Dave McEachren and Stefan Zehetner, Ontario – 7th July 2015

We made a quick stop to Dave McEachren on the way up to Huron County.

Dave is a no till farmer and a pioneer seed salesman. His farm has been no till for 25 years. He also has been inter seeding corn

He interseeds while side dressing his corn with the above equipment and the Gandy box in the first photo. He interseeds Crimson clover ARG and vetch. He has seen a 2-5bu increase in yield with inter seeding in the corn. When planting his corn he plants into the green cover crop. He also has check strips without cover. He seems to have little trial plots everywhere. My favourite was a strip of frost seeded Crimson clover planted in early April.

He planted straight into the growing cover and did not burn down or apply any herbicide. He wants to see if it will work. So a herbicide free corn crop. There were a few weeds but not many. To me it looked great.

He also has a trial of corn where he drilled corn into clover and has had zero N applied. At the moment you can not see any difference.

I liked Dave’s attitude of just giving it a go. Thanks for showing us around Dave at short notice and thank you for lunch.

After lunch we headed up to Huron County to see Stefan. On the way up it poured with rain. This year Ontario has received large amounts of rainfall after planting and has also been frosted. The crops in the area are struggling with water logging and lack of fertility.

Stefan is a Young farmer with big ambitions.

Stefan is selling cover crop seeds to neighbours and is looking to increase dramatically the amount he sells. He is currently fitting out his barn with equipment to handle and mix cover crop seeds. Most of his mixes are based around oats. He plants his cover crops with his Vaderstad Carrier which has splash plates behind the discs and the Bio drill on top.

He goes around people with his carrier and plants strips of cover crops on their farm as a demo. A genius idea I thought as many people say it won’t work on their farm, so he is planting their land. He is also inter seeding his corn too.

Unfortunately it was very wet during this visit and we did not get a good look around. My first washout visit. Thank you Stefan for meeting us and I look forward to seeing how your business develops over the coming years.

Also a massive thank you to Woody for joining me for two days, chauffeuring me around, feeding me and giving me accommodation. I hope you enjoyed your mini Nuffield and I look forward to your report!