Off-season wind-induced soil erosion from potato fields under varying bedding preparations

Annually, global soil erosion is estimated at 75 billion tonnes, costing approximately US$400 billion in lost agricultural productivity, highlighting the economic and environmental significance of effective soil management. Potato fields are particularly susceptible to wind erosion during the off-season, due to extensive soil exposure. In Southern Alberta, fall bedding is a common management practice, involving bedding preparation in the fall rather than spring. Fall bedding presents logistical and economic advantages to producers, but it may increase the risk of off-season wind erosion due to increased soil disturbance. To investigate this, wind erosion was measured using Modified Wilson and Cook (MWAC) samplers and modelled with the Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS) model across three off-seasons (2021–2024) at the Lethbridge Polytechnic Irrigation Demo Farm. Rates of wind-induced soil erosion were evaluated under three bedding types: spring bedding, spring bedding following a winter cover crop, and fall bedding. The measured and modelled rates indicate that fall bedding experienced the greatest rates of wind-induced erosion across all three off-season periods. On average, off-season wind-induced erosion under fall bedding was 20 times higher than that under both spring beddings. The study found that the WEPS model closely aligns with measured data, showing high model accuracy (R² = 0.9327, Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) = 0.9058). Statistical analyses revealed significant differences in erosion rates across bedding types (P < 0.05), with fall bedding consistently leading to higher erosion. The benefits of winter cover crops prior to spring bedding were less pronounced, suggesting that winter cover cropping may offer minimal additional erosion reduction compared to spring bedding alone when following a cereal crop. These findings advocate for the adoption of spring bedding to reduce off-season wind erosion and its associated economic and environmental costs. The results also underscore the importance of considering both economic and long-term sustainability when selecting bedding practices in potato cultivation.