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“You shade the plant that you're growing with a partially transparent solar cell. It provides a little microclimate underneath it, so it conserves water, and then you get more growth,” Pearce explained. Vertical or movable solar panel options allow for plants like corn or wheat to grow high or for tractors to manoeuvre around crops, Pearce added. Outside of fields, solar panels can also be attached to greenhouses roofs or potentially even floated on bodies of water.
Maitland Conservation (MC), formerly Maitland Valley Conservation Authority (MCVA), has been monitoring two agricultural sub-watersheds to address water quality concerns and the effects of farming practices on local water. Ben Van Dieten, Agricultural Stewardship Technician, and Chris Van Esbroeck, Stewardship Services Coordinator of MC, presented their findings to date on these projects, in terms of how and when sediment and nutrients leave the landscape, and the practices they promote to reduce these losses.
