Farmer fighting pests and feeding the soil with plants

A P.E.I. farmer is experimenting with more than a dozenplants to battle disease and improve the soil in his potato fields.

Potato farmers rotate their cropin three or four year cycles, and grow otherplants on their land in the intervening years, sometimes cash crops, and sometimes vegetation which helps improve soil quality.

There is a cost to it for sure, but we're hoping to see a balance here down the road.- Rob Green

Rob Green, a potato farmer in Bedeque, is taking that practice to a new level. In the past, he grewbarley, canola and hay as his rotational crops.

In the last couple of years he added peas and fava beans to the mix, and is trying black beans for the first time this year.

He is also trying a ground cover mixture made up of14plants that is meant to knock back pests, add nutrients, and keep the soil on the fields through the winter.

Green said that he attended a seminar about the new crop mixes presented on P.E.I. by an Ontario man. He hopes the new crop mix will allow him to cut back on fertilizer use.

"If this here will work then I can cut back on my nitrogen," he said.

"I'm hoping, that or some kind of nutrient value, it might could be phosphorous or even potassium as well. We'll know more once we get some samples done here later on this fall."

Green said there is a cost to using land he usually would be growing cash crops on to improve soil quality, but he hopes that it will help with expenses in the future.

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