14 weeks and counting to #PLANT2021!

Just for fun, I am sharing our target date for seeding this spring.

I know, I know, you can never really control when you will hit the field in the spring! But just for fun, and to keep us focused here at Chin Ridge, we like to pick a target date to motivate us. This year our target date is April 12th and since I am publishing this article on January 3 2021, that makes it JUST 14 WEEKS to our target seeding date!

How we picked this target date:

You may be wondering how we picked April 12th as our target date for getting in the field. Well we are trying to balance the risk of frost with the benefits of getting out in the field early. Those benefits for us on our dryland include taking advantage of early spring moisture and better competition with the weeds that seem to show up early in the spring. We also harken back to some of the research that Ross McKenzie (Lethbridge Research Station) did on seeding dates that showed enhanced yields with early seeding dates.

That said, for our area of southern Alberta, at least in recent years, there seems to be a lower risk of a hard frost after the Easter weekend. The timing of Easter is related to the lunar cycle, so maybe that has something to do with it.

So anyways that's our plan. We are just throwing that out there! And you know what they say about "the best laid plans of mice and men...".

So much organizing to do!

Now we have so many decisions to make in such a short period of time. I know many of you are much more organized than us, since you have already called and booked your seed. To be fair, we have made a few seeding decisions already, but we do most of our planning work right now!

Our seeding planning is complicated (aka requires much pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth) as we try to balance crop rotations not only for plant health and chemical rotations but also for certified seed requirements. With certified seed production we are always trying to plan rotations that will ensure that we can keep excellent seed purity by variety and also provide us with spots to plant new "up and coming" seed varieties.

Well that's a bit of insight into what goes on here at Chin Ridge.

If you want to follow along with our thoughts and recommendations on seed varieties for #Plant2021. Subscribe to spring2021 newsletter here:

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