Depending on where you farm, between 10% and 21% of Ontario's winter wheat acres went in during the seven day extension granted by AgriCorp last fall. Seeing as the earlier the crop goes in, the higher the yield potential, don't be surprised if 2015 yields aren't stellar. That late planting may also impact stand survivalbility,... Read More
Category: Agronomy
You’ve likely heard it said that we’ve got to stop treating soil like dirt. To take it a step further, Ray Archuleta wants farmers to start thinking about soil as much more than a growing medium and instead consider it a living partner of the farm. Archuleta, a soil-focused agronomist, presented at this year’s SoilSmart... Read More
Crop rotation remains the most powerful tool in the fight against clubroot disease in Western Canadian canola fields, even with new resistant varieties being brought to market. As part of this episode of the Agronomy Geeks West podcast, host Lyndsey Smith caught up with Dr. Stephen Strelkov of the University of Alberta. His work documenting... Read More
If you've noticed increasing levels of northern corn leaf blight in some of your fields, it could be that the hybrids you're planting don't have the right gene to resist infection. That's because the pathogen has evolved to bypass some of the older sources of resistance, says Albert Tenuta, field crop pathologist with the Ontario... Read More
In the cattle industry, interest in new corn varieties stems from a desire to increase efficiency and production, whether utilized as a grain source, ensiled or left standing for winter grazing. Ensiled, corn offers high energy, a key to high milk production. And, although much of a silage's quality is determined by in-field management, harvest... Read More
How can a producer make their farm more resilient and less vulnerable to both economic and climatic stresses? Focus on the health of the soil, says Ray Archuleta, a conservation agronomist with USDA-NRCS in North Carolina (and also known as the “The Soil Guy.”) Archuleta spoke about the “journey to soil health” during his keynote... Read More
Syngenta Canada has announced its first clubroot-resistant canola variety, SY4105, will be available for spring 2015. This variety is the fourth canola variety in Syngenta's portfolio. SY4105 is resistant to common clubroot pathotypes. Certain other pathotypes have been identified in Alberta, and work is ongoing to screen SY4105 against them to determine if it is... Read More
This week marks the third annual Canadian Dairy Xpo at Stratford, Ont., and both Shaun Haney and Bernard Tobin are there capturing the latest in dairy production information. (Watch the site in the next few days as we’ll be posting coverage of the keynote speakers!) Yesterday, Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, Jeff... Read More
As Bill C-18 — The Agricultural Growth Act — makes its way through the parliamentary process, questions linger around what the bill does and doesn’t mean for Canadian farmers. Will the changes to Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights act mean you can you still save seed? Will the adoption of UPOV ’91 make seed more expensive?... Read More
Not only are there environmental benefits to improved soil biology, but there are economic incentives as well, says a farmer from Ohio who spoke about cover crops and a systems approach to microbiology at the SoilSmart conference in Waterloo, Ont., in late January. Jeff Rasawehr joined Bernard Tobin to discuss six steps for establishing healthy... Read More