This late, difficult harvest is going to have some wide-ranging ramifications. Seeding plans for winter wheat are being disrupted. Many producers had hoped to seed winter wheat on land that didn’t get seeded this spring. As it turns out, many of those acres are still too wet. And there aren’t many fields of canola harvested yet. That’s prime stubble for seeding winter wheat. The bad harvest weather could also have an impact on seed availability for next spring. This may be especially true on pulse crops where quality is taking a beating and more acres that usual will be sprayed pre-harvest with glyphosate which will harm seed germination. Expect more marketing problems than usual. Although there aren’t many cereal crops harvested yet, there are many reports of severe disease problems including fusarium head blight and ergot that make crops harder to sell. Expect more processing of crops in an attempt to remedy problems. For instance, chickpeas are facing a serious frost threat. There could be a big demand for colour sorters to remove the distinctly green seeds and improve the grade. And, of course, expect extensive use of aeration fans and grain driers and the corresponding bills for power, natural gas and propane. I’m Kevin Hursh.
DynAgra, an independent Western Canada-based Company, is dedicated to providing growers with the tools to manage the risk and maximize the profitability of their farm business through the continued innovation of agricultural products and services. We are committed to developing and providing growers with the latest in precision agronomics, variable rate technology, soil fertility, crop protection, fertilizers, custom application and financial solutions.
Tags: agricultural products, agricultural services, Canola, cereal crops, chickpeas, crop protection, custom application, Dynagra, fertilizers, financial solutions, frost threat, fusarium head blight, glyphosate, harvest, pre-harvest, precision agronomics, pulse crops, seed germination, seeding plans, soil fertility, sprayed, Variable Rate Technology, winter wheat
This spring and summer has been a trying one in southern Alberta; and the fall looks to be the same way. With all the excess moisture, hail and stress crops in the DynAgra trading area are multi staged and late. So the question arises, “How do I harvest a multi staged crop?”
We had this same sort of problem last year because of the cold spring that we were faced with; and last year the yields and protein were quite good. We just have to manage the situation right. When you go out and look at your crop, you have to look at which stage of the crop looks the most promising and which one is most likely to make it to maturity before a major frost event. In canola, we have to take into account the shattering of over ripened canola and the green seeds in immature canola stand. And in wheat we have to worry about those immature green seeds making it into the hopper and then into the bin causing quality and storage problems.
There are products on the market to help with harvest management, such as glyphosate, Reglone and Cleanstart. The only chemical-aided option to dry down Roundup Ready Canola is Reglone, make sure not to apply Reglone too early to a canola stand, because it does not kill the plant but attacks the plant tissue and dries it down, so if the product is applied too early it can lock the green into the seed and it won’t ever turn color. For a Reglone application, you want to have 75% seed color change on the main stem at application time. A reminder that Reglone is just a desiccant and will dry the weeds in your field down but will not kill them, Reglone is registered for use on canola and peas as well beans and alfalfa.
If you choose to use a glyphosate as preharvest on canola you want to have 30% moisture or less on the crop. And for wheat once you can take a kernel and press it with your thumb nail and the imprint stays, you are at optimal preharvest timing.
But with any chemical-aided dry down be sure to be ready to combine once the crop is ready, usually within 7 to 14 days the crop will be ready to harvest. Any questions come into you local DynAgra for advice from our certified and experienced staff. Happy combining.
Yours in crop protection,
Tags: alfalfa, Canola, CleanStart, Dynagra, glyphosate, green seeds, hopper, peas, Regalone, Roundup Ready Canola
There’s a third product choice for desiccating peas, lentils and chickpeas. Up until now, the only registered choices have been glyphosate and Reglone. Glyphosate provides control of perennial weeds in the crop, but it’s very slow for crop dry down. Reglone provides fast dry down, but in heavy crops it doesn’t always penetrate to the bottom of the canopy. Reglone is also quite expensive. The new choice is CleanStart from Nufarm. It has just received registration. CleanStart has been used as a burnoff at seeding time and in chem fallow. It contains glyphosate as well as a Group 14 herbicide called carfentrazone. The glyphosate will provide perennial weed control and it’s a systemic product that will keep working to dry the crop. The carfentrazone will provide a faster dry down than glyphosate alone. It’s important that producers use only registered products for desiccation. When a product is applied close to harvest time, it will typically leave a tiny, but measureable residue in the seed. On registered products, MRLs, Maximum Residue Levels have been established. On unregistered products, any detection of a residue could result in all sorts of problems in the marketplace. If you’re desiccating pulse crops, go with Reglone, glyphosate or CleanStart. I’m Kevin Hursh.
DynAgra, an independent Western Canada-based Company, is dedicated to providing growers with the tools to manage the risk and maximize the profitability of their farm business through the continued innovation of agricultural products and services. We are committed to developing and providing growers with the latest in precision agronomics, variable rate technology, soil fertility, crop protection, fertilizers, custom application and financial solutions.
Tags: ag products, ag services, agricultural products, agricultural services, carfentrazone, chickpeas, CleanStart, crop protection, custom application, desiccating, Dynagra, fertilizers, financial solutions, glyphosate, lentils, Maximum Residue Levels, MRLs, Nufarm, peas, precision agronomics, Regalone, soil fertility, Variable Rate Technology
Glyphosate is at an all time low and now is the time to stock your inventory. For more information call you DynAgra representative as prices won’t stay this low for long…
Darren Schmaltz, Beiseker Sales Office: 403-947-3767
Dennis Haw, Beiseker Sales Office: 403-901-9507
Don Roubos, Rolling Hills and Brooks Offices: 403-964-3562
Eric Brodie, Standard Sales Office: 403-644-3707
Jay Maull, Carseland Sales Office: 403-934-4644
Tags: Dynagra, glyphosate
On June 17th we scouted the Get More Bushels Super Crop Plot and all of the canola varieties are out of the ground! Emergence is spotty in some areas, especially under the tire tracks, due to slightly more compaction. The InVigor varieties are just a bit ahead of the Roundup Ready varieties, as they are at the 3 leaf and 2 leaf stage respectively. On average, the plant counts per square foot range between 5 and 6. This is great germination!
Canola is Coming!
Also noticed on all varieties was some flea beetle damage. The tender cotyledons are like candy to those pesky little black insects. Flea beetle damage looks like little chew marks on the leaves; they will start to feed on the cotyledons first. Threshold levels are where there is 25% damage to the cotyledons.
Growing Up!
Throughout the field there is light to moderate weed pressure. Once the ground dries up, we will be spraying the plot. The InVigor varieties will be getting 1.35 L/ac of Liberty and Centurion. As for the Roundup Ready varieties, we will be going in with 0.5 L/ac of glyphosate.
There is no lack of water in this year’s canola plot, as the moisture levels are excessive. All that the plot needs now is a little bit of sunshine to heat things up and get things growing!
Our Get More Bushels Crop Plot Tour Day is scheduled for July 21, 2010. Stay tuned for more plot updates at www.getmorebushels.com or sign up for updates with our monthly newsletter.
DynAgra, an independent Western Canada-based Company, is dedicated to providing growers with the tools to manage the risk and maximize the profitability of their farm business through the continued innovation of agricultural products and services. We are committed to developing and providing growers with the latest in precision agronomics, variable rate technology, soil fertility, crop protection, fertilizers, custom application and financial solutions.
Tags: agricultural products, agricultural services, Centurion, compaction, cotyledons, crop protection, custom application, Dynagra, emergence, fertilizers, financial solutions, flea beetle, germination, Get More Bushels, Get More Bushels Super Crop Plot, glyphosate, Invigor, Liberty, precision agronomics, Roundup Ready, soil fertility, Variable Rate Technology
There seems to be a bewildering array of new herbicides on the market, but looks are deceiving. Provincial weed control specialist Clark Brenzil points out that there are only two new active ingredients on the market this year. One of those is Heat from BASF. All the other new product names are just repackaged chemistry – the same product by a different name.
For instance, there are 22 products containing only glyphosate and five others that include glyphosate as an active. Overall, Brenzil says there are 272 product choices, but only 60 active ingredients. If you narrow it down to herbicides for cereals, pulses and oilseeds, there are only 45 active ingredients. Cereals have 30 actives, oilseeds have 16 and pulses have 18. This adds up to more than the 45 total because some of them can be used on more than one crop group.
Brenzil also addresses the rumor that Liberty will be in short supply. Since Liberty is used only on Liberty Link canola and since there are no competing products and since Bayer CropScience knows exactly how much its canola seed has been purchased, the company can manage the supply of Liberty with a great deal of accuracy. No shortages are anticipated.
I’m Kevin Hursh.
DynAgra, an independent Western Canada-based Company, is dedicated to providing growers with the tools to manage the risk and maximize the profitability of their farm business through the continued innovation of agricultural products and services. We are committed to developing and providing growers with the latest in precision agronomics, variable rate technology, soil fertility, crop protection, fertilizers, custom application and financial solutions.
Tags: agricultural products, agricultural services, BASF, Bayer CropScience, cereals, crop protection, custom application, Dynagra, fertilizers, financial solutions, glyphosate, Heat, herbicide, Liberty, Liberty Link canola, oilseeds, precision agronomics, Pulses, soil fertility, Variable Rate Technology
So how important is a pre-seed burn off? That question gets asked to me and others in the industry all the time. It can be one of the most important things when it comes to certain weeds and density of weeds. Let’s start with a favourite of most farmers in Alberta, foxtail barley. Since we have lost the use of Sundance we really don’t have a post emergent solution. And because of zero tillage it can flourish because its root system doesn’t get cut off by cultivator shovels anymore either. So the only real option is to give it a good shot of glyphosate in the spring. The only issue is you need to have the coverage to get through the old growth and get control of the plants so low water volumes in this case will hurt your control of the weed. Another favourite is Cleavers. Cleavers can be at both winter and spring annual which make it a very hard plant for staging. I have seen fields where the grower did not do a preburn and when it came to post emergent spraying the winter annual cleavers were in the 10 to 15 whorl stage. So now what do you try and spray this with to try and control this monster? That is what I was saying to myself trying to figure out what to do. We didn’t kill all of those cleavers and they seeded down to make a real mess for the future. This is when prepass was new to the market and with a little planning we could of had a fighting chance to control them with a post emergent herbicide. There are many more weeds like dandelion, narrow leaf hawk’s beard, kochia and even flix weed that can be a problem for minimum and zero tillage operations. So this is why we can take advantage of the products that are available to us.
There are many products that we can use for a pre-seed burn off and they all have some fit in your operation. The big thing I tell my growers is just remember anything with a residual you can’t plant canola into. So just make sure you know what you are spraying and where so we can have a less stressful spring.
Those are my thoughts,
Garth Donald C.C.A.
Tags: burn off, cleavers, dandelion, flix weed, Foxtail Barley, glyphosate, kochia, narrow leaf hawk's beard, pre-seed, Sundance, zero tillage
Glyphosate resistance has been confirmed in kochia weeds in western Kansas. A report posted by Southwest Farm Press says the resistant kochia populations have undergone both greenhouse and field testing by Kansas State University and Monsanto. Kochia is a huge problem in much of the brown and dark brown soil zone of Western Canada. Scientists say that as much as 90 per cent of our kochia population has become resistant to Group 2 herbicides. While there are no reports of glyphosate resistance in Canada, you have to wonder if that problem is coming based on the report from Kansas. Glyphosate has multiple uses – preemergent weed burn-off, Roundup Ready canola, chem-fallow, pre-harvest and post-harvest. It’s a bit scary to think of what we’ll need to do if we ever lose the utility of glyphosate – a product that has become increasingly affordable. It seems clear that there are going to be increasing problems with many types of herbicide resistance. Rotating herbicide groups and using products with multiple modes of action will be increasingly important strategies. I’m Kevin Hursh.
Tags: glyphosate, herbicide, kochia, Monsanto, post-harvest, pre-harvest, Roundup Ready Canola, Southwest Farm Press
Increasingly, the companies that sell farm inputs are targeting large producers. Given a choice between having one 15,000-acre customer or five 3,000-acre customers, it’s easy to see which is the most desirable. In many cases, farm input suppliers put their best staff members in charge of their biggest customers. They don’t want to lose a major account for fertilizer or crop protection products and they know that all their competitors would like to attract that customer. It’s probably fair to say that companies will compete harder on price and service in order to attract and retain the big guys. The marketplace also has more and more products geared specifically to large producers. One company in West Central Saskatchewan is promoting bulk farm storage for glyphosate herbicide. Glyphosate will be stored much the same as diesel fuel. The tanks are 11,000 and 19,000 litres in size. That replaces a heck of a pile of plastic jugs and even a lot of shuttles. The system makes glyphosate less expensive and more convenient, but it’s aimed at producers who farm a lot of acres. I’m Kevin Hursh.
Tags: crop protection products, Fertilizer, glyphosate, large producers
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had an interesting story on glyphosate prices in a recent edition. The story by Jeffry Tomich says a flood of inexpensive Chinese-made herbicide and deep price cuts by rivals are leading Monsanto to cut profit expectations for Roundup. According to the story, renewed competition from China is coming faster than Monsanto anticipated. Monsanto expects to sell about 200 million gallons of glyphosate-based herbicide this year – 22 per cent less than last year. Still, the company is reported to be continuing the expansion of a glyphosate manufacturing plant in Louisiana that could reportedly increase the global supply by about 10 per cent. The plant expansion is a byproduct of a glyphosate shortage a couple years ago. At that time, prices were rising and supplies were often tough to get, especially the supplies of lower cost generic products. Based on this newspaper story out of Monsanto’s home town of St. Louis, the glyphosate market should become more competitive with better deals available for producers. I’m Kevin Hursh.
www.hursh.ca
Kevin Hursh, PAg, CAC
Tags: glyphosate, Louisiana, Monsanto, prices, profit expectations
