Erosion Spring 2017

           The winter of 2016-17 has been long, windy, cold, and with significant snow.  With frozen ground, and piled up snow I was sure that we would have horrible erosion in the area.  I was sort of looking forward to how our operation handled a fast melt condition.  As it has turned out, the heavy rains predicted didn't turn up, so we had as gentle of runoff as one could hope for.  At this point in time we have lost nearly all the snow except those areas that drifted heavily.  All of the cultivated fields seeded to WW have significant sheet and rill erosion, but it could have been a lot worse.

This pic shows conventional tilled field with a long slope showing significant erosion, --pretty typical.  It's noticeably more ugly where the corner was turned and vertical seeding took place.

This pic shows our CC seeded to WW.  The WW was seeded close to freeze up so it is just emerging now.  The ground is in great shape with most of the CC dead, but the late seeding will cost us yield.  I don't see any grassy weeds at this point in time.  The radishes appear to have done their job by intercepting water and helping penetrate the frozen ground.  We were able to intercept most of my neighbors water coming off a conventionally tilled field.  The thin standing radish residue did help intercept snow.  This greatly reduced the drifting.  The snow coverage wasn't as even as in the more dense, taller grain stubble.

This pic shows erosion in our field where there is virtually no ground cover and seeded vertically.  This is WW on WP ground.

This pic is the same field (WW on WP) but in an area where the seeding was done on contour.  Even with our ULD-DS system using the CrossSlot drill, erosion will happen if you don't have good surface cover, or if you are seeding vertically.  There were no radish holes for intercepting and moving water through the frost layer.  The pic shows staining in the lower half.  You don't see the erosion tracks in the top half but they are there, --following the drill rows and breaking out, going down the slope.  The soil was redeposited down slope leaving this track, and most of the water lost had a low sediment load.  It will be a challenge to maintain adequate surface coverage when low/no residue spring crops are grown.  In this situation if we would have seeded earlier and also seeded a low rate (0.5-1.0#?) of radish with the WW, less erosion would have resulted.  I would like to see radish going into the winter about 1" diameter and ≈24" long, and ≈48" apart (it's a guess).  That's doable if seeded by first of October in our climate.  When radish freezes(dies), the tuber shrinks quickly.  I'm convinced this will be a good practice.  It's the plant population that is the unknown for me.

WEATHER FORECAST 2017

      Every year one of the highlights of the Farm Forum is to hear what Dr. Art Douglas has to say about the weather, local, national, world, and how that translates into agriculture production.  He always includes some statements on the climate and what drives our weather.  This year he went into more detail about climate change and the driving forces behind it, including human contribution.  I'll address his presentation on Climate Change in another post.  

       Dr. Art Douglas is an emeritus professor of meteorology in the Atmospheric Science Department at Creighton University, and has been part of Spokane Farm Forum since 1978, except for one year.  He is the Long-Range Weather Consultant to the Mexican Government, Cattlefax and ConAgra.

           Local Forecast:   Last year's forecast was "spot on" for our operation.  El Nino appears to be coming back.  For us in the PNW that means drying and warming trend.  It's predicted that spring and summer will be a little below average rainfall and a little above average temperatures.  Our WW should be fine.  No more arctic outbreaks are expected.  Spring crops may be iffy depending on location.  Getting WW for the 2018 crop seeded timely may be challenging do to low rainfall conditions this summer and fall.  I think we will be seeding early.
           These are the conditions that we have planned for with our ULD-DS system.  Gather, and hold every drop of rain possible, using heavy ground cover,  tall residue, and minimal ground disturbance.
           It sounded like the only places in the world that may have stressed crops for 2017 will be Australia and possibly spring crops in the PNW.

GLYPHOSATE -- NEW STUDY

              There is a lot of internet noise about the evils of glyphosate.  Trying to figure out fact from fiction is challenging. 

              Recently I attended a meeting where a report was given by a Researcher at a local University on a recent study to determine, what, if any effects glyphosate has on soil bacteria communities.  In the past, Monsanto has put out information that glyphosate does not affect soil biota, but the old research is under attack for using bad methodology.   The Researcher feels this is a very good study, it used appropriate methodology for the task, replicated, and will be peer reviewed.  They feel the study is high enough caliber to be sent on to the National Academy of Science for further review and hopefully, publication.   Soil samples from four farms scattered over a wide area (100+ miles), with different soil types, and different annual rainfall (10”- 24”)were collected.   At each location, soil was collected from ground that had little/no history of glyphosate application along with ground that had an extensive history of glyphosate use.  In our case, we had a grass area that was once conventionally farmed, —it has never had glyphosate applied.  Bordering this area is a field that has had glyphosate  applied multiple times, every year, for 31 years.  The other 3 locations, have different, but similar stories.  The testing methodology used soil DNA and next- generation sequencing.  10,000 bacteria species were identified. 

       The RESULT:  — There was no dramatic effect on the bacterial communities identified,  —out of the 10,000 species a few showed slight decreases, and a few showed slight increases from the use of glyphosate.  The populations of most bacteria groups appeared to be unaffected.  The four locations showed differences in the bacterial communities, indicating location, soils, and rainfall did have an impact on soil bacteria communities, —more so than what was identified through use of glyphosate. [ This research team was headed up by Tim Paulitz, USDA-ARS an adjunct professor with Washington State University ]

       This is very good news for those of us in the direct seeding community.

       There are plans developing to do a similar study on what effects, if any, glyphosate has on fungi species and populations in the soil.

    On Another Page:   Today I attended a meeting on soil health put together by WSU extension. Part of the agenda included a presentation on Glyphosate.  Desiccating a crop has to be done within label limits or labs can find traces of the amino acid associated with glyphosate in the end product.  Whether this is a real problem or not, it leads to poor PR in the phobia climate surrounding glyphosate.  Traces of glyphosate residue, under some conditions can persist for more than a year in the soil.  This residual material can, in some rare instances be taken up and harm the crop.  These rare instances manifest themselves with a specific  pH, soil, and moisture relationship.  THE TAKE HOME MESSAGE:  Don't deviate from the label when applying glyphosate.  We have always considered the chemistry super safe and tend to be a bit flippant with it's use.

2017 Spring Runoff --> ULD-DS vs Tillage

      This last week we have been losing our snow.  It started out with light freezing rain, turning to light rain, then, temperatures going to the mid 40's during the day and down to 29 at night.

      A couple of weeks ago, it was predicted that we were going to get 1.5-2" of rain.  I fully expected massive runoff from our fields.  It didn't happen.  We are losing some water during the latter part of the day, but no huge amounts.  The creek in front of our house has risen to < 1/2 it's capacity.

     Our ULD-DS fields are handling the thaw quite well.  Nothing seems to be displaced on our stubble ground.  We have two WW fields west of St. John.  One is seeded on CC ground that included radish, mustard, canola and other cultivars (see earlier post).  I could not determine whether we were losing water or not.  There was definitely displacement, but runoff from a cultivated field was going through our field, and I could not determine if we were adding to that flow.  It appeared that the displacement wasn't more than 20-30' before the water disappeared.  There are exceptions, --seeding vertically.  I don't think you can stop water movement seeding vertically on a slope.  Even as narrow as our slot is with the cross-slot (pic on the right).  Maybe an exception would be where stubble was plentiful enough to hairpin it into the slot to slow the velocity.  Our CC or WP ground definitely did not have that condition.  The WW on WP ground was losing some water.  There were no deep rooted, fast deteriorating radish plants in that field.
      The jar on the right was taken at our WW on WP field border.  It is nearly clear and I see no sediment showing on the bottom.   I will be sending a sample to a lab to see what polluting elements may be present.  Obviously sediment is not one of them.
      The jar on the left was taken at the outflow of a conventional tilled field, and sediment does settle out.

      At Thornton, the WW seeded into SP residue looks terrific.  Except for the drifts, which are large, the snow has pretty well disappeared.  Again, without vertical blockage snow is displaced and drifts form.   This condition is yield robbing, even if the water doesn't leave the field.  There are areas that are short ≈2"moisture, and areas that have excess moisture but losing sunlight energy.

      The pic on the left shows disappearing snow and a good WW crop exposed.  The pic on the right is Thorn Creek.  Our property is not contributing to this flow.  Our property scores very well on the Slake test which is helping us with moisture infiltration.
       I'm including a 7min (YouTube) video by Ray Archuleta explaining the Slake Test and it's meaning.

VALUE OF TALL STUBBLE (RESIDUE)

 [SUMMARY] --The taller and more dense the standing residue, the less snow displacement takes place.
      As, when I started direct seeding (DS) many years ago, much of the time there is nothing dramatic to see from an enhanced conservation practice, --DS compared to conventional tillage.
      But, there are exceptions, and this winter is one of them.   This winter is a showcase for what tall residue left by the stripper header can mean for the coming crop.

Above:  This pic shows snow accumulation of 12", fairly evenly distributed over the field of spring wheat stubble that stands ≈24" tall.  Compare this pic to the pic below.

     This pic shows accumulation of 6" in a neighboring field of mowed/harvested stubble standing 7".  Both fields experienced the same snow and wind events.  Notice the small area of standing stubble ≈16"tall and the snow that accumulated in and down wind of the clump.  Which condition provides more moisture for the coming years crop?  --Obviously the condition shown in the top pic.  In this instance with the snow bearing 0.25" moisture for every 2" of snow,  the field in the top pic has accumulated potentially 0.75" more moisture than the field in the lower pic.

       To continue this story, the pic above shows a conventionally tilled field seeded to ww.  The point here is that with no vertical blockage (tall residue), the recent 3" snow fall left the field and piled up in the usual places.  The very white areas are what is left of that 3" snow fall.  The slightly darker area is the old crusted snow  The field shown in the pic at the top of this post did hold most of that snow fall for an additional ≈0.25" of moisture.

 
The two pictures, above, show two fields seeded to winter wheat.  On the left is seeded into a 9 cultivar CC.  The vertical blockage is relatively sparse, but still having an effect.  The snow cover is not as even as in the more dense stripper headed wheat and barley stubble, but snow displacement is significantly less than WW fields with no vertical blockage.  We have radish in this field.  The radishes have deteriorated, leaving holes through the frost layer. We expect to retain all the moisture available from the snow for that crop.   On the right is WW seeded on spring pea ground.  The crop was seeded into heavy residue (SP plus past WW residue); however, that residue provides no vertical blockage.  There are noticeable snow drifts, indicating that we have large areas in this field where the crop is missing more than 2" of potential moisture.   In this field we will be dependent on thawing conditions.  If the thaw is gradual, we'll retain the moisture in the field although it's distribution will be uneven.  If the thaw is accelerated, we'll lose a lot of this moisture, similar to 2014.  

    (UPDATE:  In late February we had a Chinook,  which is when warm air suddenly moves in, and in this case a light rain accompanied it, that quickly removed the snow.  When I saw water in the ditch near our home, I geared up and walked the fields to see where the water was originating, --hoping it was all from my neighbors portion of the drainage.  It wasn't!!  First evident was my neighbors winter wheat on black fallow ground.  It showed like a mottled black/white area beyond the border of our field.   The snow, a thin layer because of previous winds, was mostly gone, and water was coursing down the hillside leaving a badly eroded hillside.  The ditch water was heavy laden with soil.  Little, if any, of that moisture was able to enter the ground.  Our winter wheat on chem fallow ground had good surface protection, but mostly flat from a year of fallow.  It caught very little additional snow compared to my neighbors.  I saw water was rolling down our hillsides the same as our neighbors.  The difference was that the water we were losing was mostly clear.   There was very little soil included in the ditch water.  The bright spot though was the field of winter wheat we seeded into the cover crop.  When I walked out of our ww on chem fallow into the field of ww on cover crop it was like night and day.  We had a lot of snow caught in the cover crop residue.  There was no movement of water down the slopes of that field.  Every drop of water entered the soil profile.  The cover crop (specifically the radish) did its job of saving the moisture.  The ground was frozen 4-6" deep, but the radish grew, died, deteriorated, and left a hole through the frozen soil surface that allowed moisture to enter the soil profile.)

Another observation:  I decided to check on the frost depth and whether the snow cover made a difference. This was a chilly morning in single digit temperatures and no wind.  By this time we have experienced a lot of cold weather including three nights of below zero temperatures.   In this field with 12" snow cover, one stab and a push by standing on the trenching shovel drove it more than a foot into the ground. That was a surprise, and pretty good.  It felt like the shovel was going through a big rice crispy treat.  In another field I found a bare ridge with ww and tried the same technique.  I stabbed repeatedly in the same spot and never got more than 2".  The third field, a flat, had 6" snow cover.  I stabbed repeatedly and eventually would have been able to get the shovel to the depth shown in the picture, but it would have been a hole instead of a slice.
      I'm not sure what part snow cover has played in frost depth at this point in time.
      I think the field shown above is frozen fairly deep but has developed a better soil structure over the years using DS and now has a lower bulk density.  This should allow moisture to enter the soil profile faster than the other two fields that were conventionally tilled.