Reading Time: 2 minutes Neonicotinoids, like many of our insecticides, are neurotoxins that go after the central nervous system. We often refer to the nervous system as an organism’s wiring, but its workings are a lot more complicated because all physiological actions must take place at low temperatures that won’t damage the surrounding proteins. Any electrician will tell you […] Read more
The science of how neonicotinoids work
Neonicotinoids for pest management
Evidence in support of neonics is impressive, if you take the time to understand it
Reading Time: 6 minutes Another summer is over, another harvest is done and now the key decisions are starting to loom for next year’s crop. The canola page in the seed catalogue is open, but whether the varieties on display are OPs or hybrids, herbicide tolerant, Argentine or Polish, most of them will come with a seed coating containing an […] Read more
Researchers abuzz about soybean yields
The research is preliminary, but early results suggest that some bees might be good for soybean crops
Reading Time: 6 minutes Some call it serendipity. Others say it merely proves the old adage that you make your own luck. Either way, some of the world’s biggest scientific breakthroughs have come when the researcher was actually looking for something else. Think penicillin, for example. Matt O’Neal is more a member of the group that says it all […] 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
Protecting pollinators in 2014
Ontario best-management trials include using fungicide-only seed
Reading Time: < 1 minute Country Guide recently had a chance to sit down with Tracey Baute, Field Crop Entomologist, during the 75th annual AGM for the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA). Baute’s presentation focused on protecting pollinators and how a new partnership with OSCIA using “fungicide only” seed and insecticide treated seed in comparison trials will help […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
