Biological products, such as inoculants for pulses and soybeans, have been around a very long time, but the ever-expanding world of biological products now means that growers have options for hundreds of products that are supposed to do everything from stimulating root growth, to helping plants recover from hail, to fixing nitrogen. To help evaluate... Read More
Category: Soil
Biologicals hold great promise for improving crop production. From increasing root activity, soil microbes, and nutrient availability to building plant resiliency to abiotic stresses — this emerging crop input segment is bursting with product choices. But for farmers, selecting which product and application is right for their acres can be a daunting and confusing task.... Read More
Cover crops are not magic. It's important to first understand the goal of using a cover crop and then measuring up each species and season to see if it's a match. Farmers from east to west are using cover crops to accomplish several things: reducing erosion, cycling nutrients, fixing nitrogen, and fighting weeds, but that... Read More
Sweat the details and practice, practice, practice. It may sound like gridiron football strategy but it will also make farmers winners in the battle to improve soil health, says North Dakota-based independent agronomist and crop consultant Lee Briese. When it comes to improving soil health there are plenty of fixes — from reducing tillage to... Read More
Compared to 2014, a kilogram of beef in Canada is now produced with 15 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions. According to the National Beef Sustainability Assessment (NBSA) and Strategy report, the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) says this latest assessment reflects three years of scientific analysis to make the determination, comapring 2014 to... Read More
Diversity pays dividends in crop production but researchers, agronomists and farmers really don't have a good grasp of how and why different crops impact each others in the rotation. University of Guelph crop researcher Dr. Dave Hooker is never shy to champion more diverse rotations. Research from long-term trials at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown... Read More
Healthy soils can be a crops's best friend when the weather turns extreme. If it's too dry, a healthy soil with high water-holding capacity can capture, store, and deliver critical moisture to growing plants; if it's too wet that same soil will play a key role in transporting excess water down through the soil profile... Read More
Precision Planting is changing the process of testing soil with a new Radical Agronomics program that relies on an automated soil analysis laboratory. Mike Easter, Precision Planting's commercial lead for Radical Agronomics, says the program is designed to address some challenges with current laboratory systems and soil testing's manual process. "What we've done is we've... Read More
Western Canadian soils are generally neutral to slightly basic in pH values. On average, there's plenty of buffering capacity to the soil in the west but that doesn't mean there aren't pockets of acidic conditions. What's more, research is proving out to show that long-term zero-till combined with applied fertilizers is creating an acidic area... Read More
Hello, December! On this week's episode of Wheat Pete's Word, host Peter Johnson gets further in to the soil organic matter discussion, including the long-term legacy of manure applications, talks sulphur management, and compares some findings on the ROI on fungicide on corn. Have a question you’d like Wheat Pete to address or some field... Read More