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June | Junie
BLWK-nuusbriefCAWC newsletter
2020
Issue/Uitgawe 84
•EU: 25% of agriculture
must be organic by 2030•Kernza: The
Environment-friendly Wheat Crop that Wants to Feed the World
•Intercropping can significantly increase yields in agriculture while reducing the use of fertilisers
•Deeper sowing strategies give confidence in legumes in WA
•Photos
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Datums- Al hierdie byeenkomste sal in ‘n aanlyn format geskiet
BLWK Konferensie dag en Praktiese dag
Riversdal Boeredag
SKOG Boeredag
Hopefield Sand Boeredag
4 Augustus –
19 Augustus –
25 Augustus –
4 September –
Hallo Almal
Dis so lekker om tans deur die Swartland en suidkaap te ry en oral groen te sien. Die mildelike reën wat ons ontvang het was net op die regte tyd en soos Deon Basson van anderkant Mooreesburg te reg opgemerk het: “Manne julle gaan sukkel om die smile van my gesig af te kry”. Ons glo en vertrou dis die begin van ‘n goeie seisoen vir almal. Sterkte met al die aksies wat beplan word.
Geniet die Junie nuusbrief.
Die redakteur
Hi All
It is currently an immense pleasure driving through the Swartland and Southern Cape seeing green everywhere as crops are emerging or has emerged following the good rain we received. The rain has come at the right time and as Deon Basson, a producer from the other side of Moorrees-burg said: “Guys you will have difficulty wiping the smile off my face”. We hope and believe that this is the start of a decent season for all. Good going with all the planned actions following the rain.
Enjoy the June newsletter.
The editor
Inhoud / Contents
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EU: 25% of agriculture must be organic by 2030
ne of the key targets in the Farm to Fork strategy to transform EU agriculture, is the goal to promote organic food and farming to 25% in
2030. This ambition is highly welcomed by the European Organic Processing and Trade Association OPTA and IFOAM EU.
OPTA’s President Stefan Hipp welcomes the launched Farm to Fork strategy. ‘We all know that we have to enhance our relationship with nature to fight climate change and restore biodiversity, quality of water and soil fertility. The organic sector has been fighting for that purposes for many years. I think for all pioneers in organic farming, processing and trading this Farm to Fork strategy is a recognition of the contribution they bring to the tables and plates across Europe.’
At the moment, the organic agriculture in the EU has a share of 8 to 9% of the totalagricultural surface. Extension to 25% in ten years requires an annual growth of 11%. Insome countries, like Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden the level of 25% is in reach and larger countries like Germany, France, Italy and France are already at or above the level of 10%. But in many other countries the organic agriculture is quite behind.
Stefan Hipp says thtat ‘The aim of 25% organic in 2030 is the right ambition, but it will require means to establish it. The financial support for agriculture in the EU has to be adequately transformed for organic and sustainable agriculture and production. And the market for organic products has to be enlarged and stimulated in different directions at the same time. The plan to increase the share of organic products in public communal restaurants and canteens is a good start. OPTA with its very experienced organic companies will contribute to establish the aims of the Farm to Fork strategy as much as possible.’
OPTA members source, process, and trade organic raw materials all over the EU. Therefore, OPTA also supports that the European Commission really wants to push back the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture and enlarge the surface of protected nature from 20 to 30% of the total EU surface.
O The organic agriculture in the EU has a share of 8 to 9% of the total agricultural surface
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https://www.bioecoactual.com/en/2020/05/21/eu-25-agriculture-must-be-organic-by-2030/?utm_content=buffera83f5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbc
lid=IwAR0o1bxSz7TuOqXuzn5F3iIe-scV5k2tRjgCWN8mPEIhiz0vJIJVBwAXynY
IFOAM EU welcomes the EU Biodiversity and Farm to Fork (F2F) strategies and the target to reach 25% organic land in Europe by 2030, as well as measures to boost the demand for organic products through promotion schemes and green public procurements.
Jan Plagge, IFOAM EU President, stated: “Proposing an EU target for organic land is a landmark decision that puts organic farming at the core of a transition of European agriculture towards agroecology. Organic farming is a successful economic model for farmers with proven benefits for the environment. Making it a cornerstone of a future EU sustainable food system is the right decision.” He continued: “We need to transform EU agriculture if we want to address the climate and biodiversity crisis and make our farming systems more resilient. The F2F strategy provides EU citizens with a clear vision for the future of our food system.”
“However, the objectives of the F2F and EU Biodiversity strategies will only be reachable if they are fully taken into account in the negotiations of the ongoing Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform. We must not make the mistake of using Covid-19 as an excuse to continue a backward-looking agricultural policy”, warned Jan Plagge. “This is why the organic movement calls on the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to fully integrate the objectives of the F2F and Biodiversity strategies into the CAP Strategic Plans Regulation, to raise the level of ambition and make the CAP an effective tool to incentivize and help farmers to transition to
agroecological and more sustainable practices. The EU needs a new CAP that rewards farmers for their contribution to public goods such as the preservation of our natural resources.”
According to IFOAM EU, reaching 25% of organic land in the EU by 2030 is achievable if the CAP provides the necessary remuneration for the benefits of organic conversion and maintenance through existing rural development policies or innovative tools like eco-schemes. Including demand-side measures like promotion schemes and increasing the share of organic products in schools and hospitals through green public procurement is a smart choice as this push-pull approach has proven successful to increase organic farming in countries like Denmark.
IFOAM EU also welcomes the upcoming publication of an ambitious EU action plan for organic farming that will support land conversion, supply chain development, research and innovation and market development. With a reformed CAP, a solid action plan including quantitative time-bound objectives and a dedicated budget will be a good basis to increase organic land and reach the target for 2030.
Check out further information about the Biodiversity Strategy and the Farm to Fork (F2F).
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Links of the monthClick on the button to visit the website.
Please note you will need an Internet connection
Steve Groff Explains Three Common Mistakes on Cover
Crops
Best Food Plots: The Benefits of the No-Till Buffalo System (#553)
Regenerating the Diversity of Life in Soils: Hope for Farming,
Ranching and Climate
Alan Lauder - The Carbon Expert Jonathan Lundgren - Regen ag much more profitable than
extractive ag?!
The development of agriculture has been essential to the rise of civilization. But in the 21st century, the ever-increasing need of Earth’s growing population for food is
one of the factors that has put our planet’s environment in peril. Farming accounts for nearly a quarter of human emissions that are warming the atmosphere, and as much as half of that comes from plowing the soil to grow crops such as wheat, corn and soybeans, which releases carbon dioxide and the more potent greenhouses gases methane and nitrous oxide, the latter a byproduct of fertilizer use.
That’s why researchers have been working on ways to reduce the harmful environmental effects of agriculture. One promising innovation is a grain with the trademarked name Kernza, which has a sweet, nutty taste and can be made into flour for use in bread, breakfast cereal and other foods, and also as an ingredient in products ranging from beer to ice cream. Unlike some more familiar grains, Kernza is a perennial grain, produced from plants that don’t have to be replanted each year, so don’t require annual tilling.
In addition, Kernza has a deep root system that reaches over 10 feet (over 3 meters) into the soil and may help to sequester, or capture, atmospheric carbon. And that root system also possibly might make it more resistant to the impact of drought related to climate change in some areas. After grain is harvested, fields planted with Kernza also can be used for foraging by livestock.
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Kernza: The Environment-friendly Wheat Crop that Wants to Feed the World
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The Role of The Land Institute
Kernza was developed by The Land Institute, a Salina, Kansas-based organization founded in 1976. Co-founder Wes Jackson “had this epiphany,” explains Rachel Stroer, the institute’s chief strategy officer. The big problem of modern agriculture, Jackson realized, was that it was wearing out the soil, by focusing upon monoculture — growing a single crop in a certain area — and relying upon annual crops.
“We’ve been using annual crops since the beginning of agriculture, 10,000 years ago, so that is not new,” Stroer says. But as that practice intensified on modern farms, its destructive downsides became more and more evident, in the form of erosion, worn-out soil that required increasing amounts of fertilizer and polluted groundwater.
According to Stroer, Jackson saw the development of perennial grains to replace annual ones as a vital part of the solution to those problems.
“Given that grains make up over 70 percent of our global caloric consumption and over 70 percent of our global crop lands, transitioning from an extractive annual model to a perennial model is the best chance we have to create a truly regenerative food future,” The Land Institute’s website explains.
The Challenge of Developing a New Food CropDeveloping new food crops is a difficult, time-intensive challenge. Back in 1983, scientists at the Rodale Institute, another research organization, identified a plant called intermediate wheatgrass (scientific name Thinopyrum intermedium), a species related to wheat, as a promising candidate that could be developed into a perennial grain. They worked with researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to breed the plant and improve its fertility and seed size.
In 2003, The Land Institute began working on developing intermediate wheatgrass as well. With the effort guided by lead scientist Lee DeHaan, the institute has spent years breeding the plant to develop Kernza, the registered trade name for their variety. (Here’s more on Kernza’s origin story from the institute’s website.)
In some ways, the process of developing a new crop hasn’t changed much since prehistoric times. Basically, it involves breeding generation after generation of a plant, in an effort to promote whatever are the desirable characteristics that you’re seeking. “You make a cross of two parents, and plant the babies, and see how they look,” Stroer says. “The ones with the biggest seeds, you keep. And you do that year after year.”
However, plant breeders have some tools that the ancients lacked. They’ve employed a process called molecular breeding, in which they use genetic analysis to determine the traits that the plant has, even before it grows to full size, to spot plants with the most potential for breeding.
“It’s taken us 10,000 years and an intensified 200 years of modern breeding to get the crops we have today,” Stroer says. In comparison, “It’s taken 20 to get Kernza to where it is. It might take another 20 to get it to competing at scale with the annuals.”
But in the effort to turn Kernza into a commercially viable crop, there’s a lot of work ahead. Stroer says that researchers are now working to increase the size and number of the seeds produced by each Kernza plant, and to increase the height of the plants.
The Harvesting Challenge
One drawback of Kernza is that unlike conventional wheat, it doesn’t yet lend itself to free threshing, in which the edible grain is easily loosened from the plant, and instead requires another step called dehulling to remove the skin of the seed before it can be turned into flour, according to Stroer.
“Harvesting grain from Kernza can also be more challenging than annual grains like wheat because Kernza stems stay green after the grain matures, whereas wheat stems fully senesce [or grow old and wither] and pass through combines more easily,” says Matt Ryan, an associate professor of soil and crop sciences at Cornell University and co-author of this 2018 Bioscience article on Kernza cultivation methods, via email.
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Article from https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/sustainable/kernza.htm
In addition to breeding Kernza to make it suitable for free threshing in the future, scientists are working to make the yield produced by Kernza farms match what they’ve been able to achieve on their research plots. To that end, they’re gathering data from farmers to help figure out how to time the Kernza harvest, what settings would be optimal for combines, and other factors that might make the fields more productive. Already, Kernza is being grown on 2,025 acres (819 hectares) in 15 states and more than 100 farmers and 53 different research partners from various institutions are working on the effort.
Researchers also are working with bakers, chefs, brewers and distillers to develop products that utilize Kernza, to help create a future market for it. One product already on the market is Long Root Pale Ale, whose maker, Patagonia Provisions, cites Kernza’s environmental positives in its marketing.
”I’ve been working with Kernza for 10 years and it’s been a fun adventure,” Steve Culman, an assistant professor in the school of environment and natural resources at Ohio State University, and one of Ryan’s co-authors, says via email. “I think one of the things that I’ve really come to appreciate is that successfully domesticating and developing a new crop requires more work than anyone can really appreciate. It’s a major collaborative effort that really does require many people working together — scientists of many disciplines, food chain actors and a consumer market that is ready for and wants it. It’s a pretty daunting task, but also what makes it so much fun to be a part of it.”
The institute’s Kernza program is just part of a larger effort to develop perennial crops that could someday replace conventional annual ones. Also in the works are perennial wheat, sorghum, legumes and oilseed. The institute has helped launch and fund a program in China’s Yunnan province to develop a perennial version of rice.
“The ultimate goal is audacious certainly, but it is to replace annuals with perennials globally,” Stroer says.
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Intercropping can significantly increase yields in agriculture while reducing the use of fertilisers
ntercropping, or the simultaneous cultivation of multiple crops on a single plot of land, can significantly increase the yield, not only of low input agriculture, but also of intensive agriculture, and reduce the use of fertilizers. Scientists of Wageningen
University & Research (WUR) reached this conclusion in collaboration with colleagues from China. They published their results in Nature Plants.
Farmers have applied intercropping for as long as we can remember. The dominant idea was that this method provided benefits primarily in low-input agriculture and in areas where low-cost labor is available and fertilizers are expensive or unavailable, such as in parts of Africa, Asia and parts of Latin America. Through an extensive meta-analysis of 226 previously conducted experiments, WUR researchers and their colleagues at China Agricultural University, discovered that intercropping can contribute at least as much to a significantly higher yield of intensive agriculture, while lowering the use of fertilizer.
Strips
Intercropping appears to give a 16-29% larger yield per unit area than monocultures in intensive agriculture under the same circumstances, while using 19-36% less fertilizer when counted per unit product. The increase is most significant utilizing a method of intercropping called ‘relay strip intercropping’ that is frequently applied in China. This method combines crops whose growing season differs in strips that are one to 1.5 meters wide, with several rows of a crop species in each strip.
Optimal utilization
Wheat, barley and broad beans, for example, grow fast in spring, while corn—which is sown later—has the peak of its growth later in summer. Through these different growth periods, the available sunlight, water and nutrients on a field are used more effectively throughout the year than when monoculture is applied. Previous studies already showed that an added advantage of intercropping is that crops require less irrigation and pesticides to protect them from diseases and plagues.
Potential and Hurdles
‘There are still hurdles to take concerning, for example, the introduction of new and lighter agricultural machinery, acceptance by farmers and figuring out the most suitable species combinations, spatial configuration and management according to local growing conditions. But Chunjie Li’s research shows the great potential of intercropping, including its potential for sustainably increasing the yield of both low and high-input agriculture. If we are to feed the growing world population sustainably, these are opportunities we cannot afford to waste’, says co-supervisor and co-author Wopke van der Werf. Van der Werf is an associate professor for the WUR Centre for Crop Systems Analysis.
The results of the study were published in Nature Plants on 1 June. The article is based on the dissertation of Ph.D. candidate Chunjie Li. She will defend her thesis on Wednesday, 16 September.
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https://phys.org/news/2020-06-intercropping-significantly-yields-agriculture-fertilisers.amp?__twitter_impression=true
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Deeper sowing strategies give confidence in legumes in WA
aking a lead from innovative growers in Queensland, Western Australian growers are experimenting with greater
planting depths for chickpeas and lentils in an attempt to chase subsoil moisture.
Research inspired by practices in the eastern states is suggesting growers in WA can plant chickpea and lentil seeds as deep as 200 millimetres without seeing any yield penalty, regardless of the moisture availability at depth.
Break crop profitability
CSIRO postdoctoral fellow Sarah Rich has been working with growers in the central and eastern wheatbelt, searching for ways to improve the profitability of break crops.
After stumbling across a Twitter discussion about deeper plantings of chickpeas in southern Queensland, Sarah committed to testing the theory in WA.
The state has very different soils and rainfall patterns to Queensland, but Dr Rich could see the potential deep sowing would offer growers in allowing them to exploit subsoil moisture from early season rainfall events - even when surface soils have dried out by the optimal sowing window.
Traditionally, legumes are planted at depths of about 50mm. Trials were carried out in Merredin and Dandaragan in 2019 to better understand the value of planting early on moisture at depth.
CSIRO postdoctoral fellow Sarah Rich examines a chickpea plant in a glasshouse trial. PHOTO CSIRO
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With a dry season recorded in 2019, and almost no subsoil moisture at either site, the early, deeper-sown chickpeas did not see a yield benefit from greater sowing depths.
Conversely, Dr Rich says, there was no yield penalty in the deeper-sown treatments compared to the shallow-sown plots - meaning growers could have a go at chasing any amount of subsoil moisture, confident it will not cost them yield.
“Ideally, we would have been planting early and into subsoil moisture to test the theory that earlier-sown, earlier-germinating legumes yield better than later, shallower-sown crops,” she says.
“Given the dry season, we were not able to prove that,” she says.
“But what we did confirm is that, if you decide to have a go and plant deep because you think there may be some subsoil moisture benefit, then you will not be penalised.”
The research
Dr Rich’s research involved planting both chickpeas and lentils at 50mm, 120mm and 200mm depths - with both mid-April and late-May sowing times.
At both trial sites, there was no significant difference in crop emergence time.
While the treatments sown at 200mm had slower plant development, they flowered at the same time and biomass cuts at harvest showed no difference in final plant size.
While there was no significant difference in yield for any of the depth-of-sowing treatments, time of sowing in these lower-rainfall areas was significant. The chickpea and lentils crops sown at the earlier date of mid-April produced significantly higher yields than May-sown crops in both Dandaragan and Merredin.
Dr Rich admits legumes struggle to find a profitable place in the rotations of farming businesses in the eastern wheatbelt, meaning her research is critical to give growers confidence to commit to these important break-crop tools.
In the northern agricultural region, which in the past has been more of a traditional home for lupins, chickpeas and other pulses, plantings have also decreased over the past two decades.
The agronomist
Elders Midwest agronomist Nick Eyres says declining rainfall and changing seasonal conditions in many farming areas in the northern agricultural regions have seen legume crop numbers decline, despite the benefits they provide to a subsequent cereal cropping rotation.
Chickpeas, in particular, have gone out of favour over the past few decades, not only because of seasonal conditions and some unsuitable soil types, but because many growers became wary of high disease risk after Ascochyta blight devastated the industry in the late 1990s.
There has been renewed interest in pulses recently, driven by high prices and new varieties with improved tolerance to acid soils and disease.
“These days, we have better chemistry to handle the diseases and there are good selling opportunities for growers from this northern region,” Mr Eyres says.
Weed control, too, is a big part of a successful legume crop.
CSIRO postdoctoral fellow Sarah Rich measuring soil water infiltration in a chickpea crop. PHOTO CSIRO
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”Without reliable weed control, growers have been faced with a dirty paddock that they have to spend money on to clean up in the years after the chickpea crop - eating into the returns generated by the chickpeas in the first place,” he says.
“We are starting to see some new pre-emergent chemistry come on to the market, which brings with it new hope of a reinvigorated legume program in the north.”
Mr Eyres believes summer rainfall, and the subsequent subsoil moisture, is the key to a successful chickpea crop in this area and says growers have been asking about deeper planting agronomy to take advantage of moisture that could be as deep as 160 to 180mm.
He says growers will often be concerned about starting a seeding program, with some moisture at depth which may or may not germinate the crop.
“We often find ourselves in the situation where there is some moisture available, but not enough in the first 50 to 100mm to germinate a crop sown at traditional depths. But it is not quite a dry program either, which can be a risky situation to be in.
”This season, we had good summer rainfall in February which, by April, was deep in the profile,” Mr Eyres says.
“But many growers did not have the confidence to go that deep with their seeding depths because they were not sure if the crop will geminate.”
He says early germination is critical to a successful legume crop, which will then allow for good biomass production.
“It is this biomass, not the crop yield, he says, which is important for nitrogen accumulation in the soil,” he says.
“There are two ways to look at a legume crop - the first being as a cash crop that is profitable in its own right, with the priority being the seed that is harvested.
“Under this scenario, you will be exporting a lot of the accumulated nitrogen out with the seed.
“The other way to view a legume crop is with a focus right throughout the season on biomass production, not seed production, allowing for maximum nitrogen to be put back into the soil.”
In a risk-management strategy, this second approach transfers the income assurance from summer rainfall and subsoil moisture to a cereal crop in the next season.
“The capitalisation on moisture availability early in the season, and turning that into nitrogen, will ultimately be realised almost two years away in a harvested cereal crop. It is all about cash flow.”
The grower
Mingenew grower Jack Mills, with advice from Mr Eyres, is using Dr Rich’s research findings to trial five hectares of chickpeas on his property this season.
Chickpeas growing well in stubble. PHOTO Pulse Australia
Mingenew chickpea growers James, left, and Jack Mills
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The property received 130mm of rainfall at the end of February 2020 and - at the time of sowing the chickpeas in mid-April - he estimated subsoil moisture was at depths of between 160 to 180mm. The trial was planted at 200mm into moisture.
The Mills’ have sown chickpeas in the past, with limited success.
“We gave chickpeas a go a few years ago, but they did not yield very well, probably because the season was just too dry, and we might also have sown them into soil that was not suitable,” Jack says.
“Given the summer rainfall we received in February this year, we thought this was an opportunity for us to capitalise on the subsoil moisture and see what we can achieve from an early sown legume crop.”
Soil acidity in the trial is about pH 5.0, which Mr Eyres and Jack believe is at the lower end for a viable chickpea crop.
“The whole site may not be a success,” Mr Eyres says.
“But the biggest learning opportunity for us is to know where we can and cannot plant this crop - and applying these findings across the business, so we can jump on these early moisture opportunities with confidence.”
The paddock trial is focusing on biomass - not yield - and will be sown to wheat next season.
“The real test of the value of this 130mm of summer rainfall will only be realised when we assess the wheat yield at the end of the 2021 season,” Mr Eyres says.
Not only that, he says, but the impact on wheat yields for up to four years will also prove an interesting study. “Really, it is just about having a go, and having confidence that we will not be penalised for trying to jump on these early rainfall events.”
https://groundcover.grdc.com.au/story/6781512/chasing-summer-moisture-with-chickpea-crops/
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MG Lötter – [email protected] Rust – [email protected] Danie Rossouw – [email protected] Mouton – [email protected] Floris Steenkamp – [email protected] Schonfeldt – [email protected] Leon Badenhorst – [email protected] Genis – [email protected] van Rooyen – [email protected] Gregory – [email protected] Peter Greeff – [email protected] Blom – [email protected] Swanepoel - [email protected] Smit - [email protected]
BLWK Bestuurspan / CAWC Management Team Lede
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Ruan Schutte (GraanSA) - [email protected] Strauss – [email protected] Jansen van Rensburg – [email protected] Spamer - [email protected]
