Grainswest - Spring 2023

Spring 2023 grainswest.com 41 thinks you would get with a spring wheat system.” He hopes to continue this line of study under the next Canadian National Wheat Cluster. In the coming year, Beres and his research team plan to conduct a Prairie-wide effort to replicate responses over time and space to better understand which forms of nitrogen consistently mitigate greenhouse gas fluxes and in which areas. Preliminary research suggests the lifecycle of wheat plays a role in emissions reduction in wheat production systems. The first of its kind, the study will combine spring and winter growth habits, including an ultra-early spring wheat seeding system to determine whether crop lifecycles alter greenhouse gas production. The plan is to pair growth habit and ultra- early seeding systems with nitrogen management practices to compare responses between uncoated urea and urea protected with an EEF. While EEFs have been shown to offer benefits, they generally perform best in high-productivity environments and they’re expensive. “Because we won’t see positive returns on a 30 to 40 per cent premium for EEFs in every year and environment, widespread adoption requires some sort of incentive. You can’t ask a farmer to absorb the full cost of GHG mitigation,” said Beres. FUNDING AVAILABLE Implementation of new practices, especially those that offer little return on investment can be costly. To boost uptake, funding is available through the On-Farm Climate Action Fund (OFCAF), which provides financial support to farmers to accelerate adoption and implementation of management practices that lower greenhouse gas emissions. Cotton pointed to the Canola Council of Canada (CCC), the Manitoba Association of Watersheds and Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR), which have received OFCAF funds to advance these practices. The funding application process is outlined on the CCC and RDAR websites. Developed by Fertilizer Canada, the 4R Climate-Smart Protocol, also known as the Nitrous Oxide Emission Reduction Protocol, or NERP, provides Alberta farmers with another way to benefit from greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The program creates the incentive to adopt 4R practices by issuing carbon credits for their implementation. Cotton recognizes practices such as banding reduce emissions but require large capital investments, so the return for farmers is realized over a much longer period. In some instances, where cost outweighs the environmental benefits, farmers are offered no financial incentive. “We would like to see the grower compensated for the societal benefit they provide in reducing emissions,” said Cotton. Beres agrees. In his research proposal to study the role of wheat growth habits in GHG emissions reduction, he estimated the adoption of an improved CWRS nitrogen management system could remove 1.32 megatonnes out of the annual estimate of 20 megatonnes of CO2 that Canadian ag produces. Using numbers cited in an Environmental Defense Fund report that estimated the social cost of carbon at more than US$50 per ton, Beres speculated a modest adoption level of 25 per cent would have a societal value of US$17 million annually, or US$34 million at a 50 per cent adoption rate. “The society value around on-farm GHG reductions is an important consideration and underscores the benefit to society when you have on-farm adoption of GHG mitigation practices,” said Beres. “In my view, it provides the basis for a shared responsibility around the associated costs of mitigation.” Part of 4R research, a plot combine harvests CWRS wheat variety AAC Viewfield.