When should you consider switching corn and plant a shorter-season hybrid? That’s a question many growers in some southwestern regions of Ontario are wrestling with as the calendar pushes ever closer to June. Spring weather conditions in many areas of the province have been good and planting is proceeding at a strong pace. However, heavy… Read More
Category: Agronomy
It’s an established fact that seeding depth and plant spacing are critical factors in maximizing yields and uniformity in some crops. That’s why corn and soybeans are planted with planters designed to singulate each seed and place it at a precise depth. Wheat isn’t generally seeded with a planter, but as part of this Wheat… Read More
Spring is off to a roaring start in some areas — for some it’s the roar of a hot, dry wind (hey, Prairies!) and for others it’s the roar of nearly seven inches of rain that fell in two events over a week in southern Ontario. This mid-May edition of Wheat Pete’s Word is a… Read More
By François Tardif Many master gardeners would tell you that to maximize your vegetable yields, rows need to be oriented in a north-south manner. This is supposed to maximize light interception by the crops, which in turn maximizes photosynthesis. In contrast, east-west rows have more shading and this negatively impacts yields. Is the same true… Read More
As the crop gets out of the ground, farmers across Canada look to hit the field and evaluate the start of the 2018 growing season. There are those who make great crop scouts, those who are a little more average, and some pretty poor crop scouts — what sets the great scouts apart? We asked… Read More
Not only do dry soil conditions hamper seed germination, they also raise the risk of fertilizer toxicity for seedlings after they germinate, especially in a sensitive crop like canola. That means rates of fertilizer placed at seeding last year or the year before might not be safe this year, explains Don Flaten, soil scientist at… Read More
Monsanto Canada has announced it plans to finally commercialize its TruFlex canola trait in 2019. TruFlex has been approved in Canada and awaiting Chinese import approval since 2012, along with several other canola traits. It’s not clear what or if anything has changed, but Monsanto now says import approval from China “should be granted in… Read More
In another move towards automation, Claas has unveiled a system for automatic steering of cultivators in row crops. The Culti Cam uses a high-resolution camera to detect rows, and then adjusts the position of the implement, centring it between rows, independent from the tractor’s steering. Using colour and 3D surface information, Claas says the camera software… Read More
It’s not necessarily the happiest of discoveries, but it’s a first-of-its-kind discovery, nonetheless. Work out of the University of Guelph has confirmed Group 14 resistance in waterhemp at multiple locations in Ontario. What’s more, Dr. Peter Sikkema’s research team, including graduate student Lauren Benoit, has also confirmed waterhemp with cross-resistance to Groups 2, 5, and… Read More
In 2013-14, the idea of nitrogen-fixing, non-leguminous crops hit the media big-time. UK-based Azotic Technologies was one of the companies making bold predictions, including that it expected to offer its commercial natural nitrogen-fixing technology, N-Fix, in two to three years. It’s been five. So, where is it? In 2014, we spoke to David Dent, director with… Read More
Two-and-a-half years after acquiring Red Deer-based farm consulting company Agri-Trend, Trimble is changing the way it works with the independent agronomy and grain marketing advisors that make up the Agri-Trend network. The company is focusing on providing its new digital platform to Agri-Trend’s affiliated “coaches,” while no longer offering administrative services, such as pricing and… Read More
What’s the best choice of streamer nozzle? It’s a question RealAgriculture agronomist Peter Johnson is asked countless times every year. Well, here’s the answer. In this episode of the RealAgriculture Wheat School, WheatPete puts on his suit and gloves and heads to the field to show us how three-stream, five-stream and seven-stream nozzles compare. He also… Read More
Planters and drills are starting to roll across much of the country as we enter the second week of May, with concerns about moisture (a lack of moisture in the west, and too much in the east) growing. With the start of the new growing season, it’s time for Farmer Rapid Fire, where we chat… Read More
20/20 Seed Labs is pleased to offer the Sporometrics-designed Spornado to assist with the early detection of crop disease. Originally used in Ontario potato crops and now being rolled out across the prairies, Spornado is a passive spore catcher designed to catch both fusarium graminearum and sclerotinia spores. What can the Spornado detect? The Spornado… Read More
Improved access to technology and sensors for tracking the weather, machinery, and crop development are helping farmers and agronomists with crop management decisions. “The ability to gather and integrate detailed information from growers’ fields, coupled with advances in weather forecasting, rapid processing, predictive modeling, and machine learning, is changing farming from a business that often… Read More