Bekkering and his brother James run four Alberta feedlots with about 30,000 head of beef cattle. The largest feedlot feeds finishing and background animals while the other three are mainly backgrounding facilities. They farm about 4,500 acres, with a fairly even split between owned and rented land. James’s primary focus is on the feedlot while David looks after the crops and equipment. 

“This year, we’re farming around 2,600 acres of corn, 600 acres of hay, 500 acres of seed canola, about 600 acres of wheat and 200 acres of pasture grass,” says Bekkering, who’s based at the operation in Taber. “We also have several custom growers who grow corn for us, which we harvest, and those acres can be silage or corn.”

The 2022 growing season will be the third year they’ve grown Enogen corn — in 2020, they grew 180 acres of the traited hybrid, then 1,000 acres last year. This year all 2,600 acres were seeded to Enogen. 

Across Canada, the hybrids were grown in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. There were five hybrids ranging from 82 to 107 days to maturity. In 2023, Syngenta will add a 100-day hybrid to its lineup. 

“My test plot included two hybrids the first year: one an 80-day and the other an 86-day, and a 50/50 split each with about 90 acres per plot,” says Bekkering. “Last year, I was somewhat limited by supply. Then this year, I got the full allocation of my supply and we had one of our feedlots using solely Enogen corn, and we noticed significant cost-of-gain improvements there.” 

The Enogen hybrid trait came from the discovery of a transgene from a bacterium that produces alpha amylase, an enzyme that enhances the breakdown of starch into sugar and increases ruminal starch digestibility in cattle. As much as it benefits the feed quality and efficiency, it also reduces the amount of starch shed in the manure. 

Unique feed process

At TFS Expanse, they steam-flake their harvested corn in a mill that raises the temperature to 138 C, preserving it in a steam chest at 98 to 99 C, then cooking it for approximately one hour before flaking. 

“The difference between Enogen and regular corn is its water absorption rate,” says Bekkering. “Its starch structure absorbs water a little faster, so we had to speed up the process of rolling, or lower the temperature that we rolled to. We imported our flaker mill from Texas because we found there was nothing similar in Canada that could produce the same quality.” 

[RELATED] Farmtario: Silage growers urged to protect feed supply from Bt-resistant corn rootworm

He has a near-infrared (NIR) analysis machine to measure the degree of flaking relative to a starch number on the corn. When they flake it, they shoot for a 55 per cent starch availability value, which is unique in his region. 

One of the other features that Bekkering has found in the past three seasons is that it’s a very sturdy plant for southern Alberta because its improved standability translates into better wind resistance. 

“Unlike some other hybrids, because it’s a thick-stalked plant, it also has a little bit more frost tolerance,” he adds. “We’ve noticed that at the time of harvest, we can allow the grain to go to a harder kernel than our normal silages, because there was so much moisture in the stalks to offset our silaging process.” 

There’s also less bottom-leaf die-off, so it tends to provide better weed coverage. And for yield, it has a fairly large cob — typically about five to 10 per cent larger than some of its competitors. Bekkering has also noticed the core is smaller in diameter compared to those hybrids that will have lots of kernels but a thicker inner core. 

Confined to feedlots

The Enogen technology dates to 2005, when Syngenta began researching the technology. In 2011, it launched the hybrid in the U.S., with a focus on supplying corn to the ethanol industry. However, the notion of an end-user paying a premium, even for highly fermentable starch content, didn’t have appeal in the biofuels sector. In 2015, Syngenta changed its focus to the livestock business, specifically to ruminant feed. 

“Improvements in feed efficiency can be looked at several different ways,” says Doug Helm, Enogen technical sales lead for Syngenta Canada. “In a dairy operation where production is capped, increased feed efficiency can mean milking fewer cows to achieve the same level of production. In a feedlot operation, you can achieve better production for the same amount of input or reduce your inputs or feed cost to achieve the same gains.” 

Helm says the corn hybrid is unique to the livestock industry and needs to be contained to cattle operations at this time. Their stewardship guidelines allow producers to grow enough for their cattle operations while ensuring the product does not enter into the food-processing system. The hybrids are not currently available to grain producers unless they’re growing corn for a feedlot or dairy, and should not be delivered to a commercial feed mill or local grain elevator. 

There are specific protocols for growing Enogen hybrids, including segregation and proper marking of bins and elevator controls, as well as proper cleanout procedures for trucks that may be hauling harvested corn to dairies or feedlots. 

Helm concedes that some producers may not like the demand for cleanout procedures but notes they’re no different than with identity-preserved (IP) soybeans or glyphosate-tolerant crops. 

“The (purple-coloured) grain tracking system allows producers to easily identify Enogen corn whether it be in a field, in a silo, a feed bunk or coming off a truck,” says Helm. “Along with the stewardship program, the purple kernels help ensure that Enogen corn ends up at its intended destination, in a feed bunk. 

Feed efficiency

“These hybrids have been adopted from our most advanced genetics and producers can expect the same high yields they’ve come to know,” says Helm. “The great thing for livestock producers is that there are no additional inputs required to grow Enogen to receive the benefits to your livestock operation. They can expect to use the same fertilizer and weed control programs they would traditionally use on their operations.” 

All Enogen hybrids available in Canada are Bt, glufosinate-tolerant and EZ Refuge and they also have coloured kernels as a means of identification and tracking. 

Both Helm and Bekkering believe Enogen hybrids provide a unique sustainability story that also needs to be told. By improving feed efficiency on a cattle operation, Helm says the amounts of land, water and resources needed to produce a pound of beef or a litre of milk are being reduced. And Bekkering echoes that statement. 

“If the animals produce at a higher efficiency, quantitatively we should be producing less methane,” he says, noting he’s seen and heard different estimates, but nothing that’s been stated officially. “There are people researching that right now.”

– This article was originally published in the January 2023 issue of the Corn Guide.

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At the 2022 edition of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, seed companies were distributing their catalogues for 2023, and several had what could be described as “more robust” listings for silage-specific hybrids. It could be a shift in trends, or as some have suggested, part of an evolutionary stage of the corn feed market. 

It’s been more than 20 years since genetically modified hybrids became the norm and since then, some in the seed trade have insisted that “multifunctional” hybrids serve both the grain and feed sectors equally well. Yet in light of the listings of silage-specific hybrids from 2023 seed guides, it’s evident there is a change in the corn seed market. There are livestock producers who want better digestibility and palatability for their animals, opting for quality ahead of quantity. 

For Rick Van Laecke, the move is a sign of greater precision in the corn market. 

“Growers’ decisions are more science-based now; they’re looking at more data; they have more information at their fingertips,” says Van Laecke, president of Horizon Seeds. 

“In some ways, it seems as though there’s renewed interest but I think it’s the fact they’re more precise on their needs and they know what their goals are, and it’s caused more demand for silage-specific.” 

There’s also animal health to consider. Van Laecke notes that breeders have been pushed to make standability, yield and test weights the three main priorities. But two of those are characteristics of a bad silage hybrid — tough stalks and heavy test weights. 

“You don’t want that hard kernel cap. You want that energy to be extractable by the cow and you don’t want that bamboo-type stalk for the cow to chew on. There’s more work done on the social aspect of the herd and having happy cows. But they’re not happy if their mouths are sore, and breeders are creating hybrids that stand well yet cause combine and tractor tires to wear prematurely because they’re too rigid and sharp. And now there’s a desire to feed that to a cow?” 

Shifting demands

Jacquie MacCormack is Horizon Seeds’s southwestern business lead, with a background in the feed market. Like Van Laecke, she sees the shift in livestock producers’ demands for quality instead of quantity. It may not be a sweeping change but for higher-end dairy and beef producers, she says there’s a preference for digestibility over tonnage. 

“The better it is for digestibility, the less the producer has to supplement with other things, which makes feeding a lot more cost-effective.”

MacCormack says digestibility and palatability are the main goals for dairy producers in particular, just for the efficiency in milk production. Value is always seen as what’s coming out of the cow. 

“As a dairy producer, you can see when you hit the different spot in your bunk or the different spot in the silo where you switched hybrids. You can see that immediate effect when you’re milking two or three times a day because the input change is right there. That’s where the dairy industry really values it because they have that instant feedback.” 

MacCormack says it’s striking a balance: did you get more milk out of that cow and feed less? Or did you have to feed more to get the same amount? 

Balancing rations has become more of a focus for nutritionists, a change from the past when the pledge was, “We can balance anything.” 

“You can balance anything but the cost of throwing different premixes and min- erals and outside sources at it doesn’t really weigh out,” MacCormack says. “But if you have a good silage hybrid to begin with, you’re better off in the end.” 

In the thick of things

Among retailers and advisors, the picture of silage-specific hybrids also seems to fall into the “quality versus quantity” discussion, although Steph Berlett often fields requests for both. Those feeding corn are paying close attention to which hybrids are best for their needs, but they also look for higher yields. 

“They will not sacrifice much tonnage for better quality, but I would say there is a delicate balancing act,” says Berlett, a certified crop advisor (CCA) with Brussels Agromart, adding some will forgo a bit of one or the other. 

“I’ve seen a more concentrated effort in recent years to develop silage-specific data and there’s been more feedback than just calling it a ‘dual hybrid’ or saying, ‘it’s a tall plant, so it’s good for silage.’ That’s not cutting it anymore, especially when they have the technology in the barns to be tracking their feed data, so they’re starting to ask more detailed questions about their hybrids’ abilities.” 

Berlett concedes silage-specific is an added layer of management. Seed companies are challenged in their breeding programs, retailers face bagging and storage requirements and staying current on trait approvals, and livestock producers often have a higher focus on animal nutrition versus a reflex-like desire for higher yields. Since she works more on the agronomics of planting and growing hybrids, she has to be more diligent in her advice, always learning more about the producer’s needs for animal health. 

“In that regard, there needs to be better integration or communication between nutritionists and crop advisors,” says Berlett, noting that hybrid selection for a dairy or beef producer has to be driven from the nutritionist’s side. “We can’t go out and push ‘Hybrid A’ without understanding the implications to the grower’s feed sample.” 

Other challenges

Balancing nutrition with yield is not the only issue facing producers and their advisors. Hybrid options, size of operations, storage capacity, agronomy, and disease and pest management are all parts of the equation. 

Robert Moloney maintains silage-specific hybrids are a niche market, except for those producers who are dedicated to growing them. 

“Animal intake tends to be higher with leafy hybrids,” says Moloney, a CCA with Boyd’s Farm Supply in Fordwich, Ont. “But that also means more acres to grow and more space to hold the feed. A higher-quality feed typically means you need less storage and with the increasing size of operations, that’s a consideration.” 

On the quality side, hybrids with a trait like brown mid-rib (BMR) increase digestibility but they need more acres due to lower yield or other challenges such as lodging or poor disease resistance. That can be an issue for plant breeders: although they’re breeding for many of the same characteristics such as standability, silage-specific is another set of traits and genetics that must be included. 

“The problem with silage-specific is you don’t have an option for taking it as grain, so extra plants in the field would be wasted,” Moloney says. “The logistics of producing a small pile of silage-specific hybrids — with isolation requirements for seed production, logistics of small batches, physical seed bag inventory if they want different branding — are probably also limiting.”

– This article was originally published in the January 2023 issue of the Corn Guide.

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Before you say, “It’ll never happen,” think back to 1992 and changes such as transgenics, GPS and precision ag technologies and production capabilities that have virtually doubled yields in most crops. That sets the stage for a followup question: With these conditions, why change? 

It may not be a matter of “wanting” to change as having it imposed by developments and trends here and in other countries. Concerns over climate change and the environment are driving interest in electric vehicles, which has already affected the U.S. ethanol industry. Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and now the war in Ukraine are behind a push for greater self-sufficiency, possibly necessitating a more diverse food-based production system. 

Lots of time

How the next 10 to 30 years will unfold for corn and soybean production is anyone’s guess, but it’s been a recent topic of discussion for Emery Huszka and Stephen Denys. The two have tossed the idea around and although both concede there’s a lot of uncertainty, now’s a good time to start the conversation. 

“In reality, we’re already somewhat transitioned with corn and soybeans,” says Huszka, a grower who farms near Florence, and is also a District 3 director for the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO). “Twenty-five to 30 years ago, when we were talking ethanol for the first time, it was a different marketplace. When we achieved the ethanol mandate, it was a saviour to us as corn farmers and gave us a solid market. It added to the country’s ability to put off some of our usage of fossil fuels and gave us time and space to think this through.”

Huszka says farmers are eminently practical. They see challenges, draw on community knowledge, look through a scientific lens, seek the appropriate advice, and then move toward a vision of their work, making changes as needed for the short, medium and long term. He doesn’t see a future where there is a wholesale shift away from growing corn or soybeans, pointing to research by the GFO into new uses and markets for all Ontario grains. 

When he looks at the genetics during the past 30 years, Huszka sees a tremendous impact on performance and yields. Production has moved to more marginal soils, with crops boasting higher test weights or higher oil content. 

“We’re fine-tuning our craft,” he says. “But will farmers take advantage of new markets? You bet. Will we watch the trends in the world and ensure our fields are providing what’s needed? We always do.” 

While corn and soybeans form a strong foundation for Ontario’s cropping plans, Huszka says they make up only about half of the provincial picture, and there are strong complementary crop options. The other perspective on the situation is that nothing will happen overnight. 

“I watch our neighbours to the south as others do, just to see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it,” says Huszka. “But let’s face it, the oil industry is a trillion-dollar industry in the U.S. and it isn’t going to just roll over. If they’re going to continue, that means biofuels are a walking partner, so I don’t see it disappearing in the States. As the people who grow our food, we know there are very few simple answers to any situation.” 

Delicate balance

Benjamin Schapelhouman, a certified crop advisor based in Temiskaming District, has a unique vantage point on potential changes to cropping mix. He notes that 15 years ago, there was talk of climate change shifting more corn and soybean production in Western Canada. Yet soybean is the only crop that’s seen higher acreage in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and it’s still low relative to canola and cereals.

Schapelhouman notes the Prairie producers have less flexibility for growing more canola, which would come at the expense of crops like flax, peas or lentils. The challenge there is the balance of growing a year of canola, a pulse and two years of cereals. Shorter canola rotations are problematic because of insect pressures and diseases such as clubroot. 

“I could see that happening but then something has to give,” says Schapelhouman. “If you’re growing more soybeans, then something similar is going to have to leave the rotation.” 

In Ontario’s “Near North,” there’s room for more soybeans, with growers willing to shift their acres accordingly. But unless producers are growing corn — possibly under plastic — and feeding it to their cattle, it’s just not a crop that’s suited to the cooler, shorter season and distance to feed or processing markets. 

“Even if the climate warms in the next 10 years, all other things being equal, I don’t see the corn situation changing here,” says Schapelhouman. 

Like Huszka, Schapelhouman doesn’t believe there’ll be a sudden shift away from the two staples: growers will have plenty of advance notice. In spite of talk of land development in Canada, Brazil, Ukraine and Central Africa, the world is balanced and positioned to use most of what it grows. Expansion will come when demand for grains and oilseeds is more urgent. 

“My understanding is it’s difficult for the Chinese and Indians to bring new land into production because they’re los- ing it to urbanization,” says Schapelhouman. “It’ll probably be the Chinese who stand to gain the most from bringing Central Africa into production or increasing their own production.” 

The biggest problem facing anyone turning undeveloped land into farmland is dealing with the environmental push-back and political issues in any of those countries. 

“What we can do is if the market wants — and pays for — more edible oils, we can produce quite a bit more — at the expense of something else, like cereals and forages,” says Schapelhouman. “We’ll just produce more canola and more soybeans if we get into Manitoba and Northern Ontario, because we can.” 

Just brainstorming

Stephen Denys echoes the notion that little is about to change in the short term, but he’s had more of these conversations with other farmers who are trying to identify longer-term outlooks, especially for corn and soybeans. 

“One thing that sometimes limits the exploration or adoption of other options is the fact there has been a great deal of investment in corn and soybeans over time,” says Denys, director of market and product development with Maizex Seeds. 

“They’ve made these crops easier to produce in mass-production systems, in particular with herbicide and insecticide tolerance. When it comes to a discussion on economics, in many cases, these crops become hard to turn away from as a result.” 

Thirty years ago, he adds, it might have been easier to consider other options, before transgenic GMOs and GPS technology. 

If there’s a crop in waiting that could shift acres away from corn or soybeans in Ontario, Denys believes it’s winter canola. The equipment’s in place, processors are happy to accept it and there are farmers with multi-year success with it. It fits well after winter wheat, it spreads the workload and offers attractive prices, while utilizing different classes of chemistry — since winter canola is non-GMO — compared to what corn and soybeans require. 

“Other options are more regionally specific,” says Denys, citing hybrid rye as a crop with strong potential, not only for industrial uses like alcohol but as a feed source for hogs. “This could be a tremendous cereal option with higher yield potential on lighter soils than open-pollinated varieties.” 

Edible beans, sugar beets and increased vegetable production — at least in the extreme southwestern corner of the province — could decrease corn or soybeans acreage while enhancing on-farm practices for some farmers. 

“We’re actually in a good position in Eastern Canada as the elevator industry already segments crops, including IP soybeans,” says Denys. “Adding crops is easier to do in my mind versus the U.S. Midwest where segmentation would be more difficult.”

– This article was originally published in the September 2022 issue of the Corn Guide.

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It’s a testament to modern agricultural science that the more we learn, the more questions we ask.

On its own, leaf architecture is certainly not a new subject, whether among corn breeders and agronomists or within the ranks of growers. A quick internet search shows research on the topic in one form or another dating back nearly 20 years.

Even so, the potential importance of the ear leaf and the link to sprayer applications for protecting that leaf and the ones above it, is getting relatively new interest both in biology and engineering circles.

The ear leaf in corn has been rated by some as the most important leaf on a corn plant and the biggest — longest and widest — in terms of leaf area. It also does much of the work of collecting sunlight for photosynthesis.

From Drew Thompson’s vantage point, the industry is well aware of the importance of the upper leaves in a corn crop. But he’s uncertain whether there’s as much understanding about the role of the ear leaf. Its contribution to photosynthesis is significant, with the sugars produced in the ear leaf flowing into the developing cob.

Is a trait like “leaf architecture” — or the corn plant’s physiology, in general — a deciding factor in hybrid selection? Thompson’s not sure.

“Plants with a more upright leaf structure do allow the sunlight to penetrate deeper into the canopy,” says Thomp­son, market development agronomist with Pride Seeds. “But to say that genetics with upright leaves will out-yield those with a more pendulum leaf style would be far too generic and wouldn’t always be the case.”

Thompson believes the industry is well aware that a corn plant begins to form the cob early in its life cycle, which is why the central message of the critical weed-free period has become so important, i.e. keep the stress away when the cob is forming, since less stress at that point leads to a larger cob. However, yield potential in a corn ear can be influenced in one of three ways: the girth (the number of rows around), the length of the cob and the size or weight of the kernels.

“When we apply a fungicide, the cob is pretty much formed — in terms of girth and length,” says Thompson. “What we’re doing with a fungicide is making sure that the photosynthetic engine — the ear leaf and those above — is fully operational. If disease sets in and the green tissue of the upper leaves begins to die, there’s no way the kernels can fill to their genetic potential. When that happens, we either get smaller or lighter kernels, or kernels will abort and we end up with fewer harvestable kernels.”

In the U.S., Thompson says, there has been a considerable discussion around leaf area index (LAI), expressed in “m2 x m2” (or square feet by square feet). The idea is to find a theoretical maximum of how many layers of leaves can cover an area for optimal performance before the excessive plant biomass starts to limit yield potential, and the yield begins to drop. (That’s normally associated with too many plants for the moisture-holding capacity of a field.)

“In theory, upright leaves can have a higher population before surpassing the ‘target LAI,’ but there is a lot of debate as to what that target should be, and it’ll vary widely with the soil type or fertility or other factors,” says Thompson. “There’s a trend of newer genetics being more upright than those of the past, but there’s still a good mix of upright and pendulum (types of leaves). Population management becomes far more important.”

The physics of spray droplets

Leaf angle and the role of the ear leaf in disease management are also being researched. A pair of articles from AgWeb addressed the need to protect the ear leaf and the leaves above it using foliar fungicides. Once the ear leaf is affected by lesions, the ability to protect them becomes more problematic, often with a resulting loss in yield.

That’s why the corn plant’s overall health and yield depend so much on the physics of spray droplets and the plant’s leaf architecture.

According to Dr. Jason Deveau, much of the issue surrounds the size of a droplet generated and its direction of travel.

“Once generated, droplets have three possible fates: the ground, the air or the target (the leaf),” says Deveau, application technology specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. He adds that there are different terms to describe various results and outcomes, as well.

Transfer efficiency describes the droplet’s potential to arrive at the target — that is, will it get from the nozzle to the leaf? A droplet sprayed down from an overhead boom has a downward/forward vector: downward because of the energy in the droplet along with the effect of gravity, and forward because of the angle of the nozzle and the sprayer’s direction of travel. Coarser droplets move in relatively straight lines, and in order to have an impact on a target, they have to have a clear line of travel. Although product formulation can help, coarser droplets are prone to “bouncing” and running off a target.

“This is where leaf orientation will matter a lot,” says Deveau. “If it exposes the tip or edge of the leaf, it has a low profile and the coarser droplets will miss. Low-profile targets have low catch efficiencies.”

Transfer efficiency should not be confused with the catch efficiency — or retention efficiency — which describes the target’s potential to receive droplets, and whether the droplets stick to the target when they hit it.

If there are obstacles between the sprayer and the leaf, such as a dense corn canopy with other leaves, coarser droplets will hit targets that are line-of-sight and go no farther. Finer droplets move more like a feather in the breeze. If they can get into the canopy without evaporating or getting blown off course, they have the potential to go deeper and hit out-of-sight targets. This is because their course is twisty and erratic, determined by environmental factors such as convection, sprayer wake and wind. Some will ride turbulent eddies around obstacles and others will have an impact on out-of-sight surfaces.

“We like finer spray because there are more droplets that penetrate farther, cover out-of-sight surfaces and, frankly, carry a more consistent dose compared to coarser droplets,” says Deveau. “But they evaporate, don’t move very far or very quickly, and tend to drift off-target to create non-uniform deposition. Coarser droplets behave predictably but it’s that lack of randomness that makes them less effective in a dense, mostly vertical canopy.”

What’s changed?

In terms of the physics of spray coverage, nothing has changed. What’s different, says Deveau, is the tolerance for inefficiency. Chemical products are increasingly specific, both in timing and how they work, and they’re also expensive, meaning that every drop that misses the target is a loss.

“Then there’s our increasing desire to reduce any unnecessary environmental contamination,” Deveau adds. “A near-hit is undesirable when one considers sub-lethal dosing which reduces performance and increases the chance of creating a situation that accelerates resistance.”

The other factor that’s changed is the realization that timing is so important in protecting the corn plant, and that can apply as much to an insecticide as a fungicide. Working in the horticulture sector for years, Deveau says he would always stress the critical need to have a protectant fungicide in place ahead of infection.

“Even a poor application on time trumps a terrific application too late,” he notes. “The best approaches are either to use air-assist to drive finer spray into the dense canopy or the use of drop nozzles. Drop nozzles place the tip close to the target and remove many of the intervening obstacles between the nozzle and the target.”

Deveau adds they had promising coverage results using drop nozzles in corn in 2019 and that he, Dr. David Hooker from University of Guelph (Ridgetown Campus) and Albert Tenuta, also with OMAFRA, are following up with similar work this year.

This article was originally published as, “Target: the ear leaf,” in the September 2020 issue of the Corn Guide.

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Yet the reality is that if corn has become more of a mainline crop on many farms, it’s mostly the crop’s consistency and predictability that has done it, coupled with its impressive and steadily increasing yield performance.

There’s no single factor to thank. Instead, it has all come together for corn, including trait development and enhancement, advances in precision agriculture systems and their adoption, improved fertility, and adoption and investment in on-farm drying and storage systems. Each pillar has gained ground in the past 10 years. Many crop watchers would say even more so in the last five.

When the term “trait” is mentioned in reference to corn production, it’s often an allusion to Bt technology or to the glyphosate resistance or insect tolerance carried by most hybrids. Yet just as seed companies involved in the wheat sector have done a solid job of screening out varieties susceptible to fusarium head blight, the corn sector has done the same with monitoring desired and undesired characteristics in hybrids.

Beyond insect tolerance or herbicide resistance, plant breeders and researchers have been investigating so-called “native traits” such as drought tolerance or reduced susceptibility to anthracnose. There may not be as targeted an effort here as on the transgenic traits, but the results are no less significant for the crop’s long-term production scenarios.

“This research is providing a hardier corn plant that can withstand environmental stress,” says Stephen Denys, brand director with Maizex Seeds. “Most farmers will say that one of the reasons for success in corn today is the genetics available and the stresses these hybrids can take through the season in this age of environmental instability, compared to what they would have planted even 20 years ago.”

But over and above the plant itself, Denys makes an interesting case that corn’s evolution has come with support from the entire industry, including equipment and systems manufacturers as well as precision ag developers and dealers. He cites the trend of strip till becoming more of a mainstream practice compared to the turn of the century and notes more growers are doing their own on-farm research on optimizing nitrogen rates and timing.

“We’re also seeing a definitive increase for early- and mid-adopters utilizing data collected through the year — from planting to harvest, including tissue analysis —tied to variable-rate population and fertilizer,” says Denys. He adds that particular facet is developing to optimize yields and input costs. “The other trend would be fine-tuning fertility programs from a second-tier macronutrient and micronutrient perspective, including increased use of sulphur, and trials and use of nutrients such as boron.”

Nutrient response and planting dates are two other intriguing trends which Denys notes are changing perceptions at the grower level. The term “stress tolerance” is often confused with nutrient response, yet different hybrids react differently to intensive management practices, hence the commitment by seed companies to test every hybrid on a multi-year basis. The goal is to determine the responses to intensive management practices, including plant populations, fungicide treatments or nitrogen rate response.

“This allows us to better match hybrids to specific production conditions,” adds Denys, who also farms in Chatham-Kent. “Some hybrids do respond to overall N rates while others do not benefit to the same degree, so knowing your soil type and understanding the inherent yield potential across your fields can aid in hybrid selection.”

As for planting dates, again, it’s research into native stress tolerances in available genetics that has allowed growers to push their planting dates earlier. There’s a growing recognition of the importance of planting when the ground is fit, and it’s been reflected in observations from this past spring, including side-by-side fields with visible variability. In those cases, says Denys, it might relate back to decisions made at planting, like whether the field was planted before or after a cool night or a three-inch rain. Or what was the fall tillage treatment in one field compared to another?

“These are the questions we need to ask ourselves and review as we begin planning for 2021,” says Denys. “Patience has always paid in farming, and that’s even more the case where we have big equipment that can go through anything or tractors with really comfortable cabs that can give us a false sense of security about how fit the ground is for planting. The most important tillage tool I own is my shovel and it’s the first implement used on every field.”

Farther afield

Those lessons learned are occurring across a larger geographic region and growers and advisors alike are pushing their management skills as a result. Yet there is a long way to go with each aspect, says Wayne Black, agronomy sales manager with Sunderland Co-operative.

“Are we covering more acres with more advanced knowledge of our fertility programs? Yes,” he says. “Are we covering more acres with the latest genetics and traits in corn hybrids? Yes we are. Are we covering more acres with fungicides and pesticides than in the past? Yes we are.”

But is that across the board? Are all farmers managing more of their fields for higher profitability? Black knows of some farms that become more productive and profitable, thanks in large part to improved hybrids and a greater commitment by growers to a higher level of management. But is that always the case?

“There are more tools available to do the late-season nitrogen application or to properly measure the use of the pre-sidedress nitrogen test (PSNT) or SoilScan from the 360 Yield Center,” explains Black. “There are tools that can determine how much nutrient you need and better knowledge available on the timing for an uptake of nutrients for the corn plant. And every year, we’re seeing a slight increase in the number of acres we cover with that late-season nitrogen application.”

However, he questions whether growers could be better stewards of their corn ground, a reference to the job done with the 4R Stewardship initiative. Conservation authorities and other environmental agencies have done a good job of highlighting Great Lakes pollution and specifically, the algal blooms in Lake Erie. But if growers are relying solely on genetic tweaking in hybrids or advanced equipment technologies on their own, they may be missing the full extent of every opportunity.

“We need to dig deeper into the details of what we can collect today, whether that’s imagery data or through predictive modelling, but we also need that data on hybrid capabilities,” Black says. “We need more information such as on the seed germination percentage in the bag, along with warm germination and cold germination. If we’re going to be content with 110-, 160- or 210-bushel corn, we’re not going to change.”

It’s not that he wants to focus more on the negatives, but Black cites the research data and information that have come out of the last 20 years, and he cautions that some of the recommendations tend to blur. For instance, research shows that traits introduced since 1995 respond more to late-season nitrogen applications because agronomists learned today’s corn plants take up 75 per cent of their nitrogen needs at tasselling and beyond. Previously, hybrids only took up 60 per cent at that point.

“There’s a thought process that the newer genetics have changed nutrient uptake, but I question whether it’s the genetics that have changed how the crop takes up those nutrients,” says Black. “Or is it that newer, high-yielding hybrids are taking up nutrients at different stages or different ratios at each stage because it’s going more to kernel production than to the stalk or leaf?”

Whether it’s the genetic capabilities of the hybrids or understanding the needs and timing to produce higher-yielding corn, growers can’t use the same starter program they did in 1990. Not only do they need to rethink their fertilizer program, they need to reconsider the timing.

“It goes back to those growers who are using the proper fertility programs,” says Black. “They’re profitable, they’re expanding their acres or switching to others if they’re renting. They’re maximizing their profitability per acre. That goes hand-in-hand with positioning the right hybrid, which goes back to the better managers who will include their agronomist, their equipment sales rep, their seed or chemical dealer and fertilizer dealer. All of them will be involved in that conversation to maximize profitability.”

Future still looks bright

Although the learning curve continues upward, Denys believes there are still greater heights to be achieved with advances in genetics and agronomic practices. Planting when the ground is fit, minimizing weeds during the critical weed-free period, and timely use of fungicides continue to be fundamentals. However, he sees breeding programs geared to Western Canada corn production benefiting growers in Eastern Canada, as well. In creating hybrids for early maturity areas in the West, Eastern production will benefit from more stress-tolerant genetics that are helping growers cope with environmental stresses and increased severity in those stresses.

“What’s interesting is the genetic potential across maturity ranges,” adds Denys, citing the importance of improved genetics in raising provincial yield averages. “We had farmers in many parts of Ontario and Quebec who had to switch to early-maturity hybrids given the wet start in 2019. Overall, the earlier-maturing hybrids provided an excellent crop not far out of line with their original expectations.”

The same thing has happened in Manitoba, where trials in the last few years have produced yield levels in many locations that can rival those in southwestern Ontario.

“I expect that as we go forward, we’ll see further research into inherent natural trait selection for stress tolerance,” says Denys. “Plus a movement that looks at corn height for grain corn, as an example, and continued research on silage hybrids to optimize tonnage and quality.”

This article originally published in the September 2020 issue of the Corn Guide.

The post A new era of agronomics and genetics for corn appeared first on Country Guide.

In that time, more growers have been adopting and adjusting their spring operations to use the technology, primarily for planting corn.

The introduction came at a time when growers were facing an increasing rush in spring, a result of variable weather patterns and larger acreages, which compressed planting into ever-tightening windows.

High-speed planting promised to shorten the planting season without sacrificing seed placement, often a casualty of planting at higher speeds with a conventional finger pickup meter.

Interestingly, two U.S.-based articles appeared within eight days of each other last March, one unveiling the results of a five-year study of high-speed planting technology and the other warning against planting at higher speeds with conventional equipment. Without high-speed technology, the consultant in that article warned, yield losses could cost a grower more than $75 per acre.

It raises the question again. Is running a high-speed planter similar to operating a conventional planter at higher speeds?

Obviously not, and neither of the stories blurred that line. The grower-consultant quoted in the earlier story was simply trying to get growers to pay more attention to planter preparation and to focus on its efficiency — including slowing down. Bill Lehmkuhl is a grower from Minster, Ohio, who also operates Precision Agri Services. In a presentation last winter, he told growers that if they have a 16-row planter and they are planting 34,000 seeds per acre (at average speed) at $300 per unit, they’re running through US$0.86 per second, just for the seed. One hour translates to more than $3,000 on seed, which is why having the planter prepared for spring is so important.

Added to that, a YouTube video detailed a speed check that Lehmkuhl conducted, where dropping speeds on conventional planters by two miles per hour (from 6.5 m.p.h. to 4.5 m.p.h.) could mean a yield difference of 25 bu./ac.

So different

In the other article, Dr. Matthew Darr, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University, was one of the researchers involved in the five-year study of high-speed planting technologies. The project tested the John Deere ExactEmerge and Precision Plant­ing’s SpeedTube designs and found that the high-speed systems reduced skips, which resulted in more consistent seed spacing.

“The biggest misconceptions around high-speed planters is just the use of the term, ‘high-speed planting’ and what that actually means,” says Darr. “When we say ‘high-speed planters’, they physically carry the seed to the ground and completely eliminate ricochet within the seed tube. It’s just a different way to plant.”

Using a conventional finger pickup metered unit, maximum speed should be no more than five miles an hour, says Darr, echoing Lehmkuhl’s findings. With Deere, Precision Planting, Ag Leader and other systems, there are two key differences: the first is that the meter has to handle the increased speed — it has to spin faster, and they’re designed to do that. The second — and more important difference — is it no longer uses a drop-tube that allows the seed to fall 20 inches from the exit of the meter down into the furrow. Instead, the seed is physically carried all the way to the seedbed

“I look at it as being a totally different implement,” says Darr, comparing it to using a disc versus a field cultivator, or a grain drill compared to a planter. “It’s a different meter… it’s not that much different from finger pickup versus vacuum row units. High-speed planting is much the same.”

Darr actually suggests the term “high-speed planting” is a bit of a misnomer because it isn’t just the impact of higher speeds, it’s the physical distribution of the seed into the furrow at higher speeds. And it’s the metering that makes the biggest difference.

“The first thing we looked at was whether you see decreases in placements and singulation spacing of corn,” says Darr. “We found that with the conventional row unit, as your speed increases, your randomness and variability increases with it, so you do a worse quality job of placing seeds when you go up in speed.”

With “high-speed” row units, that no longer happens. As the speed of operation increases, there’s no difference in the singulation spacing of the final plants in the ground. It breaks that fundamental relationship that says “the faster you plant, the more random your seeds are going to be.”

A key point of clarification from Darr’s research or from any operator familiar with high-speed planter technology is that there is no increase in yield from a high-speed planter compared to a traditional planter operating at conventional speeds.

So what’s the advantage of going faster?

That value all comes back to the narrow planting window and capturing more sunlight, says Darr. Regardless of where a grower is farming, there is a response curve that says the later a crop is planted in the season the lower the yields are likely to be.

“It’s the desire to hit windows consistently and make sure the crop is getting in on time, in a way that’s not creating mitigating circumstances for late planting,” says Darr. “From a pure value perception, in a perfect planting year when you have a nice long window and you’re not fighting the weather, there is zero expectation that you will have a yield improvement from high-speed planting. It’s not section control or some other technology that will deliver ‘x’ per cent every year — that is not what it does.”

In a tough year with tough conditions and tight windows, it’ll pay back by getting more crop in the ground when the weather is fit and will do more to enhance emergence and sunlight capture. In the most basic terms, every grower wants to give their crop the best start, and with corn being very deterministic, if it gets off to a bad start, it’s less likely to recover compared to a crop like soybeans.

Time is money

It’s been three years now that Peter Rastorfer has been using a high-speed planter, in his case, a 16-row Väderstad Tempo. He uses it for corn and edible beans on 2,500 acres at his family’s operation near Monkton, Ont. He agrees with Darr’s findings (see main article) that high-speed planting is not a yield-booster, only a time-saver.

“We were upgrading planters and it was either go to a wider 24-row unit — to match up for our operation — or go with this 16-row, 30-inch, high-speed planter, to try to do similar acres per day,” says Rastorfer, who also grows soybeans and wheat. “That’s the reason why my operation went to that. We’re trying to get an average of about 250 acres done per day with that planter. Some days you’re planting 150 and other days you’re getting 350 acres done, depending on the field sizes.”

Rastorfer acknowledges that more of his peers are using high-speed planters and it’s becoming an accepted — if not desired — system for planting. Yet he concedes that he was a little hesitant the first year he began using it.

“I was thinking there was no way I could travel at the nine miles per hour that they’d told me I could with the Väderstad,” he recalls. “So seven was the most I would go with that, because I really felt uncomfortable with it that first year. We did some trials at nine miles an hour and when things came up, I was very impressed with the placement and the job it was doing. It was unbelievable.”

Rastorfer also notes the equipment sector has done a solid job, not just in differentiating between high-speed planters and driving planters at high speeds, but at keeping growers engaged through their web sites and other resources.

“That’s how I learned about it before I bought my Väderstad,” says Rastorfer, adding that the experience was positive because it was simple to access the information he wanted.

But it’s the time factor that also persuaded him to move to a high-speed planting system. Although he relies on it to get his corn and edible beans in, he acknowledges that in certain instances, it would be just as suitable with soybeans.

“That comes down to the operation,” says Rastorfer. “They do a great job of planting soybeans, it’s just that the machine is limited by how much seed you can carry, so it’s not the most ideal for soybeans where you need more seeds per acre, versus corn where you’re needing fewer. But the benefits of using the high-speed with soybeans is similar to corn for a certain producer who might not have the acres.”

The other advantage for Rastorfer’s operation with the Väderstad is that it offers a dry fertilizer, 2 x 2 option versus a liquid program, an important option for his farming operation.

Additional information:

• Yield considerations for high-speed planting
• Simple economics say focus on planter, efficiency

This article originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of the Corn Guide.

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Last year’s harvest conditions after early snowfall in Manitoba and Alberta and a slow, wet start to this season played a big role in that decline.

“Corn acres are most certainly down this year because of conditions last fall and this spring,” says Morgan Cott, field agronomist for the Manitoba Corn Growers Association. “There are producers who knew it would be a challenging spring and decided to remove corn this year to ease the load, especially if they couldn’t get on to the fields that were best suited for corn this year.

“Grain corn is a lot of work in the spring and the fall. We have had several years in a row with good fall weather that has allowed us to harvest well into November without much issue. Last fall was a very challenging harvest, and it is possible some producers want to avoid that for one year.”

Lower prices also made growers question the profitability of growing corn this year.

“If you think about the profitability of a corn acre planted in Manitoba, a grower might get bids around $4/bu. versus wheat that’s $6/bu. to $7/bu. and canola is still at a good profitability level,” says Jeff Loessin, Corteva AgriScience corn and soybean marketing lead for Canada. “It probably impacts growers’ willingness to grow corn on more acres in that situation, and it also changes their investment equation.”

Growing corn, whether it’s for grain, forage or grazing, also requires extra investments in things such as planters, headers, choppers, dryers or fencing.

Loessin believes the introduction of carbon taxes could have dampened some enthusiasm for growing grain corn too, especially since growers typically need a grain dryer. “The carbon tax adds extra costs that farmers are still trying to figure out, which loops back to profitability,” he says.

The pandemic has also affected Canadian and U.S. corn acres. “When COVID-19 hit and oil prices slumped, ethanol demand went down,” Loessin says. “That made growers ask ‘how much corn do I really need to grow or should I grow because of the downside risk on profitability?’”

Mark Kerry, crop and campaign marketing manager for corn with Bayer CropScience, agrees.

“Probably short-term there’s a role that COVID has played in corn acres, and because it’s a heavy investment in fertilizer, seed and crop protection, there may be some producers going back to barley in their feed rotation or rations for their livestock. But we fully expect corn acres are going to increase again in 2021, although factors around commodity price and feedstock conditions are going to continue to play a role.”

Breeding programs continue

While there may not be as much corn in the ground this year, major companies say they remain committed to increasing the corn footprint across Western Canada and are investing heavily in local breeding programs and agronomy trials.

“We continue to breed and test corn in Western Canada,” Loessin says. Cor­teva has active breeding programs in Car­man, Lethbridge and Saskatoon. “The drive is to figure out the traits and the qualities that we need for Western Canada, and by doing the research here, we ensure any hybrids or germplasm are suitable from a trait standpoint and are adapted for growing conditions in Western Canada.”

Corteva’s agronomy research includes trials looking at plant population and row width to optimize yields under various conditions, and building recommendations for different regions.

Bayer has a pre-commercial testing program for the new genetics it develops for Western Canada and has eight market development farms in the region with close to 100 ongoing agronomy trials for both grain and silage corn.

“All of these are designed to bring…lower-heat unit, earlier-season genetics to Western Canada which best fit into silage and grain corn markets, as well as dual-purpose hybrids that fit both,” Kerry says.

Kerry says digital tools such as Bayer’s Climate Fieldview will help make better agronomic recommendations.

“Tools like this will play a role in growth of corn acres in Western Canada long-term.”

Although 10 million acres might be overly optimistic, Loessin says there are still plenty of opportunities for growth, but profitability will determine adoption.

“Our jobs are to provide products that perform and to help growers understand how corn can be profitable on their farms, so that’s where we’re putting our investment, in making sure that local testing is done, so that customers can make decisions on what corn hybrid to grow and their agronomic practices based on local data.”

What’s new in breeding programs?

Corteva says yield remains the main focus for its western Canadian breeding program, but it also includes resistance to mid-season brittle snap, root lodging and late-season stalk lodging. Moving into non-traditional corn-growing regions with lower heat units is still a major objective, with an emphasis on driving genetic gain for early maturity.

Corteva’s lead corn breeder Travis Coleman says its lineup currently includes the earliest-maturity hybrids available in the market but a goal is to develop even earlier hybrids that can reliably reach physiological maturity in under-2000 CHU regions such as central Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The main disease concern is Goss’s wilt, which is appearing not only in traditional corn-growing regions but also in isolated, non-traditional areas, suggesting the bacterium is endemic to the Prairies. “Corteva germplasm has adequate native genetic resistance available to deploy through traditional breeding and to provide resistance,” Coleman says.

The requirement for most of Western Canada is the development of ultra-early maturity hybrids. Most of the germplasm will be produced through a process called “transgressive segregation” (selection of progeny that are earlier than either parent). Coleman says that represents a challenge as it pushes the germplasm beyond what has existed before.

“Balancing this development of earliest-maturing genetics while providing top end yield performance is a challenge that is unique to the geography. Our early-maturity germplasm collection provides the genetic diversity needed and a strong base to build on.”

This season, Bayer CropScience introduced its earliest corn hybrid in the DEKALB lineup, DKC21-36RIB, a 71-day hybrid that can be grown farther north and west. “It’s a nice fit into parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan where our customers have not been able to grow corn before because we didn’t have early enough genetics for their regions,” Kerry says.

Bayer continues to focus on bringing value-added traits into its earlier hybrids. An example is its SmartStax system, with below- and above-ground insect control together with Roundup Ready and Liberty Link, making it an eight-way traited corn.

“It would just be a fit for southern Manitoba, but it’s an example of new innovative traits getting earlier in our lineup,” Kerry says. Also, in Bayer’s seed guide for Western Canada is a Trecepta Rib Complete, which offers an above-ground insect protection trait that controls Western bean cutworm, although this isn’t yet a pest affecting Western Canada.

Corteva has several under-2000 CHU hybrids in late-stage development and will offer trait packages in AcreMax above-ground Bt protection or Roundup Ready herbicide resistance. “These hybrids will open up new acres in non-traditional growing regions where heat unit accumulation has historically been a limiting factor to grain corn cultivation and will provide expanded options for silage production,” Coleman says. “A selection of hybrids with Qrome below-ground protection will also become available to support acres where rootworm resistance is desirable.”

Corteva breeders are also working on a new above-ground insect control trait called PowerCore Enlist, which will be of value for weed control for growers across Western Canada whose weed control options for corn are more limited than in the East. “The Enlist weed control trait makes corn fully tolerant to 2,4-D along with glyphosate,” Loessin says. For weed control, Western Canadian growers can get at things like volunteer canola, wild buckwheat, dandelion and thistle with that technology.”

Bayer says it’s also working on new corn seed treatments and is looking at launching a couple of new herbicides in Western Canada over the next two to three years.

This article originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of the Corn Guide.

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Unfortunately, as with most things in agriculture, “simple” doesn’t always translate well to on-farm practices. It takes some early adopters, some revised engineering, some field trials and lots of adjustments before the majority of growers begin to accept a new trend or product.

Strip till has undergone several evolutions in the past 20 years, with proponents and early adopters promoting its benefits while adjusting to its challenges. The good news is that what was once a niche practice among a few dedicated participants is becoming a mainstream choice on more operations.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Greg Stewart was a tireless advocate for strip tilling, even though guidance systems had yet to become nearly as prevalent or exact as they are today. As former corn specialist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), he conducted field trials and made presentations on his findings.

But the technology hadn’t advanced enough to attract more than the dedicated few attracted by the concept of strip tilling in the fall and not touching the soil until they planted in the spring.

“I would put implement improvement or design changes at the top of the list,” says Stewart, now the agronomy lead for Maizex Seeds, referring to what’s changed the most. “In the early years, strip tills were shanks, some were just anhydrous applicators with a couple of chains or harrows or disc hillers on the back, and we went from an anhydrous applicator to a strip tiller. Sometimes that worked nicely and sometimes it was less than what you needed.”

Stewart says there’s been more engineering into the strip till machine, including shanks versus coulters. The advent of RTK guidance technology has also improved, and Stewart understands that many growers might place it at the top of their list. At the same time he notes there are the dedicated strip tillers who started early and have stayed the course, adjusting their practices and adding advanced technology.

Ken Nixon is one of those growers. In his own words, he “parked the plow” in 1992 and has been working with strip till for 13 seasons, 12 of which were without advanced guidance systems. At a presentation made in 2016 for Southwest Ag in Chatham-Kent, he listed all of the benefits he has seen with strip till, including higher soil organic matter, better aggregation and water-holding capacity, and reduced compaction. He also characterized strip till as a dryland tool where topography and soil type often dictate equipment choices and whether it’s a fall or spring operation.

“Certainly guidance has helped immeasurably, especially if you’re dealing with a strip till rig that is not the same exact size as your planter,” says Nixon, who farms near Ilderton, Ont. He adds that a strip made with a shank usually provides a high berm that sheds water better and allows residue to roll off, although keeping the planter centred can be difficult. “I’ve been through discussions online and I’ve heard more than one grower talk about trying strip till and how they’ve had trouble keeping the planter centred on the berm.”

Nixon understands their frustration because he’s had the same experience. The higher the berm, he says, the more challenging it is to stay centred with the planter.

“We went to a coulter machine — a Dawn — and it tends to make a flatter, wider strip than a shank machine,” explains Nixon. “That was one of the things we discovered. At first, especially with a fall-made strip with that machine, there’s a slight depression where the row is and come the spring, it’ll settle a bit.”

The first time he looked at it, he wasn’t happy thinking it wouldn’t shed water as well as a higher berm. Yet once he started planting, he found it was like “riding a rail,” where the planter tended to stay centred.

Unlike other growers who’ve adopted strip till as a spring operation, Nixon has opted to do his in the fall and leave it until he returns to plant the following spring. He favours the fall operation because it suits his setup for corn, usually into wheat stubble in his corn-soybean-wheat rotation. He also strips into a cover crop that’s an oat-pea base, with the option to add a third species into the mix. That’s drilled in after wheat harvest and most years, a killing frost in October will take care of the oats.

He finds strip till can handle the cover. “I’ve been into oats that are knee-high and lush with hog manure applied,” says Nixon. “Yet it’s not ropey enough to really give you issues.”

Evolution to spring

Although Nixon prefers his fall strip till for his farm, Stewart acknowledges that many growers are opting for a spring treatment. At the same time, equipment designs have evolved with more of a spring strip-till focus, including an all-coulter machine that they could run ahead of the planter.

“In my experience, that’s been a more appealing option, especially on the lighter ground where they weren’t as interested in doing a strip-till pass in the fall,” says Stewart. “They were trying to make their no till a notch better. There’s a real appeal for guys to do it in the spring, just ahead of the planter and that’s the other thing that doesn’t get talked about as much, and that’s the increased options and flexibility of putting the fertilizer down in the strip.”

When Stewart was fall stripping, he built a unit that enabled him to put down fertilizer as part of the operation. But there weren’t many options for growers to do that back then. Today, there are more complete systems available, which has made the shift to spring strip till easier.

When he would do presentations on strip till, he found there were three basic camps: those conservation tillers who wanted to use strip till to get a slight yield bump over no till. In Stewart’s trials, he found yields in well-done no till and well-done strip till were close, especially with corn after soybeans. The second group looked for planting timeliness, to see if the ground would be fit to plant sooner than with a straight no-till operation. The third camp involved those who wanted to get their strip/fertilizer combination to improve yields over broadcasting and planting.

Over the years, Stewart has seen some improvements in yield relative to no till, but he doesn’t believe they’re that significant. The planting timeliness may have a slight advantage, including fertilizer, and he’s working to determine if there’s a strip-till system that improves yields based on fertilizer placement. He’s been looking for plots around southern Ontario, asking growers, “If you have a spring strip-till system and you’re putting down fertilizer, do you need any fertilizer on the planter at all?”

“That’s a huge question because of the overall logistics, economics and improvements,” says Stewart. “To me, one of the key advantages of a strip-till system should be a planter that’s stripped down — no liquid, no dry, no coulters or trash whippers. It needs to be cheaper if you’ve invested all that equipment into precision strip till.”

There are strip tillers out there who are successfully running fall strips with fertilizer, refreshing those strips in the spring (perhaps with fertilizer again) and still running a planter with both liquid and dry, and it’s all working well.

“When I throw out the idea that if you have a good strip till system that’s putting fertilizer in the zone, is it not a reasonable thing to ask yourself, ‘Can I run a simpler planter — perhaps fertilizer free?’” poses Stewart. “I get opinions from all sides about that, but it’s about the easiest experiment you can do. If you have a strip-till system and you have liquid or dry on your planter, shut it off for three stripes across the field and see whether you can eliminate the need for fertilizer on the planter.”

Why make the change?

Nixon wonders if part of the challenge in running strip till — or conservation till or no till — is wrapped up in the same question that Stewart poses to growers: How comfortable are you in stepping away from convention? Nixon has had plenty of calls through the years from growers interested in trying fall or spring strip till. Yet the primary question he gets is, “Did your yields go up?” — to which he responds “Not really.”

The next question is usually, “Then why do it?”

“Our experience is that our yields certainly didn’t drop when we made the switch, but we were already into conservation tillage, where we were discing in the fall,” says Nixon. “We had graduated away from conventional tillage with a moldboard plow and when we moved to strips, we were happier than we’d been with most of our conservation-type moves. Strip till doesn’t incorporate any of the residue and that residue mixed in with the soil makes it difficult to get good seed-soil contact.”

Plus it’s a great environment for wireworm, slugs and other pests. Instead, the residue is sliced and parted and pushed aside leaving this black strip along with macropores, worm channels and fissures. The majority of the residue remains to hold things in place along with improving the soil’s water-holding capacity. But the bottom line on strip till, says Nixon, is that it just takes more management.

“We’ve had all of this technology —whether it’s steering technology or technology in the seed — and a lot of it replaces management,” he says. “A lot of the cases for crop rotation and other things have been replaced by technology. We keep punching the easy button and somebody comes along with something like strip till. And a guy like Nixon says, ‘It works but it takes more management’.”

For more information, watch Ken Nixon addressing Southwest Ag field day (YouTube).

This article was originally published in the September 2020 issue of the Corn Guide.

The post Strip till goes mainstream appeared first on Country Guide.

In fact, members of the Brazilian Federation of No-Till Farming say no till is the key to achieving a long-term sustainable agriculture without additional deforestation.

Soybean production has risen from 40 million to 110 million metric tons annually in the last 15 years, and corn production from 30 to 80 million tons per year.

That’s worth paying attention to in Canada. As the world’s largest exporter of soy and second-largest exporter of corn, Brazil competes against Canada in international markets, especially in an era of U.S.-driven trade disruption.

Genetic improvements and shorter-season varieties are helping Brazil’s farmers, but so are better soil management practices, particularly adoption of no till.

For one of Brazil’s no-till pioneers, it all started in the 1970s with a Newsweek article about the University of Kentucky’s Dr. Shirley Phillips and a new form of soil management. Intrigued by what he read, Manoel Pereira headed to Kentucky to learn more. He’d been growing soybeans conventionally on his farm near Ponta Grossa in Paranà state, but was plagued by erosion problems on his sandy soils.

“We had the first no-till plot in Brazil on our farm and today our farm is 100 per cent no till,” said Pereira’s son Man­oel Filho during a visit to Agripastos farm in April. “We have very shallow, very poor soil with low fertility and hilly topography. My father looked to no till as a solution.”

Today, about 70 per cent of farms in the region are no tilling and 86.5 million acres — more than half of the country’s cropland — gets no tilled in some form.

“In the beginning people thought we were crazy, but now we’re normal,” Filho said, adding his father became a well-known no-till advocate in Brazil, always keeping his farm open to visitors keen to learn more and hosting the country’s national no-till museum.

Pereira first added cover crops for weed control to his no-till land in the early 1980s. Today, cover crops are used extensively with soy, corn, wheat, barley, white bean and sorghum, Filho said. Not only is erosion no longer a problem, but yields on the farm have skyrocketed.

According to Filho, corn yields doubled from four to eight tons per hectare in the first 25 years of no till on the farm, and are close to 10 tons now. During that same period from 1975 to 2002, both soy and wheat yields on no-till fields rose from two to four tons per hectare.

“We follow the three main principles of the no-till system — minimum soil disturbance, crop rotation, and permanent soil cover,” Filho said.

A key ingredient is that cattle spend about 120 days on grass before the pasture is given a chance to regrow and a crop like no-till soybeans is planted.

It’s an increasingly common rotation in southern Brazil — in the north, it’s corn that follows pasture — that is helping to bring about 200 million hectares (494 million acres) of degraded pastures in the Cerrado, a vast tropical savanna region of Brazil, to higher productivity.

“We have about 230 million people in Brazil and 250 million cattle and one animal per hectare is very bad land use,” said Jonadan Ma, president of the Brazilian Federation of No-Till Farming who no tills 7,400 acres in the nearby state of Minas Gerais.

“We can have two to three times the production without using more land,” he said, adding it will slow the need for deforestation and lower CO2 emissions.

The development of early season corn and soybean varieties and planting corn after soy has dramatically changed the importance of Brazil’s famous second crop, called safrinha, and has helped integrate livestock and cropping.

According to KWS corn breeder Luiz Pires, more than 70 per cent of Brazil’s corn is now safrinha and an extra 200,000 hectares of corn are expected over the next five years — because cattle producers are rotating the crop through their degraded pastures to boost the health, fertility and water-holding capacity of their land.

“Growth is expected from degraded pastures — deforestation is not needed,” adds Santiago DeStefano, GDM’s commercial director in Brazil.

Under Brazil’s 2006 Soy Moratorium, Cargill and other major commodity buyers stopped buying soy from deforested lands in the Amazon. Increasingly, deforestation is a focus of sustainability standards imposed by exporters in other regions too.

Brazil’s no-till farmers’ federation was established in 1992 and has been working extensively with farmers, research centres and universities to advance no till in the country.

Government-led extension services are also active: the National Rural Learn­ing Service (SENAR) provides training programs and technical support to farmers to help with adoption of new technologies and sustainable production practices. In 2018 alone, they worked with more than 3.2 million Brazilian farmers.

“The consciousness of the farmer is growing,” Ma says, adding that since he started using no till 30 years ago, he’s been able to reduce his fertilizer use on corn and soybeans by two-thirds.

“Erosion control, weed control and higher organic matter, this is all free — no till is free and you have all these benefits,” adds Filho.

This article appeared in the September 2019 issue of the Corn Guide. Lilian Schaer visited Brazil in April 2019 as part of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists’ Exposure-4-Development tour.

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Or, as is said with maybe equal justification, no good deed goes unpunished.

The past 10 years have seen incredible growth in corn production, both in Eastern and Western Canada. Growers have been planting enhanced corn genetics and they’ve been boosting their adoption of agronomic practices like higher plant densities and optimizing soil fertility while improving their use and timing of fungicides. These and other strategies have combined to drive yields beyond 250 bu./ac. across much of Ontario and Quebec.

But 2018, with its late-season infection from gibberella ear rot and the resulting higher-than-normal levels of deoxynivalenol (DON), means growers are also reconsidering how some of those practices can hurt them.

Increasingly, this is where the “quality versus quantity” discussion begins, with ever larger implications.

Tight margins in crop production have affected the decision-making process for growers. On a crop-by-crop basis, many decisions can drive yield or quality and sometimes, says Stephen Denys, they do both. But more areas are emerging where quality can suffer due to today’s yield focus.

“Higher populations, more intensive fertility and crop protection programs are all aimed at increasing crop yields,” says Denys, director of business management for Maizex Seeds. “That’s good, but we’re also keeping our plants healthier for longer which can impact the crop from a quality perspective. It’s not about focusing on specific quality criteria but ensuring there is Grade 2 corn to deliver that won’t be impacted by quality discounts related to disease, test weight or insect damage.”

It’s a bit of a paradigm shift for growers who’ve spent years trying to maximize yield, only to find the tools to help do that might actually be hurting their bottom line. Hybrid maturity, tolerances to disease, and plant density were all factors in 2018’s issues with DON. In parts of western Ontario, decisions which might have had a positive impact on yield in previous years, helped create an optimal environment for disease infection, including a wet post-pollination period. Before 2018, hot and dry conditions were more likely to foster quality issues caused by several issues, among them western bean cutworm.

The simple answer would be to accurately and proactively predict the kinds of challenges facing farmers in a growing season before the season begins. But in the real world, and in the midst of certain global (political) influences, growers may have to choose between rolling the dice and pushing for higher yield or taking a safer approach that lessens risk yet boosts profits.

“If growers knew they would be in for a wet pollination and post-pollination period that could lead to disease infection, I believe we would make different choices in our crop production program,” says Denys. “They’d do that versus basing decisions on an ‘average year’ and aiming for the highest yield possible.”

Denys states that agronomic practices combined with the growing environment in southern Ontario have been evolving. Many producers are aiming to intensify their crop strategy in corn and even wheat, including more intensive populations and crop input strategies, from fertilizer to crop protection products.

“Also, one or two years do not make a trend or permanent change in our growing season,” he adds. “But recently, we’ve had areas in southwestern Ontario that have more consistently experienced a wetter start to the year and this has impacted both yield potential and the range of issues facing producers. Plant diseases have been initiated during wet and humid pollination periods that are later than normal, given later planting dates.”

A buyer’s perspective

Yield may still be the most important metric for crop production, but there are signs that the quality-versus-quantity debate may have another driver. From a processing perspective, the drive for higher yield is important and is often reflected in the quality of the crop as well. But Brandon Yott maintains there’s room for the quality-and-quantity discussion and that it has more to do with markets and the buyers the producer works with, perhaps more so than the crop itself. When selling to a buyer like Ingredion or Kellogg’s, quality is more important and there’s a management premium that comes with it. But those opportunities are limited, even if there are farmers who are starting to explore direct market options with premiums for quality.

Like it or not, corn is still a volume-based commodity.

“Many producers talk about what’s needed to bring a high-end, quality production strategy to completion, but they may not be willing to live with the consequences or costs,” says Yott, product development and marketing specialist with the Agronomy Company of Canada. “For example, a farmer increases their seeding rate in corn because they’re told they need to do that for top-end yield. But they won’t increase the fertilizer rate because the price was high. In this case, they just starved their high-end field and would have been better off staying with a smaller seeding rate.”

It’s not as though some buyers and processors haven’t tried to introduce premium opportunities into the corn market. In the past 20 years, growers have heard of the possibilities of high oil corn for livestock and poultry or highly fermentable starch hybrids for the ethanol market, with the possibility of premiums for specific-use qualities. Ultimately, processors were unwilling to pay more for what was and still is accepted as a least-cost commodity.

The answer from Yott’s perspective is shifting the focus from cost per acre to one centred on return on investment (ROI) or cost per unit of production. But that’s also a difficult climb and often requires proof on the farmer’s own field or a guaranteed market contract to remove that concern of change. The rise of direct marketing services such as FarmLead and AgriProcity, which link growers with end-users, is a positive stride but it applies more to the exceptions than the rules.

“We’re now in a world where commodities are commodities and this space is a race to the bottom, so if you’re not a very integrated company with tonnes of volume, it’s hard to compete,” says Yott. He adds that the mid-sized farmer in the U.S. is not much different than one in Canada. “More producers are having to learn to be better marketers and determine their value proposition to their end-user and how they can leverage that information for a premium.”

That’s where direct marketing ventures like AgriProcity can help with niche opportunities, since larger companies are usually slow to adapt and taking advantage of quality specs requires agility and flexibility to respond to changing market demands.

No controlling the uncontrollable

The other factor that plays into the quantity-for-corn arrangement is the impact of global affairs. Producing a quality crop to international standards is a given that gets a broker or a trader to the table, says Denys. What confounds that process is the global trade situation.

“Politics is becoming the bigger issue in terms of our market opportunities or in the case of China, just market access,” notes Denys. “Political decisions that sometimes have nothing to do with agriculture are impacting our returns and profitability. Agriculture is a big industry in this country but unfortunately, our population base is small and those elected to make decisions do not always have agriculture top of mind.”

Canada is a global player caught in a global tug-of-war, and larger importers such as China are in this for long-term gain. The current spat over canola and beef imports for China likely has nothing to do with phytosanitary issues, adds Denys. It’s a chess move in the game China wants to play.

For now, the inescapable fact about corn is that, for the most part, it’s still “quantity No. 2 corn” that matters. Wheat is differentiated by its direct-food usage and quality segments, while soybeans has IP opportunities that set it apart from corn, although that system is more export-based, which can have an impact on its demands and premium potential.

Corn’s usage in so many things — starch, oil, corn syrup, ethanol, plastics and dozens of other processes and products — also lowers the demand for specialized traits.

This article was originally published in the September 2019 issue of the Corn Guide.

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