BRANDON – Soil saturation and flooding weren’t just production problems for 2010, says a canola agronomy specialist.
They might also cause nutrient nightmares this year.
That’s why farmers with saturated soil should consider winter soil testing, Derwyn Hammond said during Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon.
Soil testing is the last thing many farmers will want to do once the soil is finally capable of handling equipment this spring.
“On some of those wet soils, if we wait until thaw it may be so muddy that you can’t get out there and do soil sampling until field conditions are ready, and then it may be late and you may want to be getting on with fertilizing and seeding, and we don’t want to delay those,” said Hammond.
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Soil sampling is especially important this year because saturation and flooding can radically change nitrogen levels in the soil, he said.
A number of soil testing companies are equipped to test soil in the middle of winter, he added, and the knowledge from those tests could give farmers an edge come springtime.
“It’s going to be really tough to predict what our residual nutrient levels are in our soils.”
Soil that was saturated last year and then had warm weather could have lost 50 percent of its nitrogen as microbes deprived of oxygen broke down other substances to get it.
Supersaturation that caused moisture to move below the root zone could have leached away nutrients.
The biggest challenge for farmers is likely to be the wide range of impacts across fields.
Many fields last year had areas of good crop growth and areas that couldn’t be seeded. Some patches could have suffered denitrification while others did not.
As well, weeds can have different effects on future fertility, depending on when they were controlled.
Weeds can capture some nutrients but those allowed to grow “old and woody” have a higher carbon to nitrogen ratio, which means they will take longer to break down this year to release nitrogen.
Curtis MacKinnon of Farmer’s Edge said his company has two tracked trucks that it uses for winter soil testing and plans to add another one.
“It allows us to navigate in the snow.”
He said his company has not been charging farmers extra for the service, even though the trucks cost $70,000 each.
“(Soil testing) is something we identified as a necessity as part of our business to make sure that we can get that process done for our customers,” he said.
Winter soil testing uses a different kind of soil sample extractor that can reach through feet of snow and cut through frost.
Hammond said farmers face a guessing game with soil nutritent levels if they don’t soil test. They might end up with patchy crops this summer if they aren’t able to fix fertility deficits in the right areas.
“The problem with denitrification is it’s variable.”
