If you’re still seeding wheat by “about two bushels per acre”, it’s time to revisit your seeding strategy. Not only does the old bushels per acre rule-of-thumb not take into account a targeted plant population (the cornerstone of the crop year), it also ignores seed lot differences of size and weight. While varieties may perform… Read More
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Herbicide spray drift gets all the attention, and for good reason — the impacts are visual and nearly immediate. Does that mean drift doesn’t occur with other products? Absolutely not. It also doesn’t mean it’s OK to skip steps to minimize drift of fungicides or insecticides. The reasons for doing so are financial, agronomic, environmental… Read More
If you’ve been talking to your neighbours about spraying, chances are you’ve heard that double nozzles are one way of increasing the number of droplets sprayed. Not necessarily, says spray application specialist Tom Wolf. “The unstated assumption behind that is that droplets are getting smaller when you have two nozzles instead of one,” Wolf says…. Read More
When it comes to spraying, earlier in the day is always better, right? Well, no. And that’s because of a often misunderstood or unknown atmospheric condition known as an inversion. Inversions happen in the absence of sunlight, and can cause disastrous spray drift issues if farmers are spraying in them. It’s not a simple concept… Read More
With high fusarium levels threatening the quality of this year’s wheat crop, Peter Johnson, cereal specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, is urging farmers to take the grain off early so as to minimize the growth and spread of the disease. That’s all good and well, say farmers, but the crop is… Read More
In recent years, wheat midge has caused yield losses to fields across the prairie provinces, and has been blamed for wheat quality losses as well, including: aborted kernels, feeding lines and bran rupturing. So we know wheat midge is a significant pest, but did you have any idea that once anthers are present, the plant is no… Read More
When it comes to marketing your hard red winter wheat, quality is the name of the game. That means protein. Increasing that protein in your wheat predominantly means nitrogen management. SEE MORE WHEAT SCHOOL EPISODES. In this episode of the Wheat School, Peter Johnson joins us to talk about the relationship between nitrogen and protein… Read More
Manitoba has the not-so-great distinction of being the fusarium hot spot of the Canadian Prairies. This year, ample moisture and recent heat have combined to create a high-humidity soup pot of fusarium head blight growth and spread. Farmers in other provinces need to be on the look out as well, as the disease spreads west…. Read More
Fusarium head blight, or tombstone blight, is slowly moving west, and growers in regions not traditionally accustomed to fusarium are beginning to see premature bleaching/blighting of wheat heads and shriveled seeds caused by the pathogen. Fusarium doesn’t just affect the grade and yield of a wheat field, it may also contaminate wheat kernels with mycotoxins… Read More
Rust in cereals, and especially stripe rust, is a disease that it can be easy to allow to drop off the radar. After all, the spores are carried by wind and may not reach your growing region in time to really cause an issue. What’s more, decent varietal resistance exists for many races of rust,… Read More
With a tight spray window and lots of ground to cover, farmers are always on the hunt for ways to cover more acres in a day. In a pinch, many will simply go faster, and, while that does work, it’s not without increased risks or potential reduced product efficacy. Instead, Tom Wolf, sprayer specialist and… Read More
When considering tank mixes, whether in-crop or pre-seed, most farmers spend most of their time ensuring the products will control what they’re targeting and if there are any re-cropping restrictions. Rightly so, as these are the two most important factors, however how much thought do you give to the water volume and nozzle selection when… Read More
Regardless of the disease pressure mix on your farm, maintaining a disease-free flag and penultimate leaf is a key means of ensuring max wheat yield. Early season leaf disease can seem benign enough, but in the right conditions diseases like tan spot and septoria can move up through the canopy quickly and eventually begin compromising… Read More
You’ve gone out to check fields. Last week’s herbicide application should be in full force, but when you get out to the field, targeted weeds aren’t showing the signs they should, or the crop looks sickly or both. Was this product failure or human error? Both or neither? Spraying pesticides — be they insecticides, fungicides… Read More
As wheat heads first emerge from the boot, the clock starts ticking — from fully emerged you’ve got about six days to protect the head from the dreaded fusarium head blight. Farmers should target a fungicide application to coincide with heads on 75% of plants at around Day 2 to Day 4. Not sure what… Read More