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GEOLOGY LESSON
August 1, 2013
SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 71, No. 31
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A look back in time And a vision of what the future could be
Dale and Caroline Steppler’s farm on the Manitoba Escarpment was shaped by glaciers, but today the challenge is keeping nutrients from running down to Lake Winnipeg By Allan Dawson co-operator staff / deerwood
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Looking back in time. David Lobb, the University of Manitoba’s senior research chair, watershed systems, and professor, landscape ecology, explains some of the geology in the South Tobacco Creek Watershed July 22 to scientists attending the joint meeting of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, Manitoba Soil Science Society and Canadian Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. photos: allan dawson
n an abandoned shale pit a busload of muddied-shoed soil scientists from across Canada and beyond peer back millions of years into the geological history of this part of the Manitoba Escarpment west of Miami. Marine dinosaur fossils are routinely discovered nearby in the bentonite clay formed from prehistoric volcanic ash. They once swam in the Western Interior Seaway that split North America in two. To d a y ’s l a n d s c a p e w a s shaped more recently — thousands of years ago rather than millions — by expanding and receding glaciers, followed 13,000 years ago by glacial Lake Agassiz. But the focus during this segment of the field trip is on the South Tobacco Creek Watershed, one of the most studied in the country, and on finding better ways to manage soil and water on steep-sloping fields. It’s hoped the findings can be applied across the escarpment to improve the water quality entering the
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“Man, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and his many accomplishments, owes his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
April Leytem, a research scientist with the United States Department of Agriculture based in Idaho, says soil is critical to life.
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Red River and ultimately Lake Winnipeg, where excessive amounts of nitrogen, and especially phosphorus, are causing huge algae blooms. The scientists in this group are among the 270 attending tours and joint meetings of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, Manitoba Soil Science Society, and Canadian Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology in Winnipeg July 22-25. The tour travels a few miles southwest to Dale and Caroline Steppler’s farm near the top of the escarpment and the headwaters of the watershed. Mud prevents the group from seeing a reservoir built to capture runoff from pens holding about 100 head of cattle over the winter. The water, and the nutrients it holds, irrigates the Stepplers’ pasture — ending up where they can boost grass production, instead of ending up in Lake Winnipeg. It demonstrates the value of mitigating nutrient loading on a whole-farm basis, said Don Flaten, professor of soil science at the University of Manitoba and conference chair. The reservoir alone cut the nutrients leaving the farm by 35 per cent, said Flaten. Overall nutrient losses have been reduced by 50 per cent thanks to other so-called ‘Best Management Practices,’ including soil testing and applying the required amount of nutrients, as well as by small retention dams that hold back part of the annual run-off. “A lot of these little things add up,” Flaten said. Similar work is underway in England, added Phil Haygarth, a soil and water science expert from the Environment Centre at Lancaster University. “It’s naive to manage the catchment watershed at the See BACK IN TIME on page 6 »
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