If farmers want to supersize their corn yields, they have to challenge conventional thinking and become students of the crop. That was the main message National Corn Growers Association yield contest champion Randy Dowdy shared with hundreds of farmers at the 2016 SouthWest Agricultural Conference in Ridgetown, Ontario earlier this week. In 2014, Dowdy set… Read more »
Category: Seed Treatment
Wheat Pete’s Word, Nov 19: High Input Corn Yields, Silage Pricing & Bonus Fall Weather
Wow, what a fall. The warm, dry weather has been great for Ontario’s wheat crop, as Peter Johnson (aka “Wheat Pete”) highlights in this week’s Word. From there, our resident agronomist at RealAg gets into high input corn yield results, late nitrogen application in corn, N credits from clover and pricing dairy silage on feed… Read more »
Wheat Pete’s Word, Nov 13: Ontario Wheat Acres, Disease in Ultra-Early Fields & Late N Results in Corn
This week’s Word begins with a Remembrance Day reminder from Peter Johnson, resident agronomist for RealAgriculture and host of this weekly podcast. From there, Wheat Pete gets into everything from ensuring your farm is a safe place to work to winter wheat acres in Ontario to nitrogen credits from working down an alfalfa crop. Have a… Read more »
Standing on Principle, Neonic Court Battle Will Continue, says GFO Chair
Ontario Grain Farmers lost the first round of its court battle to contest the province’s new seed treatment regulations, but the fight will continue. “At the end of the day this has always been a fight on principle,” says GFO Chair Mark Brock. “I don’t think we want to tuck tail and run because we got… Read more »
GFO Appealing Court Decision on Seed Treatment Regulations
Grain Farmers of Ontario has decided to appeal the Ontario Superior Court decision denying its request for a stay of the province’s new seed treatment regulations, which limit the use of neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seed. GFO submitted a motion to the Ontario Divisional Court on November 3 to have the request reviewed. The organization… Read more »
Wheat Pete’s Word — Special Edition, Oct 21: Throwing Stones, Armageddon and Ontario’s Neonicotinoid Regulations
“It’s a true lesson for all of agriculture,” says Peter Johnson in this week’s special edition of Wheat Pete’s Word. “When we start throwing stones at each other, all we do is a disservice to the whole industry…” In this episode of Wheat Pete’s Word, host Peter Johnson catches us all up to speed on… Read more »
Fortenza on its way to Ontario for the 2016 Growing Season
Last November, Syngenta announced the registration of Fortenza, a seed treatment for early-season cutworm control in canola. This year, the company received the go-ahead to use the same product for corn. Fortenza contains the active ingredient cyantraniliprole, a group 28 (diamide) insecticide, that moves through the xylem systems of the plant, controlling insects largely though ingestion…. Read more »
Wheat Pete’s Word, Oct 7 — Soybean Yields, Dwarf Bunt and the Bad Boys Club
How’s wheat planting coming along? Are you all done? Call 1-844-540-2014 or tweet @WheatPete to leave your feedback and questions for Wheat Pete! In this instalment of Wheat Pete’s Word, resident agronomist and host Peter Johnson covers a long list of topics, including what wheat plant populations should look like in fields that have already emerged… Read more »
Soybean School: New Tool to Fight the “Billion-Dollar Pest”
Heterodera glycines or soybean cyst nematode (SCN) was first identified in Ontario in 1987, after over 30 years in North America. It’s original introduction is believed to have occured in the late 1800s, when settlers brought soil from Asia to supply the proper bacteria for soybean root nodulation. “Of the ten major diseases of soybeans… Read more »
Crop Inputs You Can’t See — The Coming Wave of Microbe-Based Products
What does every farmer want out of a crop? Yield and profitability. From variety selection, to fertilizer rates, and crop protection products, farmers are always looking for new ways to stack the deck in their favour. Of course, the best laid plans can be thwarted by a cold, wet spring, or dry weather and drought…. Read more »
Neonic Suspension Seen Reducing Canola Yields and Acres in the EU
It’s been over a year and a half since the European Commission restricted the use of neonicotinoid insecticides across the EU in an attempt to help bee populations, an approach that the Ontario government is in many ways emulating with its new neonic seed treatment regulations for corn and soybeans. The impact the suspension has… Read more »
Pulse School: Disease Control in a Dry Year
Pulse growers have some decisions to make regarding fungicide applications this summer. On one hand, dry conditions generally translate into lower disease pressure, but on the other hand, peas and lentils are in relatively good shape compared to some other crops affected by the dryness across much of Western Canada. Add the fact they’re selling for decent prices, and they might… Read more »
Syngenta Announces New Biological SCN Seed Treatment
Syngenta Canada Inc. has announced the registration and launch of Clariva pn seed treatment, a biological seed treatment for the management of soybean cyst nematode (SCN). Clariva pn works by reducing SCN feeding and reproduction, a “targeted, direct and proven solution,” to the pest, says Nathan Klages, seedcare and inoculants product lead with Syngenta Canada…. Read more »
Soybean School West: Checking for Root Rots and Seedling Diseases
Poor emergence or damping off of young soybean plants can be a sign of a seedling disease or root rot problem, especially following cool, wet weather as experienced in much of the soybean growing part of Western Canada this spring. As Holly Derksen, plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, explains in this Soybean School West episode, there are… Read more »
Under the Microscope: Could Aphanomyces Be Lurking in Your Field?
While this growing season may have some pulse growers wishing Mother Nature would turn the water taps on, the past few seasons have been tough on pulse crops when it comes to root rots and seedling diseases. Particularly in 2013, farmers were stumped by pea fields hard-hit by “wet feet.” Turns out, there was a… Read more »