Are you paying enough attention to your soil? That’s the first question Iowa crop consultant Michael McNeill asks farmers when they want to talk about how to increase soybean yields. “Soil health is vital to optimizing profits in any crop we try to grow. Without good soil health we don’t have a chance,” says McNeill.... Read More
Category: Crops
The Chinese government has agreed to postpone tighter dockage standards on Canadian canola. In February, China indicated a new standard allowing no more than 1 percent foreign material would be implemented on April 1. As Reuters first reported on Tuesday morning, China's import policy changes have now been postponed until September 1, 2016. The Chinese... Read More
The number of soil tests in Manitoba with phosphorus concentrations below the critical level for crop production grew by 7 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to the new North American Soil Test Summary published by the International Plant Nutrition Institute. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec, as well as 13 U.S. states, all saw more... Read More
Editor's Note: This article was submitted by South of the Divide Conservation Action Program Inc. As mild winter weather transitions into a warm spring, producers are gearing up for an early seeding season, including those who are planning to seed forages. For farmers and ranchers who are used to looking on the horizon for the... Read More
Do you grow wheat in a high-yield or low-yield part of the world? A farmer in the UK set the new record for world wheat yield in 2015, growing 16.52 tonnes per hectare or 246 bushels per acre. He broke the previous record of 233 bushels per acre set in New Zealand in 2010. In... Read More
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister, it’s unlikely he would have envisioned his eldest son Justin not only leading the country like him, but advocating for the legal use of marijuana as a recreational and medicinal drug. Likewise, had the fathers of the budding soybean sector here... Read More
In this week’s Word, Peter Johnson, resident agronomist for RealAgriculture, examines everything from early N applications in wheat to the maple syrup harvest. Have a question for Wheat Pete? Call 1-888-746-3311, send him a tweet (@wheatpete), or email him at peter.johnson@bell.net. Highlights: The 2016 crop season has begun in Ontario with some nitrogen going down... Read More
"The world’s bee population is in crisis and Honey Nut Cheerios is coming to the rescue, minus its perky mascot." — Toronto Star, March 15, 2016 Move over Kathleen Wynne and Glen Murray. There's a new saviour of bees in town. General Mills Canada announced last week "Buzz" the honeybee will disappear from its Honey... Read More
While sunflowers often pencil out well, concerns about quality and yield risk at the end of the year are all-too-common when it comes to growing them. "It's a high value crop and if you treat it that way, it's going to pay," says Troy Turner, agronomist for the National Sunflower Association of Canada, in the... Read More
Anybody thinking of growing lentils or peas in Western Canada this year? Syngenta is introducing a new fungicide to help growers protect pulses from foliar diseases such as anthracnose, ascochyta blight, mycosphaerella blight and powdery mildew. Elatus features two modes of action — a combination of Syngenta's new Group 7 fungicide known as Solatenol (benzovindiflupyr)... Read More