The Essex Soil and Crop Improvement Association recently bestowed its 2018 Conservation Farm of the Year award to Maurice (Moe) Chauvin, a sixth-generation grain farmer from Pointe-aux-Roches (known as Stoney Point to Anglophones). The award is granted annually to a farm within Essex County that displays conservation-minded management practices. For Chauvin, adopting such practices starts […] Read more
Tag Archives Cover crop — page 4
Curiosity and care guide farm’s principles
The Chauvin farm takes a long-term view on measures like soil organic matter
Project to fund 2000 acres of cover crops
The Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA) has announced that the Canadian Agricultural Partnership has granted $500,000 for UTRCA staff and local certified crop advisors to work closely with landowners and plant cover crops within a subwatershed of Medway Creek. The upper Medway Creek watershed will host this project over the next three years. UTRCA […] Read more
Evaluating cover crops for the long term
Too early to assess corn and wheat yields, but the benefits to tomatoes already seem clear
It’s widely recognized that cover crops boost soil organic matter, but their long-term agronomic and economic benefits are less well understood. Researchers at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown and Elora campuses have undertaken some long-term studies to identify the impacts of cover crops in some growing conditions and management styles common to southwestern Ontario. Why […] Read more
Cover crops help reverse soil organic matter loss
The benefits may not show up immediately so farmers need to be patient
In Ontario, where the loss of soil organic matter is a long-standing problem, cover crops and other cultivation strategies designed to improve soil structure are playing an increasingly important role in cropland sustainability. However, a variety of factors are limiting how quickly Ontario farmers are adopting cover crops, even as soil organic matter in the […] Read more
Cover crops can be tricky to kill
Cover crops can be important tools to improve soils, but there’s no single control solution
Cover crops can do a lot for the soil, but keeping them from becoming covering weeds requires the right herbicides applied at the right rate — to kill them at the right time. What cover crop is used, too, should be appropriate for the job the farmer wants to accomplish. Why it matters: Cover crops […] Read more
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