What do you get when two Canadians descend on the Northern U.S.? Why, a pulses market outlook, of course. This week, Chuck Penner of Leftfield Commodity Research, was a keynote speaker at the Northern Pulse Growers Association AGM. Shaun Haney hosted RealAg Radio from the meeting, and that gave the pair a chance to talk… Read More
Category: Crop Production
It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for another episode of Wheat Pete’s Word! It’s also Bell Let’s Talk Day, a day designed to raise awareness about mental health and taking care of it. Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson is a fan of doing that year-round, of course, with his Wheat Pete’s 15. Once you’ve done… Read More
Biologicals hold great promise for improving crop production. From increasing root activity, soil microbes, and nutrient availability to building plant resiliency to abiotic stresses — this emerging crop input segment is bursting with product choices. But for farmers, selecting which product and application is right for their acres can be a daunting and confusing task…. Read More
Cover crops are not magic. It’s important to first understand the goal of using a cover crop and then measuring up each species and season to see if it’s a match. Farmers from east to west are using cover crops to accomplish several things: reducing erosion, cycling nutrients, fixing nitrogen, and fighting weeds, but that… Read More
The nitrogen fertilizer market is expected to remain firm heading into the ’24 planting season thanks to several global supply/demand factors, according to ADM Fertilizer’s Saskatchewan-based urea product line manager. With natural gas prices in Europe having dropped precipitously from their highs in 2022, the nitrogen market has turned its attention elsewhere, explains Noah Bishop,… Read More
Farmers Edge has entered into an agreement with its largest shareholder to take the company private, pending approval from other shareholders. The deal would see a subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings, which owns approximately 61 per cent of the common shares in the digital agriculture company, purchase the remaining shares for a price of C$0.35… Read More
Sweat the details and practice, practice, practice. It may sound like gridiron football strategy but it will also make farmers winners in the battle to improve soil health, says North Dakota-based independent agronomist and crop consultant Lee Briese. When it comes to improving soil health there are plenty of fixes — from reducing tillage to… Read More
Helping farmers prep soil and seed crops in small spring planting windows is the driving force behind a new harrow and seeder combination for Kuhn. In this report from Agritechnica, Kuhn product line manager David Hild explains how European farmers who fall plow typically utilize two separate machines — a power harrow followed by a… Read More
New Holland is redesigning and restyling its line of forage harvesters. Up front, farmers will notice a renewed version of New Holland’s UltraFeed grass pickup on its range of FR forage harvesters for 2024. The UltraFeed will be available in working widths of 3.o, 3.5 and 4.0 metres. In this interview from Agritechnica, Laurent Libbrecht,… Read More
Leaf twisting, burning, cupping, or crinkling — those are just some of the signs that a crop may be suffering from herbicide injury. Why do herbicides cause crop injury? University of Guelph weed researcher Dr. Peter Sikkema says injury causes can be classified into seven basic categories. That list includes extreme weather, unique or variable… Read More
There’s never going to be a one-size-fits all recipe for top wheat yields — too much depends on fertility, soil conditions, and weather. That said, there are some practices that year in and year out are part of a successful stand. Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson says that the Great Lakes YEN project has helped to… Read More
Winter is making itself known across all of Canada this week, after a polar vortex descended on Alberta, all the way to Ontario getting hit with snow, wind, and cold temps (for Ontario, mind you). That sparked some questions on fall-seeded crop survival, including canola, alfalfa, and wheat, which host Peter ‘Wheat Pete’ Johnson answers… Read More
It’s taken a few years, but John Deere has quickly evolved its See & Spray technology, moving from broadcast and targeted spraying of fallow ground to weed identification and targeted spraying in-crop. In this report from Agritechnica, Deere product marketing manager Solenne Bourgeois discusses how the company has combined its ExactApply system with camera technology… Read More
When it comes to herbicides, the power to kill weeds and protect crops rests with the active ingredient. But how products are formulated can determine whether an effective active can be a winner or a loser in the field. “Quite frankly, there are active ingredients out there that wouldn’t be a product if not for… Read More
Canola is an elastic, amazingly resilient plant, but it starts as a very tiny seed and emerges under threat of certain death by very hungry flea beetles. Setting up this crop for great yield is the typical combination of establishment, nutrition, and crop protection, but in this episode of The Agronomists, we dig in to… Read More