This is almost a year old, but it still has lots of good information to think about: What’s a Farm in 2010? A couple of things stuck out. First, even today most farms tend to be family businesses regardless of size. If you want to farm, you’d better be comfortable working with relatives. Second is [...]
I was looking up some yield figures on the MASC site and I kept running across Risk Area 32. If you go to the maps, Risk Area 32 is nowhere to be seen. Shades of Area 51! Have I run across a vast government conspiracy? Sadly it’s nothing so exciting – MASC Risk Area 32 [...]
John Heard posed the question “Which Supply of Phosphorus is more Critical to Producing High Yields: Fertile Soil or Applied Fertilizer?” The answer is that you are better off with high soil test P than with putting on high levels of P2O5 fertilizer. I find this encouraging as we deal with high soil test P [...]
We had someone ask about planting corn after canola (and vice versa). I did a little digging around online and here’s the relevant information. OMAFRA: Corn should not follow canola in the rotation. Corn roots establish a strong relationship with vesicular arbuscular mycrorhizae (VAM) fungi, which aids in phosphorus uptake. VAM colonization of corn seedlings [...]
I attended the Soils and Manure Management Field Workshop on Friday and learned quite a bit. A lot of the research that was shown is still in the early stages, so there will be a lot of good stuff to follow in years to come. Here are some of the highlights: Don Flaten and Clay [...]
It’s a little bit late for this year, but Bruce Barker had a good article in Top Crop Manager about why you should only Tank-mix cereal herbicides and fungicides with caution. Even on a wet year such as this one, the optimum timing for herbicide and fungicide effectiveness are quite different. This was discussed at [...]
I ended up attending the 2010 Crop Diagnostic School a week earlier than planned. There was a lot of stuff to see and learn. Here are some of the highlights. John Heard had his nutrient deficiency planters out again. One of them was a trick question – herbicide drift rather than a nutrient deficiency. The [...]
I found the post The Diagnostic Process and Helping the Lab Help You very interesting. We often send samples to the Diagnostic Lab so it’s interesting to see what they do with the samples.
Manitoba Crop Diagnostic School kicked off yesterday and I’m looking forward to attending next week. It never ceases to amaze me how much there is to learn about agriculture, even though humanity has been growing crops for thousands of years. One of the things that I appreciate about the Crop Diagnostic School is how intensely [...]
Manitoba Agriculture used to provide Sclerotinia Risk maps for Manitoba. Unfortunately due to budget cuts they are no longer able to provide that service. The current best source for Sclerotinia maps in Manitoba is the Canadian Wheat Board’s Weatherfarm service. To find the Sclerotinia maps log in (register first if you haven’t already) – it’s [...]
