LETHBRIDGE – Watching topsoil blow off southern Alberta sugar beet fields was the inspiration behind a new tillage machine.
Wayne Veenstra of Taber, Alta., turned an old cultivator into a 44 foot zone tillage machine to help protect tiny seedlings battered by southern Alberta’s strong wind.
Some years farmers need to reseed hundreds of acres of sugar beets after wind rips seeds out of the soil, said Peter Regitnig, a research agronomist with Rogers Sugar.
In zone tillage, producers cultivate a narrow strip of land called a zone and leave stubble from the previous year’s crop to protect the seedlings from the wind.
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Regitnig told producers during an Irrigated Crop Production Update in Lethbridge that farmer interest in Veenstra’s zone tillage machine prompted Rogers Sugar to conduct field plot trials comparing conventional tillage to zone tillage.
Instead of Veenstra’s 24-row zone tillage machine, the Ag Tech Centre in Lethbridge built a six-row zone unit for research trial work. After four years, the trials have shown promising results, he said.
“The zone tillage system studied in these trials appears to be a viable option for Alberta sugar beet producers wanting to reduce wind erosion.”
Previous research using zero tillage technology was not successful. The tiny seeds need good soil contact and can’t compete in a matt of stubble. Poor germination with zero tillage dramatically affected production and yield, he said.
Zone tillage does not appear to impede emergence.
During the trials, straw from the previous year’s cereal crop was baled and removed. In the conventional tillage trial, plots were cultivated twice in the fall and once in the spring to reduce surface residue below 25 percent but left the soil subject to wind erosion.
A four-inch shovel on the zone tillage machine cut through the stubble, disturbing a seven to nine inch zone. Shields on either side of the shovel kept the soil in the zone.
Regitnig said there was no significant difference in the speed of emergence between the conventional and zone tillage.
By June the sugar beet plants in the conventional tillage seemed to be more vigorous, but by harvest there was no significant difference in yield or extractable sugar between the conventional and zone tillage plots.
“I’m confident good yields can be achieved using zone tillage,” Regitnig told the group, especially if wind erosion is a concern.
