Polycrops: Challenges, Triumphs and Valuable Lessons from Beef Producers

Polycrop forage blends have become a popular tool among beef producers to increase soil health, manage grazing, improve cow performance and enhance resilience to changing weather conditions. However, as with any farming practice, the results can vary based on location, weather and management strategies. 

Carmen Jackson: Choosing the Right Crop to Meet your Goals

Carmen Jackson, who operates a farm southeast of Regina, Saskatchewan, takes a measured approach to polycrops. “You can’t just jump in without understanding the risks,” she advises. Carmen and her family manage 3,500 acres, including 900 acres of rented land, most of which is native grass, with a small portion (approximately 400 acres) seeded to forages for winter feeding. 

When it comes to polycrops, Carmen emphasizes the importance of making small, deliberate steps when implementing new practices. “Even if things don’t go perfectly, you have to keep moving forward,” she says. 

Carmen and her family have been using polycrops for the last five years. They started after attending a workshop in Manitoba and have been experimenting with them since. “The most important thing I have learned, and that we did wrong the first year, is you need to understand the context that you are using polycrops for,” she says. She has seeded polycrops in multiple locations on her farm but points out that there are different goals, and each goal requires different grazing strategies.

For example, on one pasture the goal was to increase pasture biomass. Carmen noted it was a saline, low-yielding piece of ground they were trying to improve. For that pasture they seeded a polycrop blend and then did some late fall grazing, turning a group of cows out to allow them to both trample and graze the forage. The residual forage left behind was targeting added organic matter with the long-term goal of improving soil conditions.  

In another pasture, the goal was a high-quality feed on which to background their bulls. This piece was cross-fenced, and bulls were moved through paddocks in late summer. This year Carmen hopes to be able to graze in both summer and regrowth in the fall.  

Carmen works with a professional agrologist to build forage blends that meet the needs of operation, and chooses different blends based on the goals for the pasture and if they intend to graze or make silage.  

“It’s probably more advantageous to come up with something that you think will work on the soil you have.” Carmen notes that she is more comfortable using a premade blend on good land but on land that requires soil improvements, she finds value in choosing crops that are tailored to their specific goals.  

When choosing forage blends for silage Carmen points out that “First and foremost, we have to feed our cows, so tonnage is my number one priority. I try to add in something to help with soil health, but it can’t take too much away from the total volume – it’s a bit of a dance, and you just need to adjust as you go.”  

Economics, and knowing how her land performs also play a role in what Carmen chooses for a forage blend. She points out that in some of the poorer soil areas, yield is limited, and she needs to be conscious of what she spends on a mixture to make economic sense. With this mindset Carmen points out that even in the saline or other problem areas they may be able to spend a bit more on polycrops than a monoculture as they don’t use any fertilizer and there may be long term benefits.   

Carmen acknowledges that polycrops may not always deliver immediate or dramatic results. However, she stresses that soil health benefits accumulate over time. “Sometimes, you just have to adjust it as you go,” she notes, indicating that experimentation is part of the learning process.  

Erika Stewart: The Importance of Adaptation and Pivoting

Erika Stewart and her family farm near Morse, Saskatchewan, and have recently started integrating polycrops as cooperators in the Living Lab Central Prairies. Their farm consists of primarily native grass with some cultivated land they use to put up winter feed for cattle. She notes the challenges that come with unpredictable weather, especially when drought conditions persist. “If moisture doesn’t come, it’s really hard to make cover crops work,” Erika explains. She also mentions the trial-and-error nature of polycrops management. 

Erika is still working out how polycrops fit into their operation. In 2021, they experimented by growing small amounts of two different blends marketed by separate companies. In late May they seeded a combined 230 acres side by side and found that both did well despite drought conditions.  

With that success, the next year they seeded 240 acres to a polycrop blend for silage. Once again it performed well. “We had gotten two-and-a-half, maybe three, inches of rain and had enough silage to make it through, so we were thrilled,” Erika says.  

Unfortunately, they were not as successful the following year, despite having similar rainfall. “We had planned to swath graze it that year, but it wasn’t even worth driving the swather over. Instead, we fenced it into four paddocks, and I think we got about a week’s worth of grazing off it.”  

Despite trying a drought-tolerant blend last year, they had similar results, as well as issues with weeds. “Weeds weren’t an issue when things were growing, but now, after two years of crop failure, it is a big problem,” she says.  

For Erika, nitrates have also been an issue. “The brassicas that we used to improve soil health were great, but due to drought, when we did our feed test, the nitrates came back super high.” They were still able to salvage the feed by allowing the pasture to rest, then grazing in a small paddock with gates open to a perennial pasture with water. “That way the cows could go in and graze, but they didn’t stay in there since there was no water, and it forced them to come out and eat something else as well,” she says.  

Even with having issues in the past couple of years, Erika thinks polycrops could still play a role in their operation. “We added some winter triticale to last year’s blend, so hopefully we will see that pop up for some early spring grazing to allow us to rest our perennials longer.”  She also wants to try grazing the polycrops earlier in the season and using them as a high-quality forage during the breeding season. 

Erika remains committed to experimenting with polycrops. She emphasizes that understanding the local conditions and being flexible with the approach is key. “You have to tweak things as you go,” she reflects, acknowledging the learning curve associated with integrating new practices into an operation. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s all part of the journey.” 

John Griffin: The Importance of Context and Flexibility 

John Griffin and his family have both irrigated and dryland near Central Butte and Bridgeford, Saskatchewan. Over the years they have transitioned from a purebred herd calving in winter to a commercial herd that calves in May. With the adjustment of their calving season, they have come to rely on swath grazing for winter feed. John has been experimenting with how to add polycrops into their system and has had both success and learning experiences.   

Drought and grasshoppers resulted in complete crop failure the first year they tried polycrops, but being a part of the Living Lab Central Prairies gave John the opportunity to try seeding them again.  

John has been experimenting with both a commercially available complex mixture as well as a simple mixture with peas and a cereal. He uses a hoe drill with a two-sided gravity wagon to seed both mixtures.

“The two sides work great,” John says. “I put the peas in one side and the oats or barley in the other side, then just hand dribble in the complex mix on top of the barley for those fields.” He points out that the box drill is nice, as the seed cups can open to allow bigger seeds like the peas to get through.  

Last year both grew well, but he noticed in the complex mixture most of the biomass was coming from the peas and oats. Based on that, and the higher cost of the complex mixture, John plans to proceed with a simple cereal-pea mix in the future.  

Like Erika, John wants to use polycrops as a high-quality forage during the breeding season to improve his conception rates. “We have very productive spring pastures because we get snowmelt, but then it dries up and turns brown, so we don’t have a high-quality feed when we need it in August when the bulls go out.” This past year he turned the cows and bulls out onto the polycrops to graze during the breeding season. 

In addition, John points out that research staff through the living lab are taking measurements on soil health which may have long term benefits for his pastures. “Maybe over time we will see benefits that I am not noticing yet, but, from a beef production standpoint, if I can get a few more cows bred at that time of year then they would be benefiting us.”  

Research Insights: Starting Small and Choosing the Right Mix

Aklilu Alemu, a researcher with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and research lead for the Living Lab Central Prairies, recommends that producers looking to integrate polycrops into their operations should “start small and simple until you’re familiar with the practice.”  

Selecting the right mix of polycrops is important, especially when moisture is limited. “If the moisture is not coming, the cereal component of the polycrop mix can still provide some biomass,” Aklilu explains. This strategy helps ensure that, even in dry conditions, producers can still benefit from the polycrop’s contribution to soil health and grazing. 

Aklilu cautions that “field conditions are highly variable, and what works in one place may not work in another.” This aligns with the experiences shared by producers like John Griffin, who have found that what works in research trials doesn’t always translate directly to real-world farm conditions. 

Aklilu says there are three things producers should think about when implementing polycrops: 

• Moisture is the number one factor that will influence success.
• Start simple, and start small.
• Start with at least 40% cereal in your first year, that way if other crops fail you should still have some biomass to salvage.

The Takeaway: Trial, Error and Adaptation 

The experiences of producers like Carmen, Erika and John illustrate the unpredictable nature of integrating polycrops into a beef operation. While some years may yield impressive results, others may bring challenges such as pests, poor weather or suboptimal crop growth. The key to success lies in adaptability, local knowledge and a willingness to experiment. 

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• Akilu Alemu
• forage blends
• Living Lab Central Prairies