Agronomist Notes

We’re now at the end of spraying with crop stages progressing quickly, but not for good reason. With roughly one inch of accumulated rainfall across the territory in the last two months, even the crops that had a great start are showing signs of drought stress. Bottom leaves have started to senesce and canopies are no longer closing in. As crops enter a period of peak water demand, significant rains needs to happen within the next week or two or yield potential will drop dramatically. On a positive note, harvest efficiencies will increase dramatically this fall and we won’t have to deal with residue issues next spring.

There has been talk of fertilizer prices softening over the summer with some companies quoting $360 a tonne for urea, $600 a tonne for NH3 and $450 a tonne for phosphate for immediate delivery. Some producers have chosen to purchase next year’s needs and store it in the off chance that prices go higher. With today’s interest rates and these prices, purchasing fertilizer four months sooner than you normally would is good business. A standard 80-30-0-0 blend today would cost you $37.93 an acre, which is 56% less than what many paid this year!

In this week’s issue we’ll look at drought stress and possible fungicide trials that improve water use efficiency in cereals. I’ll briefly discuss our current yield potential to help with grain marketing and future crop input decisions. Also, I’ll give you an example of how post herbicide spray checks pay dividends. Next, we’ll look at factors promoting leaf diseases, how to decide when to spray a fungicide, which leaves to protect and how to predict flag leaf emergence to better time the application. Next, we’ll discuss bloom staging in canola, cabbage seedpod weevils and canola insect thresholds. Bruce Love of Preferred Carbon has an update on the carbon market and we’ll finish with Market News. Have a great week. SL

Agronomy

Crop Staging Area (Calgary to Drumheller to Three Hills) as of June 29th, 2009

Seeded	April 23-31	May 1-7	May 8-15
Wheat	flag leaf	boot stage	6 leaf, 1 tiller
Canola	bolting	bud stage	7 leaf
Barley	head emerging	flag leaf	6 leaf, 3 tiller
Peas	early-flower	12th node	10th node

This Week in Scouting

• Avoid spraying herbicides with 2,4-D or dicamba to reduce plant stress.
• Begin sweeping for cabbage seedpod weevils, especially on fields that bloom first.
• Continue important post herbicide efficacy checks. There have been some second flushes of volunteer canola, cleavers and green foxtail.
• Begin scouting for disease in cereal crops. The risk of any infection is low but still possible. I have found some tan spot in wheat, net blotch in malt barley and a mild case of barley yellow dwarf virus. Nothing worth spraying but definitely worth monitoring.

Early planted wheat showing signs of drought stress

Late last week, early planted wheat started to show signs of drought stress as bottom leaves began to yellow off and begin to drop. The picture on the right I took yesterday near Three Hills shows wheat that’s no more than 12 inches tall with heads emerging. With peak water demand occurring at head emergence, crops in many areas are in dire need of moisture to maintain yield potential. 
If you’re in the mood for another farm trial, both BASF and Syngenta sell fungicides that promote health benefits aside from disease suppression. The health benefits include delayed leaf senescence and better water use efficiency. Delaying leaf drop allows the plant more time to produce carbohydrates and increase grain fill. The two products I would recommend trying are Quilt by Syngenta and Headline by BASF. Both products are in that eight dollar acre range and might be worth a try on a few acres. The optimum timing to help with delayed senescence is during head emergence. Food for thought. SL 

Yield potential going into July 2009

With very little precipitation to date, I thought I’d put together an estimate of yield potential based on soil types to help you with grain marketing and further crop protection decisions. For every inch of precipitation we receive from here on in, it will add roughly 4 bushels of canola, 6 bushels of wheat and 8 bushels of barley. These numbers should give you an idea of whether you’ll be able to fill your production contracts, start pricing grain or take a vacation until late August. SL 

Yield (bu/ac) by soil type barring any additional precipitation as of June 30.

Crop	Loam	Clay Loam	Clay
Wheat	18	20	19
Barley	24	27	26
Canola	12	13.5	13
Peas	12	13.5	13

Post herbicide efficacy checks pay dividends

The spotty showers over the last two weeks have brought on a new flush of weeds in some areas. Unfortunately, some fields will require a re-spray to control late germinating weeds. If you’ve had flushing cleavers, volunteer canola or annual sowthistle in the past, it might be a good idea to recheck your fields. The open crop canopy this year will give more than enough room for weeds to grow. 

During a routine post herbicide efficacy checks on a few wheat fields I noticed a huge amount of flushing cleavers coming on. Shown in the photo here, the cleavers were in the cotyledon stage and germinated two weeks after spraying the initial in crop treatment. The crop was 6 leaf, 2 tiller and needed to be re-sprayed. With the reduced canopy closure, the risk of adding significant amounts of cleavers to the seedbank was high. I decided to go in with an 80% rate of Frontline XL. Had we not checked herbicide efficacy these fields would have ended up a mess. Bottom line: Jump into your fields and have a good look; it could save you a lot of grief at harvest. SL

Factors promoting leaf disease development

1. Seeding wheat after wheat or barley after barley.
2. Abundance of over-wintered straw and stubble (result of zero- or min-tillage).
3. Above-normal levels of precipitation in early- and mid-season.
4. Lush, dense crop stands (elevates humidity within the canopy).
5. Production of varieties susceptible to leaf diseases.

For detailed information on crop diseases follow these links:

Diseases of Cereal Crops: http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/prm8707?opendocument
Diseases of Oilseed Crops: http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/prm8840?opendocument
Diseases of Field Peas: http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/prm7819?opendocument

Fungicide Decision Making

1. Does the crop show good yield potential?
2. Must the crop meet defined quality criteria (ie. plumpness, bushel weight)?
3. Does the crop show lush growth and a heavy canopy?
4. Is there moisture due to rainfall, dew or humidity?
5. Is there disease infection on the lower leaves?
6. Is there infection on the middle leaves?

If you’ve checked three or more questions off this list, a fungicide application is likely beneficial. Use the following link to help you choose registered fungicides.

Source: Penny Pearse, Saskatchewan Agriculture

Which Leaves Do You Protect From Disease?

In wheat, the flag leaf is the most important to protect as it is at the top of the canopy where it receives significant sunlight. The flag leaf does the bulk of the photosynthetic work for the wheat plant, and is responsible for 55% of the grain fill. In barley, the penultimate leaf (2nd leaf from the top) and the flag leaf are the most important leaves to protect. They are responsible for 80% of head fill.

Predicting flag leaf emergence for fungicide timing

Barley (2-row): When the third node is about half an inch above the ground; the penultimate leaf (one just below the flag) is visible, and the next leaf to appear is the flag. If only one node is visible, then it will be about 10-14 days till flag leaf; if two nodes are visible it will be about 5-7 days until the flag leaf is out.

Barley (6-row) and wheat: When the second node is half an inch above the ground, the penultimate is visible and the next leaf is the flag. If only 1 node is visible, the next leaf will be about 5-7 days. The flag leaf is usually the seventh or eighth leaf in cereals. In wheat, the flag leaf is large and contributes to 45% of the yield. The penultimate leaf contributes another 10%. In a barley crop, the flag leaf is smaller so the penultimate and flag together contribute 65% of the yield.

Source: Syngenta

Fungicide selector: http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/app23/pesticides/fungicides/getcrop.jsp

Bloom Staging in Canola

1. Count the open flowers on the main stem including the aborted flowers and newly formed pods.
2. It generally takes 2 to 4 days for the main stem to move from first flower to 10% bloom.
3. 10% bloom has 10 open flowers on the main stem.
4. 20% bloom has 14 to 16 flowers on the main stem.
5. 30% bloom has 20 flowers on the main stem. Six to eight days after the start of flowering.
6. 50% bloom has more than 20 flowers on the main stem.

Source and photo source: Canola Council of Canada

Cabbage Seedpod Weevil

The early seeded canola is now bolting and up to 5% bloom which is the time to begin monitoring for cabbage seedpod weevils. Seedpod weevils are attracted to fields that flower the earliest. The adult weevils are an ashy, charcoal gray colour approximately 3 mm long with a pronounced snout. The adults feed on buds, flowers, stems and pods. The adult weevils lay their eggs inside developing pods where the eggs hatch and larvae begin to feed on the seeds. Each larva can consume up to 5 seeds during its development, which can equate to a 15-20 % yield loss. The tiny exit holes left in the pods after the weevils emerge cause early shattering, and provide an entry point for disease.

The threshold for cabbage seedpod weevil is 2 to 3 weevils per sweep. The proper technique to sweep for weevils is to do ten 180-degree sweeps in four locations. Be sure to move away from the headlands and pick areas that are representative of the field. Weevils are typically higher in number along field edges. Sweeping should take place from bud stage through flowering. The best time to apply an insecticide is the 10-20% bloom stage if possible to avoid harming the beneficial insects in canola.

It is important not to spray too soon, as the weevil will typically continue to invade for at least a week to 10 days beyond the opening of the first flowers. The optimum time to spray for cabbage seedpod weevil is early flowering, or more specifically, when 70% of plants have 3-10 open flowers. Spraying at this stage will allow the weevils more time to move into the field, but it is still early enough to keep them from laying a significant number of eggs in newly forming pods while helping to protect beneficial insects, including pollinators, which have moved into the field. SL

For additional information and pictures:

Link: http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$Department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex2538

Reference: Canola Council of Canada
Photo: Adult cabbage seedpod weevil, Source: Canola Council of Canada

Canola Insect Thresholds

Beet Webworm: 2 per ft2
Bertha Armyworm: 2 per ft2
Cabbage Seedpod Weevil: 2 per sweep
Diamondback Moth: early flower: 10 to 15 larvae / square foot if bud feeding
Diamondback Moth: late flowering to pod ripening: 20 to 30 larvae / square foot if pod feeding
Lygus Bugs: 2 to 3 per sweep

For more information on identification and control of canola insect pests see http://www.canola-council.org/uploads/Canola%20Insect%20Thresholds%20Update%20Summer%202009.pdf.

Carbon Market News

Obama’s First Victory on US Climate Change Policy

June 29, 2009- President Obama won his first victory on climate change policy in the United States (US) when the House of Representatives passed the "America Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," sponsored by Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, last Friday. The Bill passed by a narrow and arguably well planned margin of 219 to 212 votes. While the final outcome of the Bill is still somewhat uncertain as it still has to clear the US Senate, it is well on its way to becoming law in the US and the guiding policy for Canada to follow.

The Bill, among other things, sets out mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions to 17% below 2005 levels by the year 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by the year 2050. To achieve these targets, industry or large final emitters would be obliged to participate, starting in 2012, in a cap-and-trade program where the total number of permits to emit GHGs would decline over time. However, flexibility would be created by allowing those firms with excess permits to “trade” them to those firms requiring additional permits. 

In addition to trading emission permits, additional flexibility is also created through a GHG offset system. The Bill defines the use of up to 2 billion tons of GHG offsets annually, with 1 billion tons from domestic sources and 1 billion from foreign sources. To garner support for the Bill, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) replaced the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the overseer of agricultural and forestry offsets in the final days leading up to the vote. This has significant implications for agriculture, including the potential to create a boom for ag-based offsets. Clearly the USDA is well positioned to introduce and support the use of both tillage and methane based ag-offsets as compliance tools, where this was considerably less clear under the EPA.

While the deal with the Agriculture Committee may have cinched getting the votes to pass the Bill in the House of Representatives, it was only by a narrow margin. It would appear that careful planning went into this. It is very interesting that the 44 Democrats who voted against the Bill where mostly from Midwest and Southern US States dominated by coal fired electricity generation and other energy intensive industries. In other words, it may have only been a narrow margin, but it allowed for the Bill to pass while not forcing some Democrats into difficult political choices.

The Bill now has the daunting journey of the US Senate ahead of it before Obama can sign it into law. It is unclear today what affect the Senate will have on the provisions of the climate change legislation; it is still poised to be completed by year end and possibly before most of the world meets in Copenhagen this December. The fact that US climate change legislation has made it this far this fast would not have been believed a year ago. Therefore, it is our opinion that the US climate change legislation will proceed and not likely see the delays and wholesale changes some experts would suggest.

The implications for Canada are almost inescapable. Included in the Bill are trade provisions to protect US manufacturers against imports from countries without similar or greater constraints on GHG emissions. Combine this with the position of the Canadian Federal Government to do pretty much nothing until the US acts, and then follow the US after that, and we should expect an offset system strikingly similar to that in the US. What will be really interesting is how Canada will make the equivalent GHG reductions to that of the US. This fundamental question must be answered and soon, given the 2012 start date of both the US legislation and the successor to Kyoto to be decided this December.

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 – Oct Futures
Insert chart
Canadian Dollar – September futures
Insert chart

International Crop Weather News

United States: In the West, hot, dry weather prevails across the majority of the region. However, monsoon showers are developing a few days earlier than normal in the Southwest. On the Plains, scattered showers across southern areas are slowing winter wheat harvesting but aiding pastures and summer crops. Meanwhile, warm, dry weather on the northern and central Plains favors winter wheat maturation and summer crop growth. In the Corn Belt, dry weather and near- to slightly below-normal temperatures are promoting winter wheat harvesting and corn and soybean development. Unusually cool conditions and scattered showers are confined to the immediate Great Lakes region, north of the primary Corn Belt. In the South, a broken line of showers and thunderstorms stretches from northern and central Texas into Florida. However, hot, dry conditions persist in the drought-stricken western Gulf Coast region.

Europe: Widespread, locally heavy showers over central and Eastern Europe boost soil moisture for reproductive winter crops but hamper planting of corn, sunflowers, and sugar beets. Sunny, hot weather in Spain and Italy maintains high irrigation demands for filling winter wheat and barley.

Former Soviet Union: Light to moderate showers favor winter grains and spring-sown crops in northern Ukraine and Belarus but slow spring grain sowing across northern Russia. Showery weather in Kazakhstan and the Urals and Siberia Districts in Russia slows spring grain planting but boosts topsoil moisture for crop emergence.

Southeast Asia: Monsoon showers benefit rice and corn in Indochina and the Philippines.

East Asia: Periods of dry weather benefit winter wheat harvesting on the North China Plain. Soil moisture is limited in western Heilongjiang for establishment of corn and soybeans.

South Asia: Tropical Cyclone Aila brings heavy rain and gusty winds to northeastern India and Bangladesh. Unseasonable showers across central and southern India provide early moisture for rice and cotton.

Middle East: Wet weather in Turkey hampers cotton planting and wheat harvesting but provides moisture for summer crop planting and establishment.

North Africa: Sunny skies accelerate winter grain maturation and harvesting.

Australia: Widespread, soaking rains in southern Queensland, northern New South Wales, and Western Australia boost moisture supplies for winter grain planting but cause local flooding. Mostly dry weather persists in southeastern Australia, further discouraging winter grain planting.

South America: In southern Brazil, warm, dry weather aids growth of emerging winter wheat and immature corn after last week’s beneficial rain. In Argentina, dry, unseasonably mild weather promotes rapid harvesting of summer grains, oilseeds and cotton while hastening emergence of winter grains.

Western Canada: Overall seeding progress across the Prairies is 92 per cent complete. Warmer-than-normal temperatures in Alberta and western Saskatchewan have boosted seeding progress to near-completion in both provinces. Scattered showers in parts of southern Saskatchewan and central Alberta did little to improve overall soil moisture in dry areas. Rainfall is urgently needed in west-central Saskatchewan and eastern Alberta. In southern Manitoba, cooler-than-normal temperatures and moderate rainfall continued to delay seeding. Across the Prairies, warm weather is now needed to boost germination and emergence of crops.

Mexico: Showers benefit reproductive winter sorghum in rain-fed farming areas of the northeast.

Source: USDA

Canadian prairies crop and weather outlook

June 1st- 21st has brought drier and cooler than normal weather to the region. Timely relief occurred around June 21st in southern Alberta and north-central Saskatchewan. Since May 1st, rainfall over the Canadian prairies has generally been 50-75% of normal with the most stressed crops evident in west-central Saskatchewan, north-east Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Alberta. Near drought conditions exist in northern Alberta.

Crop development ranges from 7 to 21 days behind normal. Cool temperatures are offsetting dryness in establishing yields. King (1987) found that May and July are the most critical months. A dry cool May affects germination, tiller initiation and development and reduces the potential number of heads. Abandonment is expected be above normal.

The two most consecutive weather sensitive months in 2009 will be June 10th- August 10th given the lateness of the crop. In summary, overall crop conditions are fair at best with cool temperatures offsetting dryness and increasing the frost risk.

Source: Ray Garnett Climate & Crop Letter: Vol. 4 No. 20: June 05, 2009x