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
Attack on seedling diseases
Researchers are gaining the upper hand in a battle that is much more complex than anyone expected
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
Stacked seed treatments
In seed treatments, it seems we’ve come a hundred miles in just a decade. Truth is, there’s another thousand we’re soon going to go
Reading Time: 4 minutes From Dividend to Poncho to CruiserMaxx Beans — and then back full circle to CruiserMaxx Cereals with myriad treatments in between — seed treatments have evolved into standard operating procedure in Eastern Canada. But as with the seed traits sector, growers are demanding more breakthroughs every year, and seed treatment developers are having to delve […] Read moreNematodes on the run
Reading Time: 4 minutes Soybean growers don’t like nematodes. They don’t even like saying the word. There seems to be something almost unnatural about the tiny worm-like pests that destroy more yield potential in Ontario soybeans than any other pest. Now there’s another reason to cringe when you hear the word. Nematodes are moving into corn. It isn’t the […] Read more
Clean up the smut
Reading Time: 4 minutes These days, most growers are interested in planting corn, then soybeans, then wheat. In terms of priority, barley rarely makes the 10, which is too bad, since incorporating a fourth or even fifth rotational crop has been proven to have significant benefits for the more popular “Big Three.” One factor that may be holding barley […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
