SO EFFICIENT IT’S TASTELESS
DIY RESEARCH
Beef producers warned not all growth promoters are equal » PaGe 53
Farmers can find out for themselves » PaGe 18
SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 70, No. 12 | $1.75 March 22, 2012 manitobacooperator.ca
Farmers want an exemption No fertilizer until April 10 unless … By Allan Dawson co-operator staff
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warm, dry spring has the Manitoba government reconsidering its new nutrient application rules that prevent fertilizer applications before April 10, a provincial official said March 15. “If the warm weather conditions continue and soils across the province are fully thawed, then the department ( C o n s e r v a t i o n a n d Wa t e r Stewardship) will consider a blanket variation for all producers,” an official said in an email. Keystone Agricultural Producers’ (KAP) president Doug Chorney requested an emergency meeting March 19
Too soon to give up on winter wheat The mild, South Dakota-style winter may have compensated for the lack of snow cover By Daniel Winters co-operator staff / Brandon
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See FERTILIZER on page 6 »
Dale Hicks shows a browned-off winter wheat plant picked from his farm at a workshop organized by Manitoba Winter Cereals Inc. last week. photo: Daniel Winters
h e Pra i r i e w i n t e r wheat crop may have been left looking a bit worse for wear due to unusually low snowfall cover, but there’s still life lurking below those browned-off stalks. That’s because it takes m o re t h a n j u s t a t a p on the head to kill winter wheat, said Outlook, Sask.-area farmer Dale Hicks, who is also chair of the Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission. “There’s going to be damage on headlands and hilltops, but not going to experience wall-to-wall death. That’s impossible,” said Hicks, on the sidelines of last week’s workshop hosted by Manitoba Winter Cereals Inc. It takes at least 30 skullshattering whacks, or more accurately, incidents of severe frost, to push the crown tissue over the “line of death.”
Even without good snow cover, Hicks pegs the number of “damage events” on the Prairie crop’s Winter Survival Model at only five so far this winter during cold snaps in January and February. “We had a winter more like South Dakota, where they grow lots of winter wheat without snow,” said Hicks. Driving by at 100 km/h, a field of orange tops flat on the ground might look ripe for spraying out and reseeding. But when attempting to determine if a winter wheat crop is a writeoff or not, he urged farmers to pull up some plants and look for the telltale white to greenish-yellow “thread of life” at the base of the stalk. Black and mushy roots are a sure sign of death. But if it’s mainly white inside with a little brown around the edges, that means the plant has suffered limited injury from frost-induced dehydration – freezer burn. Even so, the end result might be a respectable crop, See WINTER WHEAT on page 6 »
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