The fields harvested this year have yielded more than just a crop technology diploma.

As they lock up the grain bins and put away the combines for another year, students in the crop unit on the Student-Managed Farm - Powered by New Holland are reflecting on what they gained this harvest season - much more than the grain waiting for transport.

“Sometimes at the farm back home, you don't have access to technology like this,” says Mason Edwards, a second-year crop technology student. “At Lakeland, we have a lot of sponsorships and partnerships with a lot of people and companies. We can test a lot more tech and bring those suggestions back to our family farms.”

In particular, in this harvest season, Edwards credits temperature-monitoring technology with saving an entire bin of canola.

“We ran into a problem with the canola,” he explains, in the final days of harvest. “It was pretty drastic. At about 8 p.m., we were checking the temperatures and saw how hot the canola was. We had to take the load out of the bin very quickly. Back home, we don't have anything we can use to check bin temperatures and here, it saved us. Back on the farm, that bin definitely would have spoiled on us. Technology has helped us a lot.”

Edwards says Lakeland equipment and technology have helped harvest efforts in other ways as well, as students deal with rapidly changing weather conditions. The growing season started off perfectly with a lot of rain bringing everything up out of the ground in time. The rain dried up by the end of July, however, and by October, it was pretty dry. The last days of harvest were spent waiting and hoping that the last of the flax crop would be ready for combining before it got too cold.

Despite that end-of-season dryness, students were also challenged with high yields which, combined with a shortage of train transportation leading to stalled commodities, meant trying to decide where to safely store everything.

It was a tricky balancing act, and Edwards credits some of Lakeland's tech with helping ensure things went as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.

“I could access everything on my phone,” Edwards says. “Even if I wasn't running the combine, I could pull my phone out and see how everything was going.”

Lakeland's new Demco 1050 grain cart, donated last year by alumnus Roy Kubica, was also a significant help in increasing harvest efficiency.

“It definitely made life a lot easier,” Edwards explains. “With a smaller grain truck, we'd have had to stop combining so many times. With this cart, we didn't have to stop at all, we could combine entire fields at a time. It's a great grain cart.”

Edwards has already passed a few tech ideas to his father back at the family farm near Nokomis, Sask.

“If I give him something to think about, there's a possibility it might actually happen,” Edwards says, adding, “I recommend Lakeland to anyone looking to go into agriculture or anything like it. Lakeland College is definitely the place to go.”

Lakeland's Student-Managed Farm - Powered by New Holland was the recipient of the Agriculture Award, sponsored by the County of Vermilion River, at the 2022 Vermilion and District Chamber of Commerce Small Business awards.

Photo: Top - Mason Edwards. Bottom - Crop team discussed harvest in progress.