ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER 36 AGRONOMY continued from page 35 The region's dry conditions cut disease pressure but leave the farm more exposed to pests, particularly aphids and cotton bollworm. For bollworm, they use a biological treatment based on Bacillus thuringiensis. Aphids are managed largely by encouraging natural predators such as ladybugs. Disease is also part of why the farm still plows a portion of its fields each year. Heavy surface residue left by no-till can harbour soil-borne pathogen inoculum. MACHINERY DOES THE HEAVY LIFTING The farm has two advantages that make the experiment worth trying at all: location and investment capital. The plain in northern Serbia where LoginEKO is situated was once known as Yugoslavia's breadbasket. It is flat, heavy clay country with some of the highest natural soil fertility in the region. Karagić said some LoginEKO fields sit near six per cent organic matter, while neighbouring farms are around 2.5 per cent. The second advantage is capital. Making the complex rotation work has required eight combines, 29 tractors, and a hangar full of specialized weed-control equipment: camera-guided cultivators that correct for crop rows that drifted during seeding, disc harrows, subsoilers, multiple seed drills matched to different crops, and a mill built into the combine harvester that destroys weed seed viability during harvest. The fleet is intentionally large. With no herbicides to fall back on, effective weed management can only be achieved in narrow windows, which means more machinery standing ready for when soil and weather line up. Getting everything done in those narrow windows requires organization. This is where Login comes in. Login developed management software from scratch that tracks every field operation, yield map, soil sample, weather report, drone image, telemetry dataset, and scouting report. The software and the data it collects are open source, adding traceability that lets consumers scan a product and trace its ingredient back to the field where it was grown. All of it, including the software, is offered to other farmers for free. Login has said proving the model works matters more to him than owning it. “I believe more farmers would choose more sustainable methods because that's what makes the business function over the long term,” he said. “But they just don't have that option.” In total, Login has invested about €83 million ($133 million) in the operation. He said the core farming operation, minus software development and research spending, is close to breaking even. This does not consider land costs but does include labour. The bigger question remains: Can grain and legumes be grown at commercial scale without synthetic inputs or manure? At this point, the findings are not clear. Login knows the rotation they have chosen would not survive a move of even a few hundred kilometres, let alone across an ocean. Different rainfall, disease pressure, and soil chemistry would demand a different sequence, rebuilt from scratch. But it is a start. LoginEKO is a member of the Global Network of Lighthouse Farms, established by Wageningen University & Research. The network recognizes 14 global farms as living examples of the future of sustainable farming. • Slobodan Barački, manager of LoginEKO's northern location, describes how the farm manages weeds without herbicides, relying on timing and machinery instead of chemistry.
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