Ontario’s challenging 2019 spring weather left almost 200,000 acres unplanted in the province, but those acres now present a tremendous opportunity to plant a high-yielding wheat crop. That’s the message agronomist Peter Johnson shares with growers on this edition of the RealAgriculture Wheat School. “Planting early is the number one way to make great yields,”… Read More
Harvest is already a busy time of year, but a few extra moments outside the combine or swather could make a big difference for disease management on those fields in future years, and could help explain yield dips you might see on the yield monitor. According to Shawn Senko, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of… Read More
Tillering corn may not offer the picturesque vision of a picket fence crop, but it isn’t all bad. Alana Serhan, market development agronomist with PRIDE Seeds, says it’s both a positive and a negative to see tillering. “Typically when you have the presence of tillers it means there’s a lot of nutrients available – a… Read More
Cooler temperatures across Western Canada have brought about some challenges — one of them being a delay in wheat maturity. Crops are at variable stages, even within a single field. Producers considering a pre-harvest glyphosate application on the wheat crop are faced with a tough call — some of the crop is ready, and some… Read More
For many parts of the Prairies, it’s been a challenging growing season — especially when it comes to canola. A late spring, high-speed winds, hail damage, and too late and then late moisture have made for canola fields that have numerous stages in the same field. Whether producers are swathing or straight-cutting their canola, they… Read More
August rains make soybeans — it’s more than just a cliche, it’s a crop management fact that rings true whenever timely moisture finds soybean fields during a pivotal growing month for the oilseed crop. On the episode of the RealAgriculture Soybean School, AGRIS Co-operative senior agronomist Dale Cowan tells us why and how August rains… Read More
Testing for DON in Ontario’s 2018 corn crop was an incredibly frustrating process for growers. With gibberella ear rot infecting a wide swath of corn in the province, many growers were exasperated when samples from the same load of corn taken from a field would show wide variation in DON levels — sometimes from 3… Read More
Did you know that soil helps to remove carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, helps to clean water as it percolates through, and is filled with living organisms? Our soil and its health isn’t just imperative to agriculture — but to many other aspects of our ever-growing population. Jim Tokarchuk, executive director with the Soil Conservation… Read More
There is great variability in corn on the prairies this year, with a dry start in many areas, then a noticeable lack of heat units later in the season. But, in the south, near Bow Island, irrigated corn is looking good. In this Corn School, Dan Foster of Pride Seeds joins RealAgriculture’s Kara Oosterhuis in… Read More
When it comes to corn production, is 2019 a year to forget or a year to remember? For RealAgriculture’s Peter Johnson, it’s a year to learn. On this episode of RealAgriculture Corn School we catch up with Johnson at Diagnostic Days at Ridgetown College, University of Guelph, where our resident agronomist is busy digging up… Read More
Every year, many canola producers seem to face the same challenge across the board — how do we manage all these flea beetles? The answer to this question is quite often pointed towards one main action — seed treatments. In this episode of the Canola School, Gregory Sekulic, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of… Read More
There are several species of aphid that are a pest on several crop types, but on the bright side, there’s only one species of aphid canola farmers need to worry about. As Sean Prager, assistant professor of plant sciences at the University of Saskatchewan explains, it’s the green peach aphid, or Myzus persicae, that causes… Read More
Soil. The ever-interesting subject of what lives below our feet and helps our crops grow. It’s difficult to know what sort of layers are in your soil, however, and often it can be easy to assume what you are seeing for topsoil is what lays beneath. Naturally, Marla Rieckman and Curtis Cavers, being the soil… Read More
If you are considering spraying either a pre-harvest application of herbicide or a desiccant on your pulse crops, keeping maximum residue limits —MRLs — in mind is imperative. In order to do this, growers have to be very cognizant and aware of how mature the crop is and the crop’s moisture level. “If you aren’t… Read More
A hot, dry growing season has pulse crops charging towards maturity — is it time for a desiccant or pre-harvest pass of glyphosate? Nevin Rosaasen, policy and program specialist for Alberta Pulse Growers, says that accurately staging a pulse crop, in this case lentils, is incredibly important to ensure farmers aren’t losing yield, crop quality,… Read More