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Gabe Brown is pictured while hosting a field tour on his North Dakota operation in October 2015.
Crops

Cover cropping – tips of the trade

Cover crop grower Gabe Brown says the best place to start when designing a species mix is to understand what your field needs and find the species that best addresses those issues

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The first step to success using cover crops is defining the problem you need to fix. Gabe Brown, a North Dakota farmer and cover crop advocate, told an April 6 Ducks Unlimited grazing club meeting in Lenore that too often farmers plant before they truly have a strategy. “The first thing you need to do
Cutaway of Plant and Roots in Dirt
Comment, Crops

Healthy soils mean a sustainable future

Causes, consequences of and solutions to soil erosion are always connected

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Healthy societies and healthy economies are the product of healthy soil. Healthy soil produces abundant inexpensive food in a sustainable and reliable way. This requires soil care on the part of land managers and courage on the part of policy-makers who oversee soil protection. Scientists who understand soil formation tell us the only sustainable way
A pea/oat/tillage radish cover crop seeded in early August, pictured on October 17.
Crops

Cover crops breaking out of livestock niche

Benefits of cover crops shown to accrue to grain portion of mixed operations, causing some without livestock to consider them

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Cover crops could be a game changer for Manitoba, and not just for mixed crop and livestock operations. Typically those farms have been the earliest adopters of this new technique, said Michael Thiele, who works with the province’s grazing clubs through a Ducks Unlimited program. “These guys growing cover crops are finding that using and
North Dakota producer, Gabe Brown spoke on cover crops and soil health strategies at the Ducks Unlimited grazing club event in Lenore on April 6.
Livestock

Taking grazing-management tips from Mother Nature

Gabe Brown says his success in cover cropping has come through 
observing and mimicking nature’s processes

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North Dakota farmer and cover crop and soil health expert Gabe Brown says if farmers give the techniques he advocates an honest try they’ll be hooked. “Take one field and promise yourself that for five years you will focus on the principles of soil health,” said Brown. If you stick with it for those five
Soil health is getting better, but there is still plenty of work to do.
Crops

Soil Conservation Week highlights land stewardship, public education

Soil conservation makes land more productive, but the benefits go well beyond that

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There are few things more important than the soil beneath our feet and this week — National Soil Conservation Week — highlights just how critical it is. Running Apr. 17 to 23, this year the focus is the importance of land stewardship for soil and other resources under the care of the agriculture industry, Paul
Most fields may have dried out from floods in 2010 and 2011, but there’s a lingering effect from compaction and poor aeration.
Crops, Weather

A wet cycle has caused some farmers to rethink zero till

Seeding & Tillage Focus: As the province’s wet cycle appears poised to break, soil compaction is a lingering after-effect

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The past few years have been a bit hard on zero till in Manitoba. Faced with a flood followed by a long wet cycle, more and more farmers in the southwest part of the province were forced to do something they thought they’d left in the past — pull out their tillage implements. Their aim,
Pratisara Bajracharya, field crop pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development spoke on clubroot at the Dauphin Agriculture Society’s Farm Outlook 2016 held on March 10.
Crops, Oilseeds

Careful management key to keeping clubroot level low in province

Experts call for soil testing, scouting and diligent rotations to keep clubroot at low levels

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Manitoba canola growers aren’t facing the full mischievousness of clubroot — yet. The soil-borne disease is a major issue for farmers in other locales, where it limits cropping options, stunts plants and hampers yield. Provincial specialists say they hope it remains a mild problem here, and scouting and diligent crop rotation will be the key
Reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint by focusing on soil
Crops, Local news

Reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint by focusing on soil

Storing water where it falls is another area where agriculture should do a better job

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“Has shown great improvement, but needs to do better.” That’s David Rourke’s report card on progress to improve soil health on the Prairies. “We will need to look at minimizing soil disturbance, more plant diversity and keeping something growing on our land from snow to snow,” the Minto-area producer told the Manitoba Sustainable Energy Association
harvesting silhouette
Crops

Mix it up for phosphorus’s sake

Some producers have found innovative ways to balance phosphorus levels, including land swapping

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It’s time for producers to mix things up. Speaking at the annual Crop Connect conference in Winnipeg last week, Don Flaten said that mixed farming can help balance phosphorus levels in the province. “But I’m not saying everyone should have some cows, some pigs, a few chickens, forage and crops,” he said. “What I mean
Average harvest loss in canola across the Prairies translates into 4,000 to 5,000 potential volunteers per square metre.
Crops, Oilseeds

Keeping volunteer canola out of soybeans

Inter-row tillage looks like a promising management tool

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The average of six per cent canola seed loss during harvest sounds bad enough, but even worse when converted into the number of seeds left to germinate as volunteers the following year. “We’re losing an average of 4,000 to 5,000 seeds per square metre so it doesn’t take a lot of persistence for volunteer canola

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