ON-FARM THOUGHTS: Spring Has Arrived, The Countdown is On
by Larry Wegner, MFGA Past-Chair
After the seemingly long winter we have endured, spring kind of snuck in the back door on our calendars this year with not much fanfare. I must admit that I am still counting down the days until the springtime delights that warmer weather brings. These include ditching the winter clothes, the birds coming back to nest, snow melting and the first shots of green grass.
We are indeed living in changing times. Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a very powerful book on personal development. In one part of his book, he writes about “The Circle of Concern” - all the things we follow or watch that are happening around us. Inside that circle is a second circle - “Circle of Influence” - all the things that we have control over, like showing love for our loved ones, feeding our livestock and animals, paying our bills and going to work. The second circle size is controlled by you and how you influence the world around you, whether that is just you and your home or could be as large as all of your community. It is good to know what is happening in our Circle of Concern, but we have no influence on what is going on in it. We have total control on the smaller Circle of Influence in our lives.
By now you are asking what does this have to do with Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA) and why, as MFGA past chair, I am even talking about it. In that context, I often defer to the Circle of Concern and forget to focus in on the important Circle of Influence and how I can control these situations. For example, whether the drought that has impacted our farm near Virden the last few years is over or not is in the bigger Circle of Concern I have no control of. However, how we manage the moisture that we do get is totally on us in my Circle in Influence. We plan to do this by maintaining ground cover, letting the forage recover from being grazed and by having a plan going forward. What is your plan for the 2022 growing season?
To be honest, our decision to not custom graze in 2021 is hitting home hard now via the lack on income. In hindsight though, it was the right call to make and if we continue to be right, we will have a better 2022 growing season. The Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC) insurance pay out was significant. But that is what it's there for: to protect producers like you and me from events like the drought in 2021. According to MASC, the number of forage policies and pay outs were well up in numbers. As of now, we are in a better moisture condition than a year ago, thanks to the catch of snow on most of our pastures. There are a couple of paddocks that we grazed close to the ground last fall to feed the herd (this is not overgrazing as the plants were dormant) and the plan going ahead is to provide those paddocks with full recovery time. It is always a give and take to balance soil, forage, and livestock with cash flow. If we get a couple of good rains in the spring, we will be looking at restocking. If you did not de-stock last year, what are your plans for this year if we do not get the spring rains? Do you have the feed to last until the forage has a good enough growth to start grazing? When do you think that will be: April, May or June?
To provide a back-up for extra forage, we will plant a cover crop of cool season annuals in late April. We will do this as annuals will make good use of the spring moisture and cool season plants can handle some frost. If we need it in late spring, we can graze it and if not, we can take it for greenfeed in early July and then reseed to a winter cover crop for fall grazing or next spring. I have talked to producers who are frost-seeding and very happy with the results. When I asked crop experts, they all said wait till the soil is fully warmed up. These are the same people who told me grass will not grow in April in Manitoba. They do not know that if the soil is healthy and has open pathways (50 percent of soil volume) for water and air to move through the soil, the soil will warm up early compared to the continuously grazed pasture. What is your back up plan? De-stock, buy in feed, open the gates and walk away, are all options. There will be producers doing all of them, now is the time to plan.
There is a push in Canada to reduce fertilizer usage by 33 percent. It was always beyond me why anyone would want to put nitrogen fertilizer on forages, when adding a legume or two to the forage stand would be a cheaper way of doing it. I have since learned that there are soil microbes that can fix nitrogen for the plants from the air (native prairie has few legumes in the stand). The first grazing school I went to in Alberta was in the 1990’s where I had the chance to hear Jim Gerrish. The big take away I had from Jim’s presentation was “one cow dung per square yard was enough fertility for 3 years”. The question was how do we get the cows to space themselves out every square yard? The answer is planned grazing and to keep the herd moving together onto fresh forage on every move and not come back till the forage has recovered (just before seed head). This winter I have been learning about soil health and regen agriculture from Nicole Masters. The amount of information that we discuss is like drinking from a fire hose. So much info is coming at you so fast.
It is apparent quickly, though, that an understanding about soil health helps to start understanding how and why fertilizer works in the soil and the soil biology. Then we can look at different ways to reduce usage going forward. There is no silver bullet: many soils are dependent on added fertility to grow a crop and almost all soil life is gone. And while it may be gone, we can bring it back with management. I have reached out to several producers from my network that are still producing annual crops and asked them how they plan to reduce their fertilizer usage by a third. To a person, almost all of them first blame the government for bringing change ahead and then said they can not produce the same crop with less fertilizer. To stir the pot a bit, I told them they sound like OLD FARMERS, who will fight all change to the end.
This usually gets a few salty curses my way, however, I do get their attention about different things that they could be looking at such as the 4R’S, compost extract, compost tea, using humate with the nitrogen fertilizer, using humic and folic acid to make the fertilizer more efficient and the one from left field (to me) was melted urea that was foliar applied at the tillering stage. The biggest eye-opening part about all these different practices is that there are producers throughout Manitoba successfully implementing them. You might even know them, but you never asked them how it's working for them. When I left Jim Gerrish's presentation 25 years ago I was trying to understand how to get cow dung on every square yard to now trying to challenge producers to reducer fertilizer usage. It can be done; change is happening and we must decide if we will either embrace or fight change. It will happen, the increase in cost and ability has made change a must.
In late February, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced the successful groups that will be delivering the new On-Farm Climate Action Fund program for agriculture in Canada. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Manitoba Association of Watersheds will lead a team of like-minded watershed districts, producer groups (including MFGA) and others to help producers look at and implement change going forward to mitigate impacts of climate changes. There are three BMPs that received funding: rotational (I prefer the term "planned") grazing, cover crops and nutrient management. When the paperwork gets signed there will be opportunity for producers to work with their watershed districts on their own farm operations. For those outside the watershed districts, the project leads will make sure you are accommodated. It will be up and running to some degree by spring 2022. Change will happen whether we are ready for it or not, it is up to you and only you on how you deal with change. This is your own Circle of Influence. You control the opportunity to participate.
May we all have a steady melt, timely rains and warm sunny days to put the drought in our rear view mirror and green forage in front of us.
Best regards,
