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Soil Health And Grazing Hot Topics In Edmonton

A Longview cattle producer was among the crowd in Edmonton last week at the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing.
 
Alex Robertson, who's also the Foothills Forage and Grazing Association Vice-Chair, says he enjoyed listening to speaker Gabe Brown and his five principles of soil health.
 
"Eliminating disturbance, keep the soil covered, plant diversity, keep roots in the soil, then integrate animals into the whole system," Robertson lists. "That's basically mother nature's way of how the lands evolved."
 
He says the healthier the soil is, the greater the water retention, and the higher the organic matter.
 
"Our soils have been depleted in organic matter over the last hundred years, probably from 7,8 per cent down to 2 or 3 per cent through continuous cropping, so if you can get this organic matter returned, which is actual carbon out of the atmosphere, to build the organic matter, then it helps in both ways."
 
Robertson explains this also increases the life in the soils, adding one teaspoon of soil has more microbes than the number of people on the planet.
 
He points to the growth in attendance as one of the big highlights of last week's conference. 
 
Robertson says the event taking place every other year was sold out for the second time in a row, with attendance increasing from 100 people to 550 since the last event.
 
He says soil health and grazing is an important topic, as producers are always challenged by those saying cattle are bad for the environment.
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Creating Pollinator Habitat From Farmland

Video: Creating Pollinator Habitat From Farmland

Why did we turn this land in to pollinator habitat? We we rented this farm consisting of six fields this 23 acres was the most challenging. Nine acres of is a large sandhill with trees all along the North edge. Most years it wouldn't produce very much grain at all. So when we bought this farm we decided it was time to take that hill out of production and put it to good use. So we seeded it to pollinator habitat. Here's a look at it three years in, and it's looking better every year. There's a strong marestail seedbank out there, but the pollinator species are beating it back a little more each year. The grasses have really come on strong this year. And we have a neighbor who keeps some beehives on the habitat. Hope you enjoy taking a tour of our pollinator habitat!