As crop prices fall and margins tighten, every farmer is looking for an edge — whether a bump in production or more efficient use of inputs. The increased pressure to scratch out a profit takes extra time and effort on planning and management. Deciding on where to focus that extra time and effort is the... Read More
Category: Crop Production
Should you stick with silage specific hybrids or include a few (or more) dual purpose lines for good measure? Both strategies can work, says Aaron Stevanus, market agronomist for PRIDE Seeds, it simply depends on your management system. Leafy, highly digestible silage-specific lines are a great choice, especially near the barn on highly fertile ground,... Read More
If it's late May and your winter wheat crop is awake and starting to look good so you figure it's time to top up the nitrogen, you've already missed the ideal window for a spring application. Plus, if you didn't take care of winter annuals last fall, those tiny seedlings that over wintered took off... Read More
In farming, we want two very opposite things from seed — we want a seed that stores well, perhaps even long term, but also a seed that, the moment conditions are right, it speedily germinates and becomes a hardy seedling. You can't always have it both ways, of course, and the inner workings of a... Read More
If you're somewhat tired of hearing the term "optimal fertility," raise your hand. Maybe that's not fair, because optimal fertility is really necessary for modern corn genetics to reach their full yield potential. But what does it really mean? As Dr. Fred Below, of the University of Illinois, explains in this Corn School episode, optimal... Read More
To many farmers, seed treatment is not an input worth questioning (check out Shane Thomas' Three Reasons You Must Treat Your Seed), and as farms grow, it's likely that the size and capacity of seed treaters will increase as well. Related: Serfas Farms Steps Up Seed Treating with the USC LP2000 In this video, Kaitlyn... Read More
Let's say the planning stages go like this: crop rotation, variety selection, seed testing, determine seeding rate and so on. If you're a farmer who doesn't typically test seed or who may be thinking of skipping this step in an effort to save on costs, this episode of the Pulse School is for you. In... Read More
Sunflowers aren't just one of the prettiest crops to grow, they're also an increasingly attractive cropping option for 2014 for some areas. While still a small acreage area crop in Manitoba, both oil and confection sunflowers can be a profitable option and one with several benefits that go beyond a basic crop budget. That's the... Read More
Farmers in Manitoba know the symptoms of fusarium head blight all too well — bleaching of the grain head, sometimes with a pink tinge, that results in shriveled and shrunk kernels. Sometimes called scab or tombstone, fusarium head blight not only bites into yield, it's also a downgrading factor of grain. Grain with fusarium damaged... Read More
A high-clearance sprayer simply can't compete with the efficiency of aerial application of some crop protection products. But just because a plane can cover farm more acres than ground units doesn't mean there isn't a drive to do the job better and more efficiently. On this stop of the Dow AgroSciences' TechTour, Paul O'Carroll, of... Read More