Bourgualt agronomy

[ajl]

I always enjoy the Bourgualt magazine when it arrives. They publish agronomy results in detail and good on them for doing so. Unfortunately for them the result is always the same: keep running my $10000 drill and invest the rest of the money in a 5.5% GIC. When we get decent weather (not either a flood or rip roaring drought like 21) as I did on part of the farm this year, we can grow a crop with antiquated machinery. One of the results that stands out time and time again is that the winning phosphorous strategy in western Canada is 20lb/ac (40lb MAP ac) actual in the seed row. One can get fancier, however, there is almost never an economic response. On there phos test they compare different treatments but what is most notable is how little the response is over the control which is 0 lb/ac. Now that interest rates have gotten back closer to market rates maybe there will be some nicer equipment coming up. People will have to figure out how to make the large drills smaller. Anyways what technology is going to advance agriculture in the near future? After autosteer, there has not been much that has moved the industry significantly forward. Was reading Les Henry's combine article the other day. He noted that large single rotor combines like JD S series and the large MF combines had a tendency to put canola crop out the back and now that Deere has gone twin rotor they just made all those trades obsolete.

[jamesb]

You are spot on. Any drill that can place seed and fert correctly can work as good as anything on the market, whether its 20 years old or a new model. What I find interesting is now most of us are getting more and more years in direct seeding, the soil is changing in terms of organic matter and nutrient breakdown and response. Too many guys keep looking over the fence and see themselves in a competition with the neighbors. The idea of keeping up with the Joneses is not a good one. Compete with yourselves past years and one is further ahead. For me, when bourgault came out with the sectional control it was a game changer. We have lots of potholes and sloughs to go around and it was amazing how much less inputs we used once we got the setup figured out.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

As someone who is buying in the well used market, I share your concerns. Recent years have been a really good time to buy used grain equipment. Technology and sizes have been changing quickly so there has been a lot of very cheap slightly outdated equipment on the market. But going forward, air carts are probably going to be the one item that a small or medium-sized farmer won't be able to find used anymore. They have a short lifespan thanks to fertilizer, so the smaller simpler tanks won't be around forever. New ones mostly seem to be a thousand plus bushels, and with all of the moving parts and electronics and hydraulics, won't be cheap to maintain or rebuild for a smaller operation that doesn't need that capacity. And to make matters even worse, components are almost all unique on an air cart, and already obsolete. The most common cart on the market forever, the flexi coils, the computers are already no longer available. If a person can find a cheap air cart that isn't corroded out already, and put it in storage right now, might be the best investment one could make..

The drills themselves I'm sure can be cut down to size and to cut off sections can be cannibalized for parts.

[WiltonRanch]

I have a 1900 Deere cart on double shoot. Aside from the meter housing prone to fertilizer the rest of the unit is easy to set and maintain and rust not an issue with the tank. It’s over 20 years old but that design and parts ubiquitous versus other brands. Wished some days I had a simple old bourgault and put all fertilizer down as liquid through a separate tank but hills quash that idea.

[blackpowder]

It starts with seed placement.
Getting as close to a planter as you can on your budget. Which is the future.
There is some good and a lot of mediocre out there. Hopefully everyone upgraded as best they could the most important machine we own these last few years. Cheap days are gone.
Studying systems that don't require extreme straw management and 100 gal hydraulics. Not easy. An ever more expensive parameter for a smaller operation.
Twin rotor combines the future in small grains.
I don't get the BG magazine but they have seemed to favor research that supports their mid row banding in the past. On my budget, my crops greatly improved when I got a Flexicoil.
Seed placed P definitely a thing here, and more than a token amount. We can tell.

[seldomseen]

The Bourgault magazine is interesting but over the years always showing how their mid row banders are always on top of every system.
I have used them for years and when conditions are warm and crop is growing good they do work fine.
On years with flooding rains in the spring and its cold and the crop is struggling in wet soil then the nitrogen is just to far from the seed. On years like that you can pick out the fields that were planted with MRB.

[jdg364]

We farm in Bourgault country and when we had a 5710 I always felt we could seed with the paralinks, seedhawk/master or whatever type of drill.

After doing more research/trials, the paralink type system does add bushels when your drill gets wider (76’ vrs 48’) and in adverse conditions (rough/dry). Sectional control is a must with wider drills. 15” seed master grows monster canola and shits the bed in barley and oats, undecided on wht. 7/8” spacing drill will out bushel any other drill in oats.

For fertilizer, everyone has been bumping up nitrogen rates for the quick bang for your buck, but now people seem to have hit a yield ceiling for a few years. Big reason is they don’t want to add the extra 30-60 lbs of p/k/s or their drill doesn’t have the capability.

If you get the nice spring rain all the drills work fine and you’ll be happy come harvest.

[tweety]

It would seem no group is more susceptible to marketing then farmers.

Companies like Bourgault are even willing to sue researchers like Guy Lafond at PAMI doing peer reviewed research to perpetuate their marketing BS.

It's not Bourgault agronomy, its Bourgault marketing.

Might be time to do another comparison given all the new technology, but then researchers don't like getting sued spending time in court from a company that has their marketing proven wrong so unlikely to happen.

[furrowtickler]

Doing your own on farm research and side by sides , if you farm and have the experience to do so , will provide the best info you need .
Agree Bourgault “agronomy” is a marketing strategy, but taking from it bits and pieces like fertility results can help your own plan .
Much like research from other independent companies like the Rack or the now sold out GMacs , it’s slanted to sell inputs no doubt. But there are always trends you can take from any of that research and make it work for your own farm , climate , soil type and ave rainfall .

[shtferbrains]

I agree. It seems it too often works that way.
The results achieved reflect what the funder expects to see.

A small elite group produces work that is usefull. Guy LaFond was legendary.

90% is noise.

The Science is never unquestioned.

Same for all industries.

[rumrocks]

A lot, but not all new equipment reminds me of a clock with 6 hands.

[poorboy]

Now that Bourgault has a sideband drill, there are more comparisons in the Agronomy trials between side band and MRB. We will never know if they are including all of the data in their results or only the hand picked data that supports their objective.

One thing for sure, Bourgault is very in tune with improvements to existing products and looking ahead. Seems most other manufacturers are content to develop a seeding tool and then do nothing for 20 years.

[blackpowder]

Looking at BGs tanks/product delivery, I see it the other way around

[Guest]

Do their manifolds still have a dead end in them like a brick wall ?
That sure was hard on seed

[blackpowder]

To me, a single delivery auger akin to a sausage stuffer, to then distribute and section control at multiple manifolds, compared to everyone else?
Is really like JD hanging on to the 2 cylinder for an extra decade.