Congratulations to Sherri Ann Walker of Langham for having the top term paper in the School of Agriculture's SLSC 24 - Soil Conservation and Land Quality class. For her efforts Sherri Ann receives a three year membership in the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association. The class is taught by Mike Grevers of the Soil Science Department at the U of S. The majority of the papers were written on wind erosion. However the top paper by Sherri Ann Walker was written on soil salinity.
Sherri Ann's paper describes what causes soil salinity, possible cures and what her father has been doing on her own farm to stop it's spread. Sherri Ann states, "diagnosing a saline soil is quite easy. Factors such as limited or no crop growth. The presence of salt tolerant weeds such as Russian thistle, Kochia, Wild barley and Goosefoot species. The soil has a white crust. Digging into the soil may show white streaks of salts, or periodic or continual surface wetness sometimes accompanied by flow or free water down a slope."
Sherri Ann has identified one of the main ways that saline areas spread. "Summerfallow practices worsen salinity problems due to the increased evaporation rates of blackened soils. Most fallow soils can only hold one to two hundred millimeters (4 to 8 inches ) of water in the root zone before it moves down the profile to the water table. It may resurface later as a saline seep."
There are some basic management practices that she addresses in her paper. "To eliminate these problems is nearly impossible. Early detection of a saline soil is essential in eliminating any further spread of the salts." "If a field is not too saline, seeding crops which are more salt tolerant such as 6-row barley, sunflowers, and safflower may prove to be a great advantage. Forage crops are much more salt tolerant than cereal and oilseed crops. Eliminating or lessening summerfallow practices will also help to reduce salinity problems." "The reason why forage crops seem to grow much better is due to the fact that a cereal crop uses most of its water in June, July and August and the majority of the rainfall is in May and June. A forage crop uses much of its water earlier in the season eliminating the pocketing effect of water." The problem is in establishing the forage stand. Many forages are difficult to germinate in saline soils. There is usually high pressure from salt tolerant weeds. Plus the area is quite often flooded for a period of time so the forage must be able to tolerate some flooding.
In conclusion Sherri Ann says, "It is clear that salinity is an increasing problem. Many farmers are unaware of the options that are available to them resulting in many saline soils being mismanaged. It is very important that farmers who have saline soils identify them as soon as possible and begin to take control measures to prevent the spread of these disastrous soil conditions."