In 2017 and 2018, the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) conducted a study on relay and intercropping with hemp. With most of the data in from that two-year study, WADO’s Scott Chalmers spoke to an audience at the Western Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance conference Nov. 21.

“Relay cropping” refers to the planting of two or more crops with staggered outcomes and “intercropping” is the planting of two or more crops at the same time, in the same space and harvested at the same time. Collectively, both of these methods are called “companion cropping.”

The study was designed to delve into:

• Increasing fertilizer efficiency;
• Maximizing crops per acre;
• Increasing growing time;
• Light use efficiency;
• Soil health;
• Alleviating climate risks (drought or flooding);
• Maximizing income/acre; and
• Salinity (a water management issue).

The WADO trials were a randomized complete block design with three repetitions. They had a control (check) for hemp grown alone and the other blocks included sweet clover, alfalfa, red clover, hairy vetch, field pea, and fall rye.

The idea was to look at each of these companion crops to analyze the potential benefits that could be realized from underseeding. For instance, they would look at how peas work to counterbalance the nitrogen economy of the soil. For the clovers and alfalfa, they would look at how it adds value to the land by allowing for grazing after the hemp crop has been harvested. They would look at how each crop acts in terms of water use per acre. They would also look at how each of the crops would affect grain output (hemp seeds and peas).

Both 2017 and 2018 were very dry in the spring. As a result, Chalmers said it was difficult to get things going.

“We only had 68 per cent of our normal rainfall in 2017,” he noted.

Then after some moderate rains in July, there was virtually no rain in August. In 2018, it was similarly dry. So, while the similar conditions were good for statistical comparison, the yields weren’t as high as they would have been with normal rainfalls. But the data did reveal some interesting results.

In 2017 there was a yield of 347 kg/hectare with peas. Neither the red clover nor the sweet clover really impacted the hemp seed yield. But with alfalfa and hairy vetch, there was a depression in yield.

“That’s just because those two crops are very aggressive. Moisture was the limiting factor,” Chalmers said.

2018 was a mirror image for moisture compared to 2017, which means there were correspondingly similar results. In 2018 the crop planted with peas showed even more pronounced overyielding (as a percentage compared to the control) despite lower yields overall (only 284 kg/hectare). But even with those promising results, Chalmers questioned whether it would be enough to make it worthwhile.

“Is it really worth chasing 200-300 kg/ac. of peas? You’d have to factor it into your costs,” he said. “To me, it’s hardly worth cleaning out that crop.”

About a month after harvest, alfalfa and hairy vetch were doing very well. Sweet clover and red clover were there, but they weren’t dominating by any means. So, while the results with the two clover crops showed they played nice with hemp in terms of yields, they weren’t as successful as the vetch and alfalfa in terms of forage value.

“For every tonne of forage in dry matter you have it’s about $40 in nutrient value or $100 in grazing value,” Chalmers said. Even though it brought down yields in hemp, the economics could work in a farmer’s favour.

“It also gives you insurance for the next year,” he said. “If you get four feet of snow followed by three inches of spring rain and you can’t get out there to seed, at least you have something to insure. Potentially you can hay it or at least have something growing other than the weeds.”

While the study has clearly provided useful information to growers who might be considering hemp, because of the unusually dry conditions, it wasn’t able to paint an accurate picture of what it’s going to look like in a normal year. Chalmers said he hopes to continue research and hopefully get data from a year with more moisture to provide more insight.

“I would love to do this on a wet year where, given enough water, we would get a huge tonnage of forage afterwards,” said Chalmers.

The post Keeping hemp company appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Jeff Kostiuk, Hemp Genetics International director of operations, Central Canada, U.S. & international, recently spoke to an audience at the Canadian Hemp Trade Association Conference about what practices growers should work towards when considering hemp.

Food-grade hemp crops are commonly tested three times. The raw farm sample is tested for microbes prior to processing. The product is cleaned then tested again. Then it’s processed and tested a final time. It is important to note that the nature of the processing means that it is unlikely things will change much through the process.

“There are kill steps, but there are not firm kill steps that will reduce or remove all of those microbes,” Kostiuk said. “So it’s extremely important that we start with a product we can work with and maintain that quality.”

Of course, that begins on the farm.

Although hemp has a reputation for being a tough crop, the young plant is quite fragile. As a result, seed placement, fertilizer placement and seedbed preparation is extremely important.

The ideal planting stand is in the 10- to 12-plant-per-square-foot planting range. If you go below that, while it might not affect yield, it’s almost certainly going to affect quality. If you go too wide with spacing, you’ll get a similar yield, but harvesting will be more expensive because the seeds can grow too close to the ground. You want to be able to harvest just the top third of the plant.

With 15-inch row spacing you get canopy closure within six to eight weeks and that’s when hemp starts to make that transition into a more durable plant. Once it starts to get its strong taproot established, it becomes more resistant to different issues.

The nutrient uptake on the total plant is 200 lbs. per acre of nitrogen.

“It’s a hungry plant,” notes Kostiuk.

Potassium is found mainly in the stalk. If you’re harvesting fibre that’s green, you’re removing the potassium, so keep an eye on those levels.

Hemp seed size varies substantially from between around 12 and 21 grams per 1,000 kernels. So, it’s vitally important to know the variety that you are seeding and you have to adjust for that seeding rate.

If you’re seeding in perfect conditions (for example, if you have a nice seedbed; your soil temperature is in the range of 10 to 20 C for a number of days; and you’ve got moisture at one-half an inch) your mortality level can probably fall below 20 per cent. But if you get a rain three days later and you have excess moisture, your mortality rate can rise to 70 per cent.

Seeding date trials were done in 2015 with five dates beginning in May and running to the first of July. The best results came from the third week in June. There was a significant drop-off for the July 1 results but that had more to do with poor weather conditions (there was basically no rain in July). However, there is definitely a trend that the earlier you seed the higher the mortality rate. So if you do need to seed earlier, you have to increase your seeding rate.

“To me the seeding date is what you feel in your heart and your gut. What the calendar says, what the forecaster says, put it all together and roll the dice,” Kostiuk said.

At harvest, the range of moisture is as low as nine per cent and as high as 18 or 20 per cent. But Kostiuk says if you can get it into that 12 to 13 per cent range, you’ll clean up your sample substantially and limit the amount of time you have to pay attention to the bin.

Hemp must be dried to below nine per cent moisture. Kostiuk recommends that you get your seed on aeration within four hours of harvest. That will slow down the microbial activity.

“A rule of thumb we use is for every horsepower of your aeration fan you want to put about 200 bushels of crop,” suggests Kostiuk. “If you’ve got some supplemental heat, you can maybe double that.”

He also noted that it is important to get a good volume of air and that 4,000-bushel bins shouldn’t be filled more than three-quarters full.

The post Hemp quality starts at the farm appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

He’s placed his direct-marketed product on retail shelves and in farmers’ market stalls. He’s also experienced total crop failures other years.

Pengelly, like other producers pioneering quinoa in Manitoba, is looking for agronomic answers in a crop only recently come to the province, and to which there is a much shallower body of knowledge compared to other annual grains.

“Our grains are grown organically, so I’m looking for more information on how we are building a crop rotation around quinoa,” he said. “What are we adding to that rotation? What will be helping us grow quinoa better? Because with organics, your challenges are fertility and weed competition.”

Those are just a few of the unknowns when it comes to quinoa, a list that ranges from rotations to pest management to seeding dates, but is balanced by the temptation of substantial profit if the crop is good.

Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture set quinoa returns just under $348 an acre, assuming that the producer could pull off 1,000 pounds per acre, a target that is well within the crop’s yield potential, according to growers such as Joe Dutcheshen. Dutcheshen, who helped found NorQuin, now a major quinoa processor in Saskatchewan, ranged quinoa’s yields anywhere from 300 pounds to 2,000 pounds an acre in 2014 interviews with media.

Rotationally, researchers say quinoa might add another profitable option to tight crop rotations, thereby stemming disease or resistance issues waiting in the wings.

All of this, of course, is assuming that the crop can produce consistent yields and quality.

NorQuin has seen those dense harvests, according to Derek Flad, breeding research manager with the company, although he admits that those attractive yields have not been the norm, and those farmers who have seen more consistent success are those willing to take on intensive monitoring and management.

“You have to check as many boxes as you can when it comes to growing this crop — when it comes to land preparation, scouting, fertility, seeding timing, seeding date, conditions,” he said. “You have to give this crop the best opportunity to grow and if you’re not prepared to do that, the expectations have to be changed accordingly. If you’re going to take a chance on any specialty crop, a lot of times people will put it in a quarter just to see what happens, and that’s all fine, well and good, but if you’re looking at expanding and diversifying your rotation, you have to give it the honest effort.”

Up north

Heat has been a much-cited bane of the crop, and one of the reasons for the so-called Hwy. 16 rule, a guideline that puts the best quinoa-growing land in cooler regions north of Hwy. 16. Much like canola, flowers are known to abort in heat, and an ill-timed heat wave can cut significantly into yield.

That guideline, however, has come under fire from growers such as Percy Phillips of Portage la Prairie, who says he has seen promising results through south-central Manitoba.

In fact, test plots in Melita and southern Manitoba promised far better results this year by mid-season than those planted near Roblin, despite a streak of hot weather.

James Frey, diversification specialist with the Parkland Crop Diversification Foundation (PCDF), said he does not expect to get any yield from the test plots near Roblin this year.

The Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) near Melita and the PCDF both hosted NorQuin variety trials this year. It is the third year that quinoa has been planted at PCDF.

“We have seen great yield in one year, middling yields in another — and in that case, I think a lot of the challenges were to do with excess heat at flowering, specifically — and then this year, it seems to be really driven by insects and moisture,” Frey said.

Roblin and the northwest saw substantial rains from May 24 to July 8, a period where the rest of the province was starved for moisture. That rain may have been a boon to forage producers in the area, but it was also likely a bane to quinoa plots.

As of the end of July, some plants were no more than a foot off the ground compared to the much taller plots heading out in Melita.

Heat blast is still on WADO’s radar. The diversification centre launched seeding date trials to get a better grip on crop staging through Manitoba’s summer. Planting dates were staggered weekly from May 2 to June 22.

“Being early always means beating the heat and being late always means establishing and performing after the heat has come and gone,” Scott Chalmers, diversification specialist at WADO, said.

Where to plant?

One open question is just where the crop will do best.

Phillips says the crop does well on his marginal land, pointing to the rocky ground it has adapted from in the Andes of South America.

Flad, meanwhile, insists that a sandy loam is the best bet for the crop and advised producers to try quinoa on their best ground in order to give it the best chance for success.

Frey, for his part, has seen the crop thrive on what he would describe as “not so great land,” a qualification that he saves for sandier soil that might also serve for quinoa given the crop’s aversion to excess moisture and the soil’s better drainage. The nutrients however, must be there, he said.

“Clearly, there’s a couple of indicators that, if you can remove some of those pressures — for example, the disease and insect pressures, and if we’re growing it in a situation where the root zone, particularly, is not going to be too wet — then it responds very well to higher rates of nitrogen,” Frey said.

It’s a high-input crop, Flad acknowledged, and Chalmers says that his own fertility plan echoed what he would normally put on spring wheat.

According to Saskatchewan’s 2018 crop production guide, quinoa takes 42 pounds an acre of nitrogen, 18 pounds per acre of phosphorus and 11 pounds per acre of potassium.

Pest issues

Quinoa’s pest issues are one thing that is not in question.

Both WADO and PCDF noted serious issues with stem borer, while growers have also noted issues with lygus bugs, goosefoot moth and mildew, among insect and disease concerns.

“In terms of a total loss, we’re seeing more issues with insects than we are with heat,” Flad said.

There are currently no products registered for use in quinoa, a potentially massive hurdle in a crop noted for its pests.

In a similar vein, the crop is uncompetitive with many of Manitoba’s weeds.

The lack of registered herbicide and potential weed impact has made a pre-emergent burn-off critical, according to Chalmers.

“When the seedling comes up, it’s this very fine, spindly little seedling and I think any weed pressure whatsoever would be quite a catastrophe at that time,” Chalmers said, although he cautioned that pre-emergence window might be short.

The crop emerges quickly in cool soils, Chalmers said, and farmers can expect seedlings to emerge within five days of planting.

Growers may soon have those chemical controls, at least if NorQuin has anything to say about it. It’s been working to have the crop added to the labels of existing products.

“We are pushing as many insecticides and fungicides as we can,” Flad said.

The company hopes to see Group 1 herbicides approved for quinoa in the near future.

That may be good news for commercial growers, although many existing quinoa growers, including Pengelly, have already turned to the organic market in the hopes of making the best out of their non-existent chemical options.

“It’s more risky and technically challenging agronomically speaking,” Pengelly said. “But, in my view, growing organically, we don’t have a choice.”

NorQuin also hopes to add some new genetics to the mix.

Although the company’s breeding program is in its early days, Flad says they have selected some promising lines.

As for Pengelly, he is looking at other options to lower his risk.

Intercrops may hold the key to nitrogen fixation, he hopes, or at the very least, risk mitigation since adding a second crop would increase the chances of taking something off the field.

Alternately, different rotations may help him break the “Russian roulette,” of pest problems, he said.

“Really, now I see a need for universities, corporations, the crop diversification centre here, to do research to hopefully give us some answers,” he said.

The post To the bin or bust: quinoa a risky proposition appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Some look great. Others are nothing but bare soil where nothing established. In others the crops aren’t playing well together and underseeded legumes are set to overtake the crop they were supposed to support.

That’s just fine with WADO staff however. They’re as interested in finding out what didn’t work as what did. That fulfils their mandate of exploring the risks first so farmers don’t have to, said Scott Chalmers, WADO manager.

He says the nature of exploring this technique means a lot of ups and downs in the field and the value of taking on the challenge season after season.

“Certainly, these intercrops are building on previous ideas or results,” Chalmers said. “That’s kind of how science works.”

He cited the pea-canola intercrop as a good example of the many wrinkles researchers encounter. So far they’ve nailed down that when it comes to fertility, nitrogen applications won’t see a big effect but phosphorus likely will. Now they’re trying to figure out what the best practices are going to be for fungicide applications. While the crop will be denser, there might actually be less spatial risk and lower incidents of mycosphaerella because fewer pea plants will actually be touching. But that isn’t the only risk.

• Read more: Intercrops overcome insurance hurdle

“On the flip side, both crops get sclerotinia,” Chalmers said.

WADO is putting fungicide applications to the test on its “peaola” this year, including plots that are intercropped with alfalfa on top of the pea-canola mix.

Leap of faith

Intercropping is already popular in the organic sector, where producers target the method for maintaining post-harvest green cover or to address nitrogen issues by adding legumes. For many who try the method for the first time, however, the practice may still feel like a leap of faith with few standards or guidelines available.

It’s all about finding synergies, according to Dunling Wang, alternate cropping system specialist with Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture.

“There are a variety of ways to intercrop, from planting different crops to different species of the same crop or seeding two crops together at the same time or different times, seeding in a wide strip (or) inter-rows or sometimes mixing it together completely,” he said.

“The producer could think about all those kinds of crops they want to grow and then put them on the table and see how to make combinations of those and try them out,” he said.

Depending on the system, matching maturity dates may be important for a successful intercrop, Wang said, urging producers to keep harvest ability, equipment availability and grain sorting in mind.

Seeking synergies

At WADO, Chalmers is hoping to find some of those synergies between soybeans and flax. Trials from the South East Research Farm in Saskatchewan have already suggested that mixing chickpeas and flax could drop chickpea aschocyta significantly, results that inspired Chalmers to see if soybeans and flax could have a similar disease-fighting effect.

WADO seeded a double-row intercrop of the two crops this year after last year’s single-row system saw flax outcompete soybeans.

“You can kind of partition where you put the nitrogen fertilizer, which we specifically put on flax rows,” Chalmers said of this year’s attempt. “We want to get the best of both worlds. We want to grow soybeans with nodules and we want to grow flax with fertilizer.”

Chalmers said previous research shows nitrogen and nodules don’t mix, but says an inhibitor like Agrotain may mask that effect allowing soybeans to nodulate.

WADO collected no data from its first trials last year after deer grazed down the plots.

Wang’s advice on compatible harvest might hit a roadblock in the flax-soybean mix. Chalmers says he is concerned that the high header speed needed for flax might damage soybeans.

The pulse may also end up as a marketability barrier, he said, since buyers might be concerned about soy as an allergen contaminant.

Dealing with dry

Moisture presents another challenge, one that Manitoba farmers have become well acquainted with in the last two years, although Wang argues that intercropping itself may increase the resilience of a field.

“If you could incorporate one drought-tolerant and one wet-tolerant crop together, you could always have a crop unless it’s really, really dry and no crop would grow,” he said.

WADO’s hemp-legume experiments felt the impact of dry conditions last year.

Initiated at least partly to see if nitrogen-fixating legumes might help with residue breakdown in the high-biomass crop, WADO is currently on its second year of the trials.

“We’ve had timely rainfalls which have increased the success rate of emergence on our relays,” Chalmers said of this year’s plots. “The No. 2 difference is we’ve actually put hairy vetch in the seed row versus broadcasting it last year which was likely less successful.”

Overtaken

The centre’s hemp-hairy vetch mix details yet another quirk of intercropping, with the highly competitive legume threatening to overtake the crop it was planted to support.

Last year, vetch-planted plots showed the most biomass after hemp harvest (2,000 kg/ha compared to less than 500 hg/ha in every other legume), although Chalmers also noted that the growth threatened to cause headaches with hemp harvest, as the legume had grown tall enough to tangle in the seed heads.

Chalmers urged growers who are considering intercrops to seek advice from diversification centre staff or producers who have already grown them, as well as double-check marketing standards and insurance before hitting the field.

The post Intercropping coming closer appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Intercropping, also known as companion cropping, is an emerging practice in general. Farmers are drawn to it for potential overyielding, disease or weed management or increased water use in wet years.

At the same time, dry years may drain subsoil moisture, a bad mix might pit crops against each other and a weather loss risks not just one crop, but two.

Added to that, the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation does not insure intercrops.

WADO hopes to clear up some of that risk.

The test farm near Melita ran intercropping trials this year on wheat-legume, pea-canola, hemp-legume and soybean-flax.

Wheat and legumes

One of the less novel mixes at WADO, wheat-legume has emerged as a cover crop option for producers who want to keep green cover after harvest, turn livestock out to graze or by organic producers to control weeds.

WADO hoped to single out best seeding practices. The farm compared both alfalfa and clover broadcast prior to spring wheat seeding, drilled into the furrow and broadcast after cereal was seeded.

Melita’s dry spring came into play on emergence, WADO manager Scott Chalmers said. Legumes seeded half an inch deep accessed moisture better, while broadcast seed did not respond until it rained.

Given that, Chalmers found seeding with the row was the best method and pre-seed broadcast followed, since the soil disturbance from wheat seeding worked in the legume.

“In the end, the biomass was basically the same despite whatever method you choose,” he said. “It’s more based on the seed viability depending on which treatment you pick.”

Respectively, in-row alfalfa and clover gave 381 and 279 kilograms of biomass per hectare compared to pre-seed broadcast (354 kg/ha for alfalfa and 168 kg/ha for clover) and post-seed broadcast (327 kg/ha in alfalfa, 267 kg/ha in clover).

WADO had some concern about yield lag in wheat, an issue that did not emerge, Chalmers said.

While pre-seed broadcast clover returned the lowest biomass, it also gave the highest wheat yield. The plot took off 4,374 kg/ha of wheat, beating out the control plot by 200 kg/ha. Others fell short of monocrop wheat, although the lowest yields (post-seed broadcast alfalfa and in-furrow clover) reached 3,870 kg/ha and kernel weights met or exceeded the check.

“I think if we had a better spring where we had a quick jump out of the ground, I think things would have been much different, but because of the delay, the wheat was really the main survivor and kind of overshadowed any effects that the legumes would have posed. We had a fantastic wheat yield,” Chalmers said.

Dr. Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba says those results match his own work in intercropping fall rye and legumes.

Like Chalmers, Entz found that adding legumes did not significantly impact yield and in-row seeding was better than broadcasting legumes.

Entz, however, also looked at soil type. Clay soils might give legumes a boost in a relay crop, Entz found in a 2001 study.

“Greater water-holding capacity of clay soils may make them better suited to late-season plant growth and less reliant on late-season precipitation than sandy soils,” the study read.

Pea and canola

Pea and canola trials were all about the fertilizer.

The second year WADO has tested the mix, researchers hoped to better understand dynamics between phosphorus and nitrogen.

Results echoed 2016, despite the drier year.

Once again, WADO found that any application of phosphorus benefited the crop, while nitrogen hindered nodulation in peas and gave canola a competitive advantage.

Combined 2016 and 2017 numbers showed that pea nodules declined from well over 30 per plant when no nitrogen was added to 20 with 90 pounds per acre of nitrogen.

In terms of phosphorus, a jump from no nutrient to 30 pounds per acre increased nodules from just over 20 to just under 30 per plant.

“Without phosphorus, it’s not going to do anything,” Chalmers said. “Any applied phosphorus was great not only for plant growth and grain yield but for nodulation as well, which was interesting… and any nitrogen we applied to the system really was not advantageous to grain yield.”

Jumping from no nitrogen to 45 pounds per acre did give several hundred kilograms more yield per hectare, mostly due to canola yield, although jumping again to 90 pounds per acre did not significantly increase production. Phosphorus had a constant upwards trend. The first 30 pounds of phosphorus per acre saw a similar yield jump as 45 pounds per acre of nitrogen, while 60 pounds per acre of phosphorus led to the highest yield jump of any single-nutrient plot. Plots with no phosphorus and 90 pounds per acre of nitrogen returned the lowest yields of any plot other than the unfertilized check.

“Any time we didn’t have phosphorus, it was detrimental to the system and it didn’t matter what rate of fertilizer for nitrogen that you put on,” Chalmers said.

The trial tagged 35 pounds per acre as an ideal phosphorus rate. Chalmers said land equivalence ratio, which compares crop yield if grown together with yields if you grew crops separately under the same management, plateaued at that point.

Entz was not surprised at those findings.

While he has not examined nitrogen in pea-canola himself, “what Scott has found seems logical,” he said. “The nitrogen fertilizer regime in legume/non-legume intercrops is an important question.”

Adding canola significantly dropped aphids in peas, WADO reported. Peas alone had almost 17 aphids per plant, compared to mixed plots which all saw less than four.

Soybean and flax

Soybean-flax yields will stay anecdotal, Chalmers said. WADO pulled back the trial after deer grazed plots enough that any samples would be invalid.

Flax visually overwhelmed the soybeans, however, Chalmers added. Flax thrived better in the dry conditions, particularly when planted in the same row as the pulse.

The early end also means that WADO couldn’t test soybean shelling during harvest. Chalmers previously expressed concerns that harvest speed for flax would damage soybeans.

WADO initially hoped that a flax-soybean mix would give similar disease advantages as flax and chickpea have demonstrated in Saskatchewan. The combination dropped chickpea aschocyta instance from 51 to 17 per cent during a 2014 South East Research Farm study.

Hemp and legumes

Hairy vetch showed the most promise, and the most risk, of the legumes mixed with hemp.

The trial also tested red clover, sweet clover, alfalfa. Two annual crops, fall rye and peas, were also planted.

“The hemp was the No. 1 crop,” Chalmers said. “The legumes did take, but once the hemp had bolted and had gone into flower, the legumes kind of took a second seat.”

Hairy vetch outstripped other legumes after hemp was taken off. Biomass topped 2,000 kg/ha of dry matter, while no other relay crop returned more than 500 kg/ha.

That same growth rate threatened harvest. Vetch grew high enough to tangle with seed heads and potentially plug combines.

“If you pick a tall variety, you’re probably not going to see much legume or vetch get up top, but if you’re picking a shorter variety, for example, Finola, I think the legume would have the upper hand and probably take over the crop.”

The effect may be even more dramatic on soil organic matter, according to Entz.

“Keep in mind that hairy vetch usually has three times more below growth than above-ground growth for the first six weeks of its life, so even an unimpressive amount of biomass of hairy vetch can make a big contribution,” he said.

Legumes and fall rye dragged yields slightly, with the exception of the poorly established red clover.

Field peas showed more promise for yield. The mix returned 909 kg/ha of hemp and 347 kg/ha of peas for the largest total grain yield.

“Certainly, there would be some issues with separating that crop because hemp is harvested so green,” Chalmers said.

The slight overyield might not be worth the inconvenience, he added, although a wetter year might see more pea yield.

The post Mixing and matching intercrops with WADO appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Smart Earth Seeds, a Saskatchewan company, says camelina, is one to consider.

There’s a long list of crops, including wheat, barley, oats, flax and buckwheat that can be seeded as late as June 20 and still qualify for full crop insurance coverage.

Greenfeed can be seeded as late as July 15 and be eligible for reduced crop insurance coverage.

Camelina is not currently covered by crop insurance in Manitoba, but Smart Earth Seeds says the ancient oilseed has some advantages, including maturing in 92 to 100 days. That means it can be safely seeded as late as June 15, Christina Eynck, Smart Earth Seeds’ Saskatoon-based camelina breeder said in an interview June 2.

Camelina is in the same brassica family as canola and mustard.

Smart Earth Seeds is still contracting 2015 camelina production. However, farmers have to deliver the crop to either Chaplin or Gull Lake, Sask.

The delivered contract price is $9 a bushel.

Smart Earth Seeds sells camelina seed to contract growers for $3.75 a pound. The recommended seeding rate is five and seven pounds an acre on heavy and light soils, respectively Eynck said. That’s a seeding cost of almost $19 to $27 an acre, reinforcing camelina’s ‘low input cost’ reputation.

The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture says in Saskatchewan camelina yields similar to canola.

“Camelina yields tend to be lower than the other species under adequate precipitation conditions,” the ministry says in a web article. “However, camelina outyielded other brassica species when moisture was limited or untimely. Seed yield of the accessions tested ranged from 1,638 to 3,106 kilograms per hectare over two locations in the Saskatoon area.”

Yields vary depending on whether camelina is grown in stubble or on fallow, Eynck said in an email. In stubble on light soil, yields average 24 to 28 bushels an acre. In fallow it yields 30 to 35 per acre.

On darker stubble soils, camelina will average 30-plus bushels an acre and fallow 35 or more, she wrote.

Manitoba canola yields averaged 34 bushels an acre the last 10 years, according to crop insurance data. Most Manitoba canola is grown on stubble.

Yields can be dragged down by weeds. There are currently no in-crop herbicides for broadleaf weed control registered for camelina, Eynck said in an interview.

Camelina prefers drier conditions and can outyield canola when grown on marginal land, said Scott Chalmers, a Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development diversification specialist working with the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) out of Melita.

It’s a frost-tolerant crop that has potential for dormant seeding in the fall or early spring, he said.

Camelina is easier to harvest than canola and can be straight cut, Eynck said. However, the seed is smaller than canola so combines need to be adjusted accordingly.

Camelina oil is used for biofuel, polymers and food. It’s high in omega-3 fatty acids, which makes it heart healthy for humans and good fish farm food, she said.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has approved camelina meal in chicken feed.

When considering camelina, it’s critical to have a buyer and seed supply, Chalmers said.

The post Camelina worth considering for reseeding if other options limited appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

After the deluge from the Souris River dried up, staff at the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) wanted to know what effect the flood had on research plots that were completely under water last summer.

Soil tests of what appeared to be dark-coloured sand near the bridge on the creek that runs behind the main building yielded surprising results — the silt contained more nutrients than samples taken from other parts of the farm.

“You can’t assume that just because it looks like something from a distance, that’s what it is,” John Heard, a soil fertility specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, said in a presentation at the annual WADO field day.

“Some of this silt is bringing more nutrients to the farm than what it had to begin with. It’s not much of an impediment — I don’t know how we charge you for it.”

For farmers left in a similar situation, Heard advises them to stop speculating and start soil testing.

“We have science. Science is a tool. Simply measure it,” he said.

Testing found that the samples containing 91 per cent sand also had 1.6 per cent organic matter, 16 parts per million phosphorus, 250 ppm potassium, and a pH of 7.3.

The flat, rented land that is home to the WADO research plots on the south side of Melita looks uniform, but dramatic differences were uncovered by soil testing at depths down to two feet post-flood, said manager Scott Day.

Nitrogen levels varied from 60 pounds of available nitrogen to just 18 pounds in some spots.

On his own farm north of Deloraine, soil tests found an abundance of crop nutrients left over after last year’s washout, he added.

“All the fields were extremely high in nitrogen and all nutrients, actually,” said Day.

Many of his neighbours “took a leap of faith” and opted to skip fertilizer this spring after some tests showed up to 200 pounds of available N on high ground outside of the river valley.

On the other hand, some farmers eager to cash in on high grain prices “poured on the coal” to boost yields.

“I know some people who sowed their crops with no fertilizer this year and it looks just as good as any other,” said Day. “It will be really interesting at harvest.”

On the edges of the WADO plots, provincial weed specialist Nasir Shaikh found some less encouraging detritus possibly brought in by the flood — what may be herbicide-resistant weeds.

Shaikh’s bouquet included giant ragweed, Canada fleabane and kochia — the first, second and third glyphosate-resistant weeds discovered in Canada, respectively.

“We have to be very careful,” he said. “A lot of growers are using glyphosate year after year after year — and that creates selection pressure for creating weeds that have glyphosate resistance. We could lose that chemistry forever.”

Shaikh added that after last year’s very wet spring then very dry summer, many growers have been left with issues related to Group 2 herbicide residues that are damaging this year’s crops.

Group 14 herbicides such as Reflex and Authority are also very persistent in the soil, and may cause injury to consecutive crops, he added.

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A number of varieties, including Kestrel and Raptor, will drop out of the milling-quality Canadian Western Red Winter class and into the general purpose class a year from now. On Aug. 1, 2014, Falcon will also drop into the GP class.

“The nice thing is that we’ve got Flourish coming along by that time — it’ll be a replacement for Falcon, with certified seed ready for seeding next fall,” said Ken Gross, a winter wheat expert with Ducks Unlimited Canada, who gave a presentation on the latest winter wheat research during the recent Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization field day.

Exact percentages haven’t been pinned down yet, but breeding trials are showing that Flourish is superior to Falcon.

Winter wheat in Manitoba is currently dominated by two varieties, said Gross.

In the Red River Valley, where shorter straw is preferred, and south of the Trans-Canada Highway, Falcon is No. 1 while more winter-hardy Buteo reigns north of that line.

“I think that’s going to change once they have Flourish,” said Gross.

Sunrise, a new and very high-yielding soft red winter wheat with short straw and lower nitrogen requirements has been clocked at 100 bushels to the acre compared to Falcon’s 80.

With the class changes, the newer varieties will offer more marketing options, including ethanol or milling.

There has also been progress in fusarium resistance, and even stripe rust, in the new winter wheats.

Emerson, a variety developed in Lethbridge by breeder Rob Graf, is showing moderate resistance to fusarium and should be ready by the fall of 2014.

When poring over Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Trial data, growers should remember those plots are never sprayed with fungicides, he said, which may push yield data to the short side when compared to actual practice using good crop management.

“For example, I’ve seen Ptarmigan go 120 bushels to the acre,” said Gross. “Ptarmigan doesn’t have a very good disease package to start with, so the fact that it’s showing any kind of response even with no spraying shows how much potential it has.”

Fungicide trials are currently looking at the effect of spraying at the flag and early anthesis stage. Results so far show that applying fungicide early at the same time as herbicides is not as good as waiting for a second round.

“It’s the flag that you want to protect,” said Gross, adding that early anthesis is also showing better results.

“If you want to get the highest yields and quality, two fungicides seem to be common practice.”

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But bale shredding and refilling paddocks were taking the better part of an afternoon and those were hours the Brandonarea cattle producer didn’t have. So a few years ago, Heinrichs began looking at ways to extend the grazing season.

Today, he uses standing corn, swathed cereals and hay for winter feeding on his farm, a 160- head cow/calf operation that also includes 30 bred heifers.

He first heard about this form of winter feeding at grazing club meetings a few years ago, and obtained support from the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO), which manages value-added and diversified research and demonstration projects in the southwest.

It supported a proposal and provided seed to Heinrichs and nine other farmers. The trials lasted several years, and included trying out different corn varieties, Heinrichs told attendees on the Manitoba Forage Council’s pasture tour last week.

Research project participants measured cob size, kernel size, leaf loss, digestibility, and spring feed quality of the top two-thirds and bottom one-third of the corn plant.

Searching for optimum digestibility, Heinrichs concluded that grazing strictly on corn wasn’t best.

“The energy level was so high,” he said, adding that he observed the cows stiffened and developed bellyaches.

It was at that point he began adding bales to the standing corn. This coming January, his cattle will graze a cornfield with bales set out in the fall. The bales will about 50 feet apart, and placed along two electric fencelines in accordance to calculations Heinrichs has made on number of cows to be fed, numbers of days of winter feeding, and estimated grain in the field.

Once every three days, he’ll take 30 to 40 minutes to move the fence. Three days seems to work well as the cattle do not overload on grain and it balances their ration, he said.

Hay is sorted by quality, and placed so cows won’t reach the best feed until later in the winter when they’re in later gestation. Snow is the water source.

For each day, Heinrichs allots each cow about 10 to 12 pounds of corn grain, 10 to 12 pounds of alfalfa hay, and 10 to 14 pounds of swathed cereal, or he may substitute swaths with poorer-quality hay.

Heinrichs has calculated the cost at about 35 cents per 10 pounds of grain corn per head per day (based on corn crop costing about $200 per acre to seed).

“The way you can work that number is if I get 100-bushels-an- acre corn, you’ll have 5,600 pounds of grain out there,” he said. “Take $200 and divide by 5,600; it’s going to be about 3-1/2 cents a pound to actually grow that corn. If I was going to purchase that corn at $7 a bushel, it would be costing me $1.20 a day.”

All told, the cost per day per cow is about a buck, he says – less if the value of the fertilizer the cows leave behind is factored in.

“And basically, it allows me to work full time at another job which otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do,” Heinrichs says. “It allows me to stay in the cattle business in a significant way and it gives me a lot more free time for my family. I’m not living with the cows.”

lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

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It’s old hat for organic farmers, who have been seeding cover and relay crops since the days when Grandpa seeded peas and oats together, harvested them with a horse-drawn binder, and pitched the sheaves off a hayrack to his cows in winter.

In fact, it goes back even further than that, to the intercropping of corn, beans and squash by indigenous peoples in North America.

So it may be surprising that cutting-edge research is looking back at an ancient practice that offers benefits in terms of light exposure, nutrients and water efficiency.

MORE FOR LESS

Seeding two or more crops can allow a farmer to grow more on the same land base, use less fertilizer, and spend less money, time and effort fighting pests, disease and insects, according to Scott Chalmers, a diversification technician from the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) in Melita.

Plots last summer that looked at optimal seeding rates for Clearfield 7130 canola and CDC Stryker peas in the same row, found that a half rate of canola and a full rate of peas yielded 4,000 pounds per acre, compared to 2,500 lbs. and 2,000 lbs. for each crop planted separately.

“It was incredible what happened. The love between the canola and peas was just remarkable,” he said, in a presentation at the OPAM annual general meeting.

“We nearly doubled our yield – about 70 per cent more yield – just by adding these two crops together.”

The two crops would have to be separated with a rotary screener right off the combine, however, to avoid the risk of heating in the canola, he added.

With oats and peas, the researchers found that the oats overpowered the peas, but he added that seeding rates may not have been optimal. For silage, there was a significant yield advantage at two-thirds rate for both compared to oats on their own.

HUGE DEMAND

Hairy vetch and winter wheat seeded on Sept. 25 near Reston showed some success in getting the hairy vetch to overwinter and set seed the following fall, he said.

Hairy vetch is in “huge demand” by the organic sector due to its high rate of nitrogen fixation, he

COMPOUNDING BENEFITS: Trials and field experience suggest intercropped peas and canola can increase yields and decrease input costs.

added, and sells for up to $3 per pound.

“They seem to complete each other very well,” he said. “The winter wheat seems to hold up the hairy vetch. It will grow four or five feet tall, but it needs something to climb up or it will fall over.”

Although only 20 per cent of the crop survived the winter, full hairy vetch pods were visible. At harvest, it appeared that a 125 per cent winter wheat seeding rate sent the line on the graph indicating hairy vetch yield soaring nearly straight up.

“The obvious conclusion you come to is that hairy vetch likes to be competitive with something else. It doesn’t like growing on its own,” he said. “There’s some sort of reaction with light or nutrients, so that when it’s under stress it actually produces more seed.”

Chalmers, who comes from a mainly conventional ag background and specialized knowledge of botany and chemistry, said that farmers can expect to see more blurring of the lines between organic and conventional zero-till research.

COLIN ROSENGREN

He joked that he felt like there was a “target” painted on him, which was reinforced by occasional furrowed brow among the 80-odd organic farmers in the room whenever he mentioned the high cost of nitrogen or new chemical options such as Clearfield herbicide-resistant crop technology.

MORE TRIALS

But he noted that in 2011, trials with the Rodale Institute’s crop roller will begin at WADO, in consultation with University of Manitoba plant sciences professor, Martin Entz.

“Organic farming is rather new to me, but learning about the practices that organic farmers do right now is actually blending well right now with where the province wants to take agriculture from now on,” he said.

“In conventional, there’s a lot of dollars to be made, but in organic there’s a lot of conservation in mind with the intent to improve our pocketbook as well as our environment and the food we eat.” daniel.winters@fbcpublishing.com

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