hello welcome to Kate's Ag today i'm here in Milk River Alberta
with Matthew of KJM Farms and we were just driving by and i was pointing out to my mom
oh my goodness you have the same roller as us so now you're taking me for a roller ride
and you're also a 17 year old fourth generation farmer just like me yep i'm the youngest of all
my brothers and we've been farming around here for as long as i can remember that's awesome i
was just finishing up here on our barley stubble rolling everything and then just finishing up
seed what year was your farm studied uh around 1904-ish in this field here very cool and
do you roll all of your fields uh some we do some we don't just depends on the crop okay
yes we mostly roll our pulse crops yeah we're pretty much only dry land we only have a little
bit of irrigation crops all the irrigation we do do is about grass seed and that's about it that's
really interesting we don't have irrigation either yeah irrigation irrigation's pretty
hard here since we get it shut off almost every year yes what's your favorite part of farming
uh it's kind of tough it's hard hours but it's fun overall definitely what's your favorite job
to do on the farm i would say rolling it's pretty easy work and you don't have to do too much it's
a lot simpler than spraying you don't mess anything up yes do you have guidance uh yeah
that is so fun i can't drive the straight line to save my life so you look at my roller tracks
and it's like this well none of our fields are straight so you kind of have to do it anyways so
yeah guidance is fantastic though if you can set it up right yes very true rolling
can become quite bumpy though uh it's not too bad here we pretty much got everything
the most part down right yes how fast you drive uh depending on the feel like seven and
a half oh wow okay so that's a bit slower than i was going i was going around eight to ten uh
yeah we're kind of rocky here and really just depends on the field here i can go about eight
eight and a half but for the most part around seven and a half that's awesome could you tell me
a little bit about the drought situation happening here uh it's been off and on droughts for about
a couple years now it's been pretty dry and a whole bunch of people lost their crops
a lot of people are dependent on crop insurance but for the most part if you can get a good crop
it's decent that's really terrible we've been having issues with drought as well
yeah the last few years it's been fairly dry but this year we got a bit of moisture for
seed what crops are you growing this year a lot of lentils and canola mainly okay
we mostly do winter wheat and a little bit of barley we're doing also some chickpeas this year
uh we got some winter wheat over by Raymond which is about half an hour away from here okay we're
spread out about an hour and a half away from all of our fields spread out everywhere oh wow so
that's quite a drive when it comes to harvest yeah we got stuff from the border to Raymond and town
over by Foremost so we're pretty much all over that's awesome so what type of tractor is this uh
john deere 720r i can never remember the model number either i just look at the color and know
it's John Deere pretty much yeah what type of tractors do you mostly run on your farm
uh mostly Case and for combines we do New Holland oh that's awesome and then uh we
usually demo about every brand that we can if we get the chance to but we usually use boreal drills
oh wow interesting i don't know that i've heard of that uh we got two of them right now and uh pretty
much the same drill so it makes a lot easier doing two at the same time yes it does we have
a FlexiCoil on a john deere do you pull between or pull behind uh pull behind that's really nice then
yeah that's been pretty good this year these are super fun tractors to drive i love how you can
control the speed just with your thumb yeah it's a lot easier than the manual shifting yes oh my
goodness way better at the bale stack and that's for sure definitely do you have any cattle as well
uh no but my aunt and uncle do oh that's awesome we used to have cattle but then we counted
straight away from it and just went to farming very interesting could you give us a little
tractor tour uh well we got all of our controls over here our toolbox in case we break anything
and then my lunch kit filled full of food for the day and then we got our roller back here which is
the most part pretty good just a pain backing up yes definitely and this is the same type of
roller we use you double roll your fields or just do one time just do one time if we do overlap it's
only by a couple inches okay we double rolled because yours aren't filled with water correct
no it's just do you notice it pushes the rocks down well uh yeah but we run a rock picker through
all of our fields for the most part oh you do see we don't we don't have one of those so yeah
we run one uh before we roll and then dump all the rocks and a few piles that we got buried and then
last year we buried about 20 rock piles or so oh wow that's really helpful then a lot of manual
labor hand-picking the rocks yeah it's a lot easier with an excavator and a rock picker and
you can just bury everything and be done with it definitely what is your part in the harvest
uh either rolling or um just being a gopher and driving around moving trucks and stuff
oh do you roll right after harvest uh no not really or a grain carton uh no
we if we do do hay then we usually leave the bailin and rake into somebody else
oh okay for the most part we don't get too much hay but it's all kind of straw usually for bedding
and stuff do you swap your crops yep uh last year we had to double spots since we didn't get too
much but hopefully this year we shouldn't have to so it would have been your great grandfather who
would have kind of been like homesteading yeah they uh first started in that farm over there oh
wow there was that's awesome farmhouse over there and then a barn just over that hill and then uh
recently we just got rid of them since they're all falling apart do you hope to farm in the
future uh hopefully yeah my brothers and i will probably end up fighting on who gets what land but
for the most part it should be good that's really great what's your favorite part of agriculture
um probably just learning how everything works and all the science behind it since there's a lot more
to it than you think it is it's fascinating and especially kind of what conditions of the soil
cause the crops to really succeed or not and all the different equipment you have to have
and the way you have to manage your farm in order to keep it going through generations
yeah my brother right now he did his Ag Science and now uh he's working as agronomist and that's
definitely helped a lot oh yes i bet so what is the aspect you're doing right now
uh rolling it all putting the roller back together so those latches there lock together and then
the wheels turn up and then should be ready to roll so once you do that then you're good to roll
and then rolling it back up you pretty much just do everything opposite what are you rolling next
next i honestly don't know kind of just get told where to go once it happens it's not too much of
a heads up so now you're putting the roller up on its travel wheels yep i've never done
this part i have moved the roller but i haven't put it off like this have you done any seeding
uh not too much just a little bit i did seeding for the first time last winter like last fall for
winter wheat and then i did a little bit of spring seeding but i'm not doing the edges of the fields
or coulees or anything yet or rock piles or power lines it's pretty much rolled up now i'm good to
go on the road that's awesome so do you use the clutch with this one even though you don't have to
for the most part yeah it's just how i've been taught yes exactly that's what my family says too
because then you get into something you need to clutch in and you forget it and that's not
a good idea yeah definitely a lot of force of habit driving stick all the time yes do you
also drive uh i don't have my class one but i can drive a semi now in Canada do you need a um
do you have a farm exemption or do you need some sort of certificate to drive to the elevator
uh you can have your class one which gives you you can pretty much drive anything like semis and
such but you can get your air brakes where you can't drive a semi and then you can get a farm
uh class one so then you can get hours training on a farm instead of training with an instructor you
can do it that way well that's interesting so as long as i have my driver's license
um we don't need any other certification we just have a farm exemption in Montana yeah and Alberta
they stepped up the rules a lot and it's closed like $10 000 bucks to get your class one oh wow
it's so a lot of work it's really hard um for i guess kids on farms to be able to do that
yeah that's why there's that um ag program that you can do where you can get hours on the farm
and that's helped a lot that's great and so when you have employees you have to make sure they have
that certification yeah it's a big deal or else you can't really move trucks out to the field and
stuff gosh that's really interesting um so that's a very big variation even though our farms are
not very far away from each other yeah we have a lot of DOTs that can pull you over and if you
get caught driving without it you can get your license taken away it's uh they're pretty strict
on everything now yes and i guess that's for good reason but it's hard when you're on the farm
yeah and have you been seeing much agriculture in Montana a little bit yeah mostly just
around the Shelby and Kalispell around there how would you say it differs um i don't know just a
lot more acres to the farmer and just the way that they farm is a lot different than we do we
do a lot of summer fallow and stuff like that yes we actually do summer fallow most of our fields
yeah this year we didn't do it but uh the last few years we have but i believe are more people
in in your area i know our area are starting to go back to back and just do crop rotation
uh we've personally been doing a lot of crop rotation but uh we did a few soil samples and
stuff to the nitrogen levels and everything so for the most part we've been doing pretty good do you
do any cover crops uh no not really we don't have in an odd year we'll do do it but that's about it
so very crazy request to see the same exact roller i drive on the road but it was really enjoyable
speaking with you so thank you so much for being um so gracious to take me in your tractor and tell
me about your operation oh no problem thank you so much for watching today's video make
sure to like and subscribe to learn more about agriculture thank you again for watching bye