Grain on the Brain

Today Scott talks with John Cote who runs John Boy Farms near St. Agathe Manitoba. John shares about his experience growing vegetables for the local market and how and why he chose to focus on garlic. They also cover a few other topics such as soil health, cover crops and inputs.

In this episode, Scott interviews Cody Straza and Ian Cushon in a live panel format, recorded at the Organic Connections show in Saskatoon. Both are experienced organic farmers and they cover a wide variety of topics including species diversity, green manures, soil fertility, livestock and more.

Scott talks about the diversity and importance of compost with Rob Wunder, a fourth generation farmer, who has been exploring the world of biology on his farm through a number of different practices including livestock integration and creating his own compost on his farm. They will also be discussing fertility practices, soil nutrient, making and applying compost, and much more.

After weathering the drought conditions in 2021, farmers all over were wondering how to increase resiliency on their farms. This panel discussion from the 2022 Prairie Organics Conference, led by Scott and featuring Ryan Canart (Assiniboine West Watershed) and Henry Wilson (AAFC Research Scientist), covers ways to improve water infiltration and carbon sequestration on organic farms.

In today’s episode Scott talks to Dale Overton from Overton Environmental about EcoTea. A lot of organic farmers are already using EcoTea on their farms, so we wanted to find out more about the science behind EcoTea. We’ve included some of the results from their results trials in our Resources section on our website.

This episode we have guest host Allison Squires, from Upland Organics, speak with Curtis Cavers, from AAFC, about some of the things to think about before we take the discer to the fields. They also talk about the kinds of tillage that can lead to water and wind erosion and how to balance tillage needed for weed and green manure management and soil health.

Transitioning your grain farm to organics, whether you do it field by field or all at once, can have its ups and downs. In this episode, Scott talks to Nic Podoll from the Rodale Institute about how to successfully transition your farm to organics and some of the support available for you along the way.

Intercropping, i.e. growing two or more crops together on the same field, can improve fertility and yield, reduce disease and the increased diversity can help build resilience. Not all crops grow well together, though, so it takes some work to figure out how to be a successful intercrop farmer. Scott Chalmers from WADO started trying out different intercrops in 2009 and gives us some good tips on what to try and how to work out if and when intercropping can work on your farm.

Today we do a deep dive again into the world of seed breeding and hear about farmers who are developing their own seed varieties. We also get Aabir Dey, from The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security to help us understand a bit more about the policies behind the seeds we use on our farms, how they got there and what work needs to be done to support a fair, farmer-friendly seed future!

We're kicking off a new season by continuing on our journey to learn about healthy soils! Scott talks to Dr Kris Nichols - soil health guru! He finds out how we can build soil carbon in an organic cropping system, even if we need to do a bit of tillage.