Windy Poplars Farm
Year in Review (2018)
A year of challenges and successes
2018 brought its own set of unique weather challenges, which is not unusual to dry-land prairie farming. After a decade of wet and more wet, we were dry. Some of our land received as little as 2 inches of moisture during the whole production season. Despite this challenge, we were able to bring in average to good yields, and in good condition too.
“ We take crop rotations and soil health very seriously.”
This year saw the team at Windy Poplars plant a large variety of crops on 20,000+ acres. We take crop rotations and soil health very seriously. To that end, we grow peas (green and yellow), cereals (wheat, malt barley, oats), canola (identity preserved, and generic), flax seed, alfalfa, annual and perennial grass seeds. This allows us to rotate crops through all acres, giving nutrients and organic material back to the land.
The grass seeds and alfalfa presented a challenge this year, because of the lack of moisture. That said, we will try again next year, because we are farmers and that is what we do.
Harvest 2018
“harvest end date dragged on for 4 months! Still, we have so much to the thankful for-another safe harvest and our years’ work stored in bins.”
Harvest always starts in June for our crew, when we start to take off the hay. This year we were able to task our summer students with some of the haying responsibilities. Because we are also heavily into spraying and building projects during haying season, that takes a load off of the full time crew. First hay cut was okay, and second cut, almost nonexistent this year. However, we continue to see the value to the land with keeping hay in our rotations: yields on crops after we pull the land out of hay, are increased over the average yields for the next 5 years! It loves the rest from intensive production.
Harvest continued with combining beginning on July 30. We took off some grass seed and worked the kinks out of the equipment, ready to gear up for when we had more crop ready to harvest, and bin. Swathing canola began on August 12. We ran one swather full time, and another part time, when we couldn’t be combining. Thankfully, we were able to harvest 1800 acres of barley and 5000 acres of wheat before the snowfall mid-September. After 2 heavy dumps of snow, sub zero weather for 3 weeks and some deep soul searching, we were able to get back out to the field and finish harvest: on October 21. What was looking like an early harvest end date dragged on for 4 months! Still, we have so much to the thankful for-another safe harvest and our years’ work stored in bins.
Growth on the Family Farm
“growth is about partnerships and community and that our growth is a complementary process: that others are reaching their life goals as we reach ours.”
There are many ways to understand growth on the family farm. This year, our farm grew a modest few percent in acres that we cropped. We feel that every year, we work to be more productive and efficient with the resources we have. That is another kind of growth. We have been working hard as a management team to become more skilled in producing high quality, high yielding crops, marketing the grain, managing our team of employees, and making good business decisions. As the next generation prepares to allow John and Linda more travel and leisure time, we are definitely finding ourselves growing as business owners and managers… yet another ‘measure’ of growth in a Growing Industry. Many people feel that growth in agriculture is a negative thing. They worry about the demise of the family farm and feel that when one farm grows, another loses. We really hope that our growth is about partnerships and community and that our growth is a complementary process: that others are reaching their life goals as we reach ours.
One of the kinds of growth we are definitely able to measure, is the growth of family. The Windy Poplars family is definitely growing. At this time, there are 18 next- generation kids to consider. Starting in 2017, we have been holding Farm Family Meetings 3-4 times a year to start educating those ‘next gens’ about the exciting world of agricultural production, business ownership and stewardship. And in August of this year, John & Linda welcomed their first great grandchild into the family! Which means the fourth generation has tiny ‘boots on the ground.’