One of the first steps to improving water-holding capacity is understanding what factors control it. Jeff Schoenau, a University of Saskatchewan soil scientist, said two key soil properties play the biggest roles.

The basics

“Water holding capacity of the soil is very much influenced by two things: the organic matter content and the texture, which is the percentage of sand, silt and clay,” said Schoenau. “If a soil has more organic matter and it has more clay, that’s going to increase the available water-holding capacity.”

Clay content, while important, can’t be changed, he explained. A foot of moist clay soil will hold two inches of available water, whereas if it’s a foot of moist sandy soil, it will only hold an inch, or even less if it has a very high sand content.

But water-holding capacity isn’t the whole story. Moisture conservation isn’t just about keeping water in the soil; it’s also about getting water into the soil, or infiltration.

“Things that influence infiltration, like having a surface residue, help promote water entry,” said Schoenau. “We also think about evaporative losses. If we don’t have standing stubble there, that increases the wind speed at the soil surface, and that increases the evaporation.”

He noted that Prairie farmers’ long-standing conservation practices have already helped, contributing to increased water holding capacity, improved infiltration and good soil structure.

“You have a good distribution of pores holding water and some that also hold air to make sure that the soil isn’t flooded or saturated,” he said.

Matching problems to products

While Schoenau focused on the fundamentals, Karthikeyan Narayanan, technical director with Cropland Analytics, zeroed in on how to identify problems and match them with solutions. Cropland Analytics didn’t have a booth at Ag in Motion this year, but we caught up with him at the Annelida Soil Solutions booth, one of the firms his company partners with.

Cropland Analytics operates a fully outfitted, professional lab in Tofield, Alta., testing the biological, physical and chemical aspects of soil.

“The idea behind the lab is to identify the properties of the soil and to understand what’s inhibiting any of those water-holding capacities of the soil as a whole,” said Narayanan. “We do have products, and we do have solutions, but until we identify what the soil needs, it’s going to be very hard to promote one product.”

The business model for Cropland Analytics is based on partnerships with soil amendment companies. His main partners are Annelida and Johnson’s Regenerative.

“They have the solutions that align with what we find in our labs,” said Narayanan. “Ultimately, the farmer needs a solution, and that’s why we align with companies who can provide that solution.”

The partnerships represent a three-way street between Cropland, their partners and the farmer. And Narayanan insists the farmers are the big winners.

“With every test we’ve done and every recommendation we provided, our response rate is over 98 per cent. And that’s on-farm,” he said.

But while Cropland Analytics mainly recommends the products of their partners, an arm of their company is also developing products. Cropland Solutions focuses on developing products while keeping the lab independent to avoid conflicts of interest. The team is actively researching calcium-based products, addressing a common issue with gypsum: limited availability.

Narayanan pointed to one product they’ve designed that he says can boost calcium availability by 400–500 per cent. The product is applied directly in the furrow, targeting only the row rather than trying to amend the entire field. This approach keeps costs low — under $50 per acre. The product aims to improve the rhizosphere while enhancing water infiltration, root growth, phosphorus availability and overall biological activity. He says farmers are seeing immediate benefits, almost as if nitrogen had been added.

Farmers come first

But Narayanan said the main goal is not to sell products. It’s to help farmers. It’s a consultative process more than anything, and if one of his partners doesn’t have a solution, he’ll recommend a third party.

“If I don’t have a solution, but a competitor does, it’s always good if it benefits the farmer,” he said. “As long as they’re doing certain parts of the Annelida, Johnson’s, or Cropland program, it’s fine.”

Narayanan said that many of the water-holding issues he’s called to address fall into the same broad categories identified by Schoenau: soil texture and infiltration.

He noted that sandy soils benefit from organic matter to help retain moisture, while clay soils may hold water but not release it readily to plants. Infiltration problems, he said, can be worsened when fine-textured soils disperse during rainfall, leading to surface sealing, clogged pores and increased runoff.

“So, you have more water runoff from the field than infiltration through the field,” he said.

High tillage or elevated sodium levels can make this worse, though calcium amendments can improve soil structure and help water move into the profile.

While too much tillage harms infiltration, the opposite extreme — continuous no-till — can create its own problem: compaction. Without tillage to break it up, compacted layers can persist and build over time, restricting root growth and water movement. Narayanan said lowering tire pressures by six or seven pounds per square inch can cut that compaction by as much as 15 to 20 per cent.

In his view, farmer awareness and management practices are just as important as any product he or his partners sell.

“There’s no way we can keep amending the soil if the farmer is using bad practices in the field,” he said. “If you want to get out of the hole, you have to stop digging first.”

Cover cropping debate

When asked about other methods for improving water holding capacity, like cover cropping, Narayanan said that while cover cropping will, over time, improve water holding capacity, farmers who are concerned about the water holding capacity of their soils are likely in dry areas — and adding extra mouths to feed when water is scarce isn’t the best idea.

“It’s not growing the cover crop as a problem. It’s about the water,” said Narayanan. “If your water rainfall is low, then what’s going to happen is your cover crop is going to pull that moisture out. So, the following crop won’t have that subsoil moisture.”

Not so fast, said Karlah Rudolph, president of SaskSoil, a farmer-led group promoting soil health and conservation in Saskatchewan.

“I’m in southwestern Saskatchewan, and I do not find that there is an issue with having a cover, even though we’ve been in five years of drought,” she said.

Rudolph farms with her family in Gravelbourg and south of Gull Lake, Sask., combining annual crops with forage and pasture. Her soil science background helped her see the role of cover crops and living roots in protecting soil structure and improving infiltration.

Because of those dry conditions, Rudolph has been closely examining whether cover cropping can work in southwestern Saskatchewan and she planted some crops on her farm to get some answers.

On one of her fields, she’s planted a monocrop system of red lentils.

“There wasn’t a thing growing on it in the spring. It’s as naked as can be,” she said. “I’m observing some visible wind erosion. I’m not very happy about that, but there’s absolutely no competition for the water.”

On another field, she had a hard red spring wheat crop that was underseeded with a low rate of Italian ryegrass and a low rate of sainfoin.

“Sainfoin is a perennial, and it came up in the spring. The Italian ryegrass overwintered, so I had roots at two depths. I had fibrous roots from the Italian ryegrass closer to the surface, and then I had this deep taproot from the sainfoin that was going down at depth.

On the red lentil field, she found that the moisture was closer to the surface, about two inches down. But when she dug where the Italian ryegrass had been planted, the ryegrass had used the water at the surface, and the moisture had moved further down the soil profile. But not by much, she said maybe an inch, and it was much wetter than the moisture level on lentils.

“The snow catch offered by high residue and a high infiltration rate far outweighs the issue of weed competition when it comes to moisture conservation,” she said.

Measuring the moisture

At their Ag in Motion booth, SaskSoil displayed a simple infiltration test kit consisting of a six-inch tube, a bottle of water, a roll of plastic wrap, a wooden block and a stopwatch — it’s exactly the kind of practical, low-cost, MacGyvered innovation you’d expect to see from a farmer-led, DIY group like SaskSoil.

However, just across the lane, Kyle Henderson, business manager for Crop Intelligence, offered a more high-tech option for understanding what’s going on beneath the surface — one perhaps more suitable for those gadget-loving farmers.

“This moisture probe goes one meter into the ground,” said Henderson.

Installed right after seeding, the probe reads initial soil moisture from 100 cm up to 10 cm depth. Combined with rainfall data from a weather station, the system calculates “water-driven yield potential” — how many bushels a crop can produce per inch of available water.

Farmers can also monitor infiltration in real time.

“If you get an inch of rain, does it actually equate to an inch of soil moisture?” Henderson said.

The tool’s data can help identify whether a soil’s holding capacity is limiting yields and guide management decisions throughout the season.

Shared success

From cover-cropping, conservation tillage and residue management to targeted amendments and soil monitoring, improving water-holding capacity is a multi-pronged effort. And for Narayanan, it’s also about the bigger picture.

“At the end of the day, as long as the farmer wins, the entire industry wins,” he said. “We can’t be shortsighted in our approach.”

The post Farmers weigh strategies to boost soils’ water-holding capacity appeared first on Grainews.

Although malting barley once yielded significantly less than higher-yielding feed types, this has now changed. 

“There’s been a pretty large increase in yield,” says Andrew Hector, cereal crop extension specialist with the Manitoba Crop Alliance. Newer varieties now produce yields close to CDC Austin, the top feed variety, he added. 

As a result farmers growing barley for feed are increasingly opting to grow a malting variety, even if it’s just to keep the door open to getting that malting barley premium, which can be as high as $3 per bushel, Hector says. 

But he says one of the biggest advantages of growing barley is that it gives farmers more control come harvest time. 

“It helps you space out your harvest if equipment or personnel constraints limit your options, offering more time management flexibility,” he says. 

Speaking to attendees at the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre’s CMBTC Producer Malt Academy course in Winnipeg last fall, Hector notes malting barley fits roughly into the same slot as wheat in a rotation. 

“Barley planted after cereal saw relatively low yield compared to something like canola,” he says, adding that in Manitoba over half of barley acres were planted into canola stubble.

Variety selection 

A good starting place for variety selection is the CMBTC’s annual Malting Barley Recommended Varieties list. 

Established varieties like AAC Synergy and CDC Copeland remain farmer favourites, while newer varieties such as AAC Connect, CDC Fraser, and CDC Churchill are quickly gaining in popularity. As mentioned, these new varieties are high-yielding, but also have better disease resistance and straw strength.

READ ALSO: New cereals on deck for 2025

“Some of the older varieties have poor lodging (resistance), and they didn’t stand as well, but lodging has vastly improved with these new varieties,” Hector says. 

The CMBTC recommends growers talk to their malting, grain, or seed company representatives to discuss options for growing malting barley. Farmers should also consult their provincial seed guide.

READ ALSO: New malting barley variety acceptance an uphill battle

Varietal purity 

Brewers demand variety purity in order to ensure consistency for their products. Shawn Pasieczka, a food safety grain specialist with Richardson International, said Richardson requests a minimum of 95 per cent purity and tests for it. To meet those standards, he recommends using certified seed.  

While Pasieczka says it’s possible to replant seed saved from previous crops, he warned that some buyers require certified seed. Even if the grower works with a company that doesn’t require certified seed, he recommended retesting the seed to ensure purity, and not to plant seed more than two years beyond certification. 

Seeding dates 

Generally, the recommended dates for planting barley depend on the region and variety, but generally they fall between late April and the end of May. 

READ ALSO: Critical factors in growing malting barley

“Seeding early is important if you want to maximize yield,” Hector says, but adds that the timing of seeding also impacts qualities such as protein levels and kernel uniformity and plumpness, which are important to malting companies. 

According to the CMBTC, North American brewers prefer protein levels between 10 and 11.5 per cent, while Chinese brewers accept slightly higher levels, up to 13 per cent. 

Seeding rates 

Hector says the recommended target plant population for malting barley is 22 to 25 plants per square foot. He points to research done by now-retired AAFC crop scientist John O’Donovan that showed that as seeding rate increased, kernel plumpness and protein concentration decreased. 

“They found that 300 seeds per metre squared was the optimum seeding rate for yield and malt quality,” Hector says. 

Nutrient levels 

A 2022 fertilizer use survey showed that nearly all malt barley growers applied nitrogen, typically as urea or anhydrous ammonia. 

When making nitrogen rate decisions for malt barley, growers should consult with their agronomists to ensure they’re getting the levels right. The CMBTC recommends soil testing to check nutrient levels. 

“There is a balancing act to determining how much nitrogen you should apply,” Hector says. “You need it to reach optimum yield, but excessive nitrogen risks higher than optimum protein levels.” 

Diseases 

The main diseases barley growers must contend with are scald, fusarium head blight and spot blotch. Disease levels depend on geography. Variety disease packages and cultural control methods can help, but at one point or another, a fungicide application could be necessary, and the proper timing of that application is critical. 

“Barley is a little different than wheat in terms of flower timing,” Hector explains. “The label recommendation is typically between 70 and 100 per cent of heads fully emerged on the main stem to three days post head emergence.” 

But Hector warns that heads that haven’t emerged will not have made contact with the fungicide and won’t have the coverage. So, he recommended trying to get as close to 100 per cent of heads emerged as possible. 

Crop protection products 

Malting barley has very strict standards when it comes to residue from crop protection products. Growers should check with the KeepItClean.ca campaign’s annual Product Advisory to ensure they don’t encounter market access issues when selling their grain. 

Products restricted for malt barley include the fungicides fluopyram and tetraconazole, the plant growth regulator chlormequat, and the herbicides glyphosate and saflufenacil. 

The post Fitting malting barley in your rotation appeared first on Grainews.

Let us first examine what dry and drought mean.

A dry year means reduced crop growth and reduced nutrient uptake, since biological, chemical and physical processes are altered, resulting in a reduced soil nutrient availability to crops. Further, depending on management, dry and drought mean altered residual fertilizer nutrients.

Let us use nitrogen as an example by examining the plant nitrogen-use efficiency. This is the total dry matter or grain yield produced per unit of N absorbed. This physiological parameter, also called physiological efficiency (PEN), is defined as kilograms (or pounds) of grain/kg (or lb.) of fertilizer N used by a plant and is calculated by subtracting the yield of the control treatment from the fertilized treatment and dividing it by the difference between the uptake of N by the fertilized treatment minus that of the control one:

PEN = Y_N – Y₀ / U_N – U₀

The PEN represents the ability of a plant to transform a given amount of acquired fertilizer N into grain yield and thus depends on genotype characteristics (e.g. harvest index) and environmental and management factors, particularly during reproductive growth.

Low PEN usually suggests suboptimal growth conditions, often caused by nutrient deficiencies other than N and/or by drought stress, insect predation and disease.

As a result, the soil nitrogen status is greatly affected and variability within a field is increased. Obviously, fertilizer does not move very far from where it was placed when it is dry. Also, poor crops do not use nitrogen and lack of moisture means no nitrogen movement.

But as has happened in many parts of the Prairies, late rains and subsequent regrowth of crops change the nutrient status. Also, you may notice a decrease in soil pH, which can be followed by an increase in EC (salts) and available P. These will correct themselves in time.

See examples below from my time as director of the Saskatchewan Soil Testing Laboratory following the dry years of the late 1980s and early ’90s and then wet mid-’90s:

This type of variability will also occur during wet and dry periods within the same growing season.

Other factors influencing crop response to fertilizer application

Applied fertilizer use depends on corresponding soil nutrient availability and potential losses of applied fertilizer. However, several other agronomic factors can cause a poor response to applied nutrients.

Crop cultivars often have varying nutrient requirements depending on yield potential and agroecological conditions.

Available soil nutrient supply at planting will influence crop response to fertilizer. Fertilizer management requires proper assessment of both the soil’s nutrient status and the crop’s nutrient requirements. It is widely accepted today that soil testing allows producers to make more qualified fertility management decisions based on soil nutrient inventory and interpretive criteria of this inventory.

Hence, soil testing has to be an integral part of an attempt to obtain optimum yields. However, like any other assessment tool, soil testing is subject to the laws of statistics and has many limitations. Understanding those allows an understanding of its usefulness.

Choose laboratories based on knowledge of how its staff assesses the soil nutrient inventory (from chemistry to quality of analyses) and how they interpret the results.

The steps in soil testing also come into play. An examination of the four steps involved in the traditional soil testing process suggests current techniques would:

• result in a statistical error of ±22 per cent due to the common sampling schemes (20 samples per field/unit);
• result in varying errors due to analysis (for example on a soil N content of 50 kg N ha^-1 in the 0-30 cm depth the maximum analytical error is approximately 12-15 per cent and this would increase as the soil test value decreases and vice versa);
• calibration techniques based on yield curves can commonly result in our ability to describe approximately 50 per cent of changes in the yield by the changes in soil test levels; and,
• fertilizer recommendation models can add wide variation in recommended nutrient levels.

Therefore, it is obvious that conventional soil testing databases have been developed to address “fields” as whole units, or better yet, “large geographic areas” from which deductions can be made for individual fields. This is important when databases thus derived are used for variable rate fertilization in precision farming.

It is remarkable that calibrations of soil tests took place in the 1980s and early ‘90s and a limited number in the early 2000s. Take phosphorus (P), for example. The most recent calibration and response experiment was conducted in Alberta from 1991 to 1993 with wheat, barley and canola.

It was very thorough research carried out on a wide range of soil types across Alberta to determine the frequency at which each crop will respond to phosphate fertilizer. Another thing to remember is that soil testing criteria developed in one region of North America (e.g., southern U.S. or Ontario) are often not relevant to western Canadian farms.

Finally, the quality of sampling can play an important role in deriving proper recommendations. Therefore, make sure a sample is taken from the depth you are sampling. Special care must be given in dry and wet soils. Why? Often samples are taken with probes attached to a truck with the sampler sitting at the front. Soil can fall off the probe in a dry soil situation or become compressed in a wet soil situation, resulting in false readings in both cases.

The nutrient status, especially that of N, of a field, can also be estimated from the previous cropping history, but is more accurately determined by a soil test.

It is generally accepted that improvement in the accuracy of N recommendations requires a reliable estimate of soil N-supplying capability. Mineralization of N is a function of environmental conditions; it can vary from as low as nil under drought conditions to as high as one-third greater than average under favourable conditions.

Late seeding usually results in lower yield potential and reduced response from N fertilizer due to moisture/heat relationships. Also, there is a greater risk of crop loss from increased disease pressure, insects, frost and poor harvest conditions.

Weeds compete with plants for moisture, nutrients and light. Applied fertilizers may stimulate the growth of weed seedlings almost to the same extent as a crop. It is important to control weeds to minimize the competition between weeds and crop plants.

Banding fertilizers or placing fertilizers with the seed makes them less accessible to weeds during the early growing season. However, if too much fertilizer is seed-placed, injury to the seedling will reduce emergence, resulting in higher weed competition.

Another issue is that seedling damage can lead to delayed maturity and increase the risk of damage from fall frosts in northern areas where the growing season is short. In canola, increased seed chlorophyll content indicates delayed maturity and influences crop quality.

Disease infestation also comes into play. Well-nourished, healthy plants have some resistance to many disease organisms. Inadequately nurtured wheat plants seem predisposed to certain diseases such as common root rot. Take-all root rot, for example, is reduced when wheat plants absorb ammonium N and is increased when the plants take up excessive amounts of nitrate-N.

Soil moisture can’t be ignored. Water-holding capacity/movement through the soil profile will depend on the soil’s physical properties. Once water enters the soil, it will move under the effect of gravity or capillary suction. In lower rainfall environments, soil moisture reserves must be considered when choosing fertilizer rates.

The risk of crop damage or failure is higher on poorly drained or flood-prone fields. Lower N fertilizer applications are advised on these fields if adequate drainage cannot be provided. Although well-fertilized crops usually withstand more water, if water stands for more than two or three days, causing saturated conditions, considerable crop damage or complete failure may result.

Coarse textured soils with water tables deeper than 1.2 to 1.8 metres below the surface are often droughty. Yield potential, to a large extent, is restricted by lack of moisture. High rates of N fertilizers are generally not recommended in these soils.

Other parameters influenced by changes in water regime

In addition to target yields, many other parameters vary with water regime, including mineralization, immobilization, leaching, denitrification as well as soil residual, mineralizable, and fertilizer N use efficiency and N content in plants.

Mineralization of N is also a function of environmental conditions (water) and can be effectively reduced to zero under drought conditions or become as much as one-third higher under favourable (moist) conditions compared to “normal” conditions.

Karamanos and Cannon (2002) used a limited amount of data from the work by others to derive a relationship between the mineralization rate constant (k_35C) and organic carbon content that allowed the estimation of mineralizable N. For organic matter levels less than eight per cent, an average estimate can be made by multiplying the percentage of organic matter from the soil test by 14. In general, under “normal” conditions, 80 per cent of mineralizable nitrogen is available to the crops.

Immobilization: We all understand that decomposition of plant residues requires extra N. How much N is required to fuel the decomposition process? It depends on how much crop residue is incorporated into the soil.

There is information to suggest that in high-residue situations, as much as 20-40 lbs. of broadcast-applied N can be immobilized during straw decomposition. The obvious way to prevent significant immobilization losses is to place the N fertilizer in compact bands. Broadcast-applied N is extremely vulnerable to immobilization losses when it is incorporated into the same soil layer as the straw.

Once the grain is harvested, incorporating the remaining crop residue will immobilize a significant amount of N from the soil in the following year. In these situations, loss of N fertilizer can be greatly reduced by concentrating the fertilizer in bands rather than broadcasting and incorporating it so that it is in intimate contact with the decomposing residue.

Leaching is not a major issue or an issue at all in most of the Prairies, with the possible exception of the Red River Valley and sandy soils. For example, nitrate leaching occurs when nitrate is carried below the crop root zone by water draining through the soil.

Unlike ammonium (NH₄+), nitrate (NO₃-) is a negatively charged ion and is not held onto soil particles. Further, unlike the other processes, nitrate leaching is not driven by microbes and is not as temperature dependent.

Nitrate leaching is most likely to occur under these conditions: sandy textured soils, high rainfall (or excessive irrigation), summerfallow (no crop present for uptake, therefore, significant amounts of surplus water drain through the soil profile), and high levels of soil nitrate.

Interestingly, periods of the highest water drainage correspond closely to periods of highest nitrate N content. Because subsoils are still frozen during the early part of the spring thaw, leaching is usually not of major concern.

In continuously cropped situations, nitrate leaching can be minimized because crop uptake prevents the accumulation of surplus soil nitrate in soils. Fall fertilizers should be banded after soils are cool, and nitrate-containing fertilizers should be avoided except on vigorously growing crops.

Denitrification is the anaerobic microbial process that converts nitrate (NO3-) into nitrogen gases including N2 and N2O.

Denitrification rates increase under anaerobic conditions when the soil is warm (at least 5 C, optimum above 20 C) and pH between six and eight and, of course, when high levels of nitrate are present in the soil. Losses from denitrification are most likely in poorly drained soils with high nitrate levels.

Although denitrification losses occur slowly on cold soils, cumulative losses in cold, wet soils can be significant during early spring thaw conditions. As I mentioned in my 2022 article on fall fertilization, research conducted at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1980s showed about 35 per cent of autumn-applied fertilizer nitrogen was lost via denitrification during snowmelt the following spring.

During the growing season, denitrification losses are much more rapid if soils are subject to flooding during summer months when soil temperatures are much higher. It can also happen later in the growing season after ammonium fertilizer has converted to nitrate, but before it has been used by the growing crop, especially on clay-textured soils in the black or gray soil zones.

Banding provides drought protection

Extensive research conducted on the Prairies, originally by the University of Alberta, led researchers to conclude that banding provides a form of drought-proofing. The research results indicated clearly that the advantage of banding over broadcasting became more significant as growing season moisture supply became less favourable.

The researchers suggested deep banding’s “drought buffering” should be regarded as a management tool to lessen drought’s adverse effects. Yields fluctuated much more dramatically with broadcast treatments than band treatments as the amount of water available to the crop was varied.

Since no region of the Prairies is immune to drought, band application of fertilizer would be beneficial in all regions. However, the greatest benefits would accrue in the brown, dark brown and thin black soil zones.

But this research does not suggest that banding is a substitute for moisture. Banding is only beneficial when there’s sufficient moisture to produce a crop. It’s of no benefit in the case of a total crop failure. Banding also slows the conversion of urea to ammonium and ammonium to nitrate, which can reduce losses by denitrification and leaching.

Good soil moisture opens new opportunities

Recent precipitation may ease drought in many Prairie regions. Remember that soil moisture is an important component of the crop yield equation and it is an invaluable tool for the producer for targeting crop yield for the upcoming growing season.

Targeting for low yields when yield potential is great will result in under-fertilizing crops, reducing crop yields and protein content.

Although precipitation is hard to predict, soil moisture is easy to estimate with a soil moisture probe. A soil moisture probe is simply a half-inch rod that is 3.5 to four feet long and has a 5/8-inch ball bearing at one end and a T-handle at the other. Soil moisture is measured by pushing the probe into the ground. When the soil runs out of moisture, you will not be able to push the probe any further. However, make sure you haven’t hit a stone or ice in the spring.

Here is the available water based on the texture and depth:

What are the opportunities?

Knowing soil-available moisture allows you to fertilize accordingly, resulting in target yields that are average, below or above average. Choose the right target and fertilize accordingly.

With improved moisture conditions, fertilization of crops that are to be grown on drought-stricken fields with moderate nitrogen rates will undoubtedly result in higher yield and/or protein content.

Make sure you have a soil test and probe several fields or management zones with different textures to establish the moisture status in your area and obtain a good estimate of potential yield. Supply the crop with adequate phosphorus and any other nutrients required.

The post Digging into the cause of poor yields appeared first on Grainews.

The afternoon temperature was also on the minds of growers across Saskatchewan and Alberta, worried about heat blast in their canola crops.

In mid-July, some of those farmers were texting or calling their ag sales reps to ask about products that can minimize the damage from heat stress.

“At this time of year, we get a massive amount of e-mails on the website, and phones (of sales reps) are blowing up the last few days,” said Bonnett, the Canadian commercial lead for biologicals at Corteva AgriScience.

“We get (phone calls and texts) the day before it gets hot.”

Many of those farmers want information about X-Cyte, a growth hormone product from Stoller, a company Corteva bought last year.

“When temperatures rise in your crop, the growth hormone cytokinin begins to degrade within your plants, often resulting in flower abortion and pod loss,” says the Stoller website.

“X-Cyte is a foliar application of cytokinin designed to restore the hormone balance within your crop and safeguard your yield during the hot summer months.”

Something that reduces heat blast and preserves canola yield sounds great, but farmers lack information on when to apply the product.

At AIM, a canola grower asked Bonnett about X-Cyte and wanted to apply it the next day.

The interest from farmers is great, but the middle of a heat wave is the wrong time to apply the foliar product, Bonnett said.

“We need to get it on before (the hot weather).”

Bonnett’s story represents a larger challenge within Canada’s crop sector. Dozens of new products, such as biostimulants and plant growth promotants, are now available to growers. However, most farmers don’t know when, or how, to use them.

“The biggest knowledge gap is, ‘Where do I put these, when are they going to work well?’” Bonnett says.

“Transparently, I don’t think we have enough people out there to educate guys…. Here’s a tool that you use for this particular problem… (but) you’ve got to know when to use it.”

Not the same

Another issue is definitions and how the products are described.

Most growers are familiar with plant growth regulators, but biostimulants are not the same.

“Plant growth regulators are defined as synthetic compounds … that mimic naturally occurring plant hormones,” says a 2023 paper in Frontiers of Plant Science.

“Biostimulants usually are complex mixtures containing organic (example, extracts of seaweed) …. microbial (fungi and bacteria)…. They enhance plant growth and health by stimulating natural processes at a minute quantity.”

Grower education remains a challenge, but sales data indicates that farmers are curious. They are experimenting and want to know if these products will work on their farm.

“In a year like this year, we have excess moisture in some areas and a lack of moisture in (other) areas…. The one thing that really matters is root growth,” said Jesse Hamonic, vice-president and country head for Nutrien Ag Solutions.

Speaking also from the shade at AIM, Hamonic said his company is seeing strong sales of Radiate.

“It’s a growth stimulant for the roots. It’s been around for several years now,” he says.

“This year, we’re going to set a record on Radiate.”

Corteva is also enjoying a period of strong growth for biostimulants and other products that preserve plant health.

“Year over year … it’s in the double digits,” Bonnett says.

“Guys are interested in trying it. Once they figure out the value proposition and what problem they’re trying to solve, I think it will grow even more.”

Corteva and Nutrien Ag Solutions were just two of the firms at Ag In Motion promoting plant health stimulants to Canadian farmers.

The market is busy and may soon get busier, because companies expect to launch more products.

From Corteva’s standpoint, Bonnett says several are in the pipeline with prospects for commercialization in the years to come, “all attacking a different problem we have out here (in Canada).”

The post Farmer interest growing in plant biostimulants appeared first on Grainews.

Cordonnier recently issued his latest estimates, keeping his call on 2022-23 corn and soybean production in Brazil and Argentina where they were. He pegged soybeans in Brazil at 150 million tonnes and 50 million for Argentina. As for corn, he also stayed at 50 million tonnes for Argentina, with 125 million for Brazil.

“Brazil had some rainfall [during the week of Nov. 6-12], mostly in the northeastern areas. There are also some dry pockets in central Brazil,” he said.

Reports on that country’s soybean planting placed it at 69 per cent complete, compared to 78 per cent the same time last year. Cordonnier said those dry pockets were just enough to slow progress in the fields.

“It’s still a generally good start for soybeans, but maybe not quite as good as it was a couple of weeks ago,” he added.

Cordonnier pointed to the difference in his soybean forecast versus the 153.5 million tonnes recently issued by CONAB, Brazil’s agrifood supply and statistics agency.

“That was exclusively due to a big increase in area planted,” he said, noting CONAB boosted its estimate by 350,000 hectares from its October call.

“They left the yield estimate unchanged for Brazil. But ironically in that same report they said La Nina is still out there and they are projecting a below normal rainfall regime for the next three months,” Cordonnier said.

While his prediction is 150 million tonnes of soybeans for Brazil, other consultancies have come in as low as 146 million tonnes while CONAB is on the high end.

“The people with the higher number are not expecting much of an impact from La Nina. People with the lower number [believe] there could be an impact and we will have to wait and see,” Cordonnier said.

As for Argentina, corn and soybean planting has been delayed due to dry conditions. That’s despite rains over the weekend of Nov. 12 to 13, with more precipitation to come before things turn dry again, he said.

The most current estimates placed the country’s corn planting at 23 per cent in the ground, inching up by only a half point over the week.

“About three-quarters of the corn in Argentina is going to be planted during the late phase, Cordonnier stated, noting that phase begins in early December.

Table: Recent South American corn and soybean production estimates, in millions of tonnes.

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Late-season hot temperatures and a lack of rain may cause Canada’s canola production to be lower than originally expected, according to some market participants.

Earlier in the growing season, Winnipeg-based FarmLink Agriculture Solutions published a survey that pegged yield estimates around 20.2 million tonnes. However, some market participants believe late-season dry conditions will bring canola yields down.

“There’s an expectation of a large top and big yield potential, but hotter temperatures and reduced precipitation throughout most of August has potentially impacted production potential,” said Mike Jubinville of MarketsFarm, noting the production estimates will be based on satellite pictures.

“That’s going to make things interesting,” he said.

Canola production expectations (see table below) range from the higher end of 19 million up to around 20.5 million tonnes.

“Domestic usage has been very strong, so we need that 20.5 million to keep supply stable,” said Ken Ball of P.I. Financial in Winnipeg.

“If the crop falls below 20 million tonnes we’re looking at a tight canola outlook for the coming season.”

Jubinville believed estimates on the higher end may be based on earlier days in the growing season.

“I think some of that potential has been curtailed by the heat and dry weather,” he said.

“That sacrificed some big yield potential in south-central Saskatchewan and the southern Prairies in general.”

The Peace region of Alberta is also a question mark ahead of the production report, as that area has seen cooler temperatures and more rain.

“It’s a big question mark how that’s going to affect the yield potential,” he said.

— Marlo Glass reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

Table: Pre-report estimates of of Aug. 26, 2020, in millions of tonnes.

*- “All wheat” includes spring wheat, durum wheat, and winter wheat remaining after winterkill.

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In Iowa, crop prospects swung wildly from field to field, according to scouts on the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour’s fourth and final day.

Mark Bernard, a Minnesota-based agronomist on the tour, made eight stops in northeastern Iowa and found corn yield potential ranging from 81 to 212 bushels per acre. Last year’s tour average in the same area was 184.66 bu./ac. and the three-year average was 187.21.

Along with wind damage, dry conditions are also stressing Iowa’s crops.

“There are big cracks in the ground,” Bernard said.

But in southern Minnesota, where weather woes plagued farmers last year, conditions improved dramatically over parts of Iowa.

“It’s like a switch got flipped,” said Jeff Wilson, a crop tour leader and senior market analyst for trade publication Pro Farmer.

Scouts found corn yield potential averaging a massive 219 bu./ac. at 14 stops in six southwestern Minnesota counties, nearly 40 per cent higher than last year’s crop tour average in the same area and about 27 per cent above the three-year tour average.

The tour does not estimate soybean yields, but instead calculates the number of soy pods in a three-foot-by-three-foot square to gauge yield potential. In those Minnesota counties, soybeans averaged 1,192 pods, above the year-ago and three-year averages.

Scouts on a second Minnesota route made 18 stops in six south-central Minnesota counties and calculated an average corn yield potential of 202 bu./ac., while soybean pod counts averaged at 1,116 pods, also firmly up from the area’s year-ago and three-year averages.

The tour is scheduled to release state yield forecasts for Iowa and Minnesota later on Thursday.

— Reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter and Julie Ingwersen in Chicago.

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Pockets across Saskatchewan, Canada’s biggest wheat- and canola-growing province, received as much as five inches of rain, strong winds and hail since Sunday.

The storms flattened some wheat and may cause disease in the province’s lentil and pea crops, which are sensitive to wet conditions, Brent Flaten, a spokesman for Saskatchewan’s agriculture ministry in Moose Jaw, said Wednesday.

“Everything is going to be downgraded now as far as yield potential,” he said, adding that crops were still in good condition relative to past years.

The extent of crop damage may not be clear for a week, depending on how quickly flooded fields drain and whether flattened crops rise again, he said.

Favourable spring and summer weather has led to estimates of a larger-than-average Prairie harvest this year. Canada is a major wheat exporter and the largest canola exporter.

The storms also reached Manitoba, where they flattened cereal crops, the government said on Monday.

Alberta, by contrast, received only beneficial rains in the past week for cereal, oilseed and pulse crops, said Neil Whatley, a provincial crop specialist in Stettler.

Further east, high temperatures and high humidity led to heat warnings Wednesday for much of Ontario and Quebec, including Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal.

The hot weather first moved into the region on Tuesday and also covered parts of New Brunswick.

Eastern Canada can expect some respite Friday, when a cooler air mass will arrive, Environment Canada said.

— Rod Nickel is a Reuters correspondent covering the agriculture and mining sectors from Winnipeg. Includes files from Ethan Lou of Reuters in Toronto.

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Canada is the world’s largest producer and exporter of canaryseed worldwide, according to a federal government report.

Kevin Hursh, executive director for the Canaryseed Development Commission of Saskatchewan, expects global canaryseed prices will eventually react to the dryness in Saskatchewan, but said he hasn’t seen dramatic changes yet.

“So far I’ve only seen new-crop prices up a little bit. I’ve seen a couple of companies offering 25 cents a pound for new-crop production contracts.”

The majority of Saskatchewan’s canaryseed crops are in good to poor condition as soil moisture continues to drop, according to the province’s crop report for June 9 to 15.

West-central and northeastern Saskatchewan both have 33 per cent of crops in poor condition, and 23 per cent in very poor condition.

The report shows other regions with crops in poor condition ranging from one to 14 per cent.

Hursh said he expects yield and yield potential to drop in upcoming months, especially with Environment Canada forecasting above-average temperatures for this summer.

“With the hot weather that’s called for this summer, I think that’s going to further cook a lot of crops,” he said.

Though crops have been damaged and have less-than-ideal growing conditions, growing canaryseed has benefits, Hursh said.

“Even though it’s a small seed, you don’t have to seed as shallow as you would a crop like canola. So I think in most cases the emergence is not as spotty as canola.”

There are two major types of canaryseed grown globally.

The first type is “itchy,” as the seed has tiny hairs on it, which can irritate skin during harvest and handling. The second type of seed is “glabrous,” meaning hairless. About 60 per cent of this year’s crops are the itchy kind, Hursh said.

“Of course the hairless varieties — the glabrous varieties — are much more pleasant to work with. They’re far less itchy but those varieties, even though they’re newer, don’t yield as well as the older variety.”

Most producers have stuck with itchy, to get an extra 10 or 20 per cent yield — but producers will still likely see a drop in production, Hursh said.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a significant drought year, and I suspect all the canaryseed yields will take a hit.”

— Jade Markus writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Larocque runs Beyond Agronomy, an independent crop consulting business at Three Hills, Alta., and farms 1,000 acres just north of Drumheller, Alta. He grows wheat, barley, canola, peas and fava beans and has been operating his farm with a controlled traffic system since 2010.

At the start of his work on increasing Alberta barley yields, Larocque got together with Alan Hall, from the Alberta Crop Industry Development Fund (ACIDF).

Larocque and Hall discovered that in the late 1980s/early 1990s, some experiments with very small plots with intensive agronomy packages successfully yielded just over 180 barley bushels per acre, just south of Drumheller. In Vauxhall, 205 barley bushels per acre were harvested, from small fields seeded with varieties like Harrington (a two-row malt barley variety not known for its high yield).

“The challenge was to replicate this from a small plot where you have a homogenous soil type and a homogenous elevation to an 80 acre field with variations,” said Larocque.

Barley 180

With help and funding from the Alberta Barley Commission and the Alberta Research Extension Council Association, the Barley 180 Project started in 2011.

With two agronomists and five sites in the first year, the project reaped 156 bu./ac. on black soil and 141 bu./ac. on dark brown soil. With these results, Larocque said, “We thought, wow here we go.”

As they fine-tuned the agronomics and figured out which inputs were providing the greatest benefit, they tried out some fungicide treatments inside of the high yield, leaving an area unsprayed.

“Doing that in 2012 was a big challenge, as it didn’t rain,” said Larocque. “Yet, we still did 100 to 120 bushels, which was still great considering we only got four, five, or maybe six inches of rain.”

In 2013, there was excessive rain, 12 inches in four weeks, but, they still achieved 100 bu./ac.

Through all the trial and error, Larocque and team sought a recipe with the biggest economical benefit — eventually narrowing it down to nitrogen and fungicides combined with plant growth regulators.

“Although many things are important, nitrogen, fungicides and plant growth regulators are the areas we focused on, to see how we could get the biggest benefits,” said Larocque.

“If we applied all the nitrogen up front — 180 to 200 pounds of nitrogen — it’s higher risk and a tremendous expense put into that crop. But if you’re willing to take that risk, it’s not a bad idea. This is how we set the record, by banding all the nitrogen up front.

“But,” Larocque says, “if you apply that much nitrogen up front, you really have to come in with a growth regulator, because you’re going to push all sorts of vegetative growth and weaken the stems.” Without a growth regulator, barley plants that generate yields this high will just fall over.

From the Manitoba Co-operator website: Malt barley supplies large ahead of new crop year

Growth regulators

Growth regulators have been the most remarkable aspect of the project for Larocque.

“One of my frustrations with barley used to be, in certain areas where I could put 100 pounds of nitrogen but no more, it would just lay flat, fall over,” said Larocque. “Growth regulators have really helped keep a 156 bushel barley crop standing, which is just phenomenal.”

Larocque and team have been trying the products Ethrel (from Bayer) and Cycocel (from BASF). To date, Ethrel (with the active ingredient Ethephon) has shown the most benefits.

However, Larocque and team have found Ethrel’s application timing to be “finicky” as it has to go according to a particular growth stage. “It has to go at the late flag just before the spike emerges from the boot — no later, no sooner,” said Larocque. “This makes it a difficult product to scale out onto big acreages. But, it’s $5 to $6 per acre and can sometimes shorten a crop for six to 10 inches, depending on the variety.

Larocque says growth regulators are known to be risky. It they are applied at the wrong time, or the weather doesn’t co-operate, they can reduce yield by 20 or 30 per cent.”

From Larocque’s prospective, growth regulators are worth the risk, especially when applying such high rates of nitrogen combined with high plant densities. The risk of the plants falling over and reducing yield is greater than that of dropping yield due to poor application timing.

As for fungicides, Larocque and team use them in a preventative manner to keep the plants healthy and alive longer. “By keeping plants green and intact longer, they are healthier and it delays senescence (the onset of those plants dying off),” said Larocque.

The plants continue producing photosynthesis and can use all the applied nitrogen.

Extra nitrogen, growth regulators and fungicides work well together. “Combining all three practices doesn’t equal three,” said Larocque. “It’s actually ‘one plus one plus one equals seven,’ because when you combine fungicide with a high nitrogen rate, you get a greater yield response than with individual nitrogen or fungicide. Then you put on the growth regulator to ensure the plants stay upright, so you can harvest and have a winner.”

Try this at home

Here are three tips for trying this at home.

1. Larocque recommends starting out with a split nitrogen application mixed in with a couple of fungicide applications and an on-time growth regulator. Since most farmers considering this probably already use fungicides, this will only add a couple of extra trips to the field — one to apply nitrogen and one to apply growth regulator.

2. Make sure to find and book your growth regulator ahead of time. Supplies may be limited.

3. Set up an agronomy program and keep it simple, beginning with the added applications of nitrogen and then a growth regulator, and then just go for it. Be sure to watch your timing and late flag hit it with the growth regulator and see where you end up.

Larocque believes this system has great potential anywhere in the world, as long as producers keep in mind their particular potential. If you farm in a dry area, where 80 bushels per acre is a really good yield, you may want to fertilize to push for 100 bushels. In this case, you may not need a growth regulator or you may only want to use it at a lower rate.

The aim is to find ways to increase yield regardless of location or conditions, so farmers can bring their barley yields up by 15 to 20 per cent.

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