Intercropping gaining interest from producers in the southwest

Jan 23, 2018

The idea of intercropping is gaining interest; the concept focuses on planting and harvesting two crops in the same field.

Last year about 50,000 acres of Intercropping occurred in Saskatchewan.

Lana Shaw, Manager of the Southeast Research Farm at Redvers, has been working on intercropping for some years and sees a real benefit to diversity.

"There are some real financial benefits to diversifying their rotation without ending up with ten year long rotations," she said. "They can end up with a whole lot of different markable products maybe some higher value products that maybe they would have a hard time growing, so things like a maple pea is quite hard to grow as monocrop but as an intercrop is worked really quite well."

Shaw, says combining a pulse and an oilseed together increases crop diversity, reduces risk and may lower input costs.

"A lot of the same equipment can be used," she said. "But we are trying to seed two crops at the same time instead of one. Harvesting two crops instead of one at the same time instead and then having to separate one them after the fact, so there are some equipment considerations that might keep people from doing it."

Source : Discoverestevan

Video: EP 65 Grazing Through Drought

Welcome to the conclusion of the Getting Through Drought series, where we look at the best management practices cow-calf producers in Alberta can use to build up their resiliency against drought.

Our hope is that the series can help with the mental health issues the agriculture sector is grappling with right now. Farming and ranching are stressful businesses, but that’s brought to a whole new level when drought hits. By equipping cow-calf producers with information and words of advice from colleagues and peers in the sector on the best ways to get through a drought, things might not be as stressful in the next drought. Things might not look so bleak either.

In this final episode of the series, we are talking to Ralph Thrall of McIntyre Ranch who shares with us his experience managing grass and cows in a pretty dry part of the province.