Assiniboia inventor helps farmers around the world recover damaged crops

Sep 19, 2022

Dave Dietrich is a generational Saskatchewan farmer who turned a struggle to pick up his damaged pulse crops into an international business supplying farmers globally with the means to recover their damaged crops, turning losses into gains.

“It really started because of my own farm,” Dietrich explained to MooseJawToday.com. “I had seeded milestone lentils … milestone lentils are small, but very good yielders. I figured I had about 40 bushels to the acre.”

However, when Dietrich drove out to harvest his crop, his combine came up mostly empty.

“When a heavy stand of lentils or peas develops and you get rains in a timely fashion, the pods become heavier. And if you get a shower of rain or even fog or heavy dews, that adds to the weight of the plant. Pretty soon it gets tired and it starts falling over …

“Milestone lentils probably grow about nine inches tall, that’s their normal height — nine, maybe ten inches tall. But as they fall over, it’s more like trying to pick up a newspaper or a piece of cardboard lying close to the ground.”

And that’s how Dietrich started, because he couldn’t find crop lifters that went close enough to the ground to recover his flattened pulse crops.

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Video: How farmers are protecting the soil and our food security | DW Documentary

For a long time, soil was all but ignored. But for years, the valuable humus layer has been thinning. Farmers in Brandenburg are clearly feeling the effects of this on their sandy fields. Many are now taking steps to prepare their farms for the future.

Years of drought, record rainfall and failed harvests: we are becoming increasingly aware of how sensitively our environment reacts to extreme weather conditions. Farmers' livelihoods are at stake. So is the ability of consumers to afford food.

For a few years now, agriculture that focuses solely on maximum yields has been regarded with increasing skepticism. It is becoming more and more clear just how dependent we are on healthy soils.

Brandenburg is the federal state with the worst soil quality in Germany. The already thin, fertile humus layer has been shrinking for decades. Researchers and farmers who are keen to experiment are combating these developments and looking for solutions. Priority is being given to building up the humus layer, which consists of microorganisms and fungi, as well as springtails, small worms and centipedes.

For Lena and Philipp Adler, two young vegetable farmers, the tiny soil creatures are invaluable helpers. On their three-hectare organic farm, they rely on simple, mechanical weed control, fallow areas where the soil can recover, and diversity. Conventional farmer Mark Dümichen also does everything he can to protect soil life on his land. For years, he has not tilled the soil after the harvest and sows directly into the field. His yields have stabilized since he began to work this way.

Isabella Krause from Regionalwert AG Berlin-Brandenburg is convinced after the experiences of the last hot summers that new crops will thrive on Brandenburg's fields in the long term. She has founded a network of farmers who are promoting the cultivation of chickpeas with support from the scientific community.