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Traditionally, when the soil is fit for planting, growers fill the planter with corn seed and start to roll. But is it time to rethink that time-honoured approach? Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) soybean specialist Horst Bohner believes so. He says there’s plenty of evidence to suggest early-planted soybeans deliver a… Read More
As the 2019 planting season draws near there’s one thing we know for sure — it will be different from last year. That’s just the way things go, of course, but there are lessons from last year that growers can take to the field for 2019. The first thing growers need to be mindful of… Read More
Will strip tillage find a home in Ontario soybean fields? AGRIS Co-operative agronomist Dale Cowan certainly believes there’s a fit. Last June on RealAgriculture Soybean School we visited Cowan in a field of strip tilled soybeans near Mount Brydges, Ont., where Cowan’s brother, Larry and Larry’s son, Chris, of Chimo Farms, had created an integrated strip till program… Read More
Look through many soybean seed catalogues and you’ll find an ‘LL’ in the trait category surrounded by a plethora of ‘RR2Y’ and ‘RR2Xtend’ abbreviations, noting the last two versions of Roundup Ready seed technology. The number of Liberty Link (LL) herbicide system varieties are few compared to the massive Roundup Ready seed footprint, but the technology… Read More
The theoretical yield of soybeans varies depending on who you talk to, but by all accounts the oilseed should be able to top 300 bushels per acre. For growers who deal with the reality of growing the crop in Ontario, a more realistic target is 80 bu/ac, says Syngenta agronomist Eric Richter. With the 2018… Read More
Should you plant soybeans before corn? The answer is yes if you’re a believer in big data and its ability to help you make better farm management decisions. Earlier this month at the SouthWest Agricultural Conference at Ridgetown, Ont., University of Wisconsin-Madison soybean extension specialist Shaun Conley made his pitch to have farmers put corn on… Read More
2018 was a difficult year for soybean markets. The U.S.-China trade war triggered a $2.00-$2.50 per bushel reduction in the futures market and neither side appears willing to relent in their sanction tug-of-war. In RealAgriculture’s final Soybean School episode of the 2018 season, we asked ag economist, market commentator, and farmer Philip Shaw for his take… Read More
The 2018 Ontario soybean crop is one for the record books, but you never would have predicted that back in July when much of the crop was desperate for rain. Not only did the 2018 Ontario crop set a record yield average at 54 bu/ac, it smashed the previous record of 48.3 set in 2012… Read More
The 2018 Ontario soybean harvest got off to a roaring start in early fall but quickly ground to a halt as poor weather parked combines. In early December, many growers are still struggling to bin their beans. The wet weather has left growers asking how they can manage higher moisture, wet soybeans. Management decisions are… Read More
Farmers are planting too much soybean seed. That’s a conviction agronomist Pat Lynch is firm on. “What we’re doing is determining the population based on the poor parts of the field because we don’t want to have these thin spots.” says Lynch. While high seeding rates help populate under-performing areas of the field, they produce… Read More
Ontario ministry of agriculture weed specialist Mike Cowbrough says it’s easy to pick on a herbicide when it doesn’t meet your weed control expectations. Unfortunately, he says, most growers don’t often have an opportunity to compare herbicide programs in their own field using check strips or unsprayed areas to test performance. But Cowbrough does have… Read More
The concept of ‘flex’ corn hybrids has been talked about in seed circles for several years. The idea is quite simple: these corn hybrids have the ability to flex and create larger ears with more girth at lower populations. They produce higher yields when planted in the 28,000 seeds per acre range. The idea of… Read More
Soybeans are most often grown places that get abundant rain, particularly in August. This usually happens in southern Manitoba, so an unusual problem is emerging there: soybeans are drying down, but staying green. In this episode of the Soybean School, RealAgriculture’s Dale Leftwich talks to Glenda Clezy, regional grow team advisor with Federated Co-op, about soybeans… Read More
Pre-harvest is actually a great time to get a handle on tough-to-kill weeds in the soybean crop or ahead of next year’s crop. But fall weed control takes a careful mix of planning, timing, and proper product selection or tank-mixing. For those of you with weed escapes or poor control as a hangover from this… Read More
When glyphosate-tolerant soybeans made their appearance on the Prairies people were very excited about the crop and the potential for good weed control. It turned out, though, that there was one fly in the ointment, and that was volunteer glyphosate-tolerant canola. Although early attempts at soybeans sometimes looked more like canola fields, there are some… Read More