Prairie ground is prone to salinity, but scientists are looking for crops that will offer new options
The western Canadian prairie has one thing in common with the well-groomed golf courses surrounding New Jersey’s Rutgers University: the need for stronger saline tolerant grass varieties. On the Prairies, new grass varieties with greater saline tolerance could access and remove salty water locked within the soil. Grain growers would have better salinity control around […] Read more
Ron Lyseng
Stories by Ron Lyseng
Detailed data captured in quality images
Geo-referenced drone helicopters eliminate the need to wait for a satellite to fly over on a perfectly cloudless day or pay an airplane to snap aerial photos. Battery powered helicopters with cameras have been around for a decade but were not capable of performing serious crop scouting until recently with the addition of high resolution […] Read more
Plan storage beyond expectations
There are three reasons why many farms have a bigger and better grain handling and storage facility than the wooden-crib elevator that once stood a few kilo-metres down the road: Farms are bigger, and so are yields. Producers are doing more of their own drying and cleaning. The corn tsunami forced growers in Canada’s growing […] Read more
Additive prevents nitrogen loss at high application rates
The kind of slow release nitrogen protection producers take for granted at moderate fertilizer rates is now available for high volume UAN above 35 gallons per acre. Earlier this year Verdesian Life Sciences launched NutriSphere-N HV for American farmers. While the formulation is similar to that used in the NutriSphere-N, it has been intensified to […] Read more
Drip irrigation saves water, delivers inputs
Using sprinkler irrigation to apply fertilizer and pesticides has been around for a while. However, root feeding chemicals by soil-injecting them through sub-soil irrigation is probably a new idea to many prairie farmers. The practice of applying chemicals through buried drip irrigation lines has been used for decades in fruit and vegetable crops and orchards. […] Read more
Herbicide dispensing made easy, more efficient with new system
PrecisionPac 3.0 dispensing is the next advance in the effort to allow producers to buy the exact volume of herbicide they need, down to the last drop. The PrecisionPac delivery system, which DuPont announced last week at the Ag in Motion farm show near Saskatoon, was first introduced in 1999. However, it has been re-designed […] Read more
Plan to expand: even if acres don’t rise, yields will
A variety of smaller bins allows producers to segregate grain according to quality and offers more flexibility in shipping
There are three reasons why many farms have a bigger and better grain handling and storage facility than the wooden-crib elevator that once stood a few kilometres down the road. Farms are bigger, and so are yields. Producers are doing more of their own drying and cleaning. The corn tsunami forced growers in Canada’s growing […] Read more
Save money: move less soil, more water
Achieving good drainage doesn’t always require massive amounts of soil movement
The cost to move soil for a surface drain ranges from $1 to $3.50 per cubic yard, depending on soil type and the distance the soil needs to move. That means a drainage plan that involves moving 346 cubic yards will cost $346 to $1,211 per acre. The high-end number seems like a lot of […] Read moreGPS used to design field drainage
The laser beam and tower-mounted RTK are already becoming obsolete as 3D GPS takes over the task of designing field drainage systems. The topographical accuracy of GPS has evolved to the point that land-forming and surface modification can be performed with less earth movement and lower costs compared to laser and real time kinetic located […] Read more
Large fields tailor made for spray planes
There’s no denying that vast fields of contiguous, homogenous plantings are efficient. Large tracts lend themselves to 100 foot drills, 150 foot spray booms, Class 10 combines and 600 horsepower tractors. They are also ideal for aerial spraying. Long, large fields of identical crops are the perfect target for spray planes putting down pesticides, and […] Read more
