Ont. to allow land application of greenhouse feedwater

Spent nutrient solutions from Ontario’s commercial greenhouses will be made more easily available to crop growers for land application starting in 2015 under a new provincial regulatory framework. Greenhouse growers in the province are already required by law to safely dispose of the greenhouse nutrient feedwater (GNF) after it’s been used, circulated and reused to […] Read more

tilled rows in a field

Tillage: not always a dirty word

Moisture cycles change over time. It’s not a crime for soil management practices to change too

When soil-incorporated herbicides were all the rage, tillage was the main operation on many farms. For some granular soil-applied herbicides, the recommendation was to cultivate several inches deep at high speed and to go over it twice at right angles. In the best black soils it was not uncommon to hear farmers say they had […] Read more


China looking to curb fertilizer, pesticide use

Beijing | Reuters — China, the world’s top producer of rice and wheat, is seeking to cap its use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that have helped to contaminate large swathes of its arable land and threaten its ability to keep up with domestic food demand. More than 19 per cent of soil samples taken […] Read more

corn stalks

Higher corn yields through fertility

Fertility recommendations vary from farm to farm, but may be lower for zero-till fields

Prairie farmers are used to being flexible, always on the lookout for new recommendations for fertility applications — and when it comes to growing corn, they have to be. Corn is an expensive crop with high nutritional requirements. And every farmer’s land requires something slightly different. Morgan Cott, field agronomist for Manitoba Corn Growers Association, […] Read more


Manitoba extends fertilizer application window

Manitoba crop producers who’d hoped to apply manure or fertilizers to their fields now have a couple of extra days before the province’s annual winter ban takes effect. Manitoba’s conservation and water stewardship department announced Friday it will delay the start of the annual provincewide winter nutrient application ban until Wednesday (Nov. 12). Soil temperatures […] Read more

extracting a soil sample from a field

Add soil sampling to the fall “to do” list

Testing soil in the fall gives you time over the winter to plan your spring nutrient needs

As if there wasn’t already enough on the fall “to do NOW” list, experts advise adding soil sampling to the fall work load, if it’s not already part of the farm management plan. “The reality of the situation is if you don’t know what you have to start with, you won’t know how much or […] Read more


The Westco fertilizer story

Years of data from soil fertility tests have been collected on the Prairies. 
Now it’s time for Westco to share its data with farmers

This column is an impassioned plea to the upper management of Agrium / Crop Production Services to preserve the many years of excellent soil fertility work done by Westco. Most graphs that show crop yields and fertilizer use in the modern era start at 1960. It was August 31, 1960 that I crawled off the […] Read more

Man standing near canola field.

Synergy and the four Rs

To get the most from your fertilizer plan, consider the relationships between variables


It’s important to evaluate all four Rs of fertility collectively when considering the nutrient requirements of your crop. Changing any one R — right time, right place, right rate and right source — can profoundly alter the management of the others, says Dan Orchard, an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada. “Adhering to […] Read more


View of a farmer's field from the cab of a combine.

Planning ahead for fertility

With consistently higher yields, many farmers across North America are neglecting the basics: nutrient replacement

When agrologist Matt Gosling visited Chris Dennison in New Zealand he wanted to know how Dennison had become the world record holder for wheat production. Dennison answered the question in a simple word: replacement. When it comes to soil nutrition, Gosling has a similar philosophy: farmers should be monitoring soil status and replacing the nutrients they […] Read more

Three ways to lose nitrogen

Nitrogen is essential, expensive and easy to lose. New nitrogen efficiency 
products are built to offset these causes of nitrogen loss

Nitrogen is essential and expensive. But a good portion of the nitrogen farmers apply to the soil doesn’t get where it’s intended to go. Before the product can get to the plant in a form the plant can use, valuable nitrogen is lost through volatilization (released from the soil into the atmosphere as a gas), […] Read more