Good Year to Be a Farmer

For a Montana farmer, a lot depends on the weather. That’s perhaps because their livelihood depends on it. For one area farmer, Mother Nature was very accommodating this farming season.

Anton Borg of Sidney can’t recall any year since he started dry land farming back in 2009, when crops looked this good. With high yields and strong test weights, the season promises to go down in his farm’s history as one for the books. “The last few years have been good. But this year we had really adequate moisture and cooler temperatures that really created ideal conditions for a very good crop,” Borg said.

While many farmers around him suffered crop losses to damaging hail, his farmlands were spared.

Located between Bloomfield and Richey, this year’s crop rotation consisted of peas and safflowers. The peas were harvested in early August, and he is just getting into the 800 acres of safflower while his spring and winter wheat are nearing the end of their cutting season. Once complete, he will haul it to Farmers Elevator in Glendive.

With the ideal wetter growing conditions, his wheat is getting to the elevator a few weeks behind last year’s schedule since Borg, like other area farmers, had to wait for the fields to dry before cutting.

This year, he anticipates a crop of number one rated green edible peas following an initial sample test while netting 40 bushels per acre. One field ran as high as 70 bushel. He said his safflower is also looking good, testing only 34 pounds, it’s still yielding over 1,000 pounds per acre.

Two years ago, Borg introduced a pulse crop of peas to his land in an effort to build nitrogen levels naturally and lower input costs for fertilizer. Peas require little nitrogen fertilizer; instead they fix nitrogen from the air into the soil while helping break disease and pest cycles in wheat, creating several benefits to his operation.

At the same time he added safflower into his crop rotation. His first crop was used primarily for birdseed while this year’s oil seed crop was trucked to STI in Fairview and will be used to make cooking oil. Safflower and other oilseeds such as camelina, flax, sunflowers and canola are becoming cash crops good for Montana farmers with the added benefit that they are potentially good for the planet. They can promote human and livestock health, while providing a rotational crop for small grain farmers.

In addition to his own farming operation, Borg also works for area farmers spraying herbicides and chemicals with his 1,200 gallon, 120 foot self propelled sprayer. During the busy spray season he covers fields from Sidney to west of Bloomfield and as far as 50 miles west of Fairview.

For Borg, part of the enjoyment of being a farmer is rooted in the opportunity to do many different things. “One day you work in the shop. The next day you’re in the fields. I have always loved being outdoors and I enjoy the freedom of deciding how you spend your day,” he said.

This year, there were challenges along the way. With the favorable moisture came the unfavorable hassles of working in the mud. Nearly half-a-dozen times he found his sprayer stuck in the sopping soil. “Some days there was just no bottom and you kept sinking. We had to use a backhoe and railroad ties for traction. And pretty soon you were stuck again. It’s very frustrating when you know you have people depending on you to get their fields done,” Borg said.

This season, he sprayed nearly 20,000 acres.

While many farmers are sighing in relief as the harvest season winds down, their relaxation is short lived as many will begin planting winter wheat. In an effort to relieve the workload next spring Borg plans to plant 1,000 acres of winter wheat by the end of October in the hopes of matching this year’s yield of 50 bushels per acre during the next growing season.

Borg comes from a family of farmers starting with his father Lars, a wheat and safflower farmer. His uncle Milo was also a farmer as well as his brother-in-law, Kirk Miller, who grows irrigated crops such as sugar beets. Borg began his own farming operation following the death of his uncle Malcolm Senner, in 2008. He and his dad essentially took over his uncle’s plots of land in an effort to keep the farm going for his aunt Marlene. “I really attribute the inspiration I had to starting my own farming operation to my aunt. She had a lot of opportunities to rent the land to someone else but instead she gave the opportunity to me,” Borg said.

He attributes the success he has had with his operation to his dad, his friends James Kelly, Ben Larsen and others who he said have all helped him along the way. “It just wouldn’t work with me on my own. Their support is what has made me successful,” he said.