The Agronomists, Ep 86: Building yield from the roots up, with Mario Tenuta and Dave Hooker

Yield is built from the soil up, so root development and healthy growing conditions down below are key to top yields.

For this edition of The Agronomists, host Lyndsey Smith is joined by Dr. Mario Tenuta, of the University of Manitoba, and Dr. Dave Hooker, of the University of Guelph – Ridgetown Campus, to discuss water logging, compaction, root restriction, and nutrient availability.

This episode of The Agronomists is brought to you by ADAMA Canada, Decisive Farming, and Ontario Diagnostic Days.

Catch a new episode of The Agronomists every Monday night at 8 pm E!

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SUMMARY:

• One of these days, we will figure out how to unmute our microphones. One day. Happens to the best of us.
• Ontario harvest is just a buzzzzzing along
• Tenuta knows most people in the comments…this could be fun
• We want to keep our profits high while treating our soil in the best way we can
• Hooker does upwards of 30 trials in a year, lots to talk about
• There’s a rumour about record wheat yields in Ontario….and Hooker agrees
• Lots of Ontario has seen a great fall for winter wheat planting
• Let’s dig in below ground!

CLIP 1: Ontario Diagnostic Day 3: Avoiding fertilizer burn and helping waterlogged plants stay afloat

• Why does waterlogging cause such an issue?
• It happens very quickly. The visualization you see in the video was only about two weeks of waterlogging, and it had serious impacts
• Fewer finer roots — the plants actually start pruning their own roots when they have too much water
• When you have early season waterlogging, the plant is more tolerant, however, the risk of disease is much higher
• Canola and waterlogging — it’s a little more forgiving, and tends to bounce back better
• In waterlogged systems…let’s talk about nutrient uptake. Specifically N
• Temperature is really really critical, here
• How much is lost is a big magic question
• Root health and the availability of that root to take up nutrients plays into this too
• Nitrogen does not just flow into the root with the water. Nitrogen uptake is an active process. Because of this you need healthy roots
• Should I be adding N to waterlogged crops?

CLIP 2: Corn School: Getting tot he root of the problem in 2019

• It requires a lot of experience to know when your specific soils are fit for a particular type of tillage
• Having that seed bed ready is important
• Compaction plays a role
• “Sudden drought” from smeared side walls

• 

• Last year Ontario had a lot of issues with waterlogging
• You see a lot of the effects of that the following year — especially on the headlands
• The least limiting water range — that concept really applies to a lot of areas in crop production, whether it be too much water or not enough

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