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Lack of snow not ideal, but winter not too bad for potato fields so far

 
January's hard frost will help make for a good farm season in 2018, says the P.E.I. Potato Board, and snow coming Wednesday could make it even better.
 
"From a pest perspective it's good. The colder the ground gets and the deeper that the frost goes, it's favourable in helping to control some of the pests that overwinter in the soil," said board general manager Greg Donald.
 
"In a perfect world we'd have that frost and a snow cover and it would help to protect the soil better."
 
That snow cover is forecast to come for much of the Island Wednesday, with a snowfall warning in effect for Kings and Queens counties.
 
The fields have been largely bare this winter, with Environment Canada recording just a few days with 10 or more centimetres of snow on the ground.
 
But that is not unusual. In seven the last 20 years there has been less than 10 centimetres of snow on the ground in mid-January.
 
Source : CBC

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No-Till vs Tillage: Why Neighboring Fields Are World Apart

Video: No-Till vs Tillage: Why Neighboring Fields Are World Apart

“No-till means no yield.”

“No-till soils get too hard.”

But here’s the real story — straight from two fields, same soil, same region, totally different outcomes.

Ray Archuleta of Kiss the Ground and Common Ground Film lays it out simply:

Tillage is intrusive.

No-till can compact — but only when it’s missing living roots.

Cover crops are the difference-maker.

In one field:

No-till + covers ? dark soil, aggregates, biology, higher organic matter, fewer weeds.

In the other:

Heavy tillage + no covers ? starving soil, low diversity, more weeds, fragile structure.

The truth about compaction?

Living plants fix it.

Living roots leak carbon, build aggregates, feed microbes, and rebuild structure — something steel never can.

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