Category: Crop Production

Next week, RealAgriculture's resident agronomist, Peter Johnson, will host his weekly agronomy podcast Wheat Pete's Word live at the PRIDE Seeds pavilion at Canada's Outdoor Farm Show. Yes, the Wildman himself will be on-hand to answer your most burning agronomic questions about not just wheat, but also corn, soybeans, forage production and more. From planting... Read More

Would a carbon fibre spray boom be strong enough to withstand the rigour of continuous field spraying? That’s a question John Deere intends to answer as it continues to look for ways to substitute the composite material for the steel and aluminum traditionally used in farm equipment, such as boom sprayers. At its annual product... Read More

Would you trade $50 of soybeans for $90 of wheat? Real Agriculture resident agronomist Peter Johnson thinks you should. In this Wheat School episode, Johnson shares his key takeaway from this year’s record Ontario wheat crop, which is pegged at an estimated average of 96 to 98 bushels per acre, 20 percent above the historical... Read More

Peter Johnson, resident agronomist at RealAgriculture, and host of the Word, announces he's hitting the field September 1 — a new record on Johnson's farm, wheat prices are crashing, seeding rates between conventional and organic farming, and (surprise!) Wheat Pete thinks you ought to grow wheat. Listen or download below! And of course, if you... Read More

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