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
Keep an eye on water quality
Water can play havoc with spray performance, especially with the rise in tank mixing
‘My sprayer’s a mess’
In the new era of weed resistance, your risk of a plugged tank or boom is climbing
Reading Time: 7 minutes There may be no better phrase that symbolizes agriculture than “timing is everything.” Planting, fertilizing and harvesting are obvious fits, but the term also applies to pesticide applications, planter preparations and seed purchases. Another area where timing is important is in the mixing of chemicals, although some may argue that it’s more a matter of […] Read more
Farm-wired
Proving that ag technology is on top of the electronic world
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas teems with electronic gizmos and concept technologies of the future — you know, the things none of us had any idea about a year or two ago but soon won’t be able to live without. At this year’s event in January, one unexpected display towered over all […] Read more
Precision ‘agronomy’
Precision ag is rapidly evolving, with an emerging suite of benefits for producers
Reading Time: 7 minutes Has any segment of agri-food changed as much in the past 10 years as precision ag? What is certain is that the science’s power to extrapolate data points, generate better maps, recommend specific courses of action and lead growers to higher revenues is unparalleled. The challenge though is still the same: Where to start? For […] Read more
Hitchhiking pests
Yes, cleaning out equipment takes time, but it’s worth it
Reading Time: 6 minutes When it comes to discussing the scourge of weed management in Eastern Canada, much of the light has shone on herbicide-resistant Canada fleabane and its spread from Essex County to the Quebec border in just five years. The latest weed species that is cause for concern is common waterhemp. It’s been the topic of conversation […] Read more
Selling hi-tech to farmers
Why is so much effort being put into new ways to sell high technology to farmers?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Several farm machinery writers occupied the two rows of mock tractor seats, each with a control armrest, which lined both sides of a special trailer on a warm January morning. Yes, an actual warm January morning, because the trailer was parked in an Arizona farm field, a location that Case IH had chosen for holding […] Read more
Where it’s warm
AGCO’s GSI aims to make grain storage safer with on-farm medical technology
Reading Time: 5 minutes Here in the Great White North, we love to gripe about winter. But one of the advantages of our cold season is that it’s much easier and safer to store grain here than in parts of the world that have year-round warmth, where preventing spoilage of stored grain remains a challenge. I can remember hearing […] Read more
Brand loyalty cuts deeper
Farmers tell manufacturers how and why they buy new equipment
Reading Time: 5 minutes When a few hundred staff and executives from the Canadian equipment brands that belong to AMC, the Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada, gathered for their 48th annual convention in Winnipeg in December, they used the opportunity to find out a bit more about their customers. AMC organizers had invited producers from different segments of the farming […] Read more
The ‘right’ solution
Manufacturers and dealers make their case in the divisive “right-to-repair” debate
Reading Time: 6 minutes Here at Country Guide we’ve discussed the so-called “right to repair” machinery debate, most recently when a joint press release from a major dealer association and AEM, the association that represents most North American ag equipment manufacturers, announced concessions to allow for more access to the “brain” of machines to facilitate repairs. Our previous discussion […] Read more
A drone spots a problem in your field. Now what?
Drone-mounted cameras measuring NDVI reflectance can identify crop problems, but not necessarily the cause. Researchers are looking for other tools that might
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s been more than a few years since drones made their debut in agriculture, but questions about whether they’re worth producers’ time aren’t going away. Most agricultural drones are set up to measure canopy reflectance using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), a graphical indicator that assesses crop health by measuring canopy reflectance. Drones carrying […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
