A better understanding of soil properties like electrical conductivity, organic matter and pH levels can go a long way in precision agriculture applications. As Veris Technologies president Eric Lund explains in the following video, mapping these properties is useful in variable rate fertilizer application, as well as for site-specific management when seeding, applying lime or... Read More
Category: Agronomy
The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) will receive $735,000 under Growing Forward 2 for new equipment to support applied research projects for the agricultural sector, it was recently announced. Every year, PAMI conducts about 100 projects in Manitoba and Saskatchewan to address challenges in the agricultural sector, in areas such as equipment design, agronomy and... Read More
With canola swathing underway across Western Canada, now is the time for growers to assess the toll that diseases have taken on the crop. The “what to look for” list at this time includes the main suspects: blackleg, sclerotinia and clubroot. In this episode of the Canola School, Keith Gabert of the Canola Council of... Read More
UPDATE: Brian Hall, of OMAFRA, says lab test confirms the primary disease is bacterial brown spot, a disease that has never been found in Ontario before. It is affecting azuki beans only, so far. The disease is also being reported in Colorado, Nebraska and Michigan. @realag_lyndsey all adzukus that have scouted in east central #ontag... Read More
Hot summer days and over-wintered canola — a disaster waiting to happen, or a non-issue? Turns out, as of last fall, there was little if any research to reference on the safety of storing canola well into the hot summer months. Canola growers will be pleased to learn that that's no longer the case, as... Read More
Do you know the most likely way your farmland loses nitrogen? (Now would be a great time to review all the ways N evades being used by the plant. Check out the image in this post). Why does this matter? For one, putting down fertilizer that's simply lost to the water or air is just... Read More
How did the bees do this spring planting season? Very well, says Tracey Baute, field crop entomologist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Likely attributed to several factors — a late planting season being one of them — Baute and her colleagues have kept a close eye on the Ontario bee... Read More
They're small, quick, with piercing/sucking mouth parts that can make a real mess of canola seeds — that's right, we're talking lygus bugs. As Keith Gabert explains in this Canola School, there are several factors to consider when scouting for lygus bugs. First, environmental conditions like wind or heat can make numbers seem lower than... Read More
David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, is not going to predict the first frost of the fall, so let's just get that out of the way right now. As he says in the interview below, an over-arching weather trend says nothing about occasional frosts — that's what averages are for — so the date... Read More
"Weird, wild and whacky" is how David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, sums up the 2014 growing season to date. From a long, cold winter, to a wet and late spring, and into a rather cool July full of major rain events, farmers in Ontario haven't been able to catch a break. As the... Read More