We farm on sandy-loam soil and on some clay loam soil. Our limiting factor in determining yield is almost always a lack of moisture. Farming close to and in the Assiniboine River Valley has been an important reason for some of the crops to grow.

Rotation on our farm usually means keeping our options open. We try to have an oilseed or pulse crop separated by at least one year of Cereals. Over the past few years our crops have been canola, oats, barley, flax, lentils, alfalfa, barley and peas for silage, and last year we started growing potatoes under irrigation.

Alfalfa and barley & pea silage is not in a complete rotation but it is sown on land closer to home so there is shorter distance hauling of feed. (ie.: bales or silage) Alfalfa usually requires only chemical weed control in its establishment year and barley & pea silage is not sprayed as the crop is chopped up before most weeds go to seed. Rye is usually sown on our barley & pea stubble after a treatment of Roundup.

Our alfalfa has been sown with a companion crop, usually canola, but with the new canola varieties (ie.: liberty - link and roundup ready) we will direct seed alfalfa into the stubble this spring.

Last year we grew potatoes on 300 acres of land, all under irrigation. On our potato land we have gone back to tillage before seeding, then row crop cultivation, then digging. This leaves our lighter sandy loam soils more open to erosion then we like to see, so we try to get rye sown on the early harvested acres and we spread manure on the later potato land. This sounds like a good plan on paper but like all plans, they don't always pan out as good as we would like. It is difficult to get much of the potato crop off in time to sow it to rye and the manure has to be left until fall before it is spread. Since most of the manure is around in the spring it has to be piled up and left all summer before we can get rid of it. However, it is still worthwhile because it gives cover to the land as well as adding valuable nutrients for next year's crop.

In the years before growing spuds, we liked to take 30 - 40 acres of our lightest, sandiest, field and use it to spread manure on during the summer, often as many as 5 - 6 times. Every couple of trips, we would double-disc the manure in and by the time we were

done there was usually no worry about wind erosion. The field would then be sown to rye or barley the following spring. I know this sounds like alot of manure to put into one field but like I said, we picked our lightest fields. These fields are usually part of larger fields, and even 4 - 5 years later the part that had manure applied could easily be seen in most crop stages because of lush growth and darker color.

Over the past number of years canola has certainly been our best cash crop. It seems to grow quite well on our soils and since we've been in zero-till the germination in the spring has been much improved. In our area of South Central Manitoba, we sow canola that has been mixed with counter 5 G to combat flea-beetles. We also apply benlate to our canola crops to control sclerotinia. Bertha army worms had also been a problem a couple of years ago and that required 2 applications of decis to control them. Even with the high input costs in growing canola the returns have been enough to show a profit, however, the margin between profit and loss is definitely shrinking.

The preferred cereals in our rotation the last few years has been oats, rye, and barley.

Rye gives us a very aggressive growth in the spring and usually only requires a broadleaf chemical for weed control. It is sown in the fall so it takes some pressure off the spring work load and is harvested before the real harvest rush begins.

Oats will germinate quickly in our warm soils and also has a fairly aggressive growth in the spring. We usually apply a broadleaf and wild millet chemical for weeds. These two crops may not be high value crops but they provide what we like in our rotation, and that is good coverage of the soil, aggressive growth, and low input costs. We are paying more and more attention to the amount of money we are willing to spend on input costs.

We have kept our canola crops on at least a 4 year rotation. With potatoes in our cropping plans now, we will probable cut back on canola acres because of disease carryover.

We also use flax, lentils and barley & pea silage for our seasonal oilseed or pulse crops in a 4 year rotation. I mentioned all these crops because we have grown them all, but not all in one year. Like I said earlier, we like to keep our options open.

One crop I didn't mention is wheat. We have grown wheat for a long time but the margin is very poor on our farm. Winter wheat is an option that we will likely try.

These are the crops that we have been trying in our rotation and in the coming years I am sure we will be trying new ones. THANK YOU.