Recent studies have evaluated crop responses to granular phosphorus fertilizer placed in the seed-row, as well as banded, and broadcast. However, few, if any studies have evaluated the efficiency and fate of foliar applied P fertilizers under western Canadian conditions in the field.

Vertical tillage has become common in Southern Saskatchewan because of producer concerns about wet soils in the spring and high amounts of crop residues to manage. However, there is a lack of information available on the effects of vertical tillage in soils with contrasting soil water conditions, and there is no information available on the vertical tillage effects in southern Saskatchewan.

This research aims to address questions around the effectiveness of tillage to address soil compaction and other physical limitations that may be present in Saskatchewan soils, especially under the wet conditions experienced in recent years.

This research will address significant gaps in the development of Best Management Practices (BMPs) to limit losses of nitrogen from both irrigated and dryland (rainfed) cropping systems in Saskatchewan, thus protecting both the environment and the economic investment of Saskatchewan producers.

This study will evaluate the benefits of crop sequences for major and special crops across a wide range of environments, as Saskatchewan is home to a variety of environmental conditions due to diverse temperatures, precipitation levels and water loss, with semiarid conditions in the south-west and sub-humid conditions in the northeast.