Crop yields are the result of a complex interaction understood best by
the farmer with intimate knowledge of his land, not the simple
application of nutrients and pesticides.
Most farmers know this in their hearts, but a deluge of advertising
from input manufacturers and advice from agrologists can cloud the
issue, said Don Flaten, soil scientist at the University of Manitoba.
“Sometimes when I listen to advertising, I get the impression that the
more problems your crop has, the more money you’ll make. Every time you
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put on some form of pesticide, you make more money,” he told the
Saskatchewan Canola Growers annual meeting on Jan. 9
He said that most inputs are promoted as a way to increase yields and
add to the farm’s bottom line.
So each nutrient, micronutrient, herbicide, insecticide, fungicide and
seed variety is assigned a yield-boosting factor.
Adding up the supposed yield benefits of various products gives the
impression that the potential yield for a canola crop is more than 100
bushels an acre when clearly the biological limit is much lower.
“The real economic value of crop inputs in a complete cropping system
is much lower than many agronomists and marketers perceive.”
The problem is that most agronomic research looks at input responses in
isolation.
For example, a nitrogen application rate study will ensure that other
nutrients and inputs are supplied at appropriate levels, yet the cost
of supplying them is not accounted for.
“In real life, the input costs are independent and are adding up in a
linear fashion, end to end.”
This research style is common because it is too expensive to study
multiple factors at the same time. However, it is skewing the type of
advice farmers are getting.
“There seems to be a move within the private industry to get farmers
into packages and recipes for production. I don’t think that is very
appropriate given the returns on investment. They must be much more
selective and adaptable.”
Flaten said the solution is to update an old concept: crop husbandry.
“It implies intimate knowledge, long-term commitment and a very
distinctive relationship between the farmer, the land and the crop.”
Crop inputs simply enhance the more fundamental determinants of yield:
native fertility of the soil; genetic resistance to pests; crop
rotation; and farmer knowledge, he said.
Understanding this is particularly important for those who advise
farmers, such as agronomists, input marketers and university
researchers.
“We need to think about moving away from management systems that are
focused so heavily on inputs and more towards knowledge-based cropping
systems.”
He suggested farmers should do three budgets for each crop, looking at
low, medium and high input use to indicate whether a return can be
expected on the extra input spending, given the forecasted crop price.
