Scout vulnerable crops for feeding and larvae including winter canola, winter cereals, forages and cover crops. Especially in the southwestern counties but not limited to this area. Currently, there seems to be a pocket in the Blenheim area that requires attention. Meghan Moran has found three winter canola fields near Blenheim this week that have been taken out by fall…
Ontario Hay Listings is a free classifieds service provided by the Ontario Forage Council. Producers looking to buy or sell hay or straw are encouraged to post an ad. In 2020 there were several reports of corn rootworm injury to hybrids with below-ground protection from Bt traits. This suggests that Bt-resistant corn rootworm populations exist in Ontario. Continuous corn is…
Joanna Follings October 1, 2021 265 Comments Off on Pre-Harvest Sprouting in the 2021 Winter Wheat CropWhile winter wheat yields have been strong this year, there have been some challenges with quality. Pre-harvest sprouting and low falling numbers have been a concern along the wheat value chain. While this is not an issue every year, it is important to understand the challenges with pre-harvest sprouts and low falling numbers from an end use perspective, and what…
OMAFRA Field Crop Team September 29, 2021 261 Comments Off on What’s Next in The Strategy to Reduce Soil Compaction: Observations on the Value of CTISThis article was written by Alex Barrie, OMAFRA Soil Management Engineer, and Ian McDonald, OMAFRA Crop Innovations Specialist As discussed in the previous article (available here), as long as we are putting heavy implements on farm fields, soil compaction is a significant possibility. Lots of factors impact the severity of threat, like load, tire configurations (type, number, size), soil fitness…
Ben Rosser September 29, 2021 592 Comments Off on Should You Variable Rate Nitrogen Spatially by Yield in Corn?I spoke with an agronomist about a grower who started variable rating nitrogen (N) in corn. Logically, given that high yielding corn takes up more N than low yielding corn, the grower was going to variable rate N by yield across the field – more in high yielding areas, less in low yielding areas. The agronomist was cautious on this…
For many Ontario farmers, the 2021 season has been a weather roller coaster. Throughout much of the province, the season started out extremely dry, with some regions receiving less than 20% of normal precipitation for the month of May (Figure 1). Late June brought relief for many parts of Southern Ontario, with regular rainfall that continued throughout July. Some…
Yield losses of over 50% can occur from bluegrass competition in winter wheat. Bluegrass species often head at the same time as winter wheat and could intercept and reduce the amount of fusarium head blight fungicide reaching the grain head (Figure 1). There are several species of bluegrass found in Ontario. Annual, roughstalk and Canada bluegrass are the most common…
Assessing Soybean Performance Soybean harvest has begun, and yields have generally been good. Many growers are reporting above average yields. But there are fields that underperformed. For those fields that yielded less than expected, it’s important to assess why in order to make good management decisions for the future. Sometimes we blame the weather or a specific variety too quickly…
There has been considerable discussion around tar spot disease in corn this season and of course many questions as well. Let’s go over some of these questions! Where did Tar Spot common from? In 2015, Tar Spot was confirmed in the Midwest US (Indiana/Illinois) where it was believed to have been blown in from Mexico on storm systems. Since 2015,…
Managing phosphorus for improved water quality: best practices depend on where you farm Thanks to drier-than-normal spring seasons the past two years, harmful algae blooms in 2020 and 2021 in the western basin of Lake Erie have not been as severe as in preceding years. Phosphorus (P) loading to the lake, however, remains an important issue on both sides of…
What Will Be the Corn Nitrogen Story for 2021? While the 2021 growing season started dry, regular and often heavy rains started for many areas from Southern to Eastern Ontario from late June through July. Some received well above normal rainfall in July. Naturally, conversations began revolving around “are we losing nitrogen (N)” or “will we need more N on…
Ontario Hay Listings is a free classifieds service provided by the Ontario Forage Council. Producers looking to buy or sell hay or straw are encouraged to post an ad. AAFC’s Agroclimate Impact Reporter is interested in how weather impacts farms throughout the growing season (i.e. what’s really happening on the ground). This ag-sector citizen science effort feeds into AgriRecovery and…
Tracey Baute August 30, 2021 1040 Comments Off on Fall Armyworm Alert – Forages, Corn, Cereals and Others at RiskSeveral reports of fields with fall armyworm (FAW) larvae have been coming in over the last few days. Growers or scouts drive by a field and pull over, shocked to see only stems left of plants with larvae happily feeding. So far most of the damage has been found in oats, rye cover crop, mixed forages and newly seeded cereals….
It is safe to say that western bean cutworm (WBC) is a pest that we can rely on entering corn and dry beans every year in Ontario. Though a frustrating pest to scout for, using traps to monitor moth flight has helped us better predict when to expect peak moth flight occurs, which is shortly followed by peak egg laying….
Tar spot in corn was first identified last year in Ontario on September 21, 2020 and confirmed to overwinter in Ontario on July 2, 2021 in West Elgin. Since then, tar spot has been also detected in Essex, Chatham-Kent, Lambton, Middlesex and Norfolk counties as of July 18, 2021 (Figure 1). This was anticipated since tar spot has continued to…
