Reading Time: 5 minutes The lingering snow outside your window may suggest otherwise, but spring is right around the corner, and with that comes insect issues farmers should be aware of. The single biggest thing that will affect insect populations is spring weather. Cool, wet conditions best slow those crop-munching pests, says Saskatchewan’s provincial insect specialist Scott Hartley. While […] Read more
Insect outlook
Spring is just around the corner, and Prairie farmers will soon be battling hungry pests again
Make more money from fertilizer
Canola is a nutrient-hungry crop and fertilizer is the biggest input investment for most canola growers. The 4 Rs of fertilizer management — right source, right rate, right time, right place — will improve the economic sustainability of the crop
Reading Time: 4 minutes Lower canola prices will force growers to rethink their fertilizer investments and focus on inputs that provide a proven return on investment. For canola, those nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur. At the FarmTech Conference in Edmonton in January, I moderated a panel that included all eight Canola Council of Canada agronomy specialists along with […] Read more
Connecting the dots
Farmers like Mossbank, Sask.’s David Nagel are linking equipment technology and agronomy
Reading Time: 7 minutes Not too many of us consider the particular skills we’re using as we navigate a smart phone, or tablet, or gaming device. We figure them out by simply playing around on them. The platforms today are user friendly, easy to navigate, and chock full of data and applications that may or may not be helpful […] Read more
New era, new tools
Selection pressure and an ever-increasing list of glyphosate-resistant weeds mean we’re in a new era. Herbicide researchers are reacting by tapping the biomedical world for new tools for a new challenge
Reading Time: 6 minutes When most people think of 1973, they think of world changing events such as the Arab oil embargo and the end of the Vietnam War. What they don’t think of is the introduction of a world-beating pesticide that not only changed the way that farmers would come to think about weeds, but also fundamentally altered […] Read more
Overfed
Can more N guarantee you a record-breaking soybean yield?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Like farmers everywhere, soybean growers are big fans of big yield numbers. The more bushels, the better, and now, with yields commonly into the 70s, some even talk of reaching the century mark in just a few years’ time. That quest is leading growers down a few unexpected roads, such as applying nitrogen to soybeans. […] Read more
Research where it counts
Small-scale research helps these farmers win on the issues that matter most to their operations
Reading Time: 5 minutes How do you know your key crop production decisions are the right ones? You make these decisions every season — what varieties to plant, where to plant them, how to rotate them, what crop protection products to use and what sort of fertility package to apply. They determine your farm’s productivity and profitability and over […] Read more
Keeping bees
Neonicotinoid pesticides are under the spotlight following bee kills — but it’s not all doom and gloom
Reading Time: 5 minutes The southern Ontario spring of 2012 was an early one, and corn growers got busy as soon as they could get their planters out into the fields. Beekeepers got their troops mobilized early too, but high hopes for a good season quickly evaporated as the body count started piling up around the hives. It turned […] Read more
Field notes
Protect the emerging head for yield potential, insect-ravaged corn, and cereal plant diseases
Reading Time: 3 minutes Stretching flag-leaf timing It’s one of the baselines of cereal crop agronomy — protect the flag leaf, because protecting the flag leaf equals protecting yield potential. Bayer CropScience’s Troy Basaraba told a recent Agronomy Summit meeting of crop advisers that another variable frequently enters this equation — whether or not the application could also be […] Read more
Rutting season
There aren't any great options to fix your rutted fields. But here are the best - and the worst
Reading Time: 3 minutes Too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet. There’s pretty much never a Goldilocks moment for farming anywhere on the planet, and when those rare moments do emerge, they never last. It makes for challenging times for growers who have to balance the immediate needs of the operation, such as spraying crop protection products, or […] Read more
The pesticide jungle
Keeping it all straight isn't easy in the modern era of pest control
Reading Time: 3 minutes Weeds, diseases and insects. Every year these stand between you and a bumper crop. Controlling them was once a straightforward exercise, but that era has long passed. The proliferation of pesticide brands, genetically modified crops, residue management and pest resistance has thrown a monkey wrench into the picture. With over 1,500 pesticide brands registered to control over 1,200 pests that attack the over 800 […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
