Manitoba corn growers have long relied on weed-management research from Ontario or the U.S. Midwest, even though growing conditions rarely match what farmers see in their own fields.

A new set of trials by U of M researcher Loveleen Kaur Dhillon is set to change that.

WHY IT MATTERS: With most corn-based weed guidance borrowed from other regions, Manitoba growers need local research to fine-tune their spray timing.

Dhillon is in her first year as the university’s agronomist-in-residence (special crops), a five-year applied research role funded through the Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA).

The position covers three “special crops” as defined by the program — corn, sunflower and flax — which are considered special because of their relatively low acres in the province, despite their potential.

Coming into the role with agronomy and plant breeding training, Dhillon said that aside from corn, which she had worked with during her master’s research in India, everything else was a fresh start.

She admitted she was nervous early on but settled in quickly once fieldwork began and she could see how producer-driven the program would be, allowing her to focus on basic, but essential, agronomy questions.

“I get to work on all those fun projects,” she said.

That farmer-facing element is central to how she sees her role.

Dhillon said the MCA partnership gives her a clear sense of grower priorities and helps her shape the work around what producers want studied.

Among this year’s work were two corn studies conducted at three Manitoba sites: Carman, Melita and Arborg.

In the first study, Dhillon used three widely grown hybrids and planted them on different dates to see whether adjusting seeding windows might influence how corn fits into the province’s shorter warm period.

The second study focused on the critical weed-free period, which is the window before early-season competition starts to cut into yield. Dhillon wanted to see how U.S. and Ontario recommendations hold up under Manitoba conditions.

She divided the work into two complementary approaches: one that let weeds grow for set periods before removal, and one that held plots weed-free for set periods before allowing weeds back in.

She said the work is also meant to help growers spray only when it matters most, making weed control more efficient, cost-effective and sustainable over the long term.

A season of contrasts

The three sites offered three distinct pictures of the growing season.

Melita had favourable weather, giving clean comparisons across weed-removal timings.

Carman had heavy weed pressure, which made the contrasts more obvious, even visible from the field edge and in drone images.

Arborg, however, was dry for much of the season, and the crop there looked very different from the other sites. Weed density and species composition also shifted under drought, which changed how the competition played out.

Dhillon said that although the conditions were challenging, the variation itself added value. Each site contributed a different piece of the puzzle, helping her understand how Manitoba’s range of environments might influence weed timing.

She hasn’t analyzed the data yet and won’t make recommendations until she has accumulated more site-years. Even so, based on differences seen in the field, Manitoba conditions don’t appear to mirror the conditions on which U.S. and Ontario recommendations are based.

Farmers who have managed corn here for years already know some of those discrepancies from experience; Dhillon’s first-year observations simply reinforce that Manitoba’s conditions deserve Manitoba-made research.

With more data coming next year, and with all three special crops under her long-term mandate, Dhillon said she hopes to give growers clear, locally grounded guidance they can use in their day-to-day decisions.

For now, she has something just as important: proof of concept that the province’s unique conditions behave differently enough to justify a made-in-Manitoba approach — and the beginnings of a program built to deliver it.

“The differences are quite clear,” said Dhillon.

“The protocol and the design of the experiment really worked.”

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But what if you could add a new tool to your weed control toolbox to share the load and help reduce input costs?

One Saskatchewan farmer has taken this approach by using the Seed Terminator. The mechanical device destroys weed seeds and makes them unviable before they exit a combine’s spreader at harvest.

The Seed Terminator broke ground in Australia years ago, but it’s gaining some interest with farmers in Western Canada.

“We’ve been using it for what, six years or more,” said Josh Lade, who farms north of Saskatoon.

“We don’t have any issues with it, other than a little bit extra power required because we are running a multi-stage hammer mill and a little extra fuel.”

In an article on this site last year, Lade noted that the Seed Terminator has reduced spray costs on his farm. For example, he now has to spray canola only once — albeit at a higher rate —– rather than twice to keep weeds at bay.

Lade also noted that he’s seen bumps in cereal crop yields due to spraying less herbicide.

“We’re not often spraying for wild oats or grasses in our cereal crops, for example … because it can be quite expensive and it can also have quite a metabolizing effect since you’re trying to kill a grass weed in a grass crop,” said Lade.

While the idea of cost savings is likely to perk up the ears of most farmers — Lade estimates savings of about $20 per acre — for him, it isn’t just about the money.

Outside of the cost factor, it’s a reliance on a single-barrel approach to weed control that helped motivate him to use the Seed Terminator.

“I really now feel I take for granted the ability for us to use certain herbicides on our Canadian farm,” said Lade.

Lade’s comment stemmed from visiting a farm in Germany while attending last fall’s Agritechnica farm equipment show.

Herbicide legislation in Europe is especially onerous due to environmental and sustainability concerns.

The situation facing European farmers when it comes to weed control made him reflect on farming in Canada.

“We’re only certain policies away from maybe not being able to use some chemicals, and that’s exactly what has happened here in Europe,” said Lade.

“So I think we need to be looking at other sources of weed control tactics while we still have a lot of easy options.”

– With files from Mark Halsall

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Small-field trials on Bourgault Industries’ 2,000-acre commercial farm in northern Saskatchewan focused on canola seeding rates, and nitrogen and phosphorus placement.

Agronomy manager Curtis deGooijer said five years of data shows that less can equal more when it comes to overall yield, emergence efficiency and plant architecture and maturity.

WHY IT MATTERS: Trials involving seeding rates with proper nitrogen rates and placement can save agricultural producers input costs while maintaining or increasing yields and emergence efficiency.

DeGooijer told the recent Farming Smarter conference and trade show in Lethbridge that for singulation, rates were 10 seeds per sq. foot and then subsequently halved to five seeds and 2.5, while volumetric started at five pounds per acre and was then halved to 2.15 and 1.25.

He said yields held up even at the lowest rates, especially when conditions and fertilizer placement were managed properly. They were 49.1 bushels per acre at the lowest seeding rate and 49 bu. per acre at the highest.

The real differences were seen with plant architecture and emergence efficiency.

“We do a lot of emergence, not just at two-leaf, but then afterwards as well. Our actual emergence rates started to decline. So simply by reducing your seeding rate, you’re getting better emergence,” said deGooijer.

Emergence dropped from 72 per cent with the lowest seeding rate to 59 per cent with the highest.

Bigger plants

He also said lower seeding rates produced much larger plants with strong branching than the highest seeding rate. As well, yields from the lowest seeding rate were two bu. per acre more in the dry year of 2021 than the highest seeding rate.

“When I find in canola, what you see above ground is a pretty good indicator of what’s below ground,” he said.

“The root system underneath is a bit larger underneath. So a dry year, less plants seems to do better because of a bigger root system on it. Those plants, they can dive down there, get that moisture, get those nutrients.”

In wet years, he added, yields and emergence increased approximately five bu. per acre with the higher seeding rate.

READ MORE: Tips to achieve a uniform canola crop

The stalk stands were examined after harvest, showing that production was higher with lower numbers of plants.

“You had more plants starting to compete with each other a little bit. They didn’t really produce a whole lot of grain,” he said.

“The less plants we had, the lower seeding rate, the less unproductive plants we had as well. The dry years, lower plant stem does better, and the wet years, the higher plant stem does better.”

DeGooijer said this information could help farmers manage high spots that are drier with lighter soil and lower wet spots where moisture pools instead of practising a one-size fits all seeding rate.

“In a dry area, maybe I do want less plants. I want bigger plants to really tap down into those hilltops. I want less plants up there to drive those roots down, and bigger rooting system.”

The good place

He emphasized the potential of combining lower seeding rates with proper nitrogen rates and placement.

A nine-year nitrogen placement trial with canola showed a 17 per cent reduction in emergence with mid-row placement compared to side-banding, while yields remained consistent, hovering around 55 bu. per acre.

Phosphorus placement trials highlighted the importance of side-banding for better crop health.

DeGooijer emphasized the impact of fertilizer placement on plant stands and yield, suggesting tailored seeding rate strategies based on local conditions.

“Put them together, that gives you your plant stand. Plant stand is what is going to control the next things, your maturity with flowering, timing and frost,” he said.

“You get a year with plus-35 weather in the first week of July. If you have a low plant stand that didn’t go into flowering yet, it misses that heat blast area and starts to flower a little bit later. That is going to be beneficial in having a later maturity big time. In the same sense, you get an early frost at the end of August, you got this low plant stand and later maturity, that’s going to hurt you on the back end.”

He said seeding rates must also be considered when managing weeds.

“Weed competition, if you are going to go to a lower plant stand, you might have to spray twice. If you want to only spray once, that’s where you have to consider having a higher plant stand because that comes into canopy closure.”

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The partnership pairs Geco’s predictive mapping tools with Gowan’s line of soil-applied herbicides in a collaboration aimed at helping farms take a more deliberate, patch-based approach to weed control over multiple seasons.

Why it matters: Seeing weed pressure ahead of emergence can make herbicide decisions more targeted and cost-effective.

Geco’s announcement includes two offerings tied to the partnership. The company is launching a new three-season predictive-mapping subscription, and growers who sign up through a Gowan representative will receive one additional field map at no extra cost.

“Our technology enables the question: If you could know where your most problematic patches are and where they are spreading to, what could you do differently? That’s what our technology makes possible,” said Greg Stewart, CEO of Geco.

How predictive mapping works

While blanket applications and spot sprayers respond to weeds already visible in-season, predictive mapping works ahead of emergence by using multi-year imagery to identify the areas most likely to develop patches. That allows farms to be proactive with treatments, rather than reacting after they’ve already gained ground.

A grower wanting a map begins by sharing a field boundary with Geco, often through a platform like John Deere Operations Center. If they don’t have a boundary available, Geco can make one for them. From there, Geco pulls every usable satellite image of that field from the last five growing seasons and runs them through tools designed to distinguish crop from weeds across the full season.

That multi-year history is what drives the prediction. Stewart said the key isn’t ultra-high-resolution imagery as much as having dozens of images per season and several years of history to reveal how weed patches shift over time.

The history shows where weeds tend to emerge early or flush late, and where patches persist. The resulting prescription can be exported straight into a sprayer, granular applicator, drill or variable-rate seeding tool.

“We look at a field, understand where weeds have been and where they’re going, and from there the farm decides what to do,” he said.

Geco has calibrated its system by comparing predictions against drone imagery, spot-sprayer data and human scouting across many fields.

Because the algorithms used to make these calibrations and predictions are proprietary, Stewart was tight-lipped about their inner workings. But while they play a big role in the process, he says the real challenge is fitting the technology into a farmer’s season.

“It’s not usually the math that breaks these technologies,” he said. “It’s how well you solve a real-world problem.”

That means making sure the system fits farm reality. It must mesh with timing at the end of the season and fold naturally into a grower’s weed-control plan. Those practical points tend to matter more than the complexity of the algorithm.

That’s also where partnerships come in. Predictive maps don’t work in isolation; they need to line up with the herbicides and practices growers are already using in the field.

Many early adopters were already using chemistries such as ethalfluralin and triallate (the active ingredients in Gowan’s Edge and Avadex) on their worst kochia and wild-oat patches. Those products are expensive to blanket across entire fields, and predictive maps help target them only where they’re most likely to deliver a return. So, the collaboration made sense for both companies.

But herbicides are only one part of the equation, said Stewart. Once the map is made, growers still need a plan for how to use it: which products to place where, when to increase seeding rates and how to tackle the “problem-child” areas that keep showing up year after year.

“It’s the agronomist and the farmer who put together that strategy,” he said.

How agronomists use the technology

One of those agronomists is Rob Warkentin of Davidson, Sask., who has helped several farms work predictive maps into their weed-control plans.

For Warkentin, predictive mapping works best on fields with well-defined patches like those same “problem-child” zones mentioned by Stewart. Once he receives a map, he reviews it with the grower to confirm the predicted zones match field history and scouting. He then adjusts rates, creates the prescription file and loads it into the sprayer or applicator.

There are still some practical limits — the kind Stewart refers to when he talks about real-world barriers. For example, some older spreaders can’t run prescription maps. Fortunately there is an easy workaround: growers can load the files into Google Maps. However, Warkentin says timing is a more stubborn problem for farmers.

“The best time to look at these maps is after harvest, but that’s also the busiest time of year,” he said. “By the time fall work is done, there’s very little time left to get maps made up and implemented.”

For farms using higher-value soil-applied products, the economics work well. Targeting only the worst 20 or 30 per cent of the field makes premium herbicides more economical and reduces total chemical use. Farms using lower-cost products may see less financial benefit, since the price of generating a prescription can outweigh the savings from variable-rate application.

However, Stewart noted that most growers use the maps to intensify control in the toughest patches — not necessarily to cut total inputs.

Either way, Warkentin says growers who used the maps were pleased with the results.

“The system isn’t perfect, and producers know there will be a few small misses,” he said. “But overall the people who’ve used it have been happy with the results.”

The science behind patch prediction

Stewart says much of Geco’s system grew out of earlier work in greenhouse pest modelling and even pandemic-spread research. The ebb and flow of insects in a greenhouse, or disease outbreaks during a pandemic, mirror how weed patches behave across a field, and understanding those patterns is key to making predictions.

For weed scientist Charles Geddes of AAFC Lethbridge, predictive mapping fits within a broader integrated weed management approach. He sees it helping growers make more deliberate decisions about where to invest their time, herbicides or cultural practices.

“I see this as another tool in the toolbox farmers have at their disposal,” he said.

Weed pressure is becoming harder to manage due to expanding herbicide resistance and weather variability that affects herbicide performance. Geddes says predictive mapping can help farmers plan where residual herbicides or added competition may provide the biggest returns. Using herbicides that stack multiple modes of action can be costly, especially on dryland farms, and applying them across full fields isn’t always justifiable.

“Predictive mapping lets farmers target herbicides or other practices where they’ll have the greatest impact,” Geddes said. “That can go a long way toward managing both costs and resistance.”

He also notes the technology adds some complexity. Prescription mapping requires growers to manage another layer of planning at a time of year when workloads are already heavy. That may limit adoption for some operations. But he expects interest to grow as farms gain experience and as more tools in crop production move toward AI-driven decision support.

Looking ahead

To date, Geco has evaluated more than 300 Prairie fields, building a clearer picture of how weed patches behave from year to year. The company has also been running pilot projects in the U.S., Australia, Europe and South America to discover how transferable the approach may be. But Stewart says the long-term focus remains firmly on Western Canada, where the vast majority of its customers currently reside.

That Prairie focus shapes where the technology goes next. Stewart says the company is now putting more emphasis on building partnerships with local retailers, agronomists and farmers to support longer-term, multi-season weed strategies. The Gowan partnership is just one example.

“We’re starting to partner with other retailers and independent agronomists across the region,” he said. “We’re really developing those relationships as much as we can these days.”

CORRECTION, Jan. 2, 2026: On page 5 in the Dec. 31, 2025 print edition, the final eight words of this article were accidentally chopped out at the end. We regret the error.

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A new course by the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association delves into all these components and more.

“The High-Performance Forage course will be available early in 2026 to producers, agronomists and technical teams interested in improving the quality of Canadian forage available for market both domestically and internationally,” according to Kaylee Healy, the CFGA’s communications and knowledge technology transfer logistics manager.

The course covers a range of topics designed to give participants in-depth knowledge on the different aspects of growing high-performance forage across Canada, including examining regional challenges.

READ MORE:

• Grow forages, starve weeds
• Short- and long-term thoughts on forage management
• Lessons learned growing forage mixtures for beef production

This 12-module course is designed for producers who are already growing forage and who are ready to take their product to the next level to take advantage of existing and new markets. Participants can expect to walk away with an in-depth understanding of forage production and practical next steps to improve the quality of forage produced by their operations.

The course is being developed with the help of forage specialist Dan Undersander from the University of Wisconsin, who brings knowledge of more than five decades of advancing forage production.

His expertise spans all aspects of forage management, including production and harvesting methods for hay, haylage, baleage and silage, as well as forage analysis and grazing. His work is supported by other subject matter experts from across Canada and the United States.

“We’ve been building this information for the last three years with Dr. Undersander,” Healy said.

“It’s building on a series of workshops held back in the early 2000s. They were in-person workshops geared towards agronomists and technical experts in forage to help develop higher-quality forage across Canada.”

What’s in the course?

The course takes a ground-up approach, starting with planning growing systems, defining the rations and yield potential. Planning the system helps identify goals, determine labour and management costs and determine crop goals. It is the foundation for the rest of the course and includes elements to help producers track and assess performance.

It’s important to understand the seed mix, including seed genetics, which will grow best in a producer’s region based on climate, soil fertility and other growing conditions.

The module also looks at seeding rates and seeding strategies.

Fertility is an important component of growing quality forage. It begins with understanding the nutrients and density required to match the seed selection made.

Emphasis on soil testing illustrates the need to understand soil pH and existing nutrients, plus soil additives including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, calcium and magnesium. This module also explores the use of liquid and solid manure and touches on the impact of salinity.

Seed management looks at different tillage systems designed to facilitate proper seed placement and other seedbed preparation considerations, while weed control covers topics such as assessing weed pressures and challenges. It specifically looks at when weeds cause a problem, how to manage weeds through pre-seeding and post-seeding, mechanical needs for weed control and when spraying may be required.

Disease and pest management dives into understanding the pressures that these problems place on crops. The module looks at how to identify problems and manage them.

The course offers a diverse look at harvesting and harvest systems, beginning with targeted harvesting time. This is a natural segue into matching forage quality to animal requirements and targeting moisture levels at harvest.

The harvest module also looks at minimizing field losses, selecting the best mower for your operation, the use of conditioning systems, racking, preservation and making baleage.

Making forage is only part of the equation. The course also features modules on storage including packing density, bunk filling rates and other storage considerations to minimize loss.

Producers feeding out forage will appreciate the module on feed-out management, which touches on topics such as maintaining a fresh bunk face, designing storage systems and engaging a nutritionist. It closes with tracking forage quality and building rations.

As the course winds down, participants will gain a better understanding of tracking and performance, including what records to keep, why producers should keep them and how to inventory quantity and quality in storage.

The initial plan, the tracking and the records help producers better understand the cost of production for an operation. Producers walk away from training with a template to develop the cost of production for their own operation, looking at the cost of harvest and storage losses and the overall cost of forage production.

The course closes with discussion on sustainable management, greenhouse gas impacts and management strategies to help producers with soil carbon sequestering and determining manure storage and application methods for their operations.

Producers will complete training with a plan on how they can improve the quality of forage they produce.

“The course presents information using a combination of written and video materials and provides resources and action items so producers can take the techniques and strategies outlined in the material and apply them to their farm,” Healy said.

Why now?

The CFGA has been working with Undersander and other experts for several years to create this training series based on the demand from producers and extension specialists to improve the quality of forage produced in Canada. It has been long recognized that forages are essential to maintaining the health of cropping systems in addition to being an important crop on its own.

Growers face a number of challenges regionally, including disease, pests, drought, excessive moisture and varying rates of soil fertility.

A pilot three-day workshop offered this past March in Manitoba underlined the desire for knowledge and the need to build new supports and connections for growers.

“With experts planning retirement or moving into other roles, the CFGA recognized the opportunity to capture this knowledge now and assist with transferring it to the next generation of producers, agronomists and technicians who are looking to improve Canadian forage,” Healy said.

“This free online course will be available through the CFGA’s learning management system in both English and French early in 2026.”

The new High-Performance Forage course joins other online educational opportunities provided by the CFGA, including Advanced Grazing Systems with sub-courses on dairy and brown soil zones.

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FMC bills its new brand, Avireo, as the first herbicide for that use in Western Canada to combine actives from Group 27 (tolpyralate) and Group 14 (carfentrazone) — which means growers get a new mode-of-action combination to throw at herbicide-resistant weeds.

The company says Avireo can be used to control a “wide range” of annual broadleaf weeds — specifically mentioning Group 2-, 4- and 9-resistant kochia, Group 2- and 4-resistant cleavers and volunteer canola — and that the product can perform in any soil type.

The liquid co-pack — which comes as two 1.2-litre jugs of FMC’s Aim EC and one 1.82-litre jug of Tolpyralate 400SC — can be applied pre-seed or up to three days after seeding.

The company also notes the combo is registered for tank mix options such as glyphosate or FMC’s Group 14 sulfentrazone product Authority 480, depending on the crop.

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“The planter/seeder debate is an interesting one. Essentially, it’s a cost/benefit analysis,” said Darren Bond, farm management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.

Of course, buying a shiny new piece of farm equipment brings financing costs — but that’s only the beginning.

“The biggest thing is the cost, but cost is always the easy part of the cost-benefit analysis,” said Bond. “So we have to look from a broader perspective.”

On the other side of the balance sheet is seed savings.

“One of the big selling points of using a planter is being able to reduce the seed rate. Seed is very expensive,” he said. “In our 2025 cost of production guide, canola is $82.50 an acre. If we can halve that seed cost, there’s some pretty big savings there.”

Fendt’s Momentum planter in the spotlight

That cost-conscious mood was on display at Ag in Motion 2025 near Langham, Sask., where AGCO featured its Fendt Momentum planter.

The Momentum is AGCO’s flagship planter, and Don Green, product specialist with Fendt, said it brings new capabilities. With a 130-bushel seed tank and a 1,000-gallon liquid tank, it sits at the high-capacity end of the market.

Green said canola is proving to be a viable fit for the planter. Fendt recently sponsored some research that was done at Olds College in Alberta.

“They did a side-by-side comparison with a competitive air drill, and it showed that we could produce more plants per acre with a lowered seeding rate,” he said. “So, there’s automatically a seed savings in there.”

The Olds trial also showed a two-bushels-per-acre yield advantage, but Green said that yield boost isn’t a guarantee, as those kinds of results are variable.

“I wouldn’t count on that as part of the economics, but the one thing you can count on is that this planter will establish your crop for a lower seed cost per acre,” he said. “That is consistent across all of the work that we’ve done.”

Between yield and seed savings, researchers found a $50 per acre net benefit for planted canola compared to canola seeded with an air drill.

Looking beyond canola

Green said he is also excited by pulse crop potential. They are in the midst of side-by-side trials in Saskatchewan looking at the benefits of running chickpeas and lentils through a planter. Beyond the seed savings expected to mirror the canola trials, he said they’re hoping that because of the better seed placement and spacing the planter offers, there might be some disease benefits.

“I’m not making promises, but we’re sure watching to see what the results are,” he said, adding that early results are expected later this fall.

Agronomic case still taking shape

Ken Coles, CEO of Farming Smarter, also said the idea of planters for pulses makes sense, and that there could indeed be disease benefits.

“I wouldn’t disagree that sometimes a wider row spacing might allow for more airflow. That might be a good thing for disease management,” he said.

Farming Smarter is a southern Alberta non-profit that runs agronomic research trials and shares practical, science-based best practices with farmers.

The group co-authored a 2021 study in the Canadian Journal of Plant Science that compared precision planters and air drills across 12 site-years in Alberta. The work found planters could cut seed use and, under irrigated conditions, boost canola yields by about 10 per cent, though results were mixed under dryland conditions.

Coles noted that planters first made their mark in canola through the seed industry. Hybrid seed producers once relied on old box drills to keep male and female seed rows separate, but precision planters offered a simpler and more accurate way to do the job. Many seed growers adopted them early on because they were already using planters for crops like dry beans or sugar beets.

That early adoption set the stage for broader, on-farm interest. And for regular canola growers, Coles said planters bring clear advantages in seed placement.

“Honestly, they’re designed to do a better job than our traditional air seeders,” he said. “They will do a better job in every setting. Does that mean you can just jump straight into using them? No, there’s a lot more to the story.”

That story includes crop type and environment. Coles points out that you could plant anything and expect better seed placement, but the reason that canola is a better candidate than, say, wheat is because of what he described as the crop’s plasticity.

“Canola has an amazing ability to branch and take advantage of the space that it has,” he explained.

He pointed to Australia, where farmers began using planters sooner than here in North America. However, they were using comparatively wide row spacings under quite different environmental conditions. That approach didn’t translate well to Prairie conditions.

“When we tried using a planter on 30-inch rows here, it just didn’t do well,” Coles said. “When we moved it down to about a 15-inch row spacing, then we found that it was pretty competitive.”

Results across years and conditions have been mixed. Under irrigation, Coles found the narrower rows were better, but with dryland farming, moisture became the critical factor.

“So sometimes it was better, sometimes it wasn’t. It was a little inconclusive,” he said.

That uncertainty highlights why Prairie growers are cautious.

Not built for zero till

One of the downsides to planters is that they were not designed for zero-till systems.

“That’s where having row cleaners is important, and the appropriate down pressure, so that if you want to take it into a zero-till system, it will still do a good job,” said Coles.

Despite the challenges, he said he sees potential growth for the technology, though he doesn’t expect air seeders to disappear. He noted that companies are already incorporating planter features such as parallel linkage, seed firmers and seed singulation into their drills.

“Is it going to be the element of every operation? Probably not. It’s a pretty expensive way to seed certain things,” he said.

Fertilizer adds a wrinkle

Another consideration is fertility.

“You still have to figure out how to get your fertilizer down,” said Coles. “That’s a systemic, on-farm logistics issue when your traditional seeders are set up well to do that.”

Bond agreed and said fertilizer application should be top of mind for farmers considering shifting to a planter. He noted that when farmers switch from a seeder that applies fertilizer during seeding to a planter, they must find another way to put that fertilizer down.

“Is that going to be an extra pass? And if we have that extra pass, then are we essentially giving up the advantages that we’re getting with the planter?”

How a farmer addresses this is critical. Poor timing or placement can lead to environmental losses that aren’t obvious right away but can drag yields down over several years.

Bond noted that moving fertilizer to a separate pass means farmers must weigh trade-offs: spring applications reduce losses but add workload at a busy time and risk drying out the seedbed, while fall banding can be efficient if soils are cool, with the added benefit of often cheaper fertilizer prices.

He stressed that the key is finding an alternative system that matches the efficiency of an air drill. Otherwise, the economics of switching to a planter may not hold.

Fertilizer prices make the issue sharper.

“Phosphorus is very expensive. Our market rates in Manitoba are close to $1,300 a tonne,” Bond said. “Because we’re widening our seed rows, we can’t put quite as much in the seed row as starter fertilizer due to seedling toxicity and fertilizer toxicity.”

That means phosphorus often must be placed elsewhere, adding cost and complexity.

Weeds complicate the picture

Weed control is another factor farmers need to examine.

Bond pointed out that farmers moving to a wider row spacing with canola need to be diligent when it comes to weed control.

“The wider your row spacing, the longer it takes for that canopy to close, the more opportunity there is for weeds like kochia and the redroot pigweeds and lamb’s quarters to really take off,” he said.

Where planters fit

Despite the challenges, Bond sees scenarios where planters make sense.

One is on farms where the air drill is maxed out. A planter can add seeding capacity, allowing some canola to be seeded earlier rather than at the tail end of the window, potentially improving yields.

“It just alleviates that pressure,” said Bond.

Another is on farms already growing corn or soybeans, where a planter is in the yard for those crops. In those cases, shifting some canola acres makes sense without overhauling the system. Bond said most of his clients don’t seed all their canola with planters, but allocating a portion of acres can be a good fit.

“To look at it from a whole farm perspective is very beneficial,” he said.

A constructive debate

Bond said the fact that farmers are talking about planters at all is a positive sign.

“This debate has been going on for a good 10-15 years,” he said. “Some producers just love using planters with canola because they’re able to save $30 or $40 an acre on seed costs, and they feel that pretty much pays for the planter in their situation.”

At the same time, other farmers remain skeptical.

However, Bond says more important than any single answer is the debate itself. He sees the discussion as a good thing because it has farmers talking about reducing costs without reducing yield.

“That’s the only way that producers are going to get through tight margin years.”

The post Seed costs spark new interest in planters for canola appeared first on Grainews.

Recently a report published by the Propane Education and Research Council (PERC) in the U.S. caught our attention. It featured a field implement designed to be pulled by a tractor and inject steam into the soil to kill weed seeds where they’re lying in wait — a method similar to practices such as anhydrous ammonia application.

The report cited results from a project undertaken by two U.S. universities that PERC funded. The implement used propane as an energy source.

“The banded applicator injects steam along the seed line before planting,” it reads. “Researchers say heating the soil to 150 to 160 F for 15 to 20 minutes controls more than 90 per cent of certain troublesome weeds.”

That apparently led to a significant reduction in labour costs in weed control in the test field growing vegetables.

Other research reports, however, have been skeptical of the value of using a mobile steam application to kill weed seeds in the soil. Also, the idea isn’t new.

“It’s been around for a while,” says University of Saskatchewan professor Steve Shirtliffe. “We’ve done a little bit of research (on it) with a company that was starting up.”

That research effort found getting the soil up to a high enough temperature to kill weed seeds proved very difficult with a mobile implement.

“Even with going very slow, the temperature did not even get close to what it would have to be to kill weed seeds,” Shirtliffe adds.

“Seeds are harder to kill than microbes in most cases. Seeds are resistant to heat, sometimes even very high temperatures. There are two things with thermal injury: how high are you getting the temperature, and what’s the duration of that? It’slike cooking something.”

And even if the necessary temperature can be achieved to accomplish that, the effect isn’t limited to weed seeds and unhelpful microorganisms.

“It’s basically a scorched-earth policy,” Shirtliffe says. “You’re essentially sterilizing the soil. All the macrofauna in the soil will be killed, unless they’re deeper down than the part you’re heating up.”

In the trials Shirtliffe was involved in, the energy costs were so high as to be impractical. “To reach a high temperature in something as dense as soil that is moist takes a lot of energy.”

But there is a more practical way to use steam to control weeds, he suggests — namely, waiting until they emerge and hitting them then with a different type of applicator.

Steam applied to young green weeds can be very effective at killing them, according to a 2017 paper published in the New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research.

That study looked at using a mobile implement to apply steam to young green weeds.

“At a tractor speed of three km/h, steam killed 100 per cent of 10-day-old mustard plants, sown as a surrogate weed,” the report says.

“Plants of all the other species were killed when the treatments were applied soon after emergence (cotyledon stage), but as the plants increased in size, they became more resistant to heat, either because the terminal or axillary meristems were protected by soil, or because meristems were protected by thickened stems and leaves as the plants aged.”

“If you think about it, would it be easier to kill a little green plant or heat up the ground enough to kill a weed seed that’s in the ground?” says Shirtliffe.

Using steam to kill young, growing weeds has so far proven to be the most practical and cost-efficient way to use that technology for most applications, he says, and research around steam use in weed control continues to be discussed in academic circles as chemical control continues to draw unfavourable press.

The post Using steam as a weed control alternative to chemicals appeared first on Grainews.

While imports of other companies’ off-patent brands of glyphosate may buffer the immediate shock, the long-term implications could reshape weed management across the Prairies.

Hugh Beckie, a former Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada weed scientist, explored this very scenario in 2019. At the time, he was based at the University of Western Australia, so his modelling focused on Australian farming systems. But while the crops may differ, both Australia and Canada depend heavily on glyphosate-based weed control, making many of his findings relevant here.

Beckie’s work laid out not just the impacts of losing glyphosate, but the sweeping, system-wide changes farmers would need to adopt in its absence.

To understand what that shift might look like on the ground, Glacier FarmMedia spoke with Kim Brown, provincial weed extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, about the tools, trade-offs and decisions farmers may face if glyphosate were to disappear from the weed control toolbox.

Brown says Canadian farmers have already been working to reduce their reliance on glyphosate due to the rise of herbicide-resistant weeds.

“We’ve already been going down that road where glyphosate for certain weeds just has not been working,” Brown says.

“We’ve had to find alternative methods for weed control.”

That said, a full loss of glyphosate would escalate the challenge considerably, especially given that weed pressure is a constant in Prairie fields.

“There are weed seeds in the soil. The weed seed bank is vast,” she says.

“Every single year there will be weeds.”

That tracks with what Troy LaForge, who farms in the brown soil zone near Cadillac, Sask., about 65 km south of Swift Current, predicted when we asked him to consider what his fields would look like if glyphosate were to someday disappear from the market.

“What we would probably see is a progression in winter annual and perennial weeds, and from that perspective, we may have to change up to some different oilseeds where we can use actives like clopyralid (the Group 4 active in products such as Lontrel and Curtail) and some of the graminicides (Groups 1 and 2) that are more effective on perennial grasses like quackgrass and foxtail barley,” he says.

“We’d have to change to some different crops, and I honestly don’t know what those would be at this moment, but we may have to change because we just don’t have means of keeping weeds under control otherwise.”

Southwestern Saskatchewan is not generous with the rainfall and not typically canola country, but if glyphosate were to go away, “it might mean that we’ve got to start growing canola more continuously to use a product like glufosinate (the Group 10 active in Liberty) for example.”

Brown concurs there are other herbicide options, even in glyphosate-tolerant systems, thanks to stacked traits — but those alternatives likely won’t cover the same broad weed spectrum that glyphosate does.

“We will have alternatives,” she said.

“But it’s going to get a lot more complicated, and it’s definitely going to get more expensive.”

READ ALSO: Glyphosate class action moves forward in Canada

Farmers may also need to revisit herbicide products they aren’t currently using and some they haven’t used in years. Brown said some older chemistries may play a bigger role again, particularly in rotation or in tank mixes.

However, product availability, crop safety and regional fit will be key considerations.

“To me, as a no-tiller, the No. 1 issue is going to be what we replace it with, and at this point, the actives that are registered are going to increase our costs significantly,” LaForge says.

“And it’s probably going to mean that we’ve got to bring back some active ingredients that we haven’t had for a while and just have higher levels of toxicity at the end of the day.”

Losing glyphosate would also push integrated weed management (IWM) to the forefront.

“Those tools have always been there,” Brown says.

“In the past, we haven’t used those tools as effectively as we could. But we’re going to have to now because we won’t have a choice.”

Brown stresses the value of crop competition: adjusting seeding dates, seeding rates, row spacing and cultivar selection all help. But the biggest lever, she says, is crop rotation.

“Crop diversity is probably the single biggest thing we need to do when it comes to weed control.”

Life cycle diversity — mixing annuals and perennials, or at least spring and fall crops — can help break weed cycles and reduce reliance on any single product or practice.

Beckie’s paper indicates how Canadian farmers may have a leg up over their Australian counterparts when it comes to managing glyphosate resistance.

In Western Canada, about 40 per cent of canola acres are planted to herbicide-resistant varieties, but resistance hasn’t taken off the way it has in Australia. That’s largely thanks to the widespread use of glufosinate-tolerant cultivars and more diverse crop rotations.

Still, Beckie warns, losing glyphosate as a pre-harvest option would hit hard in pulse crops, where there are few good alternatives for controlling tough perennial weeds.

Harvest weed seed control (HWSC) is another tool Brown mentioned, and it also played a central role in Beckie’s post-glyphosate scenario. Originally developed in Australia — where herbicide resistance evolved faster and hit harder — HWSC focuses on capturing or destroying weed seeds at harvest to prevent them from replenishing the seed bank.

Beckie’s modelling leaned heavily on this strategy, especially in the absence of effective pre-harvest herbicides.

HWSC has also been gaining traction in Canada and could become more relevant as farmers look for non-chemical ways to keep weed populations in check.

“You want to destroy the weed seeds, or you want to move them, or take them off the field and not let them add to the weed seed bank,” Brown says.

Tillage remains an option, and Brown notes it’s something most farms already have the equipment to do — but bringing tillage back as a primary weed control tool comes with consequences.

Brown points out that glyphosate was instrumental in the widespread adoption of minimum- or zero-till systems, and that if it’s no longer available, it could set things back significantly.

“There’s going to be many negative consequences with that,” she says, “including soil degradation, increased greenhouse gases and even just fuel consumption.”

Hence at LaForge’s farm, for example, tillage is just not an option.

“If we have to go back to tillage in this part of the world, we (would) probably decrease our yields instantly by 30 to 40 per cent,” given the amount of soil moisture that would be lost in the process, he says.

The availability of glyphosate has increased the diversity and productivity of the farm’s rotations and “created a whole new level of soil conservation in this area.”

There’s some hope on the horizon.

Brown points to emerging technologies such as laser weeding, electrocution, steam weeding and the potential for new herbicides or non-traditional weed control products. Much of this innovation, she said, is being driven by the urgency of the current situation.

“There’s a lot of research being done because of the very situation that we’re in right now,” she says.

Extension specialists such as Brown will play a key role in helping farmers adjust. She said the core message around integrated weed management isn’t changing, but the urgency and scope of that message are growing.

“We’re just going to have to get a lot more educated on some of these products that are out there that we need to be using,” she says.

“We have to raise that level of comfort, because that will be new territory for many farmers.”

The post What would happen if Roundup disappeared? appeared first on Grainews.

One of its strongest proponents is Josh Lade, a transplanted Aussie who’s been farming at Osler, Sask. since he moved to Canada in 2009.

Lade’s farm is all-in on a combine attachment called the Seed Terminator, on which he’s spent $400,000 over the past seven years to make sure the implement is utilized on every acre.

The Seed Terminator is an impact mill that churns weed seeds into innocuous chaff that’s blown out the back of the combine. Research has shown it, as well as other harvest weed seed control devices such as the Harrington Seed Destructor, Weed Hog and Redekop Seed Control Unit, can destroy up to 90 per cent of weed seeds.

READ MORE: What the weed seed smasher survey says

The Seed Terminator helps control weed populations by slashing the number of weed seeds going into the seed bank. Lade says it also prevents harvested weed seeds from being spread all over a field, which typically happens during combining.

In an interview with Grainews, Lade noted while farmers frequently use multiple tools and strategies to try and disrupt weeds cycles in their fields, “the reality is there’s always some weeds present at harvest.

“Those weeds at harvest time have survived all the agronomic practices that we’ve thrown at them and are the fittest weeds of the year,” he says.

“If you put them through the combine and spread the seeds back out over 40 feet, you’re just rewarding the survivors,” Lade adds. “With the Seed Terminator, we are stopping the combine from moving those weeds up and down the field.”

Return on investment

Lade, who spoke about the benefits of the Seed Terminator at the CropConnect conference in Winnipeg in February, estimates it costs about $120,000 to purchase.

Lade says his farm’s $400,000 investment in Seed Terminators has paid off in a number of respects. He pegged the overall return on the technology investment in the past four years at three to one, meaning it has paid for itself three times over.

The farm is less reliant on herbicides now, helping to produce costs savings associated the Seed Terminator that run at around $20 per acre, according to Lade. He estimates the cost for the Seed Terminator itself (for maintenance, repairs, et cetera) is about $5 per acre, making the net cost saving $15 per acre.

“We’ve been able to really cut back on double spraying our canola. To me, spraying your canola twice has been a bit of an industry standard, but we’ve found we can get away with just one spray at the higher rates and be done with it. There are definite savings on eliminating a sprayer pass,” he says.

He notes the farm’s move to Seed Terminators has enabled it to steer away from using some more expensive chemicals, and the reduced dependency on herbicides has also led to yield bumps in some crops that don’t tolerate certain chemicals that well.

“We’re not often spraying for wild oats or grasses in our cereal crops, for example, because it can be quite expensive and it can also have quite a metabolizing effect since you’re trying to kill a grass weed in a grass crop,” Lade says.

Lade doesn’t view harvest weed seed control technology such as the Seed Terminator as a replacement for herbicides, but rather as a complementary weed control partner.

“Residual herbicides are awesome at reducing pressures, but we still do need some in-crop sprays to try and get the escapees. That’s one spot where we’re cutting back, because I hate driving on the crop, I hate spraying my crop, but I know some weeds are present. Hence, we’ll use the Seed Terminator to just make sure that problem is not getting any worse,” he said.

“I just see the Seed Terminator as another herbicide mode of action. It’s not perfect. It’s got its flaws but a lot of chemicals do too. It’s really just that backstop. It’s there to keep in check anything that’s gotten through everything we’ve done all year to control weeds.”

Tips for potential buyers

Lade offers some suggestions for fellow Prairie farmers who might be considering purchasing a Seed Terminator.

One is to be mindful that the Seed Terminator, not unlike other combine attachments, requires additional horsepower.

“You need to make sure that you are not maxed out on your combine capacity,” he says. “If you are looking to get into this technology, it’s possible you might need a combine that’s a class size bigger than what you’re currently using.

“That’s because of the extra power that’s going to be used by these mills. They take 50, 60, 70 horsepower to run. So one thing I’d want to keep in mind is make sure you’ve got enough horsepower.”

Another important point to remember, he says, is that the Seed Terminator is best suited for chewing up dry — not green — material.

“Don’t think that you’re just going to be able to go and mill down all the green material. At the end of the day, it is a multi-stage hammer mill that works best on dry materials,” he says.

“Certainly, you can certainly take in a percentage of green material with it. What I find is as long as 75 per cent of the material going into the combine is dry, then the Seed Terminator can handle a fair amount of the green stuff. But just make sure that the majority of it is nice and dry and do proper burn downs to kill those green weeds, if there are lots of them.”

The post A Saskatchewan farmer is combining weed control with harvest appeared first on Grainews.