June 4, 2013

Agronomist Notes

Hello Reader

We caught another 1.5 inches of rain over the weekend bringing us to five inches, even six in some areas, in the last two weeks. Low areas are starting to show signs of flooding with yellow patches emerging and fields are likely now at field capacity. All this at the beginning of spray season so here we go again, everything ready at once.

The FAST nitrogen side dress toolbar arrived on Saturday, that is, arrived in pieces requiring complete assembly. I must say I’m really pumped at the potential of this new tool. It will greatly enhance our ability to manipulate wheat and barley yields with nitrogen within our small timing window. Hopefully the GreenSeeker will be mounted on the toolbar next year to kick things up a notch.

This week we’ll look at a unique method of disease control the Aussie’s use with in-furrow fungicides. Next, faba beans surprise us with their salt and flood tolerance. We’ll look at improving herbicide performance and another two pass inter-row seeding system. We’ll finish with technical grain market news.

Pictured above: Our new Fast side dress toolbar under assembly. We discovered on Monday that the unit is 24 inches too narrow for our 30-foot CTF system. Did I hear someone say 'modification'? Photo: S. Larocque

Crop Staging

(Calgary to Drumheller to Three Hills)

Seeded May 1-7 May 8-15 May 15-22
Wheat 3-leaf, 1 tiller 3-leaf 2-leaf
Canola 3-leaf 2-leaf 1-leaf
Barley 3-leaf, 1 tiller 3-leaf 2-leaf
Peas 7th node 5th node 3rd node

Steve's tips of the week

Follow me on Twitter for in-season updates @BeyondAgronomy

Get ready to top dress nitrogen (ammonium sulphate, urea or UAN) to sandy soils with high leaching potential. A typical rescue amount is 20 to 30 lbs/N/ac to kick start plants to root down and tap into the nitrogen below.
Do not apply top dress nitrogen if crop is under stress. Don’t push it before it’s ready.
Be sure your logistics on spray fill timing is ready to rock. Spraying will be fast and furious to keep up to staging once the sun starts to shine.
If you’re in the market for a new seeding tool, make time to go visit growers with the drills on your list. There is no better time to look at drill comparisons than now. Take a windy day when you can’t spray and go roadtrip!
Flea beetles have been causing some damage but remember that once canola gets to one leaf the beetles have a hard time keeping up to plant growth. Pick a few areas and monitor accordingly.

Control leaf disease at seeding

In-furrow fungicides used Down Under

There are two common ways to manage leaf diseases in cereal and oilseed crops. Typically we use a combination of fungicidal seed treatment at planting then follow up with a foliar fungicide at flag leaf or heading. In Australia, several fungicides are registered for use on granular fertilizer and in-furrow as a liquid at seeding. The remarkable thing about coating fertilizer with fungicide or applying it as a liquid in furrow is the length of control it provides.

To give you an example, I looked up a commonly used fungicide in Australia called flutriafol, which is used in wheat, barley and canola. It helps control blackleg in canola, scald and net blotch (suppression) in barley, and stripe rust and septoria in wheat. The product rates are anywhere from 40 to 80 ml/ac applied to your fertilizer and provide 80 to 110 days of protection! Oddly enough, if you look at the seed treatments registered in Western Canada, many of them have some of the same active ingredients as our foliar fungicides. Should we be looking at the same strategy as the Aussies?

The extended length of protection is based on their climate, which is not like ours. Aussies plant in April-May as they are coming into their winter where daylight hours are shorter and temperatures is cooler. We plant at the same time but come into our summer where our highest daylight and temperatures occur. For that reason we may not see the length of protection the Aussies do with fungicides applied to fertilizer in-furrow. However, if we could generate 60 days of protection it would bring us to flag leaf in most cases and keep disease in check.

I definitely believe there is a fit for fungicides applied to fertilizer to help mange early leaf disease the seed treatments seem to be missing. Mitch and I tried some Folicur (tebuconazole) and Tilt (propiconazole) in furrow as a liquid last year but the hail took away any results we may have had. I like the option of controlling early leaf diseases like septoria, stripe rust, scald and net blotch to bridge the gap between planting and flag leaf. I also like the small use rates required in the furrow because each row is treated, not 4 tonnes of plant material in-crop. I don’t have any trials going this year but I encourage those to keep it in mind for the future.

Flutriafol label

Photo: S. Larocque

Faba beans surprise with salt tolerance

Faba beans are a new crop for us. Allen Jones from Balzac, AB and Mitch and I are growing it for the first time to see how it performs in our climate and management system. Faba beans are a nitrogen fixing legume that usually out-yield peas but unlike peas, do not lodge.

The variety we are growing is Malik, a variety grown for human consumption with a production contract attached. The cost of inputs is roughly $130.00 an acre plus fixed costs and may profit more than wheat but time will tell. We’re first-timers at this; hopefully we won’t pay too much tuition.

The most surprising observation so far is their ability to withstand salinity and flooding. The photo you see here is faba beans growing between clumps of foxtail barley, known for its affinity for saline areas. The soil was dry and white with salts at the time of seeding but has since had 6 inches of rain. The beans seem to be surviving very well in this saturated, saline area, which is very encouraging. It could be a varietal tolerance, but whatever the reason, it gives us promise that faba beans may have a fit in our area. SL

Faba bean production manual

Pictured above: Robust seedling faba beans grow along side foxtail barley in a wet and saline area. Photo: SL

Herbicide efficacy comments & tips

Each year Mother Nature throws curve balls at us during spray season. To get the most out of your herbicides follow these tips to help maximize your investment:

Only 10 to 15% of Group 1 wild oat herbicides actually translocate within the plant. Most Group 1's rely on spray droplets to gravitate down the leaf to the growing point. That is one of the reasons water volumes are so important when dealing with heavy wild oat populations.
When spraying Liberty, the weather that occurs during application and the day after application has a significant impact on Liberty performance. For example, a worst case scenario: You spray late at night and temperature falls below 15 degrees C then cloudy weather follows the next day. You can be sure of very disappointing weed control. Cloudy weather significantly affects the performance of Liberty the day after application.
Grassy weed escapes or re-tillering is likely to occur during prolonged periods of stress with any wild oat herbicide. That includes frost, flooding and drought.
Green and yellow foxtails are warm season grasses and may stop growing under cold conditions, resulting in poor control.
There is a high risk of crop stunting in wheat when Liquid Achieve is applied at the 3 to 4 leaf, 1 tiller stage when you spray in the evening and the temperatures fall below 8 degrees C at night.
Products with Group 1 “dim” chemistries like Liquid Achieve and Centurion are highly susceptible to UV light and will degrade rapidly if applied during mid-day or if left in non-metal spray tanks for an extended period of time. If you are stuck with Achieve Liquid or Centurion in the tank, be sure to park the sprayer in the shade or under cover to avoid the breakdown of the chemical.
If you have Centurion left in the tank for a few days due to a shut-down, top up the Centurion by 10% before you start up again.
If spraying Velocity, be sure to add water to your chemical handler first before adding Velocity A or Velocity All in one. Adding Velocity to an empty chemical handler or tank will create a reaction and product will start to crystallize.
If sprayed during warm, moist conditions, you will see improved performance of Liquid Achieve, Poast Ultra and Centurion when you spray later in the day. The rapid UV breakdown of these herbicides is slowed under low light conditions, which allows more time for the herbicide to work. It can also lead to more crop injury, so be cautious with Achieve Liquid.
Cold temperatures, including freezing conditions following application of ALS herbicides (Group 2) and Buctril M, may increase crop injury of labelled crops with little effect on weed control.
Liberty, Basagran and Gramoxzone are less likely to cause crop injury when cold temperatures follow application but less weed control will result.
Products such as 2,4-D, MCPA, dicamba, clopyralid (Lontrel), fluroxypyr (Attain) have adequate crop safety and provide similar weed control across a wide range of temperatures, but weed death is slowed when cold temperatures follow application. SL

A two-pass inter-row seeding system

Allen Jones of Balzac, AB is integrating a two-pass inter-row fertilizer and seeding system in his thin black soils east of Calgary. This area is high in organic matter 5-8% and is known for producing high yields of both grain and straw. One of the biggest issues he faces is the short growing season and heavy residue loads on the surface.

The photos show the results of one pass with a Concord drill equipped with NH3 last fall followed by a seeding pass this spring where he planted wheat. The plant stand density in this field is 22% higher than other fields where he was not able to achieve inter-rowing successfully.

The details
Allen removed the sealer plates and Y-tube on his Dutch openers to apply NH3 in the fall of 2012. He planted CPS wheat at 150 lbs/ac and achieved 27 plants ft2 with the aim of achieving 30 plants ft2. The plant densities in the chaff rows where canola swaths laid last fall were surprising high. I normally see low plant densities in the chaff rows of canola as the heavy residue loads impact crop emergence. When you consider that most crops planted into canola stubble have poor emergence in the chaff rows that make up 20% of the field, it’s significant. The inter-row fert/seed system has helped improved emergence by 50% in the chaff rows on 20% of the field so overall there’s a 10% improvement in crop emergence.

The inter-row fertilizing and seeding is what I’d call the Western Canadian version of strip tilling. We can reap the benefits of the two-pass system to manage residue, improve seeding timeliness, keep tall stubble and maintain adequate soil moisture. Allen plans on moving to the two-pass inter-row system across the whole farm in 2014. Well done. SL

Photos: (Top) Two-pass inter-row wheat into canola stubble. (Bottom) Wheat emergence in chaff row

Picture: SeedMaster (top) Case 800 (middle) and Conserva Pak (bottom) shanks. Photos: S. Larocque

Two-pass inter-row seeding in high residue

Correction to last weeks article

"We are using a Salford RTS (different unit) with air system to fertilize ahead of the Salford disk drill. It does some more soil disturbance than Salford air drill because we are fertilizing at about 8 MPH. It has harrows and rolling baskets on the unit but as you can see it leaves most of the stubble standing. Our plan is to fertilize as much as we can in the fall but are concerned about penetration in â€¨Allen removehard dry soils. The field with the pictures had both passes done this spring. The RTS leaves a great seedbed.

"We may have a couple of issues with the system. Where the wavy coulters go, there is the risk of drying out the soil. This can be both good or bad depending on your situation. The other issue is where the seed trench is in relation to the fertilizer trench. We are seeing some issues with seed depth and not sure if that relates to seeding in fertilizer trench. With 10-inch rows and inter-row seeding there is not much margin for error if placing the two bands side by side. We need some way to move more mats of straw with harrows but the plus is the RTS does a great job slicing the straw that is there. This highlights once more the need for better residue management. We have noticed some hair pinning issues with the disk drills but much less of an issue where we did inter-row."
Craig Shaw, Lacombe, AB

Photo source: C. Shaw