Reading Time: 5 minutes For much of the past decade, a growing list of organizations have tried to build a link between soil health and soil test levels. They’ve wanted to raise awareness of the current status of soils on farms across Ontario, sometimes by pointing the way to higher productivity and profitability, and other times with a focus […] Read more
Why we need a sulphur test for eastern soils
Producers in the West routinely test their soils for sulphur. Soon the East may too
New environmental rules expected to further lift diesel prices
Reading Time: 2 minutes MarketsFarm — Diesel prices in Canada and the U.S. have increased marginally ahead of winter, which is expected for this time of year — but in the New Year, prices on the farm will likely be higher than normal, as the ocean freight industry adopts new environmental standards. While a farmer’s demand for diesel is […] Read more
New marine fuel rules to boost diesel prices for at least a year, analysts say
Reading Time: 3 minutes Houston | Reuters — Global prices for diesel and marine fuels should rise by October ahead of a January switchover to new, very low-sulphur marine fuels, and remain higher for at least a year as refiners shift production to make more of the new fuels, analysts said. Marine fuels containing no more than 0.5 per […] Read more
Oil sanctions on Venezuela could benefit Canada
Reading Time: 2 minutes How Canada benefits from the oil sanctions the United States plans to place on Venezuela is contingent on the country’s ability to move its Western Canadian Select crude oil to U.S. refineries, said two oil industry experts. As part of an effort to effect regime change in Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump announced this week […] Read more
Price spike in sulphur leaves farmers, fertilizer makers sour
Reading Time: 2 minutes Winnipeg | Reuters — Phosphate fertilizer producers such as Mosaic Co. and PotashCorp are paying the highest prices in two years for sulphur, a key ingredient in their farm products, but farmers are the ones absorbing the extra cost. Higher sulphur costs, the result of tight global supplies and strong Chinese demand, come as fertilizer […] Read more
A nutrient-deficiency flare-up in canola
Everything goes along smoothly for decades, and the same old fertilizer combo produces the same old predicable results. Then soil levels for a particular nutrient dip below the critical threshold and plants grow funny and yields go askew. It happens
Reading Time: 5 minutes Jack Wood noticed strange patches of stunted canola in a field in 2013. By swathing time, those patches were clearly messed up. Pods were short and deformed. Stalks were skinny, and in the resulting windrows, the yield monitor dropped from 40 to just five bu./ac. One adviser said it was heat blast. Wood wasn’t so […] Read more
Sulphur: Neglect it at your cost
Sulphur levels are falling in our soils due to reduced air pollution. It’s time to start monitoring yours
Reading Time: 7 minutes For years, something that has been a scourge to the rest of society has been a serendipitous benefit to growers across much of Eastern Canada. But with industry and governments combining their efforts to “clear the air,” farmers are faced with a situation that’s slowly becoming an issue: sulphur deficiency in soils. It’s not that […] Read more
Greig: Lessons learned from Ontario crops’ pest pressures
Reading Time: 4 minutes The warmer winter and subsequent drought defined the 2016 cropping season in Ontario, resulting in more disease and insect pressures and then challenges managing them. Three agronomists gave an overview of the 2016 cropping season at the SouthWest Agricultural Conference in Ridgetown, outlining challenges and wins for the year. Leanne Freitag, Cargill’s manager of agronomy […] Read more
The ultimate N rate for canola
If we could predict the weather perfectly, it might be different, but in the real world, the best tool to determine nitrogen rates is the soil test. It’s a great starting point for 2015
Reading Time: 5 minutes One lesson from the Ultimate Canola Challenge is that it’s a wise economic decision to follow your soil test recommendations for nitrogen. “We have always recommended soil tests to get an idea of the nutrient situation in a field, and what really pleased us about the Ultimate Canola Challenge results is how strongly they confirmed […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
