Big Rebounds in Store for Spring Wheat, Canola Output

Aug 18, 2022

This year’s Canadian spring wheat harvest could be the largest in nine years, while canola output may match the fourth highest ever, the results of a recent crop tour show.

Argus Media and Winnipeg-based LeftField Commodity Research partnered on the two-pronged tour, which covered a combined more than 4,000 km of Prairie farmland over a five-day period earlier this month. Based on a mix of random field sampling and input from producers along the way, the results of the tour were discussed in an Argus-sponsored webinar Thursday.

Maxence Devillers, a grain analyst with Argus Media, pegged this year’s average spring wheat at 53.2 bu/acre, up almost 17 bu or 46% from last year’s drought-ravaged result. Using Statistics Canada’s latest planted area estimates, that translates to a crop of just over 26 million tonnes - an increase of approximately 10 million tonnes from a year earlier and potentially the largest spring wheat crop since producers reaped 27.2 million tonnes in 2013.

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Video: Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes | Field Talk Friday

Field Talk Friday | Dr. John Murphy | Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes

Most of us spend our time managing what we can see above ground—plant height, leaf color, stand counts, and yield potential. But the deeper you dig into agronomy, the more you realize that some of the most important processes driving crop performance are happening just millimeters below the surface.

In this episode of Field Talk Friday, Dr. John Murphy continues the soil biology series by diving into one of the most fascinating topics in modern agronomy: root exudates and the role they play in shaping the microbial world around plant roots.

Roots are not passive structures simply pulling nutrients out of the soil. They are active participants in the underground ecosystem. Plants constantly release compounds into the soil—sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other molecules—that act as both energy sources and signals for soil microbes.