We Could Power and Heat all of Western Canada's homes on Straw.

[blackpowder]

Slightly better than no straw at all from drought.

[Integrity_Farmer]

Why waste time with this? The removal of straw removes nutrients and organic matter from the soil. I've seen this movie before its called "Dumb and Dumber"

[Zephyr]

Why waste time with this? The removal of straw removes nutrients and organic matter from the soil. I've seen this movie before its called "Dumb and Dumber"

1. Because flax straw for instance, or hemp straw are a waste product that gets burnt. You're removing nutrients and polluting anyway.

2. Because there's large swaths of the northern grain belt that has a problem with excessive straw. Can't seed through it, doesn't allow the ground to warm up. These fields end up burnt and wasted.

3. Unlike what some old school agronomists spout, baling straw only removes about 30% of the total material grown by the plant - a lot less than you think. On top of that, the Biochar returns a large portion of those nutrients.

4. If there's a profit in the straw for the producer, like in the grain, you're telling me you wouldn't sell the straw and make some extra profit?



What in the heck is wrong with you people stuck in the past of non renewable carbon fuels... Oil and gas will eventually be depleted. Some of us are looking for solutions for our grandkids, not just enough to take us to the retirement home.


No wonder Western Canadian Farmers don't get anywhere. No vision, no dreams, nobody dares to leave their safe zone....

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I don't know why you are getting such push back on this concept.

Obviously it isn't going to be viable in every climate, soil type and operation type. But for those in high yield areas with high OM, it could be an economic way to remove what is becoming an impediment to no-till and consistent emergence/frost damage.

The recent studies I've seen seem to indicate that we don't gain much OM from above ground biomass, it almost all comes from decomposing roots, and incorporating with tillage burns existing OM, so isn't a solution either. Even straw as a source of N is in question.

IF this could add another income stream, AND most of the nutrients can be returned to where they came from, AND a full life cycle energy balance is considerably positive,AND it can stand on its own without being subsidized by governments or electricity consumers, or traditional electricity providersTHEN this makes far more sense than most of the other intermittent renewables.

And it would be consistent, assuming large centralized power plants, with a years worth of feedstock stockpiled.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

On the cons side:

I don't see this being a great solution for drying grain with a standalone unit on each farm, simply due to time constraints, at least in my own case. With the disasterous harvests we have enjoyed the last few years, finding time to keep feeding the grain dryer with bales, let alone getting them baled, hauled and in position just isn't going to happen. Centralized makes much more sense in that time of year.

I don't think there was hardly any dry straw baled "here" this fall, much of it heated. No economical way to dry straw, unlike grain. But perhaps it wouldn't matter if it is wet or heated, does energy content change?

Around here, the window to bale straw is even shorter than the window to combine, and we have been combining in the snow more years than not lately. Would take a big fleet of balers under such conditions.

Likewise, being so close to winter, bales are likely to be hauled off in winter, the logistics and cost of which goes up drastically, plowing snow, bales froze down, knocking snow off bales, chaining up trucks.

Many high straw areas are also full tillage areas, need a big seasonal workforce to get baled and hauled in time for that across a big area.

How do the plants, or the farmers keep those seasonal employees and trucks busy year around, or attract them(and make payments on the equipment) for an intense but short season? I know, farmers already do this, somehow...

Compaction in my biggest enemy, another pass across the fields on a wet field with balers, then trucks, and loaders, is not desirable. Whenever practical, I actually wait for freeze up to haul bales, or haul manure, soil etc. just for this reason, but that can backfire on a year with lots of snow and blowing snow.

Selling it as "sustainable" whatever that means, look at the campaign against ethanol. Facts really don't matter in these smear campaigns.

There are progressive, sustainable(ish, no such thing as a sustainable as far as I can tell) farmers such as wd9 using stripper headers and disc drills, does this then put them at an economic disadvantage to their neighbors who sell all their straw for short term profit, at the expense of long term sustainability, the ability to catch snow, slow erosion etc. Does it reward unsustainable practices in areas where it may not be in their long term interests?

But, the biggest con as of today, that we are powerless to change, is the price of natural gas. It needs to compete with energy from essentially free natural gas for the foreseeable future. ( of course, a massive CO2 tax would fix that)

It also has to compete with the wind and solar lobby, and the entrenched interests withing government, that is likely the biggest hurdle to overcome.

All that said, I'd rather find a way to make this work, than farm around wind turbines, or lose agricultural land to solar farms, with the associated costs to the price of electricity.