Forage U-pick goes nationwide

A hard-working rancher in central Alberta seeks a sturdy native grass ideally suited for mob grazing and a long-lasting stand.

That might seem like something from an online dating profile but it’s more likely to be a query for a newly expanded matchmaking site that aims to connect beef producers with the perfect forage.

Since 2020, the Forage U-Pick online tool has helped thousands of western Canadian forage and beef producers select the forages best suited to their fields. It was recently upgraded to include central and eastern Canada, and that’s also a win for producers in the west, said the site’s coordinator.

“I think it might give them the opportunity to learn a little bit more about some of those species that (Western Canada) might someday pick up,” said Julie MacKenzie, a Swift Current, Sask., agrologist.

Forage U-Pick was originally developed for Western Canada. Its pivot to a nationally focused tool is a step in the right direction, she said.

“We have to kind of look at the beef industry as a whole. If we have a strong industry across Canada, it really can benefit us locally.”

That’s one reason there’s a new French version of the site.

“Sometimes we forget about our western Canadian producers who identify as francophone. We have different francophone producers out there in Alberta and Saskatchewan and that creates an opportunity for them,” said MacKenzie.

The tool can be found at upick.beefresearch.ca or at boussolefourragere.ca for the French version.

On the home page are three buttons: forages suited to your field, seeding rate calculator and forage weed management. For the “u-pick” option, select the first one.

That brings up a map of Canada. Select the desired province, and if it’s Alberta, there is a choice of five soil zones. After selecting one, a new page features 10 field characteristics, and then the type of forage, its intended purpose, soil erosion and salinity within the field, and the type of grazing planned, if any.

“Let’s say you’re looking for hay and you have higher salinity. You can select those two characteristics,” said MacKenzie. “What will happen is it will give you all the species that you can grow for hay and that can withstand moderate salinity.

“And then from there you take a look at them. There’s pictures of them, there’s descriptions of the species.

“Let’s say you decided you didn’t want hay. You want it to be pasture. You can change from hay to pasture and it will give you the species that would be suited for pasture and that moderate salinity.”

Like most ag-related online tools, it’s best not to let Forage U-Pick have the final word, said MacKenzie. This is where local agrologists or other forage specialists come in.

“It gives you information on different forage species and then you can take that information and go talk to someone more local and determine if that forage species is going to work for you.

“So really it’s trying to help producers match forage species to certain fields or certain areas of a field so that you know you can get really high production and improve soils.”

The forage and soil data that fuels Forage U-Pick is the result of experts from across the country applying data from their province or region.

“We come up with the answers about a species. They debate where they’ve seen it growing and what they think its characteristics might be, based on their field experience. That helped shape the tool,” said MacKenzie.

Because its focus is on perennial forages that change slowly, there’s little need to constantly update the site’s data. However, with growing interest in annual forages and their applications in polycrops, that could change soon.

“Right now it doesn’t include any of the annuals that are used for polycrops because this is a more of a perennial selection tool, but the discussions are definitely there on when we move to an annual selection tool,” she said.

A polycrop is a mix of different crops sown together to improve soil health. In the world of forage, researchers and producers have been experimenting with different kinds of polycrops, including annuals.

Building that piece will require more learning on the part of Forage U-Pick developers.

“As we learn more about the functionality of polycrops in Canada, I can see Forage U-Pick potentially including some of those annual mixes that producers are starting to use,” MacKenzie said.

In the meantime, it is becoming a model for similar interactive tools for beef and forage industries in other countries.

“We’ve had interest from all across the world on this tool,” said MacKenzie. “We’ve actually had folks from New Zealand contact us and work with us as they’re talking about developing their own tool down there. That was pretty neat.”

In addition to funding provided by the Beef Cattle Research Council, the Forage U-Pick expansion was supported by the 2018-23 Innov’Action agroalimentaire program under the Canada-Quebec Agreement for the Implementation of the Canadian Agricultural Partnership; Conseil Quebecois des Plantes Fourrageres; Maritime Beef Council; Ontario Forage Council; Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and through Pan-Atlantic collaboration from the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island with Canadian Agricultural Partnership support.