By Alison Fransoo, PAg, Agri-Environmental Specialist, North Battleford
April 2025
Are there areas in your fields that you seed annually hoping they will produce a crop? Soil salinity can be difficult to notice from one season to the next because moisture conditions have so much influence. In wet years, there is sufficient leaching and dissolving of salts, so saline areas are not as visible on the soil surface and some crop growth may occur. In dry years, increased evaporation dries out the soil and draws salts up to the soil surface, resulting in a noticeable white surface, which is salt. In dry years, producers become more concerned with salinity because salts become more visible and basically no crop growth occurs in the affected areas. You may have seen kochia or foxtail barley populations increase significantly in these areas during dry cycles due to their characteristically high tolerance to salt.
Saline areas can be a source of production loss and profit loss on the operation. Rather than continuing to invest money, applying inputs and cropping these unproductive areas, it may be time to consider an alternative. As soil salinity levels increase, stress on germinating seedlings and plants also increases. In general, perennial plants can handle salinity better than annual plants. Crop yields can be affected by even a low level of salinity. For example, peas and lentils are the most susceptible to salinity, while barley is the most tolerant. Foxtail barley and kochia have a much higher salt tolerance than all annual crops.
Perennial forages are an option to consider. These forages are able to establish and improve saline areas over time. Selecting the right blend or species will be a key factor to your success, as well as patience to allow establishment. Successful establishment is dependent on environmental conditions. Establishing permanent cover on these areas would provide benefits such as competing with weed issues, providing soil coverage and protecting the soil from erosion, combatting salinity and increasing production on the acres rather than a noticeable population of weeds. Implementing strategies that eliminate or reduce inputs in these areas and re-allocating them to more productive acres on the field will often lead to increased farm profitability.
Perennial forages provide many agri-environmental benefits, including reducing the over-application of fertilizer or crop-protection products in areas that have minimal plant growth. They help support healthy riparian areas, wildlife habitat and carbon sequestration. Reach out to your local agri-environmental specialist or contact the Agriculture Knowledge Centre at 1-866-457-2377 to discuss options for the most suitable forage blend or varieties to address unproductive areas in your field. For example, green wheatgrass and slender wheatgrass are saline tolerant.