Blendsdo the trick
IMPROVING FEEDBARLEY YIELDWITHGOODAGRONOMICS
FIELD WORK:
Harvesting experiments
with a small plot combine.
Photo: Sheri Strydhorst
FARMERS WILL SOON KNOWWHAT
combinations of advanced agronomic
practices will give them the best bang for
their feed-barley buck.
A project led by Alberta Agriculture and
Rural Development agronomy research
scientist Sheri Strydhorst looks at how
feed barley responds to combinations of
intense agronomic methods—nitrogen
fertilizer, plant growth regulators and
foliar fungicides—compared to standard
management practices. The goal is to give
farmers recommendations on how they
should manage their fields under all types
of conditions.
The project grew out of the fact that the
10-year average barley yield in Alberta is
60.4 bushels per acre, which is well below
barley’s potential, Strydhorst said.
“We really want to bump up that
average through this study, but also make
producers money by doing so.
“Many research projects just look at
how one agronomic practice impacts agro-
nomic performance of a crop. But farmers
don’t just use one practice, they combine
many. So what our research does is try to
mimic what farmers do, and I think that is
what is so exciting about it.”
To bump up the 10-year average, the
project tested 64 advanced management
practice combinations on the variety Am-
isk. In a second experiment, an intense,
advanced agronomic management combi-
nation was administered to 10 varieties:
Amisk, Breton, Busby, CDC Austenson,
CDC Coalition, Champion, Gadsby, Musk-
wa, Vivar and Xena.
The team chose Amisk as the recipient
of all 64 combinations because it’s rela-
tively new and has good yield potential,
Strydhorst said.
“If we want to target 180 bushels per
acre, we are optimistic that Amisk will get
us there.”
The team chose to test the 10 varieties
because “the industry needs to move to
cultivar-specific agronomy,” Strydhorst
explained.
The research team will continue to
test plots in Killam, Bon Accord, Falher,
and under dryland and irrigated sites at
Lethbridge.
Once completed, the project will have
15 site years of data. However, findings
must be consistent to be truly meaningful.
“If we see a yield increase only once
out of 15 site years, it’s not going to be
important,” Strydhorst said. “But, if we
see it 13 out of 15 site years, then that’s the
data we need. That will speak really loudly
to producers.”
Economics also play a key role once
consistent data is available.
“Farmers’ decisions will come down
to, ‘Does an X per cent increase in yield
have a positive return on investment?’”
said Laurel Perrott, a University of Alberta
master’s student working on the project.
“It really has to do with input costs, the
cost of production per farm, how many
bushels those costs translate into, and the
market value of the grain.”
The team is working on an economic
analysis to answer that question.
As for preliminary surprises, barley’s
yield response to plant growth regulators
ranged from 1.4 to six per cent, Strydhorst
said.
“That was completely unexpected, as
it’s something not generally seen with
barley. If we see that consistently, it would
be fantastic. We also need to determine if
that result is specific to a variety.”
On the other hand, Amisk barley’s
reaction to fungicides was unpleasantly
surprising, she added.
“The fungicides didn’t cause large yield
increases in Amisk barley,” Strydhorst
explained. “The yield increases are there,
but they’re not as substantial as what we
had anticipated. That may be a reflection
of the diseases we had this growing season
or the genetic resistance of the variety. We
have leaf samples we’re going to plate out
and see which diseases were there. That
will give us clues. Again, we will look for
consistency.”
These studies provide valuable infor-
mation for producers and breeders, said
Aaron Beattie, barley and oat breeder at
the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop
Development Centre.
“It allows producers to evaluate the
cost-benefit ratio of each input, within the
overall set of management practices, and
determine if the input will make a di er-
ence to their bottom line,” said Beattie.
“Additionally, if breeders understand
that a variety responds di erently to cer-
tain inputs, they can attempt to breed this
characteristic into future varieties.”
The field studies will finish in 2016.
Recommendations from the 15-year site
data will be available to farmers by the
summer of 2017.
Spring
2015
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