Growing winter cereals is for the birds, Lee Moats might say.
The Saskatchewan Winter Cereal Growers director, who also works with Ducks Unlimited Canada, says he has always known waterfowl and winter cereal producers had something in common. Farmers like the crops for the yield, weed competitiveness and time savings and ducks like the residual stubble and early spring growth for nesting.
But research conducted by Ducks Unlimited last summer found nests built in fall-seeded crops are four times more likely to see new ducklings hatch and survive than other waterfowl nests.
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“All of us as farmers like to be environmentally friendly and this takes it one step further,” he told winter cereal growers during the Crop Production Show last week in Saskatoon.
Nests tallied
In the study, Ducks Unlimited planted 740 acres of fall rye and 370 acres of winter wheat on land in southeastern Saskatchewan in the fall of 1995. The crops were searched four times to locate nests to gather data for the study.
Winter cereal crops provide cover for at least six duck species in Saskatchewan, the study found, including mallard, blue-winged teal and northern pintail.
Researchers found at least one nest in every 10 acres of winter wheat fields studied, almost four times what was estimated from previous studies, Moats said.
“And this is an underestimate because not every nest is found.”
Also, predatory animals were the cause of 90 percent of the nests destroyed, the study showed, with only one percent damaged from the agricultural operation.
Ducks Unlimited researchers plan to repeat the study in 1997 with a focus on comparing waterfowl use of fall-seeded crops to conventional spring-seeded crops, Moats said.
