Warm and Damp September Helps Covers On Manitoba Farm Fields

Fields with cover crops receive late season sunshine, welcome precipitation.

WINNIPEG, MB, Sept. 28, 2023 /CNW/ - Manitoba's longest growing season since 1977 is playing out nicely for cover crops and farmers in some areas of the province this fall.

With warm daytime temps and mild nights across September, cover crops that are designed to keep a living root in the ground for as long as possible while covering the soil from erosion are flourishing in some areas.  In fact, high humidity and warmer than normal seasonal September temperatures along with a few significant downfalls of rain have worked well for cover crops in some areas of Manitoba.

"Many farmers were worried that cover crops would not be able to grow earlier in the season due to the exceptionally dry conditions," said Callum Morrison, Crop Production Extension Specialist, Manitoba Agriculture. "I think it's an example of how farmers need to be flexible and how there will be different opportunities for growing cover crops every year." 

With some weather experts calling for continuation of the warm September weather to span into October before the first major frost event, the prolonged 2023 growing season might end up being a key component of the Top Five warmest Septembers of all time for Manitoba. Morrison says he has seen a lot of winter wheat and fall rye emerging well, as well as volunteers from canola and cereals growing strong. 

Ryan Canart has seen similar positives on some fields of western Manitoba. Canart oversees delivery of three different producer-focused cover crop incentive programs within the Assiniboine West Watershed District (AWWD) he manages: Agriculture Agri-Food Canada's On Farm Climate Action Fund delivered via the Manitoba Association of Watershed (MAW) Prairie Watersheds Climate Program (PWCP); ALUS's Growing Roots Program, and Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association's Conservation Trust two-year project around soil health and cover crops that AWWD delivers alongside Souris River Watershed District (SRWD) and Central Assiniboine Watershed District (CAWD).

According to Canart, warmth helps promote prolonged plant growth and photosynthetic activity which improves overall soil health. These benefits are attributed to annual cover crops, many of which are used to integrate livestock grazing, further improving the soil's characteristics.

"Annually seeded cover crops are providing the soil life with continued food sources this fall," said Canart. "With the above-average temperatures, green plants are able to continue to convert sunlight to sugar and further support the soil rebuilding processes."

Embraced by regenerative agriculture-focused farmer-led groups such as MFGA and promoted by soil-health practitioners, cover crops are designed to do exactly as they are named: cover the soil in fields that would otherwise be bare to protect the soil from erosion while adding nutrients and keeping a root in the ground for as long as possible for accrued soil health benefits as well as weed and pest control and other benefits. In some cases, cover crops can be grazed; though some cover crops are planted to never be harvested and are finished by the onset of cold weather to become a nutrient mulch on top of the soils of fields with far-reaching below soil benefits.

Neil Zalluski manages the CAWD and delivers MFGA's Conservation Trust and MAW's PWCP in the watershed. Zalluski says while the sunshine and warm nights are great for extending the growing season, the rain and moisture is the real key. So, too, he says is finding the right timing and field systems to plant cover crops. Intercropping is one way some farmers are planting cover crops into annual crops halfway through the growing season with the push to integrate livestock and cover crops onto annual crops.

"Intercropping systems in our watershed are used primarily to promote extended livestock grazing," said Zalluski. "This incorporates livestock into annual cropping plans as the livestock are put onto fields post-harvest of the primary crop. As the livestock are grazing the cover crop, they are benefiting the soil health and providing nutrients into the system in a way that might reduce next year's crop inputs."

Zalluski said that the CAWD finally got some rain this weekend and along with the high moisture content in the air and morning dew each day has been valuable toward the cover crop benefits and systems working.

Like Zalluski, Dean Brooker runs the MFGA and the PWCP projects in his watershed. He concurs: timing is everything when it comes to cover crops.

"Parts of our Watershed District have seen well-timed amounts of precipitation and in those areas, the ability of cover crops to benefit from that moisture and with a long stretch of frost-free days bodes well for the soil health on some farms," said Brooker, manager of SRWD. "With the soil-health programs we are delivering, this type of weather is exactly what we are all hoping for in our planning stages."

All three watershed managers will be soil sampling and surveying farmers as part of their projects and expect to have more information over winter to help next year's project deliverables and farmer interests.

SOURCE Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA)

Duncan Morrison, MFGA Executive Director, [email protected], 204.770.3548