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Tag Archives Soils and Crops

Weekly rainfall from September 26 to October 2, 2017.
Columns, Crops

Soil moisture: the old and new stories

Know your subsoil moisture and your chance of rain to make seeding decisions

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The first freeze-up stubble soil moisture map was made in Saskatchewan in 1978. Readers with Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water can see it on Page 109. It showed a lot of “very dry” and “dry” space. Red ink was common in the 1980s. The maps below show the situation in fall 1987 and fall […] Read more
Stubble soil moisture map, November 1, 2017
Columns, Crops

Stubble soil moisture map, November 1, 2017

Les Henry’s annual map of fall soil moisture going into the winter months

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The November 1, 2016, fall soil moisture map was, in a word, wet. In Manitoba and much of Saskatchewan all soils were at field capacity (holding maximum available water) and many areas were so wet that water tables were near enough to surface to be a factor. When the water table is within about five […] Read more
Volunteer growth in the field on November 10, 2016.
Columns, Peas

Diary of a pea crop

This season was too wet, 
then dry, but it’s left a 
promising start for next year

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This is the story of the pea crop on my farm near Dundurn, Sask., in the 2017 growing season. August 21, 2016 Last year we combined an 82 bushel per acre malt barley crop on this field. The soil was well supplied with water at seeding time and the May to July rain was 10.5 […] Read more
The Hextall "Eakinton" home near Grenfell, July 2001.
Columns

Mail order houses: The Eakinton

The T. Eaton Co. Ltd. “Eakinton” was a very unique home

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We have been getting quite a few queries about catalogue houses lately so I will tell the story about a very unique T. Eaton Home: Eakinton. First, a Q and A about the subject. What were catalogue or mail order houses? Starting in the early 1900s it was possible to order a house from a […] Read more
Farming through the drought cycles
Columns, Crops

Farming through the drought cycles

Soils and Crops: Even with modern ag technology, we’re still reliant on rain or soil moisture

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As the combines started to roll this fall, many were very surprised at how hard the truckers had to work. While not a barn burner, the 2017 crop will go in the books for many as good, and considering the lack of rainfall some will say it is great. We all like to point out […] Read more
I measured the water at this location SE 27 Tp 32 R3 W3 on October 2, 2001. This photo was taken on July 26, 2017.
Columns, Livestock

Water, salt and cows in pastures

Let’s use disaster as a chance to learn more about measuring the salt content in water

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The recent loss of 200 head of stock due to bad water brings the subject of water and cows into sharp focus. The loss occurred at a pasture near Shamrock, Sask., about 75 km southwest of Moose Jaw. Let me first offer condolences to the producers who lost cattle. In my experience cows are more […] Read more
These old wooden elevators at Laura, Sask., had developed some peculiar angles by the late 1980s when I took this photo. The Tessier aquifer is underneath and flows from a relatively shallow depth. In 1946 the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator in Laura drilled a 28-foot test hole that flowed, but no well is recorded.
Columns, Crops

How water comes out of the ground

Water comes to the surface in many different ways

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In my last column I looked at water entering the ground and the factors that control that flow. This time, I’ll look at water coming out of the ground and the clues it leaves about its origin. Contact springs A contact spring occurs when the contact zone between a very sandy soil and a finer […] Read more
Figure 1. A slough on nearly level clay soil on the University of Saskatchewan farm. This photo was taken on April 28, 2017.
Columns, Crops

Natural controls on internal drainage of sloughs

Whether or not your slough will drain quickly is a more complicated question than it appears

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Many farms in Western Canada are plenty wet, and the 1.25 inches of rain we got on May 7 set seeding back a few days. When a rain like that comes we hope for a hot, dry wind to “dry it up.” But, evaporation is a small party of the overall equation. Sloughs do not […] Read more
In my asparagus patch, September, 2012. Planting date was May 2002.
Columns, Crops

Getting to the root of the matter

In the third of a three-part series, Les Henry looks at roots of field and garden crops

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This is the final of a three-part series. In part 1 (April 11, 2017) I talked about the folks that provided very detailed diagrams of many plant roots to the depth needed to get the complete picture. Part 2 (April 25, 2017) was perennial pasture and hay crops and weeds and part 3 is field […] Read more
Figure 1. Roots of native sod of True Prairie in SE Nebraska. Each square in this figure is one square foot, for a total root depth of eight feet. The common names of a few of the plants are: Bc = side oats grama; K = Junegrass; B = blue grama; So = prairie goldenrod; S = needle grass. From: Plate A, after page 38 of Weaver, J.E. 1920. Root development in the grassland formation.
Columns, Crops

Back to the root of the matter

In Part 2 of a 3-part series, Les Henry talks about perennial crop roots

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This is Part 2 of a three-part series. In Part 1 we talked about the folks that provided very detailed diagrams of many plant roots to the depth needed to get the complete picture. In this part, we’ll talk about perennial plant roots, and in Part 3 will be about annual crop plants. Read more: […] Read more

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