Kevin Booth resides in the Dark Brown Soil zone and farms with his family in Milo, Alberta, one mile southeast of the town. The Booth family's study field spans 147 acres, with 135 acres having access to irrigation during the growing season. The trial field received a glyphosate application as a spring burn-off and was seeded to a Full-Season cover crop on May 27, 2024. The trial field was also fertilized with 35 lbs. of actual nitrogen at seeding. No other synthetic inputs were applied to the field during the remainder of the trial.

Over the past year, livestock producers across western Canada have seen tremendous success with the prices of their commodity, which has been much waited on. Moving into the spring of 2025, some producers are in a position of uncertainty as to what crops to grow as annual cropping prices have decreased from past years, and in many regions, lots of producers had a very successful 2024 growing season, resulting in significant amounts of carry-over feed sources.

Connor English is situated in Manitoba’s Black soil zones, roughly two kilometres north of Bradwardine, Manitoba. The study field covered 20 acres of Full-Season cover crop. The trial field was spot-sprayed using a pre-burn treatment of glyphosate. At seeding, 40 lbs of actual nitrogen was applied through mid-row banders of a John Deere disc drill. The Full-Season cover crop was seeded on May 17, and the field was seeded and fertilized in a single pass.

Could poor water infiltration, salinity, soil compaction, disease, loss of earthworms, erosion, decline in OM%, herbicide resistance & year-after-year insect infestations all be individual and unrelated problems? Perhaps they are better looked at as symptoms of a deeper, underlying problem?