Peter Johnson was practically giddy as he walked through wheat fields on a beautiful November day near Woodstock, Ontario. “We’ve got big acreage of wheat and big yield potential. How could Wheat Pete be any happier,” pronounced Real Agriculture’s resident agronomist as he digested the fact that Ontario farmers have planted almost 1 million acres… Read More
Category: Seed
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
Harvest is in the homestretch and it’s time for farmers to start thinking about how the precision agriculture data they’ve accumulated can help build a winning strategy for 2016. In this Corn School episode, AGRIS Co-operative agronomist Dale Cowan looks at how farmers can combine performance data and field observations to diagnose issues that contribute… Read More
This year’s corn crop is barely in the hopper, and it’s already time to make decisions about what to plant next spring as seed companies offer early booking discounts for next year’s acres. Do you decide to go with tried-and-true, or the newest star variety that looked really good in your neighbour’s plots this year? How many acres… Read More
Crop Production Services is releasing a canola variety it says offers the “first true” multigenic resistance to clubroot disease, including the new 5X pathotype found in Alberta. The Proven Seed-brand variety PV 580 GC was formally registered on October 23. “The CPS Canadian Research and Development team has invested heavily in discovering and breeding new… Read More
Words like “excellent” and “great” are being used to describe the 2015 corn crop in the grain corn-growing regions of Western Canada. “I’m almost tempted to say phenomenal, but that sometimes sets high expectations,” says Dieter Schwarz of PRIDE Seeds in this Corn School episode. “We certainly have a great corn crop. Yields are average… Read More
How’s wheat planting coming along? Are you all done? Call 1-888-746-3311 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
RealAgriculture agronomist Peter Johnson is all smiles these days as the warm fall continues to give farmers an opportunity to plant winter wheat into optimum growing conditions. But with bean and soybean harvest progressing rapidly, Johnson says farmers have to be mindful of seeding rates to ensure they’re not creating headaches down the road. “If… Read More
The Canadian Seed Trade Association has launched a new database help easily identify PBR protection on crop varieties registered for sale in Canada. The Crop Varieties Registered in Canada and Plant Breeders’ Rights Status database was created by the CSTA with the assistance of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s Variety Registration Office and the Plant… Read More
Knowing the context in which a plant variety was selected is critical in understanding how it should be managed in the field. As an example, in the video above, Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba explains what happens when cereal crop varieties developed in a conventional breeding system are grown in an organic system, or vice… Read More