Arable Farmer Focus: Seth Pascoe on seagull watch
It never fails to amaze me that despite being a 12-hour drive to the nearest coastline there is an abundance of seagulls in southern Alberta.
Manning the Dammer-Diker preparing next year’s potato land gave me plenty of time to observe our feathered friends. I wonder whether they are permanent residents, or perhaps opportunists who make the trip to the prairies for the autumn tillage feast.
Back in Cornwall it’s a certainty by the time you have hitched up the plough and driven to the field, the seagulls are there ready and waiting. They take a break from dive-bombing chips out of tourists’ hands on Fowey town quay to come and enjoy some wormy delights.
Here, the process is slightly different. One solitary gull flies by and makes a couple of reconnaissance swoops over head. Then slowly but surely, word gets out and within half an hour or so, the freshly cultivated ground behind the tractor is a frenzy of white-winged activity. Leaving the cab to pick up rocks is a risky mission and, inevitably by the end of the day, the cab roof and bonnet are a splattered white colour.
Things are slowly winding down now. I’ve put my wellies away and dug out my winter snow boots, which guarantee toasty feet to -30°C. I’m looking forward to putting this awful season, considered the worst for 25 years, behind us. I recently tallied up the farm rainfall records and unsurprisingly the total was 3.5 times greater than the average. It was like trying to grow crops in a swamp.
Another week and autumn cultivations should be wrapped up, well ahead of ground-freeze. I’m optimistic that we should receive an increase in contracted potato tonnage and price for next season. World supply has been vastly reduced and production across Canada and Idaho was considerably lower than usual.
