Crop Management
Feb 27 (Reuters) – DuPont Pioneer, the agricultural seed unit of DuPont, said on Thursday it was launching a suite of “whole-farm decision” services aimed at boosting crop productivity, a line of business many in the agricultural sector are racing to offer. The platform of data and technology services, to be called “Encirca,” will have […] Read more
Crop Management
DuPont Pioneer launches “Encirca” farm data services platform
New threat to Brazil’s breadbasket: a pesky caterpillar
SAO DESIDERIO, Brazil, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Brazilian farmers are battling a voracious caterpillar that likely arrived from Asia, challenging the agricultural superpower’s widely touted mastery of tropical farming just as it is on the verge of becoming the world’s top soybean producer. The caterpillar, a variety known as helicoverpa armigera that thrives in dry […] Read more
China’s approval process for GMO grains ‘overly political’
BEIJING (Reuters) — China’s approval process for GMO grains has become “overly political” and “unpredictable and nontransparent,” an American industry group said on Thursday, in the strongest criticism of Beijing’s biotech policy since China began rejecting thousands of tonnes of genetically modified corn last year. “In recent years, China’s biotech approval process has gone from […] Read more
Australia commits nearly $300 million to help drought-hit farmers
SYDNEY, Feb 26 (Reuters) – The Australian government will provide a A$320 million ($289 million) assistance package to help farmers ravaged by years of drought across the east coast, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Wednesday. With pockets of Queensland and New South Wales recording the lowest ever rainfall levels, farmers in the world’s […] Read more
Soybean traders buy protection against price pullback: COLUMN
By Gavin Maguire The author is a Reuters market analyst. The opinions expressed are his own. CHICAGO Feb 26 – May 2014 soybean futures have rallied more than $1.00 a bushel since the start of February on the back of brisk demand, tight domestic stocks and concerns about the scale and timeliness of South American […] Read more
Feds to end water allocation for most drought-stricken California farms
LOS ANGELES, Feb 21 (Reuters) – The worsening drought in California will for the first time force a complete cutoff of federally supplied irrigation water to most farm districts in the state’s Central Valley heartland this year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said on Friday. The projected 2014 zero allocation to all but a handful […] Read more
New Deere runs fast through the field
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Deere has entered the high speed planting business. High speed planting, which uses narrower machines to go faster, has been big news in agricultural machinery circles the past couple of years. A few Australian and North American farm machinery companies have air seeding equipment that will travel 10 m.p.h. or more, but […] Read more
Micronutrient management: less weight, same punch
Advancements in micronutrient coatings on fertilizer prills provide more effective distribution in the field
Since the 1970s, growers wanting to apply micronutrients have relied on large granules mixed in with their nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizer. The problem has been that this can result in a 150:1 ratio of fertilizer prills to micronutrient prills. The large granules are far apart from each other, which inhibits a uniform spread of […] Read more
WolfTrax develops method to put phosphorus in its place
Think about going to the field carting along 50 pounds of a high tech phosphorus fertilizer concentrate that packs the same punch as 1,500 lb. of conventional granular phosphorus. Just to sweeten the phosphorus cake, what if it was no longer delivered as a distinct separate product but was instead firmly affixed to the nitrogen […] Read more
Manitoba growers want low level clubroot detection
The Manitoba Canola Growers Association is taking action to detect clubroot at low levels of infection now that it is officially present in the province. The association said in a news release that it wants to establish a specialized molecular laboratory as part of a Plant Pathogen Surveillance Initiative, which would help detect clubroot when […] Read more
