Whether you’re an avid gardener or just like your yard to look nice, chances are you’ve spent plenty of time pulling up weeds.
But for real farm families like the Englots, weeds go way beyond being ugly. They actually have the potential to destroy their crops.
The family farms about 3,000 acres of canola, durum wheat, soybeans and more in the heart of Saskatchewan. This year alone, they had to deal with three different weeds in their wheat crop: kochia, sowthistle and round-leaved mallow. All of these weeds produce a huge amount of seeds, so they can get out of control quickly. For farmer’s fields, a case of sowthistle is particularly troublesome, as it sucks up vital nutrients from the ground in the springtime before the crops can.
Why weeds are the worst
They’re competitive: Just like flowers or veggies in your garden, crops like wheat have to fight weeds for available light, nutrients and water. So if weeds take hold in a field, crop yield and quality can be severely reduced.
They take over the field: Weeds tend to spread quickly. Think about how a few gusts of wind can help a dandelion plant take root across your lawn. For farmers trying to protect their crops – and their livelihoods – the stakes are much higher. Kochia produces a tumbleweed that rolls around in the wind and can spread a whopping 15,000 seeds per plant. Each new weed that starts growing has another 15,000 seeds of its own, and so on.
They make harvesting harder: If weeds are not dealt with ahead of harvest season, they are likely to spread further. The act of harvesting actually spreads weed seeds in the field by spitting them out the back of the machine used to harvest the crop. Therefore weed control can quickly get out of control. If weeds are around, it’s also harder to harvest high-quality crops, making the whole process longer, inefficient and costlier.
Quick Fact
Health Canada has a division called the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, or PMRA. It regulates every pesticide in Canada, from the ones used on farms like the Englots’ to the kinds we use at home in our yards.
Tackling weeds early and head-on
Farmers like Norman and Luc Englot rely on spraying herbicides before harvest to help ensure next year’s crop won’t have to compete with weeds. Spraying in the fall gives farmers a head start on weed control. If the Englots waited until the following spring, the weeds would already be established and competing with crops for nutrients. They might also find that the fields are too wet to get the sprayer around during spring, before planting – which could mean there is a weed epidemic by harvest time. It’s no surprise that Norman believes “our sprayer is probably the most important piece of equipment on the farm”.
The Englots, along with most Canadian farmers, use herbicides to protect their crop from aggressive weeds that will compete with crops and can cause significant damage to them. Herbicides are just one type of pesticide and they are important for maintaining Canadian growers’ crops. As an example, without them, wheat farmers would need 6.4 million more acres of land – a whopping 25 per cent more than they currently have – to grow the same amount of wheat they do today.[1]
Using pesticides in modern farming is also safe. In Canada, all pesticides are regulated by Health Canada to ensure they can be used safely. On top of that, they have to undergo a complete re-evaluation at least every 15 years so they meet the latest human health and environmental standards.
The future of wheat
Scientific discovery is more important than ever as farmers strive to continue feeding the world for generations to come. Wheat, in particular, is crucial for global food security, as it is the staple food for about a third of the world’s population.
Earlier this year, researchers published the first complete sequence of the bread wheat genome, after spending 13 years trying to successfully map it. This is an important breakthrough, as it gives scientists and farmers a detailed picture of the incredibly complex genes behind wheat’s traits. That information is powerful because scientists can now breed desirable characteristics in wheat – such as resistance to extreme heat and pests – with greater precision and speed.
For farmers like the Englots, using plant science to improve farming means they can keep their land productive – and keep doing what they love. “We’ve been doing this for 36 years,” Norman says. “It’s not real work when you enjoy what you’re doing.”
[1] Source: https://croplife.ca/facts_figures/canadian-wheat-farmers-need-6-4-million-acres/