Soil health remains an important part of long-term sustainability in agriculture, and much research has been on ways to increase soil health throughout the growing season. Cover cropping with forages and intercropping of two cash crops have been shown to provide substantial benefits to both the soil and cash crops.
However, the relatively short growing season in Western Canada creates difficulty in placing a cover crop in rotation without the removal of cash crops. Also, the planting of two cash crops in an intercrop requires the added operation of separating the two crops after harvest.
This project aims to combine the soil health and nutrient benefits of forage crops with the profitability of a wheat crop as an operation that is planted in one pass.
At Discovery Farm Langham, the Väderstad Wheat/Forage Intercrop Project examines the viability and profitability of growing an intercrop of wheat and forage blend to provide both soil health and nutrient benefits to the crop during the season, plus soil health benefits for the future. Using a Seed Hawk air drill, Väderstad planted a wheat and forage blend consisting of yellow sweet clover and alfalfa. The Seed Hawk air drill features Fenix III metering technology and the dual-knife Single Side Band (SSB) opener system. The fertilizer requirements for the crop will be deep banded prior to seeding; the wheat monocrop will be seeded separately while the wheat/forage intercrop will be seeded at the same time using dual-knife openers to provide separation of the two crops. The forage blend was pre-inoculated with Nitragin Gold, while the wheat variety used was AAC Starbuck. Wheat was seeded at 115 lbs/ac to obtain a desired plant stand of 22 plants per square foot; the forage blend was seeded at 6 lbs/ac.