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“I've always had the farm at heart, and I took agricultural engineering, so it somewhat relates to agriculture, or at least the equipment side of it. When I returned to the farm in '85, my father was trying a little bit of no-till, trying to scratch the dirt glass, and the equipment wasn't really good for that, in terms of precision seeding. Within the years, '85 to '91, I was... That's the years that canola became important, and seed depth was also very important. So scratching my head and making notes on little pieces of paper for a few years until they started sliding off the dresser, I came up with the first individual hydraulically activated opener in the world, I guess.”
Norbert Beaujot
This week’s edition of the No-Till Farmer: Influencers & Innovators podcast discusses the intersection of no-till and technology in Saskatchewan, Canada.
The need for autonomy arose in Saskatchewan because of the shortage of available labor, says Norbert Beaujot. Farms — like his 3,000-acre no-till mixed crop and testing operation — were getting larger, but labor remained scarce. He formed Dot Technologies Corp, featuring remote controlled power units with variable attachments for seeding, spraying, rolling, or moving grain carts.
His Dot units were publicly launched in 2017 at Saskatoon’s Ag In Motion, and the company has since been sold to equipment manufacturers Raven and then Case IH.
Norbert and Frank discuss the reasons behind the widespread adoption of no-till in Canada, the reasoning behind Dot Technologies, and the future of farming in Saskatchewan.
No-Till Influencers & Innovators podcast series is brought to you by The Andersons.
A nutrient management program is essential to maximize crop productivity and yields. Providing the right nutrients at the right time throughout the growing season is key. The Andersons High Yield Programs make it easy to plan a season-long approach for many row and specialty crops. Visit AndersonsPlantNutrient.com/HighYield to download the High Yield Programs and get instant product recommendations for corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, and more.
Full Transcript
Brian O'Connor:
Welcome to the latest episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast. I'm Brian O'Connor, lead content editor for No-till Farmer. The Andersons sponsors this program, which features stories about the past, present, and future of no-till farming. I encourage you to subscribe to this series, which is available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio. Subscribing will allow you to receive an alert about upcoming episodes as soon as they are released. I'd like to take a moment to thank the Andersons for supporting our No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast series.
Brian O'Connor:
A nutrient management program is essential to maximize crop productivity and yields. Providing the right nutrients at the right time throughout the growing season is key. The Andersons high yield programs make it easy to plan a season long approach for many row and specialty crops. Visit andersonsplantnutrient.com/highyield to download the high yield programs and get instant product recommendations for corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, and more.
Brian O'Connor:
This week's edition of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast discusses the intersection of no-till and technology in Saskatchewan, Canada. The need for autonomy arose in Saskatchewan because of the shortage of available labor, says Norbert Beaujot. Farms, like his 3,000 acre mixed crop and testing operation were getting larger, but labor still remains scarce. He formed Dot Technologies Corporation, which features remote controlled power units with variable attachments for seeding, spraying, rolling, and moving grain carts. His DOT units were publicly launched in 2017 at Saskatoon's Ag in Motion, and the company has since been sold to equipment manufacturers, Raven, and then Case IH.
Brian O'Connor:
Norbert and Frank discussed the reasons behind the widespread adoption of no-till in Canada, the reasoning behind Dot Technologies, and the future of farming in Saskatchewan.
Frank Lessiter:
So I'd like to start out by talking a little bit about... We'll talk about you, but I'd like to start out talking a little bit about no-till in Canada versus the US. We got about 30% of our land in the US is no-till, but in Western Canada, it's way higher than that, right?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah, it sure is. I would guess it's over 90%.
Frank Lessiter:
Why are you guys so far ahead of us?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, maybe it's tougher farming here. [inaudible 00:02:50]. It's a dryer region, typically, although this year, we're struggling with excess moisture, but saving the moisture has been important and they've moved to very large farms, which is also maybe an easier way of farming once you get into the habit of no-till.
Frank Lessiter:
Now, on these larger farms, will most of that land be owned or rented?
Norb Beaujot:
I think most of it's actually owned or within a family group, anyway.
Frank Lessiter:
I think that's one of the problems here in the US, that we rent so much land that these larger operators are fearful of a disaster one year, and they're going to lose the land. But you've got a shorter growing season too. Is wheat still the major crop in your area?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, it's more moved to three ways or four ways. I guess canola is extremely important in the area and it's probably just biting at the heels of wheat in terms of acres. And peas and lentils and beans are becoming more common. And then there's always a bit of oats, barley and flax. So peas or wheat and canola are definitely the two and canola does really well in no-till because you need that moisture in the top inch to germinate because you can't seed deep. And so the no-till practice keeps that moisture right at the top in barren land conditions.
Frank Lessiter:
We should let our listeners know where you're located. What part of Saskatchewan?
Norb Beaujot:
Our farm's close to between Kenosee Lake and Whitewood. So it's on the east side of the province. We have our business of course, in Emerald Park, which is part of Regina, Saskatchewan. Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
So the farm is how many miles north of the border?
Norb Beaujot:
It would be 80 miles north.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. And all your crops that you mentioned, these are spring seeded?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. There's a bit of winter wheat seeded, but less than 5% of the wheat would be winter. Everything else is spring.
Frank Lessiter:
So if you're planting wheat in the spring, when's the ideal planting date in your area?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, a couple weeks earlier than we got into it this year. Early May is ideal. And a lot of seeding, because of the wetness, got done in later May and into the first week of June.
Frank Lessiter:
You're short of moisture, so...
Norb Beaujot:
Normal year. This year, there's too much moisture, but you're right. Typically, we're trying to make use of the moisture from the snow pack that always leaves some moisture in the top area enough to germinate the crop.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. I always remember our very first National No-Tillage Conference in 1993, Dwayne Beck was the speaker and he got up and he said, "You guys in Ohio no-till to get rid of the water. And in South Dakota, we no-till to keep every drop that we can." So it depends on the year.
Norb Beaujot:
There's some aspects of no-till that actually improve wet conditions as well. I think if there's less tillage, your soil is more adept to passing the moisture through the old root systems and the higher organic matter that builds up over the years.
Frank Lessiter:
Tell me about the home farm.
Norb Beaujot:
Well, it's been in the family for many years. When I took over from my father, I guess it was about 800 acres, and now, it's about 3,000. So it's still a fairly small farm, but we use it a lot for testing equipment and doing things a bit on the odd side, I guess, that we want to test the limits of things somewhat, I guess.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. So what would be the normal size farm in your area?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah, there's quite a range. Of course, there's still some around 1,000 acres, but there's... Most of the ones that are taking over are in the 10,000 to 30,000 acres, I guess.
Frank Lessiter:
So what width equipment would they like to be running on 10,000 acres?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, our biggest sellers are 70 and 80 and 90 foot units. We build up to 100 feet.
Frank Lessiter:
So you went off the college and was an engineer and didn't necessarily plan on coming back to the farm?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. I've always had the farm at heart and I took agricultural engineering. So it somewhat relates to agriculture or at least the equipment side of it. And when I returned to the farm in '85, my father was trying a little bit of no-till, trying to scratch the dirt less, and the equipment wasn't really good for that in terms of precision seeding. And so within the years, '85 to '91, I was... And that's the years that canola became important and seed depth was also very important. So scratching my head and making notes on little pieces of paper for a few years until I started sliding off the dresser. I came up with the first individual hydraulically activated opener in the world, I guess. So that gave us the depth precision of individual openers and started Seed Hawk then in 1992. So around the time that you were referring to there.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah, right. And then you moved on from Seed Hawk to SeedMaster a few years later.
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah, about 10 years later. And so 2002. So it's been 30 years since I started Seed Hawk and about 20 years since I started SeedMaster. Yeah. They both used the same opener patent that I filed for in 1991, I guess, or '91, '92.
Frank Lessiter:
So what gave you the idea for this opener that was different than anything else?
Norb Beaujot:
I don't know. I guess I like to keep things simple. So I was looking at how things were getting worse and worse back then with the bigger and bigger equipment. And instead of building a one foot seeder, why can't we build 100 foot seeders that's individual one foot section. So that's basically what inspired me is can we go five or six miles an hour and maintain a three quarter inch seed depth precisely? And that's what I pressured myself towards figuring out, I guess.
Frank Lessiter:
What were the row widths you were working with or are working with today?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, at first, we were working with 30 to 40 feet, I guess. And now, we rarely build anything under 60 feet. So now, it's 60 to 100.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. So what would the row widths be?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, we started with nine, 10 and a half, and 12, and now, we're doing... The vast majority is 12, but we're doing 14 and 15 as well. We've got a new product called a single rank that's doing a tremendous job of everything seeding related and it's only available at 15 centers, but it has so many pluses with it that it overcomes the plant population. Well, we have still the same plant population, but the ground coverage. And it makes a very good no-till machine.
Frank Lessiter:
So guys that are using your machine to seed wheat, it would be in 12 inch rows?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, that specific machine, yeah. Well, 12 or 15. Yeah, typically.
Frank Lessiter:
So our guys down here would be more inclined to do seven and a half or eight.
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. Which in a heavy straw with a whole opener, seven or eight is really problematic to try and achieve any kind of uniformity. I think that's one of the big things that amazes me that changes along the 49th parallel is on our side, pretty well 90, 95% of these air seeders are whole openers, are knife openers more specific. And you cross the border 60 miles south and they're... More often than not, they're disc openers. And of course, we understand each other's practices, but we still have one way of doing it here that nobody wants to go to a disc. And I haven't studied a disc enough to really comment on overall why those decisions are made but...
Frank Lessiter:
Well, sometimes, you get [inaudible 00:12:43]. Sometimes you get some that look successful, you're afraid to try anything else.
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. Well, there's always a few that try, but there... Of course, on a larger scale, there's more wearing parts and things like that on a disc opener. And the little bit of disturbance that we do with the knife openers is beneficial in a cooler zone where you're blocking up the soil a little bit directly over the seed roll with the knife opener.
Brian O'Connor:
We'll come back to Norbert Beaujot and Frank Lessiter in a moment. Before we do so, I'd like to thank our sponsor, The Andersons, for supporting today's podcast. The nutrient management program is essential to maximizing crop productivity and yields. Providing the right nutrients at the right time throughout the growing season is key. The Andersons high yield programs make it easy to plan a season long approach for many row and specialty crops. Visit andersonsplantnutrient.com/highyield to download the high yield programs and get instant product recommendations for corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, and more. Before we get back to the conversation, here's Frank Lessiter with a little known no-till farmer fact.
Frank Lessiter:
With high fertilizer prices, many no-tillers have been wondering whether it's profitable to keep putting on the same amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash as they've done in previous years. Well, a two year study at the [inaudible 00:14:20] research farm in Alpha, Illinois showed that spending $150 per acre on phosphorus and potassium turned out $331 worth of grain. And that's a profit of $181 or 121% return on investment. So this was with surface supplied dry potassium and phosphorus, and it shows that it continues to payoff. With corn, the application gained 47 bushel per acre. And with soybeans, it gained 11 bushel per acre. And then with that profit, it's probably even higher these days with higher commodity prices for both corn and soybeans.
Brian O'Connor:
And now, back to Norbert and Frank.
Frank Lessiter:
Well, we got people down here that if they're into corn, soybean, and maybe wheat rotation, they're going to have a planter and then maybe they're going to have a no-till drill or they're going to have a no-till air seeder. But with the crops you mentioned, you would probably only need one unit, right.
Norb Beaujot:
Typically, that's right. We can seed all of those crops well with the SeedMaster. Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
You do soybeans?
Norb Beaujot:
We do. Yeah. We can meter them well and place them well. And on 15 inch centers, they do well, of course, too.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Are you putting nutrients down with these rigs?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah, we typically do all the nutrients. Most of the farmers do all the nutrients in the seeding pass. So the fertilizers an inch and a half inside and it's about an inch lower and it's a very distinct location. The way the two knives operate, there's very little... There's really no chance of getting the seed and the fertilizer mixed together.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. That's great.
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
Have there been any problems with no-till in Western Canada? Real serious ones?
Norb Beaujot:
It's been pretty progressive over those 30 years. We grow much bigger crops, more dependable. We seed earlier, we harvest earlier, more dependable times of the year. Of course, the varieties and the plant producers have done a lot to help us as well.
Frank Lessiter:
Sure. Is barley still a big crop in Western Canada?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, yeah, it's a pretty big crop. For some reason, we've never grown it on our farm, but I have neighbors that do and yeah, Saskatchewan's fairly well known for its barley. Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
Now, I was looking at some of the stories we've done on you over the years, and you've sold a number of your machines into Australia, which is really dry conditions, right?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. A lot of their conditions are severe or worse than ours. Yeah, there's definitely areas that grow reasonable crops that have very unpredictable moisture, I guess, you'd say too. And they're having a good year this year, but yeah, we continue to sell a fair number of units into Australia.
Frank Lessiter:
Should have asked you earlier, what's your normal moisture?
Norb Beaujot:
I think it's about 11 inches per year in Saskatchewan. Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
We're in Wisconsin, we get about 30 inches and... Will most of your moisture come during the winter or will you get some in the summer?
Norb Beaujot:
No, we'll get some in the summer. If we have a couple inches of moisture in the spring and another couple during the growing season, we can grow a 50, 60 bushel crop of wheat. So just making good use of that moisture.
Frank Lessiter:
So ideally, what would be the stubble height you would cut weed at so you could trap moisture in the winter?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah, there's varying practices. We've grown a lot heavier crops over that period of years where an average crop might have been 30 bushels when we started. And now, it's more closer to 60 on average for... Actually, for canola and wheat. And so the stubble becomes more important to handle it well, to be able to seed well into it the next year. So we used to cut and we still do cut pretty much 12 inches high, but there's a lot of people cutting shorter if they're on narrower row spacing, and I'm talking like 12 inches than... And there's more and more heavy harrowing as well to really manage the residue in a way that lets you get into it well. Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
So cover crops probably are not very popular up there, but you're going to have some stubble that will protect the soil during the winter, right?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. The soils were quite well protected with the stubble. Less so with peas, but yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
When would you plant peas and harvest them?
Norb Beaujot:
They're planted usually first. So about a month ago, they're harvested first as well. So late, middle August.
Frank Lessiter:
With higher price for wheat, is this becoming more competitive with peas and canola or...
Norb Beaujot:
Well, they've all jumped a lot and I haven't followed it closely, just lately, but yeah, canola's done really well and peas are nice to have in a rotation because of the nitrogen fixing. And there's a few things that they tend to do to the soil to improve it over the long term.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. Well, peas give you some nitrogen fixation. It's kind of what you would get from cover. What we're getting down here from cover crops over to winter.
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. That's great.
Frank Lessiter:
So tell me about some of your new things. Tell me about how you got involved with the DOT invention and what's happened in that area.
Norb Beaujot:
Well, I guess what spurred it on probably was the recognition that we're running out of good labor on the farm. And I think that more and more, it will become autonomous. So I was... And just to be frank, I'm mostly retired now, but I still keep track of the business and the farm somewhat too. But in my retirement years, I started thinking, how can I get SeedMaster ready for the autonomous world? And my first winter or two of thinking about it, I was working on basically just that, an autonomous seeder. And then when I realized that I could change the seeder for a grain cart or a sprayer, things like that, without too much trouble, I got a lot more interested in it and filed for patents then.
Frank Lessiter:
So you got this started, and then you kind of sold it off to Raven who has kind of now sold it off to Case IH, right?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. It gets further and further away. We were actually not looking to sell it off. We were looking for a little bit of investment money and when they heard about it, they didn't want to leave us alone, I guess, they kept... So it worked out good.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Have you got some of these units running in Saskatchewan now?
Norb Beaujot:
Raven has, I'm sure. We're not fully aware of what they're all doing, but yes, there'd be a number of them doing spraying or fertilizer spreading or grain cart. And I know there was some seeding going on this spring as well.
Frank Lessiter:
So with this unit, how wide a seeder could you have?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, it is a 30 foot single rank. So a SeedMaster product that's the seeder portion of it.
Frank Lessiter:
Yeah. Okay. What else you working on these days?
Norb Beaujot:
Well, I don't know if you heard the news in the last week or so that John Deere decided to sell our product or the dry land areas of-
Frank Lessiter:
Oh, yeah, I did. Yeah.
Norb Beaujot:
... North America. That's more our conventional seeder, although we've improved it with some of the John Deere portions that go onto the toolbar. Other than that, I've always got other projects, but I don't talk about them until right until I know they're going to work.
Frank Lessiter:
You're going to paint these green for Deere?
Norb Beaujot:
Oh, yeah. They're really important on the color and it looks really good and green. Yeah.
Frank Lessiter:
Good. So what's going to happen with farming in Saskatchewan in five, 10 years from now? That farm's going to get bigger or stay the same or are we going to still have labor problems?
Norb Beaujot:
Yeah. I think we'll have labor problems. Machines keep getting bigger. And I think the farm... I've never seen a situation where farms got smaller in the last 100 years. So I don't see any reason why that would all of a sudden start. Yeah. We keep making equipment so that it's more and more dependable. It used to be that we have to change cultivator shovels in 1,000 acres on a no-till drill. And now, if it doesn't go 10,000 acres, we're pretty disappointed with it, so we keep things, making things so that they're more and more dependable and go faster and do more acres.
Frank Lessiter:
So a farmer in your area would, say 20,000 acres, would he buy one DOT unit or would he run two or three or what?
Norb Beaujot:
Oh, DOT units. Well, that has never been tested at that level yet. No, there would be... I was envisioning about 3,000 acres per unit.
Frank Lessiter:
Okay. And you can run these 24 hours a day, if you need to?
Norb Beaujot:
You can. You still need the manpower to support them, like hauling product to them and... Yeah, you could.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. But if you got 15,000 acres, you want to get that crop in pretty quickly within maybe 10 days or 14 days.
Norb Beaujot:
That's right. Yeah, exactly. Typically, that's what I always say. There's this one ideal week a year to seed both ends of that. But this year, we got finished seeding the canola about a week ago now. So it was really late, but there's been eight inches of rain in the last, in the month of seeding in our area. So it was really sticky to get into.
Frank Lessiter:
Hey, this has been great.
Norb Beaujot:
Well, it's been good talking to you again, Frank. And hopefully, we'll run into each other sometime.
Frank Lessiter:
Right. All right. Take care. And thank you very much.
Norb Beaujot:
Thank you.
Brian O'Connor:
That was Norbert Beaujot and Frank Lessiter talking about no-till and technology in Canada. Before we wrap up today's episode, here's Frank Lessiter one more time.
Frank Lessiter:
The reader asked me recently, whatever happened to the zone tillage concept that Ray Rawson from Farwell, Michigan had come up with. In fact, he was known as the Father of Zone Tillage. And over the years, he had developed several zone tillage tools to go along with a cropping system. And he felt blended the best of both no-till and conventional tillage. And the purpose of zone till is to expand the size and depth of the root zone while preparing an effective seed bed. And the system also allowed more accurate placement of liquid or dry fertilizer in a warm, moist area of soil to promote rapid and expanded root development. Rawson pioneered a combination of three wavy coulters in a zone till system with the center or lead coulter clearing away the residue, and then two parallel coulters running behind the lead coulter provided in row tillage to promote good soil to seed contact and help accurately place dryer liquid fertilizer. We still have people using zone tillage today, but there are more people who have shifted over to strip-till and no-till.
Brian O'Connor:
That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast. Thanks to our sponsor, The Andersons, for helping to make this series possible. You can find more podcasts and no-till about no-till topics and strategies at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts. If you have any feedback on today's episode, please feel free to email me at B-O-C-O-N-N-O-R @lessitermedia.com or call me at (262) 777-2413. And don't forget, Frank would love to answer your questions about no-till and the people and innovations that have made an impact on today. So please email your questions to us at listenermail@no-tillfarmer.com. Once again, if you haven't done so already, you can subscribe to this podcast and get an alert whenever we release a future episode, find us wherever you listen to podcast. For Frank and our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Brian O'Connor. Thanks for listening.
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