HELICOPTER SEEDING
Local farmers win award
Seeding a crop by helicopter last year helped the father and son team of Don and Neal Huber win the 2015 Conservation Farm Award.
The Harrow-area farmers were among the first local farmers to try seeding a cover crop by air, said Michael Dick, the secretary of the Essex Soil and Crop Improvement Association and an agricultural technician with the Essex Region Conservation Authority.
Usually, farmers try to plant cover crops, such as clover, after harvest to reduce erosion, but there isn’t always enough time to get it growing before winter. The Hubers hired a helicopter to spread a mix of seed in August 2014 while their soybeans were still growing.
“I think it’s fun,” Neal Huber, 27, said of the helicopter seeding that was about double the usual cost of planting on the ground. “At the time, it can kind of be nerve-racking too when you don’t know when you’re spending that money if it’s going to work or not.”
He said they were hoping for better results but they might give it another try.
Huber said it’s been tried in other spots in Canada and the United States. The helicopter flew back and forth over 100 acres of soybeans with the seed hanging in a spinning device from cables.
The Hubers care enough about preserving their dirt — a lighter sandy loam — to try something different.
That attitude, along with no-till planting to avoid plowing any more than needed, precision soil sampling, variable rate fertilizer application, buffer zones and treed windbreaks to reduce erosion were all factors in the Hubers winning the annual award, which was announced last week.
“It was an honour just to be nominated,” Huber said. “I was very surprised that we did win. When you look at some of the names of farmers who have won it in the past, it’s kind of nice to be compared to them.”
Dick said the Hubers are the kind of farmers who don’t want to see their soil bare and at risk of erosion over the winter.
That’s something advocated by the award sponsors, the Essex Soil and Crop Improvement Association and the Essex Region Conservation Authority.
“They are conscious about their farming practices and the impact that they have on the environment,” Dick said. “They do whatever they can to protect the environment.”
Nominations for the 2016 Conservation Farm Award are being accepted until Sept. 1. For more information on how to nominate a farmer, contact Dick at 776-5209, ext. 369.