b'PARTNER CONTENTRelying on Mother Natureto Grow SpudsBY: RUSSELL JONK, MCCAIN FOODS POTATO GROWER IN BRUXELLES, MAN. A t our potato farm in Bedell, N.B. we dont have access to irrigation, so we depend on whatever were blessed to have fall from the sky to provide all the water our crops need to grow. However, there are things my father Randy and I have done in the past and will continue to do in the future to help Mother Nature do her job a bit better. Regenerative agriculture practices may be a relatively new term but not all the practices it includes are new to us. So, like many of our neighbours we use regen ag practices to support our soils and make sure theyre able to take in as much rain as possible when it falls.We had a couple of dry years a few years back, and we noticed a major reduction in our crop yieldwe knew we had to start doing something a lot more aggressive to retain water. Because theres very little irrigation in our area and lots of hills, we must have some way of holding the water where it needs to be for the plants. The best way to do that is to build up our organic matter. Anything we can do to hold that water in and stop it from running off, helps our potatoes. One of the rotational crops we grow is oats, and weve moved towards using vertical tillage with a max chisel on them instead of a moldboard plow. We go in as soon as we dare after cutting our oatswe chop the oat straw up with the combineand then integrate the chaff back into the soil using the max chisel. Were doing it early enough in the summer that all the leftover oats and light oats sprout and grow in the field after theyre covered up with a little bit of soil by the chisel. This saves us from having to plant a cover crop, keeping the field green until frost and then covering the soil all winter long.(L-R) William, Jason and Hunter McLean loading potatoes on We have also been planting sorghum sudangrass. Thistheir farm in Bedell, N.B. grows an immense amount of biomass in our soil. We cutPHOTO: JASON MCLEANit off with a rotor beater when the crop is two to three feet high, above the bottom node. It then resprouts drivingmatter its impressive how much the soil retains water. We growth into the roots creating a better tap root. It growsknow as our climate continues to change, becoming less the roots deeper, breaking up the soil and creating a biggerpredictable than it was in my father and grandfathers days, root mass, making for a stronger plant producing morewe must do all we can to help our soils be resilient for future food for the soil. generations. As a father of two young sons, I know were At the end of the day, all of this pays off and Mothertemporary stewards of the land trying to maintain and Nature has blessed us with improved potato quality andimprove it for the next generation of farmers to come along yield boosts. When you have healthy soils and high organicand take the reins. SPUDSMART.COMSummer 202315'