Barley Production in Alberta: Seeding

No-Till Land Preparation and Production

In some areas barley may be grown as a no-till crop, either alone or in rotation with other cereals and chemical fallows. As the name implies, no regular tillage of the soil, other than that incidentally afforded by fertilizer and the seeding machinery, is performed. The barley seed is planted into non-tilled soil, and in-crop weeds are controlled with selective herbicides.

Postharvest volunteer grain growth and weeds are controlled with wide-spectrum herbicides. Barley grown as a no-till crop in rotation with other cereals may contain volunteer grain of other species and varieties. Because soils under no-till culture are often cooler than tilled soils, no-till production may not be suitable in some central and northern parts of Alberta where the growing season may be too short. Seeding shallow into the usually moist soil that no-tll land management creates will help offset much of this delayed maturity effect. Heavier trash residue in central and norther part of Alberta also impedes implementation of no-till practices because much of the seeding equipment that is currently available has trouble with heavy trash. Properly managing trash by spreading straw at harvest is critical to the success of a no-till/direct seeding program.

Barley Production on Fallow Land

Good fallow land intended for barley production the following year can be prepared and maintained with a wide range of tillage implements operated alone, or in conjunction with broad- spectrum herbicides. Where crop residues are sparse, it may be advantageous to control initial weed growth with fall or spring-applied herbicides, since tillage normally reduces protective trash covers and soil moisture. Tillage should be as shallow as possible, on all normal soils, consistent with good weed control. Sufficient trash cover must be maintained on all fields to protect the soil from erosion and structural damage throughout the fallow period. Plowing normally buries all surface residue and will leave the surface subject to erosion.

Disc-type tillage implements reduce trash covers by about 50 per cent with each operation. Heavy duty cultivators, or blade cultivators, reduce trash covers by only 10 to 15 per cent with each operation, and therefore, leave the surface soil reasonably well protected from erosion.

When partial fallows are often prepared by breaking grass or grass-legume sod, such breaking should be done before July to allow time for mineralization of the nutrients in the newly incorporated plant material. Late fall plowing of the tilled sod may provide good control of any grass regrowth and should leave the soil in a satisfactorily rough condition to resist winter erosion. Yields of barley on land broken from grass sod the previous year usually decrease with a delay in breaking beyond July 1st. This effect can be partially overcome by the use of high rates of nitrogen fertilizer.

In the fall of the fallow year, appropriate soil samples should be taken from all fields, in all areas, to determine fertilizer requirements for the intended barley crop.

Spring tillage of fallow should begin soon after the soils thaw or when weed growth appears. Early tillage often helps to dry wet surface soils and allows them to warm, Early cultivation with a properly adjusted disker and packer, or heavy duty cultivator and rod-weeder, or cultivator and harrow, generally provides good weed control and moisture conservation. Tillage with these implements is satisfactory for preparing a suitable seedbed for barley on fallow.

A good seed bed should be worked to a depth of about 58 cm (2-3 in.), but the soil should be left firm to allow for shallow seed placement.

In some areas, on "droughty soils", or where soil moisture is readily lost through tillage, fallows may be tilled and seeded simultaneously, with a air seeder or a disker-seeder followed by packers or harrows. In such cases, no pre-seeding spring tillage for weed control is done, but postemergence weed control with herbicides can be expected.


Barley Production on Stubble Land

Fall operations
Land preparation begins during harvest of the previous crop. Cereal and oilseed crops should be harvested high enough to leave erect standing stubble to catch snow and to protect the soil against wind and water erosion, particularly in southern and east-central Alberta. In central and northern areas, if practical, shorter stubble that will hold less snow may be left as an aid in drying fields in early spring. Unless straw and chaff is to be baled and removed for feed bedding, or fibre combines should be equipped with efficient straw choppers and spreaders as an aid to subsequent tillage and seeding. This is critical using direct seeding and no-till practices.

Before freeze-up, appropriate soil samples should be taken from all fields to be cropped the following year, to aid the farmer in determining fertilizer requirements for the intended crop. Where soil tests indicate a need for nitrogen fertilizer, anhydrous ammonia may be shanked or knifed in when soil temperatures, at the 10 cm depth, are less than about 10 degrees Celsius.
Apply appropriate herbicides to control susceptible weeds such as Canada thistle and wild oats.

When crop residue is excessively heavy, i.e., after a 4 t/ha crop (about 75 bu/ac) if harvest was early, fall tillage of stubble with a heavy duty cultivator will help to reduce trash cover and may facilitate seedbed preparation in the spring. Excessively heavy trash may reduce yields of barley unless they are adequately fertilized with nitrogen and phosphorus. Shallow cultivation, done shortly after harvest, covers weed seeds and scattered grain, and promotes fall germination of such seeds. Deep cultivation tends to bury weed seeds and aggravates the problem posed by dormancy in wild oats and other weeds which germinate later, when subsequent tillage lifts them near the soil surface. Excessively deep cultivation also allows for loss of critical soil moisture in areas of limited precipitation.

Deep tillage to fracture real or imaginary mechanical or chemical hardpans is seldom necessary on any but some solonetzic soils in Alberta. Winter frosts will generally fracture any consolidated soil masses in most other agricultural soils.

Crop stubble should never be burned. Burning reduces soil organic matter, damages soil structure and reduces plant nutrient availability. Initially, yields of cereals grown on burned stubble land may be increased slightly, but repeated burning will reduce yields.

Producer surveys indicate top farmers do as much of their preseeding work in the fall as possible. Possible reasons for this are:

1. Time saved facilitates earlier spring seeding.
2. Fewer soil drying operations are needed in the spring.
3. Cost of nitrogen is often lower in the fall than in the spring.
4. Availability of product and machinery.

1. The producer's cash flow situation in the fall.
2. Possible loss of product (nitrogen and herbicide) over the winter
3. The inability to adjust planting intentions caused by changing market conditions.

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