Agronomist Notes

Another week of sub-zero temperatures has gone by and very few producers were able to harvest the last of their canola. Moisture levels in the swath went from 5.5% to 13.5% but I suspect this will not be enough moisture to reactivate enzymes to help take green seed counts down significantly. Time will tell and I hope I’m wrong.

I’m full swing into soil sampling season with 53 fields done so far, but no results just yet. Soils are bone dry from east to west, so if winter has indeed arrived early, we can rest assured there will be little frost to slow us down next spring.

In this week’s newsletter, I’ll briefly touch on the three major nutritional elements and how they’re key to reaching a higher yield level. I will also begin an article series on crop nutrition and plant disease, starting with nitrogen and how it relates to disease. Next, Ill provide an overview of nitrogen interactions in the soil followed by an interesting tool called a refractometer. Bruce Love will update us on where Canada is headed with GHG policy and we’ll end with grain markets and international crop and weather news. Have a great week. SL

Agronomy

Three overlooked production factors

The most often ignored elements in crop production today are carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. I believe these three elements alone hold the biggest key to unlocking higher yields in our production systems today. In fact, to give you an idea of their significance, with nothing limiting growth, a plant’s total dry matter will consist of 45% oxygen, 45% carbon and 6% hydrogen. Add these totals together and oxygen, carbon and hydrogen account for 96% of total plant dry matter. The other 4% consists of macro and micro nutrients with the next highest element concentration being nitrogen at a mere 1.5% followed by potassium at 1%, calcium at 0.5% and the rest fall under 0.2%. 

It is important to understand how carbon, oxygen and hydrogen enter a plant before we get into disease-nutrient interactions as they form the structural components of all plant tissues.

Carbon and oxygen: The primary source of carbon and oxygen enter the plant as CO2 through leaf pores (stomata). Atmospheric oxygen also enters through the stomata. A third source of oxygen enters the plant through the root system via H2O or through the soil solution attached to nutrients like phosphorus and sulphate.

Hydrogen: The primary source of hydrogen comes from water H2O entering through the root system. Another source is through the soil solution attached to nutrients like phosphorus, ammonium and sulphate.

Did you know there were four ways to get oxygen inside a plant? Have you stopped to think of how hydrogen entered a plant? Now, we can’t control the atmospheric concentration of CO2 short term, unless of course you’re Al Gore, and we can’t control the level of oxygen in the air. What we can alter are the levels of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen in our soils. We can manipulate root growth, carbon cycling, nutrient levels, water holding capacity, pore spaces and water infiltration rates. In doing so, I believe we can take yields to another level.

This is where my controlled traffic farming quest begins. The adoption of zero-tillage or minimum disturbance seeding systems has elevated soil carbon levels, improved water infiltration rates, pore spaces, soil oxygen levels, nutrient cycling and ultimately boosted our yields. I believe that zero-tillage unlocked a portion of the carbon, hydrogen and water cycling we were missing under conventional farming practices.

To unlock the next door we must alter the soil profile one more time by reducing the damaging effects of soil compaction caused by our heavy machinery. By treating the soil profile with improved root growth and exploration, oxygen levels, carbon and nutrient cycling, water infiltration rates and storage capacity through controlled traffic we can surely increase yields, just as we did with zero-tillage. SL

Mineral nutrition and plant disease

Over the next several weeks I will be writing a series on mineral nutrition and how it relates to plant disease. Often, when we talk about disease in cereals and oilseeds we focus our attention on fungicides to solve the problem. In my mind, diseases are a symptom of an underlying problem and plant nutrition plays a critical role. I will stress that proper crop nutrition is one aspect of disease management and not the only one. With that, my goal is help you think about plant disease from a crop nutrition perspective where fungicides become a last resort and not the first. SL

Nitrogen and plant disease

Nitrogen is essential for the production of amino acids, proteins, enzymes, hormones, phytoalexins and phenolics and other cellular components. Plant disease is not only affected by the amount of plant available nitrogen, whether excess or deficient but the form of nitrogen like ammonium or nitrate is also important. The survival, germination, growth and virulence of plant diseases are influenced by the amount and form of nitrogen.

For example, the severity of take-all in cereals can be reduced as the rate of ammonium nitrogen increases to provide physiological sufficiency. In contrast, high levels of nitrate nitrogen can actually increase the severity of take-all in cereals. High levels of either nitrate or ammonium nitrogen can increase mildew infections in wheat, commonly found in places like Lacombe, AB. High levels of nitrogen increases the risk of seed infections like Fusarium spp. in cereals. Leaf blotch diseases like Stagonospora nodorum can be reduced with sufficient levels of either form of nitrogen yet high levels of ammonium nitrogen can actually increase the severity of tan spot in wheat.     

Table 1. Soil conditions affecting nitrification and the predominant form of N in soil for plant uptake.

Adapted from Huber and Graham 1999 and Huber and McCay-Buis 1993

The ability of a plant to take up both ammonium or nitrate nitrogen can provide us with a mechanism to begin managing diseases through nitrogen fertility. We can begin to use fertilizer as cultural control for disease management instead of reaching for the band-aid application of a fungicide.

One of the most common leaf diseases in wheat I’ve come across is the leaf blotch complex which includes septoria, stagonospora and tan spot. Without fail, I begin seeing these diseases take over late in the growing season during grain fill. I find it rather irritating that after a season of planning and management, all I see are leaf blotch diseases covering the top two leaves of our crops! Thankfully, there are some strategies to help manage disease using nitrogen management.

1. 1. Maintain a balanced fertilizer program with a full sufficiency of N for optimum plant growth and yield all season.
   1. Other essential nutrients must be adequate to complement the effects of N.
   2. Ensure adequate N all season through split applications or nitrification inhibitors like Agrotain to reduce environmental losses. Products like Agrotain have the biggest potential in my mind compared to something like an ESN product which only slows nitrogen release and not nitrification.
   3. Leaf botch disease like tan spot and stagonospora blotch can be increased if you apply nitrogen past the point of plant utilization so corrective measures after you spot the disease could aggravate the problem.
   4. If you are targeting tan spot using an ammonium based fertilizer like anhydrous ammonia or ammonium sulphate will help reduce disease pressure.
2. 2. Modify environmental conditions to influence the predominant form of nitrogen to optimize plant resistance and reduce pathogen development.
   1. The biggest way to influence nitrogen form in the soil is through a change in soil pH. Maintaining a soil pH below 6.5 will encourage ammonium forms of nitrogen.
   2. Nitrate nitrogen tends to stimulate excessive plant growth and tends to encourage pathogens.
   3. Using a nitrification inhibitor like Agrotain can slow the transformation of ammonium to nitrate and drop the pH in the root zone and eventually the soil.
   4. Maintaining a firm seedbed as you would find in most direct seeded fields can increase ammonium nitrogen in the soil.
   5. Fertilizing with chloride fertilizers such as potassium chloride or potash can help maintain nitrogen in the ammonium form.

Nitrogen Conversion Processes

Nitrogen in the nitrate form can lead to excessive plant growth, expanded cell wall formation and increased entry points for pathogens. The goal of any nitrogen fertility program should be to reduce disease pressure and potential losses from denitrification and leaching by keeping nitrogen in the ammonium form. Ammonium is positively charged, is stable, and locks itself on to clay and organic matter. The conversion of ammonium to nitrate is done by way of nitrosomonas and nitrobacter bacteria. If we can reduce or slow down this process we can maintain nitrogen in the ammonium form and reduce the disease problems that come with high levels of nitrate nitrogen. Below, you’ll find an example of how the nitrogen conversion process works.
 
Figure 1. Nitrogen Conversion Process

Today's problem with one-pass seeding systems is that they promote the rapid buildup of nitrifying bacteria when we place all the crop’s nitrogen requirements in the soil at once, when demands are minimal. A high nitrogen environment then stimulates the rapid buildup of bacteria around the fertilizer band. As the bacterial population grows, the conversion of ammonium to nitrate happens quicker, especially in early spring when there is limited nitrogen demand from plants. This rapid conversion reduces the ammonium form of nitrogen in the soil and replaces it with nitrate. SL

How to use a refractometer to measure disease potential

There have been a few people in the industry promoting the use of refractometers, which are used to monitor plant health and inherent pest resistance. This instrument measures brix levels, which is a measure of sugar content in the plant and can give you an indication of nutrient density, disease resistance, frost protection, soil fertility, crop quality and yield. I own a refractometer but have never used it to measure brix levels; it’s one of those “maybe next year” projects! If you’re interested, have a look at the video link below as this speaker runs you through the role of minerals and insects as they relate to brix levels. This tool not commonly used in our style of farming systems but I always try to keep an open mind. I thought it was quite interesting. SL

Link: http://www.nutri-tech.com.au/blog/?p=908

Carbon News

Canada’s climate change bet

October 12, 2009- Canada’s position on climate change has become very well known over the last few months. It boils down to a very large bet on US climate change legislation either not happening or becoming so diluted that it really won’t affect our ability to grow and develop exports of fossil fuels. Recently this position has come under scrutiny and combined with some recent industry moves related to climate change, the outcome of the bet maybe in doubt.

For a number of years now Canada has claimed to be sincerely interested in taking action on climate change. However, the Federal Government has consistently (100% of the time) failed to deliver any climate change regulation or legislation for that matter. Even the most recent effort “Turning the Corner on Climate Change” saw all of its stated deadlines and goals missed with the result that Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice has moved on to release a new piece meal approach to regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, even this lame effort has the overriding provision that it is all subject to change pending the outcome of US climate change legislation. In fact, Canada’s stated position on climate change policy is that we will follow the US. This makes sense on the surface if you want to harmonize regulations with our largest trade partner and avoid the potential for adverse trade issues. Who can forget the soft lumber tariff? It would make even more sense if you did not believe the US would be able to pass substantial reductions in GHGs.

The proposed US climate change legislation is buried in the House of Representatives version of the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” that passed in June of this year, and is currently being examined by the US Senate in their own version of it. In our opinion the US’s position on climate change is best understood as an outcome of policy directed to energy security. This makes sense, since they didn’t even mention climate change in the title of the proposed legislation while it seeks to limit the emission of GHGs. Simply put, the US is an energy importer and hence dependent on foreign sources of oil. The proposed legislation contains a very large number of significant initiatives to become more energy efficient, create more renewable energy sources, and develop a smart electricity grid. Oddly, all of these initiatives reduce the emissions of GHGs while reducing the US’s dependence on foreign oil.

Now back to Canada. We have officially adopted the climate change position of a customer trying to wean itself off fossil fuels and the GHG emissions related to them. Am I the only person that finds this somewhat confusing given Canada’s abundant fossil fuels and our reliance on their development as a key part of our economic well being? Unless you think the US will fail in passing legislation that includes reductions in GHGs and then you can blame them.

It could be that some large Canadian companies with significant exposure to policies that reduce GHGs have lost confidence with the Canadian Federal Government’s bet that the US will fail. Recently, TransAlta has acquired Canada Hydro, a renewable energy company to expand its portfolio away from coal fired electricity generation for $775 million. Also, on October 3, 2009 Enbridge purchased the Sarnia Solar Project from First Solar Inc as part of its $100 million it has committed to solar initiatives for this year alone. Last week Shell signed a letter of intent with the Alberta and Federal Government’s to fund up to $865 million of a $1.35 billion carbon capture and store (CCS) project that could reduce GHG emissions by about 1.2 million tonnes of CO2e annually. It would seem that these recent moves by companies with significant GHG emissions are somewhat of a bet that we will see restrictive GHG reduction policies fairly soon.

The ramp up to Copenhagen at the end of the year will continue to place a focus on US climate change legislation and by default Canada’s policy to reduce GHGs. Therefore if the US proceeds, we have given up the opportunity to create a made in Canada policy in favor of a bet against the US. If we loose the bet, it may be tough to come up with GHG reductions that will satisfy a customer trying to wean itself off of fossil fuels.

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 Grain Market News

World Production in Million Metric Tonnes   Sept 09 ending stocks vs five year average

	Production			Ending Stocks			Ending Stocks
	2007-08	Sep-09	Change	2007-08	Sep-09	Change	5 Year Avg
Rapeseed	48.4	56.5	17%	3	4.9	59%	4.6	8%
Barley	133.2	142.9	7%	18	27.1	50%	25.7	5%
Wheat	610.6	663.7	9%	119	186.6	56%	138.6	35%
Corn	792.3	794.1	0%	128	139.1	9%	125.9	11%
Soybeans	220.9	243.9	10%	53	50.5	-5%	54	-6%

Technical Update

Canola: November futures
HRS Wheat: December futures
Canadian dollar: Dec futures
Crude Oil: Dec futures

International Crop and Weather News

Western Canada: The ideal harvest conditions were interrupted by more seasonal temperatures in the second half of last week. A widespread freeze was reported in western areas as minimum temperatures dropped to below -5 degrees Celsius in Alberta and south western Saskatchewan. Most of eastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba experienced temperatures just below freezing last week. Moderate to heavy rains (10-50 mm) covered the eastern half of Saskatchewan and the southwest and Interlake regions of Manitoba. Daily high's were mostly in the teens and reached the low-twenties in southern growing areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Late harvest activities occurred with some difficulties, including rains, frost, and strong winds. The overall harvest is 86 per cent complete, with spring wheat harvest at 90 per cent finished and the durum harvest 96 per cent complete. 

United States: In the West, dry weather and near to below-normal temperatures favor fieldwork, including winter wheat planting and rice and cotton harvesting. On the Plains, heavy rain is gradually ending across the southeastern portion of the region. Meanwhile, cold weather accompanies rain and snow showers on the northern Plains. The cold weather is slowing the emergence of recently planted winter wheat. This morning’s temperatures below the freezing mark (32 degrees F) as far south as northwestern Kansas, and were below 20 degrees F in much of Montana. In the Corn Belt, the coldest air of the season (temperatures well below 32 degrees F) is overspreading the upper Midwest, ending the growing season for immature corn and soybeans. Meanwhile, rain persists across the southeastern half of the Midwest.

Middle East: Dry weather returns, promoting cotton harvesting and winter grain planting.

Europe: Showers in Germany and Poland improve soil moisture for winter crop planting and establishment. Dry weather across much of central and southern Europe accelerates corn and sugar beet harvesting.

Former Soviet Union: Light showers in Ukraine and western Russia cause only temporary interruptions in summer crop harvesting and late-season winter grain planting. Topsoil moisture remains limited for winter grain establishment in western Ukraine and central areas in Russia. Several days of warm, dry weather in Kazakhstan and the Urals and Siberia Districts in Russia aid spring grain harvesting. In cotton growing areas of Central Asia, unseasonably warm and dry weather helps harvest activities.

East Asia: Warm, dry weather favors maturation and harvesting of summer crops throughout China.

Southeast Asia: Tropical Cyclone Parma makes landfall in the northern Philippines, worsening flooding for rice. Tropical Cyclone Ketsana produces localized flooding in central Vietnam and heavy showers for maturing rice in Thailand.

South Asia: Showers in central and southern India provide late-season moisture for filling summer crops. Dry conditions in northern and western India are unfavorable for filling groundnuts and soybeans.

Australia: Scattered showers in southeastern and Western Australia continue to aid winter grain and oilseed development, favoring reproductive to filling crops. Isolated showers are of little benefit to filling winter wheat in Queensland and northern New South Wales, and the relatively dry weather is likely slowing summer crop sowing.

South America: A cold front brings more rain and freezing temperatures to central Argentina, slowing wheat growth but increasing moisture for summer crop planting. In Brazil, unfavorably wet conditions persist in portions of the southern wheat belt, but drier weather enables summer crop planting farther north.

Mexico: Showers benefit immature summer crops on the southern plateau, as excessive rains end in Veracruz.

Source: USDA

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