When the gravity pulling your crop down to the ground is stronger than the counter forces keeping it standing, lodging will occur. Crop lodging causes serious losses of yield and quality in many crops grown in Western Canada, especially cereals. Assessing the root cause of lodging and taking measures to help prevent it are key for guaranteeing crop standability and preserving yield and quality.

Well-balanced nutrition including healthy levels of essential micronutrients like manganese (Mn) plays a key role in a crop’s natural ability to resist diseases. Mn is known as an activator of a crop’s internal defense responses, especially when it comes to root rots. Keep reading to learn more about how manganese supports a crop’s ability to resist diseases.

Manganese (Mn) is an essential micronutrient that while needed in small amounts, plays a key role in photosynthesis. Mn sparks the photosynthesis process by splitting water after Photosytem II (PSII) fixes light to initiate the conversion of CO₂ and water into carbohydrates.

Manganese deficiency is widespread in Canadian Prairies and Eastern Canada, reducing growth and development of many crops and restricting yields and quality. In this post we will specifically examine the role of manganese in plants, the consequences if its deficiency and provide solutions to mitigate the crop stress due to manganese shortage or deficiency.

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.

Well-balanced nutrition plays a key role in crop growth and development. There are many micronutrients essential for plant growth including boron, calcium, copper, manganese and zinc. However, deficiencies, biotic and abiotic factors can inhibit a crop’s ability to take in the nutrients it needs.

For example, high pH soils, high organic matter soils or light textured and sandy soils are all prone to zinc deficiency. Crops growing in zinc deficient soils may exhibit stunted growth and small or misshapen leaves. To help supplement zinc deficiency and promote robust crops, I recommend OMEX’s Zintake, a foliar fertilizer with high concentrations of phosphorus, potassium and zinc.