The data Prairie farmers get from chemical analysis of soils are necessary to develop a field fertility program — but as an Alberta program shows, those data don’t tell the whole story needed to assess soil health.
Tag Archives Soil biology
Measuring the components of healthy soil in Alberta
Part 1 of 2: Soil health more than just its chemical properties, according to the Alberta Soil Health Benchmark Report
Demystifying biological inputs
A new partnership brings science-based field data to ag input listings to help growers sort fact from fiction
Biome Makers’ BeCrop Trials system measures changes in the soil microbiome after a product is applied. While the AgList/Biome Makers badge doesn’t validate efficacy, it signals a product has been through third-party field trials.
One does not simply measure soil health
Agronomy Management: Just analyzing soil samples won’t give you the big picture
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
Crop residues’ rewards versus risks
Leaving crop residue after harvest can be beneficial — but poses some challenges
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
Keep your nitrogen in the soil where plants need it
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
Plus, never do this with inoculant
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
Canada’s OYF: Nominees from Saskatchewan
Derek and Tannis Axten focus on encouraging soil biology
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
Bayer bets big on a future where crops are designed to fertilizer themselves
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
New bacteria enhance N-fixing performance
Natural soil molecules recruited to help increase pulse crop growth and yield
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
Beneficial bacteria getting close
New products may promote plant growth and protect crops from disease
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
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
