Following are 12 tips for success from Ron Heller, former Alberta Reduced Tillage LINKAGES (RTL) agronomist at Vermilion.

1) The best time for forage termination is the year before seeding an annual crop. Heller says there are three typical scenarios when the forage can be terminated with glyphosate. The best time is the typical pre-harvest timing. For sod seeding, that means just before forage harvest in July for a one-cut forage crop.

“Glyphosate translocates best when the forage is actively growing. That is in the early summer just before haying. You will get the best kill of the forage when the crop is almost mature,” explains Heller.

But there are other good reasons for taking out the forage crop 10 months before seeding an annual crop into the terminated sod. Typically, the forage or pasture stand is depleted of moisture, and the early kill-down of the perennial grasses and legumes provides an opportunity to replenish moisture. The sod also has more time to decompose, allowing easier seeding through the sod the next spring. The phytotoxic and allelopathic effects are also reduced because the sod has decayed more.

2) Termination at second-cut hay can work, but increases risk. Heller says in areas with good summer growing conditions, spraying out the forage crop just before the second cut can also work. However, he cautions that waiting for this timing may reduce the chances of successful termination.

“When you wait for the second cut, you need good regrowth. That’s the risk. If the weather turns dry and regrowth is poor, you may not get as good of termination of the stand than if you did it before the first cut,” explains Heller.

3) Pasture termination presents additional timing challenges. If the forage land is used as pasture, there is a temptation to leave the cattle on the land for grazing because it is economically necessary. However, as cattle graze longer into the late summer or fall, the risk of poor forage termination with glyphosate increases because of poor forage regrowth.

“There is a good window in the fall to terminate grasses but alfalfa is harder to terminate in the fall, so timing can become an issue,” says Heller. “You have to get the cows off the land for six weeks to get a good kill. It is tempting to keep cows on as long as possible, but if the cattle are pulled off two weeks before spraying, the forage kill will be poorer.”

4) Spring termination harder to pull off. Heller says that spraying forage out in the spring, and then seeding to an annual crop later that spring is a challenge. He says that the glyphosate application must be delayed in the spring until good forage growth is present. This delay means annual crop seeding will also be delayed.

“Don’t plan on canola or a seed crop. They won’t have time to mature before a fall frost. Choose an early maturing crop like oats or plan a greenfeed crop,” says Heller. “It is tempting to sow Roundup Ready canola because you can spray out any grass regrowing, but growing canola would be risky.”

5) Don’t skimp on the glyphosate. On forages, Heller says using the full 720 gm active ingredient per acre provides the best termination of grasses, legumes and perennial weeds. The 720-gm/acre rate is the two-litre/acre rate for the old Roundup Original formulation and other glyphosates with 360 gm active per litre, or 1.33-litre/ acre rate for Roundup WeatherMax that has 450 gm active per litre. With glyphosate’s low price, he says that cutting back on the rate is a false economy.

“You’re trying to kill perennial plants so you need a high rate to ensure good translocation.” he explains.

6) Observe the pre-harvest interval. Most glyphosate products are registered as a pre-harvest forage treatment. That means they can be sprayed on the forage and then harvested for hay, or grazed by cattle. For hay crops, the forage can be cut three to seven days after glyphosate application. Cattle can also be returned to pasture three to seven days after glyphosate application.

7) Watch nitrogen fertility. Research by Alberta Agriculture in the 1990s found that old pasture and hay fields are usually nutrient deficient. This can be especially true for nitrogen (N) because sod seeding doesn’t till the soil to incorporate the organic matter sod layer, and N mineralization (the converting of organic N to mineral forms of N that the plant can use) takes longer.

“It is hard to get a good soil test on a forage or pasture field that has been terminated, because N mineralization is hard to predict,” says Heller. “Bump up N rates by 25 per cent to make up for the lack of N mineralization.”

8) Pea crops do well. Heller says farmers have recently started seeding peas into sod with good success.

“I like peas because you can seed them early in the spring and they can tolerate being seeded fairly deep. And because the land is usually N deficient because of the lack of mineralization, an inoculated pea crop that fixes its own nitrogen doesn’t need N fertilizer,” explains Heller.

Another advantage is that because N fertilizer isn’t required, a simple, single shoot, narrow knife or disc opener can be used for seeding.

While pea has fewer herbicide choices and isn’t as competitive with weeds as other crops, Heller says weeds typically aren’t a challenge on sod seeded fields, because the land isn’t tilled to stimulate

weed germination. He also says that if the field is rough, it can be rolled. Don’t worry that the seed will be buried by rolling, though, as the roller smoothes out the field but doesn’t close the seeding trench.

9) Oats better than barley and both better than wheat. Oats have also done well when sod seeded, partially because they seem less affected by soil borne diseases, but also because they do not require high rates of N.

Heller says that as a early maturing crop, seeding oats can be delayed to later spring. Many farmers sod seed oats for seed because the land is typically free of wild oats.

10) Canola possible but is riskier. Depending on your risk level, canola can be a good choice. The crop costs more to grow, but with the option to grow a Roundup Ready canola, glyphosate can be used in-crop to clean up any forages that survived.

Heller says that a good double shoot opener will be required to carefully place canola seed into the soil, below the sod layer, and to separate the high rate of N fertilizer from the seed.

“I have seen some good canola crops on sod, but you have to be careful. It is such a high-risk crop to grow. You have to make sure the seed isn’t too deep, or stranded too shallow in the sod. And you can’t get crop insurance for sod seeding, so it is high risk,” says Heller.

11) Seeding equipment is dictated by fertility requirements. For crops other than peas, a double shoot opener is required. Heller says a double shoot opener or the parallel linkage type openers that separate seed and fertilizer can work well as long as they are low disturbance. Wide openers and heavy flat packing may push the sod too firmly back over the seed row, bury the seed too deep or leave exposed seed, so narrow openers with on-row packing is optimum.

Disc openers present a challenge if a high rate of N fertilizer needs to be applied. Heller says the old Barton double shoot disc opener worked well, but hasn’t seen anything come along to replace it.

For single shoot disc or knife openers, Heller says a mid-row type band application is possible to apply extra N fertilizer, although, for reasons unknown, he hasn’t seen good success with mid-row banding in sod seeded crops.

12) Seed slow and maybe seed deeper. No matter what the opener or implement, slower seeding is necessary to help ensure that the sod isn’t disturbed very much. Heller says that if the forage crop was terminated the year before, the sod is usually fairly mellow and easy to seed through.

“You have to place the seed in the moist soil, not the loose thatch. If it is two inches thick, the seed needs to be placed below that to get good seed to soil contact,” Heller explains. “That can be a big reason why sod seeding fails. Otherwise, terminated forage makes a perfect seedbed for almost any annual crop we grow on the prairies”.

This article is courtesy of Reduced Tillage Linkages.

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“It’s a good idea use on-farm research to try something new on your own farm under your own management system to verify that it works for you, before changing over the whole farm.” says Roger Andreiuk, agronomist with Alberta Reduced Tillage Linkages (RTL) in Leduc. “Many new products or practices are demonstrated on single strips or split fields compared without statistical analysis. Although these demonstrations can serve as an important first look, it is simply not possible to make reliable comparisons of yield or other data on a farm system without a scientific approach.”

Gordon Tuck farms 2,400 acres near Vegreville and has been doing on-farm research for the past several years, working with partners such as RTL. He sees a number of perks to carrying out his own on-farm research. “Much of the current agricultural research in Alberta is carried out along the Highway 2 corridor, which doesn’t reflect what happens on my northeast farm under my farm conditions and machinery,” says Tuck. “I use on-farm research so I can test new and developing technologies and products on my farm, on my soil and landscapes and under my management and input level.”

For Tuck, conducting his own on-farm research makes the information very relevant and meaningful to his operation. “This information gives me the confidence to make future decisions,” explains Tuck. “It’s also important to maintain some independence by not having to rely totally on information from someone else or from some enterprise with a vested interest in the product.”

7 steps to success

Tuck and Andreiuk agree that when properly planned and resourced there are few pitfalls to on-farm research. It does require a commitment to the project as well as plenty of planning and coordination among partners in order to complete the trial and make the process enjoyable and as hassle free as possible. They recommend seven steps to successful on-farm research:

1. Find partners

2. Set research objectives

3. Select treatments and checks

4. Select field site

5. Design and layout plots, including checks

6. Keep records and collect data

7. Evaluate, analyze and interpret data

Collaborating partners should be involved from the very beginning of the project and throughout every step. “Having partners is really important, such as RTL agronomists, consulting agronomists, agro suppliers, product suppliers and research scientists,” says Tuck. Andreiuk adds, “Partners lend synergy and interest to the project, and having more people involved with monitoring and data gathering throughout the project can add value to the final observations and outcomes.”

Equipment such as parallel tracking and yield monitors make on-farm research easier to manage, including the replication and randomization of plots. Replication and randomization are important to ensure that any one treatment is not biased or favoured in any way, Andreiuk says. Replication gives you more power to separate treatment effects and gives a

“It’s important to maintain some independence by not having to rely totally on information from someone else or from some enterprise with a vested interest in the product.”

—Gordon Tuck

measure of variability in the field to help to determine if the difference that occurs is statistically significant or valid. Once you can confirm the statistical significance, then you can apply economics to see if the variety or product you are testing really does pay.

“With the guidance system on the tractor, we can mark out the distances and easily go in and seed a set of plots,” says Tuck. For example, we can seed three replicates of five different products in about two hours, which is much faster than hand staking. “Yield monitors are also very helpful, and gives us the consistency in measuring we need. Although some people argue they aren’t as accurate as they should be, they still give a relevant comparison of differences between strips harvested.”

Well planned, on-farm research can help make comparisons with confidence and a high degree of precision. “The added benefit of carrying out research on a farmer’s own land and within their farming system is very important and increases the farmer’s confidence in any decision made,” says Andreiuk. “This puts the power of research in the farmer’s hands.”

THE LANDSCAPE SYSTEMS RESEARCH NETWORK

Alberta Pulse Growers launched the Landscape Systems Research Network in 2007 to create a network of producers along with the agricultural and scientific communities. The network does field tests for products and practices. Through this network, producers receive assistance in developing meaningful and scientifically valid information useful to their production systems.

Tuck and Andreiuk collaborated on a pilot on-farm research project to test the network concept. “The project objective was to evaluate the effect of phosphorus fertilizer application on nitrogen fixation by field pea,” explains Andreiuk. “A scientific protocol was developed and implemented by a team of research scientists, agronomists and producers.” The project included a replicated, field scale randomized block design experiment, using parallel tracking for seeding the various plots and treatments, and yield monitors at harvest. During the project, regular observations and several assessments were recorded.

“We continued the project in 2008, seeding canola and comparing various fertilizer combinations,” explains Tuck. “By using GPS and the tractor guidance system, it was simple to go back and seed the same strips again. General observations indicate the project was very successful, but we don’t have the results finalized yet.”

“Overall, the pilot project did demonstrate that field scale on-farm research can indeed be carried out with confidence in the protocol and the results,” explains Andreiuk. “We believe that the development of an on-farm research network would allow for repeated testing of concepts over space and time (multiple sites, multiple years). This would speed up the testing of new technologies or practices and subsequent decision-making and adoption rates.”

Donna Fleury writes from Millarville, Alta. This article was prepared in co-operation with Reduced Tillage Linkages. For more information visit the web site at www.reducedtillage.ca

The post On-farm research puts the power of research directly in your hands, so you don’t have to rely on small-plot trials from another region to tell you what works — or doesn’t work appeared first on Grainews.