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16,000 Acres
Nine Farms Managed as One
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Article and photos by John Dietz
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It's not a co-op or a corporation. It's just nine individually owned farms working together. Five brothers and four nephews use a lot of coordination and patience to make it all work out to the advantage of everyone involved.
The McGrath family, at LeRoy, in central Saskatchewan, farm 16,000 acres as a single unit, even though each brother owns his own land and manages his own crops.
Five sons – Jerry, Terry, Arlee, Les and Neil – farm "at home" today. The sons grew like a good crop of wheat, splitting their time between school and farming. They all married local girls and are raising another generation. The four nephews, Shawn, Jay, Ramsee and Ashley, have finished school and are also farming. |
The field crew on this fall day in Saskatchewan last year was, from left, Arlee McGrath, Les McGrath, Con Pfneisl, and Ramsee McGrath.
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Late last September, under a clear, deep blue Saskatchewan sky, with gold fields ready to harvest, and wisps of diesel exhaust rolling across the horizon, the family was found hard at work...together.
A Difficult Harvest
The 2004 harvest was a tough one, as frustrating as any of them could remember. By August 22, the crop already was three weeks behind because of a long, cold spring and then the earliest frost in memory that had come down like a hammer across thousands of square miles of immature prairie crops.
As he looked at his 30th harvest, Les McGrath said, "In Saskatchewan, the more crop we can harvest in August, (the more) it's a bonus. When you start harvesting in September, it usually means a long harvest. The weather seems to change." Now, on September 23, in a land where high quality grains are traditional, nearly every crop was coming off as feed grade.
Terry McGrath at the old yard site where grain is stored until it is sold and can be moved. |
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"Last year we started harvesting winter wheat at the beginning of August," Les said. "I was combining 22 to 24 acres an hour in wheat running 40 bushels an acre." They'd set a personal record one day, harvesting 40,000 bushels of canola in one 18-hour shift. That harvest ('03) had been the opposite extreme, coming a month early and making top grades, all dry grain.
This year, after the early frost, it stayed cool. There were frequent light showers. Most mornings the family awoke to heavy dew, wondering how and when their fields would be ready to harvest and what the quality would be like.
But this was late September and only day 10 of the 2004 harvest. As usual, they were all working together. They had moved into a 480-acre barley field at 3 p.m. with four New Holland CR970 combines equipped with 36-foot headers and four tandem-axle trucks with grain boxes. |
In ideal conditions with a square field, the four high-capacity combines would take off a quarter-section in under two hours. But this field was on rolling land, divided by a drain. Progress was slow. It was dusk when they stopped for a field supper prepared by one of the spouses.
Grandma and Grandpa McGrath, the couple who started it all, showed up on the harvest scene in late afternoon. "I'm 81," Grandpa said. "I was born and raised just over there," he said as he pointed. He then introduced Bea, his lifelong companion and the mother of their seven sons and four daughters.
It's all about management, brothers Les and Neil explained as they ate supper. They had been accumulating this field's production into a 30,000-bushel pile on a black plastic sheet placed on the stubble.
"We each own our own land, but we pool all our work and equipment and cash flow," Neil said. "We have our own fields. We choose our own crops and rotation, mostly. We make our own decisions about fertilizer and weed control."
They had hoped this harvest would produce no. 1 barley. They had a market for it. Instead it was coming in as a no. 3 crop, but they still had a market. They would deliver it in December, Neil said, from this pile to a new nearby mill that specializes in feed for hogs. They even had a secondary local market, a neighbor with 1,500 bison.
Earlier in the day, they had finished a field of tough winter wheat. It came off at 20% moisture, but they could handle it. Already, it was into the natural gas continuous batch drying system in Les's yard. The batch dryer is linked by conveyor with a series of five 1,500-bushel hopper bins.
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The mid-size drying system is older now and has paid for itself a few times over. And it would do so again this year, raising the grade and value of the grain it dried.
Altogether, the McGrath family now owns and manages approximately 100 fields in a 25-mile radius of home. They grow barley, red spring wheat, winter wheat, canola, flax, peas, lentils, canary seed, and borage, a niche-market crop for the health food industry.
"As every son started farming, we just added more land," Grandpa McGrath said. "We kept farming together as everybody came on in." One by one, he said, each brother has purchased his own fields, and each one farms with a mixture of independence and dependence.
Les, for instance, had checked his own fields this morning to monitor maturity. Around 10 a.m., the team met in one of the yards and the brothers decided today's harvest agenda.
Use of equipment is a corporate decision. The brothers assign the small fleet of combines, seeding systems, sprayers, or other implements as needed on a daily basis in the best interest of all.
Today, two fields were ready and there was a field of wheat to finish.
Harvest Question
"The big harvest question is whether we get it off as a quality crop, and do we get it off so we don't have to dry it," Les said. "Every harvest is different. Last year our harvest went really good."
Canary seed at harvest time |
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The McGraths' ability to capture top quality is closely linked to machinery. They depend on each other and on equipment that will be up to the task. They were among the first families in western Canada, in the late 1970s, to do direct seeding and band fertilizer. They were also the first to use rotary combines. Today they use double-shoot, one-pass air hoe drills and continue to harvest with rotary combines.
They have a goal of seeding 1,000 acres a day in spring with three air seeding systems. They try to harvest the 16,000 acres within a window of 20 to 25 full working days.
After one or two seasons, it's family policy to trade the combines and the four-wheel-drive tractors that pull the seeding systems. At 50 combines and counting through the years, their dealer tells them they may have owned more New Holland combines than any other family in western Canada. |
They had only needed three CR970s last year. This time, to compensate for the time pressure and capture quality, they needed four. In the 1990s, they had up to six combines on the go at once, working in two teams. They use 36-foot draper headers and straight cut as much as possible.
"Our business is like every other business," Les said. "We've been squeezed to cut the fat. The bigger combines out-perform the smaller ones, so fewer big ones can do more than the smaller ones we did have, and they use less fuel per acre.
"You've got to get down to what pays the bills and be more efficient. Combines are big dollars, but they've got to be efficient dollars. They've got to do the job, they've got to be running when it has to be done. That's what we're after, and that's what those combines do for us."
It was now dark. The breeze had died away, not a good sign with the high humidity on a cool, cloudless evening. Dew would come early, again. They would shut down around 10 p.m., with only about 12,000 acres left to take off.
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Temporary grain storage that looks more like flying saucers on one of the McGrath farms in Saskatchewan. |
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