Cereals Production Guide

Cereal Production Guide 2025
The Grainews Cereals Guide is a resource for Canadian cereal crop growers, brought to you by Syngenta and Glacier FarmMedia, featuring developments in the seed variety pipeline and practical advice, insights and research findings from experts in the field.

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CDC Churchill in a plot at Ag in Motion in July. Farmers growing barley for feed are increasingly opting to grow malting varieties.
By Don Norman ●

Fitting malting barley in your rotation

The price premium isn’t the only benefit malting barley offers

Early-spring seeding of winter wheat may create more grazing days and reduce production costs.
By Jeff Melchior ●

Early-spring-seeded winter cereals can bring more, better forage

The practice does have some risks — but maybe not the ones you think

oats
By Robert Arnason ●

Cutting N on oats can pay off, if it's drier

Potential gain in net revenue must be weighed against opportunity cost

CDC Anson is a new oat variety from FP Genetics with high yield potential and excellent milling characteristics.
By Mark Halsall ●

New cereals on deck for 2025

Canterra Seeds, FP Genetics, Proven Seed and SeCan will bring new options to market this year

Snow depth on the Prairies, an important number for overwintering wheat crops, has decreased by four centimetres from 1948 to 2012.
By Bruce Burnett ●

Payoffs and pressures for cereals in a changing Prairie climate

Warmer, wetter, longer growing seasons carry risks as well as rewards

Corteva recently introduced Trusource, a durum wheat which provides increased dietary fibre and could be commercially available to growers within a couple of years.
By Jim Timlick ●

New tools could speed up development of cereal varieties

Selection is a business of evaluation, identification — and yes, rejection

Aaron Onio, malting and brewing technical specialist with CMBTC, explains the nuances of beer making at the test brewery at the centre.
By Don Norman ●

Critical factors in growing malting barley

While malting grade offers premiums, farmers must meet stringent quality standards to avoid being left with feed

Editor’s Rant: The price tag on progress
By Dave Bedard ●

Editor's Rant: The price tag on progress

Points to ponder as a seed company announces a hybrid wheat breakthrough

(Adama.com/YouTube)
By Dave Bedard ●

Broadleaf herbicide formulations set for cereal crops

Corteva, Adama launch new combination products

Red-morph English grain aphids, seen here feeding on wheat, are a common cereal pest on the Prairies.
By Mark Halsall ●

Keeping aphids in check, online and off

Improvements could come for a smartphone app targeting the cereal pest, but you can also take steps to help the pest’s natural predators

This map from PrairieFHB.ca shows the FHB risk level for the CPSR wheat variety AAC Penhold, as of May 15. The higher-altitude Prairie-wide map was pretty green (low risk) so we’ve zoomed in here on the Medicine Hat and Lethbridge area of southern Alberta. Yellow denotes “moderate” risk; red denotes “high” risk, while black (not shown) would denote “very high.”
By Grainews Staff ●

Maps now mark the spots for fusarium risk

Prairie-wide, variety-specific FHB risk maps now available online

A plot-scale unit seeds wheat into one of the research plots. Wheat varieties were chosen based on regionally popular varieties for each test site.
By Lee Hart ●

It pays to adjust seeding rate based on moisture

Keep wheat plant count in line with moisture expectations — and limit the amount of tillering

green spring wheat in a demonstration plot
By Glacier FarmMedia staff,Jeff Melchior ●

Field-scale trials with wheat present seeding and yield mystery

Trials see little yield difference by boosting seed count -- but don't plant less

a 60-foot Pillar disc drill to seed hard red spring wheat
By Lee Hart ●

Earlier-than-early seeding

These farmers use soil temperature, rather than the calendar, to time seeding wheat

Bacterial leaf streak has an impact on late-stage crops but can appear in the three- to five-leaf stage.
By Becky Zimmer ●

Irrigators warned to watch for bacterial outbreaks in cereals

Bacterial leaf streak is already an issue for Alberta and the U.S. Plains

David Kaminski flicking a barley seed head infected with true loose smut at the Crop Diagnostic School.
By Mark Halsall ●

Stamp out smut

Crop diseases: Disease prevention tips are available for barley producers