Category: Podcasts

As the snow finally melts in Ontario, cash crop farmers have a lot to do in a short window. There’s still plenty of corn out there and lots of unfinished tillage work. In this episode of the Ontario Agronomy Geeks podcast, Bernard Tobin talks strategy with agronomist Mervyn Erb of Agri-Solve Inc. — what should… Read More

As evolution should dictate, there are substantial benefits to social behaviour in animals, provided that behaviour increases their fitness (or likelihood to reproduce). We see unique social behaviour in many species, including ourselves and our bovine counterparts. In cattle, social behaviours range from grooming to bonding, and witnessed accounts of cows protecting their young and… Read More

Adopting warm season crops,  like corn, in cool season areas, like Western Canada, takes time, patience and adaptation. The first crucial step is access to shorter season varieties, which we’ve got, but from there the nutrient/pest/harvest management trial and error learning has to follow. Hear & download more Agronomy Geeks podcasts by clicking here Grain… Read More

Contrary to what it looks like outside my window right now, it is officially spring. Eventually the snow will recede and the warmth will return and the ice and frost will disappear just long enough to eek out another crop from the prairie soil (apparently I wax poetic after 5 full months of winter). When… Read More

What costs the canola crop the most in yield each year? Lack of fertility? Harvest losses? Spoilage in storage? Swath timing? The question isn’t actually entirely fair, as we can’t necessarily answer this question precisely, but we can most certainly start to stack up the evidence to support or refute each of these management areas’… Read More

Farmers love to grow corn, that much we know. But there’s a limit to how far love will take you when prices are low and land prices are sky-high. As farmers get antsy for spring planting to begin, talk inevitably turns to what will go in the ground this year. Not all the planned winter… Read More

If it’s late May and your winter wheat crop is awake and starting to look good so you figure it’s time to top up the nitrogen, you’ve already missed the ideal window for a spring application. Plus, if you didn’t take care of winter annuals last fall, those tiny seedlings that over wintered took off… Read More

Its the beginning of February which means it is time for the annual National Cattleman’s Beef Association (NCBA) meeting.  With the cash market higher and feed prices lower than a year ago, cattle producers are seeing some strong margins and reasons for putting increased cattle on feed. Shaun Haney and Anne Wasko discuss the meeting… Read More

Farmers in Manitoba know the symptoms of fusarium head blight all too well — bleaching of the grain head, sometimes with a pink tinge, that results in shriveled and shrunk kernels. Sometimes called scab or tombstone, fusarium head blight not only bites into yield, it’s also a downgrading factor of grain. Grain with fusarium damaged… Read More

As Ontario farmers get home from Southwest Ag Conference and FarmSmart, everyone is probably getting itchy for spring. The only thing maybe holding us back is the horrible snow storms that we have been getting. Planting does seem far away but like always at this time of year it is closer than we think. In… Read More