Features
CFI Funds Ridgetown Research on Weeds
New equipment will allow researchers to help farmers control weeds and improve crop yields
BY ANDREW VOWLES
Helping farmers improve their yields of key crops is the goal of weed-management research that has attracted almost $1 million in funding for U of G's Ridgetown Campus.
Plant agriculture professors Art Schaafsma, Darren Robinson and Peter Sikkema have received a total of $760,000 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. In-kind contributions are expected to add about $200,000.
About half of the money will pay for two small-plot combines expected to allow the researchers to study more efficiently and accurately how varying weed treatments affect crop yields.
Sikkema is particularly interested in learning more about weed management for growing corn, wheat and soybeans — crops worth a total of more than $1 billion a year for Ontario farmers alone. Schaafsma will also use the equipment to study how insects and diseases affect these crops.
“This equipment is absolutely crucial to our long-term pest-management program,” says Sikkema, a two-time U of G graduate who studies weed management in field crops and dry beans. “It will really improve the quality of the research we do at the campus.”
He hopes to break in the new equipment this summer while harvesting crops grown on about 40 acres of test plots at Ridgetown. Weed-management research also takes place at the Huron Research Station run by Ridgetown, as well as on farmers' fields across southwestern Ontario.
Evaluating new weed-control products and developing optimum weed-management tactics for farmers is the main goal, says Sikkema.
“We'll be using these combines to evaluate the effect of things like time of herbicide application on crop yield, the effect of time of day of application on herbicide efficacy, and the effect of allowing the herbicide to stay in the spray tank for extended periods of time before application.”
Helping growers find easier and less expensive ways to manage weeds is partly the goal for Robinson. He's also interested in exploring organic forms of weed control to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional herbicide sprays.
The CFI funding will enable him to buy tilling and planting equipment — as well as a tractor and trailer — to test the use of cover crops for alternative weed control. A cover crop is planted specially in the fall, then “crimped” in the spring to stop its growth while leaving it in the field. At the same time, the planting equipment will sow the desired crop of, say, organic soybeans.
Robinson explains that the cover crop prevents weed growth during the main crop's growing season and also acts as mulch to reduce evaporation from soil between the soybeans. Without such equipment, farmers spray herbicides or use less efficient methods to cultivate the soil, akin to a gardener with a hoe.
“This equipment allows us to move up to a level where growers can actually say this is something that's not just an alternative — it's a feasible alternative” that can be used over hundreds of acres.
He's also interested in testing the system for weed control in vegetables, primarily cucumbers, sweet corn and peppers. In total, growers produced about $30 million worth of those three crops in 2003, according to the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers.
Robinson's trials, to be held mostly on nearby farms, will help him share results with the American equipment manufacturer of the recently designed implements.
He also wants to learn more about how weeds compete for water and nutrients in organic systems, a topic that stems from his PhD studies at U of G.
The Pest Management Group at Ridgetown conducts small-plot and field-scale efficacy and management trials, develops cereal varieties, screens for fusarium fungus, and tests pesticide application technology, says Schaafsma, an expert in field-crop pest management who was named director of Ridgetown early this year.
“This CFI award gives a tremendous boost to the research equipment infrastructure within the group, mainly to allow for greater capacity and for increasing experimental precision in research activities, together with added safety by replacing outdated and inefficient equipment.”