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 with… Read More
Category: Crop Schools
Talking about strip tillage in corn is easy, but making it work in the field can be challenging.In this episode of Corn School, resident agronomist Peter Johnson sets out to find the perfect strip till berm at the recent Elgin Soil and Crop Improvement Association field demonstration day.Johnson explains that planting into 6″x6″ tilled strips… Read More
It’s been a long time since the last public research was conducted to support nitrogen fertilizer recommendations for wheat on the eastern side of the prairies.“The last time we did publicly-funded research on wheat yields and nitrogen fertilizer recommendations was actually about 45 years ago, so we were dealing with lower yielding wheat varieties at… Read More
Leaf disease can strike anywhere on a corn plant, but where does it take the biggest bite out of corn yield?In this Real Agriculture Corn School episode, OMAFRA plant pathologist Albert Tenuta explains that diseases such as northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) and grey leaf spot typically take root in field residue where pathogens overwinter… Read More
Many Ontario growers are witnessing the punishing affect that hot, dry conditions are having on corn crops, but soybeans are better able to weather the stress.In this episode of Real Agriculture Soybean School, Ridgetown College, University of Guelph field crop agronomist Dave Hooker takes a look at the components of soybean yield and explains why the… Read More
How much corn yield could Ontario’s hot, dry summer cost growers?In this episode of the Corn School, Ridgetown College, University of Guelph field crop agronomist Dave Hooker explains that drought stress can have a tremendous impact on yield, especially during the two-week period that “brackets†silking.Hooker says that the number of rows on a cob is… Read More
Winter wheat acres in Western Canada have fallen by half over the last five years. According to Statistics Canada, just over 1.3 million acres of winter wheat were seeded in the fall of 2011, while only 635 thousand acres were planted in the fall of 2015 (see the chart below).Canola harvest timing and weather conditions leading… Read More
It’s hard to imagine a time before, at least, threshing machines. But the evolution of wheat is long, and complex.“Not many people know about the origin of wheat,” says Mazen Aljarrah, plant breeder at the Field Crop Development Centre in Lacombe, in the following video. “Actually, it started maybe 10,000 years ago through a spontaneous cross… Read More
Have you tested your fields for soybean cyst nematode (SCN) lately? If not, it may be time to put a shovel in the ground and do a soil analysis.In this episode of the Soybean School, Huron Commodities agronomist Wayne Wheeler provides tips on how to quickly assess whether or not the tiny root pest is… Read More
Spraying wheat for fusarium head blight is simple. Right? You pick the correct product, target the middle of the application window and you’re ready to roll with the sprayer. What could go wrong? Plenty.In this episode of the Wheat School, OMAFRA application technology specialist Jason Deveau and Bayer CropScience market development specialist Troy Basaraba review the spraying… Read More