Exhibitors highlight “hay making in motion” at Ontario Forage Expo

Jul 03, 2017

Expo gives farmers chance to see latest technology

By Kaitlynn Anderson

Farms.com

Farmers had the opportunity to view over 50 pieces of the newest and coolest hay and forage equipment at this year’s Ontario Forage Expo.

The Ontario Forage Council and the Oxford County Soil and Crop Improvement Association organized the Expo on June 29. Dwayne Kloepfer and family of Dual Lane Farms in Ingersoll hosted this year’s event.

“The Ontario Forage Expo is consistently a great event because it’s run by farmers for farmers,” says Stephanie Nagelschmitz of Delta Power Equipment.

“Nearly every brand in the hay and forage marketplace is represented at the Expo, which means it’s a one-stop-shop for farmers or custom harvesters. It’s well worth the trip to spend the day comparing equipment while it’s operating side by side.”

The Expo – free to farmers – brought in exhibitors such as Delta Power Equipment, Premier Equipment and Stratford Farm Equipment. Delta showed off some New Holland equipment, an Oxbo Windrow Merger and a Penta Dump Box. Stratford Farm Equipment took Case IH equipment.

Despite the rain, the event was a success.

People took to Twitter to share their experiences:

Premier Equipment - Twitter

HG - Twitter

Ontario Forage Council - Twitter

Farm Power Inc - Twitter

Delta Power Equipment - Twitter

Claude Lesperance - Twitter

Ottawa/Carleton County will host the Expo for eastern Ontario on July 6 at Hillisle Farm in Nepean.

Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.