Category: Crop Production

Pride Seeds' Dan Foster explains how to estimate soybean yield in this video, shot at Canada's Outdoor Farm Show. Estimating yields may be more challenging than some of our other annual crops, but it all boils down to a total number of (viable) seeds in a given area. For soybeans, estimating yield without counting every... Read More

With crop insurance deadlines passing, much of this fall's winter wheat planting in Western Canada is complete. While winter conditions are beyond control, there are some practices that can mitigate the risk of winterkill and help the crop get off to a strong start, both now in fall and following snowmelt in spring. In this... Read More

For farmers in the Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair watersheds, and Lake Huron’s southeast shores watershed, help to implement Better Management Practices (BMP) is here. It’s called GLASI, or the Great Lakes Agricultural Stewardship Initiative. Related: Agricultural Run-Off A Main Focus of Great Lakes’ Eutrophication Concerns “The official launch was last February at our... Read More

It's warm and dry, silage moisture is dropping too fast, bean farmers are losing yields, hay producers are losing fertility, and you've got to get wheat planting right! All that in this week's episode of Wheat Pete's Word. The Highlights: A shortage of corn has prices skyrocketing, but the demand will disappear soon, cautions Peter... Read More

It's been a tough growing season for producers across the country; some are still struggling with what to do with dry, dry land. And that's how Peter Johnson, RealAgriculture's resident agronomist and host of Wheat Pete’s Word starts of this week's podcast, mentioning this tweet from Adam Pfeffer: @WheatPete what's the protocol for planting wheat... Read More

Is there an ideal exchange rate for Canada's agriculture industry? That depends, of course, on what you're selling or what you're buying, and it's rare to win on both sides of that equation. What's more, farmers have no control over currency changes, so how can farmers best prepare for managing currency risk? That's the topic... Read More

With Monsanto planning to introduce dicamba-tolerant soybean varieties in North America, the company is reminding growers about how to best handle and apply herbicides that contain dicamba. Older formulations of dicamba were prone to drift, causing damage to neighbouring crops, notes Allan Froese, a technology development representative with Monsanto Canada. In the video below, he... Read More

It’s the first week of September and the west is waking up to some frosty mornings, while Ontario watches how high temps can climb with a humidex. This week has been a rather big one for many, as kids head back to school, harvest kicks into high gear, and, yes, our editor, Lyndsey Smith, has... Read More

Statistics Canada today released its estimates of principal field crop stocks to July 31, 2015, including a bearish supply estimate for the canola market (see table below). Not surprisingly, most major crop totals were down substantially year-over-year, as 2014 levels reflected the stock still in the pipeline from the 2013 bumper crop. Total stocks of... Read More

Harvest season is well underway for the earlier crops, and this challenging 2015 growing season shows no signs of easing up as farmers are looking at their harvest management options in weedy or too-green crops. The oat crop is coming off boasting tremendous yields, but wow is it work to get this crop harvested, says... Read More