What a wild ride for the end of May! From dust storms and wet fields to yellow corn and exploding rust, this week’s episode of Wheat Pete's Word is packed with real-time crop updates, disease alerts, and timely fertility lessons.
Host Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson covers all these topics, plus a unique sheep-and-goat grazing trial that’s making hogweed history.
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].
In this episode:
- Dust storms wipe out Indiana crops. Dry conditions caused widespread replanting of soybeans after V4 emergence
- Ontario: wet soils, yellow corn, and painfully slow soybean emergence
- Cool weather stalls crops and limits insect pressure so far
- Why corn is emerging before soybeans. A reminder on base temperatures and soil conditions
- YEN wheat tissue tests looking great. Despite the cool spring, nutrient levels are surprisingly solid
- Grazing giant hogweed with sheep and goats. Five days, five acres cleared in a challenging ravine
- Stripe rust alert issued across southern Ontario. From Chatham to Meaford, the disease is spreading fast
- Scout for mildew, cereal leaf beetle, and aphids – High presence of insects and leaf diseases in wheat crops
- 28% nitrogen shortage hits Ontario – Consider dissolved urea as a temporary alternative for side-dress corn
- Salt injury in Alberta corn linked to high starter rates – High N+K applications exceed safe thresholds
- Skepticism around nano-fertilizer claims – Math doesn’t add up for macronutrient replacement
- Sulphur deficiency showing up everywhere. Even in manured fields; more discussion to come on this one
- Perennial thistle control limited by cold May. Fall applications remain the best control option
- Dragline manure on emerged corn shows promise – Injecting can outperform commercial fertilizer by 15 bu/ac
