But for sheep producers, it comes down to cents.

“With sheep, you’ve always got to think about costs,” said Paul Luimes, a livestock nutrition researcher at the University of Guelph.

“You’ve got to look for pennies to save because there’s not a lot on them. Luckily, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit.”

That starts by zeroing in on what efficiency means.

“The traditional measure of efficiency is the feed-to-gain ratio,” said Luimes, who uses about 4.5 kilograms of feed to get a kilogram of gain in his trials.

“Feed-to-gain ratios are very important when feed costs are high. We need to make sure we keep them as low as possible.”

Producers also need to look at their average daily gain, said Luimes, who gets about three-quarters of a pound per day in his trials.

“The faster an animal grows, the more efficient it is. Animals that are taking longer to grow are less efficient,” he told attendees at the Alberta Sheep Breeders’ Association symposium in late October.

“Every day a sheep spends on your farm, they’re thinking of new ways to die, so we need to get them growing fast and we need to get them out.”

His key number is dollars of feed per pound of gain, which is why he’ll spend more for quality.

“If you’re saying, ‘I can buy some screenings to feed really cheap,’ you’re buying a bullet to shoot your sheep with,” he said. “This diet that seems so cheap actually is a lot more expensive. It ends up costing us a lot more to get those lambs to market because we can’t do it quickly or efficiently.”

A lamb puts on protein very quickly as it grows but then puts on more fat, and that metabolic change means it needs more energy in its diet. But if energy is oversupplied in the early stages of growth, it can’t convert the energy into protein as easily, so it will instead start putting on more fat.

“Putting on fat early on is energetically expensive and it’s dollars-and-cents expensive because they’re not really programmed to put it on at that point,” said Luimes.

An ideal protein-to-energy ratio for sheep hasn’t been established, so he urged producers to “figure it out on their own” by examining costs on their operation, and then using body condition score to gauge if they’re on the right track.

“Get your hands on your animals and feel how much condition they have,” he said. “If they’re going to market too lean, that could be an issue with your customers. If they’re going too fat, that’s energetically expensive. You’re spending money you didn’t need to spend.”

Luimes has experimented with several different rations. One involved adding corn silage to a mixed grain ration, and a 50 per cent mix brought the cost down by nearly half. But that was actually the most costly route. Feeding no corn silage in the ration worked out to about 70 cents per pound of gain, while feeding 25 per cent corn silage cost 69 cents per pound of gain, and 50 per cent corn silage cost about 88 cents.

“In my mind, 50 per cent corn silage is way too much for lambs,” he said. “You could feed 25 per cent corn silage to your lambs. My question would be: Why? There’s no benefit to it.”

But dried distillers grains — a byproduct of ethanol production — is showing promise as a new protein source for lambs.

“It’s very cheap. It’s cheaper than corn is on a per-tonne basis,” said Luimes.

But unfortunately, dried distillers grains aren’t “super palatable,” so he is pelleting it. The lambs ate more of the DDGs when pelleted, but their average daily gain wasn’t any better than when the byproduct was just mixed in a ration. However, “bunk management becomes easier with a pelleted feed — so to me, pelleting is a winner,” he said.

“It can be a very, very profitable way to feed lambs. If you’re feeding anything but dried distillers grains, you’re probably wasting money.”

The post Efficiency in sheep production measured in pennies appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Step away from the idea of plants as factories and start to think of plants as individuals,” biological sciences professor JC Cahill told attendees at the Western Canadian Soil Health and Grazing Conference.

Most people rely on assumptions that don’t reflect what’s actually happening in their fields or gardens, said the University of Alberta scientist, who works in a new field called evolutionary agro ecology.

Take, for example, the act of applying fertilizers as evenly as possible. Plants don’t just grow roots randomly in the soil, said Cahill. Instead, they respond to where the food is located.

“If you put it everywhere, they will put their roots everywhere. If you put it in one place, they will put their roots almost in one place,” he said.

The bread and butter of Cahill’s work is about ‘foraging,’ and he has studied 100 different plant species to see how they seek out nutrients. What he found is that individual plants make decisions on where to put their roots, and that’s where they can get the most nourishment.

“This is the norm of plants — that they make decisions on root growth if they live in a patchy environment,” he said.

The only homogenous soils in the world are ones that are tilled, so no-till fields and ones utilizing cover crops are more similar to natural environments. If plants find a high-quality patch of nutrients, they will stop extending their root systems.

This has significant implications when it comes to applying fertilizer.

“They’re making these very complicated decisions that you would never measure by just pulling up plants and looking at which roots are there,” he said. “These are about timing, not about the total amount.”

Plants also share another common trait with humans and animals — they have trouble making good decisions when stressed.

In one experiment, Cahill and other researchers spiked soil with white particles and used algorithms to follow soil movement rather than root movement, tracking small movements of rocks within the soil. This allowed them to measure root growth over a matter of hours.

“When we clipped them, they kept growing roots, but for the first 100 hours, their growth was random,” said Cahill.

But around the 120-hour mark, they effectively started behaving rationally again and focused root development on where the biggest concentration of nutrients were.

“This is crazy. This is exactly what you see in human psychology experiments when an external stressor stops rational decision-making,” he said.

This suggests that the reaction of plants might change when stressed, including how much fertilizer they utilize when put down during a stressful time.

Most plants have a shade avoidance response, and get tall and thin in a bid to rise taller than their neighbours. Below ground, plants also compete.

In Cahill’s lab, he chose 20 species and put them in a fight with other plants to see where they grew their roots. Some plants grew roots toward their neighbours, while others grew away. Every plant did something different.

Again, this has implications for farmers.

“If you have two plants of the same species, if they grow their roots to maximize combat, you’re having crop fight crop,” he said. “That’s not good for yield.

“But if they run away from like plants, you’re minimizing the amount of fighting in what you’re going to harvest. That’s good for yield.”

Conversely, when crops are attracted to the roots of other species, that results in weed suppression, he said.

Cahill predicted this sort of research will have a huge impact on farms in 20 years — although scientists will have to know much more about the behaviour of individual plant species before they can make specific recommendations.

Another promising area is family relationships.

And even though plants have no brain, no nervous system and no visual recognition, they can recognize kin. Plants increase their root growth and competition with neighbours when they are unrelated. Plants also protect kin and attack strangers.

“When there’s a stranger — a weed — we want them to fight hard for weed suppression,” said Cahill. “If we can harness this into a new generation of crop by having our breeders focus not just on height and the other things, but focus on the ability to detect kin, that’s huge.”

Fostering this ability in a crop would reduce the need for herbicides while another, equally intriguing area of research, could do the same for insect control.

Plants emit chemicals and researchers, including Cahill’s team, are looking at ones they emit when under attack. These chemical ‘odours’ lure natural predators of the bugs nibbling on their leaves or stems, and can even trigger a similar reaction in neighbouring plants that aren’t yet under attack, effectively warning them that enemies are nearby.

These sorts of behaviour form a plant ‘language’ and now scientists are taking it further. Current research is showing the language that plants are using is heritable, and even that local dialects are passed from parent plants to their offspring. Different families of plants use slightly different language, and individuals respond more to their own dialect.

The post Listen to your crops — the plants are talking to each other appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We know of 12 producers in Alberta, but that does not account for farmers who haven’t engaged with us,” said Wade Bendfeld, president of the Alberta Hop Producers Association, which was formed in March and recently held its inaugural meeting.

• Read more: Demand is there, but jumping into hops isn’t easy

He’s been growing hops for two years on his Spruce Grove-area acreage.

“I’m someone who is interested in craft beer, but I didn’t want to get involved in brewing or anything like that, so I thought I could get involved in the craft beer movement a little by growing hops,” said Bendfeld, a corporate communications professional who has almost 100 plants on a quarter-acre.

That’s actually a sizable chunk of current production in Alberta — Bendfeld estimates there’s only about five acres of hops in the entire province.

While not a big number, it’s a lot more than what you might expect. Most of the hops grown in the world are found in moist, temperate climates and until recently, the prevailing view was that they couldn’t be successfully grown in Alberta.

However, that changed when sisters Catherine Smith and Karin Smith Fargey started Northern Girls Hops at Darwell (west of Edmonton) in 2013. Bendfeld got in touch after hearing a radio interview with them and decided to give it a go himself. He also credits the sisters for laying the foundation for the hops association.

“They called a meeting of a bunch of different people who had expressed interest in growing hops back in 2016,” said Bendfeld. “We started talking about how we could grow together and support each other. The hops industry in Alberta was really non-existent.”

It was at that meeting that the idea for the association was formed.

“One of the things we quickly understood — and one of the central requirements for the association — was to be supportive of each other,” said Bendfeld. “We’re all going to learn different things. It’s really about how do we start our farms, and start an industry by helping each other.”

Hops growers in different parts of the province have different challenges because of their local climate. But one common issue for newbies is figuring out layout for a hop yard and building a proper trellis system, which needs to be six or so metres high.

“There’s a lot of infrastructure that needs to be set up for them to actually grow properly,” said Bendfeld.

But it’s not a case of build it and they will come — there’s already huge interest in hops thanks to the popularity of craft beer. These days, it’s often called “the new wine” and aficionados enthuse about flavour ‘notes’ and what food should be paired with this or that brew. That spills over to hops, which add both bitterness and aroma depending on the variety, the amount used, and when they’re added in the brewing process.

“One of the things we’re seeing is that there is huge interest from the public, the provincial government, and most importantly, from craft brewers,” said Bendfeld.

None of the farms in Alberta currently produce enough hops to regularly supply any of the bigger beer makers.

“It would be hard for us to supply any plants today. But next year, there are going to be a lot more plants coming online and a lot more production. It’s growing every year, so it’s good.”

Along with sharing best practices, the association will help connect craft brewers with hops growers in the province.

“The Alberta Hops Producers Association will be able to contribute to that significantly,” said Bendfeld.

The group held a fundraising event last month and is discussing a variety of ideas to generate more interest from the public, brewers, and government.

“There is a lot of recognition that this is viable and this is an exciting time to get in on this.”

The post It’s tiny now, but fledgling hops sector is taking flight appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Even though the presentation is barely a year old, Alberta doesn’t even make the list of hops-growing provinces. The owners of Northern Girls Hops west of Edmonton actually started their hop yard in 2013, but the sector is still tiny.

• Read more: It’s tiny now, but fledgling hops sector is taking flight

The potential, however, is huge. The Ontario presentation estimates that province alone would need 1,500 acres of hops to replace what’s being imported, but has only 90 acres (second to Quebec and just ahead of B.C.).

And the numbers can be eye popping. The Ontario presentation says yields can hit 1,800 pounds per acre, with a pound of dried hops fetching $14 to $16. That dollar figure is close to what the president of the newly formed Alberta Hop Producers Association has seen on offer, but the production is well above current yields here.

“Pounds per acre is hard for us to gauge right now because of our overall startup phase, but I believe that Northern Girls has estimated (production) between 1,000 to 1,500 pounds per acre,” Wade Bendfeld said in an email. “That’s not up to par with major U.S. producers’ harvests but again, we’re in our infancy stage.”

A big craft brewer might want 20,000 pounds in a year, but it all depends on what types of beer it’s making.

“Hoppy beers are obviously going to use more hops,” he said. “Some extreme double IPAS would use a pound of hops in 10 gallons… while a light lager or a malt-focused stout might only use an ounce or two of hops for the same amount of beer.”

And you might need a pint after looking at the startup costs. Ontario’s Ag Ministry puts establishment costs at $15,000 to $20,000 per acre (not including harvesting and drying equipment) and labour at $5,800 to $9,500 per acre. The powerpoint presentation can be found at the Ontario’s Ag Ministry’s website by clicking on ‘Introduction to Hop Production’ by Evan Elford.

The post Demand is there, but jumping into hops isn’t easy appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Until now, the only way to report poaching activity, dangerous wildlife or public land abuse was to phone the Report A Poacher hotline. There is now a Report A Poacher website to fill out a form and submit it online. The report goes to fish and wildlife officers so they can follow up and investigate.

“The more public support we receive through the Report A Poacher program, the more effective we can be in combating fish and wildlife crime and public land violations,” said Sgt. Major Adrian Marr of the Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Branch.

“Officers cannot be everywhere at once, and we must rely on the public for their tips so that poachers can be brought to justice.”

“It’s important that we give people more options to report suspicious or illegal activity,” added Ken Kranrod, vice-president of the Alberta Conservation Association. “The message is clear: Hunt and fish responsibly, and don’t be a poacher.”

Emergencies and incidents that need immediate attention should still be reported through the 24-hour Report A Poacher line at 1-800-642-3800. Phoning is still the fastest way to reach an officer, while the new website can be used to report issues that are less urgent. People reporting through either the phone or the web can remain anonymous and could be eligible for a reward, which ranges from $100 to $1,000.

Although not required, providing your contact information is helpful as the investigating officer may have followup questions. Any personal information provided is kept confidential.

In 2016-17, there were 14,894 calls to the Report A Poacher toll-free hotline. Of those, 3,097 were about suspected illegal activity, with $108,600 in rewards paid to individuals whose calls and information led to charges.

In total, there were 9,133 enforcement actions — both charges and written warnings — issued by fish and wildlife officers.

The post You can now report poachers online appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Those are the key takeaways from a new study that looked at both the impact of a per-cow tax, and how the county could raise badly needed funds for maintaining and repairing its roads.

• Read more: Lethbridge County ‘head tax’ ruled legal

“If you’re a cattle feeder and you have a lot of capacity in your feedlot, you’re looking at a substantial tax bill,” said economist Mel McMillan, who co-authored the paper with Bev Dahlby and Mukesh Khanal of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

“If you’ve got several thousand head of capacity in your feedlot, you’re looking at several thousand dollars of tax.”

The $3-per-head business tax — more commonly referred to as a ‘head tax’ — was imposed on area feedlot operators in April 2016 in an effort to raise $3.5 million annually over 35 years to cover road and bridge maintenance. The tax was set to climb to $4 per head in 2017, but was instead dropped to $2.50 per head.

A group of feedlot operators in the county challenged the tax, but a Court of Queen’s Bench judge ruled in April that the county had the “delegated taxation powers” laid out in the Municipal Government Act. That was good news for the county’s road budget but a blow for cattle feeders.

“Assuming that other counties do not implement a similar tax, cattle-feeding operations in Lethbridge County are going to be somewhat less competitive,” said McMillan.

“It’s certainly going to have some effect.”

While estimating its impact is difficult, it could slice profits by one-fifth, he said.

“A 20 per cent cut into your profit margin is substantial,” said McMillan, adding the feeders don’t have a way to pass on the extra tax cost to either cow-calf producers or consumers.

“It does raise costs to this particular group of people, and they’re an important part of the Lethbridge County economy. It may have some consequences there.”

However, McMillan is quick to point out that cattle feeders weren’t necessarily taxed fairly before the levy was imposed.

“Feedlots can put a lot of use on roads, hauling feed and hauling cattle,” he said.

“If a quarter section that’s all feedlot is taxed the same as a quarter section that’s all in barley, there’s a considerable difference in the utilization of roads and other services that are provided by the municipality.”

And their research found that Lethbridge County has a “legitimate case for generating more revenue.”

“We found that the county is not a big spender in large part, and it’s probably not investing enough in its roads right now to maintain them to the standard that is necessary,” said McMillan.

“The county does have to spend some more money on roads, and some money should probably be coming out of the confined feeding operations.

“So we have to take a more balanced look at it. It’s a question of how do you do it?”

Three alternatives

The trio came up with three potential alternatives, but all had their drawbacks.

One was to charge truckers for the use of county roads based on mileage — using GPS technology and basing tolls on truck weight, location, and distance travelled.

“This is possible. It’s been used in New Zealand and Oregon, so it would be conceivable to do. New technologies make it workable,” said McMillan.

“But that would require provincial co-operation and trucking industry co-operation as well. That would be a fairly significant item and something the municipality could not do on its own.”

Option No. 2 was to levy a charge on cattle feeders based on their use of county roads, working from the assumption that feedlots located closer to provincial highways would use county roads less, and vice versa. Around 72 per cent of feedlots in Lethbridge County would see their tax burden reduced if this sort of usage charge were put in place instead of a head tax.

“Some feeders that are on provincial highways would pay nothing, and those that are sitting on 10 miles of county roads before you get to a provincial highway would be paying more,” said McMillan.

“But that may be considered unfair by some of the cattle feeders.”

The final option looked at giving breaks to feedlots that produce most of their own feed.

“Some of these cattle-feeding operations would have a considerable amount of farmland associated with them, and an operation that produces all of its own feed doesn’t use much more local roads than if you were a grain farmer hauling grain,” said McMillan.

“The county could look at how much farmland was associated with a given feedlot, and the feedlot would be charged only for the number of head that it produced that were beyond the feeding capacity of the farmland that it owned.”

But it’s tough to say which is the best option, said McMillan.

“What do people regard as fair and an equitable distribution? How easily can it be managed?” he said.

“You want equity, you want efficiency, you want administrative ease. All of that would have to be balanced out by the municipality, the voters in the county, and the feeders.”

But the bottom line is the bottom line, he said, and Lethbridge County should revisit the tax before cattle feeders start moving on to greener pastures.

“There is a concentration of feedlots in that area, and presumably they’re there because there’s some advantage to them being there,” said McMillan.

“There is a risk that some feeder operations that are on the margins of profitability may decide to reduce or even end their operations.”

The entire report Taxing Feedlots in Alberta: Lethbridge County’s Tax on Confined Feeding Operations can be found on the University of Calgary School of Public Policy website.

The post A taxing situation — study says there’s no easy fix to county’s cattle tax appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“The Alberta Beef Industry Development Fund is a concept that would be able to be implemented with a non-refundable service charge,” said Rich Smith, executive director of Alberta Beef Producers (ABP).

The money for the development fund would come from a portion of a non-refundable $3 checkoff. Currently, the $2 provincial part of that checkoff is refundable and a big portion of that money — $2.5 million in 2016 — has gone to refunds, mostly to cattle feeders.

“We’re losing about 35 per cent right now, which works out to about 70 cents a head,” said Smith. “Our idea would be that a significant part of that 70 cents would be allocated to that fund, and another part of that money would be allocated to the Alberta Cattle Feeders.”

If producers didn’t want the money to go to the cattle feeders’ association, they could direct it to the Beef Industry Development Fund, which would be used for marketing, education, research and industry collaboration, said Smith. Other beef groups could apply to the fund as well.

The money would be allocated through a council with representation from ABP, the cattle feeders’ association, and the Western Stock Growers’ Association.

“We obviously need more work on the final terms of reference and how it would look,” said Smith.

The Alberta government made the provincial checkoff refundable in 2009, and ABP has been lobbying the province to reverse that decision ever since. That effort finally produced a partial result in April when legislation allowing non-refundable checkoffs was passed. But it requires a plebiscite, and Agriculture and Forestry Minister Oneil Carlier wants to see “a fair bit of alignment in the industry before he has a plebiscite,” said Smith.

“I suspect the government wouldn’t even conduct a plebiscite if it thought it was going to be a problem,” he said.

The cattle feeders’ association has concerns because making the checkoff non-refundable could have an impact on the revenue it’s currently receiving from its members, he added.

“They would be looking for some allocation of money from a non-refundable service charge to them, to maintain their operations,” Smith said. “We believe we can justify allocating some funding from the service charge revenue to that organization.”

Creating a development fund was discussed at the fall producer meetings and the boards of both organizations back the concept. ABP plans to meet with the cattle feeders’ association at the end of the month to work out details of how the fund would operate.

“Once we’ve done that, I suspect that before they would join us in asking for a plebiscite, they might want to go to their members,” said Smith, adding details of any tentative agreement would be brought to his organization’s semi-annual meeting next month.

The two organizations have agreed on how a $2 non-refundable checkoff would be split.

“It would work out that 25 cents per head would be directed to the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association,” said Ryan Kasko, vice-chair of that group.

Another 40 cents would go into the industry development fund, which would work along the lines of the now-defunct Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency.

“We think that it’s nice — we’ve been striving for a long time to have a directed checkoff and this does allow people to have some choice,” said Kasko, who runs Kasko Cattle Company feedlots near Coaldale.

“We want to make sure that our industry and our organizations are funded to deal with all the issues that come up.

“The response has been quite positive and we’ve had little push-back to the idea. Both organizations are feeling really good and hoping we could make this a good solution.”

The post Long-running cattle checkoff battle may be coming to an end appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The company was started in the tiny community of Langbank by farmer Pat Beaujot, his brother, and two friends in 1986. They were frustrated by the lack of suitable seeding equipment for no till at that time and decided to build their own air seeder in Beaujot’s shop.

In 2006, Beaujot sold 49 per cent of the company to Väderstad, a family-owned business that had become a major European equipment maker. The Swedish company acquired 100 per cent ownership in 2013.

“We are pleased to become a part of Väderstad. Both businesses are leaders in the development of some of the world’s most innovative agricultural equipment,” said Nigel Jones, CEO of Vaderstad Industries.

“The joining of our businesses will positively impact the advancement and availability of our equipment for farmers in North America and around the world,” said Jones.

This transition was signalled by the change earlier this year to red paint on all Seed Hawk seeding systems, consistent with Väderstad-branded equipment, the company said in a news release.

The post Renamed Seed Hawk now flies the flag of parent company appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“This sort of moves us beyond even where India has been before in pulse import duties… more than a decade ago we were at 10 per cent,” Pulse Canada CEO Gordon Bacon said after the Nov. 8 announcement. “So to sort of move to the maximum allowable for peas under WTO (World Trade Organization) rules has surprised us all.”

• Read more: Surprise Indian duty on peas leaves Canada scrambling

Reuters reported the tariff was meant to support India’s own pea growers after prices fell below a support threshold set by the Indian government.

The move came just as Bacon and Lee Moats, chair of Pulse Canada, were heading to India where the top issue had expected to be whether the country would extend a fumigation exemption for Canadian pulses. That exemption expired in October and the Indian government had said nothing on the matter, throwing into question the ability of Canada to export to its top pulse customer.

The pulse industry was anxiously waiting to find out what’s up on both issues, said Leanne Fischbuch, executive director of Alberta Pulse Growers.

In the meantime, producers wanting to sell peas have limited options, Fischbuch said on Nov. 14.

“If they’re talking to their dealers and their dealers are looking at alternative markets, that’s another option,” she said. “But otherwise, if their dealer is not looking to sell anything at the time, farmers have to bear with it at the moment.

“Until we learn more and the trade sees that there’s opportunity for movement, we’re in a challenging situation.”

One major Prairie pulse exporter used stronger language.

“That is very horrible news for us as exporters,” said Meiyun Li, general manager with ADM Ag Industries in Saskatoon. “India is our biggest buyer of pulses, of peas. So if India doesn’t want to buy, where will our yellow peas go?”

Last year, India’s pea imports — mainly from from Canada, Russia, the U.S., and France — soared by 41 per cent to a record of 3.17 million tonnes. But shipments were already well off that pace this year, with total Canadian pea exports at 849,000 tonnes as of Oct. 29 — half a million tonnes behind exports from the same time last year. Li said demand in China is also down while big pea crops in the Ukraine and Russia are driving down prices.

The only place where there is interest for Canadian peas is in the U.S., according to Li. The U.S. pea crop is down this year due to the drought but “they cannot consume all of our pea production,” she said.

Drought in recent years had been driving India’s imports of pulses and wheat but the return to near-normal monsoons has changed the scenario.

That will also have an effect on wheat markets.

Along with the pea tax, the country simultaneously doubled its tax on wheat to 20 per cent. That’s expected to slash wheat imports, which means both Ukraine (India’s biggest wheat supplier) and Russia will be looking for new destinations for that crop.

“Twenty per cent is basically a prohibitive tariff, and we are likely to leave the (Indian) market,” said Yelizaveta Malyshko of UkrAgoConsult consultancy.

Ukraine had expected to sell as much as 1.6 million tonnes of wheat to India, but that’s now expected to fall to one million tonnes.

— With files from Commodity News Service Canada and Reuters

The post Out of the blue — India’s tax on peas hits growers here appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“When it works great, it’s amazing. But when there’s complications, it’s extremely frustrating — just like any piece of technology,” the Eckville-area producer said in an interview last month.

“Yesterday, I was literally out fighting a frozen water line that had drained the battery, and I had 180 animals that hadn’t had a drink yet.

“It posed a bit of a challenge for a cold Tuesday morning.”

Hoven has been using alternative watering systems for more than 20 years, and made the move to solar waterers in 1997 because of some remote locations in his pasture land.

“It gives us better control,” said Hoven, who now has three solar waterers.

“We can put the water where we want to, instead of only having one or two locations that they have to graze around. The solar waterers help us get our grazing management a step above what we could do without them.

“It gives you the freedom to better manage your grazing.”

• Read more: When the herd is a province away, you need reliable water

Despite some of the challenges with solar waterers (particularly in the winter), the technology has moved “leaps and bounds forward” in recent years, says Marvin Jackson, owner of Sundog Solar. And that “changes how a producer can manage his land.”

“We’re constantly being pushed to do more with less, and solar water pumping helps to do that,” said Jackson.

“It will make you much more competitive in the marketplace, through decreased time for management, increased herd health, and increased rate of gain.

“That all boils down to increased efficiency and profitability.”

Right sizing equipment

But in order to get the job done right, the system needs to be designed both in size and with appropriate equipment to match your specific needs.

“The system does need to be sized properly, just the same as a grain farmer would size his tractor,” said Jackson. “We have to match what the actual producer needs on how many sites for how large a herd. But it’s often overlooked.”

Hoven’s advice? “Buy a system that’s bigger than what you need.

“Don’t just say, ‘I think this tiny system will do my herd,’” he said. “There’s nothing worse than when it’s 35 above and your pump can’t keep up with the demands of your cattle.”

Producers need to do their research and make sure “it’s going to work within their operations,” said Hoven. That means getting a big enough tank and reserve for the right level of storage capacity, and big enough panels to power the pump.

“You need to plan for how much capacity you’re going to need on the hottest day of the year,” he said. “You might only get that circumstance once every 10 years, but if you don’t have that capacity, it’s going to be a problem.

“As soon as the tank goes dry, the cows start getting aggressive.”

And ultimately, you get what you pay for, Hoven added.

“If you buy cheap equipment, you’re going to have more problems than if you had a bigger capital expense in the beginning,” he said.

“You can cheap out a bit, but you’re not going to be as efficient because it won’t work as well.”

Plan for worst case

Producers don’t need to make a huge upfront investment, said Jackson. But solar watering should be just one part of an overarching long-term water management plan.

“Quality water solar pumping is not really new,” said Jackson. “Most people just don’t put enough time into a plan as they should.”

Plans don’t need to be “in depth or engineered,” he said.

“If they mark on a blank piece of paper the land they have and the water they use now, and then mark how it would change if they had water in a different location, they can think about how to best meet in the middle on that criteria,” said Jackson.

Water management plans would have helped many more cattle producers weather the drought seen in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan this summer, Jackson added.

“This past summer, I talked to a lot of producers who were stressed to the max that they didn’t have water for their cattle,” he said.

“I strongly feel that if producers had a water management plan where they planned for the worst-case scenario, I would not have talked to as many stressed producers who were in panic mode long after they should have been.”

And by incorporating solar watering systems into that overall plan — rather than simply relying on them in a crisis — producers can respond quickly to watering challenges as they crop up.

“In the past, solar water systems have been looked at as a bit of a band-aid when there’s either way too much water and things are muddy or when there’s a drought and producers need a quick fix,” said Jackson.

“If people approach it as part of having a water plan, it makes your life much less stressful.”

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