On a warm, sunny day in the summer, what could be better than attending one of many field days put on in the province? Once again, we have lots to choose from here at the Conservation Learning Centre, some of which have already past by the time of this issue of the Prairie Steward's distribution:
Beef Producer's Day June 25 12:30 p.m.
Canola Choices Day July 8 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. AgrEvo BBQ to follow
Crop Health Day July 24 1:30 - 5:00 p.m. Jam-packed afternoon
Preharvest Day August 14 1:30 - 4:00 p.m. Monsanto to follow
Self Guided Days anytime all day, evening bring a lunch
Canolas - We have eight canolas demonstrated at the CLC this summer, just about half of our annual cropland is canola, so it should be interesting for any of you who are curious about the newest varieties. In particular, six of these are herbicide tolerant, including Smart, Roundup Ready and Liberty Link Canolas. It is exciting to see some developments toward hybrids. We have three of AgrEvo's hybrid Liberty Link canolas. This year, perhaps you tried what we did, taking advantage of a preharvest Roundup treatment last fall on wheat, skipping the preseeding burnoff and going directly to an in-crop application of the appropriate herbicides. In our case, that last application was late, due to another brutal spraying season. However, the vigorous growth of some of these canolas prevented weeds from getting the upper hand (or leaf, in this case). It gets pretty exciting to see these developments shown successfully on a field-scale basis.
Crop Health - We had some challenges in the past with achieving the yields we think we should be getting on this land, especially with polish canola and peas. This year we have Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and industry representatives involved in testing products for disease control on these two crops. SSCA's Do's and Don'ts of Direct Seeding Plots are back again, so watch for differences in crop growth related to fertilizer and seed placement, depth and amendments. Precision farming issues are highlighted in a couple of projects at the CLC, one of which is a unique project involving several collaborators -- Research Station personnel and University of Saskatchewan scientists in particular at this site. They will spend the next three years looking at how crops respond to different seeding and fertilizer rates across our parkland landscape.
Harvest - Early maturing barley was seeded this spring just for the purpose of holding a preharvest day before most get started on their own swathing or combining. Three features of the day will be: to show timing strategies of preharvest Roundup, to show residue management strategies, and to show some strategies of moving from perennial forage to annual crops within a crop rotation. It should be a fun and interesting day!
Hope to see you this summer!