The Rural Voice, 1980-05, Page 4Corn,corn
and more corn
Continuous cropping of corn might not be the best thing for your land
- and results say that we are not getting the yields we should be.
Experts and farmers tell you their feelings on the subject.
BY ALICE GBB AND DEBBIE RANNEY
Monoculture - a new word for a problem
that's concerning soil scientists, environ-
mentalists and an increasing number of
farmers in eastern Canada. In more
familiar terms, the word monoculture
refers to the trend of growing the same
crop continuously on the same land and in
southwestern Ontario, that crop is usually
corn.
Historically, crop rotation was a way of
life for many farmers until the 1950's.
Terry Daynard, a crop scientist at the
University of Guelph, said farmers rotated
crops because it was essential for the
fertility of the land. Then nitrogen
fertilizers came on the market, and many
farmers abandoned livestock to go into
cash cropping in a major way. The problem
then, according to John Ketcheson, a
professor of soil -plant relations at Guelph,
PO. 2 THE RURAL VOICE/MAY 1980
was that "every time a farmer finds a
lucrative crop, he wants to grow it all the
time."
Corn, according to Terry Daynard, is still
"one of the best things that happened to
Ontario agriculture "in terms of production
per acre and remaining competitive in the
livestock market. But now, the crolf
scientist points out, people who hav
grown corn for 20 years are finding th
yields "aren't what we think they shoul
be."
Terry Daynard said one common
complaint heard on many Ontario farms is,
"My corn yields haven't been as high since
I sold the cows." While the genetic yield
potential of newer corn hybrids is
increasing year -by -year, corn yields for the
individual farmer aren't keeping pace. The
reason, Prof. Daynard suggests, is that
"selling the cows" has meant an end to
crop rotations, no further applications of
manure and continuous corn culture.
While declining yields may be hitting the
farmer financially, continuous cropping is
also causing other problems - problems
that will affect our farms in the future.
Terry Daynard said fields where one crop is
grown continuously are proving vulnerable
to soil erosion, and continuous cropping is
damaging the soil structure. The symp-
toms of this are often easy to see - Terry
Daynard said they include poorer internal
drainage, soil which crusts more readily
after heavy rains and fields which are more
difficult to till in both the fall and spring.
RISING FERTILIZER COSTS
Farmers are also faced with the fact
nitrogen fertilizers and the fuels required
to supply them are becoming mo-^
expensive in the 1980's. A full, vigorous
stand of alfalfa can supply 100 to 200