Wheat Pete’s Word, Jan 22: Banding phosphorus, feeding top yields, and cold temps with no snow

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This week is all about bone-chilling cold in Ontario and many parts of Western Canada, but does that mean fall seeded crops are in trouble? It depends.

On this week’s episode of Wheat Pete’s Word host Peter Johnson explains why growing point location, air temp, and snow cover all matter when expecting survival of winter wheat or barley and even winter canola. Also on this week’s podcast, hear more about phosphorus availability, feeding top yields, and setting new records.

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

  • Pete realizes he’s getting old. Kids say the darndest things
  • Wheat Pete’s Sip and Learn? There’s a group of students at the University of Guelph that get together to talk about the Word
  • One, if the students get together, they’re building community. Two, if they’re listening to something that’s agriculture, agronomy related, and they’re talking about it, that means they’re using their critical thinking skills. It does not get better than that
  • Jonathan Zettler named  CCA of the Year. Check out the chat here
  • It’s been a very cold week. There are some areas in Ontario with almost no snow. Snow insulates
  • If we get -22 degrees C on winter barley acres it is not as winter hardy as winter wheat. Winter canola could be at risk. It all depends on how cold it gets at the growing point
  • If you’re in this situation (cold, no snow) let me know how it went in the spring
  • 2024 Ontario average for soybeans at 53.34, bushels per acre;  109% of the average farm yield, but it’s not all gravy for everyone
  • Lambton County at 94% of average why? Because Lambton County just got deluge after deluge after deluge all growing season
  • Prince Edward County takes the prize for the highest percentage over their average farm yield at 132
  • Corn hit an average of 198.8 so that’s the high, but it’s not a record. Record is 202 bu/ac.
  • Dr Scott Shearer from Ohio State University presented on the E Fields program, where they write protocols for growers to look at various projects, and then the growers write scripts and it’s much easier to pull the data out
  • But if you’re using yield maps, yield blocks must be 1000 feet long to make sure that the information is valid
  • Need repetition in the field a number of times, if you’re making decisions based on small blocks in the field, these small learning blocks in the field, this data is really clear, the minimum, the absolute minimum. And is probably not enough, but the absolute minimum is 250 feet
  • The Agronomists from Monday night is here. Is there a cover crop I can grow that will actually release or make phosphorus more available?
  • Can buckwheat work? The science doesn’t back it up, no
  • What about corn and phosphorus? When you put in a two-by-two band with corn, the root hits that banded phosphorus and that causes root proliferation and we get this mass of roots that grows right where the band was, so that we suck up all that phosphorus, because the plant needs phosphorus
  • Guess what? It does not work with flax. And it doesn’t work with flax because flax is so mycorrhizal, and it has such a good symbiotic relationship with the mycorrhiza that it doesn’t need the band so much
  • Where is publication 75, The Guide to Weed Control. Go to the Crop Protection Hub
  • Do we need higher fertility to grow big yields? Yes
  • But it’s not a one-to-one relationship. When we get to 300 bushel corn, it may only need 210 pounds of nitrogen,
  • Replacement of phos is a key question, too
  • Use the right soil P test!
  • Manganese on wheat. On sandy soils it makes all the difference.

 

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