Category: Agronomy

In part one of this cereal seeding piece, I discussed a few important things to keep in mind before letting the drills hit the dirt. It included the importance of starting with quality seed that has been tested and applying a registered seed treatment along with a properly done thousand kernel weight assessment to target... Read More

Pure seed is pure seed, right? Well, yes and no. When it comes to seed testing, purity can take on a few different meanings. Some of the distinctions are set out by CFIA, but other tests are used to confirm the presence or absence of a trait or gene. There are actually four different types... Read More

Here we go again. It's time to start thinking about getting into the field. That means taking a real, good look at your corn planter and getting it ready to do the job it's supposed to do. Not having your planter setup properly is a yield robbing nightmare. In this episode of the Corn School... Read More

At one time when you heard someone talk about precision ag it was about minimizing overlap of the sprayer and driving the planter straight. After a winter of farm shows and meetings I have come to the conclusion in certain regions that precision ag is evolving into being about real planting precision. In the corn... Read More

If there's two things I learned from the GIJOE cartoons in the eighties it's that 1) GIJOE must have a strict catch and release policy because I don't recall any members of COBRA being killed and they come back every week. 2) Knowing is half the battle!(they said it at the end of every episode)... Read More

Canola is big business in Alberta, so the spread of canola diseases like blackleg, clubroot and most recently, aster yellows is taken very seriously by both industry and producers. How those diseases are transmitted and spread becomes a source of discussion and speculation as well. At this point it becomes incredibly important to separate fact... Read More

There are some topics, like fungicide responses or herbicide efficacy comparisons, that really only need a few years of work before you can begin to draw conclusions. Other agronomic considerations, like crop rotations and tillage practices, require years and years of data to fully capture the value of a particular tactic. Ontario has two long-term... Read More

If you cannot see the above embedded audio player, click here We have discussed retro-fitting older farm equipment with the latest in precision farming technology in the past, but we think that we have found maybe the most significant retro fit ever. Middlesex Soil and Crop has invested in a 1977 JD6600 combine to change... Read More

Planters can offer significant advantages over seeders — precise depth placement, seed singulation and gentle handling of seed, to name a few — but the machines are also best suited for large-seeded, tall-growth crops like corn and sunflowers, not canola. Recent interest in planters for canola has encouraged at least one company, Monosem, to begin... Read More

There are few things that get a farmer's blood pumping like a field ready for the seeder and shiny new iron to drag across it. With the growing corn and soybean acres in the west, more farmers have adopted row crop planters, and, inevitably, wondered how good a job they would do on other crops.... Read More