There are always certain topics that get people reading, watching, and asking questions. Soil fertility is always on that list. Whether it’s trying to better understand nitrogen loss risk, matching pounds of product to yield potential, anticipating price moves, or evaluating a new product, there’s never a shortage of interest in soil fertility topics. Earlier… Read More
Category: Fertility
Molecules in the air consist of 78 per cent nitrogen. During a lightning storm, the energy of a lightning bolt breaks apart nitrogen molecules, allowing them to form nitrogen oxides. These dissolve in rainwater as nitrates, which fall to the ground with the rain and add nitrogen to soil. Over a decade ago, Joe Lewis,… Read More
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness (OMAFA) is getting ready to update its soil management recommendations for farmers in the province. That job will be in the hands of the Ontario Soil Management Committee (OSMC), a group that’s been around since the late 1980s, and has acted as a gatekeeper of guidelines published… Read More
Phosphorus plays a critical role in early seedling development and is needed throughout the growing season to achieve top yields. Phosphorus is also not mobile in the soil, as it gets held tightly to soil particles. Roots do their best to seek out and mineralize phosphorus, but managing P requires long-term planning. To dive in… Read More
The new year is rocking and rolling in the best way — the opportunities for learning just keep coming! In this week’s episode of Wheat Pete’s Word, host Peter Johnson shares and discusses some of the key questions discussed at the Southwest Ag Conference and more. From early sulphur decisions, to stressing wheat (on purpose?),… Read More
The seeding or planting window is already pressed for time. Manually having to add products into the planter or seed box can slow down progress, but pre-mixing some products, as is the case with some biological products, can decrease efficacy. Indigo Ag has come up with a handy invention that delivers flowable powder biological products… Read More
New technology is top of mind in this week’s episode of Wheat Pete’s Word, hosted by Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson. Between Green Lightning, a plasma technology that essentially is trying to replicate what happens in the atmosphere as lightning strikes to create nitrogen to create N on-farm, and a biological process coming out of Australia… Read More
Phosphorus can sometimes be a tricky macronutrient to manage. Because it is held tightly to soil particles, it’s not prone to losses and can be built up over time. But that same holding capacity of a soil can mean that added phosphorus fertilizer and soil-held P isn’t always readily available to the crop. There are… Read More
Despite an extremely dry September that played havoc with plant establishment, the winter wheat crop across Ontario appears to be packing plenty of yield potential as it heads into the dormant winter months. RealAgriculture agronomist Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson says the crop is not as big as he had hoped — estimates peg it between… Read More
Knowing your soil is critical to understanding a field’s potential and setting realistic yield goals that make economic sense for the 2025 growing season. Heading into a the new year with depressed crop prices, growers will be looking to sharpen their pencils this winter to optimize input investment, including everything from seed and weed control… Read More