Category: Crop Schools

It seems to be the summer of storms across the Prairies, with some extreme weather events bringing devastating hail and damaging crops. Many farmers are walking their fields and seeing varied amounts of impact, and are asking the question: What now? Will my crop grow through this? Pulses can be extremely resilient crops, and as... Read More

Wheat midge damage occurs regularly in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and southern British Columbia. This year in particular it will be important to scout for midge because the ideal conditions — delayed seeding and high moisture — create a high risk situation says Scott Meers, of Mayland Consulting in this episode of Wheat School. The upside... Read More

Fungicide timing can creep up really fast in soybeans and staging is at about the R2 stage or when there are flowers on the upper two nodes of the plant. In this episode of RealAgriculture Soybean School, Bernard Tobin talks with agronomist Ken Currah from BASF Canada about correct fungicide timing in soybeans and some... Read More

If you applied a pre-emergent herbicide before planting your corn and didn't get the moisture to activate it, don't despair and don't feel like you've thrown some money down the drain. You still get weed control during that critical weed-free period, says Rob Miller, technical development manager with BASF. As you can see in this... Read More

After the primary macronutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, come secondary macronutrients, sulphur, calcium, and magnesium. These secondary nutrients are needed in lower quantities, but just because sulphur is qualified as a secondary macronutrient does not mean it's not as important as those primaries. Sulphur deficiency can be diagnosed in wheat and corn for example, by... Read More

Pulse crops are efficient water users. Field pea, lentil and chickpea are all great at adapting to drought-like conditions, which makes them a great option in just about every soil zone of the Prairies. However, being well adapted for drought means that most pulse crops do not like wet conditions, which isn't really something farmers... Read More

It's time again to get into the best crop — wonderful wheat, as Wheat Pete would say! Kara Oosterhuis was delighted to be back in the field (not in front of the computer screen) with Jeremy Boychyn, agronomy research extension specialist with the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions on this episode of the Wheat School.... Read More

Streaky field patterns usually come down to one thing: sprayer trouble. At the latest Farming Smarter Field School, one of the demonstrations provided a look at how active a herbicide can be at very low concentrations, due to varying thoroughness of sprayer tank clean-out. Kara Oosterhuis caught up with Mark Oostlander, herbicide lead with BASF,... Read More

A timely rain after seeding can erase plenty of sins, but a pounding rain can do the opposite, and lead to punishment for small canola seedlings that have to break through crusted soil. Crusting has hampered emergence and forced some reseeding in canola fields in parts of Western Canada again this year. Of course, there's... Read More

In the last couple of years, aster leafhoppers have arrived around the third week of May, perhaps on the same wind that diamondback moths fly in on from the U.S. The aster leafhopper is a small, bullet-shaped insect that doesn't directly damage the plant; instead it is a vector for the disease aster yellows. In... Read More