By Cassidy Spencer
Dr. Lee Briese is an independent crop consultant in East Central North Dakota, working directly with farmers. He conducts field checks, crop checks and recommendations, and generally refers to himself as a ‘plant doctor,’ “both literally and figuratively. I go out and do the checkups on the field and give the farmer a report and if we need to do anything I make prescriptions for that.”
With a master’s degree in soil science, a doctorate in plant health, and 25 years of this work under his belt, he claims that salinity is one of the standout agricultural issues in the region.
“I would say close to 80-90% of my fields have some salinity affected acres in them.”
Saline Causes
Dr. Briese has witnessed change in cropping systems in North Dakota over the last 25 years and has watched as less saline-tolerant crops have been increasingly employed. In his area he used to see wheat, barley and sunflower as primary crops, all three being quite saline-tolerant. The major crops he’s witnessing in his area now are corn and soybeans, and a fair amount of dry bean, which he distinguishes as some of the weakest crops against salinity. The James River Valley is a semi-arid region, so it receives just enough water to fill up the soils, lakes and rivers and build up high water tables– but the region still witnesses high levels of evaporation.
“These salts as we call them are actually nutrients– they’re calcium, magnesium, sulfates, chlorides – those types of things are the salts we’re talking about with salinity. These are plant nutrients that are naturally in our soils. What happens is when rain falls, these salts dissolve in the water, and if the water moves downhill or through the ecosystem to the edges, or from these wet spots, it'll capillary rise from the outside. So basically it's evaporating. So very much like taking a pot of water and boiling it on the stove till it's done- there will be a salt ring at the bottom, it'll precipitate out. This is what's happening- we have a net movement of water upwards.”
Alongside this shift in crop choice, the region is in a wet cycle. When the region experiences excess moisture above trend histories and simultaneously farmers start using some of the more sensitive crops in a tight rotation, the problem is quickly exaggerated.
“It's an issue of if the plant can get any usable water. It's the same reason they tell you not to drink seawater– it draws moisture out of you. Because there's salts dissolved in the water, the plants have a harder time with getting that water into their system. Now, because it tends to happen fairly slowly, there's a little bit of a tolerance that builds up, kind of like alcohol in humans,” says Briese. “So if the plant has managed to germinate and grow and get started, then it can build up some tolerance to this salinity over time, and if we get a wet spring or a moist season, it actually dilutes the salts, makes it a little more palatable, the plant gets going, and then as things dry out, the plant has a little bit of tolerance, maybe it doesn't die immediately, but it's always stressed. And that stress affects their yield drastically," explains Briese.
“So something I’ll see is that some of my farmers will do something, and then they'll have a better year, and they'll assume that what they did made that year better. And that's one of the first things that I find is a myth. One of the myths is that tillage will make this better. And tillage does not make this better. We’ve been doing tillage for over 200 years– we wouldn't have this salinity issue if that was the solution. What happens is they'll do a spring tillage, they'll do a planting, and then they'll get good moisture and good rain, that rain will dilute the salinity and that crop will grow better than it did the year before, and so it looks like what they did made a difference. But it did not.”
In the area there is a trend also of heightened salinity issues along roadways. Briese explains that the roads in the James River Valley were built in a fairly dry period in the region’s existence, with a few water crossings and culverts but insufficient ditches and drain ways.
“So, then we enter the last 20 years or so, we start getting significant amounts of rain, a lot more water, and the insufficient road drainage has been blocking it and storing it. So the water sits, leeches into the soil, and evaporates from the surrounding areas. It doesn't really evaporate from the road surfaces, but from further out into the field, especially when there's mechanical tillage or any type of work going on or less plant growth in those areas, there's a higher level of evaporation in the field. So we have water seeping into the soil from the road ditches, traveling out into the field and evaporating off the surface. And during that time it's bringing all of those soil salts out to the fields.”
Lean Acres
Briese is a proponent of employing a long-term management strategy when confronting saline acres. He’s watched many farmers plow right along with their old techniques, hoping for change in those acres– planting the same annual crops, applying the same inputs, driving their planter through affected areas as if all the soil had uniform needs. Ultimately, Briese wants to communicate that if these acres are consistently worsening, new tactics are called for. For the sake of the land and the soil, but for the sake of business, as well.
“Everything's gotta pull its own weight in any business. What's happening in these areas is that the inputs haven't changed. They're still the seed input, the fertilizer input, the equipment passing over that input; but it's very much like having a hired person on your farm that just doesn't show up to work. So these unproductive areas- they're basically getting paid and they're not returning any yield. I ask farmers how long would it take you to fire somebody that never shows up for work? Doesn't take very long, at max what I've heard has been like a week.”
Yes, you obviously can’t simply ‘fire’ land off your property and ship in a new tract. But you can stop paying it for work it isn’t doing and isn't equipped to do.
“So say your sister calls and says your nephew either learns how to work, or he’s going to end up in juvenile hall. So here's this teenager that she’s going to send to your farm. One of the first questions I ask farmers– do we put him in the planter? Gosh no! There's no way he’d get near that really expensive, important piece of equipment! So what jobs are you going to give this nephew? Picking rocks, driving the wheelbarrow, maybe mowing the lawn– this is the thought process. This unproductive acre doesn't have zero value if you give it different jobs that are appropriate. Fire these saline acres from corn production, soybean production, potentially even wheat and sunflowers if they're bad enough, and give them something else to do. Because otherwise they're going to become full of weeds and pests and that's your juvie hall. So give them something to do. That's where the perennials fit in. That's where the cover crops fit in. As alternative jobs.”
Briese points out that yields go up when farmers stop spending money on zero-acre yields. Though it is an investment to plant and care for young perennials and commit to losing out on possible crops, input costs are cut– “Just take your inputs from $250, $350, whatever it is per acre, and you invest 100 dollars in those acres, and you just paid yourself $200 not to do anything.”
When running a planter through cropland, Briese advises his farmers to lift it up over saline areas, stop disturbing them, and stop applying fertilizer.
“If you've been fertilizing these spots for 6,7,8 years, and haven't gotten a crop on it, your fertilizer’s built up, plus the water’s moving more fertility. I have all kinds of soil tests showing 8-10 times more fertility in those areas than the rest of the field. Ridiculously high amounts and almost even toxic amounts in some situations.”
Planting perennials can help farmers to not get their planters stuck in a saline area. It depends on the year, the weather, but good established native perennials can be quite saline tolerant, especially the switchgrass and wheatgrasses– Briese says the trick is getting them established. All plants, when young, are more susceptible to being impacted by salinity.
“The entire region of the upper great plains that's gone into annual cropping is not using as much water as it used to. So even though corn uses a lot of water, it only really grows for 90-120 days, and in those first 30 days we’re talking about very small plants that really aren't doing a whole lot. So we’re really talking about 60-90 days of water usage. If you have an established perennial, you're getting 200-220-250 days of water use. So that’s more than double, and almost triple, what we can do with corn. A perennial system can also respond to times of high water especially in early spring and late fall, which are two points in time when your corn plant is not doing anything– it's not planted in the spring and it's dead in the fall. So healing this imbalance is largely about water utilization.”
Briese says that after 5-10 years of diluting that saline imbalance and managing that water usage, farmers could maybe transition to a perennial-annual system, employing 2-3 years of annuals.
“So if you look at your cropping system as 5 -7 years of perennials and 1-3 years of annuals, then you could probably do the best of both. But you need to make a change before the salinity gets to the point where nothing will grow. Because again establishing that small crop is the challenge. So I really encourage farmers, if they really want to bring this back to annual crop production– to think about it in a 10-year crop cycle.”
Listen to the full interview at https://www.growingresiliencesd.com/podcasts/episode/259b1fbd/63-crop-consultant-shares-how-to-earn-400-more-dollars-an-acre-on-saline-soils
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