Phil Needham's main message for anyone aiming for maximum wheat yields is always to pay most attention to the actual seeding pass. The potential of any crop is established at seeding and emergence, and achieving maximum potential requires quality seed, high seeding rates and the all-important precise seed placement. Several types of drills will do... Read More
Category: Agronomy
If the clover starts to flower, it must be time to spray it out, right? Not so, says Peter Johnson, cereal specialist with Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. In fact, spraying out clover that early means you miss out on major soil-building benefits through the month of October. As Johnson explains in this video,... Read More
The first rule of planting winter wheat is to start early. If you didn't (and, with a late soybean harvest, that's reasonable to expect), the next rule of planting winter wheat is to start now. That's because the earlier in the ideal seeding window winter wheat gets in the ground, the more likely that crop... Read More
Hear that? If you shake soybean plants and hear the rattle of seeds in the pods, the plant has reached physiological maturity. Does that mean the crop is ready to harvest or past being damaged by frost? Not so fast. In this Soybean School video, Kristen Podolsky, production specialist with the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association,... Read More
RealAgriculture.com recently ran a story featuring work out of the Indian Head Agriculture Research Foundation that suggests farmers could save on drying costs by only turning aeration fans on at night, when the air temperature sunk below the temperature of the gain in the bin. Once we posted the story, more than a few farmers... Read More
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
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