There is a further advantage to four-year rotations. As a pedigreed seed grower for a private distributor, Koomen's chemical inputs are lower because there is less trouble with volunteer cereals the following year. While farming is always a challenge, this year may prove especially difficult. Southern Alberta is a semi-arid region receiving less than 330 millimetres of precipitation per year. Warm, dry chinook winds during the winter dry up most of the snow.
Summers are hot, windy and dry.
For the last two years, snowfall in the Rocky Mountains has been far below normal, so runoff and river flows needed for irrigation are substantially down. Water rationing is a strong possibility this year, so farmers must decide if they want to find others willing to buy or trade water rights for their high-value crops. Koomen has decided against buying someone else's water allotment. I went back into more grain and chickpeas. Chickpeas need very little moisture.