Biostimulants: What’s in the box?

Biostimulants: What’s in the box?

When it comes to biostimulants there are plenty of questions but few clear answers

Biostimulants are one of the fastest-growing parts of the agriculture input market. A lot of products are on the market worldwide and many are being aggressively marketed. They’re being touted for their soil health benefits and other traits, but often little evidence is offered. Carl Rosen, a professor and extension soil scientist with the University

Managing microbes

Managing microbes

Taking a page from pulse production, beneficial soil microbes are under the microscope

One of the biostimulant areas receiving the most attention is soil microbes, something that already has a long history in agriculture. The most obvious example is soybean and other pulse crops that are inoculated with rhizobia to ensure they efficiently fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. It’s an area that’s growing fast thanks to advances in


Manitoba postal code map.

Soil N trend surprising

A dry summer could have left a nice bonus for you in your fields

AGVISE Laboratories says the trend this fall is towards higher levels of residual nitrogen in Manitoba soils. The Northwood, North Dakota company says an early harvest has allowed producers to get a jump on fall soil testing, and its accumulated data from more than 3,000 wheat fields already. That’s been surprising to many producers who

Manitoba Agriculture’s Marla Riekman digs into the soil strata below the Canada-Manitoba 
Crop Diversification Centre potato site near Carberry Aug. 14.

Tips for growing ’taters

Growing potatoes requires disturbing the soil, so how does that mesh with soil conservation efforts? According to provincial experts, it can

Soil advocates want potato growers to bump soil management up their priority list. Marla Riekman, soil management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, pitched soil management principles to growers and agronomists at Carberry’s Canada-Manitoba Crop Diversification Centre potato tour Aug. 14. Erosion risk The root crop, by its nature, involves disturbing soil, something that soil health advocates

Tillage erosion is gaining attention around the world as researchers get a better understanding of how tillage can move soil.

Get your topsoil moving

Landscape restoration can offer immediate yield boosts

If you farm in the Prairie pothole region, you’re dealing with some yield loss due to tillage erosion, says Marla Riekman, land management specialist for Manitoba Agriculture. The good news is there’s a relatively easy way to restore that lost yield potential: simply move the eroded topsoil back up the slope. Riekman was at this


A combination of snow covered in dirt is colloquially known as “snirt” and it’s a common sight around Manitoba this year, including here, east of Winkler.

Erosion lessons learned… and forgotten

The dust-covered snow of this winter suggests there’s a soil erosion 
problem brewing, MSSS speaker says

Disappearing shelterbelts and blackened fields have some wondering if the soil conservation lessons learned during the ‘Dirty ’30s’ dust bowl are being forgotten. “From the edge of Fargo to the edge of Winnipeg I did not see one flake of white snow on my way up yesterday (Jan. 31),” Daryl Ritchison, interim director of the

VIDEO: A return to the Dust Bowl days?

VIDEO: A return to the Dust Bowl days?

Are the soil conservation lessons learned from the Dirty Thirties being forgotten? Manitoba Co-operator reporter Allan Dawson spoke with Jim Tokarchuk of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada and University of Manitoba soil science professor David Lobb about this very issue at the Manitoba Soil Science Society’s meeting on Feb. 1, 2018. Watch for more

Just what does the term ‘soil health’ mean? A lot of different things, it turns out.

Ag Days speakers banter on soil health

Soil health is a hot topic, but there’s no clear definition of what it is and how to improve it

What’s soil health? Ask five people that question and you might get five different answers — even among Ag Days experts. Soil health and soil degradation are getting plenty of time in the headlines, with coverage of last year’s Summit of Canadian Soil Health in Guelph, soil tests looking beyond nutrients and into microbiology and


Soil background

Better soil health could capture more carbon

A recent study says changing farming practices could capture as much carbon as the global transport sector emits

Thomson Reuters Foundation – Improving soil health in farmlands could capture extra carbon equivalent to the planet-warming emissions generated by the transport sector, one of the world’s most polluting industries, experts said Nov. 14. Soil naturally absorbs carbon from the atmosphere through a process known as sequestration which not only reduces harmful greenhouse gases but

Dr. Alan Moulin takes tour attendees through the field.

Measuring tillage impact

There may be a middle path that gives the best results

Conventional wisdom says less tillage is better when it comes to soil structure, but the issue is more complex when comparing organic soil health to zero till, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researcher Dr. Alan Moulin. Moulin’s team looked at “soil aggregates,” or how soil particles bind together into larger groups, under high-input conventional