Reading Time: 7 minutes For much of the past decade, provincial extension personnel, certified crop advisors (CCAs) and retailers have talked about declining soil organic matter levels in soils across Ontario. The trends towards intensive farming, shorter rotations, a decline in livestock farming and general practices that focus more on yield are some of the factors cited, together with […] Read more
Soil organic freefall
Comparisons that date back 40 years or more in some counties show just how much organic matter we’ve lost, and how hard it’s going to be to replace it
The best crop row spacing is…
A multi-year study suggests there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question
Reading Time: 6 minutes The question of the best row spacing has been asked even more often in recent years, and it turns out that the answer is the same as for many other questions in farming — “It depends.” But on what? A multi-year study by researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Indian Head Agricultural Research […] Read more
Some old ways aren’t better, but…
Long-term rotation study underlines that summerfallow harms soil health, but the old mixed farming model looks pretty good
Reading Time: 4 minutes You might think that a long-term crop test might mean five years. A decade would be remarkable. But what could plots tell you about soil health if they’ve been going on for 87 years? They would tell you that Prairie farmers were right to stop keeping fields in fallow as part of a rotation and […] Read more
PHOTOS: Farm Show demo digs deep on value of soil health
Roots, worm casts and different cover blends show amazing effects
Reading Time: < 1 minute Soil health has been a buzz phrase that’s gone from a whisper three to five years ago to a chorus that’s spreading across the agrifood industry. That goes to show the swinging of the pendulum away from plowing and aggressive tillage — and it seems to be gaining more advocates with each passing day. This […] Read more
The news on soil health
This time, will farmers finally break the “build-up then burn-out” cycle of soil management? The Ontario Soil Network thinks the answer may be yes
Reading Time: 6 minutes Don Lobb takes a very dim view of how mankind has treated soil over the millennia, but he is slightly more hopeful for this generation, due both to our constantly growing body of knowledge about soils, and to farmers who are not only willing to experiment with better ways to take care of the soil, […] Read more
It’s not soil ‘quality’…
Terminology can make a difference, and using ‘health’ rather than ‘quality’ is helping bring together different interests to a common cause
Reading Time: 6 minutes For three weeks every month, Ray Archuleta captivates audiences with a few handfuls of soil. He begins with two clumps, dropping them into water. The soil from a farm where the soil isn’t tilled holds together, while the tilled soil immediately disperses, indicating poor soil structure. Next, volunteers from the audience — mostly farmers and […] Read more
Big rains put Ontario crops under water
Time is now the factor for submerged crops if they are to remain healthy
Reading Time: 3 minutes A huge rainfall across midwestern Ontario has put fields of crops underwater. The rain, overnight June 22, totalled four to eight inches in an area from Goderich to east of the Grand River, flooding towns built generations ago along the rivers, forcing cattle to higher ground and leaving growing crops covered in water. Low points […] Read more
Subsurface drip irrigation
Interest is growing even in corn and soybeans, although it’s not for everyone
Reading Time: 9 minutes When it comes to being a better farm manager, many retailers, extension personnel and researchers talk about cost of production and “controlling the controllable,” which leads to the usual factors coming up, including seed selection, soil fertility, residue management and weed control. But the one factor that is always left off anyone’s list of controllable […] Read more
Who’s to blame?
Variable-rate technology is getting adopted, but not nearly as quickly as many farmers would like. Finally, this may soon change.
Reading Time: 9 minutes When variable-rate technology first came onto our radars roughly 20 years ago, it was supposed to revolutionize agriculture. We’re still waiting. But maybe not for much longer. In fact, maybe we don’t have to wait any longer at all. The advanced equipment systems needed for variable-rate technology have started to become available in the past […] Read more
Manage down-force
New monitors and individual-unit controls give growers a better shot at top yields
Reading Time: 8 minutes It was in March 2012 that Dr. Fred Below of the University of Illinois first published his list of the seven wonders of high-yield corn production, revolutionizing how North America’s farmers and agronomists think about corn management. Is it time to shake up that list? Even keeping in mind the differences between growing conditions south […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
