With the Western Canadian winter wheat harvest about to begin, extra attention needs to be paid to harvest timing. When to swath, when to straight cut and when to combine are integral decisions to your profitability. The biggest threat to your harvest tends to be the weather. Wet weather can greatly impact quality if you… Read More
Getting your winter wheat off the field as quickly as possible is extremely important if you are looking to maintain quality. The longer that crop remains in the field exposed to the elements, the greater the chances are that germ, vigour and overall grade quality can be negatively impacted. That’s were combine efficiency comes into… Read More
This is the first episode of a new segment here at RealAgriculture we call ” Why Should I Buy It?”. In this new series we give manufacturers two minutes or less to tell us why we should buy their product. The first product we take aim at is combines. At the Canola Council of Canada’s… Read More
Can agriculture help to mitigate the effects of climate change while protecting biodiversity and maintaining profitability? That is what Dr Pam Berry refers to as the triple win scenario. Dr Berry is with the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University in England. She realizes that these opportunities are rare, but she also notes that it… Read More
By Holly Gelech, Biovision Seed Labs The 12th International Symposium on Pre-Harvest Sprouting in Cereals was hosted the week of July 24th in Red Deer, Alberta and was attended by 60 participants from all regions of the globe. The 35 speakers, who originated from Australia, China, Japan, United Kingdom, Africa, Canada and many others countries,… Read More
It’s been a tough year for farmers here in Ontario. As a sopping wet spring lead its way into a dry, hot summer, things aren’t looking overly optimistic for the upcoming harvest. Corn and soybean fields across the province are hugely variable in terms of development and stand but where we find variability we also… Read More
Test weights on wheat are down below average in parts of Ontario. Compared to this time last year, yields by test weight alone are down by as much as 10% in areas. There are a couple of reasons behind this. The first involves under-filled kernels from plants surrounding dead zones in the field being… Read More
Wheat is an important crop globally. From a food production standpoint, with regards to rotation on the farm and from an economic standpoint, wheat is “key” crop worldwide. The biotech industry has taken notice of this, and a great deal of new interest has been invested into wheat. Companies like Syngenta have expanded their efforts… Read More
Anyone who grows malt barley knows the number of specifications it has to meet in order to be acceptable. There are some years where those specifications can prove very frustrating to growers. When that barley doesn’t meet specifications, one of the areas that gets the blame is variety, the grain company or the CWB. After… Read More
Corn is a plant that likes heat, but how much is too much? When you get into a situation where later planted corn is involved, that heat has to be balanced with the crops ability to access water. In less mature corn, that root structure may not be able to access. Parts of Ontario are… Read More
A big part of a successful pest control strategy depends on pests behaving in a certain way and us basing our control measures on that. When an insect pest deviates from typical behaviour, it can in some cases, negate any control strategy we implement based on that behaviour. Things like emergence patterns, feeding habits,… Read More
This episode of the Wheat School can be summarized as a bit of a fusarium clinic. Peter Johnson, Cereal Specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs gives us a first hand look at the difference in resistance between older wheat varieties and some of the newer generations. Here we get confirmation… Read More
By Ken Coles, FarmingSmarter.com In July I attended the Precision Ag Conference in Springfield, Illinois. I though in my first blog post I would cover my thoughts and observations at the conference. Day 1 Last week Brent Nicol and I attended the infoag, precision ag conference in Springfield, Illinois. (www.infoag.org). Not being a seasoned… Read More
A number of industry partners came together in Lacombe, Alberta in an effort to promote winter wheat production as a good choice for producers from both an economic and an environmental perspective. Bayer CropScience, Agrium and the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission have partnered with Ducks Unlimited Canada in an effort to help in conservation… Read More
While giving a presentation this week at the Canadian Seed Growers meeting in Hamilton I talked about the critical role that mobile plays in the deployment of social media on the farm. A very bright young seed grower friend of mine asked some very interesting questions during the panel discussion. Eric’s thoughts were, “Every time… Read More
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