Hands down, the one-pass seedbed prep demo was the most popular event at this year's Outdoor Farm Show held at Woodstock, Ont. Farmers by the hundreds eagerly followed behind each implement, kicking soil and evaluating the job of over 20 conservation-minded tillage units. The sheer volume of farmers present speaks to farmers' interest and, dare... Read More
Category: Agronomy
Manitoba has its first two cases of confirmed clubroot symptoms on canola — prior to now, only viable spores had been found in Manitoba soil. The provincial government announced yesterday that two unrelated fields have tested positive for this destructive disease. There is no mention of where the fields are located, but earlier this summer... Read More
The pre-harvest period is a great time to get a handle on what plagued (or is plaguing) the soybean crop this year, how well some of your management practices turned out and filling out the check list for late fall work and early season planning. In this Ontario soybean crop update, three agronomists — Dan... Read More
This week Calgary is hosting ABIC 2013 which is a global conference on food and agricultural biotechnology. I had the chance to sit down with Jim Wispinski, President of Dow AgroSciences Canada, and discuss the panel that he moderated about the past and future impacts of biotechnology agribusiness and farmers. If you cannot hear the... Read More
This mornings frost warning had some Ontario farmer's teeth chattering, but it wasn't the cold that did it. Farmers in the certain counties of Ontario would be understandably nervous depending on how far along their corn crop is. Frost at the wrong time can take a sizeable bite out of your corn yield. Once temperatures... Read More
Bees, as pollinators, are essential to food production worldwide. So when solid evidence of a link between corn planting and bee deaths in Ontario and Quebec was found, farmers and industry recognized the need to look into how to manage the risk of bee exposure to a particular insecticide class called neonicotinoids. As Steve Denys,... Read More
A frost in mid-September isn't unexpected, but the damage caused varies widely, depending on a number of factors. Just because the temperatures dip doesn’t mean that your immature crop is a write-off. Crop type, maturity and length of time the temp sat below freezing all play a role in the final damage done. The first... Read More
What's tall and showy and a new silage option for Alberta ranchers? Sorghum Sudan grass! The crop is a warm season, fast growing, high nitrogen user that, as silage, is capturing the attention of silage users in Alberta, now that varieties are coming along to better fit the growing area. As Vern Turchyn, of Viterra,... Read More
Ever since I was a kid, everything "futuristic", in books and TV pointed to automation as the pinnacle of what the future would hold. From the Jetsons and their automatic sidewalks and dishwashers to my personal favourite, the old "Science International - What Will They Think of Next" tv show, automation was the future of... Read More
It's important, when you're going about the business of farming that you really think about it not as a series of distinct and separate seasons, but as a series of interconnected processes. Not just in an obvious "seeding naturally leads to harvest" kind of route, it's more like, "how I set my machine at harvest... Read More