There is pressure building in the halls of Washington to rescind the mandatory ethanol mandates. With tightening supplies of corn creating higher feed prices for livestock producers and higher food costs for consumers, the pressure mounting in Washington is real. To this point though, according to Kevin Grier of the George Morris Center, nothing has changed. Kevin believes that… Read More
Category: Corn
There has been a lot of talk about the impact of the drought on the Ontario corn crop, but the fact is that not all of the Ontario crop was hit by the extremely dry conditions. Some areas of Ontario actually received timely rains that, coupled with the high temperatures, will look to give producers… Read More
Syngenta recently received Canadian regulatory approval for Agrisure Viptera 3220 E-Z Refuge trait stack in corn. The Agrisure Viptera 3220 trait stack offers dual modes of action for control of multiple lepidopteran pests, such as black cutworm, western bean cutworm and fall armyworm, and corn borer. Each bag contains 95% seed of a corn hybrid… Read More
This week Ray Prock (California Dairy farmer), Kelly Rivard (farm blogger), Jim Doolittle (agronomist), and Michael Yezzi (pig farmer) participated in a segment on Huffington Post Live discussing the US corn drought of 2012. See the segment here. Besides the fact that the host pronounces bushels incorrectly the segment is a really good first hand account of how bad… Read More
A little trouble now may help you deal with a lot of trouble down the line. That’s exactly what happened when corn in Ontario went through a dry spell in late May and early June. That dry period caused corn in those fields to develop deep and dense roots. Fast forward now to the six-week… Read More
One of the key components involved in cultivating a 300-plus bushel corn crop is establishing a good, uniform stand. Unfortunately for producers in drought affected regions of Ontario, those conditions have taken their toll in that area. Despite an early season that helped to foster good root development, stress from hot and dry conditions kept… Read More
The last six weeks have been extremely dry throughout parts of Ontario. Crops across the board have suffered as hopes for bumper yields have been deflated by the stress of prolonged hot and dry conditions. Corn in particular started with a great deal of promise, but now sits in a grey area as to how… Read More
The US drought is causing much concern for farmers and the impending impact on food prices in the next 12 months. It can be difficult to sometimes get a handle on how bad this year is in comparison. Its always easy to say, “this is bad but nothing like 88 or 34.” Sometimes a graphic… Read More
The Ontario corn crop was really off to the races. There was optimal planting dates, early timely rains and the crop looked fantastic. And then KABOOM!!!!! The Ontario corn crop is now subject to some of the same stresses as its US counterpart. Dry hot weather has really impacted the Ontario corn crop moving the… Read More
The US drought is capturing the attention of many people. One of the groups that is majorly impacted by the drought but has been lost in this meteorological drama is the beef industry. The US drought is playing a major role in the decision making of some beef producers and feedyards heading into the fall… Read More
With the current drought devastating the US corn crop, some seed companies are already concerned about seed supplies in 2013. At the Canadian Seed Trade Association annual meeting this week two seed companies mentioned to me that a bad scenario is possible for supplies this coming winter. A chain of events has led us to… Read More
With recent dry conditions slowly sapping the potential from the Ontario corn crop, producers want to protect their corn in any way they can. Leaf disease on top of heat stress can add insult to injury taking even more of your yield potential. A well timed fungicide application, when it makes good economic sense, can… Read More
Today a twitter friend of mine, Brian Scott was featured on CNN. CNN visited his Indiana farm to have a closer look at the corn crop and the impact that the drought will have on farm incomes and food prices for consumers. There is definitely some ugly looking corn in this footage. If you cannot… Read More
With the recent very dry conditions, the Ontario corn crop has quickly moved from one of very high expectations to begging for water. This week while I was at the Canadian Seed Trade Meeting (CSTA) in Charlottetown many of the seed companies relayed the message to me that the majority of the province needs rain badly in the next… Read More
So much time and effort is put into pushing corn to it’s full potential. We try so hard to manage areas that are partially out of our control that when we see something like herbicide injury in our crop, it can feel a little bit like we shot the puck into our own net. Sometimes… Read More