Pleasantly surprised describes many corn growers this fall, even as the harvest drags on into December. While there were areas that suffered from excess moisture and cool temps, many areas are finally tallying up the last of the corn yields and the numbers are, well, quite good. Ontario field editor, Bernard Tobin, joined Ken Currah,… Read More
Category: Corn School
Real Agriculture’s Corn School provides you with everything you need to increase your corn yields. Each week we bring you the latest news and information from the corn market including corn futures, videos, articles and more. Join our Corn School email list and never miss a beat!
Hybrid selection is a critical piece of the corn crop management puzzle — one mistake could cost as much as 80 bushels per acre in yield. Really, you say? Well, that’s perhaps the most extreme case, but it’s a valid possibility if you take a look at the top and bottom varieties in the GoCorn.net… Read More
Whether it’s a brand new crop type or just a new-to-your-farm variety, setting up a basic head to head comparison or small-scale trial can help minimize the risk of going all-in. On-farm trials or variety comparisons are especially helpful when trying to choose a corn variety, as hybrid production can vary so widely between growing… Read More
With concern over bee health and the potential impact of seed treatments that contain neonicotinoid products increasing, the seed industry is taking steps to offer farmers choices in seed treatment options for 2014. How do you decide if you need to order seed with or without an insecticide seed treatment? Greg Stewart, corn specialist with… Read More
How has the corn crop fared? Will the high levels of vomitoxin seen in wheat and barley also occur in the corn crop? Not always, says Greg Stewart, corn specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. In this episode of the Corn School, Stewart discusses preliminary production estimates of the Ontario corn crop,… Read More
Even if you were never the type to peek at your Christmas gifts early, there are few farmers who can help themselves from trying to get a bead on the corn crop coming. Luckily, assessing corn cob development is a useful task at this point in the growing season, as it offers up not only… Read More
At the end of the year, when all is said and done and you’re looking at what your corn crop produced, it’s a really good exercise to think about where yields are now vs where they were. Then start to stack up everything that went up against it from late planting to cool temperatures, hot… Read More
While the name suggests it’s a pest of bean crops, the western bean cutworm isn’t the most discerning of pests — corn will do just fine, thank you very much. Since 2008, western bean cutworm has been on Ontario’s radar, as pest numbers are building and farmers may need to spray to control this pest… Read More
A cool start delayed corn planting in the U.S., so much so that there’s a rumoured 78 million acres of soybeans in the ground down south. A late start means the critical pollination period of the crop — a huge factor in determining yield — into the typically hot weeks of late July. While the… Read More
Early season field scouting serves many purposes. Not only is early scouting a powerful tool in keeping ahead of weed, disease and insect pests, but early season growth of the crop tells the story of planting. Sometimes that story isn’t necessarily a happy tale, as crusting, variable emergence or thin stands can all be traced… Read More
An nasty cold weekend has left many corn and wheat fields looking just a little sad over a huge area of southern Ontario. According to wheat specialist, Peter Johnson, wheat still in the boot should be fine, but fields with heads emerged could see some yield damage. Similarly, the staging of the corn crop at… Read More
As planting season winds down, the To-Do list of little fixes starts to grow. The good news is that a little extra care and attention paid to machinery and equipment now will help speed along the set up process next spring when we get to do this all over again. The planter is such an… Read More
Getting your corn crop off to a good start sets the tone for yield potential down the line. In our last episode, we talked about getting your seed down in the right conditions. This episode we’ll look at providing your crop with the right elements to get it firmly established in the field. When you’re… Read More
Remember this feeling, it happens every year. It’s that edgy, ready-to-go feeling that shows up every year around early April. The later it gets, the more the feeling gets amplified. Then you read stories (sorry) about the guy down the road that hit the perfect window in early April and absolutely nailed it at harvest…. Read More
As if a late spring and cold weather weren’t bad enough, current planting conditions in some areas of Ontario are ripe for a millipede feeding frenzy. Millipedes prefer cool soil temps and will stay deep in the soil profile, munching away on organic matter, as long as surface soil temps are warm and increasing. But… Read More