Should wheat follow flax or flax follow wheat? Should you grow winter wheat after peas to conserve soil moisture? These are some of the questions that USDA’s Crop Sequence Calculator could help to answer. Following a proper sequence and even using cover crops in some cereal and pulse crop rotations may help to increase overall […] Read more
Just like kids on a playground, some crops get along better with some than others. The crop sequence calculator can help put your rotation in the best order
CCA program will tie producers, feedlots and packers into on-line exchange
Canadian beef producers who ever wanted to know how their calves performed at the feedlot or graded at the packing plant will be able, later this year, to connect to a new information network being developed by the Canadian Cattleman’s Association (CCA), which in theory could launch a whole new era on how beef cattle […] Read more
Feedback Will Give Producers Guidance
Cow-calf producer Kevin Boon sees the new national Beef InfoXchange System (BIXS) as a useful tool to help beef producers fine tune their breeding and management programs. The old Blue Tag program, which allowed producers to track specific animals through to processing so they could get carcass grading and quality information, was a very rudimentary […] Read more
Take a Big Mac to lunch today
Friends on both sides of the country, who have really nothing to do with agriculture, recently sent me a copy of a circulating email they had received which calls for a boycott of McDonald’s Restaurant because the Canadian division of the company is buying ground beef from South America. The campaign, which was supposedly launched […] Read more
Soil test labs don’t factor in nitrogen losses when making recommendations. So if you take steps to reduce losses, you may want to rethink the recommended rates
Whether you are dealing with a lab directly or with an advisor, Karamanos says it’s important to ask whether fertility recommendations can be adjusted to reflect production practices. Farmers need to question their soil test lab or crop advisor to get a better handle on what their nitrogen (N) fertilizer recommendation is based on, says […] Read more
VRT May Not Fit Every Farm
Marcel Van Staveren needs to see more research to convince him that variable rate fertilizer application technology (VRT) can produce any better results on his Saskatchewan farm than him just knowing the productivity of his own land. Van Staveren says the concept of VRT has merit, but on his farm with fairly consistent yields on […] Read more
Buying Precision Herbicide
“If I have 10 fields where I needed a certain number of grams of a product for each field, I can call the dealer, and let them know what I need. When I pick it up it is pre-measured and pre-labeled as to the product, the grams and the size of the field.” Saskatchewan farmer […] Read more
Take Some Of What You Need Now, Loosen The Pipeline
Farmers who wait until the last minute to make their fertilizer decisions this spring may not get the product they want, when they want it, says the president of a U. S. fertilizer importing and wholesale distribution company. It won’t be a supply issue, as much as a handling and delivery issue, says Michael Stegmann, […] Read more
Wider Row Spacing Popular
Ten-to 12-inch seed row spacing, and in one case even wider, appears to be the spacing of choice among producers contacted for the farmer panel for this issue of Grainews. Here is what this month’s panel had to say about their seeding systems: CALVIN GUST BOWSMAN, MAN. Calvin Gust is pleased with the John Deere […] Read more
Are You Making $100 Per Hour?
For most producers, on first blush, making $100 per hour sounds like a pretty lofty goal. But two U. S.-based farmers and consultants say there may be all kinds of management decisions made in an average day that could return a farmer even more than $100 per hour. Even something as simple as spreading your […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
