Health Canada, which oversees the federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), announced Monday evening it has authorized a “time-limited and controlled” emergency-use registration for the rodent poison for those two provinces, running until November 2027.

WHY IT MATTERS: Other pest controls are available for use against gophers but farmers find strychnine both more effective and easier to use.

The new decision follows the federal government’s cancellations of all registered uses of strychnine in recent years, and a joint application for the product’s emergency use filed by the two provinces’ agriculture ministries last October.

PMRA had rejected that joint application in February, saying its proposals “did not provide sufficient means to address the risks of concern identified in the re-evaluation that led to strychnine’s cancellation.”

The earlier cancellations had been based on an updated environmental risk assessment, which had found no “practical risk-reduction measures to protect non-target animals” if they fed on strychnine-poisoned pest or predator animal carcasses or directly on poisoned gopher bait.

However, Health Canada said Monday, the two provinces last week filed a revised joint emergency-use request which includes “additional restrictions and mitigations … to lower the environmental risk to an acceptable level.”

The “significant” added measures in the new plan include a “reduced geographical scope” and “revised product stewardship program,” among others, Health Canada said.

Since strychnine’s uses were cancelled, farmers and ranchers have been raising concerns about on-farm efficacy of other products still registered for use against gophers.

The temporary use of strychnine will help farmers address “multi-million dollars worth of damage” in various crops from a recent spike in populations of gophers, a.k.a. Richardson’s ground squirrels, Health Canada said Monday.

Health Canada noted the Prairies have been experiencing “abnormally dry conditions, which (affect) the sustainability and quality of farmlands and allowed the population of these gophers to increase significantly.”

Reaction so far

“Saskatchewan producers have been clear about the challenges they face in managing gophers with the limited tools currently available,” provincial Agriculture Minister David Marit said Monday in Health Canada’s release. “We’re pleased to see the emergency use request granted as a practical opportunity for producers to demonstrate how strychnine can help protect their crops and pastures from continued damage.”

“Alberta’s producers have faced significant challenges managing (gophers) and the loss of this control method was difficult and costly for many in the ag sector,” RJ Sigurdson, Alberta’s minister for agriculture and irrigation, said in the same release.

“I’m confident that, with this effective tool back in the hands of our producers, they will be able to better manage their operations and reduce excessive crop and grassland losses due to the overpopulation of (Richardson’s ground squirrels) throughout the Prairies.”

“Innovative and collaborative efforts by all levels of government are needed to support the domestic agriculture industry especially during this period of uncertainty,” federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel and Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald said in the same release. “Our governments’ shared commitment of supporting Canadian farmers, our economy, and food security led us to work together to address a compounding threat.”

The post Saskatchewan, Alberta farmers get strychnine against gophers until late 2027 appeared first on Farmtario.

“When I first started, we were selling into Canada like crazy,” Craig Duhr, BCG’s regional sales manager for the Americas, said of the market in 2020. “Agriculture, all your vineyards, whatever it took.”

Suddenly, Health Canada told them that the 487-milliwatt Class 3 B laser was no longer eligible for import, despite certifications from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture, among others that allow its sale in 100 countries — including the Netherlands, where it was developed.

WHY IT MATTERS: The Canadian Food Inspection Agency estimates 1.3 million domestic birds have died or been humanely depopulated due to avian flu in Ontario since 2021; nationwide, the total climbs to 17.2 million.

Canada’s current Pest Control Product Act deems laser devices such as the Avix to be a pest repellent, requiring registration.

However, Health Canada said Feb. 3 via email, a proposal to exempt certain specific laser devices from the registration requirement — if they meet certain regulatory requirements for low-energy emissions — was published last March.

A 90-day pre-consultation on that proposal ended in June, ahead of a formal consultation that’s expected to be announced later this year, Health Canada said.

‘Would recommend’

The laser has been successfully tested in various sectors and under different weather conditions worldwide to ensure the non-lethal, animal-friendly bird control solution remains effective over the long term.

BCG didn’t fly off without a fight, Duhr said. The small start-up company employed attorneys and submitted to every Health Canada request over a two- to three-year period, before costs and constant government hurdles forced them to walk away.

Duhr said requests from Canadian producers run into the thousands, with increased interest particularly since avian influenza began to spike in 2021.

“Every show we got to that is poultry,” he said. “We’re inundated with (interested) Canadian people; it’s very unfortunate.”

Wade Stark, vineyard operations manager for Andrew Peller Ltd., was among the operations fortunate enough to purchase the system before the moratorium took effect.

Stark told Farmtario via email he’s been pleased with the Avix’s performance since installing the units at the vineyard in August 2020. Aside from replacing a control box and a few cables due to environmental exposure, the units have had no issues, he added.

Stark indicated he intends to follow up with Health Canada on the laser’s import availability status.

“We would certainly recommend their use and would like to order more units for other farms where we have bird pressure and have to use netting, which is labour-intensive and expensive,” Stark wrote. “Not to mention birds actually getting trapped in the netting from time to time.”

Highly efficient

In 2021, Wageningen University published data on the effectiveness of BCG’s Avix Autonomic Mark II Class III B laser on a free-range layer farm next to a poultry barn in a Dutch region heavily impacted by avian flu.

The study collected video footage for a month before installing the lasers, which operated from 5 p.m. to 10 a.m. within the 1.5-hectare free-range area when poultry were inside, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the surrounding grass pasture when the birds were outside.

It found the laser had a 98.3 per cent efficacy at reducing wild bird interactions within the free-range area and concluded the laser was “highly proficient at keeping wild birds, in particular waterfowl” away from farms along the winter migration flyway.

While the study focused on free-range operations, researcher Armin Elbers speculated on the BCG website that, during high-risk periods, laser use could help on strictly-indoor operations that had experienced or were at risk of avian influenza, by keeping wild fowl away from barns.

Cattle sector applications

When highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was detected in U.S. dairy cattle in March 2024, leading to a significant drop in production and spikes in fever, lethargy and decreased appetite, calls began to roll in.

“When that happened, then we got really busy in the dairy industry and feedlots,” Duhr said, adding that while HPAI doesn’t kill cattle, it’s a drain on those operations.

He said BCG will continue to focus on expanding its U.S. as well as Central and South American markets — but Canada isn’t completely off the table.

The post Canada’s import ban on Avix bird control system ruffles feathers appeared first on Farmtario.

Now, reporting in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, researchers have developed a method that detects infectious bird flu virus in wetlands frequented by waterfowl.

Wild birds are a significant reservoir of avian influenza virus. While some viral strains don’t cause disease, the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) form can spread quickly and is often fatal. It spreads from wild birds that shed the pathogen through their feces into the environment, including the wetlands they inhabit.

Detecting bird flu in these waters has been challenging because infectious virus concentrations are often too low to be detected by most methods, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of viral transmission.

To address this problem, Laura Hubbard at the U.S. Geological Survey and colleagues devised a multi-step process to concentrate and identify infectious virus in environmental samples.

They tested their protocols on surface water samples taken twice in the spring of 2022 from four wetlands and a lake in Iowa. The team identified strains of infectious virus in samples from all four wetland sites in April, but not from the lake.

Detection rates were significantly lower, however, when they tested the water samples for viral RNA (11.1 per cent) using standard diagnostic protocols than when the same samples were inoculated into eggs and avian influenza virus was isolated and confirmed (66.7 per cent).

The researchers say these results highlight the need for improved RNA detection techniques to reduce the risk of false negatives.

Sequencing showed that most of the detected viral strains in water samples had low pathogenicity. One sample included HPAI, however, marking the first time this strain has been detected in a U.S. waterway, the researchers say.

Just five weeks later, they did not detect avian influenza virus in any samples from the same sites despite previous research that demonstrated viral persistence for months in similar environments.

The researchers suggest that the apparent absence of virus could be due to many environmental factors, including fewer waterfowl being present in May and substantially warmer water temperatures influencing virus survival.

Although further research is required to better understand the persistence and potential transmissibility of bird flu in wetlands, researchers say the detection of HPAI virus and other strains highlights possible risks to wild and domestic fowl, other animals and even humans, who use these waterways recreationally.

They also suggest that regular monitoring and early detection could help mitigate costly viral transmission and the rising cost of eggs and poultry.

The post Testing wetlands for infectious bird flu — and finding it appeared first on Farmtario.

The province each year since 1997 has asked hunters to submit heads from harvested deer, moose and elk to test for CWD. It announced Sept. 26 it has opened its CWD testing drop-off locations for this year, until Jan. 21, 2024.

“We rely on hunters submitting samples for testing so we can continue to measure and manage CWD, and we are grateful to their ongoing support in those efforts,” Environment Minister Christine Tell said in a release.

Samples can be submitted from animals harvested anywhere in the province, but the ministry said its CWD focus this year is on seven specific wildlife management zones: 2W, 9 and 10 in the province’s southwest; 47 and 55 in the northwest; 50, east of Prince Albert; and 37, which runs from around Yorkton, Melville and Kamsack east to the Manitoba border.

But in response to the bovine TB findings this year in a cattle herd in the east-central region, the ministry this year also wants to test heads from harvested elk, moose, white-tailed deer and mule deer from WMZ 37, as well as WMZ 48 (north of 37), using the same process as for submitting CWD samples.

While CWD is established in much of southern Saskatchewan and has been detected in wildlife in 60 of the province’s 83 WMZs, no case of bovine TB has yet been detected in Saskatchewan wildlife, the province said Sept. 26.

While CWD results will be posted online, hunters will be notified directly if a positive bovine TB result is detected in their submitted sample, the province said. Testing for both diseases is free and voluntary, the province added.

An animal infected with bovine TB may have lesions, of any size, that can be seen during field dressing, the province said.

The lesions may appear as round, white, tan or yellow, crumbly to paste-like, and gritty nodules throughout the lungs, the rib cage or in the chest cavity.

It’s possible, albeit extremely rare, for bovine TB to spread from animals to people, the province said, advising hunters to take “routine hygiene precautions” while field dressing or otherwise handling wildlife.

Tracing in/out

As for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s ongoing investigation and tracing of the TB-infected cattle herd, tests so far have found the disease’s spread to be limited to the one herd.

As of Wednesday, CFIA said, the infected herd has so far turned up 10 confirmed cases of bovine TB. The herd has been depopulated, its post-mortem inspections complete, and lab tests “ongoing” on tissue samples.

Past that, CFIA’s investigation has so far led it to two “trace-in” herds, three “trace-out” herds, one contact herd and one “life line” herd, but no new TB cases as of Wednesday.

A “life line” herd refers to any herd that was specifically traced from an infected animal in the infected herd. In this investigation, CFIA said, the one life line herd has been released from federal quarantine, based on negative results so far from lab tests. That said, final confirmatory lab tissue tests are “ongoing.”

A “contact” herd, meanwhile, refers to a herd that shared a fence line or “may have co-mingled” with the infected herd. Live animal testing has started on that herd and will continue through this fall, CFIA said.

“Trace-in” refers to a herd that provided animals to the infected herd. Of the two found so far in this investigation, live animal testing has been completed on one, while the other will undergo live animal testing “after summer grazing ends.”

“Trace-out” refers to a herd that received animals from the infected herd. Of the three found so far, one was released from quarantine based on negative results to date. The other two still require live animal testing — which, CFIA reiterated, is normally completed after summer grazing ends.

The infected Saskatchewan herd had come to CFIA’s attention after an animal shipped from that herd to a U.S. feedlot in September 2022 was confirmed last February as positive for the disease, based on a PCR test run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on tissue samples collected at slaughter. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Saskatchewan expands wildlife testing to include bovine TB appeared first on Farmtario.

Now, Chris and Vivian Crump have added wetlands, created more controlled grazing, managed the runoff from the barns and farmyard, planted 2,500 trees and created grassed waterways.

Why it matters: Farmers find funding programs help them invest in improving the environment on their properties.

The result, says Chris Crump, is a much healthier property, with an increase in species at risk including hog-nosed snakes and 46 different kinds of birds, including some rare species like the yellow-headed blackbird.

That success made the Crump farm the chosen site for announcement of $561,000 in funding for ALUS, a charitable group that helps produce, fund and maintain ecosystem services on agricultural lands.

The funding comes from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks and is a part of the larger Species at Risk Stewardship Program.

The three-year funding for ALUS aims to help fund projects in southern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area.

“I want to thank the team at ALUS Canada for all that you do,” says David Piccini, Ontario minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks. “This is, in my books, the beginning of so much more excitement and shared stewardship that we can do together. Thank you for challenging us as public policymakers to do more, to think bigger.

“More beef farming leads to more habitat for endangered grassland birds like bobolinks and eastern meadowlarks,” says Piccini.

ALUS has delivered more than $12 million in funding to rural Ontario communities, says Bryan Gilvesy, CEO of ALUS Canada. More than 800 farmers have been involved in ALUS projects, including 155 new farmers in the past year. ALUS has benefitted from government funding and from an influx of funds from private sector donors who are interested in ecological goods and services.

“Many of these projects create critical habitat for species at risk. But they do so much more. They provide benefits to water quality and quantity, support pollinators and of course sequester carbon,” says Gilvesy.

“We think the farm produces food, fibre and valuable ecosystem services for the planet. And that’s a new view of the farm that I think is particularly enticing, particularly when you marry that to our marketplace activities that can find revenues for these sorts of things,” says Gilvesy, who is also a beef farmer.

Crump says they couldn’t have changed their farm as they have without funding from ALUS and other projects, such as those through the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association.

The springs that feed into the Sydenham River start on the Crump farm, which is of interest to the local conservation authority. Crump says water flows clearer now off the property as the speed of water passage was slowed and erosion decreased.

The Crump farm is about 96 acres, with about 50 workable. The family sells many products from the farm directly to consumers, including meat, flour made from specialty wheats and oil pressed from their sunflowers. They welcome consumers for sunflower field and alpaca walks.

Chris Crump has for years run Agriculture Ultrasound, a company that pregnancy checks pigs across the province and in other countries. He’s slowed down that business and now focuses on providing services to build wetlands around the countryside, using all that he learned on his own farm and some education from Rutgers University.

Crump says he’s happier living and working on the farm that has a healthier ecosystem, and it’s not a financial challenge to change it.

“I’ve noticed like zero impact on my bottom line,” he says.

The post ALUS gets new provincial funding appeared first on Farmtario.

Bird flu chiefly spreads among wild birds such as ducks and gulls and can also infect farmed birds and domestic poultry such as chickens, turkeys and quails.

Although the viruses largely affect birds, they can spill into bird predators, and in rare cases, humans typically in close contact with infected birds.

A team of scientists from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research studied hundreds of genes normally expressed by human cells, comparing the genes’ behaviour during infection with either human seasonal viruses or avian flu viruses.

They zeroed in on a gene called BTN3A3, expressed both in the upper and the lower human respiratory tract. Nicknamed B-force by the researchers, the gene was found to block the replication of most strains of bird flu in human cells.

However, the gene’s antiviral activity failed to protect against seasonal human flu viruses.

This gene is part of a broader defensive apparatus in the human immune arsenal against bird viruses.

All the human influenza pandemics, including the 1918-19 global flu pandemic, were caused by influenza viruses that were resistant to BTN3A3, and therefore the gene appears to be a key factor in whether any bird flu strain has human pandemic potential, the researchers said.

To be sure, viruses mutate all the time, and this does not mean that bird flu viruses could not evolve to escape the activity of BTN3A3.

Earlier this year, a new H5N1 strain of bird flu that transmits easily among wild birds explosively spread into new corners of the globe, infecting and killing a variety of mammal species and raising fears of a human pandemic. So far, only a handful of human cases have been reported to the World Health Organization (WHO).

About 50 per cent of H5N1 strains circulating globally so far in 2023 are resistant to BTN3A3, said professor Massimo Palmarini, the corresponding author of the study published in the science journal Nature.

“This is the sort of thing which we should be paying particular attention to as an elevated level of risk,” added Sam Wilson, a co-senior author of the study.

— Natalie Grover is a Reuters health and pharma correspondent in London, England.

The post Scientists isolate human gene able to fend off most bird flu viruses appeared first on Farmtario.

The Saskatchewan and federal governments on Wednesday announced a “supplemental freight adjustment” to their wildlife damage compensation program, administered by Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. (SCIC).

SCIC, the province said, has “reassessed and finalized” the 2022-23 program’s values for forage products to include an adjustment payment, meant to compensate eligible producers for the additional cost of transporting feed.

The adjustment is meant to reflect “higher-than-normal replacement feed costs in specific parts of the province.”

“In southwestern Saskatchewan, there are producers who have suffered multiple years of dry conditions and experienced an increase of wildlife damage,” provincial Ag Minister David Marit said in a release. “To maintain their herds, some needed to travel throughout the province to replace feed damaged by wildlife.”

The adjustment will only apply on program claims registered between Sept. 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023, and only on claims for stacked forage yard sites in the southwest and west-central regions of the province. To be eligible, the wildlife damage claim must have been filed after last Sept. 1.

The freight adjustments will be determined by location and will be applied only to the tonnes of feed that were lost or damaged due to wildlife, the province said.

Among its other features, the wildlife damage compensation program, funded through the federal/provincial Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, pays out on wildlife damage to stacked hay, silage, and bales. The hay and bales in question must be placed in stacks to be eligible for compensation.

All Saskatchewan producers, whether SCIC customers or not, are eligible for compensation under the program. A producer must contact his or her local SCIC office as soon as damage is spotted, but there is no enrolment required beforehand to register a claim. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Saskatchewan to top up some claims for wildlife-damaged forage appeared first on Farmtario.

“The decision on Sept. 30, 2020 by French health security agency ANSES to renew the marketing authorization for the chemical product Touchdown Systeme 4 was annulled,” a ruling by the administrative court of Montpellier in southern France showed Friday.

“The precautionary principle was not respected” due to the lack of a complete evaluation procedure, it said.

A separate but similar decision was taken for Syngenta’s Touchdown Foret.

Syngenta in an emailed response to Reuters called the ruling “disappointing” and said the products had gone through “a rigorous approval process that demonstrated safe use.”

The company reserved the right to appeal, it said.

The weedkillers covered by Friday’s ruling remained authorized pending the terms of a withdrawal procedure, such as a deadline for using the products, Syngenta added.

Glyphosate, first developed by Bayer’s Monsanto unit under the brand Roundup, has been a focus of controversy since a World Health Organization agency concluded in 2015 that it probably causes cancer.

President Emmanuel Macron in 2017 pledged to end glyphosate use in France within three years, but his government later said it would take into account whether other solutions existed. The EU approval of glyphosate was extended for another year in December.

The Montpellier court’s decision on Syngenta’s products followed a request by environmental association Generation Futures, which said ANSES had failed to take into account the precautionary principle and not obtained a risk assessment on non-target vertebrate and invertebrate animals.

ANSES said in an emailed response that it took note of the decision, without commenting further.

Syngenta and ANSES have two months to appeal the decision, a spokesperson at Generations Futures said.

Other glyphosate-based herbicides remain authorized in France, the European Union’s biggest grain-producing country.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz.

The post French court bans sale of two Touchdown glyphosates appeared first on Farmtario.

“We are now starting the third wave,” said Manon Racicot, veterinary epidemiologist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, during the March 29 workshop in Ottawa.

Those waves have related to the spring and fall migration periods for wild birds. Infections started in earnest during March 2022, struck again in the fall and are once again threatening domestic operations with the return of migratory birds this year.

Why it matters: CFIA data shows that avian influenza is introduced to poultry barns when biosecurity practices are insufficient.

Alberta was the epicentre of the first wave and British Columbia was the focal point of the second. This year, so far, Quebec has seen nine commercial operations with confirmed cases since the end of January.

Racicot said test results for commercial operations following notification from producers are usually available within a day. CFIA has also been able to proactively identify cases through its surveillance programs.

She said CFIA’s work on the epidemiology of bird flu is focused on genetics and has shown some spread in premises that share equipment, employees or feed deliveries.

But the research also confirmed through much of the anecdotal information from poultry producers that the primary spread is not necessarily from farm-to-farm transmission. Genetically different stains of the virus affect different operations depending on the province.

In Alberta, testing on 37 commercial operations revealed 29 different genetic strains. Seven shared the same genetic traits and one was inconclusive.

“From a temporal perspective, only three are compatible with a possible lateral spread,” said Racicot of the Alberta cases. “This is where we are focusing our primary epidemiological investigation …. I can already say wind could have contributed to the transmission.”

She called B.C.’s situation last fall, when it had 22 outbreaks at commercial operations in a single week, “almost impossible to manage.”

She said B.C. had four different virus clusters, “which was a bit of a surprise. We were not expecting that much variability.”

Racicot also highlighted the unexpected result of finding two different genetic strains on single operations on two farms: one in Alberta and the other in B.C.

In B.C., 18 different strains of avian influenza were identified.

But Racicot added that even in cases where various commercial operations were infected with similar strains, preliminary investigations have shown it hasn’t been due to farm-to-farm transmission.

“For most of these genetically connected farms, there was no documented links,” she said, stating CFIA investigated possible contamination from shared employees, equipment and even wind.

“We mostly have independent introduction of the virus, I would say, linked to the lack of biosecurity …. Some lateral spread through sharing of employee equipment, which is typical in an integrated company.”

On the biosecurity side, Racicot said coop entrances may need to be changed on many operations, particularly separating potentially contaminated areas and uncontaminated areas in transition zones.
Providing bench areas for workers to sit while changing and ensuring proper hand-washing protocols, as well as changing boots, are recommended improvements.

“We know from past studies that when the visit is short, the likelihood of changing boots is low. If you are doing an in-and-out in a barn, they are not complying. They are not changing their boots,” said Racicot.

While she sympathized with farmers who want scare wild bird flocks away from commercial operations, Racicot advised against that because wild birds can then return carrying infected material.

In terms of new potential disease vectors, the CFIA is investigating the detection of avian influenza in flies and darkling beetles.

“Are they significantly contributing to the dispersion of the virus? Maybe not, but this is something we’re going to be investigating,” said Racicot, adding insecticides are being applied before carcasses are removed from infected barns to prevent flies. Some producers are allowing coops to freeze before restocking them to control darkling beetles, she added.

While a return of avian flu was expected to again be an issue for commercial operations, only three positive detections were reported in Ontario between Jan. 1 and April 14, according to CFIA data.

However, 14 cases had been reported in Quebec as of April 14. B.C. has had eight cases and Nova Scotia has had two.

– This article was originally published at The Western Producer.

The post Avian flu farm-to-farm spread looks less likely appeared first on Farmtario.

During a recent Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario webinar, Jim Jones, a British ecologist and hedge laying expert, explained how a managed hedgerow can fulfil several roles within agriculture.

Why it matters: Managed North American hedgerows could provide a biodiversity and ecological boost to areas with diminished woodland coverage.

“Hedgerows can create a landscape with a sense of place. That gives you a relationship to the land you wouldn’t otherwise get,” said Jones, who now calls Ontario home.

North American shelterbelts and windbreaks utilize deciduous trees with conifers on the outside to reduce wind effect. However, U.K. hedgerows are managed fence lines that provide ecological benefits and hold cultural significance.

“North American hedgerows tend to be the strips of vegetation that have remained within field boundaries, usually because fieldstone has been scraped to create a boundary and the woody species have grown up there,” he said.

“They’re the great habitats for wildlife, but they’re not really any use in terms of as a field (boundary) or livestock boundary.”

A managed hedgerow can play a massive role in biodiversity, said Jones, especially in regions with diminished woodland coverage, like southwestern Ontario. They can provide multi-species habitat and a microclimate from the grass boundary inward.

“When you’re starting to think about a new hedge row — doing it from scratch — you’ve got to ask yourself what it’s for, especially if (you’ve) had no concept of what a planted, managed hedgerow is all about,” Jones said. “You’ve got to think about what kind of function your hedgerow is going to perform.”

Coniferous trees are not ideal for hedgerows because they don’t respond well to coppicing, which is the process of cutting the tree at its base to promote rapid new growth. That is fundamental in hedgerow management, said Jones.

The backbone structure of a new hedgerow consists of 50 per cent of one species, like Ontario’s hawthorn, Osage orange or black acacia.

Hedgerow propagation doesn’t require ground preparation, although conditioning soil using turf stripping, plowing, spraying and use of landscape fabric helps. Transplants can be slot- or notch-planted into existing conditions, Jones said.

He likes a dense one-metre planting structure with five plants, ideally one or two-year-old whips, in two staggered rows 38 centimetres apart with 45 cm between each plant. Rabbit and deer guards are recommended.

“(Staggering) provides more structure as the hedgerow starts to grow. People are often surprised at how dense a hedgerow is planted, but once you come around to managing it, you see how important that is.”

Fit for Ontario

Although the availability of wood and barbed wire allowed North American farmers to drift away from labour-intensive hedgerow fencing, there was a resurgence in the 1840s and again in the 1930s to combat soil erosion during the dustbowl, mostly using Osage orange.

The thorny tree, which grows in Caledon but is threatened by the proposed Highway 413, is said to be “horse high, bull strong and pig tight,” making it an excellent base for Ontario hedgerow systems, said Jones.

The challenge lies in creating a cohesive list of species ideal for North American-managed hedgerows because European options aren’t necessarily viable.

To date, Jones has used American hazelnut, gray dogwood, chokeberry, nannyberry, arrowwood, serviceberry, black chokeberry and fragrant sumac in pilot hedgerows on Mount Wolfe Farm in Albion Hills.

In addition, Topsy Farm on Amherst Island also used Alleghany serviceberry, nannyberry, red oak, ninebark, hackberry, meadowsweet, grey dogwood, maple, highbush cranberry and chokecherry for its hedgerow.

Hedgerows have a circular lifecycle of 50 to 100 years before they become derelict and die. In the first 50 years, the shoots will proliferate from below-cut stems and thicken yearly, densifying interlocked branches.

At some point the hedgerow requires rejuvenation from the bottom, where hedge laying comes into play, said Jones.

Using stakes and binders, a “living hinge” is cut about four-fifths of the way through the tree near the base and is laid at a 35-degree angle between the stakes as a single-brush or double-brush system. Traditionally, if livestock is on both sides, a double brush system is employed.

He said a generous number of stems within the border is essential before laying a hedgerow.

The Ontario Rural Skills Network provides hedge laying workshops, as does Jones’ business, Hedgerow Co., which propagates indigenous species for hedgerow development.

The post Hedgerows enjoy potential new growth in Ontario appeared first on Farmtario.