“Climate change is bringing more severe and longer-lasting droughts to many locations around the world. Some ecosystems have shown resilience to increasing drought, but this could change as droughts become more severe,” said the study.

The research showed that losses in plant productivity — the creation of new organic matter through photosynthesis — were more than twice as high after four years of continued extreme drought when compared to losses from droughts of moderate intensity. Grassland and shrubland ecosystems especially lose their ability to recover over time under prolonged dry conditions.

“We show that — when combined — extreme, multi-year droughts have even more profound effects than a single year of extreme drought or multi-year moderate droughts,” said Colorado State University biology professor Melinda Smith, who led the study with Timothy Ohlert, a former CSU postdoctoral researcher.

“The Dust Bowl is a good example of this,” said Smith in a news release on the study. “Although it spanned nearly a decade it was only when there were consecutive extremely dry years that those effects, such as soil erosion and dust storms, occurred. Now with our changing climate, Dust Bowl-type droughts are expected to occur more frequently.”

Smith designed and led the International Drought Experiment with more than 170 researchers around the world. For the project, researchers built rainfall manipulation structures that reduced each rainfall event by a target amount over a four-year period in grassland and shrubland ecosystems across six continents.

By simulating 1-in-100-year extreme drought conditions, the team was able to study the long- and short-term effects on grasslands and shrublands, which store more than 30 per cent of global carbon and support key industries, such as livestock production. Variations in precipitation, as well as soil and vegetation across continents, meant different sites experienced different combinations of moderate and extreme drought years — providing unique experimental conditions that informed the study.

The research also suggests that the negative impacts on plant productivity are likely to be much larger than previously expected under both extreme and prolonged drought conditions.

The post Prolonged drought causes unprecedented productivity loss: Study appeared first on Grainews.

During a coffee break at a sustainable agriculture conference in Minneapolis last fall, she provided a six-minute, rapid-fire explanation on how farming can be transformed in North America and around the globe.

That transformation needs to happen, she said, because climate change and extreme weather have become massive risks for crop production.

“We’re hearing directly from producers … that the failure of crops and the inability to work the land, because of a flood or drought, is really wrecking their bottom line,” says Volkova, chief executive officer and founder of Regrow Ag, a U.S. firm that connects farmers with agri-food businesses to “dramatically reduce land-based emissions” from agriculture.

For Volkova, the solution to cutting emissions and making farming more resilient is regenerative agriculture.

That involves practices like cover crops, reduced tillage, diverse crop rotations and use of livestock, all connected to the larger goal of improved soil health.

The shift toward regenerative agriculture will happen in three stages, according to Volkova.

First, there will be short-term incentives for farmers to adopt certain practices and payments for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Then there will be medium-term benefits to farmers, because better soil should mean less need for fertilizer and pesticides; and that will lead to long-term resilience for producers and food supplies, since regenerative farming is more resilient to drought, flood and severe weather.

“Being able to maintain yield, or almost the same yield, in catastrophic loss years, will drive the premium for the farmer when the supply for neighbouring farms will not be as resilient,” says Volkova, who was born in Ukraine and has a PhD in aerospace engineering.

She and her team at Regrow have built a sustainability platform that allows agri-food companies to track greenhouse gas emissions.

Corporate interest

As an example, Cargill may want to know the on-farm emissions from the spring wheat it purchases in Saskatchewan and North Dakota so it can report on the carbon emissions in its supply chain.

Volkova isn’t the only person leading the charge for regenerative agriculture, also called climate-smart agriculture.

PepsiCo has a goal of seven million acres in its supply chain, in which farmers follow regenerative practices. McCain Foods, General Mills and Mars have similar targets.

There are also environmental groups, charitable foundations and chief sustainability officers at massive companies who are leaning hard on the regenerative boulder.

They’re all trying to push it uphill because they’re convinced that regenerative ag practices must become standard practices on tens of thousands of farms.

“For us to cool the planet and leverage the soil for the carbon sequestration … this has to be the new norm for all farming,” Volkova told Reuters last summer.

There are dozens of programs and projects in North America that encourage farmers to plant cover crops and try related practices. The words used to describe the projects include regenerative, climate-smart, resilient, and so on.

In Canada, the federal government created the On-Farm Climate Action Fund and committed more than $200 million to projects coast to coast. OFCAF promotes cover crops, nitrogen management, rotational grazing and other practices that reduce on-farm emissions and store carbon in the soil.

South of the border, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) promised to spend US$3.1 billion on about 140 climate-smart agriculture projects, although much of that support is now in doubt following the election of Donald Trump as president.

In addition to government, corporations and environmental groups also have incentive programs for climate-smart ag.

Tony Mellenthin, a Wisconsin farmer, tried one of the programs in 2024. Speaking in October at the Reuters Transform Food and Ag conference in Minneapolis, Mellenthin said the sheer number of sustainability projects and incentives is overwhelming.

“It is (an) incredibly complex marketplace to navigate.”

Farmer buy-in

Some farmers are longtime participants in these programs. Paul Overby, who farms near Wolford, N.D., has partnered with General Mills on a regenerative oats program since 2018.

The education in the program, from agronomists and other soil health experts, has changed Overby’s approach to farming.

He spoke at the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association Regenerative Agriculture conference last November in Brandon.

In a PowerPoint presentation, Overby summed up his new approach to crop production. Previously, he worried about price, weather, labour and risk management. Now, he thinks about less fertilizer, fewer pesticides, carbon in the soil, habitat for insects and birds, and zone mapping.

Overby believes zone-mapping fields is critical for regenerative ag because certain parts of a field are not profitable and should be taken out of crop production.

He now employs a complex crop rotation, growing canola, sunflowers, oats, soybeans, field peas, spring wheat, millet and flax. He’s also experimenting with less nitrogen or zero application of phosphate for certain crops in the rotation.

The goal is to make the plants “do some of the work” and find nutrients in the soil.

Overby firmly supports regenerative concepts, but he’s unsure about financial incentives. Giving people money isn’t a great way to change behaviour, he notes, pointing to a USDA program that paid growers to plant cover crops.

“As soon as the funding quit, they (some farmers) quit. They learned nothing out of it … they simply took advantage (of) the payment.”

If governments, corporations and environmental groups want to achieve change on the landscape, education and incentives are both needed, and preferably farmer-to-farmer education, Overby says.

Cash payments alone don’t change habits.

“It’s a transactional thing, not a transformation.”

More than a decade ago, Canada’s organic industry launched a program called the Organic Advantage: Transition to Higher Profits.

It argued that organic grain farmers make more money.

“Field crop producers who transition from conventional to organic production are rewarded with increased profitability,” an Organic Advantage fact sheet says.

The program had a short-term impact on the Prairies. From 2015 to 2018, acreage of organic field crops increased 49 per cent, says the Prairie Organic Development Fund.

The increase didn’t last.

Canola prices rocketed upward in 2021, hitting $20 per bushel, and many growers abandoned organic crop production.

From 2018 to 2022, the number of farmers and organic acres in Western Canada likely dropped, but it’s difficult to nail down the size of the decline. Canada’s organic sector has poor data collection and releases statistics that are two or three years out of date.

“But we lost a lot of acres … which suggests to me that some organic guys have let some of their organics land go. And they are growing canola on the side,” Laura Telford, an organic specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said in 2023.

The organic example suggests that economics and incentives can have an impact but if farmers don’t believe in the practices, the change will be temporary.

Top down versus grass roots

Ryan Boyd, who farms near Forrest, Man., has attended most of the regenerative ag conferences in Brandon since the event began in 2018.

He’s a Nuffield scholar, has studied grazing systems around the globe and is a firm believer in practices that enhance soil health.

A top-down approach to encourage regenerative farming, where farmers are paid for certain practices or outcomes, may not succeed, he says.

“I don’t think the financial incentives will be able to flow adequately from the top down,” he said, as he stood outside the main hall at the conference.

“I hope it does. The problem is, are you incentivizing the right things? Is it going to accomplish what we’re hoping it (does)? Is it actually going to make a difference?”

There’s also the larger truth, which humans have been dealing with for thousands of years: change is hard.

For much of the last 15 years, grain farming has been profitable in Western Canada. Not every year, but growing canola, wheat, pulses and oats has generated profits and sometimes very healthy profits.

That’s why farmland prices have risen dramatically over the last 15-20 years, jumping 300-500 per cent on the Prairies.

“What affects farmland values is the profitability of the farmers …. It all boils down to profitability,” says Ted Cawkwell, a real estate agent specializing in farmland, who runs the Cawkwell Group in Saskatoon.

With the massive jump in land prices and farmers making money, they have enjoyed a long period of prosperity.

Asking a grower to include five crops in the rotation, plant a cover crop in the fall or bring cattle back to the farm is a difficult sales pitch when the status quo is working.

“Fertilizers work, chemicals work … The reality is, we can’t compete with the energy density of fertilizer,” Boyd says.

“You can’t jam enough energy in a cover crop, in one year, to compete with the results of 120 pounds of nitrogen.”

Boyd probably missed out on some years of big profits from grain production because he raises cattle and has perennial forages on his mixed farm.

He’s focused on stable profits, while farming the way he wants to farm.

“We can’t get to where we want to go if we’re not profitable …. What’s the quote? You can’t be green if you’re in the red.”

One of the challenges with organic farming is it can create an “us” versus “them” narrative. “We” don’t use pesticides and “they” do. Or “they” are growing weeds that spread to neighbouring farms.

There is a risk that climate-smart agriculture will follow the same path, where it becomes divisive within the farm community.

Overby is active on X (formerly Twitter) and he’s aware that some words are explosive. If he mentions the word “regenerative,” it can trigger a response.

“I’ll get some smart-aleck comment. ‘Why do we have to divide farmers into regenerative ag farmers or whatever. Farmers are farmers’,” he said. “People don’t like that concept of being labelled by the practices. They don’t want to be called a ‘climate-smart’ farmer.”

The political divide over climate and agriculture has become a major policy issue in America.

In the U.S. debate continues over the next U.S. farm bill. The newly installed Trump administration is cutting support for climate-smart ag programs introduced under the Biden administration. However, the political combat in Washington is a long way from Boyd’s farm north of Brandon. For him, this issue comes down to personal choice.

If someone wants to grow forage crops and bring cattle back to the farm, that’s up to them. If someone else wants to grow canola and maximize profits, that’s up to them, he says.

The post Prairie farmers have mixed views of sustainable agriculture push appeared first on Grainews.

Barley and oats are grown primarily in the cooler regions of the Prairies and will benefit from a longer growing season. Durum, meanwhile, is primarily grown in the southern Prairies and growers will be more concerned about increased temperatures during that region’s growing season. Spring wheat, grown all across the Prairie region, will benefit from the extended growing season in northern regions. Winter wheat production may be challenged by a lack of protective snow cover in the winter. All these factors will need to be examined in looking at the impact of climate change on cereals.

Many studies have examined changes to the climate in Western Canada over the past couple of decades. A review of the research on climate change in the agricultural growing regions in Canada was conducted by Mapfumo et al. in the Canadian Journal in Plant Science in 2023. The authors examined the research to date of the parameters that are important to producing crops.

Of the factors examined in the review, the three most critical parameters for cereal production are growing season precipitation; growing season length; and air temperatures during the growing season. The research indicates changes in all three parameters have occurred over the past 100 years.

Every farmer knows precipitation is the critical element for producing crops on the Prairies. The weather during the past two growing seasons certainly proves the point that “rain makes grain.” Research indicates growing season precipitation has increased since 1900. In Alberta’s agricultural region, it has increased by 18 mm over the period beginning in 1900. In another study, Prairie rainfall was found to have increased by 39.2 mm over the growing season in the period from 1956 to 1995. The increase in precipitation is welcome news for cereal crop production in the coming years. Wheat, barley, oats and durum will benefit from additional moisture in the growing season.

An increase in moisture during the growing season, though, would increase disease pressure in cereal crops. Common cereal crop diseases will be enhanced by the increased moisture. Insect pressure should also increase under warmer, wetter growing conditions and increased temperatures.

Growing season length is the second most critical factor in producing crops in Western Canada. This is particularly true for wheat crops, but barley and oats will also see yield increases from an extended growing season. The northern growing regions will see the largest benefit of a longer growing season. Western Canada has seen its growing season increase by between three and 12 days, using data from 1920 to 2020. Frost dates have also changed in Western Canada, with the median spring frost earlier by 11.1 days and fall frost dates later by 9.4 days. A longer growing season also adds yield potential for cereal crops. The extension of the frost dates in the fall should also improve crop quality. This would be critical for barley and oat crops grown in the northern grain belt but would also benefit wheat crops in the north.

The heat experienced over the past two growing seasons has certainly brought temperatures to the forefront, in terms of risk to crops. The maximum air temperatures have been increasing by between 2.4 and 3.6 C during the period from 1950 to 2010. The increase in maximum temperatures is probably the largest concern for cereal production in the future. Although the temperatures during the growing season are expected to be higher than current levels, wheat, barley and oat crops grown in northern regions should not see significant yield reductions. Heat will be of more concern for southern wheat and durum crops, which could see more significant yield reductions from the increase in maximum temperatures.

Winter wheat production will be impacted by reductions in snow cover and snow depth in the future. Western Canada has seen a decrease of 30.7 cm of annual snowfall from 1951 to 2004. Snow depth was also lowered by four cm from 1948 to 2012. Winter wheat production on the Prairies is dependent on snow cover to protect crops from winterkill. Ironically, a warmer climate may result in increased winterkill potential.

In conclusion: climate change is expected to have a mostly positive impact on cereal production in Western Canada during the coming years. The net benefit of increased moisture and longer growing season will more than offset any negative impacts from increased disease and insect pressure. Grain quality is likely to improve in northern growing areas where the risk of frost is expected to decrease.

The post Payoffs and pressures for cereals in a changing Prairie climate appeared first on Grainews.

This weather system occurs all over the world. It starts when a large amount of water vapor from tropical oceans is carried by a jet stream toward land. As the air rises, it cools and condenses, resulting in rain or snow. They most commonly form in mid-latitude oceans, roughly 30 and 60 degrees north and south, according to NASA. They appear as a trail of wispy clouds that can stretch for hundreds of miles.

Atmospheric rivers can carry up to 15 times the volume of the Mississippi River, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Most atmospheric rivers are weak and do not cause damage. They can provide much-needed rain or snow.

Sometimes they do both. In drought-stricken California, such storms have triggered mudslides, toppled utility poles and blocked roadways, but also helped replenish depleted reservoirs and reduced the risk of wildfires by saturating the state’s parched vegetation.

In 2019, an atmospheric river nicknamed the “Pineapple Express” hit California. The water vapor from near Hawaii brought rain and triggered mudslides that forced motorists to swim for their lives and sent homes sliding downhill.

In 2021, an atmospheric river dumped a month’s worth of rain on British Columbia in two days, prompting deadly floods and landslides, devastating communities and severing access to Canada’s largest port.

According to scientists, atmospheric rivers of the kind that drenched California and flooded British Columbia in recent years will become larger—and possibly more destructive—because of climate change. There are projected to be 10 per cent fewer atmospheric rivers in the future, but they are expected to be 25 per cent wider and longer and carry more water, according to a 2018 research paper.

This could make managing water supply much harder as moderate atmospheric rivers, which can be beneficial for water supplies, will be less frequent, and strong ones could become more calamitous.

The post What are atmospheric rivers and why do they cause flooding?   appeared first on Grainews.

The poll of 858 producers from coast to coast determined that farmers rank climate change as their No. 1 concern.

“When farmers and ranchers were asked an open-ended question—at the very beginning of the poll—about the top challenge for the agricultural sector for the next decade, climate change was the number one answer,” says Farmers for Climate Solutions, a group, that as its name suggests, is focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation within Canadian agriculture.

The organization hired Leger, a market research firm, to conduct the survey.

It was done by phone from Aug. 8 to Sept. 8.

The headline question from the poll asked farmers to identify the top challenge for the agriculture sector over the next 10 years.

The results?

• 17.9 percent said climate change.
• Input costs were 17.2 percent.
• Government policy and regulations, 11.5 percent.
• Market uncertainty/price volatility, 9.8 percent.
• About 5.8 percent of respondents ranked severe weather as their No. 1 challenge over the next decade.

Brent Preston, president of Farmers for Climate Solutions, said the poll result was unexpected.

“I was surprised that climate change was right at the top. I thought it would be a concern for most producers, but I didn’t think it would be the number one concern,” said Preston, a vegetable grower from Creemore, Ont.

Farmers for Climate Solution decided to pay for a poll because it wanted information on how farmers feel about climate change and related issues.

He said it’s important to have this sort of data when meeting with federal and provincial officials.

“We’re hoping it will give us ammunition when we talk to politicians and policy makers,” he said.

“We can now say, ‘look, this is an issue that’s top of mind for producers and we’re hoping governments are going to do more to help up adapt.’ ”

East-west split

The poll suggests that Canadian farmers are anxious about climate change, but the details within the 37-page report tell a more nuanced story.

Eastern farmers are concerned about the climate, while western producers are less so:

• 116 farmers out of 450 respondents (26 per cent) from the East ranked climate change as the biggest challenge over the next decade.
• In the West, 38 of 408 respondents (9.3 per cent) said climate change was the biggest challenge.
• Nearly three times more farmers in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes are worried about climate change.

The gap between East and West is striking, Preston acknowledged.

“There’s a very clear difference in perception or attitude,” he said, adding that farmers across Canada have some concerns about climate change.

“Everywhere in the country, climate change is in the top three.”

In its report, Farmers for Climate Solutions noted that Prairie farmers are less concerned about the issue.

“Input costs and government policies are seen as the top challenges (in the West).”

In more detail, 21 per cent of western farmers said input costs are their top challenge. About 16 per cent said government policy and regulations. Around 12 per cent cited market uncertainty and nine per cent said climate change.

The poll received responses from 858 people across Canada, including 247 farmers from Quebec. That’s nearly 29 per cent of the total for a province that has five per cent of the country’s arable land.

Comparing the total number of poll respondents, 450 out of 858 were from Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. The remainder, 408, were from the West.

A critical piece of data that could be missing from the poll is the opinions of large-scale farmers.

Of all the producers who responded, about 50 percent said they have farm revenues of zero to $500,000. Only 7.6 per cent in the survey had revenues of $3 million or higher.

More large producers are likely needed in the survey to paint an accurate picture.

“You might be right. We may have over-represented small farmers,” Preston said, adding it was difficult for Leger to acquire lists and contact information of producers.

“The sample is definitely not perfect…. We’re not going to use these results to say that definitively, X percentage of farmers think (this or that) … but we think the sample is good enough to make some broad inferences.”

The post Climate change worries Canadian farmers: poll appeared first on Grainews.

Inside the domes, researchers are growing pears in a controlled environment that simulates how climate change will affect the region in 2040. Their aim is to see what global warming has in store for Europe’s fruit growers.

“We expect more heatwaves and less even precipitation, so more droughts and floods as well. And overall, slightly higher temperatures,” Francois Rineau, associate professor at the University of Hasselt, said of the simulated climate inside the domes.

Early results from the scientists’ first harvest in 2023 suggest Belgian pears may be spared some of the worst impacts of climate change – which scientists expect to cut some crop yields and hike growers’ costs for irrigation to combat drought.

“The effect of climate change at the 2040 horizon on the quality of pears was very minor. However, we found a difference in how the ecosystem was functioning,” Rineau said, noting that an earlier growing season in the 2040 simulation appeared to result in the ecosystem absorbing more CO2.

Year-to-year variability means that one year alone cannot capture intermittent extreme weather and other changes in the climate which can wreak havoc on crops. The three-year experiment will cover three harvests.

This year’s harvest of 2040-era pears is being studied at the Flanders Centre of Postharvest Technology (VCBT), to check the fruits’ size, firmness and sugar content – and compare them to pears grown in domes simulating today’s climate.

“If we have a higher temperature on the trees, pears tend to be less firm and have more sugar,” VCBT researcher Dorien Vanhees said.

That’s bad news for growers. Less-firm fruit survives a shorter period in storage, reducing the quantity of pears growers can sell.

Floods, hail and drought have already affected European pear growers in recent years, as climate change begins to leave fingerprints on growing patterns.

Belgium’s pear production is expected to plunge by 27 per cent this year, according to the World Apple and Pear Association, owing to factors including an unusually early bloom and unusually late frost.

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Grainews recently spoke with several prominent seed companies about new soybean varieties they have in the development pipeline and the impact shifting weather patterns are having on their developmental efforts.

Weather challenge

Allan Froese is a soybean product placement scientist for Syngenta in Western Canada and helps oversee the company’s efforts to develop new varieties.

Changing weather patterns have always been a challenge when it comes to seed breeding efforts, he says, but those efforts have become even more challenging of late, with drought and large rain events becoming more commonplace.

“That significantly affects how we can understand how our products will perform … and definitely makes for more of a challenge,” he says.

“Something we’ve been focusing on for several years now is finding products that have broad-acre adaptability that can handle stressful conditions. In order to achieve that, we’ve put a large focus on improving the disease tolerance of our varieties. We want to make sure that as the climate changes… we’re bringing products that can deal with those changing environments.”

As a result, Froese says, Syngenta is now conducting more trials across a larger geography, to ensure the company has a better understanding of how a new product will perform in a wider variety of conditions.

In the near term, Syngenta will be offering varieties containing the Enlist E3 and XtendFlex herbicide tolerance traits. The Enlist E3 platform provides tolerance to 2,4-D, glyphosate and glufosinate herbicides while XtendFlex offers dicamba, glyphosate and glufosinate tolerance. Froese says while some companies will only provide one or the other platform, Syngenta is committed to providing growers choice by offering both trait technologies.

Changing climate

Liz Knutson is the Canadian marketing leader for Corteva Agriscience. Knutson says the company has always been focused on conducting extensive localized breeding and testing to deliver varieties that perform across a wide range of geographies and environments. The upside to that, she says, is that with an ever-changing climate, products that were suitable in one region may suddenly be an appropriate fit elsewhere.

“Because we have those localized programs, as we see agronomic challenges shift or as we see climate patterns shift, we may already have products in the arsenal that may be easily moved or transitioned to other footprints,” she says, citing relative maturity as a good example of that.

Knutson says shifting weather patterns also means listening to what farmers have to say about their needs and potential solutions has become more important than ever.

“Our breeders are always looking forward and taking into account those changing environmental and agronomic pressures where we’re growing new varieties. That includes focusing on yield-limiting diseases and any kind of challenges our farmers might face. We want to be responsive to the market, so as we hear those concerns continue to pop up, we do our very best to address them,” says Knutson.

Corteva recently launched Pioneer brand Z-Series soybeans in Canada, a series offering 20 new varieties. It was available in limited quantities for 2024 and will get a full commercial release for 2025. It’s the fifth soybean series in Pioneer’s 50-year history and Knutson says it represents a generational leap in yield potential and superior disease resistance.

As for what the company has in its developmental pipeline, Knutson would only say Corteva’s next round of soybean product launches will be enhancements on products that are already available.

“We’re really honoured every time a farmer chooses a Corteva-branded product. That’s why we continue to put $4 million a day into our R&D pipeline,” she says.

Important efforts

Stephen Denys is director of market and product development for Maizex Seeds, a southwestern Ontario seed company that sells corn and soybean into Western Canada.

Maizex has one of the largest pre-commercial testing programs in the country and every new variety it develops or licenses must go through a rigorous screening process. Denys says those efforts have become even more important as the climate has continued to evolve.

“One of the reasons we do multiple years of testing is to find varieties that are consistent over differing environments and geographies,” he says. “That way we get to see things under a different range of environmental conditions, and you try to commercialize something that’s going to give a consistent performance, whether it’s a drier year or a wet year.”

One of the results of climate change is a corresponding evolution in disease pressure, Denys says.

As a result, testing new products can’t just focus on agronomics but also the disease front, to make sure seed products evolve as the environment evolves, he adds. In Manitoba, for instance, iron chlorosis tolerance is necessity, but testing also covers sclerotinia and other diseases.

In terms of future soybean releases, Maizex is looking to add new Xtend and Enlist varieties with 2,4-D and Liberty tolerance and with early maturity over the next three to four years.

It’s also planning to launch an Xtend HT4 package that would provide tolerances to dicamba, 2,4-D, Liberty, glyphosate and another herbicide all in the same bundle.

Adapting to changes

Nikki Vercaigne is the campaign marketing manager for DeKalb West with Bayer CropScience. She says the company’s priority for developing new soybean varieties is to focus on products with increased yield potential and a strong disease resistance package that are a fit with growers.

Vercaigne says Bayer’s breeding program takes into consideration the impact of climate change on how the company develops those new products.

“We continue to adapt our research protocols and trial locations to adapt to the changing environmental conditions, specifically looking at heat units and rainfall to maximize soybean genetic potential,” she says.

“Our development pipeline also takes into consideration anticipating future agronomic challenges to help ensure we’re supporting future grower needs with soybean varieties that help solve those challenges.”

DeKalb’s newest soybean release is the DKB007-91XF variety which is being launched for the 2025 growing season. It’s a high-yield-potential variety with medium bushy architecture, strong emergence, great standability and the XtendFlex herbicide system that offers glyphosate, dicamba and glufosinate tolerance.

It’s also looking to launch its own HT4 soybean package within the next three to five years. It would be the company’s first soybean trait system to offer tolerance to five different herbicide active ingredients that Vercaigne says would give growers greater application flexibility to help manage resistant or tough to control weeds.

The post Changing weather, changing varieties appeared first on Grainews.

Since the 2017 peak, soybean area has dropped, with western Canadian area at 1.49 million acres this year. That drop since 2017 has been mostly due to challenging growing conditions and strong prices for other crops. Although genetic improvement in soybeans has continued over the past seven years, economic conditions have reduced soybean area.

Most of the increase in soybean area has been driven by the development of suitable varieties for the growing conditions in the northern U.S. and southern Prairies. The improvement in genetics has resulted in the expansion of cropped area. Climate change has also played a role in the soybean acreage expansion.

There have been many studies that have examined the changes to the climate in Western Canada over the past couple of decades. A review of the research on climate change in the agricultural growing regions in Canada was conducted by Mapfumo et al. in the Canadian Journal of Plant Science in 2023. The authors examined the research to date of the parameters that are important to producing crops.

Of the factors examined the in the review, the three most critical parameters for soybean production are growing season precipitation, growing season length and air temperatures during the growing season. The research indicates that changes in all three parameters have occurred over the past 100 years.

Some rain must fall

Every farmer knows precipitation is the critical element for producing crops on the Prairies. The weather during the past two growing seasons certainly proves the point that “rain makes grain.” Research indicates that growing season precipitation has increased since 1900. In Alberta’s agricultural region it has increased by 18 mm over the period beginning in 1900. In another study, Prairie rainfall has increased by 39.2 mm over the growing season in the period from 1956 to 1995.

The increase in precipitation is welcome news for soybean production in the coming years. Soybean yields are generally directly related to the amount of moisture received during the growing season. Rains are very critical during August for soybeans, when the crop is going through its reproductive growth stage. The general increase in growing season precipitation should translate to increased precipitation during August.

Change of season

Growing season length is the second most critical factor in producing crops in Western Canada. This is particularly true for soybeans, which are vulnerable to an early-season frost. Western Canada has seen its growing season increase by between three and 12 days, using data from 1920 to 2020.

Frost dates have also changed in Western Canada with the median spring frost earlier by 11.1 days and the fall frost dates were later by 9.4 days. A longer growing season allows soybeans to expand their footprint in the Prairies.

Growing by degrees

The heat experienced over the past two growing seasons has certainly brought temperatures to the forefront in terms of risk to crops. The maximum air temperatures have been increasing by 2.4 to 3.6 C during the period from 1950 to 2010.

The increase in maximum temperatures is probably the largest concern for soybean production in the future. Although temperatures during the growing season are expected to be higher than current levels, soybean yields are not likely to be significantly impacted by the higher temperatures.

The warmer temperatures are also expected to increase the growing degree days (GDD). GDDs have increased by 95 days in the Prairies over the period between 1948 to 2016. Another study in Alberta indicated GDDs increased by 77.5 (6.2 per cent) during the period from 1901 to 2002. The increase in growing degree days is essential in expanding the soybean area in Western Canada.

In conclusion, climate change is expected to expand the soybean growing area in Western Canada. With the increase in area, soybean production in Western Canada during the coming years. Economic factors will play a large role in determining the extent of the acreage expansion. The drop in soybean area over the past five years has been largely due to deteriorating prices for soybeans relative to competing crops.

The post Prairie soybean crops stand to benefit in changing climate appeared first on Grainews.

It’s far beyond dispute that Earth’s climate is changing — in part due to natural factors over time such as changes in the sun’s radiation and the occasional volcano, but mainly due to what we, the people, have done and continue to do, coughing out gases that warm the planet at rates exceeding our capacity to adapt and protect ourselves accordingly.

It’s also clear that while disasters such as wildfire, floods, drought, storms and heat waves have always been around, climate change has exacerbated those — both in frequency and intensity. And when people lose homes, businesses and more, as has happened in recent months and years in Jasper, Fort McMurray, B.C.’s Fraser Valley, the Maritime provinces and elsewhere in Canada and worldwide, I wouldn’t want to be the one on Facebook claiming it’s all a hoax and these tragedies would have happened there sooner or later anyway.

What’s more, I’m definitely not going to be the one getting in those people’s faces saying, “But hey, soon we’ll have clear sailing through the Northwest Passage.”

Or, “But hey, just think how much farther north and west we can grow soybeans.”

When we talk about climate change in the pages ahead, we’re talking about adaptation. That is, not every part of the world that already produces soybeans will be able to do so indefinitely. So if we — now, or someday soon — can reliably grow them across the Prairies and the crop is deemed of sufficient food, feed and industrial market value to fairly compensate growers for the effort, then it’s worth considering.

A key word there, of course, is “reliably.” As you’ll see in these pages, seed developers now want to improve the adaptability of their varieties as the conditions for ideal production ebb and flow, and are expanding their testing range for those varieties, to get a clearer picture of performance under those varying conditions and disease pressures.

Opportunities here in the West aren’t lost on these companies, either. It’s now not unheard of for a variety that underperformed in trials in Ontario and Quebec to find new life in markets across Manitoba and points west, if that variety’s maturity is sufficiently early.

If the time and money spent developing new varieties are now more likely to produce a return on investment, and to save work and germplasm otherwise headed for the scrap heap, that’s certainly good news.

Just don’t call it the bright side.

The post Editor’s Rant: Seeds, saved appeared first on Grainews.

Canola area continues to be the leader in Western Canada, with a total of 21.9 million acres sown this year according to Statistics Canada. This is over 3.2 million acres higher than spring wheat, which is the second most popular crop grown in the Prairies. Although canola is still weighted to the northern and central growing areas of the Prairies, improving drought resistance has resulted in canola becoming a crop grown universally across the region.

Many studies have examined the changes to the climate in Western Canada over the past couple of decades. A review of the research on climate change in the agricultural growing regions in Canada was conducted by Mapfumo et al. in the Canadian Journal in Plant Science in 2023. The authors examined the research to date of the parameters that are important to producing crops.

Of the factors examined the in the review, the three most critical parameters for canola production are growing season precipitation; growing season length; and air temperatures during the growing season. The research indicates changes in all three parameters have occurred over the past 100 years.

Oil and water

Every farmer knows precipitation is the critical element for producing crops on the Prairies. The weather during the past two growing seasons certainly proves the point that “rain makes grain.” Research indicates that growing season precipitation has increased since 1900. In Alberta’s agricultural region it has increased by 18 mm over the period beginning in 1900. In another study, Prairie rainfall has increased by 39.2 mm over the growing season in the period from 1956 to 1995. The increase in precipitation is welcome news for canola production in the coming years. Canola yields are generally directly related to the amount of moisture received during the growing season.

The increase in moisture during the growing season may increase disease pressure on canola. Insect pressure may also increase with the wetter growing conditions and increased temperatures. Insect pressure may also be increased by warmer winter weather and decreasing snow cover.

The western window

Growing season length is the second most critical factor in producing crops in Western Canada. This is particularly true for canola, which still has significant acreage in northern growing regions. Western Canada has seen the growing season increase by between three and 12 days, using data from 1920 to 2020.

Frost dates have also changed in Western Canada with the median spring frost earlier by 11.1 days and the fall frost dates were later by 9.4 days. A longer growing season adds yield potential for canola. The extension of the frost dates in the fall should also improve crop quality.

Growing by degrees

The heat experienced over the past two growing seasons has certainly brought temperatures to the forefront in terms of risk to crops. The maximum air temperatures have been increasing by between 2.4 and 3.6 C during the period from 1950 to 2010. The increase in maximum temperatures is probably the largest concern for canola production in the future. Although the temperatures during the growing season are expected to be higher than current levels, canola yields are not likely to be significantly impacted by the higher temperatures.

In conclusion, climate change is expected to have a mostly positive impact on canola production in Western Canada during the coming years. The net benefit of increased moisture and longer growing season will more than offset any negative impacts from increased disease and insect pressure.

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