J&S Judge Farms:Irrigation is the key to a sustainable future for this award-winning Ontario farm business

摘要

The weather has traditionally always been a troublesome and challenging aspect in farming. It was a couple of years ago that the particular weather challenges - the heat and drought of 2012 - became a turning point at J&S Judge Farms in Norfolk County, Ont. It was at that point they decided to go ahead with removing much of the influence of weather over the harvest on their farm.Field com crop failure was a sad and stressful reality that year and owner Robert Judge and farm manager Todd Bough-ner didn't want to see it happening again - ever. That year, they installed their farm-created subsurface drip irrigation system on 75 acres of their LaSalette farm (a purchased farm near their home farm). It's a state-of-the-art wireless system that is now in the early stages of commercialization - and an economically-feasible approach worth looking at for field crop, tobacco, orchard and vegetable operations in Ontario and beyond. The creation of the system has also gained Judge Farms a Premier's Award in agricultural innovation.