By Jonathan Zettler CPA, CMA, CCA-ON and Patrick Lynch CCA-ON

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Crop Conditions

Weather – Rains on the weekend stopped most crop activity in most areas. Heat units to date we are behind average and significantly behind last year on this date, (see table below). We will track CHU through April 1^st until 50% of corn is planted. After that we will track CHUs from that date. Winter wheat Percentage of fields with some nitrogen on varies, some areas with 85%+ and other areas about 25%. This is similar to other years. Wheat is at Z 22-23 and earliest fields at GS 30. I am surprised at the number of growers opting not to apply sulphur. I would rather cut back on nitrogen rate or nitrogen stabilizer as opposed to not applying sulphur. Corn  one grower in Elgin county on light soils has about 250 acres planted.

Things to do This Week

Things to Do This Week

1.     Check all wheat fields for winter kill. Everything that is alive now should make it. Consider broadcasting red clover into kill out spots.

2.    Check alfalfa fields for winterkill. Patch up any dead areas with an annual rye grass.

3.     Get ready to spray wheat. (See Issue 10 March 25 for weed control in winter wheat for various weeds).

4.    If you do not have your pre-emerge herbicides on hand, get them now.

5.      If you are a no-tiller, make sure the openers are set to run deeper than the coulter. Or better yet, take them off and just run sharp openers.

6.      You can start to do burndown walks at this point to determine weed spectrum. For the most part, the product rate and selection is determined by the winter annuals and perennials that will already be emerged

Cereals

Which Wheat Variety Is Susceptible To Which Wheat Disease? (JZ)

I summarized the results from the 2024 Ontario Cereal Trials below by variety and by area based on disease rating. A rating of 9 is undesirable.

Fungicide Response by Winter Wheat Variety (JZ)

I summarized the findings from the 2024 Ontario Cereal Trials for areas 1 and 2 by variety and then converted the index into bushels per acre based on the year and applied some conditional formatting to the cells.

Rules of Thumb For Nitrogen On Spring Cereals (JZ)

For best yields you need to plant early, make sure you have enough nitrogen and sulphur, and apply fungicides twice. The further north your location, the higher the N rate you should consider. Consider a credit off of these values for manure and alfalfa. With growth regulators, consider stepping up your cereal management with the use of these tools, especially on oats.

If planting oats after corn vs soybeans, you will need higher amounts of nitrogen and sulphur due to residue tie-up.

A Review On Winter Wheat Staging and Growth Stages

A common question is what stage is my wheat at?

When it comes to crop management, we can approximate crop stage to the following timings.

T0 – Herbicide timing – i.e., Zadok’s 22 – 2 tillers
T1 – Fungicide/growth regulator timing – Zadok’s 31 – 1st node
T2 – Fungicide timing at flag leaf – Zadok’s 39 – Flag leaf fully emerged
T3 – Fusarium Head Blight timing – Zadok’s 61 – Flowers emerged on head

Soybeans

Q – How Many Pounds Of Potash Can I Safely Run In-Furrow On Soybeans? (JZ)

A – If you are using muriate of potash (0-0-60 or 0-0-62) and expect to have zero seed mortality due to salt injury, the answer is zero as far as a safe rate. I ran some number with the IPNI Fertilizer Seed Safety calculator, and unless you are willing to accept very high rates of seed mortality, likely very little benefit to this practice on most soils. Even on lower testing soils, better off having more plants trying to access the potassium in the soils than having a lower plant stand count accessing banded potash in-furrow.

Weed Control

Q - How long do I really have to wait between spraying glyphosate and working the ground? (PJL)Answer It is really species dependent. Perennials, and biennials will take longer to kill than annuals. Weeds with a bigger root system like Canada thistle, bindweed take longer. Individual species can be very sensitive to glyphosate. Winter wheat is very sensitive to glyphosate. If it is sprayed on a warm day, there will probably be enough glyphosate translocated in the first couple of hours to kill winter wheat. The other thing is that the longer you wait the better the kill on most weeds. So, in the case of perennials you need the full 48-72 hours or so for maximum kill. But even if you wait a few hours, you will get some kill. The objective is to wait as long as possible for best kill. If you feel you will not get planting done before the next rain better to accept less than 100% efficacy and get the seed in the ground. Another factor is weed size. Weeds like big dandelions will not be killed in the spring no matter how long you wait. Experience has also shown that weeds like the lamb’s quarters, and it’s sort of lookalike spreading Atriplex are hard to kill once they get over 2-3".

Forages

Q I have been told to only put 60 pounds of N on my winter triticale. WDYT?

Ans (PJL)

In last week’s Cropwalker, we presented the data to show you need more than 60 pounds of nitrogen to increase yield and protein. You also need sulphur. I like a minimum of 120 pounds nitrogen total between fall and spring applications. (JZ – some are applying 130 pounds actual N in the spring with 20-30 lbs./ac of sulphur.)

Q Can I spray Eragon for fleabane control before seeding alfalfa peas and oats? (PJL)

Ans No. The peas and oats are safe but not the new alfalfa seeding. BASF trials show there is a chance of damage too many times. Same with Elevore, too much damage. Liberty is not an option since weather is too cool. Options now are 1) mould board plough. Secondary tillage with a cultivator or disc will just move them around. 2) Spray Eragon and Merge and glyphosate now. Plant the peas and oats now, and seed alfalfa after peas and oats are harvested.

Q I have an alfalfa field with a lot of dandelions. Is there anything I can spray to get rid of them?

Ans (PJL)

For years growers have been trying to do this. Years ago, Prof. Bob Fulkerson at U of G researched this problem. Not sure what product(s) he used. I think he also hand hoed to remove dandelions. But I do remember the results. When he was able to reduce the stand of dandelions the total yield of alfalfa plus dandelions was lower than where there was no reduction of dandelions. Make sense, you have a this stand of alfalfa with dandelions. If you can remove the dandelions now you have a thin stand of alfalfa with no dandelions. I remember his comments. “Dandelions do have some feed value” Final solution, you need to control dandelions before you plant. Then using Embutox can control those coming from seed. Then you need to aggressively manage alfalfa with fertilizer. The other option is HarvXtra alfalfa and then use glyphosate.

Fertility

Making Better Fertility Decisions Using Weather Data (JZ)

With all of the talk on using nitrogen inhibitors over the last 2-3 years, I get a lot of questions on whether a nitrogen inhibitor should be used as part of the application timing. The simplest way I look at this decision is the time between application and plant uptake, and the risk for losses in that period.

On a crop like winter wheat, the window between nitrogen application and uptake at this time year is fairly short. In many situations, it is likely hours, such as with the wheat that is now actively growing. On corn that has yet to emerge, you could be talking several weeks to maximum plant uptake. In those situations, you likely want to delay a portion of that nitrogen becoming available for uptake at least part of that time.

So back to the risk of loss piece, how can you determine if you are at risk of volatilization (gassing off) of the Urea or Ammonium portions of the nitrogen you are applying?  The main mechanism that drives this loss is when high rates of evaporation occur. Water leaving the soil surface is taking the nitrogen gases with it. There are a couple of ways of measuring this. One is to use the calculated evapotranspiration number (ETO) from Metos.

Here' is a note from the Metos website on the calculation.

“ET0 daily evapotranspiration is calculated with the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith equation and needs measurements (sensors) of:

• Air temperature
• Air humidity
• Solar radiation
• Wind speed

ET0 lets us know how much water the plant requires to grow each day, based on atmospheric demand. This water comes from root zone soil moisture and/or precipitation. On a typical hot day, a corn crop can use 7 to 9 mm or about 1/3 of an inch of water. In a week that could by 30 to 50 mm of water. This allow us to plan how much potential water is required to maintain crop health and yield.”

If you have wet soil and the ground is drying, you will be having water vapour leaving, increasing the risk of volatilization for those products that are susceptible (Urea/UAN mainly).  The way to prevent this from happening is to work the material into the soil or apply it before a reasonable rain event (0.5” or 13 mm or more) to get it into the soil water solution, and off the soil surface.

“Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.”

Charlie Munger