After wreaking havoc in the U.S. and parts of Ontario, herbicide-resistant waterhemp has arrived on the scene on the eastern side of the Canadian Prairies. Patches of the prolific weed — a cousin to Palmer amaranth — were found in multiple fields in five municipalities in Manitoba last year. In one case, over 30 acres… Read More
Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency has announced it is cancelling the registration of strychnine for the control of Richardson’s ground squirrels, commonly referred to as gophers. The PMRA says “an evaluation of available scientific information has not shown that risks to the environment are acceptable when strychnine is used according to the current conditions… Read More
Looking for the latest information on a leaf disease invading your farm fields? Want to know how fungicides recommended for control or suppression stack up? Farmers and crop advisors will find all this and more when they visit cropprotectionnetwork.org, says University of Kentucky plant pathologist Carl Bradley. The Crop Protection Network (CPN) is a multi-state… Read More
There are three key insect pests of field crops for Manitoba farmers to keep an eye out for this year, says John Gavloski, extension entomologist with Manitoba Agriculture. And the message you should walk away with, regardless of what crops you’re growing? Scout early, and scout often. Continues below video player. Flea beetles While there… Read More
If you’ve ever adopted a new way of doing things after attending a field day or conference, do you let the researcher or extension staff know? Sometimes, research can be a rather thankless job, and many researchers don’t hear back on their work being applied on-farm. Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson came across just such an… Read More
One of the questions that come up this time of the year, when it comes to the growing season, is — what do the pest forecasts look like for 2020? Boyd Mori, assistant professor in agricultural entomology, at the University of Alberta, was at FarmTech in Edmonton, Alta, and broke down the top 5 insects in… Read More
Are you farming year-to-year, or looking five, 10, or even 20 years out? Edgar Hammermeister, with Western Ag Professional Agronomy, says that solid, long-term crop planning is one key piece of the long-term viability puzzle of any farm, but one that often gets dropped when short-term economics or challenges arise. For Hammermeister, long-term crop planning… Read More
If you were farming on the western Canadian Prairies in 2019, you’ll most likely shudder at the thought of flea beetles, knowing how rampant they ran throughout the spring. Syngenta recently rolled out a new flea beetle option for seed treatments in Western Canada, called Fortenza Advanced, that has the active ingredients sulfoxaflor and cyantraniliprole…. Read More
In 2015, Willard Jack was gearing up to tackle herbicide resistant Canada fleabane on his Belzoni, Mississippi farm. Five years later, that weed is just an afterthought as Jack is fully engaged in a fight with a much tougher resistant weed “monster” — Palmer amaranth. At the SouthWest Agricultural Conference (SWAC) last week at Ridgetown,… Read More
Alberta’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has come out with its grasshopper outlook for the upcoming farming season, and indications are that populations could put serious pressure on growing crops. The 2020 grasshopper forecast map is based on adult grasshopper counts conducted in early August 2019 by participating agriculture fieldmen across the province. This year’s… Read More
With spring less than three months away, Nufarm Agriculture Inc. has unveiled its new post-emergent grass weed herbicide — Epic. The product contains pinoxaden, for spring wheat, durum wheat, and barley, and can be used as an option for the selective control of wild oats, green and yellow foxtail, Persian darnel, volunteer oats, volunteer canary… Read More
It’s a new year, and we’re back with the first Wheat Pete’s Word of the decade! Peter Johnson, host of Wheat Pete’s Word, says that although we are only eight days in, 2020 is already roaring ahead steadily. The mantra for 2020 according to Wheat Pete is “perfect vision.” If we can see clearly, we’ll… Read More
The Food and Agriculture Organizations (FAO) of the United Nations has declared 2020 the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH), and it’s looking for relevant human-interest stories. Calling it a once in a lifetime opportunity to “raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect biodiversity and the environment,… Read More
Changing weather patterns played havoc with corn planting and harvest in 2019 and they also affected insect cycles and how pests impacted the crop. Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs entomologist Tracey Baute notes that the cold, wet spring had a big impact on western bean cutworm (WBC). A significant reduction in early-season… Read More
A new soybean pest has hit the radar screen, and it could be a threat to soybean growers across Canada. Gall midge was first detected in Nebraska in 2011 and has since been confirmed in Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. On this episode of RealAgriculture’s Soybean School, OMAFRA entomologist Tracey Baute explains that the midge… Read More