By Tara de Ryk

DAVIDSON — Canola has paid off for the Town of Davidson and for Davidson Kinsmen.

Yields were about 44 bushels to the acre, according to results of the 2017 harvest of the town’s irrigation pivot land, which wrapped up Sept. 15.

The crop made a profit, proceeds of which — about $50,000 — will be split between the Kinsmen and the town.

“This year was fantastic,” said Rob Warkentin, a FieldSmart agrologist with Western Sales in Davidson.

For seven years Warkentin’s been overseeing the agronomy on the town land, which is a joint initiative of Western Sales, Davidson Kinsmen and the Town of Davidson that began in 2011.

It’s become a sort of science project for him and the rest of the team behind the community initiative.

While other communities have land seeded to crops to raise funds for local endeavours, Davidson is unique. Besides the risk of growing a crop, the land offers an additional challenge of growing it in soil whose purpose is to be irrigated by effluent as a means of wastewater disposal.

Salt levels in the wastewater pond are quite concentrated due to the extensive use of water softener systems by Davidson homeowners before the town switched the reverse-osmosis water treatment system.

For decades, this salty effluent was used to irrigate the field. All that salt has taken a toll on the soil.

Warkentin said Western Sales’ objective is to improve the soil quality to make the land more productive. “Because salt is so bad in the field, we put some land into grass and alfalfa with the intent of watering there to flush salts down and out of the rooting area.”

A portion of the land, about 42 acres, around the effluent pond was seeded to a saline pasture grass blend in 2014. Warkentin said only the grassland is being watered to preserve the quality of the remaining 118 acres that are seeded into crop.

Despite the lack of rain this summer, Warkentin said the canola crop was only watered once this season.

“We really didn’t want to put any water on it until we can improve the soil,” he said.

This management proved successful this year.

“We had a much better job seeding this time and conditions were good,” he said.

The community-farming project receives support from many local companies who donate seed, chemicals, fuel, fertilizer and cash. Western Sales provides all the equipment for seeding, spraying and harvesting as well as labour including Juri Klotz and Warkentin doing some combining. Davidson Kinsmen provide manpower. This harvest Rob Stone and Gerrid Gust operated combines as well.

Warkentin said Western Sales will continue its involvement in the project.

“We want to make this land better and we want to give back,” he said. “The town’s been pretty good to us and we want to be good to them.”