Crop tours earlier this growing season predicted record corn yields in Ontario, and yield monitors and truck traffic confirm the rumour. Across much of the province, farmers are reporting solid to record-breaking yields — even Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson is having to split-weigh his research plots! Commercial growers are harvesting huge volumes of grain and… Read More
Grain storage, when done right and with proper conditions, could be a boring topic. However, we are dealing with the environment here, and well, you know how unpredictable that can be. To help us navigate through the topic of safe grain storage is Lorne Grieger of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI), and Shawn Senko of… Read More
The combines are rolling and as the crops are coming in, storing it is the next piece in the farm management puzzle. How do we take care of a warm crop and what do we need to understand to manage our conditions? Dr. Joy Agnew, from Olds College, has the answers. Don’t miss the RealAg… Read More
From the dreaded aphanomyces (hard to say, harder to control), to the potential of soybeans, fall weed control options, and on to delicious sounding diseases of fabas, Sherrilyn Phelps, agronomy lead for Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, has so much to cover in this week’s RealAg LIVE! segment. Host Shaun Haney and Phelps also discuss some of… Read More
Representative grain sampling is essential, but not always straight forward. How can you ensure the place you are selling to is getting a complete and accurate sample of your entire truck or bin? Ken Jackson saw a need for change in this department and decided it was time for a fully automated sampling system, so… Read More
We’re talking rotation trade-offs in this edition of Wheat Pete’s Word — and, no, not just because your host Peter Johnson loves him some wheat crop. It’s all about year three benefits when looking at a three or four year rotations vs. two-year alternating crop plans, Johnson says, and the results could be as high… Read More
The 2018 Ontario soybean harvest got off to a roaring start in early fall but quickly ground to a halt as poor weather parked combines. In early December, many growers are still struggling to bin their beans. The wet weather has left growers asking how they can manage higher moisture, wet soybeans. Management decisions are… Read More
While corn yields are quite good across much of Ontario, the level of DON — a mycotoxin produced by gibberella infection — in some of the tonnage coming off fields is just too high to easily market the grain. There’s been much frustration over testing procedures at the elevator, questions on crop insurance, and conflicting… Read More
What if you could take a scan of your grain bin and know the condition of each bushel inside that bin? And what if you could do this even if the bin held 500,000 or even a million bushels? Grain Viz has taken technology originally designed for breast cancer research and brought it to the… Read More
Grain Farmers of Ontario plans to purchase grain baggers to assist in “short term storage of corn for farmer-members.” The producer organization, representing Ontario’s 28,000 barley, corn, oat, soybean and wheat farmers, met with Ernie Hardeman, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, late last week to address the high DON corn crisis in Ontario. At the… Read More
It all started in France. One farmer was complaining to another that he was losing as much as 30 percent of his silage due to pests. In this case, the second farmer did more than just sympathize, he started to ponder solutions, and eventually a product was created and a company was born. The company… Read More
Climbing on bins is one of the things that you just have to do if you are a farmer. If you do not have to do it yourself, someone who works for you has to do it. Grain bins have evolved over the years, but the same could not be said for fall protection (safety… Read More
Seed quality from the 2018 harvest was actually quite good, until wet and cold weather stranded crop standing and in the swath. That nasty weather interlude has left many farmers with seed that’s in a rather deep dormancy, and it’s going to take some time to fully evaluate the quality and germination of seed lots… Read More
When you don’t have something nice to say you’re supposed to say nothing at all, but if you’ve ever met Peter ‘Wheat Pete’ Johnson you already know that’s not his style. Besides, the Ontario corn crop is such a mess there’s no way to NOT talk about it. This week’s Wheat Pete’s Word isn’t all… Read More
The 2018 growing season has thrown Ontario farmers more than a few curve balls, including severe drought, but this latest at harvest is likely the toughest to manage. Ontario’s provincial agriculture department has released its annual corn crop toxin survey, and the numbers are not good. A whopping 25% of crop surveyed came in at… Read More