You don’t need to check the calendar to know that summer has arrived. Heading into the long weekend, temps across the Prairies are in the mid-20s to low 30s and, according to the latest forecast, it looks like the heat and humidity will be sticking around. Before you lose your cool, read on.

Lodging occurs when the crop falls over and does not return to a standing position. Crop lodging can be very costly to producers and can pose many challenges during harvest. For instance, it is common to see secondary growth on the flattened crop extending maturity and diminishing grain quality.

For the past couple of years, harvest in some parts of the Prairies has been interrupted by heavy snow fall, leaving millions of acres for producers to deal with in the spring. If you’re a grower who has been in this situation, you know that a lodged crop can take twice as many resources to harvest than a standing one.

Not only is it a challenge to take off the field, a lodged crop can have a significant reduction in value. If the crop lodges at ear emergence, yields can be reduced by up to 75 per cent. Although later lodging has less effect on yield, it can impact grain quality, harvest speeds and drying costs.

Continue reading to learn more about crop lodging and what can be done to avoid it, so you are not caught with your plants down.

As seeding begins to wind down across the Prairies, producers are setting their sights on the next stages of crop production and keeping their collective eye out for factors that can cause stress to vulnerable emerging plants. 

Stress brought on by weather, soil conditions, moisture (excess or insufficient), insects, diseases and herbicide application can ultimately result in poor growth and development, stalling and yield loss. To help crops better tolerate these stressful conditions, OMEX offers a family of products with an effective weapon against stress – Stress Reliever Technology™.

Stress Reliever Technology™ has been developed to help plants better deal with stress by offsetting energy re-allocation during periods of environmental stress. Three of the products in the Stress Reliever family – C3, P3 and Nutri-Boost – are formulated with this beneficial technology, along with vital macro- and micro-nutrients to help crops thrive under adverse conditions and bounce back from damage. Continue reading to find out more and see which one is right for your crop.

Whether it is the result of water quality or the lack of rotation of pesticides on the farm, weeds and diseases are becoming more and more resistant to the active ingredients in pesticides. 

Previously, we have examined the effect of water hardness on the efficacy of burn down and desiccation, but water quality can also cause herbicides to be less effective on certain hard-to-kill species of weeds, ultimately leading to resistance. Continue reading to find out how to improve your herbicide efficacy with a simple “pHix.”

We will also be exploring the effect of elicitors – compounds which activate chemical defense in plants – to help enhance the effectiveness of certain fungicides, such as mono-site strobilurins.

For the past few years, we have talked about the concept of “antibiotics + vitamins," referring to what the combination of fungicides and adequate nutrition can achieve for your crops. The right combination is critical for promoting health and fending off diseases and pests, and it all starts with a fungal screening of the seed.