Perhaps you're already acquainted with the wild world of theoretical yields. A theoretical yield is a measure of the genetic potential a plant has, if absolutely nothing hampered yield — not the growing season, environment or pests. Can you guess what soybeans' theoretical yield is? Roughly 350 bushels an acre. Outlandish? Well, it sort of... Read More
Category: Crop Production
In the Canadian context, when someone says wheat, we think bread or pasta and maybe crackers and cookies. But for huge portions of the world's population, wheat means noodles, steam buns and dumplings. While all these products do come from the same crop, it's possible that each product requires a specific class of wheat, with... Read More
Have you seen the NIMBY principle in action? It stands for "not in my backyard," and it shows up in all manner of ways in agriculture — from the downplaying of potential problems, to perceptions on herbicide resistant weeds. How prevalent is it? In this second installment of Real Agriculture's podcast focused on herbicide resistant... Read More
A proposal for a one-million-acre set-aside for pollinators in Ontario by 2018 sounds like something a government or activists would propose, and farmers would lose their minds over. What? A million acres in a province losing 350 acres of prime farmland a day to development? But now, this set-aside program, the gemstone in the new... Read More
The USDA came and went this week with another WASDE report that was basically a “nothing-to-see-here” release, as the big story to watch is the Grain Stocks and Prospective Plantings report due at the end of March. However, you could look at in the sense that this report gives us a relatively flexible floor as... Read More
Jeff Leal, Ontario's minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, will meet with the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) on March 26th, 2015. The minister's office says this is to meet with new GFO chair Mark Brock. This meeting follows shortly after the release of the producer group's Pollinator Health Blueprint. The GFO's blueprint is... Read More
You can't change the weather and you can't influence crop prices, but you can agronomy proof your crop plan, says Deb Campbell, agronomist with Agronomy Advantage. As winter ever so slowly releases its grip on Ontario, Campbell says farmers can do plenty of planning now to tip yield in their favour, but it's going to... Read More
Eastern Ontario's wheat and barley growers now have access to Pixxaro, a Group 4 herbicide with active ingredient Arylex, from Dow AgroSciences. Pixxaro allows growers to spray across a broad range of weather conditions – hot, cold, wet or dry. When crops are stressed, movement of herbicides within the plant can be inhibited. Pixxaro has... Read More
The Toronto Blue Jays’ 26-year-old home is one of only two stadiums left in Major League Baseball where the game is played on artificial turf. As fans of the ball club know, the combination of synthetic fibres and rubber on top of concrete at Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome) has taken a toll on players’ bodies... Read More
You're looking at yield data from last year trying to figure out which soybean varieties to grow in 2015 — how do you know when the yield difference between two varieties is meaningful? "That's a question we get all the time when it comes to picking varieties and looking at single-year site data," says Dennis... Read More