June 2010 Archives
I was out touring winter wheat fields around Watrous and Govan yesterday, calf-deep in muck and getting soaked in the never-ending rain. I saw a lot of sprayer tracks but not as many seeding tracks as I would have liked (and I'm sure farmers would like even more). There were pockets of crop growing or seeded and the winter wheat looks amazing - for now. All this water has got farmers talking about leaf disease and that horrible disease, fusarium head blight.
Farmers now have one more option to add to their tool box in the fight against leaf disease and FHB. BASF's Caramba fungicide received registration today and could make a lot of cereal growers very happy this year given the wet, wet, wet conditions farmers are facing. BASF says the product not only decreases the incidence of fusarium head blight, but it also decreases the resulting level of DON mycotoxin in cereals. The active ingredient, metconazole, controls major leaf diseases of wheat, oat and barley as well as fusarium, protecting yield and quality.
“Most fungicides control either fusarium or leaf diseases, this is the first product to provide a high level of both,” says Wayne Barton, marketing manager, fungicides, for BASF. Caramba is to be sprayed at flowering, a little later than some growers might be used to if they're typically going after leaf diseases. “It's a bit later than most growers are used to, and it's small application window,” Barton says. He says that if farmers plan to use Caramba, the narrow application window will require a little extra planning to ensure their application system (aerial or otherwise) is in place ahead of time.
Barton expects that most farmers will still choose to spray their wheat once, maybe twice. In that case, Caramba could become the first choice when fusarium head blight is the main concern, he says. “Most growers will choose one option: add a fungicide with their herbicide application early and control leaf disease; go in at the flag leaf stage and protect the flag and penultimate leaves with something like Headline; or choose Caramba and wait for flowering,” he says. Caramba does provide a high level of protection from leaf diseases when applied at heading, Barton adds, so it's not entirely an either/or scenario — it's simply a choice of controlling the biggest concern.
This year, it might be both.
Farmers now have one more option to add to their tool box in the fight against leaf disease and FHB. BASF's Caramba fungicide received registration today and could make a lot of cereal growers very happy this year given the wet, wet, wet conditions farmers are facing. BASF says the product not only decreases the incidence of fusarium head blight, but it also decreases the resulting level of DON mycotoxin in cereals. The active ingredient, metconazole, controls major leaf diseases of wheat, oat and barley as well as fusarium, protecting yield and quality.
“Most fungicides control either fusarium or leaf diseases, this is the first product to provide a high level of both,” says Wayne Barton, marketing manager, fungicides, for BASF. Caramba is to be sprayed at flowering, a little later than some growers might be used to if they're typically going after leaf diseases. “It's a bit later than most growers are used to, and it's small application window,” Barton says. He says that if farmers plan to use Caramba, the narrow application window will require a little extra planning to ensure their application system (aerial or otherwise) is in place ahead of time.
Barton expects that most farmers will still choose to spray their wheat once, maybe twice. In that case, Caramba could become the first choice when fusarium head blight is the main concern, he says. “Most growers will choose one option: add a fungicide with their herbicide application early and control leaf disease; go in at the flag leaf stage and protect the flag and penultimate leaves with something like Headline; or choose Caramba and wait for flowering,” he says. Caramba does provide a high level of protection from leaf diseases when applied at heading, Barton adds, so it's not entirely an either/or scenario — it's simply a choice of controlling the biggest concern.
This year, it might be both.
There's a part of me that is hesitating to even blog about such basic things as plant counts. Why? Because the fields around here and much of the Prairies are struggling, just getting seeded or are unseeded. It's late in the spring seeding season and I don't want to be pouring salt into anyone's wounds.
That said, there certainly are parts of the west that are growing and so this is for them. My apologies if you're not one of them (but please don't shoot the messenger).
My former colleague and past editor of Grainews, Jay Whetter, is hard at work at the Canola Council rolling out agronomy tips. The latest release on estimating plant populations as a means of gauging seeding success caught my eye and I thought I'd share it. Knowing plant counts may also play a role in management decisions in the coming weeks regarding spraying or, ouch, reseeding. What follows is a summary of what Jay sent me.
Target 10 canola plants per square foot
According to Derwyn Hammond, senior agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, canola stands of 10 plants per square foot (100 per square metre) are ideal as they provide a cushion for loss due to frost, diseases or insects. Stands of less than four or five plants per square foot (roughly 40 to 50 per square metre) generally cannot reach their full yield potential. If a plant stand ends up at less than 10 plants per square foot, Hammond advises checking equipment settings, the seed lot and field conditions to identify why they did not achieve the ideal plant population.
The Canola Council suggests using hoops equivalent to one-quarter of a square metre to estimate plant populations. Simply place the one-quarter metre hoop into the crop, count the number of plants inside and multiplying by four to get plants per square metre. Several counts per field are required to get a good average. Farmers considering reseeding should take 50 to 100 samples to be sure the plant count is accurate enough before making such an important (and costly) decision.
That said, there certainly are parts of the west that are growing and so this is for them. My apologies if you're not one of them (but please don't shoot the messenger).
My former colleague and past editor of Grainews, Jay Whetter, is hard at work at the Canola Council rolling out agronomy tips. The latest release on estimating plant populations as a means of gauging seeding success caught my eye and I thought I'd share it. Knowing plant counts may also play a role in management decisions in the coming weeks regarding spraying or, ouch, reseeding. What follows is a summary of what Jay sent me.
Target 10 canola plants per square foot
According to Derwyn Hammond, senior agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, canola stands of 10 plants per square foot (100 per square metre) are ideal as they provide a cushion for loss due to frost, diseases or insects. Stands of less than four or five plants per square foot (roughly 40 to 50 per square metre) generally cannot reach their full yield potential. If a plant stand ends up at less than 10 plants per square foot, Hammond advises checking equipment settings, the seed lot and field conditions to identify why they did not achieve the ideal plant population.
Recording the average number of
plants per square foot can help farmers improve their seeding
methods for 2011. "You can keep records of thousand seed weight,
seeding rate and seeding date, plus seeding depth and soil
temperature, but what’s the point if you don’t also do plant
stand counts?" says Hammond.
Plant stand assessment is
also essential information for setting seeding rates in the future. Farmers who usually achieves above 10 plants per square foot under
average conditions may have been able to trim costs with a lower
seeding rate. But if plant populations are routinely at seven plants per
square foot or less, reducing rates could spell trouble.
The Canola Council suggests using hoops equivalent to one-quarter of a square metre to estimate plant populations. Simply place the one-quarter metre hoop into the crop, count the number of plants inside and multiplying by four to get plants per square metre. Several counts per field are required to get a good average. Farmers considering reseeding should take 50 to 100 samples to be sure the plant count is accurate enough before making such an important (and costly) decision.
Farmers can make their own 50 cm by 50 cm (quarter-metre) square or make a
hoop with an inside diameter of 56 cm, which is the equivalent of a
quarter metre square, according to the Council's release.
(Click on image for larger version) This hoop is equivalent to one quarter of a square metre. Inside
this hoop are 23 plants, which works out to 92 plants per square
metre — or roughly nine plants per square foot. That’s a good
target. Photo courtesy the Canola Council of Canada
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Grainews editor Lyndsey Smith answers readers' questions, asks her own and, now and then, discusses what's new and interesting in western Canadian production agriculture.
