The waiting game for farmers this past spring was hard.
“It’s always the biggest hesitation. How long do we wait to not make a mess?” said Dundee-based dairy farmer and cash cropper Jenna Soesbergen, who finished seeding in mid-June. “It was very late, especially for a crop like corn. We made the decision to switch away from a rotation and do more soybeans,” she explained, suggesting the cool and wet conditions did not lead to an optimal start to the season.
Patience has proven to be key. “Where we waited and the conditions were more ideal, the yields are there,” she said, noting they are quite satisfied with this year’s harvest after a long dry summer and fall.
The spring rush is also the busiest season for agronomists specializing in crop production and management, such as Sascha Macintosh-Hobson, who works with the Uniag Cooperative. “The remarkable thing about agriculture is that from afar it’s quite simple, but it is really at the fine point of technology,” he explained, noting his role is to “bring a scientific basis or foundation to a production system,” so producers make the best choices depending on variations in the season and the characteristics of their farms.
For Macintosh-Hobson, technological advancements – from genetically modified seed (GMO) and precision seeders to GPS enabled machinery and soil management techniques – have allowed farmers to “maximize the productivity of a given acre of cultivated land.” He acknowledged that the effectiveness of GMO crops like Roundup Ready seed means they are sometimes overused, and that negative environmental impacts such as drinking water contamination have occurred as a result. He explained that this is one of the main reasons it is important that cash croppers adopt an integrated approach, including crop rotation and work between rows, that does not rely solely on chemical control.
“There are always things coming out, and regulations that help us without impacting production, so we get to a more efficient and cleaner production system,” Macintosh-Hobson explained.
As of next year, producers will be subject to new rules governing insecticide-treated seeds that require an agronomist’s prescription before they can be used. “There are certain circumstances where these are a good idea, given the history of a field; but in general, there are not too many early-season pests here in Quebec where they would systematically be needed,” he said, suggesting the measure ensures that producers only use the inputs they need.
For Soesbergen, this means properly using the inputs they already have on the farm, from last year’s crop residues to manure. She has done soil and tissue sampling to make sure they give their crops what they need. “If you have healthy soil, you can get a lot out of it, so it is not about being excessive,” she said, noting that they use the same approach when it comes to spraying. “We walk our fields. We work with an agronomist. It is carefully planned, and the quantities are very limited,” she explained.
Farmers document their use of inputs, as well as pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides, and while Soesbergen is in favour of measures to control these, she notes that they add to the paperwork. “The consumer can be happy to know that everything is being checked,” she said.