Rethinking spraying around water bodies There's pressure to
manage better Posted: June 9, 2009 Water bodies and crop
protection. Ask many farmers how they feel about these two terms
and there's a bit of a love/hate relationship. Many farmers see
value in water bodies, but in strict management terms they often
just get in the way. So how do you manage? We talked to three
people – a conservationist, a provincial weed specialist, and a
senior agronomist - and this is their advice: Should I keep the
water body? Perhaps the first question producers should ask
themselves is whether the water body is worth keeping. It's for
this reason that Jennifer Stoby, a conservation technician with
Alberta Environmentally Sustainable Agriculture (AESA),
recommends a moderate, benefit-based approach to riparian area
management. In other words, the amount of benefit a wetland
provides should equal the amount of protection the landowner
gives it. "We agree that in a cropping system you're not going
to keep every single slough and