Crop Management
This week, on page 90, we start an agronomy column in The Western Producer called Agronomy Precisely and it will feature two columnists. In fact, they’re so new, we haven’t even got their photos, but we’ll fix that shortly. They will alternate and from time to time might even speak to the same subjects, each […] Read more
Crop Management
New WP agronomy columnists
Native fruits hold new promise as source of nutrients
Saskatchewan fruit growers may have something new to cheer about. Research at the University of Saskatchewan is shining a light on the benefits of buffaloberry, chokecherry and sea buckthorn. All three native prairie fruit plants flourish throughout the province and are high in nutritional value. As a result, the university is developing a new project […] Read more
New products
Keeping the guards straight Tobin Apparatus has a new solution for bent and broken metal pick-up guards on John Deere round balers and Case IH/New Holland and Agco’s Hesston large square and round machines. Pick-up bands are also available for Deere forage harvesters and New Holland pull-type forage headers. The Tobin pick-up guard is half-inch […] Read more
Sask. harvest ahead of schedule in most recent crop report
Saskatchewan harvest is winding down ahead of schedule. The most recent weekly crop report said 89 percent of the crop had been combined as of Oct. 7 and another eight percent was ready to swath or straight cut. Dry weather through the first part of the week in most areas will have increased the amount […] Read more
Aerial seeded canola worked perfectly for North Dakota farmers
Frustration had become entrenched by late May on Dale Thorenson’s farm near Newberg, North Dakota. Thorenson and his son and nephew thought they wouldn’t seed a crop on their fields because the land was saturated following a late snow melt and heavy rain in May. Unwilling to give up, they decided to aerial seed 1,300 […] Read more
SeCan resolves plant breeders’ rights violation
A pedigreed seed grower from Delisle, Sask., has agreed to pay restitution of $120,000 for his involvement in the illegal sale of seed protected under plant breeders’ rights. SeCan announced today that it has resolved a legal action against Leonard Junop and Junop Bros. Seed of Delisle, about 30 minutes west of Saskatoon. The case […] Read more
Canola acres expected to double in southern U.S. Great Plains
Canola acres in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas could reach 500,000 this year, say growers in the region. Great Plains Canola Association president Jeff Scott said farmers are scrambling to plant canola before the Oct. 10 crop insurance deadline. Acreage could double from last year if the weather holds. “Our estimates right now are somewhere between […] Read more
Manitoba canola crop 70 percent harvested
WINNIPEG (Reuters) — Manitoba farmers have harvested 70 percent of canola after favourable weather in the past week, according to the most recent weekly crop report from the government of the Western Canadian province. The spring cereals harvest is estimated at 85 to 90 percent complete. Flax is 25 percent complete, soybeans 50-60 percent complete […] Read more
Low pH diagnosis a cause for concern
Soil naturally becomes more acidic as it ages, gradually losing the capacity to grow crops as the pH drops. The question is, what can be done about it? “It’s a natural process,” said Don Flaten, a soil scientist at the University of Manitoba. “Soils acidify with age as water percolates through them.” Flaten said old […] Read more
Soil acidity: is the culprit nitrogen or zero till?
Levels of pH are gradually dropping where nitrogen is applied
Fields that become acidic almost overnight aren’t science fiction. Corn land around Bismarck, North Dakota, has become acidic in just a few years. It’s due to high rates of nitrogen fertilizer in combination with zero till practices, said local independent agricultural consultant Bob Amstrup. “We are creating an artificially low pH problem because of the […] Read more
