Our crops.
Corn
Haanover View Farms has only been growing GMO-free crops, including corn, since 2010. We have been using seed from a small western Ontario seed company for many years now. Corn is a high energy, high yielding crop that is the foundation to our pigs diet. We use a custom-built no-till drill which accurately applies starter fertilizer in the seed rows. Corn is ready to harvest in late fall, but we often wait until after freezing up to harvest, to allow the corn to naturally dry down to safe moisture levels for storage. This practice increases the feed value of the corn.
Barley
Used for pig feed, barley is a high protein and high fiber grain that is harvested in early August. The straw is collected and baled up as bedding for our pigs and cattle, as well.
Wheat
An excellent feed ingredient for pig rations that is planted in the fall and harvested in late July. Wheat performs excellent in no-till crop rotations, yields well, produces large amounts of straw, and is high in protein. Wheat, as it’s the first grain crop to be harvested, allows us to double-crop the same ground with buckwheat. This aggressive cropping approach has many economic and environmental positive benefits.
Buckwheat
A short-season crop that can be planted very late, is an excellent rejuvenator of the soil, provides pollen for bees and such, yields good quality grain that can be blended into pig rations. Buckwheat is a very aggressive crop that competes and wins out against weeds; this naturally reduces problematic weed out breaks.
Field Peas
A gentle and interesting crop to grow and harvest as a protein source in pig rations, peas reduce our dependance on purchased soybean meal. As a member of the legume family of crops, peas provide nitrogen for the crop that follows it, thus reducing the need for adding additional fertilizer.
Sorghum
A fast growing, very competitive annual forage crop that produces high value and high yielding cattle feed. We round bale sorghum at approximately 60% moisture and wrap the bales in airtight plastic tube, in which it ferments and becomes cattle’s most favourite meal. It’s competitive growth means it too doesn’t allow weeds to invade a field.
Sunflowers
The farm’s favourite crop gets the attention of all those that drive past, too. A fun crop to grow and harvest that we clean and package on farm for sale as bird seeds.
Legume Hay
The highest protein hay we produce, used as either dry or high moisture feed for our grass-fed cattle and as a starter feed for young cattle and calves. Legume hay crops add large amounts of nitrogen back into the soil, thus a great crop to rebuild fields or be followed by a crop such as corn. Examples of legume hay include alfalfa, clovers, vetch, and trefoil.
Mixed Hay
The backbone and most important crop on our farm. Made into either large round bales or small square bales as cattle feed and offered for sale. Perfectly suited to fields with drainage issues, land locked and hard to get to fields and fields that are otherwise not suited to annual crop production.
Grass Hay
Most grass hay is sold as horse hay in either large round or small square bales. Native grasses are very desirable by horses, they are very resilient to climate changes and can remain productive for many years.
Maple Syrup
Maple syrup has been an amazing hobby that was started about 6 years ago by Jacob and his grandfather. Throughout our 100 acres of woods on the home farm, we have a large number of sugar maple trees. 2020 saw our family farm partner with another to work collaboratively to produce better quality and more consistent maple syrup by pooling our resources. This partnership worked extremely well, and we hope to continue this relationship.