The new year is rocking and rolling in the best way — the opportunities for learning just keep coming!
In this week’s episode of Wheat Pete’s Word, host Peter Johnson shares and discusses some of the key questions discussed at the Southwest Ag Conference and more. From early sulphur decisions, to stressing wheat (on purpose?), to edible bean management, there’s a treasure trove of agronomy answers in this episode!
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
- Is it moulding minds or molding minds?
- Pete got to speak to the University of Guelph Crop Club on Monday night. Thanks to Taylor for the invite
- Pete gets to twist students’ thought process a little bit sideways about the real gains in production agriculture, about carbon flow, and then we open up the floor to talk about tillage, what a blast
- There are still some die hard ground beaters, even in that group of young farmers
- It’s all about critical thinking. Just because wheat Pete says it doesn’t make it right
- A real hats off to Andrew Berry!
- Check out Mark Gasparotto, the keynote speaker, right here on RealAg
- The difference 8 minutes can make in someone’s life — it’s worth the time
- For goodness sakes, pick up the phone, make that call, talk about what you learned at some of these conferences? That’s a great start
- If we didn’t have an atmosphere, the average temperature would -18 Celsius. The water on this world would never thaw.
- 80% of wheat roots are in the top 10 inches. 5% of the wheat roots can reach one meter deep. But those 5% of the wheat roots that reach one meter deep can actually provide 20% of the crops water needs
- That is if they can actually get to a meter depth; you really need that subsoil to have good structure so the water can move to those roots
- Great X post from Nic Dubuc. As Nic said, everybody talks about educating consumers. How condescending is that?
- How about we say we need to engage with consumers. We need to talk to consumers. We need to work with consumers so we can understand their needs. Now there’s a key, put their needs first so we can understand their needs, and we can also help tell them about our situation and what we do and why we do it, and it takes the takes the condescending attitude away, and I think we’ll make out much better from that standpoint
- Sulphur on soybeans! In Shaun Casteel’s data set, he has taken 77 bushel per acre soybeans and made them 98 bushel per acre soybeans. He has increased soybean yield by 20 bushels per acre.
- It’s a nodulation thing
- We know that we need sulphur on wheat, on corn, on soybeans, because those soil types are really sulphur-deficient prone
- Early May planted beans saw a 7.5 bushel per acre yield gain strictly from sulphur. It’s time for some strip trials!
- If you are planting soybeans early in Ontario, in southwestern Ontario, Pete says put in strip trials with ammonium sulfate
- Brett asks a really good question: If I put 3,000 gallons of finishing hog manure where I’m going to plant soybeans this year, do I need that early sulphur? The sulphur in manure is in the elemental form, so, yes, you do need to put some sulfate
- Should we be switching and using ammonium sulfate on edible beans, because we always had some nitrogen?
- If we wait to put one shot of nitrogen on our wheat crop, are we waiting too long?
- If you plant early with lots of tillers, delayed nitrogen is not really hurting us as much as you would think
- Yellow wheat through the winter means it’s not carrying too many tillers through the spring. And we’ve seen higher yields when we stress the wheat in the fall before it goes through the winter in Oklahoma
- More stressed wheat forces the roots to go deeper
- Rather than putting resources into those tillers that it would drop next spring, it drops them in the fall, it puts more resources into the main head and surviving tillers and it reduces the number of of stems that won’t make it through to maturity, you end up with a stronger stem count in the spring that will make it through to maturity and higher yields
- Soil test question: manganese indexes in a field consistently between 15 and 19. If you’re under 15, we think that you’re probably going to be deficient. You really got to watch that field; if you’re on sand, pay more attention
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Youtube Music | RSS | All Podcasts