Photo: U of A System Division of Agriculture/Mary Hightower

Cold plasma shows promise as seed treatment

Fourth state of matter showed to slow growth of fall armyworm, boost plant development

Reading Time: 2 minutes A University of Arkansas study showed cold plasma shows promise as a seed treatment against fall armyworm and promoted rice plant development.


Flea beetle. (Photo courtesy Canola Council of Canada)

Forecast, flea beetles complicate canola timing

Dry conditions make ideal seeding time difficult to peg

Reading Time: 3 minutes Drought conditions, and the odds of more to come, have some Prairie canola growers pondering when to roll the dice on seeding, if they want to do more than feed the flea beetles. Small-seeded crops, such as canola, have garnered particular concern from agronomists and producers worried about germination, given power dry topsoil across much […] Read more

A healthy wheat head at left and one with severe symptoms of fusarium head blight at right. (Keith Weller photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Alberta deregulates fusarium

Crop disease comes off province's 'zero tolerance' list

Reading Time: 2 minutes Alberta is moving to keep fusarium in check by means other than the “zero tolerance” policy it has in effect on agricultural pests such as rats, rabies and clubroot. Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen announced a ministerial order Wednesday to remove Fusarium graminearum from the list of pests covered by the Pest and Nuisance Control Regulation, […] Read more


(Bayer.com)

BASF set to pick up Bayer’s Poncho, ILeVO treatments

Reading Time: 2 minutes Bayer’s seed treatments Poncho and ILeVO could soon have a new owner, as part of another deal with fellow German chemical firm BASF. BASF, which last October agreed to buy several Bayer CropScience assets including its global glufosinate-ammonium herbicide business and LibertyLink trait, announced another 1.7 billion-euro (C$2.65 billion) deal Thursday for an additional package […] Read more

Treated corn seed. (Syngenta.com)

Two neonics set for three-year extensions on registration

Reading Time: 3 minutes Health Canada’s pesticide regulator proposes to allow continued registration for two members of the neonicotinoid family of pesticides, both of which are under heavy scrutiny for their effects on bees and other pollinators. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency on Tuesday issued proposed decisions on clothianidin and thiamethoxam that would extend the products’ existing conditional registrations […] Read more


Treated corn seed. (Syngenta.com)

Monsanto to bring DuPont corn treatment to East

Reading Time: < 1 minute A DuPont insecticide will be rolled into use next spring in Eastern Canada as a seed treatment on Monsanto’s DeKalb corn. The two companies on Tuesday announced they will market DuPont’s Lumivia insecticide seed treatment in Eastern Canada on seed corn for the 2017 sales season, as part of Monsanto’s Acceleron Seed Applied Solutions offerings. […] Read more

Crop watchers say new regulations on neonicotinoid seed treatments could cause a reduction in no-till farming and early planting, and result in lost yield potential.

All that confusion on seed treatments

Some implications of Ontario’s new neonic regulations are stunning

Reading Time: 6 minutes As the calendar has turned to a new year, the news from seed and chemical companies is that there is considerable confusion about seed-applied treatments. Growers, they’re finding, have been left with a mixed bag of information about the options available to them, much of which is flat out wrong. Some growers believed they had […] Read more


Wireworms

Profit thieves

A persistent and insidious crop pest could be chewing away at your profits year after year

Reading Time: 3 minutes What’s three-quarters of an inch long, hard-bodied, yellowish brown, lives in the soil, and may be secretly chewing away at your profits? Wireworms… even their name is descriptive. Wireworms are the larval stage of the adult click beetle, and while the beetles do no damage, the same can’t be said about their offspring. The click […] Read more