You can do everything right when it comes to properly seeding and establishing your new forage stand, but Mother Nature doesn’t always cooperate. Grower Floyd Loewen saw the truth of that recently when his forage stand didn’t grow. If it weren’t for BrettYoung’s Forage Establishment Guarantee, his investment might have gone to waste.
Our Forage Establishment Guarantee ensures that in the unfortunate event of an establishment failure, your replacement seed cost will be covered by BrettYoung. Your coverage depends on when you enroll in the program and if you seed with a companion crop:
- Enroll by April 1, 2024, and plant without a companion crop to be eligible for 100% coverage
- If a companion crop is used, replacement seed coverage is 50%
- Enroll by April 30, 2024, and plant without a companion crop to be eligible for 50% coverage
- If a companion crop is used, replacement seed coverage is 25%
- Stands must be planted by June 30, 2024 to qualify
Loewen’s been seeding BrettYoung forages on his farm by Neepawa, Manitoba with consistent success for almost a decade now until recent seasons brought drought and grasshoppers and made establishing new stands difficult.
“The seed is pretty dependable as far as germination,” he said. “I love the speedy growth recovery after it’s been cut, and the quality is there.”
Loewen planted an alfalfa and meadow bromegrass mixture in 2020 with an oats and pea cover crop. The crop didn’t catch that year and he wasn’t enrolled in BrettYoung’s Forage Establishment Guarantee program, so he lost his entire investment into that field that year.
In 2021, Loewen directly seeded the same alfalfa and meadow bromegrass mixture, and it failed to establish again due to dry conditions. Luckily for him, he had our Forage Establishment Guarantee that time, which means he was reimbursed with that same seed for the 2022 season.
“It was really good to know I had that coverage because we were having these hard years with the drought,” said Loewen. “We were short on hay, buying hay to keep the cows going, and to know you had the seed to go in again if it would fail…it’s good to know.”
Enrolling in our Forage Establishment Guarantee program was easy, he said, thanks to his retailer, Tonn Seeds Ltd. Todd Tonn has made the program a focus when selling BrettYoung forage seed. He tells his growers about it and takes their information to sign them up himself.
“At the end of the day, part of my conversation is this guarantees that if something doesn’t work out right or if something goes wrong, you’re covered,” said Tonn. “It gives them that peace of mind that if something doesn’t work right, they know there’s help there so they’re not going to have to pay the full price of reseeding.”
If one of Tonn’s growers has an establishment failure with their BrettYoung seed and they’re signed up for the guarantee, they let him know. He’ll go look at their field with them, contact the local BrettYoung Regional Account Manager, and get the paperwork going to get his grower their replacement seed.
“There’s never been a question of it not being implemented,” he said. “BrettYoung’s staff’s always been very accommodating.”
Tonn said there’s no other supplier out there with a guarantee as open and easy as BrettYoung’s. He makes sure to let his growers know about it because “it costs nothing just to sign up.”
To learn more about BrettYoung’s Forage Guarantee, go to www.brettyoung.ca/establishment-guarantee.
