Student blog: from no tillage to 9,000ac of crops in Canada

My name is Jack O’Donnell. I’m from Co Waterford and I am in my third year of the agricultural science degree in UCD.

I’m studying animal and crop production and I am currently on work experience on a beef and tillage farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, for two months.

I arrived here on 1 April after 22 hours of travelling. I knew I was far from Ireland as soon as we hit the roads as they were straight for miles and miles. Everything here is so big compared to home. The sheer size of the place is eye-watering.

We are living in a house 10km from the farm and have a car to drive there to work every morning. We start at 8am and work until 6pm or 7pm every evening, with our lunch and dinner provided.

Steep learning curve

I come from a dairy and beef background and so I have little or no experience of tillage but I learned a huge amount about working with machinery in just my first two weeks here.

The farm I’m working on is in Kincaid, Saskatchewan, and it is owned by Dustin Hawkins.

There are four full-time employees and three students here from April to June.

Dustin grows 9,000ac of crops and runs 650 suckler cows on 20,000ac of grassland.

On the tillage side, there are 1,975ac of field peas, 900ac of chickpeas, 3,480ac of durum (wheat) and 1,270ac of canola. He also grows 350ac of whole crop silage, a mixture of barley, oats and peas.

Machinery work

I spent the first week here servicing all machinery including tractors, harrows, cultivators, rollers, augers, conveyers and a 74ft seed drill.

Most of the machinery on the farm is very new.

Dustin’s tractors are all John Deere and they include a 9570R and a 9570R Quad track, an R6215, a 6130R and an older John Deere 7210 used for diet feeding, along with a JCB 320 Loader. There is also a Versatile 375, which is a Canadian tractor.

This year, Dustin purchased a 40ft pro till. Most of the tillage crops are sown in a one-pass min till system where the seed is sown straight into the ground.

Seeding began on 20 April when the land began to dry up enough to allow for cultivation.

I have never had any experience of tillage farming before now but I am learning something new every day about it.

Next blog: branding and giving hormones to calves.

Jack O’Donnell is an agricultural science student at UCD and is travelling as part of his professional work experience (PWE) programme. Jack is a winner of the Agricultural Science Association - PWE Travel Bursary Award which is supported by the Irish Farmers Journal.

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