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
Field notes
Protect the emerging head for yield potential, insect-ravaged corn, and cereal plant diseases
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
Attack on seedling diseases
Researchers are gaining the upper hand in a battle that is much more complex than anyone expected
Reading Time: 6 minutes When it comes to production problems in soybeans, growers have grown used to hearing that with soybean cyst nematode, once you’ve got it, it’s in your fields to stay. Only diverse rotations and SCN-resistant varieties can reduce the damage to future crops. But nematodes are far from the only threat. Surveys in the U.S. have […] Read more
Farming the cloud
Cloud farming is no longer just a concept. The way you manage data on the farm is about to change for the better
Reading Time: 5 minutes At Maxime Cardinal’s potato farm, there are more than 120 fields, some of them with more than one variety. From the first pass working the soil in the spring through to harvest, machinery will enter any given field up to 15 times. That’s a lot of information to keep track of! Cardinal, his father, Yvon […] Read more
The right move?
Reading Time: 5 minutes For Dave Gillespie, the question of whether to install a new on-farm storage bin and drying unit was never really in doubt. At least, it was never really in doubt after the fall of 2010. “The biggest factor was when we sat and couldn’t pick any corn because we were still sitting on beans, and […] Read more
Surging wheat
Reading Time: 5 minutes Some refer to it with a smirk as “the weed that gets planted after soybeans.” Others see it as a mere rotation crop, something you have to plant whether you want to or not in order to break up disease and pest cycles. However you have always thought about wheat’s role in your own operation, […] Read more
He’s not buying it
Reading Time: 8 minutes It’s got to be the toughest question in today’s agriculture. What’s the optimum farm size? For a lot of experts — and a lot of farmers — there’s a simple one-word answer. Bigger. Or maybe we should make that, BIGGER. But Shawn McRae isn’t buying it, and although McRae isn’t the kind to try to […] Read more
Fall weed control – the advantages
Reading Time: 2 minutes PestPatrol with Mike Cowbrough, OMAFRA Fall is a great time to target many perennial weeds. Cooler temperatures as well as specific growth stages will trigger them to move food reserves down to the roots for overwintering. Applying a herbicide that translocates or moves within the plant means more herbicide can also find its way to […] Read more
A boost for wheat
Reading Time: 4 minutes Corn and soybeans have been the big winners in the race to introduce new seed treatments. In the past 10 years, eastern Canadian farmers have got Poncho for their corn, while soybean growers have been basking in the positive effects of CruiserMaxx Beans, as well as the expanding market for inoculants. But what about cereals? […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
