Growing farmer interest in planting canola with a planter rather than seeding it with a traditional air drill was evident at Ag Days 2017 in Brandon. The expansion of soybean and corn acres in Western Canada and the Northern Plains is a primary driver, making it easier for canola growers to justify purchasing a planter,… Read More
Category: Agronomy
Taking a break from peas or lentils for six years is a tall order for fields where aphanomyces has been a problem. Are there in-field options or tools for managing this relatively new disease? Syama Chatterton, pulse crops pathologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge, has been conducting field trials across the prairies over the last two… Read More
John Deere 4-Series sprayers created a huge buzz last month at the 2017 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky. Much of the noise centered around Deere’s new carbon fibre spray booms, which debuted at the show. But farmers and ag service providers also found another news story in the cab of the John Deere… Read More
Malt barley has become a specialty crop over the years, grown by farmers who specialize in consistently ‘making malt’. Scott Keller of New Norway, Alta., and Wade McAllister of Innisfail, Alta. are two of those farmers. After participating in a malt barley panel discussion at FarmTech ’17, they dropped by to discuss their not-so-secret formula for… Read More
The Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA) recently announced a return of the Forage Masters Competition. New and improved, revamping of the competition was lead by Don Oliver, OSCIA director for the east central region. A team effort involving input from not just OSCIA directors, members, staff, but also from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and… Read More
To the surprise of possibly few, Peter Johnson has officially been named a nut — a ground nut specialist, in fact. As of right now, Johnson is on his way home from a mission to Zambia, where he was named peanut specialist for the two weeks. What did he learn? If wheat is all about… Read More
What does a unicycle have to do with better pesticide efficacy? If you’re Tom Wolf, co-founder of AgriMetrix and avid unicycler, it’s all about understanding droplets and how different sizes move through a dense crop canopy. Larger droplets tend to move in a straight line, forward or back, but small droplets move with the wind… Read More
Looking to get more road speed out of your tracked combine as you move from field to field? Camso believes it has the solution you’ve been looking for in its new Conversion Track System – CTS High Speed. The system was recently unveiled at the 2017 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky. In this… Read More
Strong, durable and lightweight. Those are the words John Deere is using to describe its new carbon fibre spray booms. John Deere has been working for years on ways to substitute the composite material for the steel and aluminum traditionally used in farm equipment. After years of testing, the new 120- and 132-foot carbon fibre… Read More
If you’ve got cows, you likely do something like this: number of cows x days on feed = tonnes of hay/forage needed. But what if you’ve got land, but no livestock, and want to include perennial forage in rotation? Have you ever sat down and done this: number of acres x tonnes of feed produced… Read More
Can it be? Has #plant17 really started already? Well, for at least a few farmers in the southern climes of Ontario are rolling out to frost seed oats (the temp is in the teens today!), and that’s where we begin this week’s Wheat Pete’s Word. Yes, planting oats in February can work, explains your host Peter… Read More
Case IH wants to help farmers take the guesswork out of turning on headlands. The company says tractor operators can now use its new AccuTurn automatic headland turning technology to navigate hands-free, automatic, repeatable turns for increased productivity and reduced operator fatigue. Case IH unveiled the Advanced Farming Systems (AFS) auto guidance technology last week… Read More
“If it doesn’t impact me, I don’t care…” I have attended many conferences across Canada and nothing gets farmers to fall asleep faster than speeches of the threat (actually, it’s reality) of herbicide resistance. For many farmers, it seems, they either don’t see this as something that impacts them or they don’t think it’s as serious an… Read More
In Western Canada, we have few acre battles that get much attention, but one that intrigues our editorial staff every year is the battle of the canola herbicide tolerance trait race. It really is a three-way cage match that has swings in advantage every year. All three systems have unique characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. So here… Read More
When you look to purchase a new piece of seeding equipment what are your priorities? Is it size, colour, or what is the newest flashiest tech in the marketplace? Do you shop new and used or only one or the other? There are many things to consider. Kickin’ Tires co-hosts Jim Hale and Shaun Haney… Read More