their tails off on farm and off farm to subsidize their dreams. I'm saying don't compete, work together. In my travels in western Canada, there is a huge amount of unused land within every grain farm that could be pasture, or hay. There is also huge amounts of chaff, straw, off grade grain, stubble, weeds, hailed/frozen/droughted/drowned out crops that don't get salvaged, and crop insurance only makes it worse. Cattle farming could actually be profitable if instead of renting or buying expensive pasture, and buying expensive inputs and diesel, and feeding most of the year, they use what is already going to waste. My cows rarely have the luxury of eating hay, let alone alfalfa hay. And they get fed for as little as 4 months of the year. They only get to pasture land that is completely unfit for cultivation. They eat silage from frozen or hailed crops, or greenfeed from hailed crops, or slough hay, or straw and off grade grain, and they graze stubble, they have eaten chaff in years past. When we no longer have cows, I will offer this same arrangement to anyone who is willing.

If we really want farmers to go organic, then integrating livestock is a necessity. Accepting that not everyone wants to be married to cows 24/7, partnering with someone who does could be a good fit.

I have said in the past that we started down the road to going organic. But this grey wooded soil is naturally devoid of all nutrients, it can't be mined for very long at all, so most of the production would need to go through a cow to keep the soil productive. I worked out how many cattle I would need to make efficient use of cover crops and how much hay would need to be in the rotation, and came up with a number of cows that was not at all appealling. Profitable, yes, but it would require multiple full time jobs to manage.

[dfarms11]

Nothing like just bashing an idea for trying to think outside the box. Not one person could listen to the O.P and play along. I'm quite certain he knows how life actually is, just trying to come up with some new constructive ideas to help our industry. Right or wrong, we need to start a conversation ourselves and figure things out for ourselves. Rest assured the government isn't gonna get it right!