On April 3, 100+ people with a range of interests met to input to the development of a Surface Water Management Strategy at the Canad Inn in Polo Park, Winnipeg.
Chaired by the Water Council, Jean Friesen and Rhonda McDougall of Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship steered us through the day. Keynote speakers Shannon Stunden Bower, author of 'Wet Prairie - People, Land and Water in Agricultural Manitoba' (a good historical perspective) and Danny Blair, a contributor to 'The New Normal - the Canadian Prairies in a Changing Climate', set the scene for us, and Wayne Hildebrand reminded us of what happened in the past 2 years with floods and wildfires.
It wasn't all about listening, networking and eating though and we were soon put to work to answer some key questions. The theme on my table was strongly towards education, regulation, enforcement and taxation and we called on the government to be bold and show its teeth!
Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship will be consulting over the next few months as it develops its strategy, and more information is available on its website http://www.gov.mb.ca/waterstewardship/
Selena Randall
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
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:
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.
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
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.
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