Farm Girl Friday -4 October 2013

Farm Girl Friday again this week.  This week we'll talk about Colin and the wonderful things he does with his crops.

If you listen to the seed salesmen, Colin is really stupid.  According to them no one in their right mind would keep their soybeans to plant year after year.  According to the 'experts' bin-run seeds (as it's called when you save your seeds) just produce worse and worse every year that you keep them.  You will NEVER find pods with 4-beans in them and it's IMPOSSIBLE to find the illusive 5 bean-pod.  To even have a chance of making 4-bean pods you have to buy all the 'fancy' (i.e., expensive) new technology bean seeds.

Well, guess what:

Not only does Colin have a field FULL of 4-bean pods he has found TWO 5-bean pods!!  That's right, Colin's 7 year old 'bin-run' soybean seeds are producing better than the 'fancy' seeds.  The seed salesman even admitted that he hasn't found any 5-bean pods.

This is why Colin's mobile seed cleaner is such a great idea.  It makes it so much easier for farmers to keep their own seeds.  Farmers are smart to keep their own seeds, especially up here in the Ottawa Valley.  We are a little colder than southern Ontario and it's a little harder to get crops to grow well.  So why buy seeds from the salesmen that have been grown in South America (often)?  Those seeds have no idea how to grow up here unless the conditions are perfect.

Our 'bin-run' seeds are used to our northern climate.  This is why they performed well, even last year after the drought.  Our neighbour over the fence grew soybeans in the adjacent field.  He always buys the newest, fanciest technology seeds. His yields were far from satisfactory.