Category: Crop Production

With wet growing conditions in many areas and high prices driving tight pulse crop rotations, the table was set for root rot to feast on pea stands in Western Canada this year. While one of the main culprits — aphanomyces — was first confirmed in Saskatchewan in 2012 and in Alberta in 2013, testing on... Read More

That's a question many growers ask when they see parts of their soybean fields prematurely turning yellow in August and early September. In this episode of Real Agriculture Soybean School, OMAFRA’s Albert Tenuta and University of Guelph researcher Dave Hooker team up to answer the question and provide management tips. When his phone rings, Tenuta... Read More

Growers in the east and west can both attest to the truth in Luke Bryan's lyrics about rain and corn this year, but for different reasons. While drought-stressed corn plants in parts of Ontario have failed to produce cobs, the crop has benefited from plenty of moisture on the prairies. "I've always jokingly said —... Read More

It'll be a few weeks before we actually know how this year's soybeans are going to yield, but we can get a pretty good idea now, especially if we're willing to put some time into building a good sample size for making an estimate. Dieter Schwarz, the new market development manager for corn and soybeans... Read More

Many farms have bought basic drones capable of taking high resolution pictures from the sky over the last year or two. For $2,000 or less, you can buy a decent quadcopter with a regular RGB colour camera. But the RGB camera is just the beginning when it comes to collecting data with a drone, explains... Read More

Harvest is ramping up across Western Canada, with combines rolling — and some getting stuck due to wet conditions — in cereal and pea fields. Saskatchewan's Ministry of Agriculture issued its first yield estimates in its weekly crop report on Thursday. The ballpark expectations for most crops are above 2015 yields, as well as higher... Read More

It's been a long time since the last public research was conducted to support nitrogen fertilizer recommendations for wheat on the eastern side of the prairies. "The last time we did publicly-funded research on wheat yields and nitrogen fertilizer recommendations was actually about 45 years ago, so we were dealing with lower yielding wheat varieties... Read More

After weeks of talking about drought, much of Ontario is celebrating. Peter Johnson, resident agronomist at RealAgriculture, and host of the Word, discusses the recent rains, and what management shifts producers will have to consider, plus: spider mites, the pros and cons of tillage, and strip-tilling fertilizer. Listen or download below! And of course, if... Read More

With two-thirds of Canada's irrigated land located in Alberta, Lethbridge College is boosting its capacity for irrigation research. Willemijn Appels has joined the school as its first Mueller Applied Research Chair in Irrigation Science — a position made possible with a $3.1 million gift from Lloyd and Dorothy Mueller announced in 2014. "Producers, businesses, irrigation... Read More

Leaf disease can strike anywhere on a corn plant, but where does it take the biggest bite out of corn yield? In this Real Agriculture Corn School episode, OMAFRA plant pathologist Albert Tenuta explains that diseases such as northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) and grey leaf spot typically take root in field residue where pathogens... Read More