Farming has always been a new challenge every year. If the weatherman can’t decide to give us the threat of flooding our rivers, streams, and even our fields, we may receive week after week of no rain and thousands of spontaneous forest fires all across Canada.
When we experience both conditions in the same spring and summer, we can’t help but worry about what conditions we will face in the next six months.
We all watched dandelions spring up in great abundance in most lawns and fields throughout our county. The abundance of dandelions has always been a sign that the soil that the dandelion grows in is short in calcium. The dandelion root can go down several feet into the soil in search of calcium and water in the subsoil, which the roots can transport up to the top of the plant by the process of photosynthesis.
This year, farmers wonder if the abundance of . . .
dandelions is a warning of an oncoming dry summer? As we drive around through the farms, we are amazed at the quantity of hay and pasture growing in this very dry year.
Alfalfa also has very deep roots that can go down meters in the ground. Some fields that were sprayed very early to prepare for planting of no-till corn, are now showing an excellent regrowth of alfalfa.
As the farmer prays for rain to water the little corn and grain plants and grow a second cut of hay, he wonders when he should re-spray the corn fields to kill weeds and the alfalfa regrowth which is now a foot high?
Without rain, that deep rooted alfalfa is the only plant in that corn field that can access moisture through it’s deep roots. The alfalfa plant not only makes it’s own nitrogen, but brings up moisture, and a healthy alfalfa plant shades the field from evaporation in these dry times.
Farmers who have most of their first cut off, are surprised at the great crop of hay in this dry time. Our only explanation is that we received early rains to thicken up the grass to shade the field from evaporation and the deep roots of the alfalfa continue to access water in the subsoil.
Scientists who have been recording weather patterns for generations have been warning us about longer dry spells and more severe rains combined with more severe weather changes.
Agronomists have also been advising farmers to save and increase organic matter in the soil to improve the water retention capacity, which will prevent water runoff during heavy rains and help carry us through extended dry times. As I look at several large brown areas in the lawn, I am reminded to cut the grass a little longer so it can prevent evaporation and help carry the lawn through longer dry spells too without watering. Even our gardens and flower beds should be watered after supper when there is less evaporation.
Sometimes history repeats itself and we are reminded of the “dirty 30’s” when topsoil in the western provinces drifted like snow and left farms looking like deserts with their owners abandoning their farms and just walking away. I sometimes re-read an old book that my grandfather bought called Malabar Farm, written by Louis Bromfield in 1937. Many of the practices that our agronomist friends advise us to do today were written about in that book which was written in Ohio, 86 years ago.
Before we make any long lasting decision, which seems popular at the time to the majority, we should look back in history. Remember the “troubles” in Ireland that lasted generations, caused thousands of lives to be lost, and cost mankind millions of dollars.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
