Widespread late-May frosts across Ontario have many growers assessing soybean crops for injury and wrestling with the question of whether replanting is necessary. On this episode of the Soybean School, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs soybean specialist Horst Bohner is preaching patience when it comes to determining whether a replant is necessary.... Read More
Category: Crop Schools
Plant growth regulators (PGRs) are used to control or modify plant growth processes. In the case of wheat and barley, PGRs are used to influence the hormones responsible for cell elongation, which results in a crop with thicker, shorter stems. "Right now there are two plant growth regulators available for wheat in Western Canada," says... Read More
Early planted corn is starting to emerge in Ontario and usually when digging around, a nice straight plant can be seen coming out of the ground. This year, though, a few plants are a little wonky. Down in Lambton County, Ont., agronomist Ryan Benjamins is seeing quite a bit of corkscrewing in corn this year,... Read More
Scouting soybeans is a big part of any Ontario agronomist's year. Emergence, a consistent plant stand, and seeding depth are the first few things to scout for in the field. Ryan Benjamins, who owns and operates Benjamins Agronomy Services, gives tips for scouting soybeans and what to consider further along in the growing season, in... Read More
When the drill gets parked, it's time to hook up the land rollers. Ken Wall, grow team advisor at Federated Cooperatives Ltd., says there are two reasons why you'd want to roll lentils (and other pulse crops); one of which is to smooth out the ridges from seeding. Lentils in particular are a low growing... Read More
The corn crop is in the ground in Ontario and it's time to get out and scout. When scouting corn early in the season, diagnosis of issues is key for managing the crop further along in its growth. In this episode of Corn School, Bernard Tobin is joined in the field at Lambton County, Ont.,... Read More
Flea beetles are one of the most detrimental insects for the early stages of canola, but new research sheds some light on how seeding date can be used to get ahead of this pest. In this Canola School episode, Hector Carcamo, research scientist at AAFC Lethbridge, shares some interesting results on how two species of... Read More
Scouting for wireworms starts with looking for bare or thinned patches — after the crop has emerged. Areas where maybe the seedling didn't come up at all, or if they did, they've yellowed at the centre of the plant "If you see that, there could be a couple different reasons why your crop has thinned... Read More
Early spring can mean risky temperatures, especially for earlier seeded crops; and if canola has emerged already, there's a risk of frost. If your field has had a touch of frost, the first piece of advice from Autumn Barnes, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada (CCC), is to pump the brakes. "There were... Read More
What can growers do, right now, to help reduce the devastating effects pathogens, such as aphanomyces and fusarium, have on pulse crops? Michael Wunsch, plant pathologist with North Dakota State University, joins Kara Oosterhuis for this Pulse School episode to talk about what is and isn't in farmers' control. Wunsch's approach to disease management includes... Read More