by Mikala Parr, RAIN Research Assistant In 2015 a trial involving a keyline subsoiler plow was put in place. Subsoiling can sometimes increase a soil’s water holding capacity by fracturing compacted layers (plow pans) and creating channels for water to infiltrate the soil. The keyline pattern runs across a slope – like contour cropping – and attempts to distribute water …
The Next Generation North program had a number of workshops over the last three months on topics of marketing, financial management and value-added processing. Not a lot of time was specifically on maple syrup producers, so this blog post summarizes some tools that producers may find useful. These tools come from Michael Farrell (Extension Associate) of Cornell University who spent …
by Mikala Parr, Research Assistant Soil Nutrients The pasture improvement demonstration and assessment project was looking at the effects of transitioning from continuous grazing to rotational grazing management in pastures. Soil samples were taken October 2016. When looking at the nutrient analysis, the only significant difference was sodium (Na). There was significantly more Na in the continuously grazed areas in …
by Mikala Parr, Research Assistant In 2007 a short rotation woody coppice plantation was established by the Canadian Forest Service to assess the potential of fast growing willow and poplar for bioenergy. A section of this plantation was fenced off in 2015. The idea of this project was to determine if willow and poplar regrowth would be an adequate food …
You are invited to attend the Sault Ste. Marie / Algoma Forum for Food, Farms & Tourism. March 9th, 2017 – 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. at Quattro Hotel, Sault Ste. Marie Algoma has many opportunities for promoting authentic attractions and cuisines. No matter what the season, there are many different experiences for visitors: Gilbertson’s Maple Products Pancake House, located …
by Mikala Parr, Research Assistant The Algoma Soil and Crop Improvement Association conducted an on-farm assessment of several varieties of feed barley. One location near Thessalon on River Road was comparing CDC Austenson and AC Encore. This field was underseeded with alfalfa, clover, and timothy. Both varieties were sprayed with Cobutox 625 and MCPA 500, and given 8-32-16 fertilizer. Across …
Sorghum-sudangrass is a hybrid of forage sorghum and sudangrass that does well in Ontario’s climate. It is often used as emergency forage because it is sown in early summer. As a warm season grass, sorghum-sudangrass grows rapidly under hot conditions when most of Ontario’s other forages slow down. OMAFRA’s factsheet on sorghum-sudangrass suggests applying 100-125 kg/ha (90-110 lbs/ac) of nitrogen …
by Mikala Parr, Research Assistant The pasture improvement demonstration and assessment was put into place to demonstrate the effects that Spanish River Carbonatite has on pasture. Spanish River Carbonatite (SRC) is a natural mineral fertilizer and soil conditioner used by organic and conventional farmers. It contains a wide variety of minerals that are mined from an ancient deposit in Sudbury. …
by Mikala Parr, Research Assistant In 2014 RAIN’s Keyline Plowing Project was initiated to determine whether keyline pattern subsoiling would help with water distribution. The aim was to determine if the keyline technique had an impact on grass yield and the water content of soil throughout the field. Soil Nutrients In order to determine if the soil nutrients have been …
RAIN was invited to Thunder Bay to the Thunder Bay Agriculture Research Association’s AGM by Dr. Tarlok Singh Sahota and Andrew Brekveld to talk about the new micro-grant program SNAPP, as well as the Cross-seeding Forages Project that RAIN and TBARS are collaborating on. December 4th – Upon arrival in Thunder Bay, Dr. Sahota gave a guided tour of the …
