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  1. Summary
  2. Pintail Heaven
  3. Plummeting Population
  4. Restoring the Tradition
  5. Fall Crops Better
  6. Ag. Research—Helping Landowners and Waterfowl
  7. Positive Working Relationships
 

Ag. Research—Helping Landowners and Waterfowl

DUC acknowledges that cultivation will continue to be the dominant force shaping the prairie landscape. With winter cereals providing a higher benefit to waterfowl than springseeded cereals, DUC is working to increase the proportion of winter cereals in the region, including the Milk River Ridge. In order to accomplish that, it is focusing on ensuring the viability of winter wheat through research and extension, including the funding of an Eco-Agriculture Chair at the University of Saskatchewan.

The goal is to develop winter wheat varieties with improved cold tolerance, disease resistance and superior quality and yield. In conjunction with this initiative, DUC is actively pursuing extension-related activities with key winter wheat producers and agribusinesses to increase adoption of winter wheat by producers.

The Restoring the Tradition strategy also involves programs aimed at converting cropland to other agricultural uses to provide relatively safe nesting habitat while promoting sustainable agricultural use. DUC is aiming to restore two million acres of uplands – the same amount of land lost to cultivation since the 1970s.

DUC also is working toward the creation of government-led programs that financially reward producers who plant and retain vegetative cover, and who conserve or restore native pastures, riparian and field margin buffers and wetlands. This initiative is designed to counter unsustainable land use activities on farmland, including tillage of marginal or erosion prone soils, wetland drainage, overgrazing of natural pastures, removal of vegetative buffer zones along waterways and field margins, and excessive reliance on fertilizers and pesticides.

Although the pintail conservation strategy is complex and multi-faceted, DUC believes it’s the best approach to restoring pintail populations to 1970s levels.“ One tool in the tool box isn’t enough,” says Dr. Karla Guyn, the Prairie Region conservation ecologist who has studied pintails since 1994.

She says the Milk River Ridge is a crucial – and intact – habitat for pintails.

“ We know that we need to add additional productive habitat to help turn this problem around, but if we continue to lose ‘good’ habitat at the same time we are adding habitat, we simply aren’t making the same gains,” says Guyn, who works out of DUC’s national office at Oak Hammock Marsh north of Winnipeg.

“ We need to ensure the Ridge remains intact for maximum gains to be attained.”

 

<< Page 5: Fall Crops Better
Page 7: Positive Working Relationships >>

 

 
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