Every conversation on soil health these days eventually comes around to the topic of organic matter. Does it really matter? What percentage should farmers have in their soil? How do you conserve organic matter? How do you build it? On this episode of Soil School, Bernard Tobin and University of Minnesota soil extension specialist Jodi... Read More
Category: Soil Compaction
When it comes to gauging the success of management decisions, it's important to run more than one replication in a trial -- observing differences is a great way to decide on what might deserve a closer look next year. In this week's Wheat Pete's Word, host Peter Johnson shares some of the plot results that... Read More
It's time for our premiere episode of The Agronomists! This hour long, prime-time live show will run every Monday evening and be full of commentary, insight, and likely a few laughs. For this first episode, we kick things off with Peter "Wheat Pete" Johnson, RealAgriculture agronomist, and Marla Riekman, soil specialist with Manitoba Agriculture and... Read More
Soil management, soil structure, and soil health have all become incredibly important topics in all crop and pasture planning conversations. Many of those conversations centre on one particularly complicated topic: carbon. What is it? How do we add it to soil? How do we keep it there? If there's one person who can at least... Read More
Whenever the RealAg team gets to visit Agritechnica in Germany, central tire inflation system technologies seem to be everywhere. It's not as common over on this continent, and there's a lot of discussion surrounding the "why not" of having it. However, our resident agronomist Peter "Whete Pete" Johnson recently found some evidence of the positives... Read More
Soil compaction is always going to be a hot topic following a trying harvest season. That holds true for much of the eastern Prairies and northern U.S. states this spring. Aaron Daigh, assistant professor of Soil Physics at North Dakota State University says that the 2019 growing season started off wet in the spring, which... Read More
Agronomically speaking, soil compaction is — and should be —at the forefront of farmers' minds. RealAgriculture's resident agronomist Peter "Wheat Pete" Johnson isn't new to speaking on or dealing with the topic, but as the years go on, there seems to be more solutions to dealing with compaction as we understand it more. The need... Read More
While eastern Ontario is expected up to 50 cm of snow over the next few days, other parts of the province are starting to tap maple trees and get the frost-seeding equipment ready. It may be the last week of February, but there's some serious spring fever happening all over the country! In the west,... Read More
For years, Tim Williams has dutifully planted crops to the edge of the trees and bush that line the fields he farms near Petrolia, Ont. Every year, he looks at his yield maps to see the same red line indicating no crop yield in these areas that hug the bush and woodlots. But today there... Read More
Five years ago, Carl Brubacher decided it was time to change how he manages soil on his Arthur, Ont., hog and grain farm. With highly variable soil ranging from sand to heavy clay, he was determined to improve soil health and make the farm more sustainable. In this premiere episode of RealAgriculture's Soil School, sponsored... Read More