Ag community wanted for cover crop survey

Researchers want to capture real-world insights about cover cropping from farmers and advisors

Researchers from Manitoba and Ontario are looking for members of ag communities from Alberta to Ontario to participate in a questionnaire about cover crops.

The confidential survey is open to any farm type and size whether the operation has ever grown cover crops.

“We don’t just want survivor bias,” Callum Morrison, a researcher with Manitoba Agriculture, told Farms.com. “We want to hear from everyone about their unique experiences so we can have a better understanding of what’s going on. The most important thing is farmers answer the survey honestly.”

Dr. Yvonne Lawley, an associate professor in the University of Manitoba’s Plant Science department, and the Ontario Cover Crop Steering Committee, are also involved with the project.

For producers who do use cover crops, the researchers are looking for information like the specific type(s) of cover crops, if it was a shoulder season or full season cover crop, and how the crop was established.

The survey also asks farmers who don’t use cover crops, or producers who did use cover crops but no longer do, why that is.

The questionnaire builds on the work Morrison, a crop production extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, did as a PhD student at the University of Manitoba in 2021 to see where cover crops fit into rotations.

More than 1,300 farmers between Alberta and Ontario participated in that survey.

“That first survey was more of a snapshot of what was going on in 2020, and a lot of the farmers who took the survey were recent adopters of cover crops” he said. “If farmers who were growing cover crops five years ago are still doing so, in that time they should’ve really homed in how to integrate cover crops into their systems.”

Overall, 24 per cent of Canadian field crop farms in 2021 used fall or winter cover crops, Stats Canada reported.

Farmers aren’t the only people Morrison and his colleagues want to hear from.

A separate survey is available for crop advisors, whether or not they actively advise on cover crops.

“If we want to have a successful agriculture industry, we need to make sure the network of people supporting farmers are well informed,” Morrison said.

The crop advisor survey has different questions than the farmer survey.

One question, for example, asks crop advisors to identify what they believe a cover crop is.

“We give them multiple options,” Morrison said. “No answer is right or wrong because I’m asking them what they think. But I think we really need to see how people are defining cover crops because sometimes when we talk about cover crops, we’re not speaking the same language.”

The surveys will remain open until March 31.

After that time, the responses will be divided into an Ontario report and a Prairie report.

Anyone who wants to receive the final report must provide an email address.