As Bayer hints it may soon exit the glyphosate business, the once-hypothetical scenario of farming without Roundup is suddenly on the table.
Tag Archives zero tillage
What would happen if Roundup disappeared?
Bayer hints it might stop selling Roundup due to legal problems. What could it mean for farmers?
Kochia’s expanding herbicide resistance puts pressure on no-till systems
Kochia populations in Saskatchewan and North Dakota are now resistant to group 14 herbicides, leaving fewer options for Prairie farmers
Based on preliminary data from a recent Prairie-wide kochia survey, AAFC’s Charles Geddes suspects Group 14-resistant kochia is now present in multiple fields in Saskatchewan and expects it could soon be confirmed in other regions as well.
Vaderstad’s new tillage tool goes (very) shallow
The Carrier 925 can work effectively in depths from one to five centimetres
At its manufacturing facility in Sweden, Vaderstad introduced its new Carrier 925 high-speed disc to members of the media in late May. It’s designed specifically for very shallow tillage applications. Unlike Vaderstad’s other Carrier models on the North American market, the Carrier 925 gets a third row of discs, instead of two. The extra row […] Read more
Zero till: how did it all happen?
Soils & Crops: In Saskatchewan, necessity was the mother of more than one invention
In March 1993 in Grainews there appeared a piece by a certain soils columnist titled “A Quiet Revolution in Crop Production.” It concluded that within the next two decades we’d see a revolution in the way we farmed. It came to pass much as predicted — but what made it happen was work in farm […] Read more
Changing nitrogen use to avoid taxes
Nobody likes the idea of a new tax. Especially when it could impact the way we farm
[Updated: April 9, 2017] When Dr. Mario Tenuta braved icy roads to drive from his home in Winnipeg to Weyburn, Sask., to speak at the Indian Head Agricultural Research Foundation (IHARF) Soil and Crop Management Seminar, he wasn’t planning to make many friends. The University of Manitoba soil scientist had come to make farmers aware […] Read more
Tillage: not always a dirty word
Moisture cycles change over time. It’s not a crime for soil management practices to change too
When soil-incorporated herbicides were all the rage, tillage was the main operation on many farms. For some granular soil-applied herbicides, the recommendation was to cultivate several inches deep at high speed and to go over it twice at right angles. In the best black soils it was not uncommon to hear farmers say they had […] Read more
Higher corn yields through fertility
Fertility recommendations vary from farm to farm, but may be lower for zero-till fields
Prairie farmers are used to being flexible, always on the lookout for new recommendations for fertility applications — and when it comes to growing corn, they have to be. Corn is an expensive crop with high nutritional requirements. And every farmer’s land requires something slightly different. Morgan Cott, field agronomist for Manitoba Corn Growers Association, […] Read more
Crop rotations and soil science
Some see soil as mere dirt. Soil scientists see a complex ecosystem affected by everything from crop rotations to fertilizer
Using DNA technology, researchers are finding that microbial diversity in the sea is huge, said Dr. Marcia Monreal, soil microbiology scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “But (their results) suggest the diversity in the soil is much larger.” Monreal explained that there is a food chain in the soil that includes bacteria plus other creatures […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
