Prairie Coordinator's Report - August 2003

Brenda Frick, Ph.D.

I am based at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and am part of the national initiative of the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada (OACC) at Truro, Nova Scotia. OACC's mission is to conduct, coordinate and disseminate producer-oriented research and education. My mandate includes research, extension and "networking" in organic agriculture in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

This summer, I have begun research projects and been involved in collaboration with researchers at universities andresearch stations across the prairies. I have also been privileged to visit a variety of organic farms, and organic research test plots. I would like to share with you some of things I've learned in my summer travels.

Individual farm tours

• Wayne Hovdebo, of Hovdebo Farms Ltd., Birch Hills, Saskatchewan, is one of several producers who allowed us to watch his harrowing operations, and to count plants in the field before and after the operation. Harrowing was an effective weed control tool for many producers, but success was strongly dependent on site conditions. Small weeds, dry conditions following harrowing and light soils seemed to work best.
  
  
• Kirby McCuaig, of Nature's Acres Organic Farm Inc., Eastend, Saskatchewan grows chickling vetch as a plowdown, Kamut®, and flax. Kirby finds good weed control with harrowing, and excellent nitrogen benefits with the chickling vetch.
  
  
  
• Robert Guilford, of Guilford's Organic Seed & Feed, Clearwater, Manitoba, is growing alfalfa, flax and wheat this year. Robert found this year that flax seeded on alfalfa that he broke in the spring looked as good as flax seeded on alfalfa broken in the fall. He feels this experiment is worth repeating.
  
  
• Marc Loiselle, of Loiselle Ferme Biologique Familiale, Vonda, Saskatchewan, grows oat, Red Fife wheat, pea, barley, yellow mustard and fall rye. To reduce winter and spring soil erosion, his lightest land, where water runs, is in perennial alfalfa-grass, and other land prone to winter erosion is seeded to winter or biennial crops. Marc hosts research plots for Diane Knight and Steve Shirtliffe from the University of Saskatchewan. Diane is looking at organic treatments to increase available phosphorous, and Steve is looking at crops and varieties that compete well with weeds.
  
  
• Robert and Marc are participating in the OACC national trial, which looks at weed control and yield in cereals seeded at rates up to double the recommended. Increased seeding rates are often used by organic farmers, but success may be limited by drought, or by disease when moisture is abundant.
  
  
• Jack Lovell, of Manitou Organic Marketing in the beautiful Pembina Valley of Manitoba, is transitioning alfalfa into crop land, and growing his first crop of garlic. Jack's marketing of garlic scapes (the curly stalk combines the flavour of garlic with the fresh taste and crispiness of asparagus) reminded me that organic systems are most exciting when they are innovative and "outside the box".
  
  
• Steve Snider, of Little Red Hen Mills, New Norway, Alberta showed me his farm only days after winning the Outstanding Young Farmer of the Year in Alberta. Steve believes that intercropping expands his options, responds better to variable conditions and reduces problems such as smut, insects and lodging. He grows cereals like oat or barley with a legume like pea, or faba bean. Sometimes he plows these down for weed control, insect management, or fertility improvement. Sometimes he harvests the intercrop, and separates the seeds at his own seed cleaning plant. Steve harrowed his wheat this year, after emergence. He was not pleased with the results. He found that it affected some plants more than others, and thus made the crop uneven. His cereals, especially his fall rye, were lush, and had few weeds. He uses foliar applications of seaweed to feed his crops.

Field days on farms

• Interlake organic tour, Manitoba - This amazing day, organized by John Hollinger, Janine Gibson, and Julie Fine showcased some of the challenges and successes of organic farming. We saw weed control with geese in strawberries and by harrowing in wheat. We saw alfalfa challenged by lygus bugs, and hemp challenged by cutworms. We saw a variety of crops and approaches to grow them. This day nourished our bodies with great organic food, our minds with innovative organic methods, and our souls with great music and fellowship. See John Hollinger's article in this newsletter for more details.
  
  
• OCIA SK#8 field days included tours of Dwayne and Jenny McGregor's farm near Chaplin, Saskatchewan and of Paul Gaucher's fields at Coderre. Dwayne showed us the level of weed control possible with repeated preseeding tillage and delayed seeding. His cereals were remarkably free of weeds. Paul showed us a different philosophy of working with the land. He considers the dominant weeds that grow in a field to determine which crops grow the best. For example, he seeds oat on wild oat land, and has made other crop selections based on consistent types of weed growth in each field. He makes extensive use of intercrops, and such as oat-pea. He finds that intercropping works well in variable years. The plant best suited to a particular year is most successful. Intercropping also helps with fertility, weed and insect management, lodging and at harvest he finds the swath is better retained because of the oat stubble.
  
  
• OCIA SK#5 field day at Muenster, Saskatchewan showcased the organic plots at the Abbey, including flax, lentil, wheat and vegetable plots. Swathing Canada thistle above the height of the lentil allowed lentil to mature. Painted Lady butterfly larvae were actively feeding on the thistle heads.
  
  
• Prairie Sun Organic Market showcased a great venue, and wonderful products. I was lucky to attend August 9. These continue until mid September.
  
  
  

Research

• Yvonne Van Den Bosch at the University of Saskatchewan is looking for optimal seeding rates, for lentil, pea and chickling vetch used as green manure cover crops under weedy and non weedy conditions. Her research is still in the early stages.
  
  
  
• Matthew Wiens at the University of Manitoba is using alfalfa mulch to add nitrogen, suppress weeds and conserve moisture in wheat. Matthew's work is still preliminary, but shows some potential for increased nitrogen uptake and wheat yield, but weed control was quite variable.
  
  
• Alden Braul at University of Manitoba is examining crop and rotation effects on black medic seedling establishment. Black medic is a self-seeding annual that acts as a living mulch in crop.
  
  
  
• Martin Entz and Allison Schoofs showed me the Glenlea experiment. This is the oldest comparison of organic and conventional systems in Canada. Results that struck me included the reaction of weeds with fertilizers - weeds were much more problematic where chemical fertilizers were added; alfalfa containing rotations showed good control of many weeds; and weeds in many of the organic plots did not seem to be preventing a strong, vigorous and economic crop.
  
  
• Allison Schoofs also showed me their plots at Carman. In a study where chemicals were not used in an oat crop, they found no significant yield losses in the oat crop and no difference in their ability to manage weeds in the following year. This suggests that chemical applications in the oat crop were unnecessary. Perhaps this sort of message can help to break the psychological hold that chemicals have over some producers. Allison also showed me an organic rotation study that included barley, potato, wheat and forage. Cereals were noticeably freer of weeds when they followed potato.
  
  
• Heather Mason, Ali Navabi and Dean Spaner took me on a tour of the breeding plots at the University of Alberta. Dean's plots included mixtures of wheat cultivars and mixtures of different grain crops. He suspects that mixtures may outperform monocultures, especially when there is weed competition. Heather's plots at University of Alberta and at Steve Snider's farm include a number of heritage and modern wheat cultivars, growing in either organic or conventional plots. She is considering whether cultivars that perform best in organic conditions are different from those that perform best in conventional conditions, and if so, what sorts of plant traits give better performance in organic systems. Unfortunately, some of her plots at Steve's farm turned into a grazing trail just before my visit.
  
  
• Gisela Duerr of OACC at the Lethbridge Research Station, and Dean Spaner are looking at a number of cover crop mixtures, including legumes, cereals and oilseeds. Preliminary results show differences in mixtures, with most doing better in Edmonton's higher rainfall conditions.
  
  
• The tour of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Scott Research Farm indicated something of the interest that organic agriculture is beginning to garner. There were over 100 people in attendance, and more than a dozen projects showcased. Highlights for me included the following:
  • Gord Rowland is trying to breed a short season flax that might be used for delayed seeding in organic systems.
    
    
    
    
  • Sue Boyetchko is developing bacterial agents as biological controls for wild oats and green foxtail control.
    
    
    
    
  • Eric Johnson demonstrated a variety of mechanical weed controls, including mowing barley at the 2 to 3 leaf stage for in-crop weed control, deep seeding peas to improve mechanical control of weeds, and different implements for harrowing.
    
    
  • Wally Vanin discussed using various cereals for forage; barley and oat grown together to better respond to variable conditions, Golden German Millet as a late seeded, vigorous species not preferred by grasshoppers. Sherrilyn Phelps showed us a forage turnip that may have potential for use in fall grazing systems.
    
    
  • Stu Brandt showed us the Alternate Cropping System, which has tested organic rotations for 10 years. Weed levels differ among crops and rotations, but have not built up to unmanageable levels. Phosphorous deficiency is beginning to show up.
    
    
  • Owen Olfert salvaged a cereal variety trial that was overcome by grasshoppers. He found that oats were eaten less than wheat or barley, and that some cultivars were preferred by the grasshoppers while others were eaten less.
    
    
  • Steve Shirtliffe tested the competitiveness of oat cultivars with weeds. In general, forage oat was more competitive and semi-dwarf cultivars were less competitive.
    
    
    
  • Tom Wolf tried to bring the joys of spray technology to the organic community with tests of vinegar and pine oil as herbicides. Vinegar offered pre-seeding and in-crop weed control in cereals, without tillage, preserving moisture. It is still too early to say if this is will be economic weed control option.
    
    
  • Stu Brandt, Sherrilyn Phelps and I showed the beginning of a study looking into the use of black medic and kura clover as living mulch in grain crops.
    
    
    
    
• The OACC field day at Truro, Nova Scotia also showed me things that I could relate to conditions back home. Roxanne Beavers, Andy Hammermeister and Ralph Martin tested seeding rates in wheat, with and without manure treatments. They are studying the influence of increasing seeding rates and soil fertility (especially nitrogen) on weed competition in wheat. Weeds responded to the manure more than the wheat. Higher seeding rates looked less weedy. Tara Moreau, Phil Warman and Jeff Hoyle tested products for Colorado potato beetle control on potato. The Neem plots were less devastated. Derek Lynch, Claude Bertheleme and Hans Nass are looking at field pea, barley and oat mixtures for livetock feed. These offer the potential to replace soybean that is harder to grow organically.
  
  
• A tour of Elmer Laird's plots, at the Back to the Farm Research Foundation, demonstrates that oat-pea mixtures, oilseed radish, and oriental mustard-barley mixtures are strong competitive crops with few weed control issues. Elmer also grew flax as a sole crop, or as an intercrop with wheat, barley, lentil, pea or pinto bean. It is too early to tell if intercropping was an advantage or not. Elmer harrowed a test strip through the plots, which showed excellent weed control in some areas and very poor weed control in others.

I would like to thank all the producers, scientists and students who hosted me, answered my many questions, and were consistently generous and open with me. Thank you.

I encourage you to contact me if you have any comments, suggestions, recommendations, or innovations to share.

Contact information:
Brenda Frick, Ph.D., P.Ag.
Prairie Coordinator
Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada
c/o Department of Plant Sciences
University of Saskatchewan
51 Campus Drive, Saskatoon
Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5A8
Tel: (306) 966-4975
Fax: (306) 966-5015
Email: brenda.frick@usask.ca
Websites: this one and organic.usask.ca/