Midge Tolerant Wheat.

[SASKFARMER3]

Well this is one that I have been interested in for a while. Today I got the information that it will be available Western Canada Wide in fall of 2009.
Looks alot like Monsanto and their Canola.
You sign a contract and then have to re-buy seed every second year they can check your fields for years to come.
Me thinks my dream is not going to happen.
I wont support this and will keep spraying if needed. It allows me to apply fungicide and cost will be comparative to buying 14.00 seed every second year.
Nice new magazine arrived the other day finally read. Then discovered the source its a Chem company.
Simply here is the gist.
1. plan for high priced fertilizer its needed.
2. plan for high priced seed its needed.
3. plan to sell your crop at certain time no matter the price.
4. plan for high priced chemicals.
5. have a good bank arrangement.
Basically their saying all costs will spike so farmers get ready to pay way more for your supplies, have a bank that will finance your and so what if the only profit you make is a dollar an acre for doing all the work. And if you do have a below average crop oh well might as well incorporate since that way the bank can seize all your assets really easy and shut you down.
Is it just me or are they truly trying to have farmers leave this business, and create a few supper corporate farms.

[craig]

There is more to midge tolerant wheat than would appear on the surface. Insects have the ability to adapt quickly and build resistance. Therefore certain protocals need to be in place to make wheat midge tolerance work. This includes the combination of both tolerant and non tolerant seeds in an attempt to delay the development of resistance. How well this works in the real world remains to be seen.

[parsley]

Your most serious problem is this:

I asked a researcher how they chose varieties. and the answer was "the grain that fills the pocket fastest"

Yield.


So I asked about taste.


It is never a consideration.


Where are your committees? What kind of dolts sit on them? Robots that don't eat?

Taste is what your consumer wants.

I'll say it again.


Taste is what your consumer seeks.

Again.

Taste is what your consumer pays a premium for; I'm not talking about food aid markets here.

You are ending up with varieties that serve everyone BUT your consumer.


And that is stupidity.

There are two essentials in this picture and the rest are all dispensible window dressing:

The ONLY TWO ESSENTIALS ARE: The farmer and the consumer.

Pars

[furrowtickler]

There is a midge tolerant wheat already - it called winter wheat. As for HRSW keep your own and spray if needed, I agree with S/F, canola is bad enough for expenses but there is already no profit margin in hrsw. As far as large coperate farms, per ac net, I would put money on a well managed 4000-6000 ac farm any day over a 20/25,000 ac gong show. I have seen it with my own eyes year after year.

[charliep]

May as well be controversial.

Is there any evidence that grain grown from alternative breeding techniques tastes or performs different than traditional crops? I assume everyone will highlight the produce section of a grocery but I am going to suggest there is a lot more than breeding in the case of a product that is stored, transported thousands of miles and is consumed in raw form.

Is there any reason that private investment/profit motive should not be the driver of research, innovation and commercialization? Shouldn't farmer's purchase decisions as buyers of inputs be the ultimate driver of what is successful or not? I assume that farm managers will only adopt technology if it is profitable over the long term?

Who should pay for research and development in things like plant breeding and how should benefits be shared? Return on investment for plant breeding research?

[parsley]

Breeding primarily for midge resistance doesn't mean you'll automatically get good taste.

My experience with barley, for example, has been that some varieties of good tasting barley are noticibly different from "pig-slop" tasting barley.

If you're lucky maybe some good taste will be in the recessive gene, but if you consistently want good taste, you have to breed for it.

In flax, you breed for a tall crop, with long stems if you want to make linen. Characteristics have to be pursued.

My researcher said they are not. Everyone chases yield.

I'm an eater, charliep, and so is everyone else. lol Pars

[haveapulse]

I figure corporate farms are going to be the best thing ever happen to our industry.

Unlike the Ma and Pa farm, a corporate farm is a machine. Everything is a cost, and a caculated return. Corporate investors will demand a return on investment and a return on production costs. They will be the first to notice the balance sheet offside, and they will be the first to make a decision that is propelled by the bottom line, and dump poor technology.

Yield on a corporate farm is bottom line. 50 bushel canola that doesn't make as much as 25 bushel red lentils in net return will face the pencil.

Therefore if the perfect seed, and the perfect chemical do not produce the best return, the bottom line driven industry of the future will eliminate weak technology.

This is where the value of the corporate farm will have its merit, as their bottom line is all about cost and all about calculated not perceived rewards. They will not brag about 50 bushels, they will brag about 50 bucks an acre profit though. And they will forced by sheer necessity of ROI to ditch poor technology, quickly.

Ma and Pa farms have greater capacity to endure poor technology while paying dearly for the priviledge.

For this reason I expect the the checks and balances will return some day, and maybe by then government policy will insure some element of competitive spirit in the tenure of the policy which insures today that intellectual property has a license to gouge.

But the at least we can take some comfort knowing our 69 million dollars will be creating better wheat and barley genetics...

[pilpilsner]

What ever you do Pars,dont start eating that damn flax.

[JACKFLASH]

SF. I think another look should be taken at this midge resistant wheat. I have sprayed mega gallons of lorsban over the years. And if I get away from doing so that would be great. So health/economics have to come into play.

[SASKFARMER3]

But remember years back when we treated our canola with a chemical for seed treatment. Some genius decided it was bad. HA HA HA.
Now we have saw fly grasshoppers midge etc. All use to die from that product.
Yet its gone. It was cheap but gone.
Yes I dont like lorsban either but it works.

[furrowtickler]

Haveapulse, great in theory but in reality you are a long way off. What you describe is the buisness practice for most of the progressive farms in exsistance. I know the yeilds on well managed family farms are far above the few corperate farms in this area - this is a fact, we deal with bolth. As far as costs go, wether you run one set of equipment on 5000 ac or four sets on 20,000 it is all relative for machinery. Some of your neighbours, as well as your farm had average yeilds far above the few corperate averages that I know. 50 bus will always out net a 35 bus crop no matter what your costs are. Yeilds may level out over time, but mother nature rules when you still have thousands of acres to cover and it is past the 20th may. BTW - most farms are incorperated now so what is your veiw of a corperate farm? What is a ma and pa farm? Comparing oranges to apples there.

[may-be]

I have to get out more often. Only seen poor crops when i drove by a omish colony or a area that had some disaster. The only guys i know that are not progressing are the ones that got the family farm and are poor finacial managers. But they also grow good crops. Found out from a supplier of mine last year a few big operations were behind on their bills. I am sure they and thier banker had things penciled and calculated out. This not so perfect world sometimes makes things interesting to me though.

[parsley]

Big.

I guess we need more General Motors and AGI's. Frannies and economic Frankensteins.

Especially the big corporate entities that eat tax money like popcorn.

All those stupid little Mom and Pop ventures paying income taxes will want their tax dollars poured into BIG tax guzzlers. Pars

[furrowtickler]

have a pulse, the more I read your poast the more I think you have to be kidding, right? The same attributes you describe for corperate farms are the same for most well managed family farms. No one can demand a return on investment in farming in western Canada, thats is imposible unless you control the weather and grain oilseed prices.

[haveapulse]

Let me further elaborate furrowtickler;

I did not imply that management skills were less or more in the anology for Ma & Pa farms or for large corporate farms.
That was your interpretation.

And I do note that the line between corporate farms and family farms merges as most family farms today are incorporated, and superfarms are also mostly Ma & Pa family operations, in fact many large farms have woman partners who are often very involved and committed to the operation.

The difference between these two operations; smaller units of land versus the super farm model lies mostly in the amount of equity one has in the operation. Generally speaking a larger farm has a higher percentage of
rented or leased land, or less equity in land ownership. Most super large farms rent a higher % of their land than do smaller operations.

Rent is a cash expense. Therefore, depending upon the debt on owned land, the amount of paid for land assets
varies the fixed costs of land on a smaller farm.

The difference I am noting here between farm sizes and costs of operation lies in the cost of the % of rented land as a variable on fixed costs.

I note that most farms do not calculate ROI on owned land as a fixed cost.

While one can argue there are some economies of scale, I doubt these savings would offset equity of a farm with a higher % of owned land.

Therefore, when the super wonderful seed and the super wonderful chemicals do not cover all the costs the super large farm gets a super large wake up call.

That is my point.