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Agronomy

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Many farmers celebrate the end of a long growing season with a well-earned sunny getaway. For very different reasons, Canadian cereal breeders also frequently head south, or at least ship their breeding material to foreign locales. The work carried out in international destinations allows them to develop new high-quality crop varieties in a timely manner.

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LIVING PROOF

There is growing interest among farmers on the use of biostimulants to boost crop yield and quality. But with curiosity comes skepticism, as limited data on their effectiveness is available. To dispel some of the mystery around these potentially powerful tools, we spoke with companies now developing biostimulants, researchers who aim to quantify their efficacy and farmers who have adopted them in crop management systems.

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BIOTECHNOLOGY LAUNCH PAD

“Is it really necessary to spray in all cases?” It’s a question posed by Brent Puchalski, a molecular plant pathologist. Up to 75 per cent of all fungicide application is either off target or worse, has no target, he warned.

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SPRAY TECH HITS THE SPOT

The smart agriculture and small plot crop research teams at Olds College of Agriculture and Technology have worked on an optical spot spraying project for the last three seasons. Carried out by the Olds College Centre for Innovation (OCCI), it aimed to assess the equipment and field performance of the WEED-IT Quadro system.

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FERTILIZER FEVER

What goes up must come down, unless it continues to go up. That about sums up the tale of fertilizer over the last two years. After all, it was only two years ago in Western Canada that urea sold at $400 per tonne.

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A DIRTY SHAME

On a drive from Brooks to Lethbridge in mid-May, retired provincial agronomy researcher Ross McKenzie was literally stopped in his tracks by dust clouds. Carried by high winds across drought-stricken fields, the dirt was so thick it obscured the road ahead. Disappointed, he snapped a few photos and posted them on Twitter with a desperate plea for rain. McKenzie isn’t alone in his observations. Across the province, but especially in southern Alberta, farmers have noticed the return of this agricultural scourge once thought resolved.

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PRESCRIPTION PICKUP

At the Olds College Smart Farm, we have concluded a two-year project trialing the suitability of satellite imagery to build in-crop variable rate (VR) prescriptions. The project assessed the software used to access normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) imagery captured by satellites. It built VR prescriptions based on the imagery and we then applied that prescription in the field. We identified multiple benefits that include product savings, increased field productivity, opportunities for increased water rates and quick turnaround times to produce prescriptions. Additionally, we noted a few key conclusions.

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CHEMISTRY AND BEYOND

In Western Canada, the threat of herbicide resistance has grown like a weed in recent years. Behind the United States and Australia, Canada has the third greatest number of unique herbicide-resistant weed biotypes. The number of weed species in this country that have developed resistance has grown steadily since the 1970s and stands at about 80. No new meaningful modes of action have been introduced since the 1980s, and the selection pressure that produces resistance is expected to continue.

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