Long-term cost:benefit of including forages in cropping rotations
- Project No: FRG.12.20
- Lead Researcher(s): Edward Bork (University of Alberta)
- Collaborators: Miles Dyck, Sylvie Quideau, Scott Jeffrey, Dick Puurveen (University of Alberta)
- Year Started: 2022
Background
Integrating forages into crop rotations can have many benefits such as weed and disease control, increasing productivity, and improvements in soil quality; but the short-term loss of land used to produce more valuable crops can make this management practice seem uneconomical. However, there has been little research to quantify the long-term agronomic and/or economic impacts of incorporating forages into cropping rotations.
The Breton Research Plots in west-central Alberta have been in use for over 40 years. Over this time, they have been supporting several different long-term crop and forage rotations that range from one to eight years in duration. This team will utilize other long-term datasets in western Canada to support their analysis.
Objectives
The objectives of this study are to:
- Use multiple datasets from locations across western Canada to conduct a comprehensive cost:benefit analysis of different rotational systems, including isolating the influence of perennial forages in regulating profitability and risk
- Conduct a systems level analysis of the carbon fixation efficiency within these rotations, including quantifying the contribution of forages to carbon storage
Implications of the research
These long-term rotations present a unique dataset that has never previously been analyzed in terms of potential agronomic and economic effects of including forages in crop rotations. This also represents a significant opportunity to quantify the economic and environmental benefits of incorporating forages into annual crop rotations.
This project is also funded by the Beef Cattle Research Council and Results Driven Agriculture Research