Agriculture This Week: Finding acres for niche crops not easy

Jan 13, 2023

The cropping landscape of the Canadian Prairies is an interesting one in the sense two crop whales – canola and wheat – dominate acres in a huge way, and all the other crops and farmland uses acting like a school of small fish going after whatever acres they can muscle away from the big two.

It's not easy grabbing acres from canola, which while having high input costs, and greater risk as a result should a crop disaster strike, it is still the option with the big gross return potential too, and that always looks good on a ledger plan.

Wheat by contrast doesn’t offer the big dollars per bushel, but the agronomics of producing a good crop are well-understood, and it makes a good rotation companion for canola so it gets acres.

Click here to see more...

Video: Not only is corn getting sweatier, it's getting smarter

Over the past several weeks, much of the U.S. Midwest has experienced prolonged episodes of extreme heat, a trend also observed in other major corn-producing regions of North America such as eastern South Dakota, southern Ontario, and parts of Kansas and Missouri. These high-temperature events can place significant physiological stress on maize (Zea mays L.), which is cultivated on approximately 90 million acres across the United States, with leading production in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Like all maize, Bayer’s PRECEON™ Smart Corn System is subject to transpiration-driven water loss under high heat. However, this system incorporates agronomic traits designed to improve standability through enhanced stalk strength, thereby reducing lodging risk during stress conditions. Furthermore, the system supports precision agriculture practices by enabling more targeted fertilizer and crop protection applications. This approach not only helps to optimize input efficiency but also contributes to maintaining or increasing yield potential under variable environmental stresses such as heat waves, which are becoming more frequent in corn belt and fringe production regions.