What does Manitoba Agriculture Crop Specialist, Scott Chalmer from WADO (Western Agriculture Development Organization) do during the winter months between harvest and spring seed?
"What do I do all winter? It's usually scouring over the numbers that we harvested during the past year, coming up with a plan about what happened, writing about it," explains Chalmers, "and basically when April 1st comes, we're thinking about being in the field. So, during this time we're trying to figure out some of our protocols and organize ourselves properly, so we have a plan going into the field before the wheels start to turn!"
Other than reviewing and documenting last year's growing season and outcomes, Chalmers and his team delve deeper into the projects slated for this year's start.
"We have a few new projects this year that I can confidently say we're doing. We're going to be the first ones in the field seeding this year for sure," says Chalmers.
Ultra early seed barley:
"We have a project looking at ultra early seeded barley, and this is in collaboration with Agriculture Agri-Food Canada," explains Chalmers. "We have a prairie-wide project basically looking at a few different barley varieties, and we're getting out as soon as the ground thaws at 0°C. We're seeding all the way up to 12°C, obviously on different days, but at those temperatures. We're trying to see if we can get ahead of the growing season. Maybe get around some of those hot days in summer and push the growing season a little earlier to see if that helps us with things like climate change, for example."
Those pesky pea weevils!
"Then we have a pea weevil seed treatment. I don't know if you've seen these little pea weevils; they attack the nodules of the pea, and the little worm inside eats the entire nodule from the inside out. It potentially could reduce the yield. We just don't know, and we've found some seed treatments here that may help with preventing that bug."
The Benefit Project:
Another project WADO is looking at is the soil itself, called the Benefit Project, where they take a closer look at the soil, from the very small to the very big and how one affects the other.
"This is coming out of the University of Queens in Ontario. They're basically wanting to genetically profile the soil microbes to see what the effect of rotation might be and the crop type over time. Maybe this can lead to things like new inoculants, for example, or maybe have some sort of social or economic outcome that we didn't realize. But we have to understand the things we can't see underground at a very small level. Maybe there's something there to look at."
2025 is the third year of the 3-year study on irrigated vs non-irrigated soybeans!
The study looks at the protein levels in soybean when a crop is irrigated in contrast to non-irrigated. In the first year of the study, there was a stark difference between the two sections as it was a rather dry year. However, last year with the spring rains at the right time, it took a few weeks for the need to actually turn on the irrigation. As the summer progressed the rains continued fairly evenly in the southwest corner of the province. Time will tell what this third year will look like as far as dry versus well-watered when it comes to protein levels.
"We have this last year now to investigate this project out in the field and hopefully it will be good!" adds Chalmers.
Other opportunities:
"Then we have some other projects here with the Manitoba Crop Alliance and Manitoba Pulse Growers Association to see things like corn seeding dates, for example, or looking at the critical weed-free period in flax. So, we'll see how it goes."
As far as spring outlook, it's still up in the air, literally!
"I think there are small predictions we can make, if we don't really get much snowfall then we can predict a drier summer just because we have nothing in the tank in the soil below," says Chalmers. "Things like that can really change your decision making."