May 17, 2012

Canola School: Western Harvest Update

Lexion combine being cleaned

When we talk about harvest across the prairies, you can’t use a blanket term to cover any one province unless that comment is “variable”. In terms of exactly how much of harvest is done, some areas in the Alberta and Manitoba are finished while areas in the Northern Alberta haven’t even started yet. Yields for [...]

Corn School: When is My Corn Ready to Silage?

Jeff Burgsma Corn Silage pic

Determining when to silage your corn can be tricky from a number of standpoints. You can’t count on a visual inspection alone to tell you what’s ready because different varieties have different traits that make a visual inspection inaccurate. Crop conditions are varied across soil types as well. Different soil types can affect how quickly [...]

Canola School : Should I Consider Straight Cutting?

Much has been said about the potential benefits of straight cutting canola. In particular with regards to yield and overall quality, straight cutting has been shown to provide some benefit. There are however some qualifiers attached to those benefits that have to work to avoid a wreck. It would be a disaster to lose your [...]

Canola School: Determining Swath Timing and 60% Color Change

I have been around canola fields my entire life and when you factor in all of the growing challenges and key points, the most misunderstood is the decision of “when should I swath?”  I get more calls to our office during this time of the growing season than any other.  Swath timing is incredibly difficult [...]

12th International Symposium on Pre-Harvest Sprouting – Holly Gelech, Biovision Seed Labs

By Holly Gelech, Biovision Seed Labs The 12th International Symposium on Pre-Harvest Sprouting in Cereals was hosted the week of July 24th in Red Deer, Alberta and was attended by 60 participants from all regions of the globe. The 35 speakers, who originated from Australia, China, Japan, United Kingdom, Africa, Canada and many others countries, [...]

Canola School: Seed Colour Change & Harvest Timing – Jim Bessel, Canola Council of Canada

Looks can be deceiving when you’re trying to figure out when your canola field is ready to be harvested. This year especially, varied staging in fields is a real issue. According to Jim Bessel, Senior Agronomy Specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, that varied staging will make harvest decisions a real “mindbender”. Bessel says [...]

Canola School: When Should I Swath My Canola? – Murray Hartman, Alberta Agriculture & Rural Development

For a lot of farmers across the west, figuring out when to swath their canola fields may be as stressful as trying to get it in the ground was. The overabundance of moisture and the cool temperatures that producers had to deal with at the beginning of the season have caused varied staging in areas [...]

Wheat School: Why are Test Weights Down in Ontario? – Peter Johnson, OMAFRA

  Test weights on wheat are down below average in parts of Ontario. Compared to this time last year, yields by test weight alone are down by as much as 10% in areas. There are a couple of reasons behind this. The first involves under-filled  kernels from plants surrounding dead zones in the field being [...]

The Benefits of Flexxifinger Crop Lifters

When farmers choose varieties one of the most common used criteria is stand ability. Sometimes crops lodge no matte what variety you choose due to late moisture, wind or above average weight of the crop. One of the tools that farmers are including on their combine headers is Flexxifinger crop lifters. At CropWeek 2011 in [...]

The Farms.com Canola Harvest Watch at Serfas Farms in Alberta

Serfas Farms

This week I helped out Farms.com by filming the Canola Harvest Watch. I talked to Serfas Farms just south of Lethbridge about how their canola harvest went. The Serfas’s are a family operation that farms wheat, barley, canola and silage corn. Mark and Kevin farm with their dad Herb and are based in Turin, Alberta. [...]