Manitoba - Centre of the Canada

Land Under Water Outside Winnipeg

Next day we drove to Brandon where we met Scott & Ann Day who have stayed with us in the past. Scott is the Diversification Specialist with Manitoba Ag, Food and Rural Initiatives. He runs the research program out of Melita Manitoba. Scott has been to Australia where he spoke at a number of conferences including SANTFA’s Annual Conference.
Scott’s group run a multitude of sites across South Western Manitoba. All of the trials are sown under No-Till conditions. Each year they run variety evaluation trials of the normal range of crops such as Wheat, Canola and Legumes. Over the last year they also included trials into new crops such as Hemp. They now have a hemp processing plant in the area. Other crops they are trying include short season Maize, Hairy vetch and Canedula for oil.

Scott Spraying Some Plots

Scott runs his own farm as well in the district. No-till has allowed him to do both jobs as the time input is a lot lower than conventional methods. It has enabled to get his crop in a lot earlier than before, which has been a good way this year as we seem to have again bought the rain with us. Since we arrived in New Jersey a month ago, it rains just about every second day. Throughout the two days in Manitoba so far there has been up to 200mm or 8”.

Huge Precision Planter

Scot, Ann and Alex their daughter were great to visit and gave us a good look around South Western Manitoba. Scott's mate, Keith took us out to his hunting shack in the scrub (Woods). They had a monuted deer head. But not your normal one, this one had two deer killed with one bullet. The deer were fighting and got stuck together.

Great Trophy if This is Your Thing