Statistics Canada estimated 3.952 million tonnes of oats will be grown in 2019, up considerably from the 3.436 million tonnes produced in 2018. But low carryover stocks from previous years means this report has neither a bullish nor bearish effect for oat prices.

“The bins are empty, the pipelines are empty, we saw the lowest ending stocks on record,” explained Scott Shiels, a grain procurement manager with Grain Millers Canada at Yorkton, Sask.

“Even with the 15 per cent increase in production, which is based off of the 20 per cent increase in acres, we needed all of this and more.”

While cash prices for new-crop oats are likely to stay around the $2.75-$2.80 per bushel range, futures prices may move lower. However, the oats market is largely cash-driven.

“We’re going to see buyers paying what they have to pay,” he said.

“Prices where they are today are pretty reasonable in that respect.”

— Marlo Glass writes for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

The post Large oat production won’t move prices appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

That’s one of the messages sent out during this year’s Crop Diagnostic School in Carman in the first two weeks of July.

Why it matters: Manitoba’s most popular oat varieties have either been downgraded for crown rust resistance or were already moderately susceptible, and woody stream banks contain wild hosts for the pathogen.

David Kaminski, a field crop pathologist with the province, warned that common buckthorn provides an easy wild host for the pathogen. The infected buckthorn plants are a haven for spores to overwinter after they blow in from the United States, he said. Susceptible oat varieties may be in trouble with crown rust if planted within a few miles of those wild areas.

“If you were 15 or 20 miles from any river or stream course in Manitoba, it’s very unlikely that you’ll have a concentrated source of inoculum that moves into your field, but if you’re within a couple of miles from a stream that has woody species along it, there’s a good chance that there are spores available at the time when the crop is also susceptible,” he said.

Two of the pathogen’s five life cycle stages impact oats, he said, while common buckthorn is affected by three.

“The first and second spore stages come out on the leaves of buckthorn (in) early, early spring when our crops are still seedlings,” he said.

Common, or European, buckthorn is endemic along Manitoba’s waterways, Kaminski went on to say. The Invasive Species Council of Manitoba lists the woody shrub as a problem species, both in the province’s natural areas and in green spaces within Winnipeg. It is commonly mistaken for the native chokecherry bush with its dark berries and is highly adaptable to different moisture and light levels, the council says.

The plant’s thorns are a hazard for both people and livestock, the council’s website warns, while the dense shade created by buckthorn stands impact the ability of natural plants to compete.

The Carman research station knows the buckthorn problem all too well, given its proximity to the Boyne River.

Commercial oat plots this year are planted to Souris oats, a variety still advertised for its crown rust resistance, although Seed Manitoba counts the variety as moderately susceptible.

The older Souris variety has fallen out of favour with millers, agronomists attending the diagnostic school said, although about 17 per cent of oat acres in Manitoba were planted to Souris as recently as 2017. The variety’s popularity dropped significantly last year, accounting for only nine per cent of the province’s 401,000 oat acres.

One of the province’s most popular oat varieties shares that crown rust susceptibility, however. CS Camden is also labelled mildly susceptible and accounted for 40 per cent of oat acres last year.

Manitoba’s second most popular oat variety last year, Summit, was also downgraded in 2019 thanks to changes in crown rust virulence in Manitoba. Seed Manitoba counted the variety as resistant until this year, a rating that dropped to intermediate in the publication’s 2019 edition.

The post A thorn in the side of oat growers appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Jamie Larsen, chair of the Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale (PRCWRT), says a proposed trial plan submitted this year will need to be tweaked to meet the committee’s usual standards. He added it’s a question of experience not ability.

“From their perspective, they’ve never been through developing a registration trial,” he said.

Why it matters: A grassroots organic breeding effort aims to cut the sector’s development lag, but now regulators say there are some bugs that must be worked out prior to commercialization.

The varieties are the result of a farmer-led breeding program, spearheaded by the University of Manitoba and Martin Entz. The program has provided about 70 growers from across Canada with wheat and oat crosses to select from since 2011. Farmers are then given rein to select traits according to their own priorities.

The resulting wheat lines tend to be taller, according to program co-ordinator Michelle Carkner, something that she suggested might help the organic crop compete with weeds, but that splits from conventional trends, where shorter varieties are prized for lack of lodging. Disease resistance also features. There was little selection for things like rust, Carkner said, but producers did push fusarium head blight resistance.

“We also saw slightly higher yields in our organic trials,” she said. “We think that height is probably the biggest difference, mainly because a lot of conventional varieties are going more towards a dwarf, or shorter, varieties.”

“The principles underlining this farmer-led breeding work is pretty simple,” Aabir Dey, director of USC Canada’s Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, said. “Since farmers are the main users of seeds, they should be able to take an active role in seed selection and seed development and these processes should happen on their farms to replicate the conditions in which the seeds will be grown.”

Ottawa-based USC Canada is a partner in the project and is a global non-profit centred around seed security, farmer-led seed systems, and pushing the transition to “ecologically friendly” seed systems.

The farmer-led breeding program has been among the flagship programs for Dey’s initiative since 2013, part of efforts to bolster seed diversity in Canadian agriculture and increase seed diversity geared towards reduced inputs or organic farming. The group has spearheaded efforts with regulators while the University of Manitoba manages field trials.

The project is currently evaluating lines that have come out of several years of farm-based selection.

“In order to do that, we have to make sure that our trialling protocols are in line with what the recommending committees in Canada need them to be in order for the lines that are being developed by farmers to be permissible for variety registration,” Dey said.

The non-profit hopes to streamline and absorb some of the cost of that process.

Challenges ahead

The organic trial may hit a fundamental roadblock when if comes to the PRCWRT. Current protocols are designed with conventional management in mind, Larsen said, while the trial hopes to test organically grown wheat on organically managed land.

“Which makes sense,” Larsen said. “They have to prove the case that they do well in that system, but to have enough organic locations to run these trials, the logistics are difficult. It’s expensive.”

The project has proposed three test sites on University of Manitoba plots, a test site near Swift Current, Sask., and through the University of Alberta.

The study will have to add sites, and some of those sites may have to be conventionally managed to get the required number of sites and station years, the PRCWRT said.

The committee will also need a clearer picture of which market class the project is targeting.

“One of the issues is that they have several lines and they have done some quality testing, but we don’t know where they fall in terms of, are they CWRS? Are they CPS? Are they CNHR? Are they really more suited to special purpose? They don’t have the quality profile that’s required,” Larsen said. “If they want to meet these target markets, the testing kind of has to be done beforehand and then they have to be put in the trials, maybe separated by market class or, at least, have the checks that we rely on to do the quality testing in the end to make sure that they’re classified properly.”

The project’s current submission would see varieties registered under special purpose. Lines would ideally be registered as hard red spring wheat, Dey said, but additional testing for that class is currently too expensive for the project.

Most producers would be growing for hard red spring wheat and the project will be testing as hard red spring wheat if resources become available, Dey said.

For her part, Carkner has no doubt that the farmer lines will meet standard, once the plan is approved and trials actually get underway.

“I think they will hold up,” she said. “I think the concerns that organic farmers have are extremely similar, if not the same, to conventional. I think one of the main differences would be the magnitude of importance to be able to either suppress or put up with weeds at the environment — but at the same time, I would say that conventional farmers are concerned about that too — and better disease resistance.”

Members from the committee will be collaborating with project leaders over the next year to adjust the proposed trials, with the hopes that a new proposal next year will get a green light from the PRCWRT.

The post Organic wheat varieties waiting in the registration gate appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The large shed dominates the west side of the yard, bordered by bins which, on any given week, might be filled with anything from wheat, oats, buckwheat, quinoa, mustard or spelt. Inside, a maze of pipes and blowers conveys grain through a line of cleaning equipment. The grain is filtered by size, density and, using a specialized electronic eye, colour. Buckwheat is dehulled with a stone grinder, as are oats. Undesirable seeds are whisked away to another, smaller bin outside, while the cleaned grain is bagged for milling or, increasingly, returned to the customer after a custom cleaning job.

A few miles away, at Top of the Hill Farm’s milling facility, Fran DeRuyck pours buckets of grain into the computerized milling machine. The resulting flour is then packaged and shipped to bakeries, health food stores and dozens of other customers across southern Manitoba and from coast to coast.

It’s a far cry from 17 years ago, when Dan DeRuyck’s father, Gerry, began marketing organics to a few local bakeries.

The DeRuycks have been milling their own grains and marketing their own organic flour for years, but now their business once again looks set to expand. Custom milling is on offer, but the DeRuycks say they would like to take on more, while their cleaning plant, reopened in February after almost 10 months of upgrades, opens the door for large-scale organic grain cleaning.

“They can bring their grains to us,” Dan DeRuyck said. “We can clean it. We can mill it and then they can try and market it themselves or whatever, and that way they don’t have to put this capital investment into their operation, because that’s usually the biggest thing in trying to get established — just trying to get the infrastructure into place. We didn’t have that and that was a big thing that would have been maybe a little nicer, if we had access to custom work available like that. That’s the direction that we want to go right away because I think there’s a lot of good ideas and people can put new products together.”

The couple has held out setting prices for their expanded services while they familiarize themselves with the plant’s capacity and operation.

Kate Storey, president of the Manitoba Organic Alliance, has said more organic seed cleaners are needed to fill a gap in the market.

The organization draws members from organic farmers, retailers, buyers, researchers and processors across the province.

Larry Black, Manitoba Organic Alliance grain and oilseed director, said most buyers have their own cleaning plants, but he has seen an increased preference for clean grain due to freight considerations.

“I’m noticing in the last couple of years that the buyers are looking now for your grain on farm to be less than five per cent dockage and that didn’t used to be an issue,” he said.

He noted that producers located close to Top of the Hill Farm are more likely to derive benefit from the plant.

Growing scale

In 2000, Gerry DeRuyck planted his first organic crop, a patch of only 20 acres.

“We were just finding that our input costs were rising and we were finding that the margins were getting thinner and with sprays, we were finding we were getting resistance to different sprays and things like that, so it just wasn’t pencilling out like we thought it would,” Dan DeRuyck said.

The elder DeRuyck was soon supplying local bakeries with organic wheat and flax, eventually becoming a supplier to Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company in Winnipeg, a deal Dan DeRuyck now credits for their expanded product line.

Within a few years, his son and daughter-in-law began to transition their own land to organic production. For two years, Dan and Fran DeRuyck planted land down to alfalfa to help the transition, surviving off the income of their cattle herd.

According to the organic production systems National Standard of Canada, prohibited inputs cannot be used on land for 36 months before a certified organic crop may be harvested off it.

By 2006, Top of the Hill Farm was a certified organic operation and the growth began in earnest.

Over the following years, the family felt its way through the ins and outs of organic farming. They adopted a green manure crop once every three-year rotation to build nutrients and looked for alternatives to manage weeds.

“That’s part of what we’re doing with the processing plant too; we can take those weeds out and eliminate them that way, do it mechanically instead of through the sprays,” Fran DeRuyck said.

Driven by demand, the family began adding crops to their product line. Today, it includes wheat, flax, rye, oat and buckwheat flour.

Organic producers and businesses eventually began to approach them about custom work, although the process remained largely manual and small scale.

“We’d just take our little bucket and just dump it into each piece of equipment and kind of moved on from there, I guess,” Dan DeRuyck said. “It was a good learning process because then, that way, we learned how the product had to flow to different pieces of equipment or whatever — so then the demand kept growing, expanding from there; the phone kept ringing.”

Eventually, orders became too large to handle easily and the DeRuycks began to plan seriously for expansion.

The family assembled the plant piece by piece over the next nine years, picking up equipment at auction sales and later receiving support from Growing Forward 2 for the project.

In April 2016, the existing cleaning facility at Top of the Hill Farms shut down for the upgrades, reopening earlier this year.

Future plans

By the end of 2016, the DeRuyck farm had shrunk from about 1,500 acres in 2000 to 700, mostly farmed by Gerry DeRuyck. His son, meanwhile, has largely taken over cleaning and Fran DeRuyck has taken the lead in milling.

The family now contracts farmers to grow part of their grain and Top of the Hill Farm products are delivered through Manitoba three times a month. The farm has also joined the Harvest Moon Local Food Initiative, a sustainability-focused farmer direct-marketing group spread throughout southern Manitoba.

Most customers are businesses and bakeries, Fran DeRuyck said, although the mill also provides for a niche of people newly enthused about homemade food and local sourcing.

“It’s strictly single product, just single ingredient, because once you start mixing things it starts to get a little more complicated in getting the different nutrient values and things like that. At this point, we just keep it simple,” she said.

The DeRuycks eventually hope to power their processing plant with the same weed seeds they filter out of crops. A planned refinery on farm property would press seeds for oil to be used in the plant’s generator. The facility is off grid and the couple has begun exploring alternative fuels, including used vegetable oil from the food-service industry. Both Fran and Dan DeRuyck admitted, however, that those plans will have to wait in light of the recent upgrades.

The post DeRuycks keep rolling with organic cleaning and milling appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

For most of us it means, simply, boiled oats, a rather humble meal. Englishman Samuel Johnson, who had something to say about everything, once called oats “the grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.” The Scotsman’s retort was that was why England had good horses, and Scotland had good men.

We may not call it porridge, but we certainly still eat it. For many of us, the day starts with a bowl of oatmeal and we’re better for it. Oats are a feast of fibre, as scores of studies have shown, keeping us full longer and our cholesterol in check too.

• Read more: What’s in artificial sweetener packets?

But instant, quick-cooked, rolled or steel-cut oats for breakfast is by no means the only way to eat oats. Well-documented claims on the health benefits from eating oats have resulted in loads of new recipe ideas for taking oats long past breakfast.

There’s good reason to eat more; one cup of cooked instant oatmeal at breakfast has approximately four grams of fibre. But if the rest of our daily diet is low in fibre, that’s not enough. The Mayo Clinic recommends that men and women under the age of 50 consume 38 and 25 g of fibre a day, respectively. Men and women who are 51 and older should be consuming 30 and 21 g of fibre a day.

Here’s a couple of recipes to encourage you to try oats in new ways. I stopped by the Prairie Oat Growers Association’s booth at Ag Days where they were handing out these giveaway recipe cards. I’ve already baked this beautiful bread recipe and promise it won’t last long in your household.

You’ll find more oat recipes at www.poga.ca.

Saskatoon oat and seed bread

• 1 c. oat bran
• 1/2 c. quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/3 c. ground brown or golden flaxseed
• 1/3 c. lightly packed brown sugar
• 1/4 c. unsalted, toasted sunflower seeds
• 1/4 c. unsalted, toasted pumpkin seeds
• 2 tbsp. whole brown or golden flaxseed
• 2 tbsp. sesame seeds
• 2 tbsp. poppy seeds
• 1-1/4 c. 1 per cent buttermilk
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 2 tbsp. canola oil
• 2/3 c. fresh saskatoon berries or frozen, thawed and drained

Preheat oven to 350 F and position rack in the centre of the oven. In a large bowl, combine oat bran, oats, flour, ground flaxseed, salt, baking powder, brown sugar, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, whole flaxseed, sesame seeds and poppy seeds. Mix well. In another bowl, whisk buttermilk, egg and oil. Add to dry ingredients. Stir until moistened. Gently stir in saskatoon berries. Spoon batter into a 9×5-inch loaf pan that has been sprayed with a non-stick cooking spray. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until wooden skewer inserted in the centre of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to cooking rack. Cool completely before slicing or wrapping.

To toast seeds: Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine sunflower and pumpkin seeds in pie plate. Toast 3 minutes, stir, toast 3 minutes, stir again. If needed, toast another 2 to 3 minutes until lightly browned.

Yield: 1 loaf (16 slices)

Bread may be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

Recipe courtesy of Prairie Oat Growers Association and SaskFlax

Oat risotto

• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 tbsp. canola oil
• 1 c. steel-cut oats
• 3 c. low-sodium chicken broth, heated
• 1/2 c. white wine (*)
• 1/2 c. frozen baby peas, thawed
• 1 tbsp. chopped fresh herbs such as rosemary,thyme, parsley, dill
• 2 tbsp. ground flaxseed
• 1 tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese

In a medium pan, over medium heat, sauté diced onion in oil for 1 minute.

Add oats, cook and stir 3 minutes until starting to lightly toast and smell nutty.

Add 1/2 cup hot broth, stirring constantly until liquid is absorbed. Repeat with another 1/2 cup doing the same until you’ve added a total of 2-1/2 cups. Add peas and herbs. Stir in wine, cook and stir until wine is absorbed. Risotto is served el dente. Taste and check texture, adding more broth and cooking a few more minutes if needed. Remove from heat, stir in ground flaxseed and Parmesan.

Yield: 3 cups

Variations:

• 1/2 c. diced zucchini, edamame, etc.
• 1/2 c. sliced mushrooms
• 1/4 c. chopped sun-dried tomatoes

(*) Wine may be substituted with 1/2 cup of chicken broth.

Risotto should be served a little on the soupy side, not thick like porridge.

Recipe courtesy of Prairie Oat Growers Association and SaskFlax

The post Oats after breakfast appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The December oat futures contract had been in a major downtrend since it came on the board and started trading at $3.15 per bushel on December 12, 2014, so some market participants may have been surprised by the suddenness of the rally. However, the development of a harami on the CBOT December oat futures candlestick chart on September 27, 2016 alerted technical analysts that the market was about to turn up.

Candlestick charting provides an insight into market activity that is not readily apparent with the conventional bar-type charts. When you see a black bar you know the sentiment is bearish. When the bar is white, it is bullish. The harami illustrated in the accompanying chart is quite common, and is a very useful tool in predicting changes in market direction.

The Japanese are regarded as the true pioneers of market technical analysis. They began trading forward rice contracts (futures) in 1654 and by the year 1750 developed a relatively sophisticated way to analyze the markets. These same techniques have evolved over nearly 250 years into an amazingly powerful modern-day charting method called candlestick.

An advantage in studying candlestick charts is they allow the viewer at a casual glance to spot technical strength and/or weakness by highlighting the relationship between the open and the close for each line (candle). The candlestick method gives you deeper insight by utilizing numerous interpretations for intra-line activity. Hence, the user has a timely advantage in spotting key market turning points for all time frames.

The Japanese method of charting is called candlestick because the individual lines resemble candles. The daily line shows the open, high, low and close. The thick part or candle is called the real body and it highlights the range between the open and close. If the close is above the open then the body will be white. When the real body is black this simply means the close was below the open.

The lines above and below the real body represent the high and low ranges for the period and are called shadows. The long black body illustrates a bearish period in the market with an opening near the day’s high and close near the day’s low.

A white body is the opposite of a black body and shows technical strength with an opening near the low and a close near the high. The small body represents a tight range between the open and close. Combined with other patterns they can be very significant, such as in the development of a harami. The small body of the harami must be contained by and opposite to the real body preceding it. This pattern indicates the market has entered a point of indecision and a trend change is possible.

Shortly thereafter, a short-covering rally ensued. This occurred when the shorts bought back their positions. As futures moved through key areas of resistance, they uncovered buy stops, which drove futures higher.

Shorts exiting the market, place buy stop orders above the market in order to take profit, protect their capital and/or cut losses. This buying frenzy continues until the weak shorts have been flushed out of the market. Declining open interest in a rising market is indicative of a short-covering rally. Total open interest in the CBOT oat futures went from a high of 10,738 contracts on September 28 to a low of 8,332 contracts on November 3, 2016.

Oat producers who recognized the harami and the subsequent short-covering rally had the conviction to sit tight and wait for higher oat prices.

David Drozd is president and senior market analyst for Winnipeg-based Ag-Chieve Corporation. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and are solely intended to assist readers with a better understanding of technical analysis. Visit Ag-Chieve online at ag-chieve.ca for information about grain-marketing advisory services, or call us toll free at 1-888-274-3138 for a free consultation.

The post Drozd: Oat futures rally to a one-year high appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Dry soils delay weed emergence, but the recent rains and warmer weather have triggered germination, creating a green carpet of weeds in some fields.

“The crop is going to pop, but so are the weeds,” Gaultier said during the Eastman CropTalk webinar June 2.

Early weed control is best for maximizing crop yield potential and herbicide efficacy, Gaultier said later in an interview.

Tank mixing herbicides with two or more modes of action is also the best way to delay increasing the population of herbicide-resistant weeds (short of not applying a herbicide), she said.

“Companies have made it very easy now for producers,” Gaultier said. “They have prepackaged everything, but sometimes what might seem like a good broad-spectrum tank mix you might find not all the components work on all weeds, so it’s worth it sometimes to make sure you are getting more than one mode of action working on the weed, especially if you do have some problem weeds.”

So far it has been “a fantastic year” for dandelions.

“With its big taproot it didn’t care that it was a little bit dry (earlier) and it has been doing quite well (with the rains),” Gaultier said. “We’re also seeing thistle and sow thistle.

“There are definitely other things coming up out there as well and it can be very specific to fields.”

Wet soil weeds

Barnyard grass, curl dock and smart weeds like wet soil too.

“So this means you might want to be scouting for some of those species, especially since some of these like the smart weeds can be difficult to control depending on what the crop is,” she added.

Spring wheat is very competitive against weeds and there are many herbicide options, especially for broadleaf weeds.

Wild oats and green foxtail are the top two worst weeds in Manitoba wheat.

The timing of wild oats emergence relative to wheat stage as well as the number of wild oats, can have a big impact on wheat yields, Gaultier said. For example, if a field has four wild oats per square metre and it’s one leaf stage behind the spring wheat, wheat yield will be cut by one per cent. However, if those four wild oats are one leaf ahead of the wheat that could cut wheat yield four per cent.

“We usually use five per cent yield loss as our threshold (for applying a herbicide),” Gaultier said. “Usually you can easily get your money back when you start spraying at that point.

If the wild oats are ahead of a wheat crop only four plants per square metre is required to justify controlling them.

“If the wild oats are ahead of your wheat crop you only need four plants per square metre to warrant controlling them. If the wild oats are at the same stage as your wheat crop you are looking at eight plants per square metre. And if your wild oats are behind your wheat crop then you are looking at about 16 plants per square metre. The numbers do change quite a bit based on the staging.”

Other considerations

Yield impact is only one consideration for spraying weeds; adding new weed seeds to a field is another. Some farmers may opt to spray weeds at a lower threshold, especially when dealing with herbicide-resistant weeds, she said.

“Having resistant wild oats in a field is the norm and not the exception now in Manitoba,” Gaultier said, based on statistics gathered seven or eight years ago.

A general and herbicide-resistant weed survey is planned for Manitoba this year.

“I expect that these numbers will jump,” she said.

“Wild oats and green foxtail are not only the most common weeds in wheat, but with the resistance problem they are also sometimes the ones that are hardest to deal with. Definitely guys with both Group 1 and Group 2 resistance are looking for other options.”

About 55 per cent of Manitoba wild oat is herbicide Group 1 resistant.

“We all know that there are different levels of cross-resistance (within a herbicide group) between the chemistries depending on what mutation you have,” Gaultier said. “So in some cases you still might be able to use certain Group 1s, or you might just have populations that are completely resistant.”

Eighteen and 11 per cent of Manitoba wild oat is Group 2 and 8 resistant, respectively.

“Even if you haven’t used the chemistry in a long time those populations pretty much tend to stay status quo (herbicide resistant) in your seed bank,” Gaultier said.

Focus is a Group 14 and 15 herbicide new to Manitoba, which controls green foxtail and wild oats in wheat, Gaultier said.

And Valtra is recently registered Group 14 product that suppresses green foxtail in wheat.

Some laboratory research with Group 8-resistant Manitoba wild oats has shown they are also resistant to Group 14 and 15. However, that resistance hasn’t been seen in a field situation, Gaultier said.

“So I am not recommending that guys shy away from this product,” she said. “They should try them to see if they work for them.

“I suggest if you are having trouble that way (with Group 1 and 2 resistance) you might give these a try. If you are not getting the level of control that you like you might want to consider going back to some of these older modes of action.”

These include pre-seed herbicides such as Avadex (Group 8), trifluralin (Group 3) and Fortress (Group 3 and 8).

The post Recent rains help crops and weeds appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Seeding is 45 per cent complete in the Southwest Region, 35 per cent complete in the Northwest Region, 40 to 75 per cent complete in the Central Region, 45 per cent complete in the Eastern Region and 40 per cent complete in the Interlake Region.

Cereal crops, canola, corn and peas are starting to emerge.

Areas within Manitoba would benefit from precipitation to allow seeding operations and fertilizer applications to continue, and assist in crop emergence and growth.

• Click here for the Crop Weather Report for the week ending May 8

Southwest Region

Warm, dry weather over the past week allowed producers to make excellent seeding progress in the Southwest Region. Overall, seeding is approximately 45 per cent complete. Some areas south of Highway #1 are as high as 80 per cent complete and are waiting for rainfall before planting any further acres. Seeding of cereal crops are approximately 60 per cent complete, while oilseed crops are 25 per cent complete. Corn planting began last week and soybeans may start later this week.

Most crops have been planted into good soil moisture. Early seeded cereal crops are emerging, with the most advanced acres at the two leaf stage.

The winter wheat and fall rye crops are growing well, with herbicides being sprayed for weed control.

Pastures and hay land are greening up. Some producers have started to move cattle to pasture. Dugouts remain 80 per cent full.

Northwest Region

The Northwest Region experienced hot, dry, windy weather conditions over the past week. Generally, soil moisture is adequate in most parts, although there are some well drained sandy soils that are drier. Soil temperatures range between 7 and 10 degrees Celsius.
Field operations are progressing rapidly throughout most of the region. Field activity includes harrowing, fertilizer applications, pre-seed herbicide applications and seeding wheat, field peas, fababeans and some canola.

Overall, seeding is approximately 35 per cent complete in the Northwest Region; 75 per cent of the wheat crop is seeded while seeding of other crop types such as peas and fababeans is just underway. Many producers are holding off seeding soybeans and canola until after the middle of the month.

Weed growth including mostly stinkweed, dandelions and wild oats is general throughout the area. Volunteer plants including cereals and canola are evident in many fields. There is minimal insect activity to date.

Last week’s warm temperatures brought on forage growth with grasses in the 2 to 4 leaf stage and alfalfa at 6 to 11 cm tall. Rain forecasted for this week would further benefit forage growth and production. Seeding of corn silage has started.

Central Region

No rain this past week, coupled with above normal temperatures, contributed to dry down of the soil surface in areas of the Central Region. Strong winds at times led to soil drifting and blowing. Some growers are delaying seeding canola and soybeans due to drier soil conditions; risk of frost is a concern for some as it is still relatively early in the season. Some areas with heavier soils have just dried enough to allow producers to start seeding. Some soils remain cool below the surface. Light tillage is being done prior to seeding in some areas. Seeding is general in all areas and excellent progress was made last week, with seeding estimated at 40 to 75 per cent complete in the Central Region. A few individual producers are done seeding their 2016 crop. Other producers have all their cereals and canola seeded. In general, southern areas of the region are most advanced while progress is slower in the northwest part of the region and in pockets in the southeast. Generally, areas that received more rain earlier in the season lag behind.

The majority of cereal crop acres are seeded; progress ranges from 50 to 100 per cent complete; average is 85 per cent. Crop is emerging nicely where soil moisture is adequate. Seeding of canola ranges from 25 to 100 per cent complete, averaging 40 per cent for the region, and the earliest fields are emerging. Some producers are waiting for rain before seeding. Planting of corn ranges from 50 to 100 per cent complete; some fields are emerging. Sunflower planting ranges from 50 to 100 per cent complete. Soybeans continue to be seeded as well, but soil conditions are relatively cool. Progress ranges from 10 to 70 per cent complete, with the regional average near 35 per cent. Most pea acres are seeded, and some acres have emerged.

Excellent winter survival is seen in winter wheat and fall rye with crops rated in good to excellent condition. Most fields have had nitrogen fertilizer applied. Crop development is at the tillering stage and herbicide applications should start shortly, where required.

Weed growth is evident and many fields will require pre-seed/post-emergent burn-off to lessen weed competition to the crops.

No reports of significant insect pressure in crops to date. Traps for Manitoba Agriculture’s insect monitoring program are being installed.

Perennial forages, pastures and hay fields are growing well with the recent warm temperatures. Pasture growth isn’t sufficient to support cattle grazing at this point. Rain would be welcome on perennial stands. Livestock water supply is adequate.

Eastern Region

Sunny and warm conditions characterized Eastern Region weather last week. Soil temperatures in worked fields were noted as rising throughout last week with peak daily temperatures at seeding depth exceeding 13 degrees Celsius by the weekend. Fields are drying up rapidly. Soil moisture conditions on cropland across the region are rated as adequate.

Seeding was widespread across the region. By the end of last week, seeding progress was 45 per cent complete in the Eastern Region. Approximately 60 per cent of spring wheat and oats is planted, along with 35 per cent of canola. As well, about 15 per cent of soybeans, 50 per cent of sunflowers, 90 per cent of field peas and 60 per cent of corn acres are planted. Emergence of some earlier seeded cereal and canola crops is noted. Precipitation would be welcomed by some producers and would benefit crops.

The warm conditions last week continued to dry fields and cattle yards. Growth of pasture land continues with some producers expected to move cattle in approximately a week. Across the region, the majority of hay and pasture lands are in good condition. Availability of livestock water is adequate.

Interlake Region

Mild temperatures and no rainfall enabled producers to get a good start on seeding operations last week in the Interlake Region. Warm temperatures allowed for good drying conditions. Soil temperatures ranged from 7 to 15 degrees Celsius.

Seeding progress varies throughout the Interlake Region. South Interlake is 45 to 55 per cent complete while North Interlake is 30 to 35 per cent complete. Seeding progress in the South Interlake is estimated at spring cereal crops 60 to 70 per cent complete, oilseeds 30 to 35 per cent, soybeans 5 to 10 per cent, and grain corn and sunflower 25 per cent complete. Seeding in the North Interlake is estimated to be 40 to 50 per cent complete for cereal crops, 10 to 15 per cent for oilseeds, and less than 10 per cent complete for soybeans and grain corn.

Due to wet fall conditions, spring tillage is occurring in some areas in the North Interlake. Fertilizer is being applied and worked into the soil. Some pre-seed spraying is occurring, as well as herbicide applications on forages. Producers are waiting for rainfall so that they can spread fertilizer on grass seed and hay acres.

Native and tame pastures are providing very little feed from new growth so far this growing season. Tame legumes are growing actively; alfalfa is 7 to 20 cm tall. Most hayfields and pastures are at or near field capacity for soil moisture.

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Among other machinery mentioned in that issue was the Conroy’s combined harvester and thresher. “It consists of a cutting table and an elevator, which passes the grain into a small threshing machine, which threshes, cleans the grain, and bags it.” The unit was said to have been in operation on the farm of Mayor Evans of Brandon for the past three years, and there was a photo of it pulled by a six-horse team. In a testimonial to Mr. Conroy, Mayor Evans praised the unit highly, and said “at no distant date it will take the place of the binder and thresher now in use in Manitoba.”

Among the questions in the correspondence section were whether stone was a good material for a granary, the best design for an ice house, the cause for the death of five pigs (an overdose of salt was suggested) and the best method for keeping mice out of stacks of oat sheaves.

In the “we haven’t heard the last of this” department, there was a brief note on “The Crow’s Nest Railway deal,” which called for certain reductions in the freight rates in return for concessions granted to the company by the government. It would reduce the rate in grain and flour by 1-1/2 cents per 100 pounds on shipments to Fort William.

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“The greatest hurdle to the forage-fed beef enterprise lies in the difficulty in providing an adequate level of diet energy, especially in the form of a low-cost forage of consistent feed value,” said Robins, who worked for years as a beef and forage researcher with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and was selected as a Canadian Scholar in 2013.

In his Nuffield study, which was published in April, Robins explores using specific species of short-term perennial forages capable of high levels of metabolizable energy.

In the endeavour of publishing the study, Robins travelled to 11 different countries and consulted over 200 grazing specialists.

“I was part of a team that went down to Argentina to look at the beef value chain and I learnt a few things about sugars. That is really what got the gears turning about how we could do this here in Canada,” said Robins.

The report outlines how grazing certain forages can provide the opportunity to produce several positive benefits to rumen digestive efficiency, decrease greenhouse gas emissions versus traditional grazing, lower the beef carbon footprint, improve soil structure and biology, induce programming of intramuscular fat cells in suckling calves and improve the healthiness and eating quality of forage-fed beef.

Practice at home

In mid-August, Robins opened his farm, located south of Rivers, to a group of producers interested in seeing his management practices at work.

“This is our fourth year with our management in this field where we have been putting out a cereal over story crop, putting it up as feed and then growing something in the bottom.

For the past four years, Robins has underseeded a cereal crop as feed with a mix of species. We seeded on the 25th of May with a bushel and a half of oats, seven pounds of festulolium, 2-1/2 pounds of chicory and plantain and two pounds of clover.”

According to Robins, the plant selections of oats, festulolium, chicory, plantain and clover, boast high-sugar levels that enable maximum gains.

“In order to replace time in a feedlot, we need something that is going to get comparable gain and I think we can do that,” he said. “We need to try and get the sugar content up and that is when you will start to see the rumen function better. At 18 per cent sugar is when really good things start to happen.”

In October last year, Robins sampled his pasture’s Italian ryegrass and chicory, which registered at 39 per cent sugar.

“This does some phenomenal things in the rumen. I believe we can get gains of three pounds a day if we have this mix as good as it can be and we cut what is in the bale as immature as possible.”

Robins aims to cut his pasture around 50 days after seeding, and bale at 50 per cent moisture.

“My goal is to cut mid-July, at the heads-emerging stage, as I want the highest-quality feed in that bale as possible, and this will also give the pasture more time for regrowth.”

Robins will graze 35 pairs over 20 acres for 60 to 90 days, depending on the speed of regrowth.

“In this field, I am budgeting for 90 days on 20 acres with 35 pairs,” he said. “Seventy cattle doing three pounds a day, for 90 days and I am getting 50 cents a day for grazing. We are talking well over $40 an acre gross income, and I think anyone wouldn’t take that in any business, grain or cattle.”

With this management program, Robins will be grazing his cattle and growing his pastures into late October, which he says will benefit both the cattle and the land.

“If we are grazing at this time of year, we are going to see calves under the age of 200 days hopefully initiate the development of marbling cells with these plants, and a year later on a pseudo-finishing diet, hopefully doing well on the same plants. There is also a lot of data to support having this cover crop growing longer is promoting soil biology, organic matter and plant health.”

Land benefits

Along with maximizing gains and lowering feed costs, Robins has seen tremendous benefits to his pasture land.

“We have built organic matter up to 6.2 per cent. Most of the land around here is five per cent, and we were able to do that fairly quickly,” he said. “The chicory roots are completely full of sugar and that is driving out of the plant into soil, and doing some great things for soil biology.”

Besides increased organic matter, he notes that the chicory root system has also helped reducing soil compaction.

“The chicory is a really good scavenger for nutrients and also has a very aggressive root, which has helped quite a bit in combating compaction issues.”

Robins also says that the plantain induces a diuretic effect, which can increase an animal’s water intake, resulting in fewer urine spots as ammonia is diluted.

Click here to read Robins’ Nuffield Report: Energy-Dense Forages: An Opportunity for the Canadian Beef Production Model.

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