Manitoba’s crop experts outlined one tactic to help farmers find out at the 2025 Crop Diagnostic School earlier this year at Carman.

Farmers using a ‘nitrogen ramp’ approach will increase nitrogen rates in increments, based on soil test recommendations.

It involves taking “whatever the nitrogen recommendation was from your field based in the soil test, and then comparing that to the nitrogen ramp to see, are you actually hitting (the target)?” said Anne Kirk, cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.

“When is it the greenest? And then also, considering, if we’re applying more nitrogen, is that economical as well?” Kirk added.

If you’ve tested a nitrogen ramp in your cereal crop, there are a few ways to determine if your plants are taking up nitrogen as intended.

It can just be gauged by the amount of biomass in your crop and the colour of the leaf tissue to the naked eye, Kirk said — but there’s a catch to that strategy. Changing light conditions throughout the day can trick the eye and make it difficult to gauge differences in the shades of green in the leaves.

Farmers can take the guesswork out of the process with a nitrogen ramp calibration strip, she noted. Similar to a paint colour swatch you might see in the local hardware store’s paint department, the tool can help give more concrete insight.

“It’s not to identify which one is sufficient or deficient,” but rather is a comparative measure, she cautioned.

“If you have 80 pounds of nitrogen per acre compared to 100, is there actually a colour difference, or are they about the same?”

For the more tech-savvy, a device called a SPAD meter measures the amount of chlorophyll in a leaf. To take a reading, the user presses the flag leaf between the two paddles on the meter.

Kirk noted that while these readings don’t mean much on their own and do not replace soil nitrogen testing, they can be helpful when measuring against other parts of your field or where a different application rate was put down.

Nitrogen application strategies

When it comes to fall or spring nitrogen application in winter cereals, there are pros and cons to both.

“If you’re applying all of your nitrogen in the fall, the risk is that you can have excessive leaching if you have a wet fall,” Kirk said. “You can also have denitrification (gassing off of that nitrogen) and it wouldn’t be available to the plants.”

A full burst of nitrogen in the fall could also lead to excessive top growth in your plants, which could mean a less healthy crown going into winter and perhaps more winterkill, added Kirk.

“If you apply all of your nitrogen in the spring, the risk is that it could be dry … and if it doesn’t rain, that nitrogen isn’t actually getting down into the soil to your plant,” she added.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, field conditions in a wet spring could mean a grower may not get nitrogen on the field before it’s too late.

To avoid risk, Kirk suggests using a split N application — a portion applied in the fall and a portion in the spring to reduce the risks from both of these types of potential losses.

The key is making sure that nutrient is available to winter cereals when the crop is likely to need it the most.

“We know that winter wheat takes up about 30 to 40 per cent of its total nitrogen needs by stem elongation,” said Kirk. “So we really want to make sure that nitrogen is on and available for the plant by the time stem elongation happens.”

For more information on nitrogen ramp calibration strips, visit the Manitoba Agriculture website.

The post Ramp up your nitrogen efficiency in winter cereals appeared first on Grainews.

So, how can you assess your winter wheat or fall rye to give you peace of mind that the crop will grow once warmer temperatures kick in come spring?

–> WATCH THIS: AGronomyTV: Did your winter wheat survive the cold?

Anne Kirk, cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says late April or early May is often a good time to dig up a few plants and assess their roots.

“The crown of the winter wheat plant is what stays alive over winter, and that’s where the new roots are coming out of,” says Kirk. “You can dig up your plants and you should see new, white, actively growing roots coming out from that crown.”

This is your indication that the crown is alive and will start to regrow once temperatures consistently stay above freezing.

If outdoor temperatures are still on the cold side and you want to know the viability of your winter cereal crop sooner, Kirk offers a second approach.

“If it’s early April, and you’re a little worried about your crop and trying to decide if you should make a re-seeding plan, you can go out dig up some plants. Keep them in their soil, put them in a pot in the house and add some water to see if those crowns are alive.”

In this case, new green shoots should begin to grow within a week – a good sign that your crop is okay.

Kirk said that all registered winter wheat and fall rye varieties have fairly good overwintering. Choosing seed from your provincial seed guide with a winter rating also helps ensure that your crop should survive most winter conditions.

A winter cereal crop that has overwintered well should have about 20 to 25 plants per square foot. Having fewer plants isn’t necessarily bad as long as it’s relatively even throughout the field, as the plant will compensate with tillering, Kirk said.

But if things haven’t gone your way and re-seeding is necessary, it’s important to choose a crop that won’t cause additional problems.

“Not seeding to a winter wheat crop is probably a good consideration. The risk is wheat streak mosaic virus.”

To avoid this plant virus, you need at least two weeks of no active growth in your field to replant spring wheat.

“It’s also hard to kill winter wheat,” Kirk said. “So even if you’re doing a herbicide or tillage, you’re going to end up with some winter wheat volunteers. So wheat streak mosaic is a risk.”

The post How farmers can tell if their winter wheat survived the cold appeared first on Grainews.

That’s the advice of Greg Stamp of Stamp Seeds, a second-generation family seed farm and seed retailer at Enchant, Alta., northeast of Lethbridge. Stamp is a certified crop advisor and is the seed sales manager for the 7,000-acre operation that’s a major seed supplier for Prairie farms.

Stamp had some fall cropping tips for producers during the CropConnect 2025 conference in Winnipeg in February and in a subsequent interview with Grainews.

Growing crops that overwinter, such as a fall hybrid rye or winter wheat, is a different way of farming in some ways than a spring crop, so producers need to be aware of that, Stamp says — and farmers who start making preparations early in the year will provide their fall crops with the best chance of success.

He points out it can also help ensure fall seeding goes smoothly during what’s typically a very hectic time for farmers.

“Farms are very busy when these crops need to be planted in the fall, so getting the crop in the ground in time and having enough staff in place to make that happen can be challenging,” Stamp says.

“For me, fall crops are all about early planning. When you try and do this just a few days before you go in to seed, it just causes stress and problems for everyone,” he adds. “If you want to grow a fall crop, you should be planning right now.”

One way to avoid planting headaches, he says, is to grow an earlier-maturing non-cereal crop like canola or pulses in fields slated for fall cropping. This enables farmers to get the spring crop off earlier so there’s more time to get that fall crop in.

Buy seed early

Stamp also recommends farmers buy their seed early once the decision is made to seed some fall acres — and plan a timeline for when those fall crops will be seeded, so as to ensure they have everything they need once the ground is ready.

An important part of that, he says, is making sure there are enough people on hand to do the job. “That’s so critical. Schedule that help for Sept. 1 or end of August so you can get rolling on your fall crop.”

Many farmers have a relative or a neighbour who lends a helping hand at harvest, he notes; one suggestion would be to have them arrive during that window for seeding winter wheat or hybrid rye, freeing farmers up to get started.

Another tip for successful fall planting is to have a tractor and seed drill prepped and standing at the ready prior to the start of harvest.

“It can take half a day to hook a tractor up sometimes, by the time you’ve got monitors set up and troubleshoot problems,” Stamp says. “If you have a spare tractor that you’re not using on the harvest run, have that tractor hooked up and ready.”

Stamp also recommends farmers leave stubble up from the harvested spring crop, then seed their fall crops between the rows. This can help trap snow in fields, providing an insulating layer for crops so they better withstand the rigours of winter.

Winterkill is always a danger for fall crops, which is why Stamp urges farmers to use a dual seed treatment to maximize protection against disease and insects.

“I’m a big believer in winter crops getting a fungicide/insecticide seed treatment for stress mitigation and winter survival,” he says.

“Some people would consider planting an untreated fall crop, and I think that’s a mistake. Personally, I would not put a winter crop in the ground without a fungicide/insecticide seed treatment.”

The danger of winterkill is another reason to ensure fall crops have correct plant populations, Stamp says.

He urges farmers to follow the advice of their seed retailers or agronomists on proper seeding rates for fall crops such as winter wheat or hybrid rye. “I’ve just seen people try and cut rates too much and then they’re not happy with the crop,” Stamp said.

Stamp also suggests seeding fall crops with a narrower-spaced drill can be beneficial come springtime.

“The narrower your drill, the better, because you’ll have more even flowering,” he says. “If you do have the choice, I’d go for seven-inch row spacing, especially on a rye.”

The post Tips for planting a successful fall crop appeared first on Grainews.

The project’s origins can be traced to the extremely dry year of 2021, which left many producers in the province’s eastern Lakeland region in need of feed and water resources. Canola crops withered, yielding as little as 30 per cent of normal, and overgrazed pastures produced less in the following year.

Many livestock producers turned to novel feeds and grazing annuals in 2021 when drought withered pastures and normal forage sources failed to produce.

Winter cereals sown in fall have proven their value in providing early-season grazing in spring. But that comes with a catch: the crops move into reproductive stage relatively soon, so quality and production decline beyond July.

Early spring-seeded winter cereals remain in the vegetative stage throughout the summer and fall, improving biomass, maintaining nutritional quality and creating more chances for grazing, Alyssa Krawchuk of the Lakeland Agricultural Research Association (LARA) wrote in an email.

These grazing opportunities can begin in early June and extend into September.

Having more grazing periods in a growing season is just the start. An additional harvest opportunity and forage quality improvement were two more highlights of the early-seeding approach.

Early seeding also resulted in greater biomass production, which Krawchuk says could make or break an operation during dry or drought conditions when feed sources are scarce. Having that extra biomass can give perennial pastures the chance to rest and regenerate, reducing the need for producers to buy dry feed or rent other pastures.

“The year after a drought, this could be used as a method to defer grazing on drought-stressed pastures until later in the grazing season and provide more rest for these pastures throughout the summer.”

Early winter wheat seeding also seems to increase crude protein levels in feed compared to regularly-timed counterparts. The tactic can create more grazing days and reduce production costs while maintaining adequate feed quality and quantity.

“Furthermore, by seeding early, the winter cereals can take advantage of any early growing season moisture that might occur before regular seeding dates,” Krawchuk says.

“In addition, seeding cereals early in the spring allows for capture of early-season moisture through snow melt that may not be available in dry and drought conditions later in May when cereals are normally seeded.”

The research project took place at the LARA Fort Kent research site, southwest of Cold Lake in the Municipal District of Bonnyville. The “ultra-early” seeding date was April 29, 2022, in a soil temperature of 2 C. The regular seeding date was May 27, 2022, more or less within the normal seeding schedule for the region, in a 12 C soil temperature.

Wheat was harvested when each variety was an average of 30 centimetres high and cut to two inches. Regrowth was harvested throughout the summer and fall once it reached 30 cm.

Due to dry soil conditions at the time, varieties of winter cereals were seeded to a depth of 1.5 inches. Six treatments included two varieties of winter triticale (Metzger and Luoma) and two each of winter wheat (Pintale and Wildfire) and fall rye (Prima and Hazlet). Plots were 1.15 metres wide by 7.5 metres long with a minimum harvested area of six square metres.

There was little difference in first harvest timing between the two treatments. Both were between seven and eight weeks after planting. Early-seeded regrowth was harvested in three weeks. The third harvest occurred seven weeks later, with regular-seeded regrowth harvested seven weeks after the first harvest.

The early-seeded treatment produced more total yield than the regular-seeded treatment. Hazlet fall rye and Luoma winter triticale were the top-yielding varieties. The former produced about 0.67 tonnes per acre of dry matter forage yield whether seeded in the early and regular categories.

The lowest-yielding cereal was Metzger winter triticale with about 0.32 tonnes per acre of forage yield with the early-seeded treatment and just a little higher with the regularly timed seeding.

Although there was some difference in crude protein among varieties, the early-seeded cereals sported higher crude protein and the first harvest had higher crude protein than the subsequent harvest.

Wildfire winter wheat, for example, produced 28.25 per cent crude protein in the early-seeded set while the same variety scored 24.74 per cent with the regularly-seeded treatment.

The number of total digestible nutrients was much higher in the first harvest than those thereafter. However, they did not differ by variety or seeding date.

‘No. 1 question’

There are risks to planting cereals so early, but they may not be the ones producers first think of, Krawchuk says.

“Frost tends to be the No. 1 question when proposing early-seeded cereals to local producers. However, cereal crops have been shown to withstand temperatures as low as -8 C for a short period without detrimental impacts on growth and productivity.”

A bigger challenge when seeding winter cereals in low soil temperatures is the capacity of fields to hold the weight of seeding equipment.

“This is heavily dependent on soil type and moisture, which tends to be more of an issue the further north you go in Alberta where more clay type soils dominate.”

Although the 2022 project was intended to develop guidance for cereal producers in northeastern Alberta, LARA plans to take this show on the road.

With new funding from Results Driven Agriculture Research hopefully in hand, Krawchuk and her team plan to expand the trial to Oyen, Fairview and Fort Vermilion.

“We feel it is imperative to run this trial in different eco-regions of the province as varying agroclimatic conditions will have an impact on the biomass produced and the number of harvests achieved.”

The basic concept of the pending projects will remain the same — with some differences.

“The trial now includes three varieties of each winter wheat, winter triticale and fall rye and will be compared to an annual cereal commonly grown for feed. In addition, we will be working with economist Kathy Larson from the University of Saskatchewan to provide producers with a cost-benefit analysis for the project.”

The post Early-spring-seeded winter cereals can bring more, better forage appeared first on Grainews.

Of course, as I write this, I must acknowledge that within the past 24 hours, we’ve received nearly five inches of heavy rain and hail. I’m not sure if I should rejoice by listening to my winter cereals germinate, or if I will gleefully torch a tumbleweed, but our municipal fire ban is still in effect, so I’ll be mindful of my celebrations.

In reality, farmers and ranchers everywhere are somewhere on the continuum of experiencing severe drought or being submerged in unwanted water. Every region has unique challenges, and every farm business has its goals and objectives.

How you approach drought, flood or any disaster in between will depend on a lot of factors. Are you just starting out as a farmer or are you winding down your operation? What is your appetite for risk? What are your strengths? What are your short-term workarounds and what are your long-term goals? What will you do if the tough times last for six months…or six years? What will your cash flow needs be?

Ranching in a drier region, we are always somewhat expecting a drought, although the past seven years have been a longer dry spell than what we typically deal with.

Water is our major limitation, not just for forage crops and pastures, but particularly for stock water. Most of our pastures rely on dugouts for surface water, and when runoff is minimal and wind-fuelled evaporation is at its maximum, both quality and quantity plummet.

Fortunately, pumping from the water source using solar- or wind-powered pumps can dramatically extend the longevity of your water supply and help retain quality. You must check your pumps daily, but if you can extend your dugout by a few weeks, or even a few days, it’s often worth it. Trail cameras can also be useful for alerting you between checks.

If you find yourself hauling water to pastures, ensure you have adequate trough space for the herd and that one trough is low enough for calves to reach. Perhaps a big poly tank can be set up and filled to gravity-feed into troughs, to ensure a more consistent flow. Also, consider what infrastructure you may be tying up. For example, if you are hauling water with a semi, that may limit the job to one or two licensed operators and tie up equipment that could be used for other things…like hauling feed.

Test water and feed

In Saskatchewan, we are extremely fortunate to access water quality testing through our agriculture extension offices. We have a robust forage and livestock extension service that many other provinces envy, so I figure if they are willing to help, let’s capitalize on it.

Grassland and forages are the cornerstone of beef cattle production and stickhandling through drought becomes a function of managing inventories: how much grass, how much feed, and how many cattle.

Don Campbell, a well-known holistic management instructor and grazer, shared a Bud Williams quote with me: “You can never have too much money, you can never have too much grass, but you can have too many cattle.”

Those words have stuck with me. When things are uncertain, we use our yearlings as a flex herd and can retain or sell them as needed or as the season progresses.

We’ve had to expand our definition of “feed,” but in doing so, I want to emphasize that you must feed test to prevent a wreck. We’ve fed a variety of crops and byproducts and have worked with a nutritionist to help us make confident choices. Using a custom-made mineral program has helped us offset any feed or water quality concerns.

While we’ve grown some good intercrops and continue to look into novel forages, we tend to safety up and stick with tried-and-true crops for our farm such as fall rye that we can use for grazing, baling, silage or combining.

Raising a living commodity gives beef producers a different sense of responsibility and urgency. We don’t worry about bushels of grain the same way we worry about meeting the needs of our herd. That accountability can fuel innovation, resourcefulness and empathy and can bring out the best in people when you need it most.

The relationships we forged and maintained through some of our hardest times, and the people who shared an encouraging word or idea, something we try to pay forward, have been a blessing.

When the wind stops blowing and the dust settles, it’s not government programs or feed or even five inches of rain that will pull you through tough times, it is people.

The post Prepare your ranch and business plan for bouts with drought appeared first on Grainews.

The measures will enable affected farmers to seek compensation. Kursk is Russia’s seventh largest grain producing region. It has also suffered from a major Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s territory, which started on Aug. 6.

Russia Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut said on Oct. 7 that the country’s grain harvest would be hit by the impact of Ukraine’s attacks on grain-producing regions close to the border and by bad weather in many other regions.

Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov said in September that, after the incursion, the harvesting of grains could not be completed on an area of 160,000 hectares. He estimated the damage at almost $1 billion (C$1.4 billion).

The Russian National Union of Agricultural Insurers reported in early October that in 2024 there were 29 weather-related emergencies that resulted in crop damage recorded in 26 regions of the country, a 45 per cent increase compared to last year.

Russia plans to harvest 130 million tons of grain, down from an earlier forecast of 132 million tons. The new estimate is a an 12 per cent drop from 148 million tons in 2023 and a 18 per cent drop from a record 158 million tons in 2022.

— Reporting for Reuters by Olga Popova

The post Russia’s Kursk region declares emergency due to winter grain crop failure appeared first on Grainews.

The risk is high enough to cause concern among crop specialists.

“The eastern Prairies are in a little bit better shape than (Saskatchewan and Alberta) but there’s huge swaths that in my mind are critically low in terms of snow cover and those types of conditions that enhance winter survival,” said Brian Beres with the AAFC Lethbridge Research and Development Centre.

Further complicating matters is the mid-January deep freeze that saw some Prairie regions experience wind chill lows of -55 C.

“Hopefully that cold spell wasn’t so long to the point where it caused (winterkill) and hopefully the conditions before that — with those abnormally high temperatures — didn’t trigger some sort of dehardening process within the plants. But if I was a farmer, I would be out taking a look,” he said.

Anne Kirk, cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, expressed similar concerns for her province.

“The warm temperatures have been melting what snow cover there is and many fields in central Manitoba have very little remaining snow,” she wrote in an email. “If there is a lack of snow cover and temperatures drop, then I would be concerned for the winter cereal crops.”

An up-and-down winter combined with little snow cover could set the stage for winterkill problems in fall-seeded crops.

Obviously there’s no remedy for winterkill: a dead plant is a dead plant. However, a small amount of winterkill in winter wheat will not necessarily make the remaining crop unsaleable, said Beres.

“The nice part about winter wheat is you’ve got a lot of end-use market flexibility. And because it’s winter wheat, you can make a lot of decisions in that spring window and still get some cash generated from that parcel of land.”

A number of conditions contribute to winterkill, including heavier clay soils, late planting, loose soil at planting, inconsistent snow cover, drainage issues and severe freeze-thaw cycles.

The warm weather-pooling-freezing cycle throughout the Prairies this winter looms large in the minds of Beres and Kirk.

“A … concern with this warmer weather is water pooling and freezing in low areas of the field,” wrote Kirk. “Winter cereal crops are respirating even when dormant, and standing water or ice cover restricts gas exchange in the crop.

“Because the plants are dormant, they are more likely to survive prolonged periods of stress, but prolonged standing water or ice cover is detrimental for winter crops.”

The tendency of water to pool in low spots highlights the importance of scouting those areas in spring, said Beres.

“If you see those low spots of winterkill in your field, that’s probably a good indication that there was some of that going on in your field and the low spots obviously are going to melt and have some pooling before anywhere else.”

Winterkill potential can be reduced through use of winter-hardy varieties, said Beres, but those aren’t entirely immune.

“If you get 10 days of warm temperatures and then get hit with an abnormal cold spell like we did, now the plant’s potentially dehardened.”

Dehardening occurs when plants lose their acquired cold tolerance in response to warm temperatures.

Spring scouting can help producers measure the effects of winterkill and the overall health of a winter crop. However, initial assessments can be deceptive in the case of winter wheat because a good crop can be grown in spite of winterkill.

“Often you’ll go and monitor your fields and think you’ve got a bigger problem than you do. And then you wait a little longer and all of a sudden, the winter wheat — being the resilient crop that it is — starts to turn it around,” said Beres.

“Get a good idea of what your stand density is, because even if you’re in that range of 10 to 15 plants per square foot, you’re going to produce an acceptable crop just because of winter wheats’ tillering capacity and whatnot. I know guys that have left crops with lower plant stands than that and did OK, so the sky isn’t falling yet and it wouldn’t be until you confirm that you’re maybe at less than seven to eight plants per square foot.”

Some tactics can be employed in spring to minimize the impact of winterkill, said Beres. One of them is overseeding.

“If you’ve got a field that’s got big pockets that have been wiped out, you can go in and overseed with spring wheat in some of those situations and then hope that the two sync together.”

Don’t overdo it if there are only small pockets of winterkill, he added.

“Some guys overseed the whole (field) and then they’re in a feed wheat situation because it’s not like you’re going to be selling it off as anything other than that.”

Kirk also recommended spring plant counts in various parts of the field.

“Weed management, early application of nitrogen to encourage tillering and increasing disease scouting are important for the remaining winter crop,” she wrote. “If the crop is patchy, prior weed control is especially important as there would be patches of the field providing very little weed competition.”

Depending on severity of the damage, producers may choose to reseed the field with a spring crop, she wrote.

“In some cases farmers may just replant, with a spring crop, patches of the field or may kill the remaining winter wheat crop and replant the entire field.”

The Winter Crop Survival Model takes crown depth (one inch) soil temperatures under winter cereals from sensors throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

“This model compares the cold tolerance of winter cereal varieties to daily average soil temperatures at crown depth,” wrote Kirk. “These graphs identify winterkill days based on their model and give an early indication if there is a concern for winter injury or winterkill.”

The post Conditions ripe for winter cereal wreck appeared first on Grainews.

At a field day on Stamp Seeds’ farm at Enchant, north of Lethbridge, Alta., Graf saw his first field of AAC Coldfront, a hard red winter wheat, which entered the final registration phase this past February. Up until visiting this field of what will become breeders’ seed, he had only seen the new variety in research plots.

AAC Coldfront, which should be available as registered seed to farmers by 2024 or 2025, is a milling quality winter wheat variety that appears to fire on all agronomic and marketing cylinders. New, high-performing winter wheat varieties developed in recent years may become game changers in terms of encouraging more farmers to grow winter cereals, says Graf.

“There aren’t many features Coldfront doesn’t have,” says Graf, who wrapped up a 35-year career as a plant breeder in July. “It is high yielding, it has great winter hardiness, it is sort of medium-short with good straw strength and standability and a high test weight (about 66 pounds per bushel). It has excellent disease resistance including an intermediate resistance to fusarium head blight.”

While AAC Coldfront was rated resistant to stem, leaf and stripe rusts, it is susceptible to common bunt; however, Graf says if proper seed treatments are applied that shouldn’t be an issue.

“It also has a great fit across all production areas,” says Graf. “It yields well under irrigation but also performs very well under dryland growing conditions from central Alberta to the Peace River Region and east to Manitoba.”

In variety trials across Western Canada, AAC Coldfront had significantly higher grain yields (on average about 111 per cent) than all of the checks in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In Manitoba, AAC Coldfront was significantly higher yielding than CDC Buteo and Moats, and marginally higher than AC Emerson and AAC Elevate.

One other feature about AAC Coldfront that usually isn’t measured in winter wheat varieties is it appears to be a more efficient variety in terms of water use.

“It is a high-yielding variety with a protein concentration similar to the check mean (about 12.4 per cent),” says Graf. “And it demonstrated an improved capacity to convert soil water and nutrients into grain under a wide range of western Canadian field conditions.

“It isn’t something we usually measure, but it appears that AAC Coldfront is a more efficient variety, which may be important from an environmental standpoint,” he says. “It can achieve high yield and quality even under more stressful growing conditions.” AAC Coldfront has maturity similar to AC Radiant winter wheat (registered in 2004), about 220 days, but it does head out earlier.

Other great options

While seed multiplication is taking place over the next couple of years, western Canadian farmers still have excellent winter wheat varieties to chose from.

Two other varieties that have come out of Graf’s winter wheat breeding program in recent years include AAC Wildfire and AAC Network.

AAC Wildfire, which hit the marketplace in 2015, is now the most popular winter wheat variety in Western Canada, says Graf.

Licensed to SeCan, AAC Wildfire is an awned hard red winter wheat variety with exceptional grain yield potential and very good winter hardiness. AAC Wildfire also has medium height and excellent lodging tolerance. However, it is a bit of a later-maturing variety, rated at 221 days to maturity.

AAC Wildfire is especially well suited to Alberta and Saskatchewan and would be a potential replacement for AC Radiant and CDC Buteo. And although, generally, the Russian wheat aphid is no longer a concern across Western Canada, AAC Wildfire was developed with Russian wheat aphid resistance.

Coming along a few years later and marketed through SeedNet, a company owned by 14 independent southern Alberta seed growers, is AAC Network (visit seednet.ca).

Considered as a replacement for AAC Gateway, AAC Network is a milling quality winter wheat variety that has high protein.

Its key features are it stands very well with short, strong straw. Along with grain for milling, it also is described as being perfect for winter wheat silage when grown under irrigation or higher fertility. The variety has good winter survival, is rated as having intermediate resistance to fusarium head blight (although winter wheats typically flower before fusarium head blight timing and so can avoid the disease) and a better rust disease package. Compared with AAC Gateway, AAC Network has more drought tolerance and higher protein. AAC Network also matures a bit later with 213 days to maturity.

A crop to consider

The improved agronomics of winter wheat and other winter cereals make them crops worthy of consideration, says Monica Klaas, agronomist with the Western Winter Wheat Initiative, based in Alberta.

“My primary message to farmers is if you haven’t tried winter wheat or it has been a while since you’ve grown a winter cereal crop then try it,” says Klaas. “Particularly with the winter wheats, there are several new and much-improved varieties now available to growers that are high yielding and produce excellent returns.”

The Western Winter Wheat Initiative is a collaboration between Bayer Crop Science, Ducks Unlimited Canada and Richardson International Ltd. The purpose of the initiative is to demonstrate how winter wheat is a highly productive crop option for western Canadian farmers. Each year, new varieties with greater yield advantage, disease tolerance and other important traits are introduced to the market, making winter wheat an excellent agronomic fit in crop rotations.

“It starts with a commitment on behalf of the farmer to give it a try,” says Klaas. “There have been different times I’ve talked to farmers who sounded interested, but then later they will say, ‘I never got around to it.’

“Growing a winter cereal does take some planning and really doesn’t work as an afterthought,” she says. “You need to have seed on the farm, have fertilizer on hand, get seeding equipment ready and be prepared you may have to get some seeding done in between harvesting days. But it does pay off in the long run.”

Klaas says winter wheat isn’t bulletproof against adverse weather, but it does offer some risk management benefits. The crop can take advantage of early spring moisture and if conditions turn dry during the summer, most likely the winter wheat seed heads will already have been filled and hardening off just ahead of harvest.

“And with good management and decent growing conditions, it is not uncommon to see winter wheat yields in the 130-bushel-per-acre range,” she says.

For more information on the agronomics and benefits of growing winter wheat, visit www.growwinterwheat.ca.

The post Improved varieties on the ground and in the pipeline appeared first on Grainews.

Winter cereals are an integral part of the farm business at Leo Meyer Grain Production Ltd., says Jesse Meyer. Most years, about a quarter of the farm, or about 2,000 acres, are seeded to a combination of winter wheat, conventional fall rye and winter triticale. They complement spring-seeded crops that include canola, peas, oats and spring wheat.

“Over the years, we’ve found winter cereals provide several benefits in our overall cropping operation,” says Meyer, who is one of five siblings involved in various aspects of the farm started in the early 1990s by their late father Leo Meyer. “And producing high-yielding and high-quality winter cereals is a big part of the farm brand. Customers have come to know we are suppliers of these grains.” Jesse and his brother Samy are involved in day-to-day operations while Kathy, Tracy and Stefan are also involved although not as directly.

There’s nothing new about growing winter cereals. Statistics Canada reports there are about two million acres grown across Canada depending on the year. In Ontario, for example, winter wheat is the primary wheat crop. In Western Canada, there are many committed growers, but often fall-seeded crops are optional or a crop of opportunity — a field didn’t get seeded to a spring crop for some reason, or a crop got hailed out mid-season, then there might be an opportunity to seed a winter cereal.

But the Meyer farm is serious about winter cereals. “We plan for winter cereals a year in advance,” says Meyer. “They are just part of the rotation. We have a close look at our seeding plan and decide where the winter crops will fit in the rotation. As we get closer to seeding, we can make adjustments as needed.”

There are several benefits from growing these “off-season” crops. One quarter of their annual seeding is usually done in the first three weeks of September, so that helps reduce pressure on the hectic spring seeding season. And similarly at harvest, the combine usually begins rolling in mid-August, helping to spread out the harvest workload.

“They are an important risk management tool as well,” says Meyer. “The 2021 growing season was quite dry, but other years spring conditions have been quite wet — we have a lot of variability in spring conditions. Usually we have good conditions to get the crops seeded in September. Even in drier years, it doesn’t take much moisture to get the winter cereals germinated and growing.”

The crops establish a good rooting system in the fall before freeze-up. “Then come spring, the winter crops can handle a variety of conditions,” he says. “In 2020, we had extremely wet conditions and some of our spring-seeded crops were wiped out, but the root system of winter cereal crops handled the moisture. And then in 2021, it was extremely hot and dry, which was hard on all crops. But the well-established roots of the winter cereals were able to go deeper to find more moisture to keep growing. Yield might be slightly reduced but they still produced. The winter cereals can handle a wide range of growing conditions.”

The seeding program

All winter cereals are ideally seeded in the first three weeks of September. Meyer says there is a definite window. They’ve found for their farm if the crops are seeded too early (in August), they require more nutrients, can actually grow too much, begin to tiller and become a real draw for wildlife over the winter. Also, with more biomass, it appears there is increased risk of snow mould developing. On the other hand, if the crops are seeded too late they don’t have time to get roots established before freeze-up.

“Ideally, we want the crops to be at the two- to three-leaf stage heading into freeze-up,” he says. Also, to be ready for the fall-seeding season, inputs are bought in the summer, which usually affords better pricing opportunities. And for at least one quarter of their inputs there is no need for storage, it just goes directly into the ground.

The crops are seeded in a one-pass, direct seeding operation with a Horsch Anderson seed drill with 15-inch shank spacing, using 7.5-inch paired row openers. Fertilizer, which is a blend of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash, is banded about 2.5 to three inches below the paired row. Seed is placed three-quarters to one-inch deep.

“We also make a point of being prepared,” says Meyer. “The drill is serviced and calibrated, and we have the seed and fertilizer ready. We may have everything sitting in the field a week ahead of time and then when conditions are right, we begin seeding. Once we get going, we can seed 500 to 600 acres a day.”

Another advantage of September seeding — usually more acres can be seeded. Any sloughs or wet spots that would have been avoided in the spring have dried up, so the Meyers can seed right through.

With spring-seeded peas, one of the first crops combined in the fall usually by late August, those fields will definitely be seeded to a winter cereal. Most years, the early-seeded oats and some canola will be combined by early September, so those acres will also be seeded to winter cereals.

Often the preceding crop will have been treated with a pre-harvest herbicide but, if not, then stubble fields are treated with a glyphosate tank mix before winter crops are seeded.

The winter cereals are extremely competitive against weeds, helping to reduce herbicide costs. “The winter wheat is probably the least competitive of the three but, even so, we don’t need to apply a wild oat herbicide with any of the winter crops,” Meyer says. “Some years, we could probably get away without any herbicide, but we do apply broadleaf weed control products just to be proactive and give the crops every advantage.”

The winter cereals don’t have any exceptional disease issues that differ from spring-seeded cereals. The fall rye is a bit more susceptible to ergot, especially under cool, wet conditions. “We pay attention to rotation with the fall rye to hopefully reduce the risk of ergot,” he says. “Research also shows that a copper deficiency can contribute to ergot, so we are planning to apply some copper this year to see if it makes a difference.”

The winter wheat has about the same disease issues as a spring-seeded crop. With other crop pests, such as wheat midge, winter wheat has an advantage as it matures ahead of the wheat midge life cycle, reducing the risk of crop damage.

And winter triticale has no particular disease issues and is not susceptible to ergot.

While timing might vary, usually the fall rye is the first of the winter cereals to be harvested, followed by winter wheat and then winter triticale. “Most years, we are in full harvest mode by August 15 and again depending on the year, we should be done harvesting winter crops within two to three weeks.”

Brand built on winter crops

The Meyer family has continued and expanded the winter cereals marketing program established by their father, Leo Meyer. The senior Meyer, who died suddenly in early September 2020, was not only a great personality and an excellent farmer but was an ardent supporter of the Canadian agriculture industry, establishing solid relationships across the agriculture sector.

“Our father had established a real brand for the farm, particularly with the winter cereals,” says Jesse. “Customers knew we produced good-quality grains and also the quantity the markets required. It has been our aim to maintain that reputation and also to look to expand into new markets.”

With the winter wheat, they produce a high-yielding Canada Western Special Purpose variety. With high starch and low protein, it is well suited for the livestock feed market, although it could also be used in the ethanol fuel market as well.

The open-pollinated fall rye variety can be a bit more challenging to market, but again the farm has established clients looking for the quality and quantity they produce for end use in milling as well as the distilling industry.

Their winter triticale is largely marketed as livestock feed although there are opportunities for it to be used both in the milling and distilling industries as well.

The winter cereals grow well on pea stubble and, similarly, spring-seeded canola seems to perform very well on fall rye stubble. Part of that might be due to the fact that fall rye residue holds the moisture that helps canola get off to a good start. “I’m not sure if there is any science behind it, but there appears to be a real synergy between the two crops,” says Meyer.

While nitrogen-fixing peas are an excellent legume in rotation, with an early harvest that complements seeding of winter cereals, one of the challenges is to keep peas in the rotation as root rot diseases such as aphanomyces become a greater concern.

“We follow proper production practices, use a seed treatment and have extended the rotation as much as possible, but have been forced to reduce pea acres,” says Meyer. “One of our challenges going forward is to find another legume or adjust the crop mix so it supports our winter cereals program.”

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While there has been some harvest pressure, Motz said “it’s more of an equalization of the crops.

“We got through the crunch of July not knowing exactly where things were at. As we get closer [to harvest] there’s more certainty of the crops coming.”

Earlier this week, Manitoba Agriculture reported the province’s winter cereal harvest was approaching the halfway point, while the spring cereals harvest was just getting started.

It’s a similar situation in Saskatchewan, with the combining of winter cereals well underway and spring cereals barely started. Alberta doesn’t release its crop report, the first in two weeks, until Aug. 14.

From Motz’s perspective, the crops look to be average right now. “Everybody hopes for above-average, but time will tell.”

Prairie Ag Hotwire reported that feed barley prices were down this week. As of Wednesday, prices in Alberta fell 24 cents, to $3.75-$5.05 per bushel delivered. In Saskatchewan, prices dropped 11 cents to $3.52-$3.84, and those in Manitoba slipped four cents to $3.76. Over the last month, barley has dropped 17-34 cents/bu.

As for feed wheat, prices were steady except for an eight-cent loss in Alberta. Prices there were $4.80-$6.45/bu. delivered. In Saskatchewan they held at $4.90-$5.75, and in Manitoba prices were firm at $5.10-$5.35. During the last month prices have declined 11-25 cents/bu.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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