There are some problems you just can’t avoid — like ending up with wheat roots in drainage tile after big yields — but every challenge has a solution and it comes down to making hay while the sun shines. No, not actual hay, as we are in the critical harvest period, but if the soil is dry and the weather is right, get those tile runs seen to, says Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson in this week’s podcast.
On this week’s Wheat Pete’s Word, you’ll also hear about seeding wheat to moisture, fungicide payback, and whether or not Pete stops on the road to talk about blocking traffic during harvest.
Have a question you’d like Wheat Pete to address or some field results to send in? Agree/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
- Be safe. Take the time to rest. Road safety is key!
- Get off your phone while driving the tractor. It’s also unsafe, who cares if it’s illegal!
- Feedback on loading on the road: would Pete get out and call them out on it to their faces? You bet, but remember it’s about having a conversation not a confrontation
- “What else am I supposed to do on rented farms?”
- Moving on: big yields are just incredible. 70 bushel soybean crops, and just excellent silage yields
- Neat to hear that 50 bushel per acre soybeans is now an incredible disappointment.
- Aborted pods? What could cause that when there was such good moisture in August?
- It has gotten fiercely dry in September in many areas
- Pete is hearing some 28 tonnes, some 30 tonnes silage yields
- Still want to discuss cutting height on silage? You cut high, you’re gonna have less than corn to sell no doubt about that
- Agricorp yields on wheat: no new record. The provincial average worked out to 98.5 bushels per acre. It’s the second highest yield ever and that’s pretty awesome considering the the grain fill period that we had for that wheat crop.
- Late seeding winter canola — some went in September 20
- How deep to plant wheat in dry soil? Go down to moisture, if it’s within three-inches
- Deeper seeding takes two to three more days to emerge, but with good weather, that should be OK
- No moisture at all? Plant at 1.25 to 1.5 inches and wait on the rain
- Salt index considerations for with-seed fertilizer? With MAP, we know that 100 pounds is no issue
- Watch out for wheat roots in tile. We know we need wheat in the rotation. We want big wheat yields, but we don’t plugged tile
- Three words: maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. Fix them while the weather is good and the soil is dry.
- Did the corn make it? Yahoo, yes! Or at least, mostly. Ontario is a big province and not everybody is in the good category. There’s corn in the Dundalk highlands that is simply frozen to the ground and it was at 1/3 milk line. And as Deb Campbell says in that part of the world one year in five, you just have to be prepared that the corn is going to get burned and it looks like this is that year
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Frozen corn, September 26. Deb Campbell - Low test weight is going to be an issue for those areas that get frost and there’s nothing you can do about it
- Plenty of corn is at that half milk line right now. What’s up with all the top die back? Is it cold nights? Well, Greg Stewart says there’s a big crop out there — some cobs are 18 rows around and 35 kernels long. Those big cobs are an incredible sink. The plant is trying to pull all the photosynthate it can into build starch in the kernel
- It could signal standability issues later this season
- Disease considerations? Fungicides are having a huge impact on tar spot down in the deep southwest where the disease is just decimating any cornfields that were not sprayed
- Even fields that were sprayed are showing tar spot
- Does fungicide on corn, year over year, actually make for “cleaner” fields over time? Let’s think this through. The toxins in corn (i.e from gibberella) aren’t the cause or a way the disease spreads
- With European corn borer, we had Bt corn, and the corn borer couldn’t survive in it. Now we’re getting resistant corn borer, unfortunately. So that problem could ramp back up. If you have residue left in the field, that’s where that that next inoculum is going to come from
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