The French manufacturer’s new 5640s have a redesigned frame that “optimizes” weight and strength, allowing them to perform better in wet field conditions. Hydraulic positive stop depth control is now standard. It allows the operator to adjust the depth of each section independently.

The 5640 cultivators keep Kuhn’s floating hitch design, which lifts the gauge wheels off the ground during road transport, eliminating castor wobble at road speeds. The frame now has a narrower transport width as well.

There is a choice of spring or K-Tine mounts fitted with either edge-on or flat shanks. There are six different configurations of levelling attachments, including a new anti-tangle, five-row spike tooth harrow and a new optional hydraulic reel lift. The company claims these levelling attachments can easily handle both heavy residue and wet conditions.

Kuhn has added two wider working widths at the top end of the 5640 line, 56- and 60-foot models. In all, the 5640 models are available in 20.5- to 60.5-foot working widths.

The post Kuhn introduces the 5640 field cultivator appeared first on Grainews.

Curtis Cavers, an agronomist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based at Portage la Prairie, Man., says there are ways to boost crop productivity in these problem areas.

Cavers provided an assessment of several practices that can help, in a presentation he delivered at the Manitoba Agronomists’ Conference held in Winnipeg in December and later in an interview with Grainews.

More fertilizer

One obvious solution is to apply more fertilizer. Cavers says it’s one of the more effective short-term fixes for restoring productivity on eroded knolls. He notes it’s also relatively quick and easy for farmers to do, as it doesn’t require a big change in management practices.

The biggest drawback, however, is cost. Because fertilizer is expensive, Cavers says, “you want to make that as much of an informed decision as possible before you go and spend a lot of money on something like that.”

Cavers recommends testing the soil to see if additional fertilization will be effective. Farmers need to be aware that for some badly eroded soils —sandier soils or those with very little soil organic matter, for example — no amount of fertilizer is likely to restore its original productivity, he says.

In some instances, farmers may opt to not apply any fertilizer at all on eroded knolls, as a way to minimize their losses. However, he says, this can make it more difficult to improve these areas later, if that’s something they decide to do.

“If you are purposely shorting these areas for some nutrients, it’s going to be really hard to get a stand reestablished there.”

Farmers may also consider applying livestock manure to improve eroded hilltop areas; Cavers says solid manure especially is an excellent source of organic matter.

Some potential drawbacks include the risk of over-application and odours associated with livestock manure. He says the practice also requires patience, since it take time for the benefits of manure applications to be fully realized.

More seed

Because eroded knolls tend to be inhospitable for crops, it can be tough to get a good stand established in those areas after seeding, especially in dry conditions. Cavers says one possible solution for farmers is to crank up their seeding rates.

As Cavers points out, larger plant stands are more competitive against weeds, and they also help to reduce evaporation and store more moisture in the soil. The crop residues left behind at harvest also act to increase organic carbon in parts of the field where it’s needed most.

“Say you double your seeding rate in some of these cases, there’s a chance you’ll get a better stand in an area where more plants are needed to do that,” Cavers says.

READ MORE: It pays to adjust seeding rate based on moisture

When soils are really poor, however, increasing seeding rates may not make much difference.

“It’s going to be very site-specific from place to place, even from one hilltop to another in the same field. Some places are going to be more severe than others.”

Cavers notes cost is another consideration for farmers. “For less expensive seed, this might be attractive as a short-term fix. For some expensive seeds like canola, it may not be quite as appealing,” he says.

More water

Another fix Cavers cites is to supply more water to eroded knolls through irrigation.

“This can overcome a slew of limitations and setbacks, even in soils we would probably classify as not being particularly healthy,” he says. “If they’re kept moist and there’s a reasonable supply of water, they can produce crops better than one would expect.”

Cavers sees this as a more feasible solution for farmers who already have irrigated cropping systems in place than for those who don’t.

A big reason for that is cost. As Cavers points out, irrigation systems cost a great deal to install, and there are other considerations such as water availability and getting the necessary regulatory approvals. Also, not all farmland is suitable for irrigation.

“With some steeply sloping land or land that doesn’t hold a lot of moisture, now you’ve got to watch out for risks like salinization and runoff.

“Like a lot of things, we can recommend practices to make things better, but the devil is in the details. If you’re not careful, things could be made worse if you don’t check all of the possible outcomes.”

Redistribute crop residues

Cavers notes crop residues can be an important source of nutrients and organic matter and can also help to reduce evaporation and runoff and conserve moisture in fields. Redistributing these residues so there’s more of this material on eroded hilltops is another way to increase productivity in these areas.

Because crop residues are a readily available resource, this can be something relatively quick and easy for farmers to do if they have the right equipment.

He notes one method would be baling straw from lower parts of a field and transporting it to hilltop areas, where the material could be broken up and moved around. Cavers cautions, though, that putting down too much straw at the wrong time could do more harm than good.

“If you add too much, you can quickly make a mess of the seed bed and have problems develop because of that.”

Cavers says he believes a better method could be to focus on redistributing chaff instead, using equipment such as a chaff collection unit attached to a combine.

“Not many people have those, so you may not want to invest in that until you see if this concept has traction in your situation. You might be better even just to play around a bit at the start with your harrows,” he says.

Grow cover crops

Most farmers are familiar with the many benefits of cover cropping for improving the quality of soil, reducing runoff and conserving moisture in problem areas.

If that area is an eroded hilltop, though, Cavers cautions cover crops on their own may not be the ideal solution for producers aiming to restore productivity.

These are usually the driest and most difficult parts of a field to try to get any crop established, he says, which means producers need to have realistic expectations around growing cover crops there.

READ MORE: Cover cropping on the Prairies

Cavers says farmers shouldn’t expect to see a 100 per cent success rate with this practice, especially at first, and he maintains cover cropping is best used in combination with other methods for boosting productivity in eroded hilltop areas.

Move topsoil

Cavers is a proponent of landscape restoration, which involves moving topsoil from the lowest areas of a field where it accumulates over time and placing it in the highest areas where it’s needed most.

“You’re taking it from a place that could probably stand to have it removed and not have a major long-term negative impact,” Cavers says, “and then you’re putting it up on the hilltops where we hope it would have the biggest and longest-term positive impact.”

Since 2020, Cavers has been conducting field trials at several Manitoba sites as part of his research into the effectiveness of landscape restoration. His current practice is to scrape off six to eight inches of topsoil from low areas and spread it around on topsoil-deprived areas higher up.

Taking too big of a cut out of the low areas might create an artificial pothole where water will pond, though, so farmers wanting to try this practice need to be mindful of that. They should also be aware it can take a year or two for soil biological activity to be restored and for productivity to return to normal in areas where topsoil is removed.

Cavers recommends transplanted topsoil be firmed up a bit once in place on eroded hilltops and that farmers then avoid doing tillage in the affected area.

“Try and do what you need to create a nice seed bed and give crops you’re going to plant up there as much opportunity for success as possible,” he says.

“If you’re practicing low disturbance no till or you’re very strategic in how you till once you move that topsoil up to the hilltops, hopefully it will stay there as long as possible.”

Cavers notes it’s important to ensure topsoil used for this purpose isn’t taken from saline areas, because salinity will make it even more difficult for crops to become established.

According to Cavers, restoring the landscape this way results in an immediate increase in soil organic matter, and it can be a one-time practice if it’s done right.

But he says farmers still need to have realistic expectations; in really dry years, for instance, there won’t necessarily be a positive yield response.

“Again, I want to temper people’s expectations. It’s not like you’ll do it once and now you’ve got the same or similar yields up on top than you do at the bottom,” Cavers says.

“The potential is there, but it might take a year or two of things settling and just getting everything lined up and doing what it’s supposed to do.”

Cavers says he sees landscape restoration as kind of a foundational practice for restoring the productivity of eroded hilltops and increasing field uniformity.

“You get the soils fixed as best you can first, and you can then overlay a conscious tillage practice going forward, whether that’s low disturbance no-till or very strategic tillage,” he says.

“Then you can layer one of the other practices on top of that. Whether it’s residue management or cover crops or being more strategic with your inputs, these are all things you can do to tweak the situation so that you’ve got a better chance of increasing productivity.”

The post Restore productivity on your eroded knolls appeared first on Grainews.

“There’s a lot of different dynamics going on with the water balance in the Prairies,” says Phillip Harder, research director and hydrologist at Croptimistic Technologies.

In addition to summer rains during the growing season adding water to the system, there’s also evaporation from the soil and transpiration from the crops removing it, he explains.

Water then flows through runoff, subsurface flow and groundwater interactions, continuously cycling in and out of the system. And the other big consideration for water management on the Canadian Prairies is, of course, winter.

“Depending on the year, you can have eight calendar months in a row, where you’ve got snow on the ground,” Harder notes. “This is where a lot of our agro-hydrology understandings can fall apart, when we’re looking at other regions that don’t have the same winter processes.”

Water use efficiency

Harder talks a lot about water use efficiency (WUE) — which measures how effectively a crop uses water to produce yield. It’s often expressed as bushels per acre per inch of water.

Though it can vary significantly from crop to crop, it tends to remain fairly stable within a given crop type, meaning there’s little that a farmer can do to improve on that ratio.

The important thing to remember, though, is that water doesn’t have to come from precipitation during the growing season. It can also come from spring snowmelt or groundwater. So, a field that saw very little rain could still produce a good crop if there is sufficient moisture in the ground from other sources — and growers do have some limited control over that.

“We need to understand our productivity in our particular year. We need to understand our multi-year soil moisture legacies, not just the growing season rainfall,” Harder says. “It’s a complex story, but we have tools to manage these things.”

Holding on to your snow

One simple and effective tool growers can use is retaining winter snowpack with crop stubble. 

“If you leave taller standing stubble in the field, you increase the aerodynamic roughness, and it basically will trap your snow where it is,” Harder explains. That’s fairly intuitive, but what might be less obvious are the implications stubble management has on sublimation.

“In places like Regina, with wide-open plains, you can have a fair bit of snow, but you also have those really intense winds,” he said. “When snow is blowing through a field, you’re losing a lot of snow straight back into the atmosphere.”

In a fallow field with no resistance, only about 23 per cent of the snow remains on the landscape, Harder says. If that same field had stubble, it could hold onto roughly 48 per cent of that snow.

In terms of water retention, Harder notes if you increase your stubble height from zero to 50 cm, on average, there would be 50 mm of water available for the crops.

“In a water-limited environment, an extra inch or two of moisture can make a difference,” he notes. However, Harder points out the impact would be less in areas with more shelter, where blowing snow is less of a concern.

Keeping water in the landscape

Another strategy farmers can employ to help them hold on to moisture is by maintaining the water already in the landscape.

“This is where your soil residues come into play,” Harder says. “If you’re able to increase the residue retention on your surface, you will basically disconnect the vapour pressure gradient between your soil and the atmosphere, and you will suppress soil evaporation.”

In other words, if you keep it covered, the water doesn’t evaporate nearly as much. The challenge is that the hydrologic implications of residue management are inconsistent. For example, tillage of a dry field doesn’t change anything, but tillage of a wet field does.

“You have to be aware what the starting point of your soil moisture is,” Harder says. “There’s a general rule of thumb that for every 10 per cent increase in cover, you might be able to reduce your soil evaporation by five per cent.”

Those numbers might sound small, but as Harder points out, they all add up.

Leveraging topography to your advantage

The topography of the land is another area producers will often look at as the hand they’ve been dealt — but there are ways to make the topography work for them.

The key, Harder says, is slowing down the water as much as possible and having it infiltrate the soil.

There are limitations. Hilltops lack the water-holding capacity of low-lying areas. Farmers could dig ditches or level hilltops, but there are easier, passive methods that require far less diesel. For example, Harder highlights the role of crop residue.

“A thick crop residue layer will really slow down water movement, and everything you can do to slow down water movement gives it the opportunity to infiltrate,” he says, noting that refraining from tillage is the obvious first step a grower can take.

“The reason we have saturated depressions comes down to that snowmelt infiltration period, so more residue slows things down, and that lets it infiltrate in place,” he added. “That’s an easy one.”

Harder said farmers could also try to leave taller stubble on hilltops and shorter stubble in the depressions — although that could be a problem because dry hilltops might not have the biomass to support that strategy.

Another way to take advantage of the landscape is variable seeding rates based on topography.

“Maybe you want to scale back your seeding rates on your hilltops, so there’s less water demand, and amp up seeding rates in depressions,” Harder offers. “It really depends on the crop type.”

Similarly, intercropping can be used. For example, a producer could plant a water-loving crop such as canola in the depressions, where it can soak up excess water, while planting something like lentils on the hilltop.

“There’s different strategies out there, but at the end of the day, there’s a lot you can do besides ditching,” Harder says.

The post Retain your rain appeared first on Grainews.

His field observations in the 2021 growing season, followed by on-farm research trials through 2022 and 2023, produced data to support a recommendation to leave taller crop stubble. Even a couple of extra inches will trap more snow, which will increase soil moisture and lead to higher yields.

“The research showed that every extra inch of stubble height can serve to trap more snow and lead to more moisture for the crop the following year,” says Palmier, owner of Max Ag Consulting at Plenty, about 70 kilometres northeast of Kindersley. “Our 2023 research showed that every extra one inch of crop stubble can increase canola yield by 1.1 bushels per acre.”

He notes there are several variables — there must be snow to start with — but the field trial showed that grain stubble left even two inches taller can result in a canola crop producing two more bushels of oilseed per acre. At about $13 per bushel, that’s a value of about $26 more per acre. The only management change needed is to raise the combine header two inches higher.

Palmier’s look into the value of stubble height began with a couple of harvest situations in fall 2021, which led to the on-farm research trial in 2022. The growing season was dry in 2021, but in one area there was moisture before harvest that caused a lot of volunteer regrowth in one canola field. It was difficult to harvest the standing crop, resulting in a lot of tall stubble.

In another situation, again due to the dry growing season, a producer left part of his canola crop unharvested because of poor yields. Both cases left tall or fairly heavy standing crop residue that trapped and held snow.

“In the early part of harvest in 2022, the yield data showed that something was affecting yield on these fields that had standing stubble and unharvested crop from the previous year,” says Palmier. “Were higher yields in these areas due to taller stubble trapping more snow and ultimately more moisture for the subsequent crop?”

Working with the producer, he launched the on-farm research trial that fall to find out.

Good support from client

Palmier was working with a client who was anxious to learn more about the value of crop height and trapping snow to improve yield. That producer had already invested in two types of harvest systems — two combines equipped with stripper headers and one with a conventional header.

The plan was to establish field scale plots of about 20 acres with varying stubble height in a field of durum wheat. Some plots were harvested with the stripper header, leaving stubble as tall as possible, and other plots were harvested with a combine equipped with a conventional header.

“It’s common for many producers to leave stubble about eight to 10 inches tall,” says Palmier. “The producer I was working with didn’t want to cut the durum crop that short. He was pretty confident that taller stubble could trap more snow, so he wanted to capture as much moisture as possible and still provide a comparison.

“So, the stubble with the conventional combine was cut a bit taller than average but not as tall as the stripper header stubble.”

Palmier says durum stubble height was 18 to 20 inches in stripper header plots and 12 to 14 inches in the conventional header plots. The producer was already using variable rate technology in his fields.

A VR mapping system had identified 10 different production zones on the field and research plots were established in several of those zones. The producer was already using Bayer’s Climate Fieldview technology with GPS tracking, so it was used to measure and mark 20-acre plots for the project.

The durum field was harvested in fall 2022 with 20-acre plots all in the same field. Some were harvested with the stripper header and others with a conventional header. All that was needed was snow, and it did come.

“There was a fairly early snowfall in the fall of 2022, which was captured in the stubble,” says Palmier. “And prevailing winds are important as well. Typically, in this area, winds are from the west, but in the winter of 2022/23, we also had winds from the east. As winds change direction, they help to carry more snow into the stubble.”

He says it is important to note that the 2022 growing season and harvest conditions were extremely dry, so there was no immediate topsoil moisture heading into winter. Without moisture, the soil didn’t freeze so it was receptive when the snow did melt. There was no run-off.

Measuring snow density

The field was left for the fall and winter until February 2023, when Palmier measured the amount of snow and moisture held in the various stubble heights.

“For the snow survey, we collected 10 snow samples from both conventional and stripper stubbles to weigh for snow density,” he says. “We also measured 30 points in both stubbles for snow heights to estimate the average snow height in both treatments. By combining both these measurements, we could then understand what our average snow water equivalent was in the two treatments.”

Palmier noted snow density in the stubble varied between the two harvest treatments. The snow in the stripper header stubble had about 25 per cent moisture, while the conventional stubble had about 27 per cent moisture. He suspects the difference in density was due to the conventional stubble moving more with the wind, allowing the snow to settle, while the stripper header stubble was more rigid.

“Even though the snow in the conventional stubble had more density, there was less of it,” says Palmier. “Whereas the snow caught in the stripper stubble was less dense, but there was more of it due to increased stubble height. Ultimately the stripper header stubble held 20 mm more moisture than the conventional stubble.”

After the snow survey, the field was left until seeding. As spring approached, snow in the stripper header stubble melted sooner than that in the conventional stubble, likely because there was more exposed stubble on the stripper header plots to attract solar energy. Because the ground wasn’t frozen, any moisture went straight into the soil.

Soil moisture probes are key

The final bit of important technology needed to monitor the research project was an on-farm weather station outfitted with soil moisture probes. The project used a Crop Intelligence RealmFive weather station that wirelessly connected to two John Deere moisture probes.

“We set the weather station up at the edge of the field and placed the two soil moisture probes in the same field. One was placed in the stripper stubble plots and one in conventional stubble plots,” says Palmier.

The field was seeded to canola with a disc drill on May 16, and the soil moisture probes were installed May 21. The probes were connected wirelessly to the RealmFive weather station by a flex station, which pulls data from the probe. The station contains a modem and SIM card, where it can upload data to the cloud. It is stored and processed on Crop Intelligence’s platform.

The John Deere soil moisture probes have six sensor points at varying depths along the 100 cm length of the probe. Palmier used a three-inch diameter handheld auger to create a hole the right depth for the probe. To ensure proper soil contact, he first made a slurry of soil and water to fill the hole and then pushed the probe into the slurry.

Once in soil, the probes’ sensors provide soil moisture readings at intervals from 10 cm to 20 cm, 30 cm, 50 cm, 70 cm and 100 cm (from four inches to 40 inches). He says it is important to know the soil type to understand its moisture-holding capacity. Clay soil, for example, will have a plant wilting point with a reading of 20 per cent soil moisture and a maximum moisture-holding capacity of 50 per cent moisture. Sandy loam, on the other hand, will have a wilting point of eight per cent moisture and a maximum holding capacity of 32 per cent moisture.

“It is important to know soil texture,” says Palmier. “The probe will only tell you how much moisture is present, so if it says 32 per cent and you have sandy loam soil, you know the soil is at moisture-holding capacity, but if it is 32 per cent and your soil is more clay, you know you are a long way from moisture-holding capacity. “

For the 2023 growing season, Palmier measured about 20 mm (roughly 0.8 inch) more plant available moisture at the start of the year on the stripper header strips than on the conventional header strips.

The rest of the growing season was not particularly kind to the crop. From May until mid-August, there were just over 82 mm (three inches) of rainfall. The biggest rainfall after June 3 amounted to 11 mm, or less than half an inch. Overall, it was about 39 per cent of the average growing season rainfall. And on top of dry conditions, there were plenty of hot days. Between June 5 and Aug. 15, 22 days were 30 C or hotter.

On the field with alternating strips of crop grown on tall and shorter stubble, canola plants showed a difference in growth pattern. Palmier says the roots on two treatments reached the 10- and 20-cm depths at about the same time. After that, the crop seeded on the stripper header stubble reached 30 cm two days earlier, and 50 and 70 cm depths six days earlier than the short stubble crop.

“That tells me the crop on stripper header stubble appeared to be more vigorous. It had moisture but also the taller stubble most likely helped to reduce abiotic stress factors by providing more shade to plants and protecting plants from the wind and other stressors,” says Palmier.

He also found that the crop on the stripper header stubble started the year with more moisture and ended the growing season with less soil moisture than the shorter stubble crop. Again, it was an indicator of more robust plants that developed more roots and used more moisture.

Overall, the crop with taller stubble yielded six to eight more bushels per acre than crop grown on shorter stubble.

Palmier says not every farm can handle stubble that’s 15 to 20 inches tall, because not every seeding system can work through that much standing crop residue.

“But the point is, if a producer can leave stubble even two or three inches taller — go from eight to 10 or from 10 to 12 inches — it can make a difference in how much snow is trapped and how much moisture is available to the crop.”

“There are only so many things we can control, but we can set things up to take advantage of snow and moisture if or when it does come,” says Palmier. “And particularly during extremely dry conditions, every little bit helps. Small changes in management can make a difference.”

Palmier planned to monitor fields with crops seeded into different stubble heights during the 2024 growing season as well.

The post Research confirms value of taller crop stubble appeared first on Grainews.

In recent years, a combination of practices that include cover crops and strip tillage have helped to hold the soil in place as row crops grown under irrigation are established on his farm near Enchant, about 45 minutes north of Lethbridge.

Controlling weeds can be a challenge, but he’s hoping in future, as more herbicides are registered for use for drone application, he will have the option to make spot spraying treatments. “Or maybe there will be robotic weed whackers we can program and send out to the field,” he says.

Kolk, who along with family members, owns and operates Kolk Farms Conrich Ltd., says he was pleased with erosion control measures applied on their farm in 2024.

“We didn’t have any soil moving this spring,” says Kolk. “By the time the canola emerged, the barley cover crop was already up and the barley protected the canola. We had howling winds but the barley saved the canola. I know others in the area who had to reseed. These aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions. You have to figure out what works for your farm, with your crops and your growing conditions.”

The issue at hand is that conventional tillage practices, required to work down crop residue and prepare soil for seeding row crops such as corn, dry beans and seed canola, can leave the soil exposed to prevailing southern Alberta winds. Those winds can rip across Prairie farmland with intensity ranging from 50-70 to even 100 km/h or more. The winds pick up soil that literally sandblasts crop seedlings; wind shear can cut cotyledons off at the stem.

READ ALSO: Opposing exposure to erosion

Kolk started looking at strip tillage and cover crops in 2020 and now, four seasons later, he uses different practices depending on the crop. He uses strip tillage for seed canola, dry bean and grain corn crops.

Kolk went with a Yetter Maverick HR Plus strip tillage tool to prepare the soil for row-crop planting. It’s 22 feet wide, with 12 rows, which matches the width and row spacing of his planter.

On each row of the strip tillage tool bar is a 20-inch diameter cutting coulter, to manage residue. It’s followed by a row cleaner blade — and that’s followed by a knife opener that can be outfitted for liquid and dry fertilizer application. His unit included roller baskets at the back that further till and condition the soil.

Ultimately the strip tillage tool disturbs about an eight- to 10-inch strip of soil in each seed row, leaving the area between seed rows undisturbed. The value is that the treatment exposes only about 30 per cent of the field to the risk of erosion, instead of the whole field.

Kolk tries to follow a four-year crop rotation that includes grassy (corn or cereal), broadleaf (flax or canola) and pulse (beans or peas) crops, then back to grassy (cereal or corn). He grows a seed canola crop, under production contract, about once every five years.

Grain corn, seed canola and dry beans are all row crops seeded on 22-inch row spacing with a vacuum planter. Crop fertility is applied at different times. All irrigated land receives manure in rotation, which needs to be incorporated.

Along with manure, a liquid starter fertilizer is applied at seeding with the vacuum planter. Then, in-crop, more fertility is added as needed through the irrigation system. With corn and seed canola, fertilizer can be applied during the strip tillage operation, which places fertilizer six to eight inches deep, with the crop to be seeded three to four inches above the fertilizer.

“We try to follow the four Rs when it comes to crop fertility,” says Kolk. “The right rate, right source, right placement and right timing.”

Variable crop residue

Row-crop production results in a feast or famine when it comes to crop residue at harvest. With grain corn, for example, there can be too much crop residue after harvest, making it difficult for planters to work through corn stalks the following year, so tillage is needed to work down the corn residue.

With other row crops such as dry beans and seed canola there is often very little residue to provide ground cover.

While Kolk didn’t go overboard with conventional tillage, depending on the year some fields were treated with a vertical tillage tool, and manure also needed to be lightly incorporated into the soil. Generally after harvest he tried to leave most fields undisturbed.

Then in spring, depending on the field or crop, there could be a pass with a cultivator along with a heavy harrow packing before seeding.

“Row crops require some tillage but we are doing our best to minimize that,” Kolk says. “We try to get by with one tillage pass instead of three, and use strip tillage so we’re only disturbing soil on one-third of the field — treatments like that.”

Using a combination of a cover crop and strip tillage with seed canola appears to have a good fit. For weed control, he applies and incorporates granular Edge herbicide before the canola crop is seeded. In that pass, he broadcast-applies the herbicide along with barley, which will serve as the cover crop — both are lightly worked into the soil.

“We seed the barley with the Edge application,” Kolk says. “Then about a week and a half before seeding we make a pass with the strip tillage tool. The barley is up just as the canola is emerging and there is enough barley growth to keep the wind off the canola.”

With seed canola, the strip tillage tool runs about six inches deep, to loosen, as well as firm the seed row and in the process creates just a strip of blackened soil, to warm up where the planter will follow.

Depending on the type of canola seed being produced, he’ll either spray out the barley before the canola emerges — or, if it’s a Roundup Ready canola variety, he can spray it out after the crop emerges.

Kolk uses the strip tillage tool on fields seeded to seed canola, dry beans and corn. With the cover crop working to protect canola in the spring, Kolk says cover crops might also be used to protect soil on some fields in the fall.

With dry beans, for example, usually harvested mid- to late August, the plan after harvest is to seed a winter cereal as a cover crop to help protect the soil over winter. Kolk will seed winter wheat or fall rye, to either be terminated in the spring before the following crop is seeded, or left as a grain crop.

“We are just trying to keep something green and growing after the beans,” he says. Depending on the harvest conditions and crop, there may not be enough of a seeding window on some fields after harvest to get a cover crop established before freeze-up.

While it’s still early days, he says the new system seems to be working.

“The strip tillage is doing something,” he says. “I think the fact that we are only disturbing the soil over one-third of the field, is helping to improve soil health — providing some refuge for soil microorganisms. We are not seeing our soil blow, and our yields on these fields are hitting pretty close to what we’d see under conventional tillage — sometimes more, sometimes a bit less, but pretty much on average.”

Kolk says adding manure to cropland is helping to improve soil quality. “Fortunately we are in an area where manure is available,” he adds. “We have applied manure over the past 10 to 15 years on land we bought and have done regular soil testing. So in that time we have seen soil organic matter increase from 1.4 to three per cent.

“That improvement in soil organic matter is happening sooner than many experts expect, but the combination of a proper rotation, use of cover crops, and use of manure is increasing the soil organic matter which we can measure through soil testing.”

Conservation award

Kolk was honoured earlier this year by the southern Alberta applied research association, Farming Smarter, as he was presented with the Orville Yanke Memorial Award, in recognition of soil conservation efforts over the years.

The award is named after a long-time Medicine Hat farmer, Orville Yanke, a leader in some of the conservation efforts that introduce farmers to reduced and zero till farming practices. Yanke died in 2007.

“It’s an honour to receive the award, but you feel a bit intimidated by some of the other people that have been awarded it in the past,” Kolk said at the award presentation.

He noted that since those early days of zero-till farming producers are now living in different times with different challenges. “I guess the challenges that I’ve worked with in my farming career are now also recognized as important.”

Kolk is also involved in a number of farm organizations, with a keen interest in farm policy. He says one of the weaknesses in adopting technology is that industry and government assistance programs come along after much of the early on-farm research and development has already been completed.

“Industry and government programs get on the bandwagon and provide incentives for producers to adopt new practices and technology after many of the early adopters have already spent their nickel during the early trial-and-error phase.”

It would be helpful, he says, if compensation was available for those involved at the start.

In the meantime, Kolk says he feels it’s important to share his experience with other producers.

“Farmers are always interested in what other farmers are doing,” he says. “Some producers are real pioneers when it comes to trying new practices. I don’t consider myself a pioneer. I like to see what seems to be working and then see if it has a fit on our farm. I try to share the results of what we have learned in terms of what works or hasn’t worked.”

The post Strip tillage reducing erosion risk appeared first on Grainews.

Farmers on the Prairies — and across North America — have made huge strides over the past 40 years in reducing soil losses by applying conservation farming practices such as continuous cropping along with zero and minimum tillage and direct seeding.

However, when growing row crops such as corn, potatoes, sugar beets, seed canola and, in some areas, even commodity canola, tillage is still needed to manage crop residue and prepare seed beds — and those two or sometimes three tillage operations can leave soil exposed. Then any strong winds blasting across the Prairies, especially in early spring just before or as crops are emerging, can result in blowing soil and crop damage.

Southern Alberta winds, which some days can range from 50 to 100 km/h, may blow shallow-seeded seed out of the soil — and on the fly, that soil can sandblast exposed plant seedlings, often requiring acres to be reseeded. Hilltops are particularly vulnerable.

So how do you get row crops seeded while still reducing the risk of soil erosion?

The applied research group, Farming Smarter, has a number of trials looking at the role of strip tillage as well as cover crops in protecting the soil, says Lewis Baarda, manager of field scale research trials.

More western Canadian farmers are becoming aware of strip tillage, which was developed in U.S. corn and soybean growing regions about 35 years ago.

Strip tillage takes a specially designed tillage tool that works up the soil in a strip where a crop row will be planted. While a vacuum planter is an excellent tool for seeding many row crops, it is not particularly well adapted to working through crop residue, so some degree of tillage to manage residue is needed.

From among the different designs of strip tillage machines, Farming Smarter is working with a unit that on each row has a coulter up front to cut through crop residue, followed by a row cleaner to move residue, followed by a shank opener than can be adjusted to run at various depths to loosen the seed bed and often used to place fertilizer in the seed row. A packer wheel or rolling basket, to further condition the soil, are optional features on strip tillage machines.

Baarda started with a strip tillage trial in small research plots in 2023 and this year is working with a field-scale trial.

“We are working with a producer north of Lethbridge, for example, who is seeding crops with a vacuum planter on 22-inch row spacing,” he says.

The strip tillage machine is also set on 22-inch spacing. It works up the soil disturbing about a 10-inch-wide strip of soil, leaving a 12-inch strip of undisturbed soil between the tillage rows.

“The value is that with the strip tillage tool you are only exposing between 30 and 40 per cent of the field to the risk of soil erosion, rather than 100 per cent,” he says.

In the 2024 on-farm research trial, the producer first made a pass over a 160-acre field with a strip tillage tool, at the same time placing fertilizer below the seed row. About 10 days later he came back with the vacuum planter and seeded commodity canola. This research trial will be monitored through to harvest, to see how well the crop performed.

How it’s going

Did the strip tillage treatment reduce the risk of soil erosion and crop damage? “It is only an anecdotal experience, but I believe it did make a difference,” Baarda says. “I travelled to the research trial this spring after the crop was seeded, and on that day the wind was blowing and there was a lot of soil blowing off nearby fields that were conventionally farmed and seeded, but no sign of any soil moving off the field that was strip-tilled. It wasn’t a scientific measurement, but it appeared that something made the difference.”

Baarda says from the 2023 small plot research trials, he compared a crop grown on strip tillage with other plots seeded by direct seeding, as well as conventional or full tillage.

“The results showed there really wasn’t much difference between the three treatments in terms of crop performance and yield,” he says, noting that in small plots, it’s difficult to observe whether any soil erosion occurred.

“That small research trial showed us there was really no disadvantage in using the strip tillage tool, so on a field scale level, if strip tillage helps to reduce the risk of soil erosion, that in itself is a benefit.”

Finding the cover crop fit

In other research projects, Baarda wants to see whether cover crops can be used to protect the soil after row crops have been harvested. Cereal crops and corn, for example, leave behind stubble and stalks after harvest which help protect the soil, while with row crops such as dry beans, sugar beets and potatoes, there isn’t much ground cover left once beans and root crops are harvested.

“They are what we describe as high-disturbance special crops,” he says. “And the big challenge in terms of cover crops is that potatoes and sugar beets are harvested later in the season. It doesn’t leave much time to get a cover crop established. Potatoes often come off in September, but sugar beets usually aren’t harvested until October.

“Some years we are lucky and there is no frost until quite late, but it’s not something we can count on.”

Among the options he says he hopes to try, with potatoes and sugar beets in particular, is to direct-seed or broadcast-apply either a cereal crop seed, such as barley, or winter peas or camelina, on potatoes and sugar beets during the growing season, to catch and hopefully hang in to provide a cover crop once the crop is removed.

“We did try using a planter to seed winter wheat and barley in sugar beets in June, but it might have been too late,” Baarda says. “We will try interseeding a cover crop a bit earlier. The cover crop may compete with the sugar beets a bit, but that is something we’ll have to evaluate.”

With dry beans usually harvested in August, there’s more of a window to get a cover crop growing. He says it may work to use a box seeder to plant barley in a bean field before the crop is combined, but with any field operations made before the beans are combined comes the need to protect crop quality.

“I have also heard of using drones to seed a cover crop, and that may be something to consider as well,” Baarda says. “Our objective is to try different types of cover crops at different times to see what might work the best and hopefully provide farmers some options to reduce the risk of soil erosion.”

ALSO: Erosion may be more about soil quality than wind

With increasingly volatile weather around the world being blamed on the effects of climate change, are the prevailing chinook winds across southern Alberta and the rest of the Prairies getting stronger or more intense?

While a couple of years ago there was a record-setting gust of wind as high as 204 km/h at Pincher Creek in southern Alberta, longer-term weather data shows overall that wind intensity across Western Canada has changed very little over the past 40 years.

Colorado-based weather specialist Matt Makens says the winds across Western Canada can certainly be variable from year to year, but overall fall within historical averages.

“I looked into the wind from this May/June to see how it related to the long-term normal and found this year was windier than normal across parts of Western Canada,” says Makens, an atmospheric scientist and owner of weather consulting service Makens Weather.

A timeline of winds for a portion of Alberta “shows there are some peaks and valleys with May/June winds since 1980, but the overall trend is nearly flat for the period. The actual growth of wind from year to year is 0.00055 metres per second, which is hardly anything and not really detectable.”

While it appears wind intensity isn’t necessarily stronger, he suggests longer periods of drought may be affecting soil quality and risk of erosion.

“I think one factor to consider with soil erosion in the past decade is the types/durations of drought we have been in,” he says. “Consider the 2021-2023 period of drought in Alberta, which was worse and longer than any other since 2002.

“The soils in this period were rough, making it easier to have soil losses regardless of whether the wind was stronger. To me, the bigger factor now in erosion is less about wind (since there’s little change in decades) and more about soil health, which has been notably degraded in recent years.”

The post Opposing exposure to erosion appeared first on Grainews.

However, due to variability in supply, nutrient composition and quality of these feed ingredients, there can be pitfalls if not properly managed. Below are several key areas on which producers can focus when deciding if alternative feeds are a good fit for their farm.

Match feed composition to beef cattle groups

Two of the main components to know when creating a balanced ration for beef cattle are the nutritional composition of the feedstuffs being used and their suitability for the type or group of cattle being fed. Ration-balancing tools, such as CowBytes, allow producers to input feed analysis results and ingredient costs to calculate appropriate rations that safely use alternative feeds and reduce the risk of digestive upsets.

Screenings from cereals, pulses or canola can be cost-effective sources of protein and energy in the diet for mature cattle. Care must be taken, as inconsistency between loads and the potential for toxins call for feed testing to determine the true nutritional value.

In comparison, soyhulls or beet pulp, which are byproducts of processing, typically contain a consistent amount of energy due to having a high level of digestible fibre. This makes them an excellent feed for most classes of cattle.

Feeds such as straw and oat hulls have a poor nutritional composition but can be used as fibre sources to partially substitute for forage in rations for mature cows in early and mid-gestation.

READ MORE: Balancing low cost with enough nutrition

It is recommended to restrict the use of these feeds in the diets of bred heifers — a group that requires a higher plane of nutrition to meet growth and development needs, along with the rising demands of pregnancy. Feeding high levels of straw also increases the risk of impaction.

Protein supplementation is often needed when feeding low- to medium-quality forage-based diets or grazing crop residues. Byproducts such as canola meal, soybean meal or dried distillers’ grains (DDG) are high-quality protein feeds that can be easily fed in multiple feeding scenarios and to all classes of cattle.

Supplementing cows that reach peak lactation in early spring can provide them with the added energy and protein needed to support milk production before pasture turnout.

There can be an increased risk of toxins with some alternative feeds, due to the concentration of nutrients during processing or the presence of certain conditions at harvest and storage. For example, heated or sprouted grains have an elevated risk of moulds and mycotoxins, while cereal screenings increase the danger of ergot toxicity. These contaminants can lead to reduced production performance, fertility issues and abortions in cattle. It is recommended to avoid feeding to bred heifers, pregnant cows or cow-calf pairs. Feed testing is necessary for any suspect feeds.

Think about handling and storage

Consider storage and feeding requirements before purchasing alternative feeds. Having the proper facilities and feeding infrastructure will make incorporating these feeds easier.

Handling can be a challenge when working with high-moisture feeds such as cull potatoes or fruit and vegetable waste. These types of products can freeze in cold weather, making consumption by cattle difficult.

For example, whole, frozen cull potatoes present a choking hazard when fed. To reduce this risk, the potatoes can be chopped using a tub grinder or crushed with equipment such as tractors. However, it is important to keep in mind that once processed, storage time is greatly reduced.

In addition, high-moisture products tend to ferment rapidly, especially when temperatures warm up. This creates potential spoilage issues, so it is recommended to feed quickly unless ensiled.

Feeds such as chaff, oat hulls or screenings can be bulky to transport and store. Covered commodity sheds can help reduce feed losses when compared to outside storage. The storage facilities used should be functional and well-maintained.

These feeds are also dusty and ideally fed as part of a total mixed ration (TMR) with a wet ingredient or water included in the mix.

When thinking of on-farm ration preparation and feed delivery, consider the mixing characteristics of the novel feed, such as particle size, shape and density. Feeds with a fine particle size should be combined with other ingredients in a TMR to allow for the greatest utilization of the product. In contrast, larger particle feeds can be either fed on their own or mixed with other ingredients as part of a balanced ration.

What about costs — do they add up?

It is key to compare feeds on an equal nutrient basis, not simply on purchase price. This allows for a direct comparison between feeds. Consider the scenarios below (nutrient values expressed on a dry matter (DM) basis):

• Two protein sources are available: Source 1 contains 30 per cent protein and costs $350/tonne, while source 2 costs $375/tonne and contains 38 per cent protein. The cost per unit of protein for source 1 is $1.17/kg. In comparison, the cost per unit of protein is 99 cents/kg for source 2. Therefore, although protein source 1 is purchased at a lower price, it will end up costing more to feed the same amount of protein per head per day when compared to source 2.
• Assume corn grain is priced at $248/tonne and contains 88 per cent total digestible nutrients (TDN). The cost per unit of energy is 28 cents/kg. If grain screening pellets are available as an alternative energy source, and they contain 70 per cent TDN, the breakeven price to pay for these pellets would be $195/tonne. It is important to remember that some screening pellets might be fortified with vitamins and minerals which must be considered when doing comparisons.

The BCRC’s interactive calculator for Evaluating the Economic Value of Feeds can help producers determine the value of feeds they are considering for purchase compared to the value of standard feeds. Keep in mind that it is important to use “dry matter” values rather than “as fed” when running cost comparisons.

Considerations when calculating the cost of transportation should include the distance hauled and the physical nature of the product itself. As an example, culled potatoes, culled onions or other fruit and vegetable wastes can have moisture contents ranging from 70 to 90 per cent. This means that one tonne of these feeds at a dry matter of 25 per cent would contain 750 kg of water.

This greatly increases the transportation costs, especially over long distances. In addition, due to the high-moisture content, bedding costs may increase along with a higher risk of digestive upsets and buildup of manure tags.

Carefully manage inclusion of alternative feeds

Local alternative feeds can be effective and economical additions to beef cattle rations. However, careful management is required to avoid potential problems and to ensure the nutritional requirements of the type of cattle being fed are met.

The post Do your homework on alternative feeds appeared first on Grainews.

Wide areas of southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan and their dryland farms, irrigated farms and ranching areas could be affected. But what helpful information has been extended to farmers and ranchers about drought preparedness?

Both Alberta Agriculture and Saskatchewan Agriculture do have drought plans. For the Saskatchewan plan, go to the province’s drought preparedness web page, or the plan can be downloaded directly. On the Alberta Agriculture drought page, items available for download include a report titled “Alberta Agriculture Drought and Excess Moisture Plan.”

The Alberta plan was published in May 2016. It has not been updated in eight years! This isn’t surprising, as most extension and research staff who drafted the plan were terminated four years ago.

Some key points in the Alberta plan:

• Form partnerships with the agricultural community, seed plants and others to promote water conservation and drought management.
• Select appropriate crop types and varieties, herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers; make appropriate decisions about timing of planting/harvest, and infrastructure choices like type of machinery and buildings.
• Provide technical and financial assistance to secure water supplies or increase water use efficiency through various programs.
• Although parameters of highest importance are yield and quality, testing of new cereal plant materials should include assessment of genetic traits that reflect tolerance to drought, pests, flooding, disease, and water use efficiency.

Alberta’s eight-year-old plan had good intentions, but for Alberta farmers and ranchers, it was all talk and not much action. No partnerships have been developed. Not much packaged information was put together. Agronomic recommendations on crops, varieties et cetera have not been developed or compiled. Research and testing of crops for drought tolerance, et cetera has not been undertaken. Why? Almost all research and extension staff who would have done this were terminated by former agriculture minister Dreeshen.

What can farmers do to plan and prepare for drought?

Farmers in the more drought-prone southern Prairies should consider developing drought management preparedness plans specifically for their farms. Unfortunately, neither the Alberta nor Saskatchewan Agriculture drought management plans explain how farmers could work through this challenging process.

Fortunately, other agencies have given this a lot of thought and attention. One excellent example is the Colorado Agricultural Drought Handbook, developed by Colorado State University Extension and available online. This is an excellent manual that is worth the time to read and glean information. Colorado has much different conditions than the southern Canadian Prairies but much of the outline on planning and preparation offers useful direction. This type of detailed information should be available for Prairie farmers in Western Canada.

Briefly, the Colorado process involves several steps. Start by assessing your operation and resources. First, how have past droughts have impacted the various aspects of your operation? Identify actions that could be taken to reduce effects of future droughts. The Colorado Handbook has inventory worksheets to assist with working through this process. Focus on areas of your operation with ideas for strategies and actions. It recommends focusing on assessment first. Then, work on developing your plan:

• Define the drought preparedness goals for your operation.
• Determine critical times or conditions for making decisions.
• Identify the various strategies to reduce your risk.
• Use scenarios to prioritize strategies.

Then, implement your plan. After each dry year, adapt your plan based on what your experiences were and what you learned.

Irrigation farmers should carefully monitor irrigation district information updates. The St. Mary River Irrigation District in southern Alberta in March already advised water users of a preliminary allocation of only eight inches (20 cm) of water per acre, compared to the normal 18 inches (45 cm). If your district advises of restrictions on irrigation water, develop irrigation water management scenarios and be prepared in spring and summer to track your irrigation water during the growing season. This will allow you to make informed plans to reallocate irrigation water to ensure optimum crop production across the farm. (See my article, Managing Irrigation With Limited Water, in the March 5, 2024 issue on page 19.)

As for drought planning and preparedness for ranchers, there is an excellent publication online titled Managing Drought Risk on the Ranch: A Planning Guide for Great Plains Ranchers. It was developed for U.S. ranchers in the northern Great Plains but is an excellent resource Prairie ranchers can consult to assist with drought management planning.

These are just some of my thoughts on preparedness for drought and some resources to assist you; see below. Consider developing a drought management and preparedness plan for your operation.

I sincerely hope pending forecasts of drought this spring and summer do not come to pass, but being prepared and having plans in place can go a long way to reduce your risk and stress. Here’s hoping for a very good spring!

Strategies to consider

For both irrigation and dryland operations, here are points to assist with developing a drought management plan.

1. Learn how to check and assess soil moisture in your fields, using a one-inch diameter soil auger and the “hand-feel” method. Develop a good understanding of the amounts of water the soils in your fields will hold. Become familiar with the field capacity and wilting point moisture levels in your fields.
2. Frequently and regularly monitor soil moisture conditions in your fields down to 40 inches (100 cm) using a Dutch auger and feeling the soil, or use soil moisture sensors.
3. Carefully watch long-range and seasonal weather/climate forecasts for precipitation and temperature to plan farm management. Stay up to date on current forecasts and potential impacts to your operation.
4. Be flexible to shift toward more efficient water-using crops and varieties. Spring wheat, barley, mustard, flax, peas and most winter cereals are somewhat more drought-tolerant but none of our commonly grown Prairie crops are drought-resistant. Much more western Canadian research is needed in these areas.
5. Most farmers already use no-till or conservation tillage systems to minimize soil disturbance, so as to minimize soil moisture evaporation and loss. This is an excellent conservation practice.
6. Maintain standing stubble over winter to aid in snow trapping and preventing soil erosion. Soil erosion reduces soil quality, reduces water infiltration into soil and reduces water holding capacity.
7. Ensure crop residue is maintained on the soil surface, to reduce evaporation from surface soil and increase water infiltration into soil.
8. Include a number of different crops in your crop rotation for increased diversity.
9. In drier-than-normal springs, consider decreasing seeding rates to reduce plant populations for dry conditions.
10. Seed frost-tolerant crops such as wheat, barley, and pea as early as reasonable in the spring to increase water use efficiency.
11. In drier springs, consider reducing fertilizer inputs proportionally to the level of pending drought and poorer spring soil moisture conditions.
12. Be sure to follow 4R fertilizer management (right amount, right place, right time, right source) based on your target yields. There is no point in overfertilizing or using unnecessary fertilizers in a drier-than-normal spring.
13. Keep tillage to a minimum. When soils are moist, one tillage operation can result in up to 0.5 to one inch (12-25 mm) of moisture loss, depending on soil moisture level and level of soil disturbance.
14. Purchase adequate crop insurance to reduce risk in drought years.

The post Drought preparedness through soil and crop management appeared first on Grainews.

“Historically, our two main risks in crop production long term have been excess moisture and drought,” says Curtis Cavers, an agronomist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, who spoke on water stress risks at the CropConnect 2024 conference in Winnipeg in February.

“Of course, that makes planning for and managing these challenges very tricky because you’re dealing with one extreme or the other on the moisture spectrum.”

Amenities such as tile drainage, irrigation systems or variable rate technology can help, he says, but they may not be affordable solutions for some producers.

Cavers, who is based at Portage la Prairie, Man., has some suggestions for managing water stress risks for farmers on a budget.

A good place for producers to start, he says, is to look for crop varieties that fare better than others in their given geographic location or risk area. He recommends referring to resources such as Seed Manitoba and other provincial seed guides, which contain valuable data on variety performance in moisture extremes.

You’ll also want to review your own records, he says, to see how different crop varieties performed under moisture stress conditions in the past.

“If farmers have yield maps of their fields, they can look to see what trends are in there from previous years,” he says. “This is probably the most helpful way to go.”

Water stress study

Cavers recently completed a research study examining whether data on varietal responses to different moisture regimes could help farmers in dealing with extremes. He shared the project findings with farmers at the CropConnect conference.

For the study, which took place at Portage la Prairie and Arborg, Man. between 2019 and 2021, multiple varieties of spring wheat and canola were grown to see how they responded to imposed excess moisture and drought conditions. This was done by measuring precipitation, monitoring moisture at different soil depths and collecting data on crop growth and yield at each field site.

Cavers collaborated with Nirmal Hari, an applied research specialist with Manitoba Agriculture based at the Prairies East Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (PESAI) Diversification Centre in Arborg, on the research project.

One significant finding was that crop type was more important than variety when it came to moisture stress responses.

Cavers says all of the varieties in the study tended to perform consistently relative to one another, regardless of the moisture conditions. In other words, if one variety was higher-yielding under normal or optimal conditions, it tended to remain higher-yielding compared to other varieties under more extreme moisture conditions.

“Conversely, from what we saw, varieties that are lower-yielding under normal conditions rarely excel in these suboptimal or unusual conditions,” Cavers says.

He views this as a testament to the work of Canadian plant breeding programs, which typically test new crop varieties over multiple years, at multiple sites, under varying moisture conditions.

“When the breeders do their selections, they’re looking at the whole scope of the data and they’re finding ones that are the most consistently high performers under a wide range of conditions, including moisture extremes.”

For this reason, he believes farmers are likely best off checking information they’ve always used, like yield potential and disease protection packages, when selecting crop varieties.

According to Cavers, understanding how different crops respond to moisture extremes can be useful when designing crop rotations. For instance, soybeans tolerate excess moisture much better than canola.

“You can see those kinds of general trends with your cereals, too. Oats do better under wet conditions, wheat and barley do better under dry.”

Cavers notes the wheat and canola in his study responded similarly and were generally in the mid-range for tolerating moisture extremes.

Strategic water management

The impact of excess moisture and drought on crops can be even more pronounced in fields with variable landscapes. As Cavers points out, farmers can take steps to reduce that risk through strategic water management.

The place to start, he says, is to gauge the topographic variability within a field and its impact on crop production.

Hilltops, for instance, tend to be droughty areas that produce generally lower yields. In lower areas where there may be excess moisture, problems like salinization or nitrogen losses through leaching and denitrification can arise.

Cavers says farmers can address these issues through agronomic actions that conserve water in high areas and use up water in low areas by such means as reducing evaporation, increasing infiltration, limiting runoff and adjusting the water table.

One such water management tool is tillage — but Cavers maintains it’s something that should be avoided in droughty parts of a field because of the erosion risk and potential loss of soil organic matter.

Farmers could consider strategic tillage in lower areas to help dry out soils, he says — and if some places are at risk of becoming particularly mucky, this has the added benefit of making fields more accessible for spraying and other timely operations.

Cavers notes cover crops can help keep evaporation down in droughty areas, though establishment can be a challenge due to lack of moisture. Cover crops that use less water are best, he says — and terminating them in a timely manner is key, because you don’t want them robbing soil moisture from a following cash crop.

In wet areas, Cavers recommends choosing a cover crop that uses a lot of water and is easily established. If it has an extensive root system as well, this can help increase moisture infiltration in the soil.

Redistributing crop residues is another way farmers can address moisture imbalances in fields with variable landscapes, he says.

“I’m going to try and put crop residues where I need them the most,” he says. That means “moving them whenever possible to those droughty areas to minimize evaporation and erosion and removing them from the wet areas to help dry those soils out a bit.”

Farmers could take this a step further, he says, and consider soil landscape restoration — a practice that helps repair eroded parts of fields through the physical relocation of topsoil from low areas, where it’s more abundant, to high areas where it’s needed most.

Cavers says using a combination of these practices should not only boost soil productivity in dry areas but also reduce nitrogen losses in wet areas.

“You’re doing this essentially with the intent of making your land productivity more uniform,” he says. “If we can better manage our carbon, our nitrogen and our water, then that will go a long way to helping us manage the landscapes in other ways on other fronts.”

The post Curb risk from moisture stress for less appeared first on Grainews.

By most accounts, it was another productive year on Berger’s 5,000-acre grain farm. Still, something didn’t sit quite right with the long-time farmer. Whenever he toured the nearby countryside post-harvest, he noted many farm fields were bereft of any stubble or crop residue.

“I hope I never have to buy or rent that land because it comes with a yield deficit because of the nutrients being taken out,” Berger says.

“Some people think that baling straw is free money, but when I look at the nutrient removal it frustrates me. If we don’t replace those nutrients, it’s mining the soil.”

Much has changed on Berger’s farm since he started farming it with his dad back in the 1960s. Back then, summerfallow and tillage were common practices on most farms in the region as there was still an ample supply of organic matter in the soil.

That all changed in the 1970s, Berger says, when he and his dad quit summerfallowing and tillage and shifted to direct seeding, trying to keep as much crop residue on the surface as was practical.

The results appear to speak for themselves. Based on crop insurance records, yields on Berger’s farm are 1.3 to 1.4 times more than those of the area average for yields. Berger credits that in large part to the fact he and his son, who now handles most of the farm’s operations, have focused on leaving a sufficient amount of crop residue in the field.

Doing well

“We feel that what we’re doing is working pretty well,” he says. “We are getting yields that my father and father-in-law would not believe we are growing in such dry years with minimal rains.”

In addition to enriching nutrient levels in the soil, leaving crop residue behind has helped with snow retention and provides more moisture for the soil, he says.

Another benefit has been to alleviate the dry conditions caused by chinook winds from the Rocky Mountains that blow through the region. Those winds are “the world’s best grain dryer” but also rob the soil of valuable moisture.

“The standing stubble reduces the velocity of the wind at the soil surface and shades it so we have less evaporation due to a lower soil temperature and we’ve got the wind protection from the standing stubble,” Berger says.

That standing stubble also helps to fight weeds on his farm by acting as a barrier that makes it more difficult for weed seedlings to make their way to the surface and compete with his crops. Conversely, the stubble cover helps shelter seeds from wind and gives them a better fighting chance early in their life cycle, he adds.

Berger says leaving stubble or other crop residue behind on his farm also helps deliver more moisture directly to plants. The seeding openers used on his farm move the residue to the inter-row area between crop rows. As a result, rain will run off that “hump” and flow to the lower level where plants are.

“If you get a 10th of an inch of rain, it could double or triple that rain to our row where our plants are at and rob moisture from the area between the rows where the weeds might want to live,” he explains.

Pros and cons

Larry Durand is a certified agrologist and crop advisor at Humboldt, Sask., where he operates Field Good Agronomics. He’s also a member of the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists.

Durand says the question of whether to leave crop residue on a field comes up in conversation with some farm clients. His typical response is that there are both pros and cons to doing it — and whether it’s a practice farmers should follow depends on the specific farm operation.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of solution. It absolutely is not,” he says.

“I think there’s a lot of room for removal of crop residue to a point, but it would be unwise as a rule to remove your crop residue year after year after year. But I think there’s some important opportunities in doing so every once in a while, when opportunities or needs arise. I think farmers should be cognizant of that.”

So, how does a farmer know whether they should leave crop residue on their field or remove it?

Durand says some fields are more at-risk if crop residue is removed on a regular basis. Those include fields that are more prone to soil erosion because of coarse or sandy soil texture, or that are adjacent to landforms where there’s significant potential for water erosion and other risks.

“If you don’t have very good organic matter you might want to leave some of that crop residue to improve it on more of a long-term basis,” he says. “You want to keep working at improving that organic matter. It’s a very, very slow process.”

Conversely, if a field has healthy soil with good organic matter and sound structural integrity, the risk of baling cereal straw to sell from time to time likely poses little short- or long-term risk, Durand says.

When discussing whether to leave crop residue on a field, Durand often tells clients many crops still leave behind significant nutrients, even after they have been baled.

“There’s still a lot of crop residue that gets left behind in the roots, stubble and chaff…because you’re not cutting it right to the soil surface. I think a lot of people overestimate what you’re actually removing with that straw,” he says.

Hairpinning

The upside to leaving crop residue behind on the surface of a field, Durand says, is that it can act as a protective blanket for the soil. As a result, it can help to maintain soil structure, prevent erosion and hold in moisture — something increasingly important in parts of Western Canada where there’s a soil moisture shortage.

The downside, he says, is that managing crop residue can sometimes become an issue, especially in the case of larger crops such as corn or cereals that produce a lot of plant material.

“Sometimes that crop residue just makes it difficult to get a good seed bed because there’s too much trash there and it causes hairpinning (straw is pinned in the seeding slot) when you’re trying to seed. In those cases, removing that crop residue is probably beneficial to help you with your farming operation,” he says.

Yield losses

Berger has some simple advice for growers when it comes to determining whether to leave post-harvest residue on a field: consider not only the short-term gain you can make, but also the long-term pain that might result.

“I talk to other older farmers who see these guys who are taking every kernel, every bit of straw and then their yields are nowhere near as high, but they don’t think their yields are that different. They don’t realize it. But just the moisture loss by having that soil exposed without the crop residue on it, it’s a big thing in dry years.”

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