If you've never been to Canada's Outdoor Farm Show, or it's been a long time since you've gone, Real Agriculture's Bern Tobin spent a day on the grounds talking with those in the know about the 2014 show set to start in just two weeks — September 9, 2014. From where you should stop first,... Read More
Category: Crop Production
The Grain Farmers of Ontario have been rather busy — from moving in to a new, larger office space, to tackling big issues like announced increased regulation of neonicotinoid use in the province, to potentially bringing new commodity groups under the GFO banner, there's been no shortage to keep Henry Van Ankum, GFO chair, busy.... Read More
Hot summer days and over-wintered canola — a disaster waiting to happen, or a non-issue? Turns out, as of last fall, there was little if any research to reference on the safety of storing canola well into the hot summer months. Canola growers will be pleased to learn that that's no longer the case, as... Read More
Do you know the most likely way your farmland loses nitrogen? (Now would be a great time to review all the ways N evades being used by the plant. Check out the image in this post). Why does this matter? For one, putting down fertilizer that's simply lost to the water or air is just... Read More
There are at least two reasons why having an added herbicide tolerance gene built-in to a soybean variety makes sense — one, to make up for early season non-competitiveness of the crop, and, two, because of the increasing risk of glyphosate-tolerant weeds. To that end, Monsanto recently rolled out its soybean XTend trait — dicamba... Read More
The Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers Association (MWBGA) is a new member of Cereals Canada, the not-for-profit industry group announced yesterday. “Cereals Canada brings together a broad and diverse collection of partners from all parts of the cereals sector and across the country. Representation from farmers from all regions is a critical element to our... Read More
How did the bees do this spring planting season? Very well, says Tracey Baute, field crop entomologist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Likely attributed to several factors — a late planting season being one of them — Baute and her colleagues have kept a close eye on the Ontario bee... Read More
They're small, quick, with piercing/sucking mouth parts that can make a real mess of canola seeds — that's right, we're talking lygus bugs. As Keith Gabert explains in this Canola School, there are several factors to consider when scouting for lygus bugs. First, environmental conditions like wind or heat can make numbers seem lower than... Read More
David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, is not going to predict the first frost of the fall, so let's just get that out of the way right now. As he says in the interview below, an over-arching weather trend says nothing about occasional frosts — that's what averages are for — so the date... Read More
"Weird, wild and whacky" is how David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, sums up the 2014 growing season to date. From a long, cold winter, to a wet and late spring, and into a rather cool July full of major rain events, farmers in Ontario haven't been able to catch a break. As the... Read More