The idea behind enhanced efficiency fertilizers (EEFs) is to maximize how much nutrient gets to the plant rather than being lost to the surrounding environment. The products control a slower release of nitrogen into the soil so they are more effectively taken up by plants.

It’s touted as a win-win for both farmers — lost nutrient means lost dollars, after all — and the environment, since a bigger percentage of nitrogen taken up by the plant means a lower percentage at risk of hitting the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.

“Farmers need to think about, and agronomists need to think about, ‘why am I using this?’” said Lyle Cowell, a senior agronomist with Nutrien Wholesale.

“From the farmers’ perspective, there always has to be, ‘What’s in it for me?’ And the primary answer to that is fertilizers cost farmers money, and we don’t want to lose fertilizer for an economical reason. One, you bought that fertilizer, you don’t want to lose the fertilizer. Plus, if you lose fertilizer from your farming system, that can mean you have a low yield.”

Cowell also pointed to the environmental reasoning behind the products.

“Nitrogen can end up in the wrong place, as nitrates in ground water, as gaseous products in the air, as nitrous oxides and ammonia, and off-farm, we need to be conscious that the fertilizers we use don’t harm people or the environment as well,” he said.

On the downside, EEFs can be more expensive than conventional fertilizers, and inviting farmers to move away from practices that have worked for them for years can be a hurdle.

As for what the future holds for EEFs, “time will tell,” added Cowell.

The products have commonly showed up in crop research plots as academics and industry try to home in on their best use.

“We’re often using EEFs in a broad sweep across the whole farm or the whole field, and perhaps they don’t need to be,” he noted. “Maybe they need to be used as a variable rate product as well applying them in the farm or in the field where they’re most effective.”

Fall fertilizer advice

How well harvest season goes often determines how much fall fertilizer actually makes it into the field.

Doing it right protects a grower’s investment of time and money from nitrogen losses due to volatilization, leaching or denitrification.

If you opt to broadcast fertilizer in the fall, a dual inhibitor is the way to go, says Bryce Geisel, senior agronomist with Koch Agronomic Services.

SuperU is one such option.

“It has both the urease inhibitor and denitrification,” said Geisel, “so we reduce all three forms of loss. So that’s a big step with those dual inhibitors with it.”

Fall anhydrous ammonia applications are common in Manitoba, he noted. In those cases, a nitrification inhibitor may be of benefit.

“Typically, what farmers have done in the past is they’ll wait until the soil cools down, and then they put that anhydrous ammonia in,” said Geisel.

“Fall is getting very compact. There’s a lot of operations that are happening. So one of the trends we are seeing is farmers and agronomists looking for nitrification inhibitors.”

As far as uptake among farmers for EEFs is concerned, it really depends on the individual farm.

“Obviously, there’s the environmental piece that people have talked about,” said Geisel, “but there’s also what we tend to see is a lot more (focus) on the operational efficiency piece where farmers are using it to spread out their fertilizer applications.”

“There’s a lot of different ways farmers are playing with it to help manage costs.… They’re picking and choosing what kind of fits in their operation.”

The post Are enhanced efficiency fertilizers the right fit for your fields? appeared first on Grainews.

The company skipped a few generations from its previous T50 model to address the specific needs of western Canadian farmers.

‘We went straight to the biggest drum. The reason for this is because Canada is unlike any other country, where we have a majority of our land here is all flat. It’s big, open and flat. Of course, we do have a lot of hilly coulees, and B.C. has orchards or small, irregular shaped fields,” said Loren Ginn, area development manger for Sky Drones Inc., a distributor of DJI Agriculture.

Equipped with a 100-litre tank, the drone supports workloads for spraying and granular spreading (150-litre capacity) and has a lift system with a stabilizer, capable of carrying an 80-kilogram payload. Its maximum capability is covering 82 acres per hour, travelling at 72 km/h.

“A lot of the pasture guys, they like to seed their alfalfa, or if they’re going to put down grass seed, you can get to an area with the drone that tractors and other pieces of equipment might struggle a little bit with,” said Ginn.

The drone’s speed should be slowed depending on what it’s being used for, he added.

For spreading, the T100 has a built-in auger system that helps in slightly rainy conditions by helping break up the fertilizer.

The auger system ensures more consistent and efficient granular spreading by mechanically processing the fertilizer before dispersal. This means that even if the fertilizer is slightly clumpy or damp, the auger can still effectively distribute it across the field.

Sky Drones recommends a speed of 30 km per hour, which is still 60 to 70 acres per hour to maximize efficiency and cut down on spray shadowing.

Spraying crops such as corn or potatoes that have a lot of foliage will require slower speeds to get the product underneath the canopy.

The drone can travel faster on cereals and pasture because they do not need as much fumigation.

“Everyone has seen planes and crop dusters, but they have booms that go straight up,” Ginn said.

The way these drones work is rather than having booms that go out and then fall in a straight line, they have atomized sprinklers on either side of the drone. So that way it’s able to spread it out, then it relies on the down wash off of the drone to push it into the canopy.”

The drone has a regular 13-metre spray width, he said.

Ginn said producers are often intimidated by drones, afraid they are not going to be able to operate them properly.

However, he said artificial general intelligence software means operators rarely have to fly the drone manually, as long as they know how to make maps, which is part of the company’s training.

Sky Drones conducts demonstrations similar to what it did at Riverview Ranch during the Innovation on the Range field day.

“We want (producers) to actually use it and make their money back year after year from each drone. There’s not much point in us selling them if people don’t use them and understand how they work.”

Non-recreational drones can be a pricey proposition, but funding is available for agriculture producers through the On-Farm Efficiency Program, said Sonja Shank, program co-ordinator for the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta.

It is a 50-50 cost share up to $150,000.

Along with drones used for secondary purposes such as agriculture, the program also covers cameras in imaging/mapping drones and the first year of subscription fees for technology.

According to the Alberta government’s web page for the program, applications for the program are closed for 2025 and will re-open in April .

“Keep these things in mind when you go into the fall and start planning,” Shank said.

“There are a lot of these little funding pieces out there that not everybody knows about. And if you’re in the know, you’re in the know.”

Innovation on the Range was organized by the Chinook Applied Research Association.

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Early results from a multi-year University of Manitoba study suggest it might be possible to shave nitrogen fertilizer rates by 10 per cent or more when paired with the right products.

WHY IT MATTERS: Fertilizer costs are high, while fertilizer efficiency is continually being pushed thanks to federal emission reduction targets. Nitrification inhibitors, including best practices and their efficacy, are one feature of the conversation.

The research is led by Mario Tenuta, research chair in 4R nutrient management at the U of M, in collaboration with Manitoba Agriculture’s Manasah Mkhabela. There are four sites across different growing regions of the province, including the Prairie East Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (PESAI) in Arborg, Roblin, Melita and Carberry.

The study was launched in 2023 in response to Ottawa’s target to cut nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer by 30 per cent by 2030.

Inhibitors and greenhouse gas emissions

The team’s goals were twofold: measure nitrous oxide emissions under different nitrogen rates and test whether nitrification inhibitors could curb losses without affecting yield. Plots were set up with zero, 70, 90 and 100 per cent of recommended N rates, both with and without nitrification inhibitors. The same treatments stay on the same ground each year to track the impact as soil reserves change over time.

Rotation on the plots began with canola in 2023, followed by wheat in 2024 — the only season from which full yield and emissions data are available so far. The study is ongoing.

Rebalancing the nitrogen equation

For farmers, the takeaway may be less about adding bushels through less nitrogen loss (and therefore more nitrogen availability) than about widening the profit margin by applying less fertilizer with the same yield.

The additional cost of inhibitors has been the complicating factor in that efficiency argument. Tenuta’s own earlier work suggests the products don’t reliably boost yield on their own.

“They reduce nitrogen losses, but farmers are already applying enough N that having more in the system usually doesn’t help them,” he said.

For farmers to see a robust economic argument for inhibitors, there must be enough room to strategically trim nitrogen rates, without yield impact, to offset the extra cost of adoption. The thought is less about cutting nitrogen application so much as rebalancing overall soil nitrogen.

Results and insights

A single year of data doesn’t offer much rigous data, but there have been some initial insights.

On the emissions side, apart from an anomaly at Roblin, inhibitors performed as expected.

“At the Arborg site, nitrous oxide dropped 23 per cent when we used a nitrification inhibitor,” said Mkhabela during a July field day at PESAI this summer.

There were comparable reductions recorded at Melita and Carberry.

Yield appeared to be unaffected by the inhibitor in 2024, but results suggest the soil at that time still held significant nitrogen reserves. Wheat grown with 100 per cent of recommended N averaged 64 bushels to the acre (bu./ac.). At a 10-per-cent reduction plus inhibitor, yield held at 63 bu./ac. Even at 30 per cent below the recommended rate, yield only dropped to 57 bu./ac. Unsurprisingly, the plots without extra nitrogen fell behind on yield, at 37 bu./ac.

Lags in plant impact to applied nitrogen, however, encourages researchers to be a little careful in speculating how deeply farmers can cut.

A 10 per cent rate reduction is low-risk, Tenuta noted, but much bigger cuts are more of a gamble.

Nitrogen stored in soil continues to feed the plants long after the last application of the nutrient. The more agressively nitrogen rates are reduced, the more quickly soil reserves will be depleted.

“If we drastically reduced nitrogen by 50 per cent, we probably wouldn’t see an effect in 2026,” he said. “But by 2028 we’d really see it.”

Similarly, the respectable yields Mkhabela observed with a 30 per cent nitrogen reduction will almost certainly diminish over time.

The long-term goal is to find that sweet spot: the lowest nitrogen rate that will consistently deliver good yields.

When asked where he thought that sweet spot would end up, Tenuta was conservative. Based on wider research, he guessed it would land in the neighbourhood of 10 to 15 per cent.

That might not be dramatic enough to get producers lining up to change long-held habits, he acknowledged.

“Nitrogen management is so ingrained in us,” he said. “We always think about going up, not down.”

Perception matters

Manitoba Agriculture farm management specialist Darren Bond broadly agreed, saying the decision isn’t only economic; perception matters, too.

Regardless of what the research says, producers will ultimately be the ones to pull the trigger on a management change.

“Is there benefit if you cut nitrogen 10 per cent and add an inhibitor? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, we’re dealing with slivers,” said Bond.

He also noted environmental conditions can swing yield by 25 bu./ac. If farmers are asked to make decisions over pennies while weather can rewrite the whole outcome in a day, motivation tends to diminish.

“Mother Nature bats last when it comes to this type of stuff. That’s why producers are reluctant to cut nitrogen,” Bond said.

With a little more data, however, Bond noted the mental calculation on the issue could shift. That same nutrient-application-to-impact lag means that short trials tend to flatter aggressive rate reduction insights. For field studies like this, where changes unfold incrementally over years, longer trials are needed.

“Let’s go past three years to four, five, even 10, and start seeing what really changes,” Bond suggested.

The study’s long-term scope isn’t locked in yet, but Mkhabela told the PESAI tour crowd that the team is aiming for 10 years of funding.

Keeping it real

Current policies are adding another layer of consideration to the debate.

Government has launched a number of funding streams meant to bolster fertilizer efficiency in the wake of their 2030 emission goals. Those include subsidies and incentives through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (S-CAP) and other programs that may fund dual-inhibitor products, combining nitrification and urease inhibitors to offer additional benefits for growers.

“Urease inhibitors are like an insurance product to allow that nitrogen to get into the root zone and become more stable,” Bond explained. “The nitrification inhibitor is mainly impactful on greenhouse gases.”

Persistently tight margins could also change the outlook, he noted. When nitrogen was cheap, farmers just applied more urea to buffer against nitrogen losses. If prices rise and margins narrow further, the efficiency gains from nitrification inhibitors could start to look a lot more compelling.

Tenuta says it’s important not to over-promise with these products. Enhanced-efficiency fertilizers, including nitrification inhibitors, can play a role, but farmers need a clear-eyed view of what they can and can’t do.

“I don’t want good practices, and these products, to get a bad name,” he said. “If we can show farmers they can reduce losses and maintain profit, that keeps nutrient stewardship moving in the right direction. That’s the take-home message here.”

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To some producers, it is a matter of pure economics to put on profitable extra weight on spring calves — while to others, creep feeding makes for better autumn-preconditioned calves. Last and not least, there are producers who don’t see the value of creep feeding.

Many of them might have valid reasons. Yet it seems to me that whether one doesn’t want to creep feed or is one of those who haul out their creep feeders by the end of summer, I advocate that one should calculate its present economics, plus its practical advantages in 2025.

A new beef producer I met last year inherited a 250-head cow-calf operation. He asked me to determine the economic value for him of putting out his creep feeders at the end of this July. He doesn’t expect his spring calves (mostly born at the end of February) to eat much creep feed until the middle of September. That’s because his pastures up to now have received a few timely rains and thus have good carrying capacity, and his cows and first-calf dams are milking well.

Once the weather cools off, he expects all calves eat to up to three kg of creep per head per day. With a feed conversion of 6.5 pounds of creep feed (costing 15 cents per lb.) to one lb. of gain, it should be no problem to add 60 lb. extra weight onto calves that would otherwise weigh 700 lb. at weaning time if the creep feeder remained by his machine shed.

With such pertinent information added into the graph shown here, as well as an already pre-established contract price of $4.95 per lb. of weaned calf sold this October, a tidy profit of about $168.50 per 760-lb. calf or a return on investment of 288 per cent will be directly attributed to creep feeding.

TABLE: Creep feeding program, 2025

Here is a general review of the major factors that determined this profit of $168.50 per head:

Established calf price

Some ag news states that grass and feeder calves are selling on historical highs driven by depressed calf crops and feedlot placements in the United States.

Calf price gradients

There is a sliding price discount as calves hit higher weight classes. In my example, I used a price discount of about $10 per hundredweight. As this price gradient narrows between weight classes, creep feeding becomes more profitable.

Feed costs

Creep feeding profits are attractive when calf prices are high relative to low feed costs. In 2025, I see that forage and grain prices are modest, which contribute to substantial 2025 creep profits.

Feed efficiency

The conversion of a well-balanced creep feed into saleable weaning weight is a major driver in the profitability due to creep feeding. It ranges from six to eight lb. per lb. gain for most grain-based creep feeds. For example, every 0.5 lb. improvement in feed efficiency means an extra $4.50 revenue per calf.

Aside from the almost unbelievable economics of 288 per cent return on investment, there are other practical benefits to creep feeding calves. Some other producers have told me that their creep-fed calves are not as dependent on the nursing cow by autumn.

As a result, calves are much easier to wean with less stress. Other producers say that creep-fed calves are bunk-broke, which is a real advantage when put onto background feeding programs.

Despite such positive and practical creep feeding advantages, I spoke with another cow-calf operator who runs about the same size of ranch, and he never considers creep feeding his spring calves. It’s not that he has anything against creep feeding, but he believes his cows milk well throughout the summer due to his heavily managed rotational pastures. Plus, he grows cover crops, and he pastures both cows and calves on their regrowth from August to late November.

As a result, he successfully gets similar performance on his calves’ weaning weights compared to his neighbours’ calves that are creep fed.

In summary, I value what this producer had to say, but I also value the experiences of people that seem to put their creep feeders onto pasture every year. For them and those new cow-calf operators who might consider creep feeding their calves in 2025, it’s a hard-to-beat profitable creep feeding year.

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Farmers invest heavily in nitrogen fertilizer, but not all of it makes it into the crop. Some is lost to the environment, tied up in the soil, or simply underutilized. Understanding how much nitrogen actually gets taken up by plants is key to improving efficiency — both for profitability and sustainability.

Measuring efficiencies

The most common method for measuring nitrogen efficiency is the “difference method,” in which researchers compare two plots — one fertilized, one not — and calculate the difference in nitrogen uptake. This approach is simple, inexpensive and practical.

However, it assumes fertilizer doesn’t change soil nitrogen dynamics — an assumption which isn’t entirely accurate. Since soil nitrogen interacts with applied fertilizer in complex ways, this method can give a rough estimate, but lacks precision.

A far more accurate method involves tracking nitrogen itself. Using a stable isotope of nitrogen called N-15, researchers enrich fertilizer and trace its exact movement in the soil and plants. This “isotopic method” provides a direct measurement of how much applied nitrogen reaches the crop, rather than relying on assumptions.

To that, though, there’s also a downside: it’s incredibly expensive. A single acre’s worth of isotope-labelled fertilizer can cost over $170,000, limiting these studies to small research plots.

Despite the cost, isotopic research is uncovering valuable insights into nitrogen efficiency. At the CropConnect Conference in Winnipeg in February, Kelsey Griesheim, a North Dakota State University (NDSU) assistant professor of soil fertility, shared what her isotopic studies have revealed about nitrogen uptake and efficiency in cropping systems.

The bulk of Griesheim’s presentation centred on several studies that she conducted in central Illinois, prior to her tenure at NDSU.

Subsurface versus surface dribble

In one of those studies, Griesheim looked at nitrogen placement during sidedressing, comparing a traditional subsurface knife application to a Y-Drop surface dribble system.

The study tested four treatments. The first was broadcasting all nitrogen up front; the second was a 50/50 split with subsurface sidedressing; the third was a 50/50 split using Y-Drop; and the last treatment was a repeat of the third treatment.

“That’s not a typo,” Griesheim says, referring to that repeated treatment. “We wanted to know whether that first application more efficient than the second. By taking the difference between those two treatments, you can prise that apart and look into it.”

The results showed more nitrogen was taken up by the crop at the sidedress stage, meaning late-season applications were generally more efficient. However, under certain conditions, the subsurface application was more efficient than Y-Drop.

“If you have conditions conducive to ammonium volatilization, the subsurface application will be higher in efficiency than the Y-drop application,” she says.

Banded placement outperforms broadcasting

Griesheim also tested nitrogen placement at planting using Precision Planting’s Conceal system. The study compared four treatments: a single-band and a dual-band UAN application straddling the seed row, a surface dribble with a drag chain, and a broadcast application. All treatments applied 80 lbs. of N per acre.

“What we saw was that overwhelmingly, a banded placement was consistently more efficient than broadcasting,” Griesheim said. This result wasn’t surprising, since the banded application places the fertilizer closer to the roots.

However, neither the Conceal system, nor the drag chain application, nor the number of bands appeared to have any impact.

“There was really no difference there,” she says.

Nitrogen form matters

Griesheim’s final project examined different nitrogen fertilizer forms, all applied using Y-Drop placement. The study compared potassium nitrate, UAN and liquid urea, along with an untreated check. To ensure accurate results, potassium levels were balanced across treatments to prevent any yield response from added potassium.

“What we found for this project was that potassium nitrate was highest in efficiency, followed by UAN and then by urea,” Griesheim says, adding the trend showed fertilizers with more ammonium had lower efficiency.

Overall findings and future research

Her research in Illinois revealed interesting findings about nitrogen efficiency that could impact future research.

First, in a large number of the studies, Griesheim notes, treatment differences weren’t detectable by yield, but they were detectable by efficiency.

That’s encouraging, she says. “It means that we can have differences in our management practices that aren’t reducing yield but are increasing efficiency, which is where we want to be.”

Second, nitrogen loss was a major factor influencing efficiency. Whether through immobilization (where nitrogen gets tied up in organic matter and becomes unavailable) or losses such as through volatilization, her research shows more research is needed to understand how nitrogen moves in the system.

Another big takeaway was timing. Fall-applied anhydrous ammonia led to significant nitrogen loss before crops could use it. She noted, however, this is likely a factor of the warmer ground temperatures in central Illinois, and farmers in Canada probably wouldn’t see the same kind of losses. Nevertheless, it does indicate synchronizing fertilizer application with crop uptake has the potential to improve efficiency.

Finally, her results showed the soil — not the inputs — was providing the bulk of the nutrients for the crops.

“There was not a single time where the fertilizer was the major source of nitrogen for the crop,” Griesheim says. “It was always the soil. I find that really interesting.”

What that suggests is that nitrogen movement isn’t only driven by the placement of the fertilizer. It also suggests more attention should be paid to management techniques that look beyond 4R practices that focus on placement, to practices that influence how nitrogen is stored, released and lost in the soil.

That insight led Griesheim to her latest ongoing study at NDSU that is looking at the isotopic efficiency of nitrogen applications for conventional till and no-till cropping systems.

“We know from very extensive literature that tillage will impact carbon quality and quantity, as well as soil moisture and temperature,” she says. “Those are things that would definitely impact nitrogen.”

One year of that multi-year study has been completed.

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“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.

Let us first examine what dry and drought mean.

A dry year means reduced crop growth and reduced nutrient uptake, since biological, chemical and physical processes are altered, resulting in a reduced soil nutrient availability to crops. Further, depending on management, dry and drought mean altered residual fertilizer nutrients.

Let us use nitrogen as an example by examining the plant nitrogen-use efficiency. This is the total dry matter or grain yield produced per unit of N absorbed. This physiological parameter, also called physiological efficiency (PEN), is defined as kilograms (or pounds) of grain/kg (or lb.) of fertilizer N used by a plant and is calculated by subtracting the yield of the control treatment from the fertilized treatment and dividing it by the difference between the uptake of N by the fertilized treatment minus that of the control one:

PEN = Y_N – Y₀ / U_N – U₀

The PEN represents the ability of a plant to transform a given amount of acquired fertilizer N into grain yield and thus depends on genotype characteristics (e.g. harvest index) and environmental and management factors, particularly during reproductive growth.

Low PEN usually suggests suboptimal growth conditions, often caused by nutrient deficiencies other than N and/or by drought stress, insect predation and disease.

As a result, the soil nitrogen status is greatly affected and variability within a field is increased. Obviously, fertilizer does not move very far from where it was placed when it is dry. Also, poor crops do not use nitrogen and lack of moisture means no nitrogen movement.

But as has happened in many parts of the Prairies, late rains and subsequent regrowth of crops change the nutrient status. Also, you may notice a decrease in soil pH, which can be followed by an increase in EC (salts) and available P. These will correct themselves in time.

See examples below from my time as director of the Saskatchewan Soil Testing Laboratory following the dry years of the late 1980s and early ’90s and then wet mid-’90s:

This type of variability will also occur during wet and dry periods within the same growing season.

Other factors influencing crop response to fertilizer application

Applied fertilizer use depends on corresponding soil nutrient availability and potential losses of applied fertilizer. However, several other agronomic factors can cause a poor response to applied nutrients.

Crop cultivars often have varying nutrient requirements depending on yield potential and agroecological conditions.

Available soil nutrient supply at planting will influence crop response to fertilizer. Fertilizer management requires proper assessment of both the soil’s nutrient status and the crop’s nutrient requirements. It is widely accepted today that soil testing allows producers to make more qualified fertility management decisions based on soil nutrient inventory and interpretive criteria of this inventory.

Hence, soil testing has to be an integral part of an attempt to obtain optimum yields. However, like any other assessment tool, soil testing is subject to the laws of statistics and has many limitations. Understanding those allows an understanding of its usefulness.

Choose laboratories based on knowledge of how its staff assesses the soil nutrient inventory (from chemistry to quality of analyses) and how they interpret the results.

The steps in soil testing also come into play. An examination of the four steps involved in the traditional soil testing process suggests current techniques would:

• result in a statistical error of ±22 per cent due to the common sampling schemes (20 samples per field/unit);
• result in varying errors due to analysis (for example on a soil N content of 50 kg N ha^-1 in the 0-30 cm depth the maximum analytical error is approximately 12-15 per cent and this would increase as the soil test value decreases and vice versa);
• calibration techniques based on yield curves can commonly result in our ability to describe approximately 50 per cent of changes in the yield by the changes in soil test levels; and,
• fertilizer recommendation models can add wide variation in recommended nutrient levels.

Therefore, it is obvious that conventional soil testing databases have been developed to address “fields” as whole units, or better yet, “large geographic areas” from which deductions can be made for individual fields. This is important when databases thus derived are used for variable rate fertilization in precision farming.

It is remarkable that calibrations of soil tests took place in the 1980s and early ‘90s and a limited number in the early 2000s. Take phosphorus (P), for example. The most recent calibration and response experiment was conducted in Alberta from 1991 to 1993 with wheat, barley and canola.

It was very thorough research carried out on a wide range of soil types across Alberta to determine the frequency at which each crop will respond to phosphate fertilizer. Another thing to remember is that soil testing criteria developed in one region of North America (e.g., southern U.S. or Ontario) are often not relevant to western Canadian farms.

Finally, the quality of sampling can play an important role in deriving proper recommendations. Therefore, make sure a sample is taken from the depth you are sampling. Special care must be given in dry and wet soils. Why? Often samples are taken with probes attached to a truck with the sampler sitting at the front. Soil can fall off the probe in a dry soil situation or become compressed in a wet soil situation, resulting in false readings in both cases.

The nutrient status, especially that of N, of a field, can also be estimated from the previous cropping history, but is more accurately determined by a soil test.

It is generally accepted that improvement in the accuracy of N recommendations requires a reliable estimate of soil N-supplying capability. Mineralization of N is a function of environmental conditions; it can vary from as low as nil under drought conditions to as high as one-third greater than average under favourable conditions.

Late seeding usually results in lower yield potential and reduced response from N fertilizer due to moisture/heat relationships. Also, there is a greater risk of crop loss from increased disease pressure, insects, frost and poor harvest conditions.

Weeds compete with plants for moisture, nutrients and light. Applied fertilizers may stimulate the growth of weed seedlings almost to the same extent as a crop. It is important to control weeds to minimize the competition between weeds and crop plants.

Banding fertilizers or placing fertilizers with the seed makes them less accessible to weeds during the early growing season. However, if too much fertilizer is seed-placed, injury to the seedling will reduce emergence, resulting in higher weed competition.

Another issue is that seedling damage can lead to delayed maturity and increase the risk of damage from fall frosts in northern areas where the growing season is short. In canola, increased seed chlorophyll content indicates delayed maturity and influences crop quality.

Disease infestation also comes into play. Well-nourished, healthy plants have some resistance to many disease organisms. Inadequately nurtured wheat plants seem predisposed to certain diseases such as common root rot. Take-all root rot, for example, is reduced when wheat plants absorb ammonium N and is increased when the plants take up excessive amounts of nitrate-N.

Soil moisture can’t be ignored. Water-holding capacity/movement through the soil profile will depend on the soil’s physical properties. Once water enters the soil, it will move under the effect of gravity or capillary suction. In lower rainfall environments, soil moisture reserves must be considered when choosing fertilizer rates.

The risk of crop damage or failure is higher on poorly drained or flood-prone fields. Lower N fertilizer applications are advised on these fields if adequate drainage cannot be provided. Although well-fertilized crops usually withstand more water, if water stands for more than two or three days, causing saturated conditions, considerable crop damage or complete failure may result.

Coarse textured soils with water tables deeper than 1.2 to 1.8 metres below the surface are often droughty. Yield potential, to a large extent, is restricted by lack of moisture. High rates of N fertilizers are generally not recommended in these soils.

Other parameters influenced by changes in water regime

In addition to target yields, many other parameters vary with water regime, including mineralization, immobilization, leaching, denitrification as well as soil residual, mineralizable, and fertilizer N use efficiency and N content in plants.

Mineralization of N is also a function of environmental conditions (water) and can be effectively reduced to zero under drought conditions or become as much as one-third higher under favourable (moist) conditions compared to “normal” conditions.

Karamanos and Cannon (2002) used a limited amount of data from the work by others to derive a relationship between the mineralization rate constant (k_35C) and organic carbon content that allowed the estimation of mineralizable N. For organic matter levels less than eight per cent, an average estimate can be made by multiplying the percentage of organic matter from the soil test by 14. In general, under “normal” conditions, 80 per cent of mineralizable nitrogen is available to the crops.

Immobilization: We all understand that decomposition of plant residues requires extra N. How much N is required to fuel the decomposition process? It depends on how much crop residue is incorporated into the soil.

There is information to suggest that in high-residue situations, as much as 20-40 lbs. of broadcast-applied N can be immobilized during straw decomposition. The obvious way to prevent significant immobilization losses is to place the N fertilizer in compact bands. Broadcast-applied N is extremely vulnerable to immobilization losses when it is incorporated into the same soil layer as the straw.

Once the grain is harvested, incorporating the remaining crop residue will immobilize a significant amount of N from the soil in the following year. In these situations, loss of N fertilizer can be greatly reduced by concentrating the fertilizer in bands rather than broadcasting and incorporating it so that it is in intimate contact with the decomposing residue.

Leaching is not a major issue or an issue at all in most of the Prairies, with the possible exception of the Red River Valley and sandy soils. For example, nitrate leaching occurs when nitrate is carried below the crop root zone by water draining through the soil.

Unlike ammonium (NH₄+), nitrate (NO₃-) is a negatively charged ion and is not held onto soil particles. Further, unlike the other processes, nitrate leaching is not driven by microbes and is not as temperature dependent.

Nitrate leaching is most likely to occur under these conditions: sandy textured soils, high rainfall (or excessive irrigation), summerfallow (no crop present for uptake, therefore, significant amounts of surplus water drain through the soil profile), and high levels of soil nitrate.

Interestingly, periods of the highest water drainage correspond closely to periods of highest nitrate N content. Because subsoils are still frozen during the early part of the spring thaw, leaching is usually not of major concern.

In continuously cropped situations, nitrate leaching can be minimized because crop uptake prevents the accumulation of surplus soil nitrate in soils. Fall fertilizers should be banded after soils are cool, and nitrate-containing fertilizers should be avoided except on vigorously growing crops.

Denitrification is the anaerobic microbial process that converts nitrate (NO3-) into nitrogen gases including N2 and N2O.

Denitrification rates increase under anaerobic conditions when the soil is warm (at least 5 C, optimum above 20 C) and pH between six and eight and, of course, when high levels of nitrate are present in the soil. Losses from denitrification are most likely in poorly drained soils with high nitrate levels.

Although denitrification losses occur slowly on cold soils, cumulative losses in cold, wet soils can be significant during early spring thaw conditions. As I mentioned in my 2022 article on fall fertilization, research conducted at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1980s showed about 35 per cent of autumn-applied fertilizer nitrogen was lost via denitrification during snowmelt the following spring.

During the growing season, denitrification losses are much more rapid if soils are subject to flooding during summer months when soil temperatures are much higher. It can also happen later in the growing season after ammonium fertilizer has converted to nitrate, but before it has been used by the growing crop, especially on clay-textured soils in the black or gray soil zones.

Banding provides drought protection

Extensive research conducted on the Prairies, originally by the University of Alberta, led researchers to conclude that banding provides a form of drought-proofing. The research results indicated clearly that the advantage of banding over broadcasting became more significant as growing season moisture supply became less favourable.

The researchers suggested deep banding’s “drought buffering” should be regarded as a management tool to lessen drought’s adverse effects. Yields fluctuated much more dramatically with broadcast treatments than band treatments as the amount of water available to the crop was varied.

Since no region of the Prairies is immune to drought, band application of fertilizer would be beneficial in all regions. However, the greatest benefits would accrue in the brown, dark brown and thin black soil zones.

But this research does not suggest that banding is a substitute for moisture. Banding is only beneficial when there’s sufficient moisture to produce a crop. It’s of no benefit in the case of a total crop failure. Banding also slows the conversion of urea to ammonium and ammonium to nitrate, which can reduce losses by denitrification and leaching.

Good soil moisture opens new opportunities

Recent precipitation may ease drought in many Prairie regions. Remember that soil moisture is an important component of the crop yield equation and it is an invaluable tool for the producer for targeting crop yield for the upcoming growing season.

Targeting for low yields when yield potential is great will result in under-fertilizing crops, reducing crop yields and protein content.

Although precipitation is hard to predict, soil moisture is easy to estimate with a soil moisture probe. A soil moisture probe is simply a half-inch rod that is 3.5 to four feet long and has a 5/8-inch ball bearing at one end and a T-handle at the other. Soil moisture is measured by pushing the probe into the ground. When the soil runs out of moisture, you will not be able to push the probe any further. However, make sure you haven’t hit a stone or ice in the spring.

Here is the available water based on the texture and depth:

What are the opportunities?

Knowing soil-available moisture allows you to fertilize accordingly, resulting in target yields that are average, below or above average. Choose the right target and fertilize accordingly.

With improved moisture conditions, fertilization of crops that are to be grown on drought-stricken fields with moderate nitrogen rates will undoubtedly result in higher yield and/or protein content.

Make sure you have a soil test and probe several fields or management zones with different textures to establish the moisture status in your area and obtain a good estimate of potential yield. Supply the crop with adequate phosphorus and any other nutrients required.

The post Digging into the cause of poor yields appeared first on Grainews.

Most growers have now been accumulating data for 20 years or longer — and many have resolved to keep that data in the hopes of finding value from the gigabytes and terabytes of accumulated information in the form of increased on-farm efficiencies, cost reductions and improved yields.

But how should growers and agronomists interpret this data? That’s the goal of a venture by Chatham, Ont. agronomist Aaron Breimer.

With his new business, Moose-Ag, he aims to use his decade of experience working with growers in southwestern Ontario to help them interpret data and turn it into useful management directives.

Breimer recently provided answers to a few questions growers may have on the use and interpretation of data.

Q: If we accept that growers aren’t using their data to greatest advantage, what factors hold them back?

A: Time is always at a premium for farmers, be it trying to get the crop planted, chores completed, business planning or spending time with family. There are a lot of software platforms that farmers have access to that enable them to visualize and create insights from their data.

Generally, they’re called GIS or geographical information systems software and they allow GPS-generated data to be organized and overlaid. But as powerful as they are, in order to fully utilize them, users need to be interacting with them on a regular basis.

For some, they might only want to interact with their data two or three times a year, and it might take several hours to remember the nuances of each. When time’s at a premium, those hours aren’t always an option.

The end result is the more powerful aspects of these platforms are not engaged with, or the software isn’t utilized after the first or second time.

Q: What about data interpretation and expertise?

A: The current business model for agricultural data is a software platform, built and sold to end-users who pay to use it but are actually doing the work themselves.

Yes, there are some of the higher-end data interpretation tools in platforms that can be challenging, but there are lots of industry experts that can provide explanations.

In my opinion, those experts are also running into time constraints, like agronomists who are tasked with evaluating in-field challenges or supporting the agriculture industry in crop input sales. It’s like tax software: there are great accounting platforms on the market and for individuals who want to, they allow people to manage their finances and tax reporting responsibilities effectively.

But there are also plenty of bookkeepers and accountants utilizing those platforms for clients who choose not to do the work themselves.

Q: What about biases in data interpretation?

A: Every human being has biases, some of which are obvious, some less so, like a preferred brand of farm equipment. The same is true with data. Researchers have formal training in how to set up and conduct studies to minimize or eliminate biases (in the field).

But on-farm data interpretation can be more challenging. When a grower invests in seed or a fungicide, they want the data to prove them right.

In my opinion, biases cannot be eliminated in farm-scale data. We can try to minimize them and acknowledge that some still exist.

Q: How does the uniqueness of an individual farm operation affect data interpretation?

A: That’s one of the coolest things about agriculture; that uniqueness that each farm operation contains, and the story that created it. It isn’t just biases that might suggest Variety A does better than Variety B for Farmer Smith while the exact opposite is true with Farmer Jones.

It could be soil type, soil fertility based on the previous rotation or the presence of livestock; it might be drainage, or patience on the part of either grower heading to the field at planting.

When a farmer walks onto a research site or sees data results and says, “these are interesting but this isn’t my farm,” we need to listen to that statement, because it’s true. If a farmer is saying that because they want to continue to farm based on their existing biases, that’s OK. It’s been working for them.

However, if a farmer wants to work towards continual improvement of their operation, they might be asking for support on how to evaluate their existing system and how to adjust those based on their unique operation. But evaluating those tweaks has to make sense and be easy to implement.

This is a huge reason why I’m a proponent that every field can be a research site. It doesn’t have to include 50 trials with every field requiring cleaning out the planter each time.

But I do believe that if each field is treated as a unique data set and we overlay a systems approach, it might be incredible what we can learn or gain from that individual farm.

One of the things that makes the Yield Enhancement Network project [YEN, an international network of groups connecting agricultural organizations, extension specialists, academics, agronomists, and farmers with a focus on yield improvement] successful is that farmers are getting the support to do these research initiatives, and we need more of those.

The post How to deal with the farm data deluge 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.

Subsurface irrigation systems deliver water directly to roots using drip lines and is commonly designed to be spaced between rows to allow for water migration and leave space for moisture that falls in the form of precipitation.

The biggest upside for the systems is the potential for more than 95 percent water delivery into crops’ root zone with no surface evaporation. The downside is the high upfront costs.

But for Lawrence Vandervalk of Valk Land and Cattle, there simply isn’t a better way to irrigate in southern Alberta for his wheat, barley and mustard crops as well as his forages.

Vandervalk said subsurface systems run on a 30-30-30 principle.

“Thirty per cent less water, 30 per cent less operating costs and 30 per cent more productivity,” he said.

Vandervalk said a visit to Texas to see how that state’s farmers use the system was an eye-opening experience that made him believe this is the future of irrigation north of the border.

“You’re going to see a lot more SDI (subsurface drip irrigation) come in. There’s just no doubt about it. It’s going to come in like a storm,” he said.

“People are in love with their pivots. Even on a windy day, they are irrigating with a wetted pattern five times as big as normal with an evaporation pattern five times as big as normal.”

According to Vandervalk, some of the best high-pressure pivots yield 65 per cent water delivery efficiency.

But with his subsurface system, “we’re at 96.8 plus a third less operating costs,” he said.

It also allows for stable irrigation on the corners of quarter sections.

“You’re paying taxes on that land, you own that land, it’s a pain to leave those dryland corners and they are susceptible to erosion when you get bad years,” he said.

Vandervalk did concede the installation costs are high and there can be growing pains to reach that point.

Potato crops don’t seem to be able to adapt to the system, he added.

Kees van Beek, subsurface drip irrigation specialist with Southern Irrigation, said the system can be set at variable depths depending on the soil profile.

Irrigation rates can be varied as well to the conditions, he said, with the added benefit of increasing efficiency of fertilizer applications.

“We do that first, we don’t want to have stress, and second, we want to have that even soil moisture profile. So, any given time when the plant needs it, we can add nitrogen or phosphorus or boron or other fertilizers through the drip and have that 98 percent distribution to increase yields,” said van Beek.

About 4,000 acres of subsurface systems are spread across Alberta and Saskatchewan, with much of that developed in the last few years, van Beek said.

He anticipates adoption to increase in the coming years, as is happening in the United States, Europe and Israel.

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