Josh Leier farms at Leier Acres Ltd. in South Saskatchewan, Canada 🇨🇦. The farm produces a wide variety of crops. The main crops in the rotation that they grow year to year are wheat, canola, lentils, flax, and durum wheat. In the 2021-22 season the team started using fieldmarign for farm maps and recording what is being grown on the farm.
Lentils are a very important pulse crop in Western Canada. It is grown to improve economic returns to producers, diversify and lengthen crop rotations and reduce the requirement for nitrogen fertilizer.
Red lentil production is most successful when grown in rotation with cereals. Experienced lentil growers don’t grow red and green lentils in rotation in the same field to avoid class contamination from volunteer plants. This is especially true of red and small green classes, which are impossible to separate during cleaning (SOURCE).
Using fieldmargin Josh was able to map out the fields and record what is being grown in each field for each crop year. Maps are split by farm year, which means that he can quickly see what was being grown across seasons. The whole team was invited to access the information from the mobile app.
With Farm Years you can quickly view maps from previous seasons by tapping the farm year at the top of the screen.
“The features of fieldmargin are all good, we love the app and use it quite often to see what we had seeded years prior, sometimes a guy forgets. We also use it a lot for checking acre count which is helpful when planning”
Josh Leier
fieldmargin saves time for the farm team as they won’t have to go back to the office and log into a computer to view what was being grown in each field over previous seasons.
That’s a huge and valuable way to save time. The average field size in Canada is 445 acres – which is 15 times bigger than in the UK where the average field size is 30 acres. Not having essential information in the field can mean a very long and unnecessary journey back to the office with your tail between your legs.
Good lighting and GPS-guided autosteer have given the farm the ability to spray during the night. This means that fewer farmers cover more acres in a tight timeframe. Night spraying can be a good option for insects if days are too hot and windy for insecticide efficacy. Dead calm conditions, which often occur in the early morning or late evening can result in less spray drift.
However, research from Alberta has suggested that spraying at night can be less effective for broad-leaf herbicides – read more here.
Interested to try fieldmargin to map and record cropping information on your farm?
Find out more on our website here. See how fieldmargin Pro can help on your farm with a free 14-day trial of Pro. No credit card required!
Let us know what you think about fieldmargin. We love talking to agriculture and software enthusiasts. Send us your feedback or questions by emailing support@fieldmargin.com or by phoning us on +44 203 289 4200.