The 2nd edition of Cookin For Cowfolk is now available!
Cook Book Pdf available for download and viewing here:
The Cook Book will be available as a hardcopy version. If you wish to order a hardcopy version please contact the CARA office at 403-664-3777 or email Olivia at cara-3@telus.net. There will be a printing and mailing fee for the hardcopy version.
CATTLE AND SOIL WORKING TOGETHER
Jocelyn Velestuk, MSc, PAg
Good soil management is vital to the long-term profitability of any farm operation, including those involving cattle. Farms that raise cattle can manage to improve rather than degrade the land. Balancing the removal of nutrients with the addition of manure and other fertilizers as well as using practices to encourage good microbial activity/diversity and improve soil tilth and water infiltration can have long-term benefits. Minimizing erosion and compaction from cattle traffic is also important to maintaining the soil structure and proper functioning of the soil. Let’s take a look at some of the different practices that farmers can adapt to improve their soil health and make their cows and soil work together.
Manure Management
Manure is a valuable organic form of fertilizer and can be an asset to soil management. Areas with low organic matter or shallow topsoil can benefit greatly from manure addition. Soil quality is improved with the addition of manure, which supplies, in a sense, a slow release form of nitrogen (N) as well as organic carbon (C), phosphorous (PO4^2-), potassium (K), and micronutrients such as zinc and copper. Nitrogen in manure is in both plant available and organic forms. The organic N is transformed over time to plant available forms of N through microbial activity through a process called mineralization.
The highly variable composition and nutrient content of manure depends on feed composition, bedding, and storage. Manure that is composted will often have increased levels of plant available forms of N, such as ammonium and nitrate, compared to fresh manure. So how much do you apply to meet your crop nutrient demands? The amount of manure to apply is often based on the available P in the manure because the N to P ratio (N:P) is often different in manure compared to what plants require. Fields that have had manure in the past will often show consistently higher soil P and additional fertilizer N might be required to create balanced fertility for crop growth. The sampling of manure and soil by a qualified agronomist can aid in creating a balanced fertility plan.
Cattle manure and urine deposited directly on the land from in-field winter feeding systems such as bale grazing, chaff grazing, cover crop grazing, or bale processing/rolling on pasture or cropland can also return some nutrients to the land. Nitrogen in a winter feeding system may have increased levels of plant available N in the spring because of the decreased loss of ammonia from the decomposition of urea in urine directly deposited on soil versus a system where the manure is spread. Another efficiency of in-field feeding is that cattle do the nutrient spreading themselves, saving the producer time, labor, and equipment costs. Feeding can also be done in areas such as hilltops that can benefit from the organic matter addition of manure and leftover feed.
Considerations when animals are on the land including minimizing manure in low areas and around wetlands as much as possible to prevent manure from directly entering the water. High cattle traffic on moist soil in the springtime is also a concern if the cattle are not pulled off the land before the frost melts. Cattle hooves can cause compaction which can result in decreased crop yields. Limiting cattle traffic on cropland to when there are frozen or dry soil conditions can alleviate some of the compaction risks.
Straw and Forage
Baling and removal of cereal straw for cattle bedding following crop harvest exports nutrients from the land such as N, P, K and organic C. Rainfall on straw swaths prior to baling may leach some of the nutrients in the residue back into the soil, although some biomass losses can occur. Potassium is a nutrient that relies on leaching from crop residue to return plant available K+ ions to the soil. Continuous removal of straw from cropping systems might result in a decrease in available K. Organic matter losses from straw removal over time can also decrease soil quality and the soil’s ability to retain nutrients. Methods to reduce the effects of straw removal can include rotating straw removal between fields (i.e. every four years) and lengthening the period of time between removals to build a protective surface mulch. One other consideration is importing straw to bring nutrients in to rather than out of the farm. A management plan for straw removal is important to maintain the long-term productivity of the land.
Annual forage crops used for silage or greenfeed such as barley, oats, and corn are removed at an earlier stage than crops for grain harvest. The desire for high nutrients in the feed results in the removal of the above ground plant material at a stage when the plant is actively taking up nutrients which means a high level of nutrients is removed from the soil. This loss of nutrients should be accounted for in the soil fertility plan in order to maintain the soil nutrient status for the upcoming and subsequent growing seasons.
Perennial Forage Stands
Perennial forages with their extensive root systems are beneficial to soil health as they increase soil organic carbon, enhance soil microbiological diversity and activity, and maintain soil cover to prevent erosion. Including forage legume species, such as alfalfa, will allow for nitrogen fixation and increase the soil N as well as access nutrients and water lower in the soil profile. Declining productivity in hay stands can be due to decreasing levels of available nutrients in the soil from the continuous removal of above ground stands. Plant species like alfalfa use high levels of K and P, although fixing high amounts of N. Providing balanced fertility for the duration of the stand is, therefore, important when seeding and maintaining hay crops.
Grazing management is also integral to the long-term health of forage stands. Allowing grasslands enough rest period and implementing practices such as rotational grazing are essential to maintaining healthier plant stands for long-term production. As previously mentioned, cattle distribute nutrients in manure as they graze and maintaining plant cover decreases erosion potential and retains more nutrients.
Minimizing erosion is integral when managing soil and can be done through minimizing tillage and maintaining plant cover. Feeding cattle on grassed areas can eliminate the need to till manure into the soil. When seeding annual crops into terminated forage stands, using a low-disturbance seeder with a disc or knife opener can result in comparable crop yields to terminating via tillage. When the soil is kept in place, the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can create a network in the soil to increase the nutrient and water uptake of plants. A healthy, functioning soil has good microbial diversity including beneficial bacteria and fungi species. Soil that is left in place can also develop better soil tilth and structure over time, creating a better functioning soil.
A productive mixed farm operation is one that focuses on both the nutrition of animals and health of the soil. It all starts with balanced nutrition and adopting good management practices to make the soil and cattle work together. Tweaking the management of your farm can be as simple as making one change at a time with soil health in mind to suit what works for you and your farm. When farm management prioritizes maintaining soil fertility and long-term soil health alongside healthy cattle everyone wins!
This article was courtesy of the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association (www.ssca.ca) Spring 2017 Newsletter
From the beginning of time, some agriculturists have marveled (if they thought about it at all) at the idea prairies and forests produced prodigiously without added fertility.
At last, we’re beginning to understand how such a thing can be accomplished, better yet mimicked.
A big part of the seemingly supernatural is done via a massive underground network of fungal superhighway that links many species of plants to microorganisms and transfers and shares huge amounts of vital plant compounds such as nitrogen, phosphorus, manganese, sulfur — all the major and minor plant nutrients — as well as plant-produced carbohydrates.
The star of this show is an organism called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Together with its army of associated microbes, it can mine every major nutrient from the parent material of all soils, store huge amounts of carbon in the soil, hold and share water, moderate acidity and alkalinity, and build soil structure like nothing else.
Yet nearly every major agricultural practice of the past 10,000 years has torn it apart, to the detriment of mankind. As we have destroyed this life-giving fungi with tillage and set-stocked overgrazing and further with high rates of fertilizer and with long fallow periods, we have slit our own throats and made ourselves dependent on truly mined minerals, which we must draw out of nature with massive expenditures of human energy and millennia-old fossil fuels.
One example of this fungi’s magic is a compound it manufactures called glomalin, only discovered in 1996 by ARS soil scientist Sara Wright. It is a carbohydrate-based “soil glue” that contains 30-40% carbon. Glomalin is the substance that creates clumps of soil granules called aggregates. These are what add structure to healthy soil. They also keep other stored soil carbon from escaping.
Technically glomalin is considered a glycoprotein, which stores carbon in both its protein and carbohydrate (glucose or sugar) subunits. Because it stores so much carbon, glomalin is increasingly being included in studies of carbon storage and soil quality.
Further, scientists have found glomalin weighs from 2 to 24 times more than humic acid, which is the byproduct of decaying plants that once was thought to be the main contributor to soil carbon storage. Now scientists say humic acid contributes only about 8% of soil carbon.
As I alluded, glomalin is just one of the benefits of this amazing creature we’re calling AMF. The more we can harness its amazing qualities to help farm and ranch, the less money we can potentially spend and the more profit we should be able to make.
We’re focusing on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), what it does, and how to have more of it in the upcoming June issue of Beef Producer. So keep an eye on your mailbox. We’ll also publish all that material and more here on the website.
Thin, threadlike strands of mycorrhizal fungi hyphae from pot cultures have an abundant amount of glomalin—stained green in this picture by a laboratory procedure. Glomalin is ever-present on mycorrhizal hyphae feeding the roots of native and introduced grasses
Anyone can investigate biological activity in farm fields or backyard gardens. Bury a pair of 100 percent white cotton underwear in topsoil for about two months and then check the level of decomposition. If there’s not much left of the underwear you have good biological activity, which indicates healthy soil. These same soil organisms can break down plant materials in much the same way.
From the February 16, 2016 issue of Agri-New
Most producers test their soils routinely every fall, after harvest or early in the spring. Information from these tests give you the knowledge to plan the following crop’s fertilizer plan. How can you get the most return for this investment in testing?
There are several ways to soil sample. The most common method of soil testing is the 0 – 6 inch representative sample. You take 15 – 20+ samples in a field, selecting various slope positions, to try and get a good average sample. From those mixed samples the field sample is taken and sent away, hopefully giving you a good average for the field.
Another approach is benchmarking. That is where you pick one or a few spots in the field, have it located on GPS and come back to that same location for samples every year. It doesn’t give you an average but it can give you an idea as to how the field changes in nutrient levels, as long as you’ve picked a location that is average. That means it is not located at the bottom of the slope or right at the top but somewhere in the middle.
Using GPS, harvest records and precision agriculture has been gaining popularity lately where you try to correlate the harvest yields to detailed soil tests. This can give a more detailed picture of the ultimate productivity of the soil but requires several years of data to filter out the extremes from weather and vagaries of the crop year.
Different test labs have different procedures and you need to know what applies to your area and soils.
An example of this is the phosphorus test. The accepted, accurate test for phosphorus in the Canadian West is the modified Kelowna test. If your soil test lab is using some other test, it might be better suited to soils in Eastern Canada and may give a misleading result.
Macronutrients are the first thing you focus on from the tests. These are Nitrogen (nitrate), Phosphorus (phosphate), Potassium (potash), and sulfur (sulfate). There can be differences in how it is reported as it is often stated in pounds per acre or parts per million (ppm). If using ppm on a 0 – 6 inch sample, double the ppm to get your pounds per acre.
Micronutrients to look at are mostly just copper (Cu). Amounts below 0.6 ppm may show symptoms of deficiency. Ergot in cereals is linked to copper deficiency but the majority of the time ergot also occurs due to moist, cool conditions at head emergence. There is also a lot of hype promoting boron in canola. If you feel it might help, try a few test strips in the field and measure the results at harvest. Other than copper, most fields in Alberta do not show any symptoms of micronutrient deficiency and will not provide a yield boost if micronutrients are applied.
Organic matter (OM) is an important gauge of the nutrient bank account in your soil. High organic matter soils are much more forgiving if you cut your fertilizer rates for a year. It can compensate by providing more nutrients if the year is wetter than expected. Conversely, low organic matter in soil leaves it more susceptible to nutrient deficiencies. Very low organic matter leads to structural problems in soil with crusting and poor moisture penetration. OM increases as moisture regime gets wetter so black soils contain more OM than the brown or dark brown soils.
Soil pH is a measure of acidity or alkalinity. It is best at neutral, 7.0 but most crops grow well from a pH of 5.6 – 8.0. Once soils become more alkaline (higher) than 8 or more acid (lower) than 5.5 you start having limited choices for crop type. You can adjust pH with the addition of some bulk fertilizer products but volume needed to change pH usually make it uneconomical.
Electrical conductivity is a measure of how many salts are in the soil. Too saline and you limit what crops will grow and thrive. High salt content in the soil prevents the normal operation of osmosis which is how the plant roots obtain water. An EC of 1 or less is good. More than 1 and some crops do not grow well.
There are other tests and measures provided on some tests but they have limited value for the average producer. Cation exchange capacity (CEC) lets you know how many cations the soil particles can have adhering to it. It is linked to the amount of clay in the soil. High CEC just means there is a lot of clay in the soil.
If you do apply some micronutrients or “special” wonder products, measure and compare the results to assure yourself that these products do add value. Make every fertilizer dollar add to profits and not just costs.
Focus on the information you can use to manage the fertility plan for the coming year’s crops. If you need help with interpretation, call the Ag-Info Centre at 310-FARM (3276) you can also give Dr. Yamily Zavala a call at the CARA office for assistance in interpreting the results from the soil sampling. Watch for future development of CARA’s Soil Health Lab.
Ross McKenzie, Grainews May 9, 2016
Soil compaction can occur at the soil surface in the form of soil crusting, or it can occur in the subsoil. Soil compaction is sometimes blamed for reduced crop productivity, but it is important to correctly diagnose the cause or causes of reduced crop production. Poor plant growth can be caused by a number of factors, including soil compaction.
The first step is to correctly diagnosis if a soil compaction problem exists, and then develop short- and long-term management practices to prevent further damage.
Soil compaction can occur at different times of the year through different mechanisms. Careful observations can help diagnose the problem. If the answer to these questions is “yes,” you may have a soil compaction problem.
-Is there poor crop growth in all years, with all crop types in the same area of the field?
-Is there a spatial pattern to the crop growth (associated with wheel tracks, windrows, equipment widths, haul trails)?
-Does the soil surface appear smooth and crusted?
-Has there been a change in equipment size, weight or operations?
-Are there soil types in the field with naturally dense horizons such as eroded knolls?
-If you scrape away the surface soil with a shovel or trowel, can you see dense layers and/or horizontal root growth?