Improving soil quality was a key focus for the Sask Soil Conference

Feb 22, 2024

When it comes to getting the best quality crop ... it all comes down to production and management and that starts with a soil test.

That soil test provides the base for what you have as far as nutrients in the soil to work with and then you can build off that.

Improving soil quality in semi-arid conditions was one of the presentations during the SaskSoils conference last week.

Agronomist Troy LaForge farms at Cadillac, Saskatchewan, and talked about how he's worked to build up the organic soil on his farm

When LaForge purchased the land in 2009, the soil had been farmed with little to no fertilizer, and based on a soil test at the time the organic matter was 1.4 per cent and 9 parts per million of available phosphorous.

"In 14 years, we have been able to build to a 2.2% organic matter and our phos is very high now. I'm actually starting a program to meter that (phos) back now. My goal is to have that number between 20 and 25 ppm."

Having a strong organic base is key to help carry the crop while added nutrients can also help to improve crop quality and yield.

LaForge is the head agronomist for Rack Petroleum’s Ultimate Yield Management Institute and has been doing some field-scale research on improving soil organic matter and phosphorus levels.

They focused on fields around Unity (Saskatchewan) which are known to be very productive, but they do have low phosphate levels from some of their management practices.

In 2015, they wanted to see what would happen if you mine phosphate and potassium, if you maintain it or build it, and what impact it would have on production over time.

"So we pull onto this field, we seed north and south and we have 37 different rates of phosphorus and potassium. Anywhere from zero phosphate to 100 phosphate and anywhere from zero potassium to 60 potassium. "

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators