The cool and sometimes downright cold conditions of spring can really throw a wrench in the seeding schedule. The seed treater isn’t immune to the cold either, and working in less than ideal conditions takes a bit of a different approach. There’s also general maintenance and calibration that should be done every year. In this… Read More
Timing a spring tillage operation can be particularly challenging when the weather decides to be rather uncooperative for a timely planting season. And while cool or wet conditions can have you stressed out about the need to get on the field, heading out too soon on wet soil can have season-long negative effects. As Jim… Read More
Is it warm enough to plant? It’s a common question these days and one that has many a farmer out checking soil temps often. The tricky part about spring soil warm-up is that the optimal soil temp for germination isn’t necessary the optimum soil temp for sprouting and emergence of the corn crop. Add in… Read More
Sclerotinia gets so much attention, you’d think it was the only disease canola succumbed to. While there are many reasons to brush up on sclerotinia management, doing so at the expense of watching and managing for blackleg is a recipe for a slow-building disaster. While canola varieties do have resistance to several strains of the… Read More
Pulses are well-known for their nitrogen-fixing capacity but not for their competitiveness. Weed pressure can really knock back yield, a situation made worse by a thin stand or early-season disease. Two key seeding management strategies for pulses are seeding rates based on an optimal plant stand count and disease control planning. Achieving the best established… Read More
When the time comes to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and look at the hard numbers behind the corn, soybeans and wheat in your rotation, it’s important to give each crop the credit it deserves. The truth is that when you run that rotation, unless you’re digging deep, wheat probably isn’t getting… Read More
Sliding pulses into rotation is a great way to bump up your crop rotation benefits, adds marketing and cash flow options and also adds nitrogen credits for subsequent crops. All that being said, the delivery of that added N is only possible if pulse seed is properly inoculated ahead of going in the ground or… Read More
Not only does wheat bump corn and soy yields when included in rotation, but adding the crop also means the nitrogen used in that rotation goes further. What does that really mean? Well, at least one way to look at it is that you can still hit high yields in a continuous corn or corn-soy… Read More
There’s no doubt that access to available sulphur is incredibly important to canola development and yield. Applying and managing this nutrient, however, has challenges — ammonium sulfate can be incredibly toxic to young sprouts and other forms of the fertilizer can also take some time before sulphur is made available to the plant. In an… Read More
Soil salinity is one of those issues that creeps up — quite literally. The accumulation of salts in the growing zone typically happens slowly over time, causing small yield losses that may go unnoticed until salinity is quite severe. The tell-tale wavy growth in a field or, worse, bare batches or salt-loving weeds moving in… Read More
Building off of the success of the 300 Bushel Corn initiative, PRIDE Seeds is rolling out the 100 Bushel initiative for soybeans in 2013. Slated to take place on as many as 40 sites across Ontario, the 100 Bushel challenge seeks to showcase the optimum combination of variety choice, planting date, seed treatment, inoculant, fertility… Read More
Here we go again. It’s time to start thinking about getting into the field. That means taking a real, good look at your corn planter and getting it ready to do the job it’s supposed to do. Not having your planter setup properly is a yield robbing nightmare. In this episode of the Corn School… Read More
There are some topics, like fungicide responses or herbicide efficacy comparisons, that really only need a few years of work before you can begin to draw conclusions. Other agronomic considerations, like crop rotations and tillage practices, require years and years of data to fully capture the value of a particular tactic. Ontario has two long-term… Read More
There are few things that get a farmer’s blood pumping like a field ready for the seeder and shiny new iron to drag across it. With the growing corn and soybean acres in the west, more farmers have adopted row crop planters, and, inevitably, wondered how good a job they would do on other crops…. Read More
It’s one thing to know that you should be scouting for blackleg, sclerotinia, sulphur deficiency and cutworms, for example. It’s another thing entirely to actually scout every field for every pest at the optimal timing during the hectic growing season. What if there was a way to practice insect, disease and nutrient deficiency identification when… Read More
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