DECEMBER 2023
CELEBRATING 144 YEARS AS CANADA’S PREMIER HORTICULTURAL PUBLICATION
THEGROWER.ORG
ECOSYSTEMS
En route to building soil wealth
Some potato growers bake in success years before the crop is harvested. Here, Charles Emre (right) and his son-in-law Nick Bell examine a cover crop in July 2023 that’s been cut and windrowed on their farm, Windham Centre, Ontario. The subject of soil health and the links to air, water and carbon markets is timely as the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry is expected to report in early 2024. Photos by Glenn Lowson.
Creating soil wealth is a long rocky path, marked by frequent twists and turns. Potato grower Charles Emre describes the science and art of building organic matter as a chess match lasting years, not hours. “We make a move and realize that move stems back to something we did 10 years ago,” he chuckles. “We’ve had five crops of potatoes in the last decade, switching to a cover crop every other year. We’ve improved the organic matter by 0.1 per cent and that’s a big victory.” That incremental improvement relies on continually learning new cover mixtures and practices that deliver results on the sand plains of his Windham Centre, Ontario farm. Not everything works, he shares, pointing to a laterthan-intended planting of a cover crop that didn’t have enough time to grow into a canopy before winter. The
result was damaging wind erosion the following spring – something he took in stride as a lesson, not a failure. Years ago, he started utilizing the biofumigant properties of mustards as a control agent for nematodes. And he’s expanded on that knowledge with additional species. In the spring, he sows mustards and oilseed radish as soon as the frost leaves the ground, followed by pearl millet in late May. Forage peas, vetch and tillage radish can be added in either spring or fall. Each species has a role to play. Pearl millet, for example, builds organic matter and is a non-host for nematodes. Vetch and forage peas fix nitrogen. Barley, oats and rye build organic matter. Oilseed radish and tillage radish, have similar-looking leaves that look the same above ground, but they perform differently below ground. Oilseed radish, with its fibrous root, acts as a nematode suppressant whereas tillage radish, with its long tap root, opens up the soil.
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“Clovers don’t do so well on our land,” says Emre. “We continue to learn and the fact is they often burn on our sandy soils in hot weather.” By summer time, the cover crop is buzzing with bees and ready for mowing down. It’s then plowed under as a green manure. Volunteer potato plants have been a problem in recent years, so Emre plans to experiment with no-till in 2024 to see if that practice is beneficial. As he continues to learn with his son-in-law Nick Bell, he’s most proud of how the long-range plan is working. He observes, “Our potatoes have more shine on the skin and this is a quality that retail consumers appreciate.” Cover cropping is expensive in view of the specialized equipment, the cost of seed, drilling and plowing down, as well as foregoing a cash crop. But to not feed the soil is to mine the soil, an unsustainable practice over time. Continued on page 3
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