North West Terminal hosts Farming for the Future demo day

UNITY — It is all up to the weatherman now.

With burgers sizzling on the Nutrien grill, more than 200 students from Unity Public School, St. Peters School and Unity Composite High School piled out of buses to witness the seeding of the 2022 North West Terminal Farming for the Future crop on May 25 in the NWT field.

The students were joined by a few dozen farmers who were there to check out the iron Tingleys Harvest Centre brought to demonstrate - a Seed Master SR, that they used to finish the 130 acres a few hours after the school buses departed.

The students learned all that goes into seeding a field as explained by the sponsors. Agronomist Jaclyn Hunter of the Delta Co-op explained to the students the importance of fertilizer, while Arisha Briggs (Pioneer) and Riley Maze (Bayer) talked about their canola seed and the genetics and science behind it. Sereina Pina of BASF spoke about what Liberty will do for the field when it is sprayed a few weeks from seeding day. The product specialists from Tingleys spoke about the Xerion tractor and the Seed Master drills.

Tingleys has been bringing machinery to the field for the last four years and salesman Adam Miller said they enjoy getting behind community events and have enjoyed pitching in for Unity. They have established many relationships through the program.

The field was seeded with canola donated from Pioneer Seeds (Briggs) and Bayer (Maze) while the fertilizer was supplied by Delta Co-op, Cargill, The Rack, Veikle Agro and Nutrien. With the rising cost of inputs, program organizers Vern Schultz and Garan Rewerts from North West Terminal board were concerned about finding enough support to cover everything for the charity. They were delighted the sponsors all stepped up their donations to cover the inputs.

Meanwhile all the herbicide and fungicide were or will be covered by sponsors. The pre burn off Roundup was donated by Bayer, while BASF (Sereina Pina) donated the Liberty for in-crop spray. Syngenta (Tracy David) is providing the fungicide. Crop Max will be scouting the field and offering their expertise.

Farm Credit Canada bought the lunch for the students while Darren Stifter of Nutrien was assisted by staff of NWT in preparing and serving the large crowd.

Following the feed, the students all toured the terminal.

Schultz and Rewerts were impressed how sponsors were so quick to jump in and offer to help wherever required. Cargill and FCC representatives were already making plans to make the harvest field day an even bigger event.

Stay tuned.