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Tag Archives Soil biology

Earthworm channels in soil tend to be enriched in organic matter, microbes and nutrients, which are of significant help in nutrient cycling.
Columns, Crops

One does not simply measure soil health

Agronomy Management: Just analyzing soil samples won’t give you the big picture

By
Over the past 40 years, Prairie farmers have made extraordinary strides in improving soil quality. Two major reasons were the shift from using summerfallow to continuous cropping, and the shift from conventional cultivation to no-till or minimum-till farming. Farmer adoption of these improved practices was gradual. Most famers were cautious and wanted to be sure […] Read more
One of the potential downsides to leaving crop residue on a field is that it can make planting more challenging the following spring.
Features

Crop residues’ rewards versus risks

Leaving crop residue after harvest can be beneficial — but poses some challenges

By
John Berger marked the completion of his 57th harvest on his family farm near Nanton in southern Alberta this fall. 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 […] Read more
Fall-applied nitrogen and nitrogen stabilizers
Crops, Features

Fall-applied nitrogen and nitrogen stabilizers

Keep your nitrogen in the soil where plants need it

By
Applying nitrogen fertilizer in the fall is an effective way to manage time and efficiency when spring comes. However, it can be hard to assess how much nitrogen is available in the root zone early in the season and what was lost to leaching and denitrification. Leaching is the loss of nitrates to the soil […] Read more
Why soybeans need inoculant and how some crops fix nitrogen without it
Columns, Crops

Why soybeans need inoculant and how some crops fix nitrogen without it

Plus, never do this with inoculant

By
Next to water, nitrogen is usually the most limiting nutrient in crop production. In prairie agriculture, by far the major source of fixed nitrogen for crop production is nitrogen produced industrially via the Haber process. But nitrogen fixation by legumes is also a very important economic factor in world agriculture. The nitrogen-fixing family of plants, […] Read more
Derek and Tannis Axten with their children Kate, 13, and Brock, 11, know if they look after the soil it will produce.
Crops, Features

Canada’s OYF: Nominees from Saskatchewan

Derek and Tannis Axten focus on encouraging soil biology

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Daring to be different may enrich your spirit, but it can also leave you cash poor. If you’re Derek and Tannis Axten, however, you wind up having your fungicide-free cake and eating it too. While the 2017 Outstanding Young Farmer (OYF) Award winners for Saskatchewan began their farming career on a well-trodden path, the route […] Read more
Promise of self-fertilizing attracts investment
Crops, Features

Promise of self-fertilizing attracts investment

Bayer bets big on a future where crops are designed to fertilizer themselves

By
There are a lot of efforts underway to optimize and minimize fertilizer use in crop production. Precision agriculture tools are improving the accuracy of where fertilizer is placed so that as much of it as possible reaches the plants that need it. And researchers from at least two Canadian universities — Ottawa’s Carleton University and […] Read more
This BASF-supplied photo shows a still vigorously growing pea crop (left) produced with Nodulator Duo compared to pea crop produced with a competing inoculant product.
Crops, Features, Pulses

New bacteria enhance N-fixing performance

Natural soil molecules recruited to help increase pulse crop growth and yield

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BASF Canada and Monsanto BioAg have both added different naturally occurring soil bacteria to pulse crop inoculants to enhance the nitrogen fixing capability and growth of pea and lentil crops. Pulsea crop growers are no doubt familiar with BASF’s Nodulator and Monsanto BioAG’s TagTeam pulse crop inoculants. They’ve been around for years. For the 2018 […] Read more
Soybean Field
Crops, News

Beneficial bacteria getting close

New products may promote plant growth and protect crops from disease

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Nitrogen-fixing bacteria are present in the root nodules of the majority of legumes, like soybeans and alfalfa. Other “beneficial bacteria” can be found in symbiotic relationships with crop plants that promote growth, increase stress or pest resistance, or increase nutrient solubility. Only in recent years have scientists been able to point to specific bacteria that […] Read more
If producers really want to try and get moisture levels down in their soil and decide to till, they need to think carefully about their phosphorus needs, says Dr. Mario Tenuta.
Crops, Features

Tillage is tempting, but treacherous

While tillage can get you in the field faster, it can also disrupt networks in your soil

By
Many farmers across Western Canada have been struggling with wetter than normal conditions over the past few years. This spring many will again be facing soils that are close to the saturation point and puzzling over how to deal with them. Some farmers may turn to tillage to help dry them out, or at the very least to smooth […] Read more
McGrath and helpers dig some soil pits along transect lines on native prairie pasture that is part of Round Rock Ranching to establish some baselines through nutrient and biological soil testing.
Cattleman’s Corner, Crops

Are you a (soil) health nut?

Any treatments applied above ground will eventually affect what happens below your feet

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I was eternally blessed to enter the University of Saskatchewan while Les Henry was still teaching at a time when we were “forced” to take at least an introductory soil science course. I learned a lot in that introductory course; mostly about how much I didn’t know (and how much Dr. Henry did). But more […] Read more

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