LETHBRIDGE – A farmer panel at a recent conference proved the point that cover crops serve a variety of roles on western Canadian farms.
Corey Nelson, who farms near Grassy Lake, Alta., told the Dryland and Irrigation Reduced Tillage Conference in Lethbridge on Dec. 7 that following his potato harvest, he has used a variety of cover crops to keep his light soil from blowing before the next crop becomes established.
“We’ve got quite sandy soil in our area and trying to keep it from moving is a top priority,” Nelson said.
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After his first year of potato production in 1992, Nelson seeded barley in mid-September in an attempt to establish cover. An early frost burned off the barley before it could provide any protection and wind erosion occurred on those potato fields that winter.
The next year Nelson seeded fall rye, which provided excellent cover through the winter. However, the following crop had problems after the rye was sprayed out in the spring.
“We found the soft wheat crop following the rye didn’t germinate well or perform very well. It was our belief that the rye secreted some sort of substance into the soil that kept the soft wheat from growing properly.”
His third cover crop was winter wheat, which has proven to be his cover crop of choice for the past 10 years.
“On our sandy soil, we try to have it seeded by Sept. 1, but we’ve went as late as Sept. 20 and had fairly good results. The other nice thing with winter wheat is it does cost less to grow. You can put about 20 lb. of nitrogen less and you still yield 10 to 15 percent more on winter wheat than a durum or cereal crop. Plus, you don’t have to spray any wild oat chemicals.”
Nelson has learned that irrigating the land before he seeds it rather than after helps establish the winter wheat.
“The year we watered after, it pounded the soil and made it so the land would blow in the fall. Then (wind will) shear off your winter wheat. We seed heavier: more like two bushels an acre rather than 90 to 100 lb. We want a heavy stand for wind control.”
Leighton Kolk, whose Lethbridge farm includes a cow-calf operation, feedlot and cropland for cash crops and feed production, told the conference that he spring seeds alfalfa with a barley cover crop. He chops the barley for silage as soon as it gets to the soft dough stage.
When the alfalfa is established, rather than taking three cuts, he chops two cuts for silage, waits for a killing frost and then grazes the final growth later in the fall.
Kolk also likes to include rye grass and barley for silage in his rotation. He blends 10 lb. of rye grass with 90 lb. of barley seed, mixes them in his feed mixer and then seeds in the spring. Again, the barley is cut for silage as soon as possible and the rye grass is left to grow before being grazed.
“We’ll often get 80 to 100 grazing days per acre (with irrigated rye grass),” he said.
“A lot of times it costs a dollar plus per day to graze a cow. That adds huge value per acre to our operation. The other nice thing about rye grass is it keeps its feed quality well into the winter and even into spring.”
Harold Perry of Chin, Alta., uses a custom-built packer to keep his potato vines where they drop.
“The vines can create great big balls and blow into the ditches. It’s really difficult to get through potato vines once they pile up on you, so this keeps the vines in the field, where they fall off the digger. It also helps to firm up the soil.”
Following the vine-packing operation, Perry uses a floater with air booms to spread barley for his cover crop. While he has tried one bu. per acre, he felt that rate didn’t provide enough cover. He now uses a 2.5 bu. per acre seeding rate. Barley is his choice because it’s cheap and it grows quickly.
After spreading the seed, Perry does a light pass with a discer, about 2.5 to five centimetres deep. The operation incorporates the seed and also cuts the potato vines so they don’t plug up the seeder the following spring. Then he irrigates.
Perry also discussed his uncle’s experience with seeding oats after a fresh pea crop. Because the peas are harvested early, the oats can be seeded in early August and become well established.
He said sugar beets were direct seeded through a 45 cm tall standing oat cover crop, with no emergence or yield concerns. The oats also protected the sugar beet seedlings from an early frost.
Perry will rip areas and bring up soil lumps to prevent erosion if a cover crop doesn’t catch. He also applies manure to sandy, eroded hilltops, at 35 to 50 tonnes per acre. While the manure is free, the trucking and spreading can be expensive, but Perry said it does help hold the soil.
