One of the great things about getting out and seeing things, is you get out and see things.
[audio wav="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NOV-27.wav"][/audio]
I know that sounds obvious, and this will sound old hat to some, but I love seeing innovation and changes and thinking about the way something knew is going to change our lives. Preferably for the good.
Like the time I was on at a soil and crop demonstration in Lambton County a number of years ago and saw tires being inflated and deflated while the machine was still moving. It was on a liquid manure applicator, the kind of heavy machine that farmers want the tires soft when it is on the land to avoid compaction, but fully inflated when it is on the pavement to support the load.
A few minutes to deflate and inflate conventionally isn't a big deal until you count three minutes up and three minutes down times maybe 25 or 30 loads. That's 75 to 90 minutes in a day, time for a few more loads possibly, time the equipment isn't idling while fuel burns.
Or it is more time for the coffee shop.
But seriously, one day in Essex County I stood and watched a tractor pulling a new demo model tomato planter. Now I've planted peppers and tobacco in the old style planters, the ones that need two people per row and they alternate putting plants into mechanical "fingers" as they go around.
The new one had one person on the planter feeding trays into a mechanical shelf. Then I looked to the tractor and realized there was no one in it.
Since then of course self steering tractors have become common, and while it is definitely not recommended that you set yours up and press go and head to the coffee shop, they do let you spend time on twitter, likely leave you less tired and stressed at the end of a days work, and quit possibly do a better job of getting the seeds exactly where they should be. Especially when you are tired and stressed as you near the end of a long planting season.
And then there is all the work that has been done on precision planting, new ways to till, or to not till at all, and a lot of work being done on a very worthwhile project called getting more organic matter back into the soil. Preferably in a cost effective way.
There is a lot of that type of innovation going on. From the carbon dioxide reclamation project under way at the greenhouses of Truly Green Farms in Chatham to the eventual heat reclamation project it is working on with Greenfield Ethanol.
Truly interesting, something perhaps most of agriculture has heard about before. But it's not just about saving a few minutes here, or turning a tractor without actually turning the tractor, it is about the sum of all those parts, the cumulative results that are driving crop yields, food production, and ultimately sustainability to new levels.
It is both a reason to feel good about your industry if you are a farmer, as if moving forward to feeding the world isn't enough of a reason, and a reason to look for more innovative things to do.
Dare I say it, we are in the meeting season, the innovative meeting season as well as the annual general type. Great opportunities to not only learn about what you might want to try in the coming year, but to get a glimpse about what might be coming down the pipe in the years ahead.
Whether they are held at a college or a supply or equipment company, they can give you a lot of food for thought.
Of course I am lucky. I get to go to some of these events, and learn, and enjoy the changing technology.
But I do find that the change is heading in a good direction, and even if some of those directions do turn out to be dead ends, and some always are, agriculture has a good story to tell.
I'm grateful to have played a small part in telling that good story, and look forward to the next good story, as agriculture takes its next steps forward.
