Agronomist Notes

The last week brought mainly warmer weather with the soil temperature warming up 8 degrees to roughly 18 degrees Celsius on average. Soil temperatures have been hovering around 10 degrees for the last three weeks which has basically stalled crop progress and pushed us back a week. Crops are looking excellent and hanging on so far but we’re going to need rain within the next two weeks to avoid crop failures in our area. 

Thankfully, the frost damaged canola checks have ended and the total reseeded acres under my watch were 700 acres out of 7,000, so not too bad. From a low of -2.2 C last Monday morning to a high of 30 degrees C on Sunday, I don’t know which way is up anymore! Most producers have jumped at the chance to begin spraying the early wheat, barley and canola. I have a number of clients who finished up their wheat spraying today after five long days and have moved on to the canola. I’ve finished up 30,000 acres of weed scouting with another 5,000 to go. Guess I might as well head to Regina for a couple of days to take in the Farm Progress show. I hope to see some of you there.

This week’s issue is full of observations from my field scouting over the last two weeks. First we’ll look at low draft openers and how we could correct the problem of throwing canola seeds outside of the furrow. Next, we’ll look at what spring tillage does to wild oats and then canola emergence in fields harvested with conventional combines vs. rotary combines. I’ve included a list of concerns when spraying during hot weather and because I have no idea what this weather will do, I’ve also included information on spraying during cool weather, just to cover all the bases. We’ll finish off with a Carbon Market update from Bruce Love and Market News. Have a great week!

Agronomy

Crop Staging Area (Calgary to Drumheller to Three Hills) as of June 16th.

Seeded	April 23-31	May 1-7	May 8-15
Wheat	5 leaf, 2 tiller	4 leaf, 1 tiller	early 4 leaf, 1 tiller
Canola	7 leaf	6 leaf	4 leaf
Barley	5 leaf, 2 tiller	4 leaf, 2 tiller	3 leaf, 1 tiller
Peas	10th node	8th node	6th node

This Week in Scouting

• Be cautious with your herbicide applications. Watch for hot daytime temperatures and dry soil conditions. Heat and drought stress reduces herbicide uptake.
• Some producers may have jumped the gun and sprayed for flea beetles in canola. Flea beetle pressure is highest on headlands and is rarely an issue across the whole field and rarely after the 2 to 3 leaf stage. 
• Watch for cloudy weather when spraying Liberty this week. Cloudy weather reduces performance.  
• Be diligent in your post spraying herbicide checks. I’m a little nervous with performance issues given the hot, dry, cold, frozen, stressful conditions we’ve experienced so far.
• Be sure to do a thorough post herbicide check in the fields you sprayed with Odyssey. Odyssey does not perform well under cool conditions and most of the peas and early Clearfield canola was sprayed under cool, frosty conditions.

Low draft openers pose a problem in canola

With 7,000 acres of canola scouted so far, I’ve seen a common issue with some low draft, paired row openers. The issue is seed blowing outside of the furrow into dry unpacked soil, even though fan speed was turned way down or the air was baffled significantly. The end result is a high degree of seed depth variability and emergence patterns. Some seeds are just germinating now after recent rains though they’ve been in the ground 30 days.

Interestingly enough, I don’t see the same issue with cereals blowing outside of the furrow into dry unpacked soil. I believe there is more force or pressure on either side of the openers when you’re down at one inch, compared to canola at ½ an inch. Canola seeded at ½ an inch comes out of the opener and finds very little resistance along the side of the paired row, so it easily blows outside of the furrow. This problem is common to most double shoot openers but I think there may be a way to fix this with low draft types. The solution is a little unorthodox, but after two years of testing on both Dutch and AdamJet 1 ½ inch sideband openers, I think it’s possible with the paired row.

For the past two years, my client and I agreed to do the opposite of manufacturer recommendations by side banding the fertilizer and placing the seed down the middle. This seemed little unorthodox but it made sense to us. We felt we would have a greater chance of placing all the seeds inside of the furrow underneath the packer if we sent the seed down the fertilizer tube vs. side banding the seed where they would have the opportunity to shoot outside of the furrow in to dry, variable, unpacked soil. Our plant stand densities and crop emergence tell the tale and we had excellent emergence in 2008 when it was wet and 2009 when it was dry.

I believe we could use the same technique with a paired row low draft opener like the GEN 300 or the Dutch low draft. Placing the seed down the middle and the fertilizer through the paired row would eliminate the seed blowing outside of the furrow and provide a more even pack across the furrow. You would still place 20% to 30% of your fertilizer blend with the seed and send the rest out the paired row. This is an unproven theory on the wider low draft openers and you would lose seedbed utilization because your seed spread would narrow in but I think we’re on to something here. Food for thought. SL

Spring tillage triggers wild oat germination

This past spring I had a client run into some trouble on wet clay ground with his JD 1870. His packers plugged with mud after a rain and the only way to finish the last 40 acres of the field was to lift the fertilizer knife, which forced him to seed very shallow. There were seeds laying on the surface and some at ¼ inch which was too risky to leave. It was decided that a pass with the heavy harrow was necessary after seeding to bury the seeds as best he could. After further investigation, this was the right call to make and the emergence in this area was excellent considering the circumstances.

I’ve been managing the agronomy on this field for four years and know it very well. There were two small wild oat patches on the west side and south end of this field that might have added up to five acres total. That is until this year! After my initial crop staging and weed check last week, I noticed a significant amount of wild oats across a large area of this field, an area five times larger than what I normally find.

What’s interesting is that we only did one thing differently this year and that was a pass with the heavy harrow after seeding. I believe the light tillage triggered the germination of wild oats that had been lying dormant in this direct seeding system for years until we decided to wake them from their slumber. Makes you think about what tillage does to wild oats doesn’t it? Do you have a wild oat problem? Do you harrow your fields in the spring? Think about it. SL

Conventional combines may provide a better home for emerging canola

I’m seeing a consistent pattern of poor canola emergence in areas where rotary combines have left a mat of well chopped, four inch long residue. Nicely spread, four inch long residue was thought to be a good thing, right? The fields that were harvested with conventional combines leave longer, fluffier residue lying on the ground. The conventional combines might leave a straw layer five inches thick compared to the rotary but if you peel back the straw, you’ll notice canola plants lying beneath, waiting to poke their heads through the straw. On the other hand, the fields with rotary combined straw had serious emergence issues because they didn’t have the energy to push through the thick, heavy mat of straw left on the surface.

Another interesting observation was the increased frost damage in fields that where the stubble was cut short, down to 4 inches or less. This year, if you had tall, standing stubble, this left a warm micro climate, which kept the soil warm enough to stave off the frost. Those who seeded into the shortest stubble received the most frost damage of the fields I’ve seen to date. Now, there’s always a situation where the exact opposite happens but I’ve seen more frost damage on short stubble and rotary combined residue than those with conventional combined residue and stubble standing 8 inches or taller.

I have one more comment on residue that concerns me and that is the straw piles caused by stopping the combine while mid- swath. The mat of straw and chaff that piles up sure restricts crop emergence the following year. I know there could be countless reasons for stopping on the spot but a simple solution would be to turn out of the swath to allow the residue to continue spreading across the width over a larger area instead of one spot. SL

 

Herbicides and hot weather

Hot weather can cause some herbicides to become "hotter" and increase the risk of crop injury. Other herbicides act the opposite and give better control under cool conditions. The same is true for weeds. Some herbicides are more active and show symptoms quicker in hot temperatures than in cool temperatures. To know how herbicides act on both weeds and crops in extreme weather conditions can be confusing and difficult to remember.

Hot weather may reduce weed control. Plants develop a thicker cuticle in hot weather as a way to reduce water loss. A thicker cuticle acts as an additional barrier and can decrease herbicide penetration. Prolonged hot weather and low soil moisture can cause plants to become drought stressed, resulting in reduced metabolic activity and reducing systemic herbicide translocation and effects in the plant. Most post emergence herbicides require weeds to be "actively growing" for maximum control. If weeds are stressed from a number of environmental or cultural factors, control may be reduced. Herbicide application can be very effective on weeds of soil moisture is adequate. If soil moisture is depleted weed control may be reduced.

The following are general "Rules of Thumb" for weed and crop response:

1. Contact herbicides are more phytotoxic on weeds and crop under hot temperatures. Examples of contact herbicides are Buctril M, Benchmark and Thumper. 
2. Systemic grass control herbicides in small grains are less phytotoxic on both weeds and small grains in hot weather. Meaning, they don’t work as well. However, crop injury may occur in moisture stress.
3. Systemic herbicides, as most are may be less effective on weeds stressed form drought or other factors.
4. Crops and weeds are MORE prone to herbicide injury when actively growing and free from stress. Crops under stress from hot and dry conditions may be less prone to injury from most herbicide.
5. Weeds may be stressed for moisture before the crop because of the shallow root system of weeds compared to the crop. Poor weed control may result under these conditions.
6. In determining cause of crop injury, remember that oil concentrates (COC's) can be phytotoxic with post emergence herbicides and oil concentrates are excellent tank cleaners for sulfonylurea (SU) herbicides. The oil can cause SU herbicides from previous applications that have been absorbed onto the plastic matrix of spray tends to go into solution and cause serious crop injury when applying POST to a susceptible crop. Even herbicides applied many tank loads before can be solubilized with oil concentrates.

The following list is a summary of herbicide response in hot weather:

Assert

• Weed Response: More active on both wild oat and wild mustard, and wild buckwheat.
• Crop Response: Good small grain safety. Extreme risk of sunflower injury. Use lower rates on sunflower.

Buctril M, Thumper, Benchmark, Infinity

• Weed Response: Greater broadleaf weed control.
• Crop Response: Good small grain safety.

2,4-D, Banvel, Curtail M, Target, Frontline 2,4-D

• Weed Response: More active on broadleaf weeds.
• Crop Response: Slight increase for risk of crop injury.

Grass Herbicides (Achieve Liquid, Axial, Puma, Horizon, Centurion, Poast Ultra) + Sulfonylureas: (Ally, Sundance, Harmony K, Refine SG, Triton C) and Pursuit

• Weed Response: Greater weed control under good soil moisture conditions. Reduced control when weeds are drought or heat stressed.
• Crop Response: Normally good crop safety.

Source: Richard K. Zollinger, NDSU Extension Weed Scientist

Spraying after cold or frosty conditions

Some pointers for getting the best results when spraying under cold conditions such as we’ve experienced recently:

• After a frost (0C to -3C) please wait for at least 72 hours of good growing weather before applying herbicides. ( minimum day time temperatures following the frost must be at least 18C with overnight lows no lower than 3C)
• Overnight temperatures of +1C please wait at least 48 hours of good growing weather before applying herbicides
• Overnight temperatures of +2C please wait at least 24 to 48 hours of good growing weather before applying herbicides
• Overnight temperatures of +3C wait till temperatures warm up to at least 10C that day before you start spraying.

Source: Darren Hamp, Bayer Crop Science

Carbon Market News

Canada’s proposed offset system for greenhouse gases

June 15, 2009- Canada’s Federal Minister for the Environment (Minister), Jim Prentice, announced last Wednesday (June 10, 2009) the release of two (2) discussion documents describing Canada’s proposed Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Offset System to start in 2011 including: 1) Program Rules and Guidance for Project Proponents and 2) Program Rules for Verification and Guidance for Verification Bodies. Both of these documents are available at http://ec.gc.ca/creditscompensatoires-offsets/default.asp?lang=En&n=0DCC4917-1. There is a 60 day comment period on the proposed GHG offset system and the Federal Government expects to release the final offset rules by year end. Like all matters relating to the environment these days from the Federal Government, the proviso “Comments on this overview of the Offset System are welcome, and will be considered as the program rules are finalized. Developments in the United States will also be monitored and considered as the program rules are finalized, so as to not disadvantage Canadian Project Proponents.” In other words, Canada likely will only move on the proposed offset system if the US moves ahead with theirs and at the same standard. The proposed offset system represents only one part of the overall Federal system to reduce GHGs to be implemented using the Environmental Protection Act of 1999. We are still waiting the rest of the plan which includes among other things: the regulations for Large Final Emitters (LFEs) which will define demand for offsets, the rules outlining the likely creation of a technology fund which will impact offset prices, and integration of the proposed offset system with both existing provincial and foreign offset systems.

The proposed Federal Offset System has considerable detail in the discussion documents, but some of the more interesting features to us included:

• The offset system applies to GHG reductions from activities and sectors not covered by the to-be-announced GHG regulations. In similar GHG reduction schemes including proposed US legislation, this typically includes agriculture as an unregulated sector.
• Similar to the Alberta system, with the exception of start date and the treatment of carbon sinks (includes tillage and forestry), for offsets to be eligible they must be within the offset system, not required by law or business as usual, be real, incremental, quantifiable, verifiable and unique, and occur in Canada. Projects must have started after January 1, 2006, but only offsets created from January 1, 2011 will be counted. Tillage offsets are subject to a 25 year liability period after the last tillage offset was created to account for potential reversals, or tillage. This would require the aggregator to file an annual compliance statement with the Minister confirming that reversals did not occur for up to 25 years. If a reversal did occur, then the offset would have to be replaced. To avoid the credit risk (bankruptcy or insolvency) of the aggregator or firm creating the tillage offset, a discount factor for the tillage offset is applied and banked for this event.
• The offset credit creation process requires the project proponent (project developer or aggregator) to follow an approved (by the Minister) protocol, register the project, implement the project according to the protocol being used, report the GHG reduction with an accompanying verification statement at a reasonable level of assurance (Alberta uses a lower standard called review level assurance), and finally if all the criteria are met the Minister will issue certified offset credits that are good-for-compliance. The Alberta system stops at verification and places the risk of acceptance of the offsets as compliance worthy with the LFE.

As we can see, the proposed Federal offset system does set a higher standard for GHG offsets than what currently exists in Alberta today. Also, with a much later start date for counting projects, January 1, 2011, the potential offset supply is reduced significantly. Without the rest of the Federal policy it is very difficult if not impossible to forecast GHG offset prices without knowing demand. However, if Canada is obliged to follow comparable GHG reductions to those proposed in the US, the demand for offsets will be significant. Even if Canada follows its current plan of reducing its emissions by 20% from 2006 levels by 2020, which is less than the target proposed by the US, it will need every offset it can get its hands on. Therefore, we think that the Federal Government set the bar high in the proposed offset system with a view to lowering it significantly to match the US and placate domestic interests. We stick by our earlier comments that the US is the only relevant influence on Canada’s GHG reduction policy. Recall that the Federal Government has backed out of its announced GHG reduction plans at least three (3) times so far, so it’s hard to take the announced proposed offset system seriously in its current form.

Alberta GHG offset market update

Currently there is not much activity for Alberta based good-for-compliance offsets, however many LFEs are prepared to act on offers. We are seeing the range of price interest from approximately $10 to $12.50 per tonne depending on counterparty and quality. With an 8% cost of carry, this translates into values of $10.60 to $13.25 per tonne next March when the 2009 true up period ends. Also, the number of GHG projects being developed appears to be declining leading us to expect fewer available offsets in the future. However, it is still early and most project tonnage does not usually show up until the end of the year.

The key question about Alberta offset price levels this year will depend on the outcome of the proposed Federal GHG offset system and whether the Alberta compliance system adopts higher prices for Tech Fund access. Since it is unlikely that the Federal GHG offset system will place hard caps on prices, Alberta based projects that would also qualify in a Federal system may be held for that market and short the Alberta market. Also, it becomes difficult for the Alberta Government to support 100% access to the Tech Fund if the Federal Government doesn’t and the US has no similar fund in its legislation.

Reference: Bruce Love, Preferred Carbon
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author only and are not intended to represent financial advice.

Market News

Fundamental Analysis

Technical Indicators

I have set up these weekly updates to include market entry indicators to help you improve the timing of your grain marketing. Also, I added market trend indicators to give you a sense of the short and long term market trends.

Canola – November Futures
Insert chart
Wheat – December Futures
Insert chart
Barley – October Futures
Insert chart
Canadian Dollar – September Futures
Insert chart

International Crop Weather News

United States: In the West, warm, unfavorably dry weather in Washington contrasts with below normal temperatures elsewhere. Unseasonably heavy showers continue across the northern portions of the Rockies and Intermountain West. On the Plains, hot weather continues across southern areas, while favorably warmer conditions are developing along the Canadian border. Meanwhile, locally heavy showers and thunderstorms are boosting soil moisture on the central and southern Plains. In the Corn Belt, a few showers are arriving across the southern and western fringe of the region, but cool, dry conditions in most areas favor late-season planting efforts. However, crop development remains sluggish, especially across the northern Corn Belt.

Europe: Widespread, locally heavy rain over much of Europe maintains favorable soil moisture for reproductive to filling winter crops. The moisture is also beneficial for vegetative corn, sunflowers, and sugarbeets. Topsoils remain unfavorably dry for filling winter crops in Hungary and the southern Balkans.

Former Soviet Union: In Ukraine, widespread showers in the west favor vegetative spring-sown crops and reproductive winter wheat, while a drying trend continues in the south and east, reducing soil moisture for crop development. Showers in western Russia maintain adequate moisture for winter grains and spring-sown crops. In Kazakhstan, light showers cause only brief interruptions in spring grain planting.

Southeast Asia: Torrential monsoon showers in the northern Philippines cause localized damage to rice and corn.

East Asia: Dry weather favors winter wheat harvesting on the North China Plain. In Manchuria, showers in Heilongjiang improve topsoil moisture for emerging corn and soybeans, although more rain is needed in western Jilin and Liaoning.

South Asia: Monsoon showers across southern and eastern India provide moisture for summer crop planting.

Middle East: Showers in Turkey slow winter wheat maturation and harvesting.

North Africa: Showers and thunderstorms hamper winter grain maturation and harvesting.

Australia: Widespread rain brings more short-term drought relief to much of the Australia wheat belt, aiding early winter grain development and helping to condition topsoils in advance of additional planting.

South America: Drier weather favors winter grain planting in Argentina, following last week’s rain, although many areas still need additional moisture for establishment. Cool, generally drier weather slows winter grain development in the main production areas of southern Brazil. Freezing temperatures are recorded as far north as central Parana, south of the main coffee and citrus areas.

Western Canada: Unseasonable cold slows spring crop growth and raises concern for damage to emerged canola.

Mexico: Rain favours winter sorghum in the northeast, while showers benefit emerging corn in the southeast.

Source: USDA