Agronomy Comes to Your Mailbox - Apr 1!

The latest agriculture updates arrive April 1 inside Alberta Farmer Express 

You can pick up some great tips for starting your season in the Spring 2024 edition of Farming Smarter Magazine. Read about new projects, its annual reports and its southern Alberta research starting this season. 

If you aren’t an Agronomy Smarts Subscriber or an Alberta Farmer Express reader, you’re missing out! Thankfully, there’s still time to get an Agronomy Smarts subscription to read one of the best ag magazines in southern Alberta. 

Enjoy a sneak preview of the upcoming edition of Farming Smarter magazine below and make sure you subscribe now!

Overview of Agronomy Research 

The Agronomy Research program focuses on providing practical solutions to the challenges of southern Alberta farmers.  

Each year, Farming Smarter leads or collaborates with partner institutions on 20-25 research projects, (75-80 individual trials) on a range of major grain, oilseed, and pulse crops. Farming Smarter also leads in aiding the adoption of novel, specialty crops to enhance crop diversification and promote the value-added crop industry.  

2023 was a gap year for much of the Agronomy research world, as a new 5-year federal funding cycle began and many projects wrapped up or awaited new approvals. In early 2023, we completed analysis of the biostimulant and hemp herbicide screen trials and sent off final data for the University of Manitoba rotational study.   

Field-scale support for southern Alberta 

The Field-Tested program conducts practical and usable agronomy research on farms right here in Alberta. A warm dry climate and irrigated coarse-textured soils create growing conditions different from other regions in the country. This generated a diverse and profitable specialty crop sector that includes alfalfa seed, canola seed, dry beans, potatoes and sugar beets.  

Many of Alberta’s specialty crops have a small footprint in terms of total acreage but have an outsized impact on our regional cropping system overall. Locally relevant research for these specialty crops does not have the same broad appeal as more common crops such as wheat, peas and canola. The industry tends to draw on research and innovation that generated elsewhere, often eastern Canada or American Northwest or Midwest. Specialty crop growers adapt this knowledge locally using trial and error and on-farm tests. The robust growth of the industry speaks to they’re success.  

Exploring Our Path Forward 

Commercial Innovation is the process of conducting small plot and scale contracted research trials in close partnership with various agriculture companies from Canada, United States and even around the world. 
 
The research helps to understand product performance in pesticides, crop varieties, crop inputs (nutrients, biostimulants and others), and management practices. Farming Smarter provides high value, third party, and unbiased research that offers companies confidence they can develop products that work. Ultimately, the products make it onto farms that need them to control pests and improve production.   
 
Farming Smarter takes pride in delivering through the product development pipeline that ensures farmers have products that help them deal with tough problems. 

Togas not mandatory 

I think there is a thing that the agricultural community needs to adopt from its urban counterparts. According to lots of historical references, humanity didn’t start higher learning until a bunch of them had the leisure to live in community and not toil for survival. Think Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum – ok, it took centuries to include women, but that’s not the point here. 

Humans didn’t have the leisure to learn until farmers got good at what they do. So, if you have a higher education, you owe it to agriculture! 

The point is that farmers still support the ability of urban residents to pursue other activities because they don’t have to forage or farm. However, it’s time for farmers, and everyone that works along side them over the hectic growing season, to form their own academies.   

Mongolian Agriculture has Unique Challenges 

There are similarities in the challenges farmers face around the world, but they’re layered with unique factors in each region. Recently, Badruun Chadraabal, a Mongolian agronomist trained in Canada, spoke at Farming Smarter’s virtual Global Crop Production Conference. He shared the journey to his career, his visions for Mongolian agricultural landscape modernization, and the Smart Agriculture Initiative that makes critical agronomic information more accessible.  

In 2007, Badruun’s father purchased a farm. He had no farming background but wanted to try a different type of business. They did their best with older technology. 

“The techniques were traditional - the land was tilled and using old Soviet equipment that wasn’t reliable,” explained Badruun. “The seeders were very small, so we would have three or four people in the back with buckets to refill the seeds.”