Sustainable Agriculture Discussed At 2017 Manitoba Agronomists Conference

Dec 15, 2017

Sustainability in agriculture was a common theme at the 2017 Manitoba Agronomists Conference which wrapped up Thursday at the University of Manitoba.

Michelle Nutting of Agrium kicked off the event Wednesday with her presentation which looked at the topic of sustainability.

Nutting is also a board member of the U.S.-based group Field to Market, which is a multi-stakeholder organization which includes over 130 members with participants such as Walmart and Pepsi.

She talked about some of the work the group is doing north of the border.

"In Canada, there's a really interesting across-the-border project that's being run by General Mills...where they're engaging oat growers in western Canada to do some field printing of oat production, so that General Mills can understand the sustainability of that supply chain for oats for their Quaker Oats products," explained Nutting. "What growers get out of it is to understand how efficient they are in their production, what their impacts are on the environment, as well as socially, what their impacts are."

In the United States, Field to Market is involved in over 45 projects across 32 states.

Source : Steinbachonline

Video: Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes | Field Talk Friday

Field Talk Friday | Dr. John Murphy | Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes

Most of us spend our time managing what we can see above ground—plant height, leaf color, stand counts, and yield potential. But the deeper you dig into agronomy, the more you realize that some of the most important processes driving crop performance are happening just millimeters below the surface.

In this episode of Field Talk Friday, Dr. John Murphy continues the soil biology series by diving into one of the most fascinating topics in modern agronomy: root exudates and the role they play in shaping the microbial world around plant roots.

Roots are not passive structures simply pulling nutrients out of the soil. They are active participants in the underground ecosystem. Plants constantly release compounds into the soil—sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other molecules—that act as both energy sources and signals for soil microbes.