August 15, 2011

Agronomist Notes

The last seven days have been uneventful for pest patrol, thankfully. Lygus bug pressure continues to be heavy towards Calgary but very light everywhere east of Calgary. Wheat and barley seeded the first week of May are now two to three weeks away from harvest and early May seeded canola roughly a week to ten days away from being swathed. Pea crop maturity is all over the map; some will be ready for pre-harvest by the end of the week.

This week I give you some quick facts on lygus bugs to help you chose whether to spray insecticide or not. Next, we look at the top ten things you should really know when storing grain in bags. We’ll also discuss the use of strip tillage and how it may fit into our cropping system. We’ll end with fundamental and technical grain market news.

Seeded	May 1-7	May 8-15	May 16-21	May 22-29
Wheat	medium dough	soft dough	milky dough	early milk
Canola	10 to swathing	14 to swathing	21 to swathing	end of flower
Barley	medium dough	soft dough	milky dough	early milk
Peas	finished	late podding	mid podding	early pod

Continue sweeping for lygus bugs in canola. See lygus staging article below.
If you plan to straight cut canola, watch fields as they come out of bloom to give you an idea of which fields are the most even and best for straight cutting.
Start watching for signs of prematurely ripened areas in wheat (take-all) and canola (sclerotinia).
Take note of fields with wild oat escapes and plan a fall Avadex application or spring Prepare application.
Check fields for late weeds flushes. Some might be good candidates for pre-harvest glyphosate.

Agronomy

Lygus bugs development

Producers with lygus bugs nearing threshold levels are likely trying to decide whether their canola is still at risk or whether it’s far enough advanced so lygus bugs are no longer a concern. Currently, I’m seeing two adults and about four 3rd instar bugs per sweep near Balzac. However, the fields are eight days post-flower so I know that the by the time the lygus population is mature, the canola will be too and consequently, out of the damage window. With that, I’ve provided some quick facts on how to determine lygus bug growth stages and the length of time each growth stage occurs so you can plan accordingly if necessary.

The threshold of 4 to 5 lygus per sweep that I use is based on 4 to 5 4th instar and adults per sweep. Usually after sweeping the net will be have a range of lygus ages, from 1st instar to adult so it can be difficult to determine when the threshold will be reached. Lygus bugs begin to cause damage at the 4th instar and into adulthood. It takes 3-4 days for lygus bugs to move from one instar to the next; there are 5 instar stages, the last being adulthood. Therefore, it would take 12-16 days for a lygus to move from 1st instar to the 4th instar. Once the 4th instar is reached, it takes 4-5 days to reach the adult stage.

The photo above shows lygus bugs at 1st instar on the right, 2nd instar to the bottom left and a 4th instar on the top left, the 4th instar. The diagram below shows all growth stages; top left, 32, shows the 1st instar, 33 is 2nd instar, 34 is 3rd instar and 35 is the 4th instar where they begin to cause damage. The 5th instar is number 36 and also the adult stage.

Lygus bugs prefer to feed on young, developing pods which are only present up to 14 days after flowering before becoming hard or leathery. My recommendation is to monitor lygus bugs until you find more than 4 to 5 per sweep of the 4th instar and older within two weeks from the end of flowering and then pull the trigger on control measures. Recognizing instars will help you determine well in advance whether lygus bugs will be an issue within two weeks after flowering and to monitor accordingly.

Photo source: AAFC, Lethbridge, IPM Lab
Reference and figure source: Schwartz MD, Foottit RG & Canada. Agriculture Canada. Research Branch. (1992) Lygus bugs on the prairies: biology, systematics, and distribution / Michael D. Schwartz and Robert G. Foottit
Technical bulletin (Canada. Agriculture Canada. Research Branch); 92-4. Research Branch Agriculture Canada, Ottawa.

Grain bag storage: Top 10 things they don’t tell you in the manual

The use of grain bags for temporary storage has grown dramatically over the last few years. Producers have chosen grain bags for the simple benefits of loading B-train’s (45T) in under 20 minutes, no bin bottoms to clean up, virtually no shoveling, few insect problems and the ability to store tough grain for long periods of time compared to upright storage. All these benefits can be realized for a $35,000 investment to purchase a bagger and an additional $30,000 to own an un-loader. After that, storage costs run roughly six to seven cents a bushel. All this sounds wonderful but what grain bags don’t come with is a “what not to do” manual to help avoid the mishaps you often hear about. Oh, deer!

I had a chat with a seasoned grain bag veteran who’s lived through long storage periods thanks to the CWB, and gone through one of the toughest winters and springs we’ve experienced in over a decade. He’s paid his tuition to learn the little nuances of grain bag storage and is now better for it. With that, here are the top ten things you should know before you cover a single kernel of grain with a plastic bag:

Do not load grain bags down slope; a slight incline to flat is best to fill bags properly. Also, be sure to keep them straight!
Do not place grain bags on grass or pastures because mice and other rodents tend to hang out in undisturbed sites and will tear open bags. Same applies for coulee banks or areas where wildlife likes to congregate during the winter. A grain bag should not be a winter playground for deer.
Do not place grain bags side by side. Place them one in front of the other down the field to speed up unloading and alleviate snow drifts.
You can store tough grain but not wet grain. If you store grain higher than 20% moisture over winter you will turn that wet grain into a 10 x 250 ft frozen sausage that’s impossible to unload or sell at the local farmer’s market.
Do not plow snow around the bags until you’re ready to unload them, unless you’ve got wildlife running on top of them. Plowed snow sets up like concrete around the grain bag making it impossible to clear snow a second time without tearing the sides of the bag.
Clean up grain spills around the bag to avoid attracting deer and rodents. A little bit of spilled grain can turn a grain bag into a feed bunk for Bambi.
Some producers have found success spreading bone meal around the entire bag when deer have broken into the bags. Wooden pallets placed at the ends of the bag work like a cattle guard and discourage feeding.
Make sure the tractor is in neutral when loading a bag to avoid overfilling and splitting. Let the bag push the tractor.
Try to get the bags unloaded before the end of winter. There could be holes in the bottom of the bag from stubble or rodents and while this isn’t a big deal when the snow is frozen, once it starts to melt there will be a river running through the inside of the bag.
Place bags in a north/south direction but understand that snow drifts are just something you have to manage.

The best way to discover the ins and outs of grain bags is to talk to the local rep who sells them and talk to farmers who’ve used them for a few years. Grain bags are a great storage alternative but they’re not without risk and many a farmer has learned how not to store grain in bags the hard way. Don’t be that guy and make a few phone calls first. SL

Thanks to Jason James, of Drumheller, AB, for passing along his insider secrets on grain bags.

Strip till has a future on our farm

When I dream about the future of canola seeding on our farm, I think of row crop planters on 18-inch row spacing in a two pass system with seed singulation. The use of row crop planters for canola moves us into a two pass system to apply seed and fertilizer, which I’m not opposed to. With RTK guidance and inter-row capabilities I think that strip till banding of fertilizer in the fall is the best option. I can picture us strip till banding fertilizer down 10 inches and seeding canola into that residue free, warm black soil band in the spring. Even in controlled traffic, creating a 10 inch deep channel for roots to grow is beneficial as I’ve seen in the UK with canola growers there. Also, placing nutrients down deep where moisture is rarely limiting at the end of the growing season can help plants access nutrients that are normally stranded during grain fill.