The Rural Voice, 1980-05, Page 8White beans, as well as corn, are a crop
that can cause serious erosion - a fact
"partly related to the degree we think we
have to till the soil," the scientist said.
Prof. Ketcheson said he has been looking
at the effects of the white bean crop on land
with Pat Lynch, Perth County soils and
crops specialist. Their conclusion is that
one of the "sure ways" to overcome
erosion is with rotation of the beans with
wheat, oats and other cereal crops.
In studying continuous corn cropping,
Prof. Ketcheson said researchers have
looked at the feasi bility of intercropping
amongst the corn - but the problem with
this is that both crops would end up
competing for the available moisture.
In the meantime, at a time when Ontario
farmers are considering the advantages of
returning to crop rotation, Quebec
agriculture is experiencing shifts from
cropping with forage -based rotations to the
monoculture systems common here.
Hopefully before Quebec farmers make the
the soils conditioned after years of crop
rotation "we had to do very little secondary
tillage and had very good corn yields at
that time." As he increased his acreage,
the new farms were in the same condition
as his own when he started farming.
Eventually he hopes to keep about 15 per
cent of his workable acreage in forage
crops at one time.
Mr. Taylor also credits his red clover
crop with 25 extra bushels of corn per acre
over a two year period, as well as
putting about 150 pounds of nitrogen per
acre into the ground.
Mr. Taylor has found his soybeans fit in
well with the corn, "but it doesn't do
anything as far as soil erosion is
concerned." For this reason, he's going to
keep experimenting with tillage equipment
like chisel plows and soil savers.
About three years ago, Mr. Taylor
said, "we really started to ask some
questions." The reason was that while the
farmer's best yields were indexed at 100,
after three to four years of continuous corn,
year's Save The Soil conference. He said
the convention is going to place a good deal
of its emphasis on soil, wind and water
erosion and all aspects of tillage. Since a
number of areas in the province have
experienced a drop in corn yields,
convention organizers hope to capitalize on
these concerns.
"I'm kind of enthusiastic about the
project," the cash cropper said, but he also
realized "we have to present solutions that
have economic considerations" or farmers
won't accept them. He also admits that
some soil types don't seem to suffer as
much from continuous corn cropping and
that farmers who have manure available to
spread on their fields, also aren't
experiencing as many problems.
But Laurence Taylor believes . farmers
have to accept some responsibility for
what's happening to their land. When he
started farming, he admits he was more
concerned about production and yields
than soil erosion.
In the winter of 1976, Mr. Taylor decided to investigate alternatives,
and the next year he shifted part of his acreage to soybeans.
transition, they'll examine some of the
problems now plaguing their southern
Ontario neighbours.
One farmer who's convirced of the
hazards of continuous corn cropping and is
now a vocal proponent of crop rotation, is
Laurence Taylor, who farms east of
Londesboro in Huron County.
When Mr. Taylor took over his farm 11
years ago, he followed the practice of
removing fences and opening up his fields
for corn.
Today he owns 725 acres of land, with a
range of soil types including silt, loam and
clay, and rents another 350 acres from
neighbours. This year he'll plant roughly
500 acres of corn, 200 acres of soybeans
and 200 acres of barley, with the remainder
of the, farm in sod crops like red clover or
left as bushland.
Laurence Taylor, who was born in the
area, said he remembers the mixed farms
of his younger days, where crop rotation
was a way of life. Then the age of
specialization started and like other cash
croppers, he started "tearing out fence
bottoms and planting more corn." With
PG. 6 THE RURAL VOICE/ MAY 1980
these yields were dropping to a level of 80
to 85. Also the cash cropper noted there
was a shift in the weed population and he
found he had to do more secondary tillage
on fields where corn was grown year after
year.
In the winter of 1976, Mr. Taylor said he
decided to investigate some alternatives,
and the next year he shifted part of his
acreage to soybeans.
SHIFT TO SOYBEANS
"With growing corn after soybeans, we
had a five to 15 per cent increase in yield,
and with soybeans after corn, we get a
three to five bushel increase per acre,"
Mr. Taylor said. In the future, he plans to
keep 40 to 50 per cent of his land in corn at
any one time, but will only grow corn on
the same acreage for two years in a row.
The remainder of his farm he'll plant in
soybeans, wheat or barley. He's also
underseeding the wheat and barley with
red clover, which he sells for seed.
The farmer, a provincial director on the
Soil and Crop Improvement Association, is
also on the planning committee of next
•
"It seems kind of funny to me that 1 had
to experience all these things (before I did
something about them)," he said.
Now we've come full circle, Mr. Taylor
said, and are coming back to what the
previous generation was doing when crop
rotation was common on their mixed
farming operations.
When nitrogen first came on the market,
farmers decided "we didn't need manure
and legumes - out came the fence bottoms
and out went the livestock." Laurence
Taylor however, admires the previous
generation for their land stewardship - they
seemed to care what they passed on to
their children and "we have to accept some
of the responsibility for what we've done."
Murray Selves of the Fullarton area has
grown corn on his farm for several years to
supply feed for his farrow -to -finish hog
operation.
Now he's starting to consider crop
rotation, not due to effects of continuous
corn on the soil structure - "we're putting
on a lot of manure" - but due to problems
with disease.
Mr. Selves said, "We find that we're
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