CROP CAMERA

BREAKING NEWS: The crop camera has finally been set-up (YAY!!) inconjuction with the weather station. Please see the link on the right side of the page to check it out. Enjoy:)



By the way, press the "refresh" icon on your internet browser to refresh the image.



Information Regarding the Field Where the Crop Cam is Located:



- Kain Wheat planted

- Planted April 23, 2010

- 6246 Alpine Fertilizer used and 100 pounds of Uria; spread at 5 gallons per acre

- On May 27, 2010 the field was top dressed with another 100 pounds of Uria

- Sprayed May 28, 2010 using Refine Extra and MCPA







Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Coppicing

As I dive deeper into this biomass project, my desire to share my discoveries grow. Today's personal biomass phenomenon is coppicing, the process of cutting trees down to their stumps to encourage regrowth. Coppicing has become very popular process in Europe in the creation of woody biomass crops of hybrid poplar and willows. Check out the video below.. the beginners guide to coppicing.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Planting Biomass Crops

MISCANTHUS


SWITCHGRASS



HARVESTING REED CANARY GRASS

Thursday, November 19, 2009


New crop camera for weather station Nov 19/09
giving a greater number of people a look at crop growth for 2010

What did we do accomplish in 2009?

in conjunction with the year of the IPM ”
• with OMAFRA summer student Chandel Gambles
1. calcium chloride applied on a hay field for dry cow feed
2. herbicide evaluation to control “Smooth bedstraw”
3. corn silage plots at Ferme Rivadale IPM site
4. grain corn plots at Loranlee Farms (Basil Loranger)
5. crop display at the education tent IPM


for more information please attene the Crops Coalition Anual meeting Friday November 20th in Earlton at the Grand Boulevard Restaurant. Copy of the annual report are also available on request. Please call 705-647-2085

Posters that have been made:)






Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Biomass Innovation Center at Nipissing Univeristy

I recently attended a biomass conference at Nipissing Univeristy. The main focus of the biomass conference was on the forestry industry with little attention paid to biomass within the agricultural industry. None the less, there were still some speakers who related to our possible future interest in biomass.

I was aware during the conference that all of the power point presentations would be posted online, just in case anyone want to review them at any point in time. If you want to see it click here! However, I just discovered that there is videos of every speaker's talk. I have selected a few that I found to be most interesting and now we can share the experience together. :)

Steve Morrison, Sturgeon Falls Brush & Contracting
"Harvesting and Transformation: Opportunities and Challenges"



Chris Young, Ontario Power Generation
“Status report on the use of biomass for energy”


This gentleman should be very familiar...

Ambrose Raftis, Green Timiskaming Development Corporation
“A community model for optimizing Ontario’s Green Energy Act”



Dr. John Nadeau, Nipissing University
“What clients are telling us”



Brian Bertrand, Evans Bertrand Hill Wheeler Architects Inc.
“Biomass from an architectural perspective”



Lawrence Burndrett, Pressure Vessel Engineering
“Canadian regulatory perspective"

Monday, November 16, 2009

The Royal Winter Fair 2009



From November 6 to November 10, I was at the Agricultural Royal Winter Fair in Toronto, representing NEOSCIA and TCC, promoting agriculture in North Eastern Ontario, and more importantly attempting to hand out 5 000 plus Temiskaming Crops Coalition magnets.

Overall, the experience was positive, people took an interest in the various research projects that are in the process of completing. Not surprisingly, the most popular project among the vistors was the weather station project, which is being done in conjuction with Nipissing University. The farmers who stopped by the booth took interest in the Bedstraw project. There was interest in this project even from farmers who farm and live outside of Ontario.

One of the more interesting experiences of the fair was a work sheet that a teacher from Delta Middle School in Toronto, made up for her grade 7 students. The questions involved farming in North Eastern Ontario, and the farming potential that exists here. So over the course of Tuesday, I had around 30 12 year olds asking me all sorts of questions, even ones that were not on their worksheet in regards to farming in the North.

Below are some pictures that I took from the fair.

By the way, I did managed to hand out around 2, 500 magnets. WOOT WOOT!





















Algoma Univeristy Biomass Innovation Center Posters


Piglets are My Favourite