By Kate Proctor

I remember back to my elementary school days when  the science fair was a big deal. I’ll admit  it was stressful trying to come up with a new idea every year. But there was always the excitement around the possibility of making it on to the next stage. Maybe I liked it more than I realized at the time because it seems, upon reflection, that a lot of my life has been one big science fair experiment.  

One of the good things about farming is that there is always something new to learn. Every year provides opportunities to figure things out, to try new things, and to look at things in a way you hadn’t before. Even when I think I am replicating the experiment that was last year… things often turn out completely differently. And humble me if I ever get to thinking I may have it all figured out. 

I will admit I am not the world’s biggest risk taker. Far from it. When I find something that works, I tend to try to stick with it. I will put up with things that aren’t perfect often longer than I should just in case the change ends up being worse. It is kind of a “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” way of thinking. 

We have been using a no-till cropping system for over 30 years and it has worked well for us. There are some challenges, but we have seen the organic matter in our soils hold steady, or improve slightly, while farm press headlines are screaming about its loss across farms in Ontario. 

I have been a bit resistant to trying much in the way of cover crops largely because I haven’t been convinced that we need to do it and there are reasons I think it might not work well with our current system. Excess residue at planting is one of the challenges of no-till and I was suspicious that adding cover crops may make that situation worse. Planting crops then spraying them off also increases expense, as well as energy and chemical use. 

On the other hand, proponents of cover crops explain that doing a little research ahead of time and going into it knowing why you are doing it makes a big difference. I am interested in learning more about managing fertilizer more effectively as well as improving compaction, which are two reasons to give cover crops a try.

Over the centuries, cover crops have played many roles – from improving soil health, compaction, and structure, to protecting crops from pests and improving water quality. Cover crops are defined in the Ontario Cover Crop Strategy as “plants that are seeded into agricultural fields, either within or outside of the regular growing season, with the primary purpose of improving or maintaining soil quality,” https://www.ontario soilcrop.org/wp-content/ uploads/2017/06/Ontario-Cover-Crop-Strategy_May-3_Final-v3compressed.pdf.

We worked with the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) and participated in their cover crop program. We had a perfect place for the trial. A field that had winter wheat, but owing to the difficult fall conditions when it was planted, had a section that didn’t get planted and ended up growing soybeans. It worked out almost evenly to have roughly a third with cover crop, a third with wheat stubble, and a third with soybean stubble all planted to the same variety of corn this past spring. We used a cover crop mix of tillage radish, oats, and peas. The goal was to improve compaction and to see how yields were affected. 

One of the challenges of on-farm experiments is that there are so many variables that we can’t control. Even a field that has the same soil type, similar topography, similar drainage, and the same rainfall and sunlight can have a lot of variation. Small plot trials can be hard to replicate over a larger area. Experiments really need to be conducted over several years before strong conclusions can be made. Plus you need to keep meticulous records. 

A few years ago, we planted two fields – across the road from each other – with the same corn variety on the same day. Come harvest, there was a substantial yield difference that we just were not able to explain. If we had been doing some sort of trial there it could have led to some very poor conclusions.

We were excited to harvest the field and see how it turned out. We already knew there were a couple of areas of the trial that had issues, possibly due to less than perfect drainage in one area, but the other area we could not figure out. All we knew was that right from emergence there was a noticeable difference that had definite visible boundaries. 

At harvest, when everyone is going full tilt to bring the crops in, there is always a balance between getting things perfect and just getting done. Especially in a year when two rain-free days in a row are scarce. So yes, we had a problem with equipment that made the results of part of the field questionable. I was reminded of some of my lessons from harvests past – if you think something is going wrong with the machine – stop and figure it out. Call the experts first rather than 25 struggling acres later. 

The good news is that it happened in a part of the field that was already sketchy. At the end of it all, the results looked like there was enough difference to give it another try. Which is good, because in the world of cover crop trials, the next one is planted before the results of the last one are even close to harvest. 

Always looking forward optimistically to next year, we have a new cover crop trial underway. We have the winter to look at the financials of our first trial, comparing all the variables and determine if it is a good fit for our farm. And dream up a new experiment we can get excited about that we might actually move on to the next stage with. ◊