Wheat Pete's Word, Nov 25: DON in DDGs, right-day corn, and a reminder to work in pairs

Nothing good happens after midnight, or when corn is left out in the field. Some farmers are learning that DON levels in corn can really spike if the crop has been left out to let that gibberella grow.

In this week’s Wheat Pete’s Word, host Peter Johnson has that caution, plus a discussion on being a good farm neighbour, the choice in mid- or long-season corn, and more on tillage trade-offs.

Have a question you’d like Johnson to address or some yield results to send in? Disagree with something he’s said? Leave him a message at 1-888-746-3311, send him a tweet (@wheatpete), or email him at [email protected]

Summary

• We lost a farmer in a grain bin accident this past week. Please, remember to work in pairs, not alone. Think twice, act once. Have a spotter. Have someone on the stop switch.
• Get those safety glasses on, too, and get off the phone while you are driving equipment. Hands-free only.
• Make sure those field lights are off while driving on the roads (don’t blind oncoming traffic).
• Clean off the roads if you’ve left mud and manure behind, be a good neighbour
• What about online conferences? SWAC is usually the first week of January, Guelph after, and then the Eastern Crop Conference. So this year, all three are ONE conference. Live January 6 and 7, 2021. 40 sessions, $100! And then you’ll have access to the presentations up until March 31st.
• Also check out The Agronomists every Monday night — for free! live! — on RealAg’s social channels
• Do you pump up low-pressure tires ahead of winter? Well, if you’ve got ultra low pressure tires, you can pump them up to 35 PSI so they don’t have a bump in the sidewall for the winter, just let the pressure out in the spring before you head out
• Wait a minute: Pete remembers 75 bushel an acre corn? You must be oooold (hush now, but it’s true). Ontario has gained a frost-free day every four years for a few decades
• GoCorn.net or GoSoy.ca — new hybrids and varieties are listed and ready for review! Corn trial questions? Q hybrids are not in the trials, it’s because we didn’t have EU approval for these hybrids, so they were pulled (it means those lines will never go into the trials)
• Long vs. mid season corn with harvest conditions in mind? It’s an interesting thought process
• So far, looks like could be a wet spring ahead
• DON levels in DDGs are higher than ideal, especially out of some areas with higher DON. Take note, please. Later harvested corn spiked with DON levels. Gibberella in the fields, get that corn out of the field
• Tillage talk: respect other people’s way of thinking. BUT remember that tillage destroys soil structure, no two ways about it. So find ways to decrease tillage if you can at all. Make it work!
• You can do it on heavy clay, too, but you can’t cut corners
• A farmer with high magnesium soil is now trying sub-soiling after wheat while the cover crop is there. There was a 10 day difference in planting where the sub-soiling was done, delaying planting, but the later planted corn out-yielded the earlier planted because the water moved down the soil profile, not off the field

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