HomeDucks Unlimited Canada Offers Assistance
in Controlling Soil Salinity 
Oak Hammock Marsh MB, May 26 – After last year's wet conditions and a relatively dry winter and spring, saline soil patches are popping up across Manitoba especially around cultivated wetlands fringes. Ducks Unlimited Canada (DU) is urging producers to take note of salty patches on their land and to consider seeding these areas to forages.
"The saline soil we're seeing this year is capable of limiting annual crop growth and reducing yields in some fields," said Mike Thiele, DU's agrologist in Minnedosa. He also said it doesn't look like the problem of soil salinity is about to disappear anytime soon. "The water table is high right now but our relatively dry winter and spring have left surface soils dry. Groundwater is being drawn to the surface where it evaporates leaving salts on the soil surface. If left unmanaged, saline patches can expand and increase in severity until nothing can grow."
According to Ian Witherspoon, biologist with DU's Killarney office, producers who drained wetlands or removed vegetation from wetland fringes are seeing salinity creep into their cropland with every passing year. "Wetlands occur where there are depressions in the land. The water table is naturally close to the surface in these areas. Wetland plants and grasslands associated with wetlands act as a salinity barrier by covering the soil, absorbing water and preventing evaporation at the soil surface," Witherspoon said. "It's important to retain natural vegetation around wetlands because when it's removed there's nothing to prevent salts from forming at the soil surface."
A salinity barrier around wetlands can be recreated by planting salt-tolerant forages such as tall and slender wheatgrass. Ducks Unlimited Canada has offered producers assistance with establishing salinity barriers since the mid-1990s. Thiele, Witherspoon and other DU staff in Minnedosa, Killarney and Oak Hammock Marsh near Stonewall provide advice on forage selection, locating seed suppliers and seeding.
Diana and David Hyde, who run a mixed farm northeast of Shoal Lake, sought advice from DU when they decided to seed a saline-tolerant forage mix around sloughs on their land. "There was still grass [around the sloughs] but it was broken too far in," Diana said. "Where water runs from one pothole to another, it was white. Every year we were fertilizing this spot and nothing was growing. Once you get something growing there, it uses up the moisture." The Hydes just finished seeding a larger area to forages this year. Since grain prices are low, they said it's worth it for them to seed more of their marginal land to forage for their cattle. Witherspoon said the Hydes definitely have the right idea.
"If producers don't seed down saline soils around wetlands, the area will most likely remain unproductive and unprofitable," Witherspoon said. "While producers might consider filling in the wetland or draining it as a possible fix, these actions do nothing to prevent the movement of salts to the soil surface and they don't help to control salinity. Planting forages is a sustainable, long-term solution to salinity that helps to retain wetlands on agricultural landscapes."
Ducks Unlimited Canada conserves wetlands and associated habitat for waterfowl, other wildlife and people. Wetlands help to improve water quality and they also help to moderate droughts and floods.
For more detailed information on how forages can address soil salinity on your land, contact your local conservation district representative, Manitoba Agricultural representative or the DU office in Minnedosa (204) 867-5228, Killarney (204) 523-7567 or Oak Hammock Marsh (204) 467-3279.
