When the three Prairie provinces established provincial soil test laboratories in the 1960s, that was the start of a real advance in learning about potassium (K) as an essential plant nutrient. Until then it was not much of an issue, as many experiments showed no field crop response. With many thousands of farm field soil […] Read more
Potash fertilizer: Time for another look
Expect consequences if we keep hauling away more K than we apply
Grainews columnists I have known
Part 1 of an intermittent series. In this instalment: Alf Bryan
Younger readers may not know how Grainews got started. The first edition was in 1975 and the publisher was United Grain Growers (UGG). UGG was a farmer owned grain company with shares – it was not a co-op. The first editor was John Clark and he recruited active farmers to write it as it was […] Read more
A new year, a new soil moisture map
Let's take a Prairie-wide view of soil moisture at freeze-up in 2023
To make a soil moisture map, you need to understand the soil moisture constants: saturation, field capacity, wilting point and plant-available water. Saturation (Sat) is when all soil pores are filled with water — in other words, the water table. Until recently we did not consider the water table to be high enough to provide […] Read more
Cover crops: enough already
The benefits are often 'blown up' while the challenges are understated
Cover crops is a topic with a lot of ink spilled in many farm publications in recent years. Some scribblers seem to imply that a farmer is a laggard and an environmental hazard if she/he is not using cover crops on a regular basis. Cover crops actually include a wide variety of cropping sequences, and […] Read more
Les Henry: Sequestering carbon with grass crops
The amount sequestered in the soil is significant
Carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and organic matter (carbon) in our soils are topics of great current interest. Two big questions that take up much ink these days are: 1) how can we emit less CO2 with farming practices and 2) how can we sequester more carbon (C) in our soils to maintain high […] Read more
Les Henry: Sloughs and ‘bathtub’ salt rings
Some sloughs have rings, some do not — why?
Sloughs (polite name is potholes) are widespread on the Canadian Prairies and particularly in Saskatchewan, which has a great depth of glacial deposits. The sloughs catch much of the snowmelt and runoff from summer rains. If the water in the slough is the sole cause of salt rings, then all sloughs should have them. Artesian […] Read more
Digging wells and finding water
Where to find the information you need before digging
Unfortunately, by the time this issue hits your mailbox, many farmers will have the slim pickings of 2023 in the bin or bales. It has been especially brutal for cattle folks who have little hay to bale and face the awful decision of downsizing herds, including the loss of genetics built up over many decades. […] Read more
Les Henry: Gone with the wind. Soil erosion by wind mostly history in the Prairies
Soils and Crops: We need to let society know
Our grandfathers broke the rich prairie sod in the early 1900s. Even then, power and machinery were available to keep the soil free of weeds in the fallow year and pulverize the soil in the process. Serious wind erosion started soon after cultivation, but the “dirty thirties” are best known for land destruction that sent […] Read more
Les Henry: Prairie mountains
It’s not all flat land on the Prairies, and each “mountain” has a story to tell
“Prairie Mountains” was to be the title of my third book, after Catalogue Houses: Eatons’ and Others and Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water. The objective was to expel the myth that the Prairie provinces are one flat plain from Winnipeg to Edmonton. It would also talk about the people and resources in the various […] Read more
Les Henry: Climate change in our neck of the woods
We have much more to fear from cold than warm
Regular readers may recall my Jan. 21, 2020 column that showed monthly temperature data for Swift Current, Sask., from 1886 to 2018. That was followed by my March 24, 2020 column that included sites from North Dakota, which provided the same conclusions. Weather is the day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year conditions that we experience. Climate is […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
