Wheat Profit

A common question in spring is whether to treat seed or not. While seed treatment cannot improve seed quality, it can preserve quality. Preserving seed quality can help with plant establishment. Seed treatments are not a silver bullet when it comes to disease management, however they can be a useful tool when used in combination with other best management practices (BMPs).

Join us as we chat with Derek Flad, MAS with Nutrien Ag Solutions about the pros, cons and best management practices that come with treating seed.

Nutrient management is always top of mind for producers, but nitrogen fertilizer management has been receiving considerably more attention due to fluctuating prices of inputs, more products hitting the market and efforts to reduce emissions, nutrient leaching, and runoff.

As producers finalize their crop plan for the year, many might be wondering if an enhanced efficiency fertilizer product is a fit for their farm.

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers include a range of products that optimize nutrient uptake and prevent nutrient loss of volatilization, denitrification, or leaching by controlling the speed of release or altering soil-fertilizer reactions.

Join us as we talk with Associate Professor Richard Farrell from the University of Saskatchewan about the benefits of these products and the best management practices for applying them.

The Fertilizer Use Survey assists in understanding the current state of fertilizer management in Saskatchewan and across Canada. It fills the gap in publicly available data for fertilizer use, management, and the adoption of 4R nutrient stewardship. The survey helps increase 4R awareness while providing unbiased data on fertilizer practices and trends.

Join us as we sit down with Sarah Healy, Market Research Manager with Stratus Ag, and Cassandra Cotton, Vice President at Fertilizer Canada, as we talk about the most recent wheat results of the survey. We will also discuss how this information can be used in various ways including at the farm level, as part of the ongoing fertilizer emission reduction discussion.

This past growing season was the inaugural year for Sask Wheat’s “On Farm Trial” program. Through this program, our goal is to have producer-led farm scale research on wheat-related topics. These results will provide localized data to help producers make decisions on their farms under their conditions and management practices.

This year we evaluated seeding rates in spring wheat. Ideal seeding rates can vary significantly and are dependent on many factors including management, variety, and environment. We wanted to see if we could fine-tune the general seeding rate recommendations to help producers maximize their yield, quality, and economic return.

Join us as we chat with Christiane Catellier, Research Associate with the Indian Head Agricultural Research Foundation (IHARF), as we discuss our trial results, the importance of doing on-farm research, and how to produce meaningful results. Christiane provides some helpful tips for farmers and agronomists running trials on their farms.

As the weather starts to warm up and the snow starts to melt, we are looking toward seeding the 2022 crop. After the extreme heat and drought of 2021, a long open fall, and variable snowfall, many are curious or concerned about the soil moisture outlook for 2022.

In this episode of Sask Wheat's Wheat Profit Podcast, we are again joined by Les Henry to talk about soil moisture for 2022

Les is a legend in the agronomy world and is well known for his no no-nonsense, practical approach to agriculture. Les is a former professor and extension specialist at the University of Saskatchewan and has a small farm near Dundurn.

The topics covered include: 

• The impact of the 2021 drought
• Historical comparisons of this year to others
  • The impacts of snow on soil recharge - some areas have received a fair bit of snow since the new year
  • How much moisture would it take to recharge the current soil moisture deficit
• Tips for risk management at seeding

Fall is approaching, harvest is in full swing in many areas and has already finished in others. Aside from a few rainy days, and some thunderstorms over the past month, we haven't seen much for precipitation or soil recharge.

The 2021 growing season was filled with many agronomic challenges, the most notable being that it was one of the hottest and driest on record in Saskatchewan and yield was significantly impacted in many areas. Grain prices have risen, but with that, so have input prices. When looking ahead to the 2022 crop year, the 2021 drought will continue to have impacts on management decisions.

In this episode of Wheat Profit, we are going to focus on soil fertility and considerations after a drought. We know that yields fell sharply below targeted yield, which means there should be higher residual nutrients. Higher nutrient residuals can reduce next year’s fertilizer bill, but there are some considerations to be made around nutrient availability and variability. Severe moisture deficits can also create significant yield variability throughout a field. Drought effects nutrient cycling, nutrient availability, and can even skew soil test results. But how will all this impact management decisions for next year?

The guest for this episode is Lyle Cowell. Lyle is the Manager of Agronomy services with Nutrien in North East Saskatchewan. Lyle covers fertility considerations after a drought, residual nutrients and what you can expect, nutrient variability throughout the field and what the main causes are, soil testing, and considerations for fall fertilizer applications.

The price of wheat is on the rise and the push for higher yield is on. With the growing season starting out very dry across majority of the province, fungicides weren't really at the forefront of everyone’s minds. However, the last couple weeks we have been getting some much needed rain in many areas, and there’s more on the way. Last week was warm and humid, which can favor the development of disease. This brings forth the question of the most efficient and effective time to apply fungicide to protect your wheat crop from yield and quality robbing diseases.

Fungicide is a relatively expensive investment, so at what stage will you get the best return on that investment?

That’s what we chat about in this episode of Wheat Profit with our guest, Dr. Sheri Strydhorst. Dr. Strydhorst has recently joined Alberta Wheat and Barley commissions as their Agronomy Research Specialist and worked previously as a cereal agronomic research scientist with Alberta Agriculture. Her research focussed on maximizing the genetic potential of cultivars by using cultivar specific agronomic management.

During spray season there are many things to consider: product, active ingredient, crop staging, weather conditions, water volume, nozzles, speed, the list goes on. But one factor that is often over looked is water quality. With so many factors effecting spray efficacy like environmental conditions, water volume, herbicide resistance, there’s many things that can cause reduced efficacy, which means poor water quality is hard to point the finger at and often overlooked. But water makes up well over 90% of our spray volume and is an important factor to consider when looking at chemical efficacy.

Poor water quality can cause significant tie up of herbicides,  so it is important to ensure you have a good water source. 

This Wheat Profit will be discussing spray water quality and water treatments with Martin Carr of Winfield United Canada

Winfield United Canada has built a reputation for helping independent Canadian ag retailers bring ideas and innovation to farmers across the country for many years. They’re global leaders in adjuvants, and are widely regarded as industry experts in spray application technology. They have decades of experience in the adjuvant business and have covered millions of acres across North America in that time. 

They have discovered and manufactured products for spray water quality and also distribute fertilizer, seed and crop protection products to ag-retailers in Canada. Martin is part of the Agronomy team with Winfield United Canada.

More information: 

[https://www.saskatchewan.ca/business/agriculture-natural-resources-and-industry/agribusiness-farmers-and-ranchers/crops-and-irrigation/weeds/water-quality-and-herbicides]

Seeding 2021 is just starting to ramp up, and conditions across many parts of the province are drier than normal. Seeding into dry soils can be inevitable on the prairies, and there are some challenges associated with that. Dry conditions require careful consideration of many management practices such as seeding depth, seed treatment, seed safety, fertility, and herbicide carryover. Prairie wheat and barley commissions teamed up to produce a resource for producers covering some important considerations for seeding into dry soils, this resource can be found on our website under the agronomy tab.

The less than average precipitation across many areas of Saskatchewan means that some herbicides may not have broken down, and could potentially put this year's wheat crop at risk for herbicide damage.

This is what we will be discussing today on wheat profit, with our guest Doug Fehr.

Doug has worked in the ag industry for many years. He is a professional agrologist, and spent much of his career working with Dupont, now Corteva, as a technical sales agronomist.

In this episode, we discuss the lifecycle, management, and research of wireworms with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada entomologist Dr. Haley Catton.