Weather is one of the many, but main, factors that determines yield outcomes at harvest. It’s also a factor that is completely beyond a grower’s control. Or is it?
While farmers can’t make the rain fall or the sun shine, there are plenty of things that can be done to mitigate the stress that a wheat crop (and the farmer) goes through in the midst of a drought. Some of these solutions are ones that should be implemented in the years prior.
In this episode of RealAgriculture’s Wheat School, Ruoxi Xia, agronomy extension specialist with Alberta Grains, talks about the pressure that growers have been under after multiple years of drought and some things that they can do to make future droughts a little more tolerable.
Xia says that taking actions such as getting seed tested if saving it from the previous harvest, early seeding, and reducing tillage or moving to a no-till system are just a few things that a grower can do to help get through a drought. Another action item that Xia mentions is the idea of leaving higher stubble throughout the winter. This can help trap snow and hold onto that winter moisture that otherwise might run off.
“As hard as it is to predict the weather… there are a few things that farmers can consider and play around [with] to mitigate that risk,” says Xia.
Watch the full Wheat School episode below for more tools that can be used to mitigate the effects of drought.
Tap here for more Wheat School videos.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | All Podcasts
