Potato producer Sheldon Wiebe, who farms near MacGregor, can wax poetic about how production has evolved on his operation, J.P. Wiebe Ltd., since its inception in the mid 1960s.
Like other Manitoba potato farmers, the introduction of irrigation is part of that story, but today the practice is about more than just water. Today, the farm’s pivots are also an important part of how fertilizer applications are split and applied. Irrigation eventually branched out to become fertigation, and Wiebe has noticed the benefits.
“We’ve had a lot of experience growing potatoes and, back in the day, it was very simple, very straightforward,” he said “They didn’t work with yield goals. They were just excited to have 140 bags an acre for the crop. Fertilizer was all done up front.”
Why it matters: Irrigation is already a key practice for Manitoba’s potato sector, and adding fertilizer application hits two birds with one stone.
The farm’s forays into irrigation paid immediate dividends. In 1989, the Wiebes began irrigating 60 acres with a traveling gun. Their production jumped from 140 hundredweight bags per acre to 250. As of 2007, they were irrigating 70 acres, but fertilizer was still applied up front.
A few years later, fertigation made its debut on the farm. Select irrigation passes in 2013 applied fertilizer. Again, their production jumped.
“Today we grow 2,650 acres and our yield is 500 bags an acre,” Wiebe said. “We’ve also changed our row spacing to 32 inches. That puts more plants in the field and makes a lot more ‘mouths’ to feed.”
Wiebe’s comments were made as part of a three-farmer panel on fertigation during January’s Potato Production Days in Brandon. He, along with Russell Jonk of Swansfleet Alliance and Darren White of White Potato Services, spent an hour talking about the advantages and problems of the practice.
“So, what’s the point of fertigation?” Jonk posed to the crowd. “The first reason is to reduce the leaching potential that comes along with broadcast fertilizer, but I think a better reason is that it gives me the ability to delay nitrogen applications until after we have initiation.”
Initiation, sometimes called tuberization, begins when specialized stems called stolons emerge from the main stem and thicken. This is where the tubers form. Early in the process, as many as 30 tubers may grow, but most are later reabsorbed, leaving five to 15 potatoes to reach harvest.
Split nitrogen application is meant to increase that final productivity. Giving the plant all its nitrogen up front biases growth toward vegetative tissue like leaves and stems, rather than harvestable tubers. A smaller burst of up-front nitrogen still gives enough nutrient to get a plant started and encourages it to set tubers, while supplemental fertilizer later in the growth cycle encourages more production and yield from the plant.“We were tired of growing lush green vines and panicking in July when our beautiful set from earlier in the season somehow disappeared,” Jonk said. “So we started to look at fertigation and fertility in general.”
The potato production end of Swansfleet Alliance, located near Holland in south-central Manitoba, grows both seed potatoes and processing potatoes meant for french fries. The variety influences the fertility plan.
Jonk also has to pay attention to soil type when making fertigation plans. Holland is just west of the sandier soils of the Assiniboine Delta and the region sits on a number of different soil types and textures, ranging from finer sandy lots to heavier clay loams. Each has its own quirks to get the desired fertigation effect.
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