Thursday March 29, 2012, Praires East Sustainable Agriculture Initiative

Today a group of WSRP researchers and others from University of Manitoba met with MAFRI and staff from  PESAI - Prairie East Sustainable Agriculture Initiative. This is one of 4 diversification centres run by a board as a not-for profit, and the east unit is run out of Arborg in the Interlake.

PESAI purchased land for research plots in 2010 and was seeking input into some crop research on moisture management. This includes:

• crops that use more water
• crops that cope with more water
• crops that improve soil conditions
• crops that like dry conditions
• crops that can be planted later in the season (after flooding)
• vertical tillage
• tile drainage

This research sits alongside a farmer led and MAFRI supported initiative in the area known as BIFROST which is looking at the options for managing water in the Interlake through the BASIC project.

It was a useful discussion as there is a lot of interest in this topic whether it be from the perspective of managing water, how water moves, cropping options, micrometeorology. 

The PESAI team went away with lots of ideas for how they could best set themselves up to run research on this new plot over the next year and there was lots of interest in working collaboratively in future years once the plots are set up.