CRN_120917

CORN SEPTEMBER 2012

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6 Continuous corn the new norm?

10 Off the ground 12 Y-Drop corn nitrogen 14 Weather business 16 Air seeding corn 18 #PestPatrol CORNGUIDE BRIEF OUR NEW CORNGUIDE Agronomic and business skills for a more successful farm

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ost readers already know Ralph Pearce, among the best and most insightful corn and soybean writers in Canada, and you’ll have recognized his byline in recent issues. With this inaugural Corn Guide, Ralph is now helping us establish a new focus on the decisions you make to integrate technology with your business objectives for exceptional overall farm results.

It has never been more important to produce every bushel, or more important to capitalize on your opportunities.

Let us know what you think.

Tom Button, CG Editor, tom.button@fbcpublishing.com Ralph Pearce, Production Editor, ralph.pearce@fbcpublishing.com

Cornguide

Rethinking tillage and plowing Lessons learned from 2012

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

T

he temptation was to say that it was a one-off. The early-April windstorm that swept out of the north last spring picked up clouds of topsoil and year-old corn leaves and turned the air brown in a way we haven’t seen in Ontario for over two decades.

Now the question is, was it really just an anomaly, a once-in-a-generation fluke caused by a warmer-than-usual winter?

Or is it a harbinger of what’s to come as global warming strengthens its grip?

Either way, it was a storm to get the whole province taking a fresh look at whether we’re making the right tillage decisions, or whether our compromises are setting us up for big trouble in the near future.

Do we need to change our approach to plowing and how we manage crop residues?

The challenge is that for any farmer, the answer will rarely be a simple yes or no. Multiple factors are involved, each with its own specific roles. Crop prices, market demand, the effect of the drought on world corn supplies, changes in equipment designs, improved genetics, pest control… you name it, they all play into the decision-making process.

Pressure to rebound American farmers will be under extra pressure to rebound from their dismal 2012. Word is now filtering into Ontario that one seed company is concerned about poor germination of their U.S.grown seed corn intended for Canadian fields, while another dealer is reminding growers that “we’ve emptied the warehouses” in the past two years. There is also speculation that U.S. growers may be heading to the fields next March with an expectation — whether it’s realistic or not — of planting 100 million acres just to rebuild stocks.

Nor are the Americans alone. Lots of Canadian corn growers have struggled through 2012 too, and every farmer wants another chance to sell at this year’s prices.

Now, all of that is going to put pressure on farmers to rethink their tillage, says certified crop adviser John Waters. In turn, that means more acres getting plowed.

Waters is a believer in reduced tillage.

“There’s no question, we need to figure out how to keep more residue on the ground,” says Waters, who works with Lakeside Grain and Feed in Forest, Ont. “In 2011, Continued on page 4

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Continued from page 3

we had really heavy spring rains, and one grower I know had corn stalks and leaves floating across his lawn and driveway. Had his land been plowed, it would have been topsoil on the move, not leaves.”

Still, Waters deals with a number of growers who opt for the plow-and-till approach, and some have done their own field research. One grower in particular divided one field into thirds, using deep tillage, strip tillage, and a third area that was conditioned with a mouldboard plow.

“In the end, it was the mouldboard plow that paid the bills,” says Waters, adding that the purpose of the experiment had actually been to confirm to the farmer that there was an advantage to strip till. “He was disappointed to see the results, and he wasn’t just looking at it on the yield monitor, he had scales on the grain buggy too.”

Steve Hosking also concedes that some plowing is often essential, especially considering that Bt corn stalks can take as much as three times longer to decompose, and can be a challenge to plant into when left on the surface.

At the same time, Hosking, the territory manager for Sunflower Manufacturing, acknowledges that farmers themselves can be resistant to change.

“Some guys just can’t sleep over the winter if their fields aren’t black,” Hosking says.

“It really is sort of a mindset, and I’m not so sure that the younger generation has that. It may pass with the older generation.”

Going long term For years, dedicated no-till farmers have made presentations at conferences and workshops, extolling the virtues of the practice and always stressing the need to commit to reduced tillage for the long term.

Years ago, one dedicated no-tiller told attendees at a meeting of the Innovative Farmers Association of Ontario (IFAO) that if they were looking for a one- or two-year return on no till, they were likely to be disappointed, but the balance sheet will look different if you give no till five years, and in 10 years it will look better again.

Farmers this year are understandably struggling with a lack of patience. But Don Lobb isn’t buying that as a justification. In fact, he disputes much of the oftcited research that supports tillage or plowing or a combination of the two. A 4

longtime no-till farmer, consultant and frequent speaker on the subject, Lobb acknowledges that no till is a tough sell to most farmers, regardless of rotations or soil types. However, he contends that the research that supports tillage is usually flawed in its fundamental approach.

“Before giving value to tillage comparison research, we need to ask questions,” says Lobb. “What was the tillage history on the comparison site? What was the final plant population on each tillage practice being compared? How was nitrogen applied? How was the crop residue managed? What was the crop sequence in the tillage comparisons? Were cover crops used? How were they managed? The list of questions goes on!”

A valid comparison of no till and tilled production must be done on a “system” basis, where every component of the system is fine tuned, regardless of the tillage practice being compared, Lobb believes.

“In the long run, tillage can’t win because it destroys soil structure, soil life and organic matter,” says Lobb. “On complex topography, it causes up to 10 times more soil erosion, and this needs to be factored in to tillage assessments.”

Lobb makes this claim without hesitation, and lists researchers and teachers including Jill Clapperton (formerly with the Canadian Agriculture Department) and Murray Miller at the University of Guelph, both of whom promote the advantages of no till from the perspective of improved soil health, and the benefits of mycorrhizal and fungal activity below the surface. And there are many farmers across the province who can and do make no-till management work on their operations. In fact, Lobb is one of those who made it work more than 25 years ago.

“I did about 16 or 17 years on that, where I had side-by-side comparisons, and pretty consistently, I had higher yields with no till, not lower ones,” Lobb says, noting that University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus field tests have shown much the same result. “If you try no till this year and it doesn’t work for you, and you quit because of it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. That means it didn’t work that time on that site.”

Part of a total system One of the stumbling blocks may be the perception that no till is a single cog in the management wheel. Not so, says Adam Hayes, soil management specialist with the Ontario Agriculture Ministry.

Like Lobb, Hayes admits he gets a little frustrated when no till gets criticized for causing yield lags and for taking too long to produce positive results.

Hayes notes that farmers look for ways to justify tillage or plowing instead of focusing on the real job — residue management. Unfortunately, the default treatment is to do some form of tillage or plow the whole field under.

“Residue management actually starts with the combine,” says Hayes, citing Marion Calmer’s presentation at the 2012 IFAO conference in London, Ont. Calmer spoke of the unique design on his combine heads which tear apart the discarded stalks, enabling decomposition to begin sooner. “He’s really thinking about it at the start,” says Hayes. “Then tillage can come, with a range of coulters or a chisel or a disc. Then there’s the planter or the drill, which helps prepare the seedbed, clearing residue and allowing good seedto-soil contact. We’re thinking of only one aspect, and that’s not the best approach.”

Hayes also recognizes that climate change will present some ongoing issues for growers unless they start looking to improve soil health. It’s not just dry years that pose a problem for growers, but flooding and water erosion too. In the winter and spring of 2009, there were three one-in-50-year storms within a fivemonth period in southwestern Ontario.

“Our erosion control practices need to consider those one-in-50-year storms,” says Hayes. “Without residue cover, growers are leaving their soils wide open. And climate change — with more intense storms — is another issue. We can’t just fall back on the old practices.”

The bottom line for this debate may actually turn out to be a lot closer to home. It may be a matter of attitude. The common theme for a lot of producers, whether they’re growing a four- or fivecrop rotation, no till or conservation till, or continuous corn, is finding the system that makes it work.

Hayes knows of a farm family from the Dresden, Ont. area who has poultry manure trucked in from the Niagara Peninsula, which they apply to their wheat stubble. Another grower from the Dunnville area is working with no till and controlled traffic practices.

“He’s only had two inches of rain yet his crops look good considering,” said Hayes in midsummer. “He must be doing something right.” CG Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

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Cornguide

Continuous corn the new norm?

For growers like Larry Lehrbass, continuous corn looks like the right decision

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

C

hange has been right at the heart of agriculture in the past 20 years, and the bigger the change, the better. There’s been no till, there’s been the launch of GMOs, there’s been the arrival of GPS technology. And through it all, corn has remained king.

Could the next big change be the one practice that we were sure we would never go back to? Could we be heading back to continuous corn?

In a word, the answer is “maybe.”

And the reason is, because corn isn’t the same crop that it used to be.

This time, the peak cycle in corn prices is coming at exactly the same time that more GMO hybrids with corn rootworm protection are proving themselves in the field, and companies are catching up with seed demand.

Plus, with so many experts calling for a long tail to this year’s drought market, there’s more interest in shelling out the extra dollars for the high-tech traits.

Besides, the long-term market outlook seems so bullish, even a down cycle looks like it would see corn prices stay above what used to be considered market highs at the turn of the millennium.

Market rumblings now suggest that in part because of continuous cropping, U.S. corn growers may plant 100 million acres in 2013, although much will depend on precipitation levels over the next six to eight months.

Farmers there already have considerable experience with continuous corn. So the question now is, will the practice come to Ontario — or to be more historically accurate — will it come “back” to Ontario?

For Lehrbass, it’s economics “I’ll keep growing corn unless something tells me that I can’t,” says Larry Lehrbass, a grower with a nice patch of loamy soil in the Alvinston area west of London, Ont., where he also has a small beef operation.

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For the past four years, Lehrbass has been a continuous corn grower, a decision he made based on the poor performance of wheat and soybean crops on his farm.

“My soybean yields were going down, wheat looked good but it was almost more straw than grain,” says Lehrbass.

“With my soys, it’d get white mould, with fields that would look like 60 but yield only 30 (bushels per acre).”

For Lehrbass, the decision to go with continuous corn was an easy one, and since making the switch, he hasn’t seen any significant challenges, year to year.

Unlike some other continuous corn growers, Lehrbass manages today’s big residues by plowing in the fall, and he does conventional work on the ground in the spring as well. With that proviso, however, he finds he can manage continuous corn with only a few simple tweaks to his normal program.

For instance, Lehrbass grows triplestack hybrids and uses a little more nitrogen relative to one-year corn, and his weed management program relies heavily on glyphosate, to which he has added a pound of atrazine.

With that package, his yields have increased in the past three years, although the conditions each of those years were different, so Lehrbass is hesitant to key in on any one practice as the most important factor.

Back to the future Continuous corn certainly isn’t new.

Widely used in the 1960s and into the ’70s, it looked like a great choice on paper, especially when you considered that rotation options such as soybeans weren’t nearly as strong as they are today.

Even then, however, it can safely be said that most growers realized that continuous corn wasn’t the best long-term agronomic practice.

“We did a lot of things then that we do not have to do now,” says Pat Lynch, independent agronomist. “We plowed Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

strength through enhanced genetics and more research and knowledge enabling growers to do a good job at planting, the percentage of continuous corn in Ontario remains small compared to the trend in Illinois or Indiana.

Blair Freeman, area agronomist with DuPont Pioneer, agrees that while there is interest in continuous corn, Ontario isn’t very likely to see the same percentages as in the U.S. Midwest.

“There are some growers who maybe have targeted fields where they’re growing continuous corn,” says Freeman, agreeing that there are instances and conditions where such a practice can and will work. “There are many factors at play in cropping decisions. We can grow wheat in Ontario, as an example, which they can’t grow in some of the ‘I’ states.

Ontario growers have many more profitable cropping options than some other growing areas. These are helping us to extend rotations, and keep yields of all crops up over the long term. So I don’t think we’re destined for the same corn after corn after corn that you’re seeing right now in the U.S., but that’s probably a good thing, too.”

deeply, and then because of that, we worked the ground four or five times, often with multiple secondary tillage tools. It wasn’t uncommon to have a cultivator pulling a harrow and a roller, and that may have been the last trip after three previous trips. All of this led to a breakdown of soil structure and resulting poor emergence and lower yields.”

Today, that kind of tillage parade is no longer necessary. Greater efficiencies in Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

tillage management mean growers can incorporate corn stover with minimal passes in the spring. Lynch points to growers who can make one pass in the fall using vertical tillage on their cornstalks, and then a single pass in the spring to build a seedbed. And thanks to enhanced designs, many corn planters can handle the task of planting into higher residues.

Yet despite the arrival not only of better equipment but also improved stalk

Management with a big “M” Continuous corn may not be making a sweeping comeback, but then the conditions under which it can be grown successfully are quite specific, and those who do grow continuous corn, and do it well, are well known for their management practices. According to Lynch, soil type is the biggest factor to consider, and having a livestock operation attached to the farm is another benefit.

“There are a lot of producers who have farms or fields with different soil types,” explains Lynch. “For those producers, they could grow continuous corn on their silt loam soils but only one-year corn on heavier soils. The last three U.S. corn yield champions set the record on fields that were continuous corn, and they were all silt loam soils.”

Lynch knows of one grower in the Harriston area who has a beef operation on a silt loam soil who does well with continuous corn.

Still, there are some continuous corn growers who insist on adding residue manContinued on page 8

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Cornguide Continued from page 7

agement to their system. That step often utilizes a reduced-till scenario with a planter configuration that keeps the seed row clean.

“Back in the day, when continuous corn was very prevalent, we pretty much said that if you didn’t have mouldboard plowing in the operation, your odds of getting it to work slid off the end of the table,” says Greg Stewart, corn lead for the Ontario Agriculture Ministry.

Now, he has revised his thinking. In fact, when you consider the tremendous root production of a high-yielding corn crop, and then combine that with the crop residues that can protect and feed the soil surface, continuous corn can become, says Stewart, “a soil-building rotation.”

Stewart also agrees with Lynch that compared to the 1970s or ’80s, there have been advances in vertical-tillage tools that help make continuous corn work, as well as planters that do a better job of keeping trash or residues out of the row.

“You could walk a continuous cornfield in conservation tillage in the 1980s and see all of these plants that were

8

“I’ll keep growing corn unless something tells me that I can’t.” — Larry Lehrbass behind because they didn’t get planted just right, or because there was a cornstalk in the seed trench or a stalk laying over top of the seed,” says Stewart. “You’d see these plants that inherently were not doing as well, and they dragged the whole continuous cornfield down.”

Today’s corn on corn On most farms, however, continuous corn may not be the only — or even the best — way of getting more corn into the operation.

Instead, more farmers are looking at lengthening the conventional three-year rotation of corn/soybeans/wheat to a four-year plan by adding a second year of corn at the start.

“There are areas that are growing more corn on corn than have in past years, for economic reasons, and there are agronomic reasons, too,” Freeman says, adding that with the current pricing structure, some growers are simply choosing between

a 170- or 180-bushel corn crop versus a 30or 40-bushel soybean crop.

“It’s definitely easier to do with the traits we have today,” says Freeman, also pointing to the tillage and planting equipment that can do a quality job of getting the crop into the ground in a hurry.

In the past, it was generally accepted that a second year of corn would automatically translate into a yield lag or into higher disease pressures, but Lynch notes there are some management factors that can help maintain yields. For starters, most secondyear corn crops need more nitrogen. That second-year crop should also be a hybrid with corn rootworm resistance.

“We do not want to go back to using rootworm insecticides like they are in the U.S.,” says Lynch, adding that weed control is another issue facing growers with another year of corn in the rotation.

“Typically, there is a minor weed shift in second-year corn, and annuals are worse, especially grasses.” CG

Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

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Cornguide

At last, here’s a drone with enormous farm potential

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

I

n a farm sector where commodity prices seem to be shooting skyward, here is a new remote sensing device that may have equally high-reaching potential. The SwingletCAM unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is one of many relatively new designs being used in Europe and North America. But this particular UAV holds several advantages for agriculture, and early reviews say it shows enormous potential.

Colloquially known as a “drone,” the SwingletCAM may look simple in its design and construction, but its insides are incredibly complex, as is its capacity for data retrieval.

In fact, the Swinglet may put drone technology exactly where GPS technology was when the first yield monitor was wired into the first combine.

Right now, ag drones are in their infancy, with normal image (RGB — red, green, blue) cameras mounted on them, but with NIR or near infrared capability also available.

Felix Weber has always been intrigued by precision farming. For 20 years, he farmed on Highway 86 near Listowel, Ont., on an operation that he grew from 300 acres to 1,000. In 1992, he began using his first yield monitor, well ahead of the general learning curve on the technology.

“After four years, I started to layer those maps, and realized the value,” says Weber, who is also a consultant and is now based just outside of Palmerston. “I made money with the yield monitor without the maps. But then when I started to layer the maps and started to soil sample based on the zones that I produced out of those layered maps, I realized the value of what this could bring, and then I started to manage the land differently.”

Since then, Weber has been looking 10

Off the ground for ways to increase efficiency and productivity, and not just on his own farm but on others as well. Shortly after he started layering and soil sampling, he became interested in using satellite imagery as a means of improving a farmer’s operation. But the delay and lack of accessibility under cloudy conditions made that process more costly than he could justify. It was then that he began to explore the potential with UAVs, travelling to Europe to examine the two models he’d been researching out of many.

“When I saw it, I knew this was it,” recalls Weber, noting how he was attracted to its simplicity and quick access, all with high precision. “That really sold it for me, right there.

Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. You can have a light plane, very compact compared to a big bird that flies very fast. The difference is your limitation of weather and when you can fly. I can fly in up to 28 km/h of wind, which is a fairly strong wind, and after that, it starts to get shaky.”

If Weber were to go to a faster-flying unit, it would have to fly higher, so he’d need a better camera to capture the samequality image with improved stability. But then, at a higher altitude and faster speeds, there are other disadvantages.

How it works The SwingletCAM packs a lot of capacity into roughly four feet of specialized Styrofoam. With a GPS receiver, a three-axle gyroscope and a computer chip contained within its control system, it can be connected to a Windows or a Mac computer via a simple USB port. It weighs only 500 grams (just over one pound), yet is durable enough to last through landings on asphalt, on gravel or canola stubble. When the machine is

activated, all electronics are automatically checked, and the barometric pressure and wind speed, the ailerons, the flight plan, the GPS and the gyros are tested by the computer. It’s one of the unit’s many safety features, and is similar to a pre-flight walk-around check that pilots perform on single-engine and smaller multi-engine planes.

Other safety features include a wind warning, which will sound for Weber at ground level, and will return the plane to him within a 30-metre radius of its launch point. He also must preset a flight plan into the computer. Without entering that plan, the SwingletCAM simply will not fly.

With both the RGB camera that came with the unit and the NIR camera which Weber purchased after, the goal is to determine crop health by studying the crop’s foliage, based on differences in the level of reflection of light within the crop.

Another key in the SwingletCAM’s capacity is its calibration. According to Weber, everything requires calibration to be effective, including yield monitors, the Greenseeker, and the SwingletCAM. “I can look at the data afterwards of the difference within the field and go to certain spots in the field to see what it is,” explains Weber. “Does that mean that I have insects, do I have nutritional deficiency? And sometimes you’re looking for something very specific or you can choose the time to look for something specific.”

Back to scouting Weber is also clear that just because he has images of a field, and just because they are GPS referenced using computer software that stitches together the images from across an entire field, that doesn’t mean he can manage his crop from a desk. He still needs to ground-proof. But now he knows exactly where and when to look.

Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

“It’s an image, it’s one tool in your tool box,” says Weber, who is now the exclusive Canadian distributor of the SwingletCAM. “Too many people think this is going to replace Greenseeker, that it’s going to replace crop scouts. But each tool has its advantages and disadvantages.”

Greenseeker can produce extremely high resolution, since you basically pull the cameras through the field on a spray boom. It can also allow farmers to make on-the-go rate decisions with fertilizers or crop protectants.

More applications SwingletCAM can’t produce the same accuracy. Nor can you link it directly to an applicator to make on-the-go rate decisions. But SwingletCAM lets you keep an analytical eye on the crop without dragging a boom through the field, and it lets you cover more acres much faster.

Weber can take an early image in spring of wheat to look at the density of the crop. But based on the images that come up on the screen, he can’t be certain whether it’s wheat or weeds he might be looking at. If he uses the images to go into the field for a closer inspection, he can get a better idea of how to address the situation.

“If it’s weeds, in my herbicide application I may apply a higher rate in the higher weed-pressured areas,” says Weber, adding that he and farmers can address specific issues in specific areas of the field.

Where insect pests are an issue, SwingletCAM can isolate the damage, it can help determine what areas are above or below the economic threshold for treating, and it may even be able to help the grower choose the right pest control.

In the end, that means higher economic yields with lower costs, and superior profitability.

The applications are obvious but they’re also expanding. With this technology, there’s more information that can be generated, then layered and analysed. Field density, weed density, overall crop health plus drainage maps, insect pressure — the diversity of the information continues to grow. The colour differences in the images provide the information from above and the GPS referencing process points the way to the area of the field that needs the attention.

With that capability, perhaps the sky really is the limit. CG Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

At just over one pound, the drone packs a GPS system, an internal gyroscope, and several camera options.

Launched low over the field, SwingletCAM creates instant images of crop health and progress. Then it only takes a USB port to upload them into a laptop to create a field action plan.

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Cornguide

Y-Drop corn nitrogen It’s a new name to watch. Y-Drop technology is raising hopes it will boost corn yields and also improve nitrogen efficiency

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

W

hen GPS technology was introduced in Canada in the mid-1990s, the primary focus was the yield monitor. Sure, there was talk about variable-rate fertilizer applications, but that all seemed futuristic. For right now, the ability to finally measure exactly how well our crops were yielding, spot by spot, was the real driver.

In a way, you could say that it shows how short sighted we can be. More charitably, though, GPS technology sparked great waves of innovation, some of which are only showing up now.

In 2012, GPS has expanded into precision farming, auto-steer, and even applications that are paving the way for automated combine and grain-cart unloading.

But the uptake of variable-rate technology (VRT) hasn’t achieved the same brisk pace. Greenseeker technology, for instance, has been around since the mid2000s, but only now is it gaining in prom-

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inence, and according to some sources, more so in the U.S. than in Canada.

Now, however, the introduction of a first-in-Canada fertilizer and inputs applicator may push us a little faster up the technology adoption curve.

The Y-Drop can be operated independently with standard rate selection but seems to have a natural fit as a companion to the Greenseeker system. At present, there are three Ontario-based principals involved in the project, including Paul Raymer from the Farm Office in Tavistock who is the distributor of the Greenseeker and Y-Drop technologies, William Miller who is a consultant and a Perth County farmer who’s an innovator and a leading proponent of getting the Y-Drop and Greenseeker systems to work in concert, and Don Good of Good Crop Services from New Hamburg who is the early adopter of the trio.

“From my perspective, the Y-Drop is an important part of the adoption pro-

cess,” says Miller, who also serves as president of the Perth County Soil and Crop Improvement Association, and is involved with several other farm organizations as well. “Yes, the technology is fairly new to Ontario, and crops have been good, commodity prices have been excellent, so there hasn’t been the strongest drive to move to these new types of technology.”

Most growers know about Greenseeker technology, which is essentially a sensor that “reads” plant health based on light reflective technology. It is mounted on a sprayer boom at varying intervals and, when calibrated with a standardized test strip, will apply fertilizer or other inputs according to the sensor signal.

Greenseeker is getting adopted faster in the U.S. in part because so many counties and states there are imposing limits on the amount of nitrogen that farmers can apply. That could happen here too, says Miller, but he’d rather see growers look at the technology as a way of maximizing profitability, not for meeting potential government regulations.

To look at the Y-Drop, it doesn’t appear to be that sophisticated. It’s mounted as an attachment behind the spray boom, in this case on a RoGator.

The piping off the boom drops down roughly four feet then branches into a Y-shaped pattern to two drag hoses at ground level. When paired with the Greenseeker technology in corn, the hoses

Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

place nitrogen in a stream within two inches of the corn plants, as opposed to having it broadcast into the canopy or drizzled between the rows.

“We’re getting it placed in a better area, so we should be able to get better uptake by the plant and end up getting a lot better response,” says Miller.

Paul Raymer has been following Miller’s progress and has been working at making the two systems work better together.

Raymer has also been comparing results with one of the Greenseeker developers at Oklahoma State University, where researchers have also been looking at the benefits of laying nitrogen closer to the plant.

“The differences they’ve seen in yield responses have been significant,” says Raymer. Then Raymer asked what he sees as the natural next question. If laying the nitrogen beside the corn plant creates a yield boost, can variable-rate technology be used to get the optimum yield boost per dollar of nitrogen input?

The answer from Oklahoma was quick. In theory it should work, said the U.S. researchers. “But we don’t have the numbers.”

Now, provincial and federal researchers here and from the University of Guelph as well are showing strong interest too.

For Miller, it confirms what he has already come to believe. In terms of agronomics, the environment and his own farm’s bottom line, the Greenseeker and Y-Drop system provides a unique opportunity to fine tune applications in his corn and his wheat.

And this may only be the beginning. Now, government researchers are also looking at the Y-Drop system for applying potassium sulphate in soybeans, and phosphate at planting in corn. CG

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Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

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Cornguide

The new WeatherCentral system opens up a future where weather knowledge is a business tool

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

Corn Stage

CHUs Required

Estimated Date

VEEmergence

166

May 9

V1

239

May 14

V2

317

May 19

V3

399

May 22

V4

525

May 27

V5

623

June 1

V6

716

June 6

V7

822

June 10

V8

910

June 13

V9

1008

June 17

V10

1099

June 20

V11

1208

June 24

V12

1339

June 29

VT - Tassel

1493

July 5

R1 - Silking

1633

July 10

R2 - Blister

1949

July 21

R3 - Milk

2234

July 31

R4 - Dough

2480

R5 - Dent

2824

August 23

R5 - Maturity

3170

September 7

14

August 10

Weather business W e talk about the weather, we complain about it, and it’s always a concern on the farm. No matter the time of year, if you’re farming, you’re watching it — certainly on a daily basis, but often right down to the hour or even more continuously than that. Planting, spraying, harvesting, storage — they’re all tied to the weather, as are the thousand jobs in between.

The challenge especially in Eastern Canada is the lack of a weather service capable of providing weather forecasts and weather records that are both in depth and large scale. They need to be in depth, such as on a township basis or even more specific than that, because as any farmer can tell you, weather can be a remarkably local phenomenon, breaking down into microclimates based on factors such as local topography or proximity to large bodies of water.

Yet the weather service would also need to be large scale, so it covers enough ground to help a significant number of farms. Indeed, with our farms getting larger and larger, it can even need a fair amount of scale just to help a single operation.

Relying on urban-based forecast models and broad-view prognostications is often superficial, at best, and is usually unreliable for making key decisions on when to plant, spray or harvest.

Enter Weather INnovations Inc. (WIN) and its ever-expanding WeatherCentral system. Based in Chatham, Ont., WIN is already well known among those in the crops sector for its SPRAYcast, DONcast and WHEATcast models.

Last May’s launch of an array of upgrades to www.WeatherCentral.ca marked the onset of a new generation of data analysis and information supply. By accessing the WeatherCentral system, growers can register each field to receive site-specific crop heat unit (CHU) and grower degree day (GDD) calculations.

Then, by inputting a planting date and the corn hybrid, they can also generate a table that predicts the crop staging for that field. Everything from VE (emer-

gence) to VT (tassel), right down to full maturity (black-layer) is included in the table. From there, growers can use the maturity date, key in their desired moisture level in the corn, and another feature, the drydown date prediction tool, will calculate a forecast date for harvest.

The 2012 harvest season will be the first time farmers can use the new corn tools, so there’s considerable anticipation as summer turns to fall.

When it was introduced last spring, most growers in southern Ontario had already planted their corn, thanks largely to a warmer-than-normal winter and drier-than-normal spring. But growers in eastern Ontario and Quebec had the opportunity to use the system right from the start, tracking their fields for the entire season.

The other advantage to this system is that it is never “finished.” New fields can be registered, or the data used on existing fields can be enhanced using retrospective figures. And there are other features that are currently in the works.

“Users can add as many fields for as many different crops as they want, and it all shows in the ‘My Fields’ dashboard view, and for each field, you get a custom-tailored forecast,” says Ror y Sweeting, the communications and marketing co-ordinator with WIN. “It has maximum and minimum temperatures, anticipated rain, and you can choose from a daily view or an hourly view — and the hourly view actually has quite a bit more information.”

To start, growers can input a field using GPS co-ordinates, a 911 address or the interactive Google map contained within the site. Users must register for this type of in-depth data analysis, but Sweeting emphasizes that only general information — name, location, email address and postal code — are gathered, and are never shared.

“The beauty of our programs is that through sponsorships, we don’t charge individual farmers for the use of the tools,” states Sweeting. “With the number of weather stations required, the larger corporate sponsors really help to Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

make things easier. The goal is to provide the service to farmers on as broad a level as possible.”

More diversity, more fields Steve Twynstra, owner of Twilight Acres, north of London is one of those larger-scale growers with fields all over Middlesex County in southern Ontario.

There’s the home farm near Ailsa Craig, another plot of land southwest of London and another southeast. Spread out as he is, he’s had to make decisions in the past that may have been less informed than those he can make based on the analysis he can access now.

Twynst r a has been using the Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

SPRAYcast and DONcast systems for several years. Although the corn growth stage calendar and the drydown date prediction tool are relative newcomers to the menu of features that Twynstra uses, his familiarity and his increased farm efficiency with SPRAYcast and DONcast made the choice of becoming a weather “partner” with WIN much easier to make.

“Being able to use the SPRAYcast model — I use that significantly — and the DONcast model gives you a little better feeling of what you should be doing, even though we’re still groundproofing everything with a CCA,” says Twynstra. He concedes that working with the newer tools for tracking crop

staging has come with what he calls a few “growing pains,” but overall he’s pleased with the results thus far.

“Being able to measure the heat units by field will help us decide on field harvest schedules, because we put the actual hybrids into the table and it’s tracked all by planting date,” Twynstra says.

Will it be accurate enough? Twynstra points to recent experience. “When emergence was happening, we found it was pretty close to what the model was forecasting it should be.”

During previous years, there was a little more guesswork to determining which fields were ready for harvest, but using this new system from WIN provides Twynstra with more detailed and more accurate information on which to make better decisions. And that is particularly important with fields at almost opposite ends of the county.

“This is the first year, so I have to defer some opinion until we get a year under our belt,” says Twynstra. “But it looks very promising right now, being able to look at when the crop is supposed to black-layer for a specific hybrid in a specific field, and relate that drydown capability.”

The WeatherCentral system is sponsored by Bayer CropScience and Pride Seeds, and runs with the participation of more than 40 so-called “weather partners,” each with fully equipped weather stations in their fields. That level of participation entitles the users to a few program enhancements. For example, as a partner, Twynstra can monitor more precise precipitation levels on his farm, and he can access that information even when he’s on the road. The use of the growth stage calendar and the drydown date prediction tool has also given him the confidence to build a new on-farm storage unit.

“We’re hoping that this year, we’ll be able to put some corn directly into storage and bypass any dryers,” explains Twynstra. “It’s very real for me because we did this forecasting at the end of June, or early July, before we got into this dry spell, and as a result, we’re putting up another 1,500 tonnes of storage. And I never would have been able to make that business decision with the degree of comfort that I have without having the WIN model or access to it on the Internet. CG 15

Cornguide

Can air seeders do for corn what they’ve done for canola and wheat?

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

S

hould your next corn planter be an air seeder? According to some manufacturers in the seed equipment business, it’s possible. But don’t bet the farm on it. Opinions are definitely split.

The primary concern seems to be all about what you as a farmer would be comfortable with. It’s expensive for machinery makers to open a new market, just to watch other manufacturers come flooding in if the experiment succeeds.

And right now, it’s fair to say that few farmers are clamouring for air technology in corn, especially in Eastern Canada, where corn growers have historically favoured the precision and accuracy they get from a planter.

While it may be true that the seed industry is moving more towards bulk sales, with more tote and truck options that would seem on the surface to favour air seeders, the confidence that farmers have in conventional planting technology means that they’re finding more ways to make bulk work with older hoppers.

Besides, there may also be a concern about the physiology of the corn seed relative to soybeans or wheat.

Anson Boak is marketing co-ordinator for Salford Farm Machinery, based in Salford, Ont., southeast of London. He notes that Salford has been conducting limited trials using the company’s doubledisc air seeder to plant corn in twin rows.

At this point, they’ve had some success with the tests but, says Boak, the demand just isn’t there.

“One of the reasons we’re not pursuing

16

Air seeding corn it heavily in Ontario is that we just don’t believe we can change people’s opinions that they must have a seed singulator to plant corn,” says Boak.

“We’re not about to try to convince people to farm in a different way,” Boak says. “It’s pretty set in the industry. But for those with an open mind and with an eye on profit first, and not the yield plaque on the wall, we’re ready to help them out.”

Boak does acknowledge that some growers are trying air seeders for their corn. However, to his knowledge, no one has sold their planter yet.

“Seed spacing is the issue, but there’s research to support that you overcome that at certain populations,” Boak continues.

When you boost populations to today’s high numbers, plants are packed closer together than ideal even if you have accurate spacing, Boak says. Instead, Salford is testing its air seeder in twin rows set 7-1/2 inches apart on a 30-inch centre, with the thinking that this will make within-row spacing less of a factor.

Western perspective Even in Western Canada, where corn is being grown on an increasing number of irrigated acres and where air seeders are more the norm, there is still a reluctance to move away from the peace of mind that comes with a planter.

Some of that can be put down to seed and plant physiology. For years, researchers and extension personnel have talked about the resiliency and “forgiving nature” of

soybeans and even wheat. According to research, soybeans can suffer 60 per cent loss in a stand but still reach 90 per cent of the expected yield index. And wheat is as hardy a plant as there is, with the capability of throwing tillers to make up for a lessthan-perfect stand.

But corn is very particular, and Jason Hardy, field marketing specialist with New Holland and Flexi-Coil, agrees with Boak’s assessment that the demand is for planters with seed singulators.

“Corn is unique and these guys prefer using their planters,” says Hardy. “It’s not to say that, in terms of accuracy, we can’t get the seed out there with the product — and you’re going to get fairly consistent seed placement. But these guys in the corn areas, they’re pretty particular about seed placement.”

Hardy does add, however, that “we do have a large number of customers on soybeans who are moving towards air seeders and air tanks.”

Hardy says there are farmers who are looking at convenience of an air seeder, even though they aren’t yet ready to give up their planters. If they could have the best of both worlds, they’d be ready to make the move.

“That’s what you may start to see, where those two worlds start to come together a little bit, like disc drills,” says Hardy.

“The truth is,” says Hardy, “there’ve been some guys successfully growing high-yielding corn out here, and now we have those guys looking at planters.” CG Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

SPOTLIghT ON CROP ADVANCES Crop Advances is an annual report that summarizes applied research projects involving the OMAFRA Field Crop team, in partnership with commodity groups, industry and the OSCIA. www.ontariosoilcrop.org/en/resources/cropadvances.htm

Disease knowledge helps maintain corn quality in Ontario

By Lilian Schaer Regular survey for the presence of corn diseases and pests can help farmers and plant breeders adapt to emerging trends – as well as protect and grow markets. This is particularly important for seed corn production, where Ontario is a recognized leader in North America, producing high yields and high quality.

“These surveys help give us a benchmark and assist in minimizing risks and losses to Ontario and Canadian corn production from diseases and pests,” says pathologist Albert Tenuta, Field Crops Program Lead with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). “We’re always on the lookout for new endemic diseases or new invasive pests so we can help maintain productivity and quality – and with that, maintain the viability of the industry.”

How was the research conducted?

OMAFRA, in conjunction with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Ottawa corn breeding program, has been surveying Ontario and Quebec to identify and record the distribution and severity of various corn diseases and insect pests already present, as well as any that may be new. In 2011, 120 fields in Ontario and 45 in Québec were surveyed. The survey is being repeated in 2012.

What did the survey find?

Northern Leaf Blight, the most common leaf disease in Canada in 2011, showed spread to more areas in Ontario and Quebec. In fact, 95 per cent of fields surveyed showed Northern Leaf Blight.

Certain strains may be starting to bypass some of the resistance genes that are available in many commercial corn hybrids.

Gray Leaf Spot continues to spread in Ontario each year. It has become epidemic in southern Ontario as the predominant leaf disease in many fields.

Common smut infection, especially on seed corn fields in Southern Ontario, was frequent, as was Head Smut found in Eastern Ontario and Québec.

So far, Goss’s Wilt, a pathogen that continues to spread in the U.S. Corn Belt, and has recently been confirmed in Michigan and Indiana, has yet to be found in Ontario.

“When it comes to seed corn or commercial production, Ontario can compete with anybody in the world on high yield and high quality,” says Tenuta. “That’s a testament to growers, companies, government extension and everyone working together to maintain the viability and economic development of this industry.”

Where can I get more information?

Results from the first two years of the survey are available in the Crop Advances report at http://bit.ly/NcEPYu. Outcomes from the 2012 crop year will be available there in February 2013.

How was the research funded?

This project was funded in part through the Farm Innovation Program, a federalprovincial-territorial initiative, and by Seed Corn Growers of Ontario, Dow (Hyland Seeds), Maizex, Pioneer Hi-Bred and Pride Seeds. OSCIA assisted with communication of research results.

ONTARIO SOIL AND CROP IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

Northern Leaf Blight was the most common leaf disease in Canada in 2011.

All photos courtesy of Albert Tenuta, OMAFRA

Top three things growers should know about corn pests and diseases Know what’s out there. Having an understanding of what the diseases and pest insects are out there can help breeders ensure the best genetics are available to reduce potential losses.

Every field is different. Every field is unique and should be dealt with on an individual basis; there is no single method that will work across all corn acres.

Anticipate change. What might work this year may not work the next. Consider the long-range weather forecasts but also know your field histories to make sure you act accordingly when it comes to variety selection, residue management, crop rotation, seed treatment and crop protection.

Gray Leaf Spot has become epidemic in southern Ontario as the predominant leaf disease in many fields.

Goss’s Wilt continues to spread in the U.S., but has not yet been found in Ontario.

Mission: Facilitate responsible economic management of soil, water, air and crops through development and communication of innovative farming practices

www.ontariosoilcrop.org/default.htm

Cornguide

#PestPatrol with Mike Cowbrough, OMAFRA

Seed-placed starter delivers

Ontario research shows that wheat starter delivers an average 7.5 more bushels. Add in better winter survival and a more uniform stand... and you have an agronomic no-brainer Prepared by Field Crop Unit, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

S

tooped over a seed trench late at night, squinting through the beam of a flashlight at dark-grey soil, Alan McCallum still doesn’t doubt how worthwhile starter fertilizer is for a wheat crop.

In fact, McCallum figures if he doesn’t see grey fertilizer in the seed trench, it’s worth putting the brakes on winter wheat seeding no matter how ominous the forecast or how late in the fall it is. In his mind, starter fertilizer is that important. McCallum is a crop consultant in Elgin County and recommends starter to all his clients, including when he helps his brothers plant winter wheat.

“One of the main problems we’ve had with starter fertilizer also ends up being the best way to prove to ourselves that it’s worthwhile,” says McCallum. “When the primary fertilizer hose on the air drill gets plugged, it’s not hard to tell where it happened come spring. You see a marked difference in the maturity of the wheat.”

18

Some of the plot work McCallum and his brothers did a few years ago showed a yield response of up to 19 bushels per acre on lower-testing clay soils. On old pasture ground, where you tend to have lower background phosphorus levels, the yield response can be even greater.

That’s what Ontario cereal specialist Peter Johnson sees too. “Seed-placed starter fertilizer, on average, can produce a 7.5-bushel yield increase,” Johnson says.

Johnson always tries to put in a test strip without starter in his trials. In the spring of 2011, winter wheat planted the previous fall with no starter fertilizer would have been ripped up because of poor winter survival. “In the rest of the field, the stand with starter fertilizer was essentially perfect,” he says. “Starter fertilizer increases winter survival and crop uniformity.”

At a wheat price of $7 per bushel and phosphorus at $800 tonne, the payback is obvious, says Johnson. The economics of adding starter are better in this environment than when phosphorus was $600 and wheat was $4 per bushel.

Liquid versus MAP Johnson has done experiments with liquid fertilizer. He put down boards over rows of wheat and found that if you’re only applying 2.5 gallons per acre of liquid fertilizer, you might as well save your money. “The problem is that with that low a rate, you’re getting a drop here and drop there, so there’s a whole bunch of seed going down with no phosphorus,” says Johnson. “Maybe if we had more even distribution it would make a difference. When we go from five gallons Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

to 10, well five gallons is OK and 10 gallons does a pretty nice job.”

Liquid fertilizer is good and convenient, but expensive. If you’re set up for liquid starter fertilizer already, Johnson suggests trying five gallons of fertilizer with five gallons of water to reduce costs but maintain good distribution.

Adding sulphur and zinc to phosphorus in a starter fertilizer, such as through the MESZ product, doesn’t do much on winter wheat, says Johnson. He says sulphur appears to disappear over the winter.

If you’re set up for dry starter fertilizer delivery, Johnson says 50 pounds of MAP is good, but 100 pounds, of course, is better. When looking at rates it depends on your equipment capability.

McCallum and his brothers have been using the same mix for years — basically 9-43-10 blend comprised of 83 per cent MAP and 17 per cent potash. “There’s nothing magic about that at all, but we feel a little potash in the trench isn’t a bad idea,” McCallum says. “It’s a source of potassium early on and a little bit of that chloride may give us some disease protection. The downside to including potash in the blend is that it’s a salt and a bit more corrosive on our equipment.”

Johnson says that based on just two years of data, potash on wheat is less important than on corn and soybeans.

But he says don’t drop potash to zero.

Equipment Challenges Starter pays. No question. But anyone who hasn’t invested in an air cart in the past 10 years will tell you feeding wheat at planting isn’t the easiest job.

“When they first built seed drills every drill had a fertilizer box on it,” says Johnson. “We realized how efficient it was to put starter with seed rather than broadcasting it all over the place.”

But by 1998, fewer than 10 per cent of growers had fertilizer capability on the drill. “Everybody wanted big and fast and convenient,” says Johnson. “The ability to do it fast mattered more than the ability to do it right.”

Growers also got away from starter because it’s hard on equipment. For all kinds of reasons, an air cart is the simple answer. Newer air carts have a split box with a compartment for seed and another for fertilizer. Most are made of plastic now, which doesn’t rust. Air carts allow blending of fertilizer at a reasonable amount — 100 pounds of MAP with wheat seed for excellent response.

Corn Guide, September 17, 2012

If you don’t have an air cart and just a single box drill, you can blend the phosphorus and seed while augering everything into the box. It’s harder to be accurate with rates using this method.

“It works but it’s a pain,” says Johnson.

“The easy answer is buy yourself an air unit and mount it on the drill. It costs a little more than a liquid kit but you’ll pay less for fertilizer and it will last just as long. It’s a simple way to get back in the game and not rust the drill out.”

McCallum and his brothers run dry starter fertilizer through a John Deere 1850 air seeder with a commodity cart towed behind. “It’s very standard, run-of-the-mill equipment,” says McCallum. “It’s plumbed so that material from the front tank and back tank can go into the same slot.”

How it works Starter fertilizer

S

tarter fertilizer convinces a wheat plant that it has enough nutrients to push out more til-

lers than it otherwise would. That’s important, because each tiller can produce a head and more grain.

Phosphorus is the main reason wheat responds to starter fertilizer.

It’s critical to wheat metabolism for photosynthesis and respiration.

If there is plenty of phosphorus nutrition, the wheat thinks it has a high yield potential and pushes out

The most common frustration running starter fertilizer through an air cart is plugged tubes. “Fertilizer quality is very important,” says McCallum. “The less fines the better. When we get into metering rolls, a little chunk of fertilizer fines can wreak havoc.”

Blockage monitors on an air seeder will howl if one tube is completely blocked. But with McCallum’s setup, because it’s just a blockage sensor and he’s running two different products through the tube, one primary tube might be blocked at the metering roll but seed is flowing through fine.

“If we’re blocked in one primary outlet that’s a sixth of the drill width,” he says. “If you aren’t checking it you won’t notice any problems. We have to stop every so often and make sure a mix of seed and fertilizer is coming out at every row.”

McCallum and his brothers would like to get individual monitoring on each tank. That way they’d at least know they have material flowing through each of the primary hoses. CG

more tillers. Dave Hooker, field crop agronomist at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown campus, says tillers produce 50 per cent of wheat yield. “If wheat can maintain tiller numbers, then it can maintain yield potential as well,” Hooker says. “If the plant is short of phosphorus and it thinks it can’t maintain tillers, it will start to abort tillers in order to favour the main stem.”

Most yield-forming tillers are made in the fall. Some tillers will start to form before freeze-up but fail to develop, making it very important to use starter fertilizer if wheat is planted late.

Have a question you want answered?

Hashtag #PestPatrol on twitter.com to @cowbrough or email Mike at mike. cowbrough@ontario.ca.

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Because of you, Pioneer® brand seed is planted on twice as many farms and twice as many corn and soybean acres as any other seed brand in Canada. But we don’t take our leadership role for granted.

We take it personally.

We know serving growers is a privilege, not a job. We believe that leadership comes with a responsibility to work smarter and try harder. So we don’t stop at good enough. Or better than last year. And neither do you. That’s why together, we’re breaking barriers in yield, knowledge and success on your farm.

Because of you, Pioneer is here.

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