Reading Time: 5 minutes Farming is known for its learning moments, and one key lesson to come out of the 2018 growing season was that the chase for higher yields doesn’t come without risks or hazards. Or, as is said with maybe equal justification, no good deed goes unpunished. The past 10 years have seen incredible growth in corn […] Read more
Risk versus reward in the quest for higher corn yields
More quality criteria are steadily creeping into the conversation on corn
Ontario farmers grow corn acres, and a successful livelihood
Amos family in Ontario’s extreme northwest a good example of the pioneering spirit
Reading Time: 6 minutes In 1990, nearly 30 years ago, Amos Brielmann moved his family from Germany to the Rainy River District between Fort Frances and the Manitoba border. They settled on a farm near Pinewood, first working on a beef cattle operation just north of the village. Slowly, they began buying the farm and maintaining the herd and […] Read more
Pearce: Autonomous platform makes Eastern Canada debut
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s been dubbed “the future of agriculture” and for the first time, farmers in Eastern Canada had the opportunity to see the Dot A-U1 Power Platform with in-field demonstrations at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show. The precision ag system, designed by Dot Technology Corp., attracted considerable attention going through its paces during the annual ag showcase, […] Read more
Researchers discover a way to eliminate almost all DON toxicity in corn
A detox for contaminated corn may be just around the corner
Reading Time: 5 minutes As farmers think back to the challenges of the 2018 growing season, learning to deal with DON is probably top of mind. Indeed, it really was one of, if not THE worst year ever for managing the impacts of deoxynivalenol. Not only did growers have trouble harvesting their infected corn, but delivery also became a […] Read more
Tar spot comes to corn
First identified in the U.S. in 2015, there is so much to learn about tar spot and its impact
Reading Time: 6 minutes The alarm bells were ringing. In just one year, Asian soybean rust could move in and devastate huge tracts of beans. Palmer amaranth swept north from the mid-south in 2010 to Michigan in only two years. It’s not that crop pathologists and weed specialists were trying to alarm growers as much as make them aware […] Read more
Real work on soil health needs to be done
Fine speeches about our soil make us all feel good, but there's an increasing urgency for wider adoption
Reading Time: 5 minutes Soil health has received considerable attention in recent decades. There have been many champions who have promoted the benefits of good soil, farm organizations that have mounted campaigns to encourage its development and even Senate committees trying to help government recognize the urgency surrounding it. Yet reluctance to raise the bar on the subject remains. […] Read more
Program aims to boost winter wheat production
Here’s a wheat IP initiative that looks to take the uncertainty out of the hard red winter market
Reading Time: 6 minutes Into a 2019 growing season long on frustration and short on sunlight comes an opportunity for wheat growers in Ontario: identity-preservation (IP) programs aimed at boosting production of hard red winter wheat. The initiative is meant to tackle declining supply, which, according to some in the industry, has reached levels that pose a viability concern […] Read more
Guess who’s paying for new grain grading?
New CGC regulations would add DON and falling number to Canada’s grade specifications
Reading Time: 8 minutes A proposal by the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) to add two grading factors to its list of parameters is stirring considerable debate, mostly among members of the western Canadian food value chain, but also in the east. The two factors revealed in a document published by the CGC late last year are falling number (FN) […] Read more
Recognize the threat of these invasive weeds
How big a problem can waterhemp and Palmer amaranth really be? Let’s not find out
Reading Time: 7 minutes Has everyone been crying wolf about waterhemp? After all, haven’t we been hearing warnings in southern Ontario about the weed for the past 15 years, and who has lost a bushel? Well, it was actually 17 years ago — 2002 — when the species was first confirmed in Lambton County, and the good news is […] Read more
Keep an eye on water quality
Water can play havoc with spray performance, especially with the rise in tank mixing
Reading Time: 5 minutes The 2019 growing season is now within sight and with it, another season’s worth of herbicide, fungicide and insecticide applications. Given the challenges that can arise with sprayers and their products, it’s worth revisiting the subject of water quality and the potential impact of factors such as temperature, hardness and pH on product performance. With […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
