If you've been talking to your neighbours about spraying, chances are you've heard that double nozzles are one way of increasing the number of droplets sprayed. Not necessarily, says spray application specialist Tom Wolf. "The unstated assumption behind that is that droplets are getting smaller when you have two nozzles instead of one," Wolf says.... Read More
Category: Crop Schools
Which input do you think is the most critical to a pea crop's success — starter N, inoculant type, fungicide seed treatment or seeding rate? If you guessed seeding rate, you get a gold star, but by how much and what impact, if any, do these other inputs have on maximizing pea yields? Those answers... Read More
When it comes to spraying, earlier in the day is always better, right? Well, no. And that's because of a often misunderstood or unknown atmospheric condition known as an inversion. Inversions happen in the absence of sunlight, and can cause disastrous spray drift issues if farmers are spraying in them. It's not a simple concept... Read More
There are few things more troubling to a farmer than a sickly looking or well-chewed plant. Environmental stress is unavoidable, but determining the correct stress is important if you're looking to either a) remedy the situation or b) avoid it in the future. Manitoba soybean farmers enjoy relatively few disease and insect pressures, so far,... Read More
Gerry Ritz was on hand at Richardson's Kelburn Farms, just south of Winnipeg, today to announce a federal government commitment of $15 million to the canola industry. This funding, through Growing Forward 2, will be leveraged to bump that total to more than $20 million, says Patti Miller, president of the Canola Council of Canada... Read More
Disease control timing in soybeans is coming up quickly, and wet conditions in many parts of Ontario could mean high pressure in some areas. Optimal fungicide timing is crucial for best and cost-effective control, and with that in mind some farmers may be interested in tank-mixing products in with fungicides to save a pass over... Read More
Two years ago if you had asked the average Saskatchewan canola grower what aster yellows was, they likely wouldn't have been too concerned about it, if they had ever heard of it at all. That's because aster yellows, a disease carried by the aster leafhopper insect that mangles the buds/pods of a plant, typically occurs... Read More
Unlike bertha armyworm, which is discussed here, diamondback moths are quite small and are carried on winds that come up from the south. This makes monitoring and scouting for the pest somewhat more difficult than others, as pests that overwinter have a more easily anticipated emergence timeline. Beyond monitoring, there are some very telling ways... Read More
With high fusarium levels threatening the quality of this year's wheat crop, Peter Johnson, cereal specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, is urging farmers to take the grain off early so as to minimize the growth and spread of the disease. That's all good and well, say farmers, but the crop is... Read More
Thriving in wet, soggy soils (and thus seldom acknowledged as a problem-pathogen in Canada), aphanomyces is difficult to differentiate from other root rot microorganisms based on symptomology alone. Molecular techniques and identification of spores in the lab are the best means of identification, and as of right now, there is no commercial test available for... Read More