Category: Crop Schools

There’s some tough-looking winter wheat across Ontario and many producers are wondering whether they can save their crops.In some instances, growers have forward-contracted wheat for delivery at $7 a bushel. That’s difficult to walk away from, says RealAgriculture agronomist Peter Johnson. “We will lose some acres on the heavy clays, but where we can, we… Read More

There’s more reason than ever to make sure you’re setting your wheat seeding rate in weight or seeds per acre versus a “bushels per acre” rule of thumb.That’s because of a few things, says Dr. Brian Beres, with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lethbridge. First off, the genetic yield potential of wheat has improved over the… Read More

Traditionally, when the soil is fit for planting, growers fill the planter with corn seed and start to roll.But is it time to rethink that time-honoured approach? Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) soybean specialist Horst Bohner believes so. He says there’s plenty of evidence to suggest early-planted soybeans deliver a yield… Read More

Variable seed size, seed costs, and unique seeding equipment can make recommending a canola seeding rate nearly impossible except on a farm-by-farm basis. What agronomists can do is help farmers work backwards from the desired plant stand count to get where they need to be, but what if that number proves very expensive?The Canola Council… Read More

If you always wait for the calendar to hit late April or early May before seeding wheat, you could be leaving yield on the table or at the very least making the seeding season more hectic than it has to be.Multi-year ultra-early seeding research out of Alberta suggests that early March seeding and maybe even… Read More

As the 2019 planting season draws near there’s one thing we know for sure — it will be different from last year.That’s just the way things go, of course, but there are lessons from last year that growers can take to the field for 2019. The first thing growers need to be mindful of is… Read More

The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture has been hosting meetings this winter to help farmers keep up with the most current science and best management practices to deal with clubroot. Many of the meetings have been conducted with the participation of Canola Council of Canada agronomists and other industry specialists.Allie Noble, crops extension specialist with Saskatchewan… Read More

Quite often, growers discover herbicide resistant weeds on their farm after an effective herbicide fails to take out a targeted weed.After some testing and reviewing past herbicide application records, growers might realize that the resistance problem is the result of repeated use of a particular herbicide or a history of not following best management practices… Read More

Corn is moving into new territory — mainly west and north — but the agronomic information farmers in these new areas rely on is still largely based on data from places such as Illinois and Iowa. This has provided a basis for new corn farmers to get started, but there are a lot of differences… Read More

Farmers live and work in the real world, so real world events like weather can make a huge difference to a crop. We all know this, but sometimes we forget that the weather in the year prior to the current growing season also needs to be taken into account.Andrew Reid understands that crops grow in… Read More