Ashley Wagenaar, Conservation Agronomist at Farming Smarter, spearheads conservation initiatives to improve soil health, manage nitrogen efficiently, and address environmental challenges such as wind erosion.

Cover crops can provide many benefits for a field, including wind and water soil erosion and soil structure. However, it's not a one-size-fits-all operation - knowing when and where to cover crop is key. Farming Smarter has helped the southern Alberta farming industry find the answers!

In the Fall 2023 edition of the Farming Smarter Magazine:
Farming Smarter aims to tackle the challenge of soil erosion that plagues potato farmers every season. Cover crops offer an opportunity to mitigate soil erosion after potato harvest from the region's trademark chinook winds.

No till, cover crops and wind breaks all play a role in mitigating wind soil erosion on The Prairies, but are they equally effective? Allowing soil to blow has negative effects, so it's important for producers to determine the best practices to ensure they are protecting this resource.

Soil erosion will blow away assets every farmer needs. It is still the most widespread form of soil degradation in Canada even though, in the past three decades, the Canadian prairies greatly reduced wind erosion through the adoption of improved land management practices, such as direct seeding, reduced tillage intensity, and reduction in summer fallow fields.

2023-2026

Farmers in southern Alberta have a vested interest to protect their soils from wind erosion overwinter and trap soil moisture to combat summer droughts. However, they require options that won't interrupt their cash crop rotations. Fall-seeded camelina stands to provide an answer to both of these concerns with overwinter protection while being a cash crop.

Southern Alberta saw one of those days when wind caused havock and fire last Sunday, March 28, 2021. When a wind event causes winds of 140km/hr, it's hard to imagine what might protect your soil.

Getting along with neighbours is important no matter where one lives. When you live in a rural, agricultural area where the land is both home and livelihood, good neighbour relations can be extra critical.

There's more to blowing soil than what (painfully) meets the eye. Those airborne particles can hold vital nutrients and even crop disease.

Healthy soil isn't just vital for high crop productivity and grower profitability, it's foundational to long-term agricultural sustainability. Soil health implies the capacity of soil to provide required ecological services within an ecosystem without...

Farming Smarter has a key focus this year on soil conservation and its teams will work together to develop innovative solutions to address soil erosion in agriculture.

Ashley Wagenaar invites you to one of two pop-up chats to learn about cover crops after potato harvest, and a virtual conversation recapping a year of in-field learning!

With 150 trials across southern Alberta, research teams at Farming Smarter are hard at work to get ready for the weather and soil conditions to give the green light. Our Agronomy Research Team led by Mike Gretzinger has new projects to prepare for the field and data from last year's trials to review.

As part of the Saving Soils initiative funded by Weston Family Foundation and RBC's Tech for Nature grant, Farming Smarter is studying the efficacy of cover crops as living mulch for spring seeded cash crops.

When the wind picks up and the sky turns grey with blow-dirt, everyone loses.

For the farmer whose field seems suddenly half in the air, the economic impact of a major wind event can be nothing short of devastating.

Soil erosion has negative effects, not just for the landowner losing precious soil, but also for neighbouring lands, roads, ditches, and buildings. In Alberta, the Soil Conservation Act and the Agricultural Service Board Act pair up to provide protection for this soil and help ensure longevity of agriculture in the province.

2022-2027

As part of the Saving Soils initiative, Farming Smarter explores nurse crop, cover crop, and relay crop practices in irrigated potato trials to reduce soil erosion and improve soil quality in potato production.

Healthy soil is a trademark for sustainable agriculture. Building soil structure and increasing organic matter content in the soil are two of the best ways to develop great soil health...