From a news release
Crop maturity may turn out to be a bigger story than yield variability for Ontario farmers this fall.
Late crop development quickly emerged as a key topic of discussion during the eighth annual Great Lakes Grain Assessment Tour.
Officials with Great Lakes Grain unveiled the results of the tour at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show near Woodstock on Sept. 12.
The report noted the growing season of 2017 has had many high and low points.
“What started out as a promising early spring with some planting activity last week of April, slipped away and stretched the planting window all the way to June with lots of wet weather to start the season. The spring weather gave way to a highly variable weather patterns and a struggle to maintain a normal pace of corn heat unit accumulations,” said GLG officials in a news release.
According to the report, 37 per cent of the sites on the tour were still in the milk stage of crop development on corn, in stark contrast to last year where all sites were in the dent stage.
Late-planted or replanted soybeans were barely in the seed filling stages.
While rainfall in most areas was adequate, the report notes the distribution was not.
“Some areas received too much at the beginning and not enough during the pollination or flowering growth stages, especially critical on sandy textured soils.”
The slow pace of Crop Heat Units accumulation has left some areas over 300 CHU short, year-to-date, leading to variability in crop yield and maturity.
Other highlights from the tour:
- GLG estimates Ontario’s average corn yield 164.6 bushels per acre. Soybean yield is estimated at 44.1.
- Managing nitrogen as a system and the use of nitrogen stabilizers was very evident in fields this year.
- Variable weather set the soybean crop up for a host of diseases.
- White mold showed up unexpectedly in some fields and was a yearly occurrence in others prone to infection in highly fertile rotated fields.
- Insects were present in some fields with Japanese Beetles, Bean Leaf beetle and Stink Bugs easily observed.
The final report from this year’s crop assessment tour is available on the Great Lakes Grain website.
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