My name is Scott Day and, along with my wife Sue and daughter Alex, farm with my Father and Mother ten miles north of Deloraine in the community of Dand. We have a sign that says "Treelane Farms" (and occasionally we have a flag) on the East side of Highway #21. We currently farm a little over a thousand acres. My parents are in the pork business (big sigh) and, among other things, my Father is part of the Regional Health Authority. I have a full time job as the Provincial Agricultural Representative in Boissevain and Deloraine. There are also some significant health challenges in my family so, the less time we spend on the tractor, the better it is for everyone. I'm sure everyone here also has a busy lifestyle. That is just a characteristic of the type of the successful farmers who attend these meetings but, believe it or not, we now have more choices to make nowadays as to how busy we want to be. Many of us say we want bigger equipment so we can farm more land but how about getting bigger equipment so we can spend more time with our families and friends? I know my wife doesn't buy that argument when I talk to her about buying new equipment, but it is a motivational factor in our decisions. And why not? It is very difficult to put a financial value on family time or leisure time, but your quality of life is going to be the biggest contributor to your long term personal satisfaction. If you don't have the time to use your new Sea Doo, what's the point of owning one? Now, I'm not saying that we should all go out and buy bigger equipment but I am saying we should look for ways to maximize production and time efficiently, not just for financial reasons, but also for personal reasons. Have time to go fishing with your kids, if you will. How about simply using your existing equipment less to achieve these goals? While soil conservation and economics were the primary reasons for our switch to O-till, it was the time saving so we could spend more time with our other commitments that was also very important.

So, let's get into our farming system which, I'm sure like most others here, is still evolving. We have been zero-tilling at least some of our farm for about 8 years now. Last year I heard Dwayne Beck say that there is nobody smarter than someone who has been zero-tilling for about 4 - 5 years. He was very correct. I remember being very cocky a few years ago. I knew it all. Now that we have a few more years of changing weed spectrums, glyphosate failures, inadequate fertility, limited herbicide effectiveness and excessive water, that expert phase has passed me by and I now have many more questions than answers. The problems I have just mentioned are all manageable under a zero-till system. It is just when I was four years into the system, I didn't think there were any problems.

So our system is a 27 ft. Flexi-Coil 5000 air drill with Atom-Jet CB-40 openers at 7.2 inch spacing. The drill is low maintenance and does exactly what we want it to do. For people looking to make a machinery decision, I think most have come to realize that an air drill is the best all round unit for zero-tilling into the clay-loam soils of Western Manitoba. Our sprayer is a Brandt with wind cones and, so far, I've really been pleased with my air induction nozzles. The seeder and sprayer are the two most important pieces of equipment on a zero-till farm with your combine coming a close third. When you think of how much money blows through your seeder or sprayer (and more particular your openers and nozzles), you better make sure they are in top shape or you are just blowing money away.

We fertilize in a variety of ways. On pea stubble we broadcast 34-0-0 after seeding. We will band anhydrous on a third of our acres in the Fall. The most efficient method of fertilizing nitrogen is Spring banded anhydrous so we band most of our acres in the Spring prior to seeding. We find with low disturbance openers for our anhydrous, our seedbed is not compromised. (The Brandon Research Station work supports this statement.) Over the past two years, we have used "the Blade" from Atom Jet to apply anhydrous with our 29 foot heavy duty cultivator. It is only a half inch wide and has been very effective at keeping disturbance to a minimum while putting the anhydrous where it needs to go. Other fertilizer requirements go down the tube with the seed. Double-shoot systems and mid-row banders would be nice but they would also require big changes to our existing equipment, especially in the requirement of horsepower, and our small acreage base is not appropriate to support a major change in equipment at this point.

Your tractor is not very important. Maybe that is why there are no tractors in the display area. Three hundred horsepower is three hundred horsepower, no matter if it is brand new or twenty years old. Of course, new engines are more efficient but, because you aren't using them as much, their added cost for more efficiency is usually not justified. I often hear farmers say that they need a new tractor or combine because they can't afford a breakdown. While none of us can afford breakdowns at the busiest time of the year, I do think in this day and age we can usually find replacements quite easily and our equipment, believe it or not, is much more reliable now. I always remember one of my professors saying that financially, equipment is one of the worst investments you can make. Investments in land, inputs and education will usually provide better long- term returns. It has been awhile since I lived and worked in Australia and Europe but they were usually amazed at how little we used our equipment. It was nothing for them to put 1500 hours on their big tractors and I saw many big tractors operating with over 10,000 hours on them. Our tractor is a 150 h.p. M.F.D. Deutz Allis that nicely matches the requirements of our equipment most of the time. This year, we put on 180 hours seeding and fertilizing our 1000 acres of crop. I have come up with a number that I feel is a good indicator of machinery efficiency on your farm. I call it horsepower hours per acre and I don't really know if it means anything but it sounds neat. It works like this: for our tractor 180 hrs\year x 150 h.p. ¸ 1020 acres = 26 h.p.\hrs.\acre. I talked to a farmer who conventionally tills 1900 acres and he puts 625 hours annually on his 8770 that equals 625 x 310 ¸1900 = 102\h.p.\hrs\acre. (4 times more). Another farmer minimum tills with the same acres and tractor 290 hrs x 310 ¸1900 = 47 h.p.\hr\acre. These numbers are no surprise but they speak volumes as far as time efficiency,

machinery depreciation, and cost for o-till over conventional till or even min-till. These numbers could also be useful for selling pollution rights the same as what we will be talking about with carbon sequestering. If I were to rent my tractor using current Manitoba Agriculture guidelines, that would be $42.34\hr x 180 hrs = $7621.20¸ 1020 acres = $7.50\acre in tractor costs. If the conventional-till farmer were to rent his tractor at $68.12\hr x 625 hrs = $42575.00 ¸ 1900 acres = $22.41 per acre. That difference in cost easily covers my additional cost in glyphosate and still doesn't recognize that I use a third less time preparing and putting in my crop. Now, all this lower cost of production doesn't mean anything if your production goes down as well. Anyone can cut inputs, but cutting inputs without sacrificing production is a challenge. The only way of measuring production for most of us has been the Crop Insurance Program. Well, it may not be the most accurate, it is usually better than what comes out of the coffee shop.When we started zero-tilling, our coverage across the board was average with our I.P.I. being an even 100. Keep in mind that this is in the very large EO2 crop zone that stretches 100 kilometers from Crystal City to Waskada. In 1998 our I.P.I. coverages are now, for the most part, well above 100 showing that our production must have often been above the average since we started zero-tilling. So, at least, we are not going backwards. Our machinery investment is $220 an acre which is right on the provincial average. Half of this is our combine which is probably a little excessive for our acres.

We need to regularly revisit or re-examine where we are going and how we are going to get there. If you want to farm 2000 acres but you don't have enough equipment, maybe you should change the way you use your equipment. Don't just buy more equipment. If you have a big farm but don't have time for your family, you may be missing the point. Don't get caught in tradition. There always is a better way!