By Emily Croft
Tar spot is an emerging foliar leaf disease in corn which first appeared in the U.S. in 2015 and was later identified in Ontario in 2020.
As the disease continues to spread and impact Ontario’s corn crop, it’s important that producers are informed about how to identify tar spot and which resources are available to monitor it in their area and beyond.
By Paul Herman
Imagine a world where you could see into the future. What would it be like if you could predict the weather? If you could predict which insects, diseases or other issues would affect your crop and what this would mean for final yields.
I always tell growers that if I could do that, I would be a millionaire who travels the world.
The trick is to figure out what these pest issues will be annually for different crops, on different fields, for different yearly growing environments.
By Richard Kamchen
More isn’t always better when it comes to applying nitrogen fertilizer – agronomically or financially – certainly not in the face of federal goals to slash nitrous oxide emissions.
“In some cases, a little less N may be more,” says Colin Elgie, OMAFRA soil fertility specialist.
He explains nitrogen (N) fertilizer plays a critical role in farmers’ cropping systems, particularly in grain crop production.
By Paul Hermans
The No. 1 question I get as a seed agronomist is, “What is the ideal population for corn and soybeans?”
The usual answer is, “It depends.”
It depends on several factors – some of which are in our control and others which are not.
Many factors influence corn population, but the key criteria for setting a given seeding rate include:
By Emily Croft
Rural municipalities across Ontario have been receiving proposals for the development of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) over the past few years.
While most projects are in their early stages, prime farmland has been selected as the potential home for a number of these proposed sites. Concerns about the use of these agricultural acres, as well as a lack of clarity on implications for local health and safety, has left many Ontario farmers feeling uncertain about BESS.
By Leslie Stewart
Despite various economic challenges, farmland values remain resilient across Ontario. In fact, the land market is relatively strong across the nation.
And those economic challenges are not insignificant, depending on your location.
Statistics Canada reports that Ontario producers saw a 14.8 per cent decrease on their farm cash receipts between 2022 and 2023, while both input costs and interest rates have been high.
By Paul Hermans
Thank goodness for winter agronomy meetings. They allow growers and ag industry folks to get together and see what is working in agriculture.
They also help us pass the time in Ontario’s cold, blustery winter months.
As I did last year, this article will cover some key topics from this winter’s Ontario CCA conference, the Great Lakes YEN panel, the Ontario Agricultural Conference, and our internal Pioneer North America agronomy conference.
By Richard Kamchen
How Ontario farm workers get compensated has become more formalized and organized, and both employees and employers are seeing the benefits.
Levi Derksen, senior manager with ag-focused accounting firm Buckberger Baerg & Partners, says that payrolls have become more common as farm sizes have increased – as has their need for full-time workers.
“The trend started as farms grew, with more work being done by non-family members,” he says.
By Emily Croft
Farmers are sometimes criticized in environmental sustainability conversations, but soil carbon sequestration is one opportunity to turn that around.
Carbon sequestration is the removal of carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere, where it will then be stored in another form, often in soil or plants.
By Stacy Berry
Biological amendments – or simply biologicals – are relatively new to the conventional row crop world and can be a great way for Ontario growers to better utilize nutrition already present in their environment.
However, most people who have been farming for a while “probably didn’t learn about biologicals in university or college, so the familiarity isn’t there to make (biologicals) top of mind in your regular crop plans,” says Brady Code, the Biologicals technical lead with Syngenta Canada.