Ever wonder how to break though yield barriers? Or maybe how to tweak your crop rotation to make sure it’s firing on all cylinders? A panel of farmers at an event sponsored by Stoller at this week’s Commodity Classic in San Antonio, Texas, did just that.
1. Plant soybeans early
So far, a warm winter in many areas may give you the idea to pull out your planter this month. Don’t. Still, you may be able to plant soybeans earlier than you think. Dan Arkels, Peru, Illinois, has planted soybeans in northern Illinois as early as April 17. That’s two weeks earlier than what is considered normal in that area. Planting soybeans by that date – protected from early-season stressors by a seed treatment – gets plants off to an early start in soaking up sunshine and churning out photosynthesis. “The faster you can get (to the point) where the plant is blossoming by June 21 (summer solstice), the better off you will be,” Arkels says. In the case of the April 17 planting, plants were setting blossoms by June 9, he says. Just don’t go overboard. “I would not plant earlier than April 15 in my area,” Arkels says.
2. Scout, scout, scout
During the growing season, Zack Rendel, Miami, Oklahoma, checks his fields several times a week. A drone is a tool that enables him to do this. “It can warn you if something bad is going on in the field,” he says. Still, he says a drone is no substitute for getting out and walking fields. “There are some things that I can’t see with a drone, so I still need to get boots on the ground,” he says.
3. Plant on-farm test plots the right way
Perry Galloway, Gregory, Arkansas, has lots of on-farm tests plots on his farm. It enables him to evaluate products touted by companies for performance on his farm. He does it on one condition, though. “If I do it, companies have to be there. I have a lot to do (during test-plot establishment),” he says. Company reps who assist during this busy time can help ensure the test plot is established correctly so it can yield accurate results. “One way I learn is by side-by-side evaluations with different products,” adds Arkels.
4. Feed your corn several times
“I am a firm believer in multiple applications (of nitrogen) on corn and not a lot at one time,” says Arkels. “You get the most bang for your nitrogen (N) dollar that way.” Arkels applies liquid UAN preplant and then sidedresses N up to V8 corn, and then he often comes back with a foliar application later in the season. Manure is also a valuable tool. “Our fields are heavily manured from a nearby dairy,” says Steve Albracht, a Hart, Texas, farmer. Besides fertility, manure also aids soil health, he says. “We have seen it increase organic matter and water-holding capacity,” he says.
5. Scrutinize your crop mix
Low corn prices are making sorghum viable again in some areas. “A lot of people consider sorghum the red-headed stepchild of crops,” says Rendel. “They just put it out and go.” Managed properly, though, grain sorghum can play a valuable role in a crop rotation. It’s particularly important to manage it through sugarcane aphid outbreaks with an insecticide, he says. “Sorghum is very similar to corn in how we treat it,” he says. “If we get a drought in mid-August, it will push through and yield. It is a drought-tolerant crop.”
Can Agriculture and the Climate Fix Their Unhappy Marriage?
Agriculture, forestry and other land uses account for a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet.
After René Castro-Salazar attended the first UN-led climate talks in Berlin in 1985 as Costa Rica’s environment and energy minister, he tried to talk about agriculture and climate change - but few wanted to join the conversation. “There was always opposition - and we couldn’t understand why,” said Castro, now assistant director-general at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Agriculture, forestry and other land uses together account for nearly a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet, according to the FAO. Cutting these is essential if the world is to keep global temperature rise to a manageable level, said Castro.
Climate change: Extreme weather conditions affecting crop cultivation, says agriculture expert
Farms and forests can also store large amounts of carbon, and simple actions by all countries could result in immediate environmental benefits, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In the early years, the climate negotiations focused on reducing emissions from the energy sector - the largest emitter - while the relationship between agriculture and climate change was not fully understood. Later on, poor states feared discussing the linkage would result in obligations for them to curb emissions from farming. Rich nations worried they would have to pay for poor farmers to adapt to a changing climate. At November’s climate talks in Bonn, the stalemate was finally broken, with nations agreeing to move forward on issues related to agriculture and climate change.
Climate change ‘poses serious threat to food security’
“There is now clearly the political will to see this resolved,” said Margarita Astralaga, director of environment and climate at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Many hope it will lead to the development of farming systems that are more resilient to weather extremes and can feed a growing population whose diets are shifting to more meat and dairy, without corresponding increases in emissions. Andy Jarvis, research director at the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), describes the relationship between climate and agriculture as an “unhappy marriage”. “(They) are absolutely intertwined and completely connected to each other but actually pretty antagonistic,” he said, pointing to how crops are battered by climate extremes while farming emissions exacerbate global warming.
"Off the rails"
Scientists have warned that world temperatures are likely to rise by 2 to 4.9 degrees Celsius this century compared with pre-industrial times. This could lead to dangerous weather patterns - including more frequent and powerful droughts, floods and storms - upping the pressure on agriculture. Curbing climate change will require overhauling the world’s food production and distribution system, which is “off the rails”, said Olav Kjørven, chief strategy officer at the Oslo-based EAT Foundation. Hunger is on the rise, biodiversity is being lost and poor diets now pose a bigger threat to human health than alcohol and tobacco, said Kjørven, a former senior UN official.
Climate change to disrupt poor agricultural communities, say experts
Educating consumers will be a key to changing that, especially in developed economies where there is high consumption of red meat, responsible for more emissions than other types of food, he said. “People vote three times a day for a food system they want, in terms of the food they buy. There is enormous power there,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. EAT has commissioned scientists to produce a report next spring about what constitutes a healthy diet in a sustainable food system. FAO’s Castro said making water usage more efficient - 70 percent of the world’s freshwater goes into agriculture - and rehabilitating 2 billion hectares of degraded land could deliver quick wins. Livestock, meanwhile, account for nearly two-thirds of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, but combining trees, crops and animals in “silvopastoral” systems can offset some of those emissions and boost the quality of pasture, he added.
In Brazil, a major beef exporter, state agricultural research agency Embrapa is testing this practice, he added. Another challenge is to boost food production without damaging forests, said IFAD’s Astralaga. Agriculture is responsible for more than three-quarters of global deforestation, and if the trend continues, about 10 million square km of land will likely be cleared by 2050, she noted. A 2016 report from the FAO said it would be possible to increase food security while maintaining or increasing forest cover, identifying 22 countries - including Gambia, Chile, Tunisia and Vietnam - that have managed to do so.
In the know?
To duplicate such practices, especially in the developing world, will require sharing of knowledge, experts say. Yet many nations still lack meteorological information that can improve crop and livestock production, said FAO’s Castro. “They don’t know if the rain is coming ... if a drought is coming. They’re blind in terms of agricultural planning,” he said. Much of the information they need is available, said Jarvis. CIAT and the International Food Policy Research Institute are leading a push to use “big data” in agriculture, and get it into the hands of poor farmers in places like Colombia and Honduras. “As a result of that information, (you can) make much more strategic decisions in terms of when to plant, how to plant, what variety to plant,” he said. Another pilot run by Microsoft and the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics sends text messages and automated calls to tell Indian farmers when to sow their seeds or warn them of a pest attack.
But more investment and political will are needed to expand such projects, Jarvis said. EAT Foundation’s Kjørven said the world has “barely started to fight this battle” to make agriculture greener - and the coming few years will be decisive. “The real test is whether we start to see countries passing different legislation, businesses and industries coming up with different ways of doing business in the food sector, and changes in consumer preferences and choices,” he said.
Wheat Storage a Winner, Says Analyst
As yields grow throughout North America and the physical size of the crop becomes larger, farmers who invest in storage bins now, stand to reap the rewards later. “Guys with space are winning,” said Kurt Ahrens, founder of Grainbot in Omaha, Nebraska. Speaking at the Grain World Conference in Winnipeg, he pointed out that storage capacity utilization in the United States last year was record high. That caused many to offer cash purchases only or deferred pricing contracts. Ahrens says many have started to play both sides of the market too. “Once they own the grain at harvest there’s likely to be a large carry in the market,” he said. Ahrens says anytime the carry in is over 2.2 billion or 2.3 billion bushels in the U.S., storage companies will make money.
“But when it’s one million or below, they won’t likely make money carrying it but they can make money trading it,” he explained. Ahrens thinks wheat is the commodity that will get carried the most, as it is the most abundant. He says farmers in Iowa may not want to invest in storage facilities, because they are flooded with corn and soybeans, both of which are moving quicker than wheat. “Like in Kansas, wheat is very common right now. If you have a big bin, you can take advantage of the carry year over year,” he said. At the same time, he says there will likely be some advantages for almost everyone if they can store their crop. “I think storage will be a very good investment. I think it will outpace the return on land-investment in many parts.”
No New Row-Crop Herbicide Sites of Action Coming, Say Weed Scientists
Corn and soybean weed management must move beyond herbicides
Each year, weed scientists from across the Midwest meet for the North Central Weed Science Society (NCWSS) meeting. Here are three points they have discussed so far this week at the NCWSS meeting St. Louis, Missouri.
Farmers want new herbicides and new herbicide site of actions
That’s the message that they, industry representatives, and retailers had in seven 2016 and 2017 USDA listening sessions, says Jill Schroeder, and agronomist and weed scientist at USDA-ARS-Office of Pest Management Policy. “This came as a surprise,” says Schroeder. “This is contrary to a lot of messaging that has come out of this organization and every other regional society.” That’s because new herbicide sites of action aren’t coming for a long time in the corn and soybean space. New herbicides have been developed and marketed in the last several years. It’s just that they are mixes of established herbicide sites of action. HPPD inhibitor herbicides (Callisto, Balance Pro) were the last novel site of action commercialized in the early 1990s. Since then, there’s been nothing. “I don’t see anything coming for 15 to 20 years down the road,” said Mike Owen, Iowa State University (ISU) Extension weeds specialist, to those attending last week’s ISU Integrated Crop Management conference. “Weed management must move beyond herbicide management. This includes cultural practices like seedbank management.”
Intelligent weed removal is coming
A Danish company, F. Poulsen Engineering, is developing robots for mechanical weeding for both organic and conventional agriculture, notes Lee Van Wychen, science policy director with the Weed Science Society of America. Meanwhile, Blue River Technologies (recently bought by John Deere) is developing technologies like See and Spray. This combines engineering and computer technologies to selectively apply herbicides only when needed. This can cut herbicide costs by 90%, according to the company.
• There’s a good reason why applicators should regularly change nozzles on sprayers
Winfield United scientists analyzed wear patterns of nozzles over two years of use in 2016 and 2017. Over time, chemicals and additives can erode nozzles. This can result in over application or under application of herbicide and a change in droplet characteristics. Worn nozzles in the Winfield United analysis for 2016 and 2016 cost $21,230 over two years due to factors like added cost of chemical. This could have been saved by a $618 investment in nozzle replacement, Winfield United officials say.
Pea Leaf Weevils: An Issue
Three insect forecast maps are now available at the Alberta Agriculture website. Wheat stem sawfly and wheat midge forecasts help producers make varietal decisions, said insect management specialist Scott Meers, adding, “we’ve also released the pea leaf weevil maps early because a lot of producers are seed treating for that pest.” Pea leaf weevils are found in a wider geographic range than previous years and there’s been a dramatic expansion in central Alberta since 2013. In red or dark-orange areas, seriously consider seed treatments for next year. Wheat midge populations vary considerably from field to field, and a lower level is forecast for 2018. Populations of wheat stem sawfly are forecast to be low with southern Alberta at the greatest risk.
Drainage Design by Drones
A UAV helicopter (unmanned aerial vehicle) bouncing a pulsating laser beam off the Earth’s surface can produce a topographical field map with sub-one-inch accuracy. The result is a highly precise drainage map. The system is called LIDAR, standing for Light Detection and Ranging. Until recently, it was only affordable in the realm of geoscience researchers.
However, when costs fell LIDAR became within reach of agronomists and engineers in agriculture. In the drainage business, the term “best performance” no longer means moving the greatest volume of dirt. Just the opposite, in fact. In today’s world, “best performance” means moving the least amount of dirt to move the greatest volume of water. Moving dirt costs money. The object is to obtain drainage goals without moving extra soil. This “best performance” depends on the quality of the topographical map, according to Steve Gillis, with Rocky Mountain Equipment in Moosomin, Sask. Gillis is using LIDAR to develop drainage plans for prairie farmers. He works with Kevin Hruska at Bridgeview Manufacturing in applying Trimble LIDAR software that will enable Bridgeview’s Transformer ditcher operators to extract top performance from their machines. “We use a LIDAR scanner mounted on a drone helicopter to get a laser scan of the surface, with sub one-inch accuracy,” explains Gillis. “With the map, you go into a field with your Transformer and you know exactly where to go with your ditch and exactly what to do, down to the inch. As opposed to trying to figure it out once you’re out there in the field.”
Hruska concedes there are a lot of variables to manipulate if the operator expects to get the most out of his Transformer. That’s why Hruska and Gillis are working together on the topographic mapping project. Gillis explains: “We take the LIDAR data and input that to your desktop computer. We can generate the actual lines you should follow. We put it into a Trimble 2050 display, using a program called WM-Drain.” Trimble says their WM-Drain farm drainage solution is a concept-to-completion system that walks farmers through the survey, analysis, design, installation and mapping steps of surface and subsurface drainage. It ensures optimal 3D drain placement. Gillis adds that the Rocky Mountain LIDAR he works with is not Trimble-specific. He can output the maps in any format, including Topcon and John Deere.
WM-Drain allows you to follow the lines in the field. It raises and lowers the cutting edge of your Transformer. We’re not working on wing control yet. We’re just doing depth control right now. I have heard of a few ways to control the wings, but I haven’t actually seen them. “On Case, New Holland and John Deere, you can only automate the first and the third hydraulics, so you would not be able to automate the centre and both wings unless you had some way to split the signal. It’s up to the operator to control the wings manually, and that’s a matter of experience. “Most of the guys I’ve been working with take their wings and fold them in a little bit. They use the Transformer flat blade to do a pass or two and make nice smooth ditch bottom, then they’ll pull the wings up and use them for feathering and contouring the edges. You don’t use the wings too much while you’re actually cutting. So I don’t think you’d gain much by automating the wings. “Flat country is a different story. You’d use your wings in potato and vegetable country and flat land where you’re just levelling, trimming down little high spots and filling in small depressions.”
Gillis says the Pulldozer Transformer can serve the same purpose as a scraper to some degree. It’s a matter of filling the blade and pulling the dirt along to the destination. Using the in-cab display, the operator manually sets the blade depth so it’s not picking up new dirt and it’s not spilling over the dirt already captured. Although there are other systems capable of running the Pulldozer Transformer, Gillis says LIDAR is the most accurate. LIDAR for agriculture is new. He says that until now, you’d be looking at a $20,000 to $30,000 mobilization fee up front if you wanted a LIDAR field survey. “The price point has been too high for agriculture. We’ve been able to lower the cost and make it viable for farmers because our in-house geomatics team also works in gas and oil exploration, construction, natural resources, defense and those related fields. “Most other people would probably buy one of the commercially available drones, then figure out how to install their payload. Our team did the opposite. They looked at what was available and decided they needed something better. So they took the LIDAR package and designed their own helicopter around that package. “It’s totally designed and built in-house. It’s a large, very capable drone that carries a 25-pound payload, which we need to carry the LIDAR equipment. It’s about eight feet long, weighs about 75 pounds and has a two-stroke gas engine. We can take it out to a farm and produce highly accurate elevation maps for $6 per acre. That gives you the map, the data and a drainage analysis.”
From that point, the client can proceed on his own or Rocky Mountain can continue in building the prescription map. If the farmer wants to do it on his own, the necessary desktop software package costs US$3,000. Gillis adds that his team doesn’t need a 10,000-acre project to mobilize the system. The $6 cost holds, even if it’s just for a couple quarters. If there are flooded fields because of mid-summer rain, Gillis and his crew can still do a LIDAR survey of the target while water is at the peak using a special drone boat equipped with a bathymetric sonar system, which uses green wavelengths to penetrate the water surface. The bathymetric system lets them chart the floor of the potholes and sloughs to document water depth and calculate water volume. Having real time data on acre-feet of water volume while field is still flooded can simplify the process of building a drainage plan. Gillis says other elevation measurement systems use photogrammity, a process that takes hundreds of aerial photos and stitches them together to build a 3D image. Photogrammity is less accurate than LIDAR and cannot penetrate a crop canopy, which LIDAR can do. If the LIDAR laser beam can shoot through the leaves and find any soil, it can create a topographic map, meaning it can be used in more conditions and in more seasons of the year. However, the laser does not shoot through snow.
Rethinking How Plants Hunt For Water
“They’re able to integrate information and make coherent decisions without a nervous system, without a brain,” he points out. Plus, plants find water without sight or touch. For too many of us, however, lawns, salads and pots on a sunny windowsill make plants so familiar we’ve become blind to how exotic they are. “We’re out searching the solar system and the galaxy for extraterrestrial life,” says Dinneny, 39, “and we have aliens on our own planet.” Bottom of Form
The thrill of discovering plants’ alien ways drives Dinneny to explore how roots search for water. His research group, at the Carnegie Institution for Science labs in Stanford, Calif., “runs on curiosity,” he says. His work could have practical food security and geopolitical consequences. Dinneny is passionate about the molecular whys and hows of regulating plant growth. From a background in basic plant development, he moved to questions of environmental stress. These questions are important in “this huge crisis we face as a species,” says Jonathan Lynch, a root biologist at Penn State and the University of Nottingham in England. Knowing how to grow plants in environments degraded by climate change will be crucial to feeding an exploding human population.
How it grew
A setup called GLO-Roots allows researchers to visualize how the roots of a cress seedling explore the soil. This view combines daily images, starting 11 days after seed sowing (DAS). The closer the coloration gets to white, the more recently the little rootlets formed. R. Lynch calls Dinneny “one of these transitional characters, very important in science.” He builds bridges between the pure molecular biologists and the more agricultural plant biologists, “people like me who think about specific plants,” Lynch says. The two groups rarely mingle and focus on different goals and priorities, Lynch says. He remembers a 2015 workshop on plant development and drought stress that Dinneny helped organize: “People were standing up and shouting.” To add a touch more agricultural realism to molecular root research, Dinneny and colleagues have developed a new alternative to the typical seedlings in petri dishes. The system, called GLO-Roots, makes roots in soil easier to watch. Plant roots induced to glow spread in slim sandwiches of soil between two clear plates, weaving among air pockets, micro rivers and clots of dirt. Computer analysis of images tracks where root tissues luminesce as various genes turn on in the twinkling underground observatory, giving researchers clues to how roots detect and respond to their environment.
Thrusting out a side branch to seek out water turns out to be a local matter on a root, Dinneny and colleagues found using micro-CT scans of roots in soil. Analyzing hormones showed that the tissues can sense water differences on a scale of mere micrometers. The team described the basic development of what Dinneny calls “hydropatterning” in 2014 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Myself and many other people had studied lateral roots for many years,” says Malcolm Bennett of the University of Nottingham, who collaborated on the study. It was familiar to see seedlings forming roots mostly on the wet side. But Dinneny thought to ask how something so obvious was actually happening. Now he and colleagues are probing deeper into the cellular machinery at work. Individual cells in the root need to be expanding to detect water, he and Carnegie colleague Neil E. Robbins II proposed online in January at bioRxiv.org.
Branching out
A cross section of a rice root has formed a branch poking out to search for water, just one of the many tiny directional choices that will determine whether a plant can find what it needs to survive.POOJA AGGARWAL Plants are very different from vertebrates, which develop while shielded in wombs or eggs. Root branching responds to outside triggers, heading toward life-sustaining reservoirs. In a different world, Dinneny says, his job might have been cooking plants instead of studying them. He can “make a mean potpie” and enjoys the nightly challenge of preparing a meal that his three children “find edible.”
His maternal grandfather’s cooking in the 1950s at a resort in Acapulco, Mexico, impressed a visitor who hired his grandparents as at-home cook and maid. That meant a move to southern California, and eventually a chef position for the grandfather in a Los Angeles restaurant. Dinneny spent much of his childhood in California’s San Fernando Valley. “I wasn’t tracked to do anything excellent at all,” he says of his school years. “I was placed in classes that weren’t particularly challenging.” In 10th grade, though, he took an Advanced Placement biology class and still remembers a pivotal moment when his teacher asked about a chemical bond in DNA. “I was the only person who raised his hand.” The answer: a phosphodiester bond. “Everyone looked around the room sort of wondering who could possibly have known that factoid,” he says.
He was surprised himself, and began to realize he had a talent for understanding biology. He lobbied hard to transfer to advanced classes and began to apply himself to studying. He didn’t come from an academic family, but he had fine examples of working hard, including his single mother, a government accountant.
“Often we kind of cubbyhole ourselves into, ‘OK, I’m good at this,’ or ‘I’m not good at that.’ Or they’re doing well because they’re just inherently better at doing this than I am,’” he says. “There is a magical relationship between effort and success.” Not every goal gets met, but “you’re going to do better than you ever thought.” By his senior year, Dinneny was a straight A student headed to University of California, Berkeley. There, a holistic approach to plant science captivated him. For his Ph.D., at the University of California, San Diego, he studied the genetics of plant development, then moved to studying plants under environmental stress. Deep-sea creatures and ocean exploring had captivated him for much of his childhood. But plants have turned out to be strange enough.
Erosion: Treat The Problem, Not The Symptoms
(Tame erosion with solutions that work: no-till and cover crops)
Beauty and the beast. A tale as old as time. This story has nothing to do with love. It’s all about erosion and what can be done to transform overworked, abused soil into healthy, productive soil teeming with life. The situation is grim across the Midwest. Soil is eroding around a rate of 5 tons per acre per year, with severe cases losing closer to 100 tons per acre, says Jerry Hatfield, director of the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment located in Ames, Iowa. These numbers are above the rates of soil restoration, so soil will continue to be lost.
“Erosion rates are dependent upon the year,” says Hatfield. “It’s all rainfall driven.” Intense weather events in the spring are becoming the norm across the Midwest. There is more precipitation in the spring – a time of year with little or no crop to use that water, says Hatfield.
Since there’s no vegetation to use the water or break up the raindrop energy, it leads to increased runoff and erosion, causing concern over how much erosion rates will increase across the Midwest. You battle this beast yearly. As of January 2017, 23.5 million acres were reportedly enrolled in the CRP across the U.S. Voluntary participation has helped to improve water quality and reduce soil erosion. But is it enough? “You protect land from erosion and reduce the amount of sediment you put into streams with these practices,” says Chad Watts, executive director of the Conservation Technology Information Center in West Lafayette, Indiana.
You need less soil disturbance and more residue and cover crops.Tillage is more ingrained in most people than their religion, says Doug Peterson. “Your soil is more than just the medium in which you grow plants,” says Watts. “The downfall of many civilizations was when they degraded their soil to the point that it was no longer productive. When soil degrades to the point of no return, that’s when civilizations begin to fail. It behooves you to protect your soil.”
The practice of tillage has conservationists exasperated. “There is no agronomic or economic reason for tillage to be justifiable anymore,” says Doug Peterson, NRCS Iowa and Missouri regional soil health specialist. “It destroys everything that restores soil function. “The practice of tillage is more ingrained in most people than their religion,” he says. After all, passed down from generation to generation was the thought that tillage was required to make soil function, but that is not the case. Instead, tillage causes a loss in aggregate stability, explains Peterson. Root exudates in the soil act like glue and hold together soil particles. Erosion occurs when one piece of soil breaks loose from another aggregate.
Sediment loss, nutrient loss, and water availability are the main conservation concerns for Hatfield. “We’ve induced more and more field variability over time,” he says. “If you have good root exudates coming from year-round plant roots and a healthy biology, you have a better aggregated soil,” says Peterson. The slake test is a good visual demonstration of what is happening in the field. The slake test consists of two clear containers full of water. A clod of soil from a tilled field is placed in one container, while a clod from a no-till field is placed in the other. “The tilled soil dissolves rapidly,” says Peterson. “In the presence of rain, without the glues or exudates, the soil particles in the aggregates break loose, and they are very susceptible to erosion. That’s not the case for the no-till field, which remains intact. A field with poor soil health doesn’t allow for as much water infiltration as a healthy soil. Maintaining soil structure is important to help with infiltration, explains Hatfield. “It’s not how much rain you get in the rain gauge that matters; it’s how much you get in the soil.
Your job should be determining ways you can capture rain and store it better,” says Hatfield. It’s not just a problem with water – there’s an issue with oxygen, as well. There is no agronomic or economic reason for tillage to be justifiable anymore, says Doug Peterson. “Those roots growing in the soil are really oxygen-dependent,” says Hatfield. Having nonfunctioning soil biology is akin to having COPD. The soil needs to have an oxygen exchange – that’s limited in soil without a healthy biology.
You see these areas with washes get filled in by tillage. The answer to this type of erosion is to manage water better, explains Watts. The ideal system is a continual no-till with cover crops, which builds soil aggregates and allows more air and water movement through the soil. The following three steps will help you manage your soil for the future.
1. Adjust your strategy. Leave residue. Material left on the soil surface is an impediment to water movement. Cover crops or a grass waterway help deflect that water, resulting in more infiltration and less runoff. Gully erosion, a concentrated flow of water that cuts deep channels, is different from other types of erosion because you notice it right away. Other types don’t appear to be a significant problem – yet, looks can be deceiving. Sheet erosion (the uniform removal of soil in thin layers by raindrops and overland flow) and rill erosion (the removal of soil by concentrated water through small channels) are the types that cause the most soil loss.
“If you lose .10 inch of soil a year, you don’t notice it,” says Watts. “You’re losing more than you think. A tenth of an inch over 40 acres adds up – it’s just less noticeable.” Don’t think this is affecting you? Losing the thickness of one sheet of paper across an acre is equivalent to losing 5 tons of soil, says Peterson. If you have perfectly clear water in your field after a rain event, then you didn’t have much sheet erosion, he explains.
2. Fix it right
Available programs with cost sharing have made it easier to fix issues, says Watts. Over the years, farmers have done a pretty good job addressing the critical areas with waterways. “For example, if you get a gully, you don’t get a lot growing. You’re money ahead to fix it and fix it right rather than try to farm with it,” he says. Growers are certainly headed in the right direction. “Even more than 10 years ago, protecting your soil is part of the conversation. As you talk about being sustainable, soil has to be part of that conversation,” Watts says. When considering conservation practices, it’s key to think of the context of how it fits into your production system. There’s a direct tie between conservation and your production system. There are enough options within conservation that you can protect soil while being productive and profitable, says Watts.
3. Treat the problem, not the symptoms
An emphasis has been placed on buffers in past years, but they should be considered the last line of defense. “If you have water, it’s going to move some soil,” says Watts. “Some movement is inevitable.” In-field management should be the answer instead of relying on capturing soil, nutrients, and water leaving the field. “Edge-of-field practices (such as buffers) slow down water movement and stop those sediment and nutrient runoffs before they get too far,” says Watts. While valuable practices, they only treat symptoms – not the problem – and should only be half of the system. “When you get to the point where you have a big gully, you need to pinpoint why you can’t fill it in with tillage,” explains Watts. “Look up the hill to see what’s happening.”
In-field management gives you an opportunity to address the problem. “The beauty is that there is an opportunity to tie conservation practices to production,” says Watts. “Cover crops build organic matter, and there are production benefits that go along with building organic matter.”
The conversation needs to move from no-till to never-till. “Any time you make a tillage pass, you begin to break down aggregates,” says Peterson. Water infiltrates the pore spaces in the aggregates, and tillage passes destroy those spaces in the aggregates. Ultimately, this destroys the ability of the water to infiltrate the soil. That’s not all it harms. It also slashes the earthworm habitat. “The more active the biology, the more you’re going to get out of the system,” says Peterson. Take nutrient cycling, for example. In a tilled environment, only about 30% to 50% of nutrients make it into the plant, says Peterson. However, with no-till, 70% to 90% of nutrients will be accessed by the plant. This may improve yield, and it lowers the risk of nutrient loss. Producers have installed a lot of practices without understanding that they’re treating only symptoms of the problem instead of the root cause, says Peterson.
The goal of a bioreactor is to trap nitrates that leave the field and prevent them from going into a river or stream. Even if it’s just $10 to $30 per acre in nitrates leaving the field, that’s a $10 to $30 investment going unutilized because the soil couldn’t hold the nutrients. It’s an investment you can’t get back, he says. “Historically, the problem hasn’t been understood. The soil wasn’t functioning properly. Those edge-of-field practices may function really well, but it’s still costing you,” he says. Across the Midwest, soil erodes around a rate of 5 tons per acre per year with severe cases losing closer to 100 tons per acre per year. Cover crops combined with no-till could be the answer. Cover crops add organic matter to the soil, while no-till builds aggregate stability, he says. “Neither practice is as effective by itself.” Together, the combination can help build healthier soil, resulting in less need for conservation practices that merely treat the symptoms. Watts believes having organic matter and healthy soils will result in a reduction in the amount of tillage. That’s why cover crops are gaining ground. “A lot of people are realizing they can make them work in their system,” Hatfield says. “More and more producers are beginning to see the value of that, but they need to figure out how to work it into their systems.” This age-old tale may just have a new, sustainable ending.
Variable-rate Technology Turns Marginal Land into A Moneymaking Investment
When a 160-acre parcel of farmland in southern Minnesota came up for sale, many wrote the irregular-shape field off as not worthy of a second glance. “Most farmers said they didn’t want to deal with it because there would be too much waste, and they would just be throwing money away,” recalls Cory Sumerfelt, who farms with his father, Tom, and his brother, J.J., near Cottonwood, Minnesota.
The field’s misshaped contour wasn’t the only thing that turned off potential buyers. How to effectively manage its highly variable soils, with its pockets of glacial outwash, was also a concern. “In this area, soils are all over the board,” says Cory, a third-generation farmer. “That 160-acre field has it all – from beach sand that nobody wants to touch to beautiful loam soil that everybody wishes they had 1,000 acres of. It would definitely be a challenge to manage.”
The soils of Minnesota are a complex mosaic created by glaciers that covered the state between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. “Glacial outwash materials, a common parent material in Minnesota’s soil, were deposited when meltwater streams flowed from melting glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age,” says Nic Jelinski, University of Minnesota. “These meltwater streams deposited coarse sands and gravel across many parts of our landscape. Soils subsequently formed in these materials over about the last 13,000 years through biology and climate on the parent material.” The soils created in glacial outwash tend to be very sandy. “Therefore, they do not hold water or nutrients very well and tend to be droughty and nutrient-poor soils. Irrigation, of course, can alleviate the moisture problem, but it does not help build up the soil and retain nutrients,” says Jelinski. “The number one battle farmers’ fight in this part of the state is how to manage a sand vein or a gravel pocket,” says Paul Bruns, who owns Precision Consulting Services in Canby, Minnesota. It’s also why naysayers said the 160 acres up for sale would never produce more than 100 bushels, on average, of corn. That didn’t deter Sumerfelt. He saw the property as an opportunity and purchased it in February 2008 for $1,060 per acre. “With a low initial investment, I saw it as a chance to take a piece of ground I was familiar with and no one else was very interested in purchasing, and turn it around so it produces the way it is supposed to,” he says.
Aware the ground had been ridge-tilled for more than 30 years, one of the first changes Sumerfelt made was to convert to his family’s tillage practice. “We do a conventional-tillage program, especially if we plant a lot of corn-on-corn,” he says. “We use a moldboard plow, which most people think is terrible, but on residue management, it works well for us.” Sumerfelt is not completely turning the soil over and burying the trash. Rather, he’s managing it in a way that doesn’t create a problem for the crop the following year. “When I put a plow to that field the first year, it was so tight, it couldn’t breathe,” he says. “Opening up that ground gave it a much-
needed breathe.” Tillage was only part of the equation. Collecting yield data from the very beginning provided clues that would lead to further modifications. “When I hit a sand spot, the yield monitor would go to zero. On the better soil, the yield would be pushing 200 bushels per acre,” recalls Sumerfelt. “It was a big red flag because I knew those sandy spots could do better with some adjustments.” “I was throwing money down the drain because certain spots weren’t producing for the fertilizer blend I was applying at a flat rate,” says Cory Sumerfelt.
Before he could manage inputs differently to match soil variability, he needed to know exactly what he was dealing with. Bruns recommended using Veris technology to pinpoint the variations in the soil. “Figuring out how to map and document what you’re dealing with to make a management decision is a struggle for many. It’s also an important step in the precision ag process. Otherwise, it’s just a guess,” Bruns says. “When you look at a black piece of farm ground without a crop on it, you really don’t think it looks too bad. Yes, there are sandy hills here and there,” says Sumerfelt. “When I saw the soil map, those sandy hills were a lot bigger than I believed they were. It was really impressive to see.” Now that they knew exactly what they were dealing with, Sumerfelt and Bruns began to devise a plan to turn the marginal ground around. Variable-rate technology would be at the center of the transformation. “I was throwing money down the drain because certain spots weren’t producing for the fertilizer blend I was applying at a flat rate,” says Sumerfelt. “The spots that were yielding, I figured I was starving a little.”
Using multiple years of yield data and Veris data, Bruns created a variable yield-potential map. “This became the basis for building out variable-rate fertilizer prescriptions,” he says. To measure fertility, 2-acre grids were set up. “It was clear I was putting P&K on an area that didn’t need it because it was only producing zero to 75 bushels. The only thing it really needed was nitrogen,” says Sumerfelt. “I reallocated the money I was spending on that sandy area from $200 to $100 an acre.” Those dollars were shifted to the better-producing areas. “In the first year, we shaved about $3,000 off of his fertilizer bill and saw a yield response right away,” recalls Bruns. “While there was an initial savings, it was more about putting those inputs where they could do the most good.” Spots that had been yielding zero were now producing 140 bushels.
Fine-tuning the way Sumerfelt applied seed, Bruns felt, also had to be part of the plan. “In my experience, if we are adjusting fertilizer recommendations from 100 to 250 bushels, why would we flat-rate seed across that piece of ground? Fertilizer and seed, to me, go hand in hand,” he says. Knowing they eventually wanted to use variable-rate seeding, the Sumerfelts traded their Kinze 3600 planter in for a Kinze 3660 equipped with the technology needed. (See the story on page 48 for details.) On average, Sumerfelt was flat-rating at 32,000 seeds per acre. By varying his seed, rates can range from 18,000 to 36,000 in the same round of a field. When a prescription map was created, Bruns used the maximum number of rates allowable by the controller on a 10×10-foot basis so that the jump in rates is not drastic and won’t cause the controller to struggle to hit rate, he explains. “It also allows us to accurately apply in the transition areas that only need a slight adjustment,” continues Bruns. “Zones did a great job of helping lay out variable-rate seeding. We could pick up those yield variations really well. In the end, we’re probably saving 10% to 15% on seed in this field.” Every year, check blocks are placed in the field to continually test the ground’s potential. “We may put a 2- to 4-acre block in the field and push the population to 38,000. If there is a response in yield, we push it a little more. If we don’t see a response, we know we don’t need to go that high,” says Bruns. “Whether we get 220 or 180, we want to know why and figure out where we should go from there.”
This 160-acre field is the poster child for making variable-rate technology pay, says Bruns. “In seven years, if you can say you’ve raised your average by 70 bushels, that’s pretty awesome. We will continue to mine the data to ensure this ground is performing to its potential,” Bruns says. “Technology has taught us how to properly manage this ground. We knocked that 100 bushels out of the ball park,” says Sumerfelt. “In 2015, it averaged 200 bushels per acre. Last year, it surpassed those yields by 10 to 15 bushels per acre.” That was after a 25% stand loss from green snap in July. “As long as this 160 acres keeps producing and surprising us, we have to look at what’s next. Can we do better?” Sumerfelt asks.
In order to variable-rate seed, Minnesota farmer Cory Sumerfelt, who also farms with his father, Tom, and his brother, J.J., knew he would have to retrofit their Kinze 3600 planter with the technology necessary to make that happen. “We paid about $150,000 for the Kinze 3600 planter and ran it for two seasons,” recalls Sumerfelt. “In order to use variable-rate seeding, we’d have had to invest another $30,000.” As they considered their options, the Sumerfelts compared that cost with a machine already equipped with what they needed. Loaded with technologies for maximum versatility and functionality, the Kinze 3660 comes factory-equipped with single-row electric clutches. Since it has a single-motor hydraulic drive system, this planter would allow the Sumerfelts to adjust seeding rates or view prescription maps on-the-go. The bulk fill system, with its 110-bushel capacity, would also make everyone’s life easier, Sumerfelt notes. “At around $175,000 for a Kinze 3660 planter that has the latest technology we want but also the capability to easily adapt to future plans, it was a no-brainer as to which one was the better investment,” says Sumerfelt.
Early Wheat Sowing ‘Delivers Best Yield’
(Experts pointed out wheat sown before November 15 ensures robust growth of shoots)
Agriculture experts said on Monday that sowing wheat early in standing cotton crop saves time, resources and delivers best production results. Experts, however, advised farmers to free the field from weeds and cotton should be picked from all the cotton bolls that are opened before sowing wheat, a release issued by media liaison unit of Punjab Agriculture Department stated.
The experts maintained that healthy and disease-free seeds of wheat should be chosen, while the seeds should be treated with anti-fungus agent before sowing. They added after sowing, farmers should keep the beds wet or moist for better germination. They pointed out wheat sown before November 15 ensures robust growth of shoots. They said that farmers could finish picking of cotton from the remaining bolls from December 15 to 30. However, before embarking on last picking of cotton, farmers should apply 1.5 to two bags of DAP and a bag of Urea per acre and then complete the cotton picking and remove sticks. They elaborated that wheat sown in cotton field should get water after seven to 10 days after sowing. Similarly, water should be applied in third week of December, in second week of January and in the third week of February. This type of wheat sowing reduces weeds growth however, farmers should apply weedicides after consulting agriculture officials. The experts said that in time sowing of wheat enhances wheat production by 50%. It also reduces land preparation expenses by 95% and hence become a profitable practice.
Alberta Malt Barley Quality Looking Good
Despite a wet spring and problems with dryness in the summer, barley in central Alberta is looking fairly good, according to a grower in the Red Deer area. “We had a really good malt crop this year, the quality is excellent,” said Matt Hamill of Red Shed Malting at Red Deer. “It is high-yield, high-weight, looks really good for malting.” That’s in stark contrast to some areas in the southern Prairies where questions remain about the quality of the harvest. The wet spring also eliminated some intended acres, leaving this year’s crop roughly 10 per cent smaller than last year. According to Statistics Canada, 5.77 million acres of barley were seeded in Canada in 2017. Of that total, Alberta accounted for 2.85 million. There are ideas that U.S. buyers are looking for Canadian malt due to the drought problems plaguing barley in the northern U.S.
However, prices seem to be a touch on the softer side right now, likely due to the recent harvest.
“Malt is a little higher than $4 (per bushel); it’s more in the $4.75 range right now,” said Hamill. “I think most farmers will probably want $5 before they let it go, though.” Unlike other seasons, fusarium wasn’t much of a problem this year, which was another bonus for growers, he added.
Are We At A Tipping Point With Weed Control?
(Food consumers could also pay the price if farmers continue to struggle with managing herbicide-resistant weeds)
Editor’s Note: Farmers aren’t the only ones impacted by the challenge of controlling herbicide-resistant weeds. This article by Lauren Quinn, media and communications specialist for College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, points out that consumers may also pay the price if herbicides can no longer control weeds.
Imagine you’re walking the cereal aisle at your favorite grocery store. Are you reading labels? Scanning prices? Thinking about weeds? Weeds probably aren’t at the forefront for most American consumers buying food. But if farmers could no longer control weeds with existing herbicides, Americans would take notice pretty quickly. “I think the future of cheap food is strongly related to the availability and effectiveness of existing herbicides,” says Adam Davis, ecologist in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois and USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS). That is, without working herbicides, food could get a lot more expensive. Davis and George Frisvold, an economist at the University of Arizona, recently teamed up to consider the possibility that we’ve reached a critical tipping point in our ability to control agricultural weeds with the herbicides currently on the market. They published their analysis in the journal Pest Management Science. “I believe if we fully lost chemical control of certain weeds and if farmers continued with the corn-soybean rotation, they’d be forced to reduce their acreages as they spend more time and money managing weeds. The cost of the end product – our food – would go up, as well,” Davis says.
Farmers know how weeds like common waterhemp and Palmer amaranth can ravage their corn and soybean fields. Still, those who don’t farm may not know these weeds can reduce corn and soybean yields from 30% to 80%, and that those weeds are developing resistance to available herbicides. Like antibiotic-resistant superbugs, resistant weeds simply can’t be killed by herbicides. There are lots of herbicides on the market, but they all fall into one of 16 categories describing their mode of action (MOA) or specific target in the plant that the chemical attacks. Because of various regulations and biological realities, a smaller number of herbicide MOAs can be used on any given crop and the suite of weeds that goes along with it. At this point, many weeds are now resistant to multiple MOAs. “In some areas, we’re one or two MOAs away from completely losing chemical control for certain weeds. For example, in east-central Illinois, we have common waterhemp that is resistant to five out of the six relevant MOAs in a corn-soybean rotation,” he says. “And there are no new herbicide MOAs coming out. There haven’t been for 30 years.”
The lack of new herbicides is only one factor that led us where we are today. Davis and Frisvold suggest that herbicide susceptibility in weeds should have been viewed as a finite resource all along, like the global oil supply. As resources start to dwindle, prices should theoretically go up as a way to prevent overuse and total resource exhaustion. Unlike oil, herbicide prices have actually decreased over the past 30 to 40 years. “The assumption is that, in a rational market, people will use less of a dwindling resource because it gets more expensive or they notice a problem. It’s not happening for herbicides,” Davis says. The rollout of crops engineered to tolerate herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup) may have added to the problem. Davis believes their availability led to greater reliance on chemical solutions to weed control, rather than the diverse mix of weed-management practices that used to be the norm. That meant farmers were spraying herbicide more frequently. Weeds are wily, though. Like all organisms, they evolve in response to their environment. With more exposure to a certain environmental pressure (in this case, the herbicide), the more opportunity there is for adaptation. Over time, random genetic mutations allowed some weeds to withstand herbicides. Offspring from those plants grew, survived, and reproduced. And so on, until the majority of plants were left with the mutation.
It sounds dire, but Davis remains optimistic. “I believe there’s hope,” he says, “but it requires that we take action to diversify weed management now.” Just what would it take to bring us back from the brink of total weed domination? Davis has a lot of ideas, but one of the big ones is something he calls the “middle way,” which bridges the gap between the traditional corn-soy rotation with its heavy herbicide inputs and a diversified organic system. “Right now, we have a dominant system where we have two summer annuals following each other. Because we don’t have any change of phenology (timing of development) of the main crop, we have the same weed spectrum in both crops. We never destabilize it. If you introduce a small winter grain or a forage legume into that system, you begin to make it difficult for summer annual weeds like waterhemp to become dominant. So you can get about 90% there just with a good crop rotation.
“Then you build in things like weed suppressive cultivars, banded herbicides, row spacing, cultivation, harvest weed seed control, and all these tactics together can add up to really effective weed-management systems. We’ve shown you can reduce herbicide use by 90% in diversified systems and get the same amount of weed control. Same profit, same productivity, but two orders of magnitude reduction in environmental pollution, and a 90% reduction in fertilizer use. It’s not hard to do for the grower,” he says. The hard part, he notes, is thinking about economic and regulatory incentives that will help growers diversify their management practices. He hopes the new article will generate discussion, bring awareness to the issue, and facilitate the stewardship of existing herbicides into the future.
If pea acreage plunges as some expect, it will leave a big hole in the rotations of many Alberta producers. Experts are stumped on what to grow this spring as a third mainstay crop. Peas have increasingly been the choice of many looking to avoid a canola-wheat rotation but India’s trade barriers along with disease issues have left many of those producers scrambling to find an alternative. “I do believe pea acres will be down, but it’s too early to say how much,” said Chris Veenendaal, the Lethbridge-based regional manager for FarmLink Marketing Solutions. “A lot of farmers have swing acres they typically know what they’re going to grow for most of their acres but at the last minute, they’ll change 10 per cent out. Those 10 per cent acres are probably not going to go into a pulse crop this year, whether it be peas or lentils.” In a recent column for Alberta Pulse Growers, market analyst Chuck Penner estimated there could be as much as two million pulse acres “looking for a new home in 2018.” So the multimillion-dollar question is: What’s the alternative? Veenendaal thinks that chickpea acres might go up in southern Alberta, and some chickpeas could even replace peas. But that’s a scary thought because the small market for chickpeas could easily be swamped, he said.
India imposes duties on chickpeas, lentils
In fact, that’s a common theme — the markets for alternatives to peas and lentils (which are also down in price) are either well supplied or can’t absorb a big surge in production. “There’s nothing this year that will be a clear winner,” provincial crop specialist Harry Brook said as he went over the list of alternatives all of which come with baggage. Malt barley, which often generates nice returns if you can produce high quality, saw good production this year and so premiums have shrunk, he said. Oats either the horse industry or for human consumption is another option but again, the market is well supplied. The early-maturing cereal was sown by many farmers stymied by wet conditions last spring and so production went up, said Brook, adding producers should keep watch as prices might improve over the winter. Hemp has some potential and while the stronger demand is on the organic side, that market is also well supplied. Flax and canary seed might be options for some but in addition to the risk of an easily oversupplied market, they come with other issues. Flax is susceptible to many of the same diseases that hit canola while Mexico is the prime but not terribly robust export market for canary seed.
Moreover, growing something new is tricky. “If you’re going to try something out of the normal, the best idea would be to get into it early, hopefully have some experience, and have contracts,” said Brook. “Then you can protect yourself from the price decline.” Hay could be a way to go but that comes with a caveat, too. In southern Alberta, hay production can be as profitable, or even more profitable, than canola. But if you’re in an area with few cattle, trucking can take a big bite out of returns. Soybeans and corn have become big crops in Manitoba, but that province gets more hot weather than Alberta. Most corn grown in this province goes for silage and the jury is still out on new, even-shorter-season soybean varieties, although some farmers in the central part of the province are trying them.
Along with the profitability question, producers also have to consider agronomic issues. “The unfortunate part of it is pulses are a broadleaf crop which is good in rotation, as opposed to canola every year except for the cereal,” said provincial market analyst Neil Blue. “Flax would be an option, but it has many of the same diseases as canola. It’s a challenge. The thing that is happening is that we’re seeing the spread of clubroot and some producers are having more difficulty with diseases in peas.” While it doesn’t qualify as a bright spot, feed barley might be worth considering for some, he said. “Feed prices have risen,” said Blue. “Farmers have been holding on to their crops and we’ve had lower barley acres and lower barley production, and lower feed production of the high-quality crops.” Blue is hoping that low prices will be the cure for low prices, and that the drop in pea prices will spur exports to new markets. At this point green pea prices are currently better than yellow, but no one knows what this turbulent market will hold, he said. For now, it seems, farmers can only watch, wait, and hope.
Canola Council of Canada, one of the largest ag industry associations in the country, is under pressure to adjust its priorities and get costs under control. Some are even calling for it to merge with other oilseed organizations. Ag industry leaders have told The Western Producer that oilseed crushers and grain elevator companies have become increasingly frustrated with the council, to the point that a couple of firms have contemplated leaving the organization.
The elevators and crushers, who are members of the CCC, are unhappy with the amount of levies they pay to the council each year and the return on their investment.“It is about members’ sense of value from the canola council,” said Jim Everson, CCC president, who spoke to The Western Producer from Japan. Everson confirmed that some members of the CCC are dissatisfied with the status quo and are asking for an overhaul. “We are, as a council, having a review of our priorities at the council and our funding arrangements,” Everson said. “It’s more about the priorities the industry has for the association. And how much (are) the costs of running programs to reach those priorities.” The canola council was the first agricultural association in Canada to represent all parts of the value chain. It has members from canola grower associations, grain handlers, processors and food manufacturers, who work together through the council to advance the growth of the canola sector. Under the CCC funding model, grain companies who are members of the council pay 23 cents per tone of canola exported.
Canola processors also pay 23 cents a tonne on their crush of canola seed. • In 2015, Canada exported 9.2 million tonnes of canola. Assuming 2016 levies were based on 2015 tonnage, elevator company contributions to the council would have been about $2.1 million in 2016. • In 2015-16, processors crushed 8.3 million tonnes of canola, provoking a levy of around $1.9 million Canola growers also pay a levy of 23 cents per tonne to the CCC. Provincial grower groups, which are members of the council, pay the levy on behalf of farmers.
Based on annual report data for the grower groups:
• In 2016, Manitoba Canola Growers’ contribution to the CCC was $600,000.
• Sask Canola contributed $1.7 million to the CCC.
• Alberta Canola contributed $1.25 million.
In total, grower levies to the CCC were $3.55 million in 2016, compared to approximately $4 million from the processors and elevator companies. Crop science firms also fund the canola council, but their fees are smaller than the primary funders. A grain industry rep said crushers and elevators want fewer commodity councils within Canada’s ag sector. For companies, it costs time and money to send reps to meetings for multiple commodity organizations. More significantly, companies that both export and crush canola must pay the council levies on both business activities. Those firms are likely paying hundreds of thousands in annual fees to the canola council.
Some members want the CCC to merge with other organizations, such as Soy Canada and the Flax Council of Canada, to form an oilseed council that represents a broader swath of commodities. So far the CCC board is resisting that suggestion. Everson said all members of the canola council are still focused on growing the industry and reaching a production goal of 26 million tonnes by 2025. However, the Council needs to listen to the concerns. “There is a changing economic environment out there,” he said. “A magnifying glass is being applied to all organizations … making sure we’re making efficient use of the dollars that industry and producers provide to us.” Prairie canola grower organizations acknowledged that commercial players rather than farmers are creating the impetus to fundamentally change the canola council.
“This current round of changes is being driven from other parts,” said Langham, Sask., farmer Doyle Wiebe, chair of Sask Canola, who noted that his farmers are generally happy with the council’s activities, especially its extensive agronomy extension work.
Greg Sears, chair of Alberta Canola, said his board had no problem with a re-examination of the structure and functioning of the CCC, but suggested changes can’t be rushed, especially if there is a serious move to merge canola with other crop organizations. “It’s not in itself a bad idea, but there are a lot of complications in making a merger like that work,” said Sears, who farms at Sexsmith. For instance, virtually no soybeans are grown in Alberta, but millions of acres are grown in Manitoba, and Manitoba already has a vibrant soybean organization that also contains pulse crops. Making sure funding and other resources are properly allocated between regions and crops could be a challenge. “There’s quite a bit of hair on this issue,” said Sears. “It’s not as simple as it might at first appear.” Farmer organizations say the nature of the changes being demanded by commercial players is not completely clear yet. “We’ve had some discussions, but it’s a very fluid situation, changing every couple of weeks or months,” said Starbuck farmer Charles Fossay, chair of Manitoba Canola Growers. However, commercial interests have been raising concerns about costs and duplication between oilseed organizations for a number of years and the issue appears to be coming to a head. Wiebe said he expects concrete proposals to appear before the next crop goes into the ground. “It’s sooner rather than later,” said Wiebe.
“Some things will likely happen that will be announced this winter some time.”
Neonicotinoid pesticides are turning up in honey on every continent with honeybees. The first global honey survey testing for these controversial nicotine-derived pesticides shows just how widely honeybees are exposed to the chemicals, which have been shown to affect the health of bees and other insects. Three out of four honey samples tested contained measurable levels of at least one of five common neonicotinoids, researchers report in the Oct. 6 Science. “On the global scale, the contamination is really striking,” says study coauthor Edward Mitchell, a soil biologist at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The pesticides are used on many kinds of crops grown in different climates, but traces of the chemicals showed up even in honey from remote islands with very little agriculture. Bottom of Form “I used to think of neonicotinoids as being a [localized] problem next to a small set of crops,” says Amro Zayed, who studies bees at York University in Toronto and wasn’t involved in the research. These pesticides “are much more prevalent than I previously thought.”
Mitchell and his team crowdsourced 198 honey samples from around the world, asking friends and colleagues to send local honey from their home countries or vacation destinations. The presence of pesticides varied regionally — 86 percent of the North American samples contained at least one of the five commonly used neonicotinoids that the study measured, while only 57 percent of South American ones did. Almost half of all samples globally contained more than one type of the pesticides, evidence that bees were often foraging in multiple sites affected by pesticides. In all the samples, the pesticide levels were below what’s been established as safe for human exposure.
E.A.D. Mitchell et al/Science 2017
The above map shows the levels of five neonicotinoid pesticides found in 198 honey samples collected around the world (each sample is represented by a dot). Pie charts show the relative prevalence of each pesticide by continent.
Neonicotinoids gained popularity as pesticides in the 1990s in part because they target the central nervous system of crop-destroying insects, but don’t have the same effects in humans. But the pesticides have been controversial, because a number of studies have found that they can hurt pollinators as well as pests. There’s been some dispute over whether the pesticides are a major contributor to pollinator decline, with some farmers and pesticide manufacturers arguing that factors such as habitat loss and parasite infection have a bigger impact on bee populations. This new research documents widespread exposure of honeybees to neonicotinoids at levels that have been shown to affect insect health in previous studies, Mitchell argues.
Most concerns about bees have centered on the European honeybee, Apis mellifera, which people have spread around the world as a crop pollinator. But native pollinators can be exposed to neonicotinoids, too, and are often more vulnerable to the pesticides’ effects, says Geraldine Wright, an insect neuroethologist at Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Bumblebees and sweat bees tend to live in smaller hives than honeybees, so just a few foragers can more quickly spread contamination to the whole colony.
What Cover Crop Research Shows?
(Fact or fiction? Do you know the science behind cover crops?)
True or false. Yes or no. Pass or fail. Farmers adopting a new practice want to know that it will work. Unfortunately, there are no black-and-white answers like the ones above when it comes to cover crops. They fit somewhere in the gray area, although not for long. Researchers have been conducting trials to understand cover crop risks and benefits in order that farmers may reduce risks and maximize benefits. “We’re looking into cover crops because they should be considered as part of production in the Midwest,” says Alison Robertson, Iowa State University Extension plant pathologist.
Cover crops can help farmers reduce excess nutrients from leaving the field, increase soil health, and control erosion. Still, apprehension exists. “Some farmers are reluctant to plant cover crops because of potential yield loss,” Robertson says. Following are some facts separated from fiction when it comes to the latest research on cover crops.
Iowa State University (ISU) researchers conducted trials in 2014-2015 with ongoing work in 2016-2017 to determine if a winter rye cover crop planted before corn would reduce corn yields.
Multiple theories exist for the yield-loss scenario. Poor planter performance due to additional cover crop residue is one, says Tom Kaspar, a USDA plant physiologist. Another is reduced early-season nitrogen (N) availability, he adds. Others have pointed fingers at water limitation or pests for the performance issues, says Matt Bakker, USDA research microbiologist. “But we had an alternative hypothesis.” The researchers knew that stand establishment impacts corn yields. So they set out to see if rye caused stand loss due to soilborne pathogens that cause seedling diseases. Researchers conducted field and greenhouse trials with a goal of creating a management plan for farmers. Cool and wet soils may favor key seedling diseases that result in root rot. This can lead to seedling death or corn plants with reduced growth. “We were able to show that winter rye is a host of the same seedling pathogens as corn,” says Robertson. Rye is a host for root rot pathogens, such as Pythium and Fusarium, which could infect young corn plants. Pythium is the culprit they’re most concerned about. “After rye, the carpet of residue will make the soils wetter and cooler,” says Robertson. “That will favor Pythium over Fusarium.”
The scientists assumed that when the winter rye cover crop is terminated, these root rot pathogens might then infect young corn plants, so they conducted termination trials to establish if planting date made a difference. Trials looked at a spread of termination dates – from 21 days before to the day of corn planting. “We hypothesized that when we killed the cover crop that the pathogens would come out of the cover crop roots, resulting in an increased population that would decline if no plant host was present,” says Robertson. “We found if you have a short interval between killing rye and planting corn, you increase the risk of getting the disease. If you can terminate 10 to 14 days before planting, then you will have a reduced chance of yield loss.”
“When the cover crops start to die, there’s a short window when the pathogen does really well on the dying plant,” says Bakker. The two-week interval gives enough time for the soil to warm up, and it leaves the corn plants less susceptible. Consider the disease triangle before planting corn following a rye cover crop. “I know from visiting farmers last year that many were planting within that risky window,” says Robertson. “You shouldn’t terminate your cover crop three days before planting. You are asking for trouble.”
Darin Eastburn, emeritus professor of plant pathology at the University of Illinois, worked with replicated plots, consisting of rye, three different types of brassicas, and one plot left fallow as the control after harvest. He terminated the cover crops in the spring, and he evaluated soils for naturally occurring diseases. Then he inoculated with pathogens that caused root rot and sudden death syndrome (SDS). In many cases, the research didn’t show significant differences in the level of disease in the treatments, says Eastburn. The effects the cover crop had on soybean diseases were variable. The biggest effect was noted when disease potential was high. “In some locations, we did see significant reduction in disease,” says Eastburn. The most significant impact was from a reduction in Rhizoctonia root rot, he says. They also witnessed a reduction of SDS in the greenhouse, but findings weren’t consistent in the field. Based on the results, if you used cover crops to specifically manage disease, the results would probably not be as effective in controlling the disease as you would want, says Eastburn. “However, we never found that disease was more severe after cover crops compared with the fallow plots.” There’s a possibility of adding cover crops to your toolbox to help lower disease levels. “If fields have a history with Rhizoctonia root rot, cover crops could be combined with other management strategies,” adds Eastburn.
Kaspar conducted a long-term research project on rye and oat cover crops on nitrates in tile drainage. He split the field into plots with individual tiles draining off each one and then measured the nitrate concentrations from the drainage. “We’ve shown that we can reduce nitrate concentrations with cover crops compared with a no-till corn and soybean system,” says Kaspar. N fertilizer isn’t the only reason for nitrate losses. Nitrate losses occurred even when no N fertilizer was applied. “Even if we could know what the best N fertilizer rate was and we were putting on exactly the right amount per year, we still couldn’t completely reduce N losses to the levels people would like to see for water quality,” says Kaspar.
“We found that cover crops and no-till increase soil aggregation, which leads to better aeration, water infiltration, and soil water storage,” Kaspar says. “USDA trials showed that in five of seven years, rainfall had restored soil water used by the cover crop before the main crop was planted,” he says. “In the other two years, soil water content was replenished by rainfall within two weeks of planting,” says Kaspar. “Then, because of the mulch on the surface and the increased water-holding capacity, soils stored more water throughout the summer months.”
Soil temperatures can be a concern with cover crops, says Kaspar, “but it depends on how you’re managing them.” Strip-till may be the answer to warming up cool early-season soils. Kaspar recommends strip-till to clear the residue away before planting. “If you’re concerned about cool soil temperatures due to heavy residue, then clear the residue away from your seed row,” he says.
“When you look at soil temperature at seed depth in a field that’s been tilled and has no residue vs. a no-till field, at night the tilled field gets cooler than no-till. It’s only during the periods of intense solar radiation that there’s a temperature difference,” says Kaspar. By adding cover crops to no-till, you can reduce erosion up to an additional 50% and reduce lost soil to levels of 1 ton per acre per year.
The first steps Greg Tylka, ISU Extension plant pathologist, took to learn about the interactions between cover crops and soybean cyst nematodes (SCN) was conducting trials in 2015 and 2016 to see if any were hosts to the parasitic roundworm. “Sometimes we forget that SCN doesn’t just feed on soybeans,” Tylka says. Tylka led research to test SCN and nine different legume cover crops and six different nonlegume cover crops (multiple varieties for some). Zero SCN females were found on nonlegume plants that were tested. Almost every legume plant tested had no SCN females on them, either, with the following exceptions:
“By comparison, there were between 110 and 300 SCN females on susceptible soybeans that were included in the experiments as a check treatment,” says Tylka.
The next phase of research will be seeing if cover crops can be used to reduce SCN numbers.
Any time that a nonhost is planted, SCN population will drop. Tylka is trying to find if there’s any additional drop in population. He stresses that additional research is necessary before any recommendations can be made. Unfortunately, we still don’t know how useful cover crops might be in reducing SCN. “We know for certain that they won’t increase populations because they aren’t a host,” says Tylka. Since there are so many types of cover crops, no recommendation will work for all of them.
Wheat
The wheat markets saw plenty of fireworks during the Fourth of July Week. On July 5, September Minneapolis traded to a high of $8.68 then reversed to a low of $7.74 before closing 3 higher. The following day, September closed 50 cents lower in a sharp selloff. The big question now is, have we had a potential market top? Typically in market tops, a 7 percent retracement from the high would say we reached a top. In July 5 trade, we topped at $8.68 then retreated to $7.74. Seven percent of $8.68 is 60 cents. Sixty cents from the $8.68 high is $8.08. We closed at $8.1975, so one could argue we have put in a potential top. This all happened in one very volatile session. But we have rallied $3 from the $5.50 range so maybe that's all? Markets can get overblown and a technical correction was certainly due.
Informa came out with crop estimates during July 6 trade which led to the selloff. They estimate 434 million bushels of spring wheat production. This number, if realized, would be very negative on market price. Earlier private estimates were ranging from 340 to 390 million bushels. With the potential for high crop abandonment, we think Informa is to the high side but the market traded that number for the remainder of the week. Only 37 percent of the spring wheat crop is rated good to excellent. This rating is 40 percent lower than 2002 when hard red spring wheat abandonment was 15.3 percent versus 2.5 percent for the 10 year average. Current eight-to-14-day temperature forecasts are above normal with precipitation below normal in the heart of the spring wheat growing region. With this forecast there is significant risk for further crop declines.
Corn
Corn found some strength this week as weather is giving this market some life. Even after the U.S. Department of Agriculture raised corn acres on the June 30 report, the corn market switched quickly back to weather which is getting these funds that are heavy short a little nervous. There have been some favorable rains across parts of the Midwest recently, but hot dry weather is in the six-to-10-day forecast for the western to central Midwest with the eastern Corn Belt forecast for closer to normal temperatures and a better chance for rainfall. The eight-to-14-day forecast still shows a lot of heat and dryness for most of the Midwest. The question is if this is a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty type of forecast? So far much of the corn crop looks to be in decent shape, but rains are always needed this time of year. Much of the corn crop is behind schedule and needs the heat units, but that also pushes pollination a week or two later than normal into the heart of summer with many places in need of some good rains ahead of that. For the week ending July 6, September corn was up 9.5 cents and December corn was up 10.75 cents at $4.0275. This is typically the time of year that crop conditions start to see some decline as weather starts to become more adverse. Because of the seasonality of a 1 percent increase in corn ratings, the Pro Ag yield model increased another bushel, but is still lower than USDA's expected yield of 170.7 bushels per acre. Informa came out with an updated estimate this week for this year's corn crop at 169.5 bushels per acre.
Ethanol production was at 1.014 million barrels per day. Weekly ethanol production decreased 0.10 percent from last week and up 3.05 percent from last year. Corn use for ethanol was 106.47 million bushels, ahead of the 93.43 million bushels pace needed for USDA's estimates. Ethanol stocks were also lower. The EPA also announced it will leave ethanol at 15 billion gallons. Crude prices continue to sneak lower and is pressuring ethanol prices.
Soybeans
Soybeans got off to a good start this week as we saw a favorable USDA acreage report and a hot and dry forecast for much of the Midwest is forecast to continue, especially in the western soybean growing states. The Dakota's make up 14 percent of total U.S. acreage, so the market isn't ignoring the potential problem that has developed over much of these typically spring wheat acres that got switched to beans this year. We are at three-month highs as worsening drought conditions in the western Midwest are keeping the trades attention. Soybeans are also getting support from meal prices that have surged in China, and vegetable oil has also increased due to dry weather in Canada and Europe. Stepped up South American selling on rallies is trying to put pressure on this market. Soybeans got through the $10 psychological level in November and next resistance is now $10.20. Soybeans made it through the 100-day moving average, reached for first time in four months. For the week ending July 6, July soybeans were up 38.5 cents and November 2017 soybeans were up 45 cents. Crop conditions for soybeans declined 2 points to 64 percent in the good to excellent category in this week's weekly crop progress report. Pro Ag's yield model improved very slightly this week, but is still lower than USDA's 48 bushels per acre. Informa estimates this year's soybean crop 47.9 bushels per acre, in line with the USDA.
Overall, moisture levels for soils are rated nearly equal to last year, but the crop ratings are much lower for nearly all crops due to a poor start to the year (cool and wet during planting). It remains to be seen what eventually becomes of this crop, but currently all crops appear to have mostly below normal yield potential. The season is only about half done, so there is a lot of weather left to be traded. The June 30 report was bullish on soybeans, as USDA estimated U.S. soybean acreage at 89.51 million acres with the trade expecting 89.95. Quarterly stocks were slightly below the pre-report average estimate. The USDA reported May U.S. crush came in at 157.3 million bushels (1.5 million bushels below expectations) and oil stocks were at 2.265 billion pounds, up 31 million pounds versus April and in line with market expectations of 2.257 billion pounds.
Canola
For the week ending July 6, November canola futures in Winnipeg were up $20.40 Canadian to $518.40 Canadian per metric ton. The Canadian dollar traded down .0004 at 0.7710. This brings the U.S. price to $18.13 per hundredweight.
• Velva, N.D., $18.64 per hundredweight, new crop $17.31.
• Enderlin, N.D., $19.17 per hundredweight, new crop $18.29.
• Hallock, Minn., $19.69 per hundredweight, new crop $17.48.
• Fargo, N.D., $19.90 per hundredweight, new crop $17.95.
Barley
Cash feed barley bids in Minneapolis were at $2.05, while malting barley received no quote. Berthold, N.D., bid is $2 and CHS Southwest New Salem, N.D., is $2.40.
Durum
Cash bids for milling quality durum are $7.50 in Berthold and at $8.00 in Dickinson, N.D.
Sunflower
Cash sunflower bids in Fargo were at $16.60, and October through November at $16.30. For the week ending July 6, soybean oil was 10 cents lower at $32.83 on the July contract.
(Identification is a start. After that, mowing, proper fertilizer, and herbicide applications all play a part)
Manage pasture weeds as aggressively as you do weeds in corn and soybeans, says Kevin Bradley, University of Missouri weed scientist. He offers the following five tips.
Start by identifying your pasture weeds, says Bradley. “We have a smartphone app and a booklet to help,” he says. Over the past two summers, Bradley’s graduate student, Zach Trower, has walked across 46 Missouri pastures every 14 days to record weed species, estimate densities, and sample soil. “Every pasture had horse nettle, and almost every pasture had common ragweed,” says Bradley. “Ragweed had the highest density, at an average of over 5,000 per acre.” Other common weeds identified were nutsedge, fleabane, yellow foxtail, and dandelion.
It may be a low-cost option to reduce weed populations, says Bradley. Some herbicide programs can cost up to $30 per acre, and mowing has the bonus benefit of little harm to desired forages. Make sure you mow weeds ahead of seed shedding. One research project showed that ironweed, found in 72% of pastures in Trower’s survey, can be 80% to 90% controlled with three timely mowings per year over two years. “That’s good control,” says Bradley. “All you may have to do after that is some spot treatment.” Trower’s survey found that 80% of the pastures were low or very low in soil phosphorus (P) and 37% were low in potassium (K). Average soil pH was 5.8, also very low. The survey correlated pasture fertility to weed density. As fertility moved closer to ideal, weed density declined. Each one-unit increase in soil pH (going from 5.8 to 6.8 pH, for example) resulted in 4,100 fewer total weeds per acre, and 2,454 fewer common ragweed plants.
P and K level increases also resulted in fewer weeds.
If you use herbicides to control pasture weeds, carefully think through the timing, says Bradley. For instance, metsulfuron-containing herbicides (Chaparral) can give excellent weed control but also can suppress tall fescue yield if used in the spring. Weed-growth habits are also important, as herbicides are more effective when plants are small and actively growing. For instance, 43% of pasture weeds are annual broadleaves, and they tend to peak in June, July, and August. Foxtails usually emerge in July and August.
“Identify the one weed you want to control the most and concentrate on it,” says Bradley. “You may just end up controlling some others in the process.”
Some weeds need to be controlled because they’re poisonous to animals, says Kevin Bradley.
Govt vows to provide modern technology.
Government's Priority Is To Bring Competitiveness in Agricultural Trade
Pakistan has huge potential in agricultural trade and local farmers will be fully facilitated in their endeavors to increase the yield of crops, said Commerce Minister Muhammad Pervaiz Malik.
Smart technology: Punjab project to revamp agriculture
Talking to APP, after inauguration of a dates festival organised by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), Malik said, “We are committed to providing modern technology and introducing best international practices for enhancing agri-trade with regional countries and connecting them with international markets.” He said priority of the government was to bring competitiveness in agricultural trade and it was also focussing on exploring new markets in the region and across the globe. Need of the hour: To boost agriculture output, ‘use of technology is a must’ Malik said the government was prioritising facilitation of trade in different fruits, vegetables, dates and other agricultural commodities as well as value addition in the sector.
Outlook Improves for Prairies’ Winter Cereals
Following concerns in September about seeding winter cereals in dry conditions, acres are down but crops seeded in Western Canada are doing good heading into the winter. “Very little moisture is required in the fall to get that seed to germinate and start growing, especially if it’s been seeded shallow,” said Amanda Swanson, a southern Saskatchewan winter wheat agronomist with Ducks Unlimited. The final crop report from Manitoba Agriculture, released Monday, said germination and stand establishment of winter cereal crops were good but seeded acres were down across the province. Reports in mid-September from southern Saskatchewan and Alberta said limited acres of winter cereals had been seeded due to dry conditions. A brief reprieve came in the second half of September as rain fell. “We always recommend guys to seed first and then usually the rains will come. Even if the rains don’t come and it doesn’t germinate in the fall it will germinate, come up in the springtime,” Swanson said.
If moisture doesn’t come until spring it doesn’t mean the crop won’t come up, Swanson said, adding it’ll just act more like a spring wheat than a winter wheat. Farmers in Western Canada last fall seeded 535,000 acres of winter wheat, eventually harvesting 398,000 acres, according to Statistics Canada. Production in the three Prairie Provinces came in at 546,400 tonnes, which was well below the 1.02 million grown in the previous year. Swanson has been speaking to producers across southern Saskatchewan and those who seeded winter cereals have said germination is at the two-leaf stage — the three-leaf stage being ideal. “(The) seeding date didn’t really make a huge difference this year just with the conditions being so dry,” she said. “The crop stages for the majority are at the same stage across the board regardless.” Swanson has heard from colleagues in northern Saskatchewan though that the situation is different, with the area not having been as dry. “There were lot of unseeded acres in the north and guys had fields that they wanted to get back into production and they were going to seed (them to) winter wheat,” she said.
Swanson estimates that while winter cereal acres seeded in southern Saskatchewan may be down, they may have been offset with increased acres in the north. In Manitoba, Jake Davidson, executive director of Winter Cereals Canada, is waiting for numbers from Statistics Canada on seeded acres to be released, but from what he has heard he thinks crops are doing well. “It just stayed warm so long for people. We had people (seeding on) chem fallow, stubble and their crops are up excellent,” he said. Some directors with Winter Cereals Canada are based in western Manitoba and from what Davidson has heard from them, he thinks winter cereal acres seeded north of the Trans-Canada Highway should be in good shape.
What’s New in Herbicide Technology
(No truly new herbicides, but dicamba-tolerant soybeans are ready for a complete system rollout)
Each year, ag chemical companies roll out what they refer to as new herbicides for managing weeds in corn and soybeans. In reality, these “new” products are just premixes of herbicides with existing sites of action. The last truly new herbicide site of action for corn and soybeans were the HPPD inhibitors (Callisto, Corvus, and Balance Flexx) that started to be commercialized in the late 1990s.
Instead, the industry has shifted from developing herbicides with new sites of action to traits that enable crops to tolerate herbicides with existing action sites. However, tweaks made with premixes can add convenience and may broaden weed spectrums, given sufficient active ingredient levels. Ditto for label changes that occur each year. Here’s a list of developments that will be in place in 2017 or in the near future as rounded up by Mike Owen, Iowa State University Extension weed specialist.
Monsanto’s dicamba-tolerant herbicide system will fully debut in 2017. Federal regulators have approved Monsanto’s Xtendimax with VaporGrip Technology. DuPont will also market its own brand of dicamba with Vapor Grip technology called FeXapan, through an arrangement with Monsanto. Also approved is BASF’s Engenia, another low-volatile dicamba formulation. Monsanto also has another herbicide for its dicamba-tolerant system that hadn’t received federal approval at presstime. Roundup Xtend with Vapor Grip Technology is a premix of glyphosate and a low-volatile dicamba formulation.
Enlist Duo is registered and is available for non-Enlist corn and soybean as preplant burndown and preemergence (corn) and preplant burndown (soybeans). However, it’s not available for postemergence use until crops in the Enlist Weed Control System are approved by China. At presstime, that had not occurred. The Balance GT Soybean Performance System is a collaboration between MS Technologies, Bayer, and Mertec LLC. Its Balance GT trait confers tolerance to glyphosate and isoxaflutole, the active ingredient in the system’s Balance Bean herbicide. Corn farmers have used isoxaflutole for years in herbicides like Balance Flexx and Corvus. The Balance GT trait has received all necessary import approvals from foreign customers. However, the system won’t be commercially available until Balance Bean herbicide receives EPA approval. Company officials say this likely won’t occur for the 2017 growing season, but it should be in place for a full-scale launch in 2018.
BASF’s Zidua Pro contains pyroxasulfone that belongs to herbicide group (HG) 15. It also contains imazethapyr (HG2) and saflufenacil (HG14). Zidua Pro is also labeled for burndown and preemergence uses in soybean at 4.5 to 6.0 fluid ounces per acre. Optimal burndown of emerged weeds requires MSO and a nitrogen source. No planting interval restriction is listed for Zidua Pro except when applications are made on coarse-texture soils with less than 2% organic matter where a 30-day interval between application and planting is required. A preemergence application is available for BASF’s Armezon Pro (HG27 and HG15) corn label. Zidua’s (HR15) postemergence application window in soybeans has been expanded to allow treatment from emergence to the third trifoliate stage.
Bayer CropScience obtained registration of DiFlexx Duo for field corn, white corn, seed corn, and popcorn in spring 2016. DiFlexx Duo combines tembotrione (HG27), dicamba (HG4), and the safener cyprosulfamide. DiFlexx Duo is registered for preemergence and postemergence (up to V10 corn stage) use.
Dow AgroSciences’ Resicore was approved in 2016 for application in field corn, seed corn, silage corn, and yellow popcorn for preemergence application. It contains acetochlor (HG15), mesotrione (HG27), and clopyralid (HG4).
DuPont’s Realm Q (HG2 and HG27) is now registered for aerial application; dicamba (HG 4) has been added as a tank mix partner. Aerial application of HG27 and HG4 herbicides represents a potentially serious risk for off-target herbicide movement, says Owen. Afforia can be applied either preplant or preemergence to any soybeans at 2.5 ounces per acre. Preemergence applications must be made within three days after planting and prior to emergence. When used with Bolt soybean varieties, the Afforia rate can be increased to 2.5 to 3.75 ounces per acre for either preplant or preemergence applications. The Bolt technology provides enhanced tolerance to sulfonylurea herbicides (HG2).
Cheetah contains glufosinate ammonium (HG10) for nonselective postemergence application in corn and soybeans with the LibertyLink trait. Panther SC is a 4-pound-active-ingredient-per-gallon formulation of flumioxazin (HG14). It’s registered for preplant burndown application in corn three to 30 days prior to planting. Panther SC can be applied prior to soybean planting or preemergence within three days after planting and prior to soybean emergence. Scorch contains dicamba, 2,4-D, and fluroxypyr, all HG4 herbicides. It can be applied preplant, preemergence, and postemergence in field corn. Postemergence applications can be broadcast to V5 or 8-inch-high corn. Applications made from V6 to 36-inch-high corn (or 15 days prior to tasseling) must be made with directed drop nozzles.
Syngenta’s Acuron Flexi is a premixture of bicyclopyrone (HG27), mesotrione (HG27), and S-metolachlor (HG15). It is registered for preplant, preemergence, and post-emergence application in field corn, seed corn, and silage corn. Sweet corn and yellow popcorn cannot be treated with Acuron Flexi.
Cabbage-chomping moths genetically modified to be real lady-killers may soon take flight in upstate New York. On July 6, the U.S. Department of Agriculture OK’d a small open-air trial of GM diamondback moths (Plutella xylostella), which the agency says do not pose a threat to human or environmental health. These male moths carry a gene that kills female offspring before they mature. Having fewer females available for mating cuts overall moth numbers, so releasing modified male moths in crop fields would theoretically nip an outbreak and reduce insecticide use. Bottom of Form Originally from Europe, diamondback moths have quite the rap sheet: They’re invasive, insecticide-resistant crop pests. The caterpillar form munches through cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and other Brassica plant species across the Americas, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
After completing successful lab and cage trials, Cornell University entomologist Tony Shelton and colleagues now plan to loose the moths on 10 acres of Brassica fields at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva. The team has clearance to release 10,000 moths at a time, and up to 30,000 weekly. This GM strain comes from Oxitec, the same firm behind controversial GM mosquitoes proposed for release in Florida. Several agricultural and environmental groups oppose the moth trial, too. While these will be the first GM moths released with a so-called female lethality gene, this won’t be the first genetically modified moth released in the United States. In 2009, researchers in Arizona tested transgenic pink bollworm moths, which threaten cotton fields. The trial’s exact timeline remains up in the air. The scientists need approval from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation before going forward.
