Category: Agronomy

There's a concerning trend in Ontario's soils: organic matter is being depleted. The decrease may seem small — about 0.8% over 12 years — but organic matter is vital to soil's water holding capacity, nutrient-cycling ability, and compaction resiliency, to name just a few roles. What's more, replacing lost soil organic matter is a slow,... Read More

As crop yields and nutrient removal rates continue to increase, many growers wonder whether it’s time to top up fertilizer rates. At the core of the discussion in Ontario is whether critical soil test values for corn and soybeans are still valid and whether they pack the nutrient punch needed to allow new hybrids and... Read More

Manure no-no's, cleaning corn to reduce vomitoxin levels, and trying to rush nature — this week's Wheat Pete's Word is jam-packed with answers to your toughest questions! Peter Johnson kicks of the Word with a discussion on spreading dry vs. liquid manure on snow, and then gets specific on vomi reduction on corn (including why... Read More

Agriculture is big business, but a small industry, if you think about the number of people involved. Within each sector, that number shrinks significantly, and, at times, trying to communicate the needs of one sector can be tough when you're few in number. The seed industry has faced that challenge for quite some time, and,... Read More

Agriculture has been working for decades to convince consumers to embrace the benefits modern science can bring to agriculture and food production. When it comes to technology, such as genetic engineering, much of the challenge with winning public approval can be linked to agribusiness and farming’s inability to establish itself as a trusted source for... Read More

Clarence Swanton has worked for 16 years on a super cool project that takes about 40 minutes to explain properly, as he did at the recent Southwest Agricultural Conference. Perhaps more impactful, however, is the time-lapse video he showed whereby the mere presence of weedy surroundings actually killed a tobacco seedling. Perhaps this makes sense... Read More

The trend higher for soybean acres in Western Canada isn't showing any sign of slowing down heading into the 2017 growing season. Just over 1.6 million acres of soybeans were grown in Manitoba in 2016. "Going into 2017, the early projections are we could see upwards of two million acres of soybeans...a 350,000 acre increase... Read More