Tapping into the power of the past with steam
thecarillon.com
AUGUST 7, 2025
Randy Isaac loads grain into the threshing machine at the Mennnonite Heritage Village as part of Pioneer Days on Aug. 2.
FEATURE STORY Tapping into the power of the past with steam See story on page 2
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
n THE CARILLON STEINBACH, MAN. C2
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Bob Giesbrecht helps line up a belt on a 113-year-old steam engine.
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
Tapping into the power of the past with steam
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
Steam shoots out of the sole piston on the steam engine.
thing is done visually, Peters said. There’s no flashing lights or beeping alarms if an issue pops up. Peters wishes he could run the steam engine more often, but he often only has a couple chances each year because there’s not many in Manitoba. “It’s not like learning to drive a car where you can go out every weekend with your parents and learn how to drive it. This is an once or twice-a-year thing, and that’s that,” Peters said after he noticed some extra steam needed to be released from the boiler. With a lurch, the lumbering engine inches close enough to wrap the belt around both the threshing machine’s wheel and its own. Beside the waiting pile of grain stands Peters’ father, Conrad, helping guide the engine. Conrad, a Winnipeg school teacher by trade, gives a thumbs up to his son perched on the platform once the two machines are connect- ed. “I’m just proud he’s taken an interest in his- tory. It’s not always a popular thing to do,” he said.
mind something like this. It’s something that’s being lost,” Peters said while pitching logs into the engine’s hungry furnace. “It’s not all fancy electric cars. We’ve come from steam engines that are dirty. You have to put in a lot of effort.” Steam engines are provincial regulated vehi- cles in Manitoba, through the labour and im- migration department, which classifies them as a “Historical Steam Traction Boiler.” To get behind the wheels and levers of a steam engine, people must pass written ex- ams, gather 120 hours of experience operating an engine and complete a driving test. Peters has all of his mandatory hours com- pleted and hopes to take the driving test in the fall to become fully certified. The hardest part about operating the steam engine is how to maintain it because every-
It’s hard to ignore its piercing whistle. One ear-thumping scream from the 113-year-old Case steam engine’s whistle means it reached its max for pent-up steam. Two in a row alert everyone its wheels and belts are moving. Peters’ love for steam engines sparked when he was 12 years old after spending time with his grandfather, who restored old tractors. When the opportunity to hop on a larger, nois- ier machine came up, it immediately hooked him. Now 25, he’s been coming back to the mu- seum ever since, making the trek from Winni- peg to keep his love for steam engines rolling. The historical significance of the engine has pushed him to pursue getting provincially cer- tified in running the machine. “There’s definitely not a lot of people who understand even a little garden tractor, never
by MATTHEW FRANK F or Dylan Peters, operating a steam en- gine is more than driving a machine – it’s a whole-body experience. When the engine is in full swing, it can be felt in your bones, he said. “You can smell the heat coming off of it. You can smell the steam, the oil. It just smells pow- erful,” Peters said. Peters is part of a group of steam enthusiasts who put on a full demonstration of the Men- nonite Heritage Village’s steam engine on Sat- urday, as part of Pioneer Days. The engine roves around the museum grounds, powering both the sawmill and the threshing machine. It only runs three times a year.
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON A load of grain waiting it’s turn for the thresher.
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON Dylan Peters watches the threshing from his seat on the steam engine.
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
The steam engine connected to the threshing machine by a belt.
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Agriculture Now
Chaff shoots out of the threshing machine while it works.
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
The steam engine’s piston and wheel spinning as it powers the threshing machine.
Bob Giesbrecht inspects the wood hopper.
“This was the first step after horses. So, this is the first crack at power that people had,” Giesbrecht said. Having the steam engine, threshing ma- chine and sawmill helps tell the story of the first years when Mennonites arrived in Mani- toba in the 1870s, said Robert Goertzen, exec- utive director for Mennonite Heritage Village. “Knowing where the community came from is really important in setting a good founda- tion for understanding how we’ve developed as a local community,” he said. Keeping the machinery running and main- taining those traditions is necessary because it can explain why things are done a certain way now, Goertzen said. Without that, people can lose perspective if they only focus on the pres- ent and future, he added. He’s encouraged when the younger genera- tion show interests in continuing the legacy of those traditions because many of those skills aren’t commonly known. “There are all sorts of work and home-re- lated activities that for many of us are either a memory or something from a story book,” Go- ertzen said. “This is a wonderful way to make those experiences live.”
day it was delivered. Since he was the smallest out of the group, Giesbrecht was tasked with the grimy job of crawling into the belly of the engine’s boiler and scrubbing it clean. He never thought he’d be the operator of it. Now, Giesbrecht is the only surviving mem- ber of that core group when the engine arrived. After being one of two main operators, he wants to leave some of the harder work for those who have more energy. While there was a honeymoon period at first when he started operating it, it quickly wore off when the real work set in. “I’m going to be 70 years old in three months. I’m getting older, and I can feel it,” Giesbrecht said. “In a day’s run, you’ve put through a cord of wood, and it all has to be fired into that hole. Somebody’s got to do it to keep it going.” Giesbrecht said their engine must be pro- vincially inspected and certified every year to run. The engine is run three times a year, and it takes two hours of prep work before it’s ready to work. He believes running the steam engine is his- tory “in its purest form.”
wants to get to work,” said Giesbrecht. When the steam pressure reaches its maxi- mum level, it “blows its top” to let that pres- sure loose, he said. With a chug, clank and hiss, the engine is finally let loose to power the threshing ma- chine’s teeth as it chews through the bushels of grain thrown into it. The whirring of metal and steam of the en- gine settles into a low rumbling hum as the threshing machine separates the grain from the chaff. Giesbrecht would usually be on the plat- form, stoking the engine’s fire or massaging its throttle. But not on Saturday. Instead, he stepped back to let younger people learn the ropes — or in this case levers. That’s how he was taught. “It’s a bit of a learning game. You learn as you go,” he said, while keeping a watchful eye on the crew as they tensioned the belts. “The (more experienced) guys will just give you little bits and pieces.” His father was one of 12 Steinbach men who purchased the engine in 1971 for the Menno- nite Heritage Village’s steam collection. Gies- brecht was 16 at the time and remembers the
Conrad followed his son into the hobby when he watched him fall in love with steam engines. While Conrad didn’t have any experi- ence with those machines, he looked for a way to do something together with his son. When he first arrived to see the engine, the 59-year-old was put to work helping operate the threshing machine and pitching hay into its churning teeth. Whenever he stands beside the engine, Con- rad said he can feel its heartbeat. “You can close your eyes, and it’s just some- thing that’s alive,” he said. “Each engine has its own sound and its own rhythm.” He’s still amazed watching the threshing machine every time it runs. The fact that it’s a belt on a main pulley where the main source of power comes from shows the ingenuity from people at the time, he said. “There’s no separate motor, no hydraulic hoses. That just blows me away,” he said. Bob Giesbrecht, 69, stands behind the trac- tor as Dylan Peters rolls the mass of steel and iron to the waiting threshing machine. While the engine sits at the ready, a rush of white-hot steam bursts from one of the valves. “The engine is a little excited right now. It
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MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON Conrad Peters puts his thumbs up after inspecting the belted connected to the threshing machine.
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WES KEATING THE CARILLON
Project supervisor Chris Randall and Seine Rat Roseau Watershed District manager Joey Pankiw explain the use of a Geocel base to hold rocks in place on a low-level crossing.
Southeast projects highlight annual Watersheds tour
along with the trees planted in memory of Fred Kaita, have greatly enhanced that part of the museum grounds, giving visitors and school groups an opportunity to get a close look at the natural environment. The plants along the shoreline of the pond, provide an added bonus of discouraging geese from nesting in the area, Goertzen said. This probably comes from not knowing what pred- ators are lurking in the bulrushes and high grasses around the pond. In any event, tourists no longer have to worry about the geese when using the walking paths in the area. The geese still use the pond area as a feeding station and are expected to return to the muse- um in September, Goertzen added. After lunch at the museum, the MAW tour group travelled to the RM of Stuartburn area where the Seine Rat Roseau Watershed District and Maple Leaf Foods have created a large wa- ter retention project to temporarily store water and reduce overland flooding which occurs downstream on agriculture land and the mu- nicipal road. SRRWD project supervisor Chris Randall ex- plained the site doesn’t show how flat the land is. A three-foot slope using borrowed material for the berm has naturally grown back in and doesn’t need to be reseeded as it fills in with natural growth.
by WES KEATING T wo busloads of Manitoba Association of Watersheds employees, board members from across the province and project funding partners got a close-up look at a num- ber of projects in the Southeast as Seine Rat Roseau Watershed District hosted the annual Manitoba Watersheds Association tour in July. The two-day tour was kicked off at the Men- nonite Heritage Village Museum in Steinbach where the pond, part of the Manning Canal provincial waterway, has undergone extensive bank restoration . Tour participants were told that for years the banks of the pond were eroded during spring runoff to the creek, creating a steep drop off. Both the east and west banks of the pond were restored by placing coconut coir logs three to four feet from the banks to hold back the fill that was added behind them. Native grasses were planted in the fresh soil and covered with biodegradable erosion blan- kets . Addiitonal plants increase the diversity around the pond and act as a deterrent to the geese population. Mennonite Heritage Village Museum manag- er Robert Goertzen says that the pond project,
WES KEATING THE CARILLON Chris Randall tells the tour group that perhaps they had purchased a little too much rock when they built a spillway in the Stuartburn area a few years ago.
WES KEATING THE CARILLON Mennonite Heritage Village manager Robert Goertzen is up to his waist in bulrushes and high grasses growing along the banks of the pond on the museum grounds.
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Josh and Royden Loewen get a close look at a sample of the Geocel material that went into the construction of a low-level crossing at the Loewens’ Pansy area farm.
Mennonite Village to the Manning Canal. The crossing on Loewen’s field is about 100 feet in length and keeps operators of equip- ment like his tractor from having to go a mile around to get to the other side of the creek. He chuckles when he recalls the time he asked an RCMP officer to stop traffic so he could drive a swather down the road. After explaining farmers didn’t have or need permits to move machinery the officer reluc- tantly agreed and halted traffic for the quarter mile where city traffic was busiest. ”With the crossing I don’t have to go a mile around and save time and effort. It’s much bet- ter than a culvert.”
buffer strips along the creek, which splits his farm into 320-acre and 120-acre fields, is just another way to improve the soil and help the environment. The reduction of soil erosion and the creation of wildlife habitat are equally important to Loewen. The low-level crossing created across the creek, creates a way to move equipment from one field to the other more easily and creates a single crossing with the least disturbance to the creek and the shelterbelt. At their Steinbach farm a creek crossing also eliminates the need to travel on a busy Stein- bach street with heavy equipment. Now Loewen can cross the creek, which crosses the city golf course on the way past the
2022. Loewen explains they started by bulldozing a ditch across the land, creating a big lake, 30 feet wide for and nearly a mile long. In 2022 they began to revitalize it by planting 1,000 trees on each side of the creek using old plows and plastic mulch with rocks to hold the plastic down, Royden said. “Rocks are free in this area so it did not add to the cost of the project.” They planted willows and two species of Spruce, as well as poplar. Now, more are grow- ing naturally and you can hardly tell the dif- ference between those and the ones planted three years ago. For Loewen, the growing of a shelterbelt and
The water retention site is between the Rat River to the south and Joubert Creek to the north. The $50,000 project involved creating a berm 1,300 metres long and three metres wide to hold back 25 acre-feet of water. At its highest, the berm is just under 1.5 metres tall. A culvert to allow water to travel through the berm is self-closing. It only takes only a couple of weeks to build a berm like this, Randall explained, and plants grow back quickly. The Stuartburn project was completed in November of 2024 and an earlier SRRWD proj- ect created a spillway in 2020. The water retention project had been under discussion with Maple Leaf’s head office in To- ronto for a number of years before it got the final go ahead, Randall said. At the same time, the RM of Stuartburn and the watershed district built up a municipal road by eight inches and created a low-level crossing for manure wagons, greatly reducing the cost of maintenance by the RM. Randall explained the honeycomb material used to support equipment at low-level cross- ings is the same they use to build airplane run- ways in the jungle. It stops the natural material from being moved, he explains. A company at Ile des Chenes is the supplier of the Geocel, which is delivered flat and opens up to create the honeycomb sections to be filled with stone. The soil is scraped down six inches below the creek bed and the Geocel is laid down in 20-foot long sections seven feet wide and filled with stone. A crossing can be built in half a day, Randall said. The final stop on the first day of the tour was a parcel of land south of Sarto, where the Loewen family grows organic crops and have undertaken a couple of watershed projects, in- cluding a shelterbelt and a low level crossing. A shelterbelt has been planted on both sides of a creek which runs diagonally acoss the section and a fiord has been created to allow equipment to cross from one field to the other without damaging the creek bed. The low level crossing is completely funded by SRRWD Core Funding and tour participants are shown samples of the honeycomb material used at the field and one at his other farm near Steinbach. Royden Loewen is a Mennonite historian and author with numerous books to his credit, who farms with his son Sasha who has a Phd in organic agriculture, and his nephew Josh. Royden Loewen took the opportunity to give the MAW tour a short history lesson before talking about the two watershed projects on the Sarto area farm. In addition to the 440 acre farm at Sarto, they have been growing organic crops on 700 acres near the Steinbach airport for eight years. They have been farming the Sarto area parcel since 2020. “At the time of Treaty One, this land was just 10 miles from the Roseau River First Nation.” This is the fourth year for the delivery of the shelterbelt program by the SRRWD. Shelterbelt projects eligible for funding must be on agri- cultural land or adjacent to the owner’s farm- stead. Most projects are in the range of three to five acres and the Loewens’ shelterbelt south of Sarto was one of the earlier ones, planted in
WES KEATING THE CARILLON The bridge across the creek at the Mennonite Heritage Village gives tour participants a birds-eye view of the bank restoration project at the pond.
n THE CARILLON STEINBACH, MAN. C6 THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2025 Agriculture Now Titan Environmental on way to being a giant of industry
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by WES KEATING T itan Environmental at Ile des Chenes is no longer the tiny company of four men and a truck it was when it was started in a Grande Pointe garage, nearly 20 years ago. Today, the company, which has just moved its corporate headquarters to a new location in Ile des Chenes, has grown to seven locations in Canada, and one in the United States. Titan President Juice Lambert says while they started in agriculture, providing geomem- brane linings for hog lagoons, today their company’s expertise and high quality geosyn- thetics solutions are strongly focused on the mining industry. Those lagoon lining projects, although smaller in scale than the company would soon become known for, presented certain chal- lenges that shaped this growing company. Titan helped hog producing clients to reduce the risk of contaminating ground water, while protecting the environment as cost effectively as possible. Those early lagoon projects provided a blue- print for the company’s rapid growth and its mission to do more than help manage envi- ronmental impact by helping to improve how that management was done. Titan’s proven geosynthetics and specialty engineering solutions are designed to extend the life of vital infrastructure, while protecting precious natural resources. Today, Titan operates in Canada and the United States, and supports environmental projects in several other countries as North America’s fastest growing geosynthetics sup- plier, fabricator, and installer. Titan products are used in civil infrastruc- ture, water and waste management, mining, oil and gas, hydroelectric and agriculture, as well as sports and recreation. Titan Environmental is no longer known as “the liner guys”, who just supply and install geomembranes. Lambert joined the company in 2011, five years after it had its beginnings in a garage in Grande Pointe. At that time, he was brought in to establish and expand Titan’s product supply division to diversify the business and was em- ployee number five at the office, where there are now 47 people. The move to a new location, less than a ki- lometre from their former home, is a welcome one, he says, for at the previous location they were bursting at the seams. The Ile des Chenes location is company headquarters with offices in Regina, Leduc, Calgary, Surrey, Burlington, Ottawa and Hous- ton, Texas. The company has been enjoying many years of rapid growth, with the Canadian company having 190 employees. At headquarters in Ile
WES KEATING THE CARILLON
Titan Environmental president Juice Lambert at the company’s new headquarters in Ile des Chenes.
From agricultural lining work, Titan moved on to servicing municipal infrastructure proj- ects, such as lagoons, landfills and roads. Mu- nicipalities have been using geosynthetics for erosion control purposes and road building improvements. One such product includes Geocell, a prod- uct that has been available for more than 25 years, Lambert says. It consists of honey- comb-shaped cells filled with stone that are confined, allowing for heavy machinery to cross creek beds without creating a lot of ruts. The material is also used for erosion control and as a base for roadways, railways and re- taining walls. The Seine Rat Roseau River Watershed Dis- trict has used Geocell in a number of projects in the Southeast, and it has been a great way of allowing farmers to access all parts of their fields, crossing creeks, rather than using mu- nicipal roads to get from one field to another.
The company has been enjoying many years of rapid growth, with the Canadian company having 190 employees
Titan’s geomembrane liners allowed for a tremendous expansion of the Manitoba hog industry, especially in areas where material for compacted clay liners was not available. All lagoons need liners, Lambert explains, and where there isn’t sufficient clay content avail- able, that’s where geosynthetics come in. “We lined a lot of lagoons in Southern Man- itoba.” But Titan’s impact on helping to preserve the environment has gone a long way beyond saf- er manure storage; geosynthetics provided by the company adds life to other infrastructures, as well.
des Chenes, only four or five employees live in Winnipeg, Lambert explains. The rest come from all over, including St Pierre, Linden, Lor- ette, Ste Agathe, Niverville, St Adolphe, Stein- bach, St Malo, Oakbank, and of course, Ile des Chenes. Titan is a locally-owned company, with a number of employees owning a varying num- ber of shares along with majority shareholders. And though the company has gone from ‘ga- rage to global’, many of the projects have had a significant impact on the Southeast, and are continuing to do so, especially in the agricul- ture sector.
FLASHBACK ‘City of pigs’
September 19, 2002
triggers natural grazing pastures
they planted alfalfa, but now they are allowing the land to return to its natural state. Instead of controlling quack grass with chemicals, they fertilize it with hog manure. “Wherever you see a lagoon, you see quack grass,” he says. “We just sit back and let it happen.” He expects within 10 years their land will have returned to its natural state. Krentz says he is working towards a goal of spreading manure once a year – in July. This is the time of the year when the grass gets the most benefits from the fertilizer. There is also less danger of water contam- ination in July, because the water level is at its lowest. And odor problems are reduced through upward drifts of northwesterly winds. “Ninety percent of the smell goes up when there are northwest winds,” he ex- plains, adding the low-pressure east winds create all the odor problems. A key component of their success is rota- tional grazing. Evergreen Farms has divided its land into nine rotational sites. Each site is one section and divided into eight paddocks. At the center of each pad- dock is a water trough and a chute for loading and vaccinations. Each site has about 500- 600 head of cattle. “Through rotational grazing we are har- vesting the grass when it is at its highest (nu-
by WES KEATING A lmost 5,000 yearling beef cattle graze on 6,000 acres of natural grassland fertilized with manure generated by 100,000 pigs housed in 43 nearby barns. Four years ago, Robert and Jodi Krentz, who own Evergreen Farms near Pansy, sold parcels of land to hog producers. They held back grazing rights and made an agreement with the producers that manure generated by the hog operations would be available for their pastures. Robert Krentz says he triggered the barns because he wanted the manure. They now have a “city of pigs” in their neighborhood, supplying Evergreen Farms with all the good fertilizer they need. This unique partnership, along with their success in improving their pastures through an innovative rotational grazing system, was recognized by the Seine-Rat River Conserva- tion District naming Robert and Jodi Krentz the District’s 2002 Farm Family. “Our goal is to keep our soil healthy,” says Krentz. “If you keep the ground healthy, the forage on top will be healthy. You have to look at the bottom, not the top.” During the first two years of grazing cattle,
CARILLON ARCHIVES The newly formed Seine-Rat River Conservation District has named Jodi and Robert Krentz its 2002 “Farm Family-of-the-Year”.
grasses through participating in an Eastern Grasslands Society grazing trial, when he was 17 years old. He recalls his steer had gained two pounds a day. But he also remembers what happened in the fall, when they sold the cattle. “My father said the cattle did well, but they are only worth in the fall what they were worth in the spring.” Prices are low today, but not as low as they were in 1973, Krentz says. Even when prices are low, he says it is possible to compete in the marketplace, because production costs are much lower in southeastern Manitoba than in other parts of Canada and the United States. Krentz says Evergreen Farms’ success with grazing cattle demonstrates that adequate rainfall and an abundance of quack grass and hog manure help turn poor quality farmland into lush, productive pastures. - with files from Gladys Terichow
tritional) level,” he explains. “The calves al- ways get to eat young grass. Swamp grasses, which are usually consid- ered poor quality grasses when baled, are good sources of protein when fertilized with hog manure and harvested early through ro- tational grazing. Natural grasses have low maintenance costs – the only work needed to maintain healthy pastures is soil aeration. Their success with their grazing operation has resulted in the sale of their cow/calf oper- ation and feedlots. They have also discontin- ued seeding 2,000 acres of cropland. “We’ve turned it all into grazing,” Krentz says. The busy season is spring and fall, when calves are bought and sold. Additional staff is hired to help with the loading. The farm em- ploys two year-round staff to help with main- tenance and vaccinations. Krentz first learned about the high per- formance levels and cost benefits of natural
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Agriculture Now
April 25, 2013 FLASHBACK Holtmann brothers recycle manure at Rosser Holsteins
escape attention during the one-hour tour but the Holtmanns saved the best for last, as most of the guests were waiting to see the Bedding Recovery Unit (BRU) in action. A FAN company representative from New York and Penner Farm Services manure sep- aration specialist Maurice Melnyk were on hand to explain the benefits of the new tech- nology and field questions. The system uses a specially designed press screw separator to separate the large fibres from the manure. These are usually undi- gested parts of feed, such as corn silage or hay. The solids are fed constantly to a 40-foot composting drum, which delivers a peat- like bedding product to a conveyor belt that moves it to the storage portion of the build- ing next door. In the drum process, the ma- nure reaches a temperature between 67 and 70 degrees Celsius which helps kill all the bacterial pathogens. From there, the peat-like material it is de- livered to the barn and the cycle begins again. Holtmann points out that there is a cost to operate the new system, as it has added $1,000 per month to the hydro bill. At the same time, there is a distinct saving in labor costs, not to mention the elimina- tion of the need for 3,200 bales of straw. Ben Holtmann, in charge of bedding, no longer has to grind straw bales one day a week and all the maintenance of the new equipment involves is “three grease nipples and a check to make sure everything is work- ing.” The manure separation unit is definitely low maintenance. A pump delivers manure from a 10-foot deep pit in the building hous- ing the unit. The system operates 24 hours a day and requires little attention other than pressure washing the screen once a month and re- placing parts that wear, like the auger and the screen which lasts about six months. The system produces two cubic metres per hour and needs 450 cows to make it practical. If there were under 250 cows there wouldn’t be enough manure produced. “Our philosophy is to use a lot of bedding and that meant buying 3,800 straw bales at annual cost of $60,000.” The bedding recovery system will reduce the necessary capacity of the lagoon and at the same time eliminate one of the ongoing arguments between the Holtmann broth-
by WES KEATING H enry and Tony Holtmann have never been prone to letting others try out new technology in the dairy industry and waiting a few years to make sure it works before taking the plunge themselves. Since 1997, when the brothers built their first ultra modern dairy barn near Rosser, un- til eight weeks ago, when they flicked on the switch for their brand new bedding recovery unit, Rosser Holsteins has been leading the way for dairy farmers. Mixing the latest technology and equip- ment for the recycling of manure to replace straw bedding with farm practises that stress the importance of staff in all aspects of their dairy, allows the Holtmanns to achieve a per- fect balance between man and machine. In March, 100 invited guests were given a tour of the facility, including a calf barn which incorporates a coated steel-grid floor- ing material, which eliminates the need for bedding and keeps the calves clean enough to be paraded in any 4-H competition at a moment’s notice. The free-stall area is set up in a way to allow the Holtmann brothers to separate groups of milking cows according to production. This allows for an increase in the efficiency of de- livering feed rations, Henry points out. Feed rations are measured to match milk production and lower producers later in the lactation are fed differently than those at the peak of production, for example. The newest barn is the brightest of the lot, with its bank of windows and special ventila- tion system designed to keep the cows cooler and more productive. “It’s all about cow comfort. A comfortable cow is a productive cow.” The new bedding system, although too new to have its success measured in the same way everything else on the farm is measured, is getting the thumbs-up from the Holtmanns and their herdspeople. The manure separation system and its ac- companying bedding recovery unit produces a dust-free bedding that eliminates anoth- er problem in the barn and increases herd health as well. Its overall success will be determined by the impact the added comfort has on milk production in relation to the costs of operat- ing the Bedding Recovery Unit. Even the oldest part of the barn did not
CARILLON ARCHIVES Henry Holtmann of Rosser Holsteins and Maurice Melnyk of Penner Farm Services show off the new manure separating unit during a tour of the Holtmann brothers dairy farm. The bedding recovery unit was delivered eight weeks ago, completely assembled and ready to recycle all the manure at the farm.
CARILLON ARCHIVES Interested guests at the tour of the manure recycling facility at Rosser Holsteins were Lely representative Rich Peters, hog producer Will Peters and Fred Winkler of the Farm Credit Corporation.
ers. Henry said Tony liked to use of a lot of the sub-ground straw bedding and that kept plugging up the manure pumps. That is no longer a problem with the recycled bedding. Henry explains that the bedding operation is now Ben’s responsibility instead of having the milking staff taking care of it. The Holtmanns liked what they saw, when they saw the bedding recycling equipment in action on a trip to the United States and wasted little time deciding to go with the
major investment needed to get the set up at their farm. Today they like what they see in their barn. Being the first, doesn’t bother the Holt- manns a bit. They are used to it. And at the end of the day, Henry sums up the philosophy at Rosser Holsteins in trying to constantly improve their operation. “On your way home, you may be saying, those Holtmanns are nuts. But it’s been a fun ride, so that’s okay.”
Get ready to reduce canola losses this harvest CANOLA COUNCIL OF CANADA W
hat is an acceptable amount of canola combine loss for your farm? Every farm will have a different an- swer, striking their own balance between capturing as much of the crop as possible while also maintaining har- vest productivity. Farmers can prepare now to measure and adjust harvest loss with a few tools and techniques. Farms might decide that one bushel per acre (bu./ac.) is an acceptable amount of loss, but what if your combine is throwing over three bu./ac. throughout most of the harvest day? You have to check to find out. And then you can decide whether to keep going or start making adjustments. You need three tools to accurately measure losses: • A drop pan . You can get pans that attach to the bottom of the combine and drop by activating a switch in the cab. These pans usually match closely to the discharge width of the combine sieves. For a lower-tech option, someone can toss a throw pan or use a pan on a stick while the combine goes by at normal operation. No matter what pan you use, you need to know its square footage. • Some way to separate the seed from the chaff. This can be done by hand, but it can be time consuming. Canola screens or an airstream to lift chaff is best. Bushel Plus pro- duces a screening device for this purpose. • A weight or volume measure. Measure the clean collect- ed sample in grams or millilitres, dividing by the square foot- age of the pan to get a result in millilitres or grams per square foot. To do the math on loss per acre, use the Harvest Loss Calculator at canolacalculator.ca. Once you’ve made a few loss measurements, the next part of the process is to determine how to reduce those losses – if you decide they’re too high. The Combine Optimization Tool at canolacalculator.ca is an excellent resource, showing step by step adjustments to align combine losses with your har- vest goals. Back in 2019, Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) visited 31 farms across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and measured canola threshing losses from 50 machines. These included 40 models from six combine man- ufacturers. The survey found no connection between com- bine model and the amount of loss, but weather was a major
CANOLA COUNCIL OF CANADA As you prepare for canola harvest, get prepped to measure harvest loss and know how to adjust the combine to get losses to an acceptable level. Try the Combine Optimization Tool at canolacalculator.ca. It provides guidelines to set the combine to meet targets for grain loss, grain sample quality and/or productivity.
time and measuring losses from field to field and with chang- ing weather conditions. You will have in your mind what kind of loss you’re willing to accept, but you can’t know whether the combine is on tar- get unless you check. And by measuring losses, you have a better idea how the combine performs and can be reassured that the combine is doing exactly what you want it to do.
factor. This emphasizes the need to regularly adjust and test throughout the day and harvest season. Temperatures great- er than 23°C, relative humidity less than 45 per cent, and low cloud cover all contributed to lower losses. Once you become familiar with a machine, you will start to recognize ideal settings for those harvest afternoons that are warm and dry and for the evenings when the straw starts to toughen up. But you can’t get familiar without putting in the
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