Opinion

[cottonpicken]

Does anybody know anything specific about the effects of this bag freezing weather on the disease and insects in our soils?

I thought i heard it kills hopper larve as long as it lasts long enough and there is little snow.

[Jay-mo]

I have been told that for grasshopper larvae to be destroyed it requires sustained temperature of -15c and colder a couple inches below your topsoil.
The problem is that a large majority of surviving larvae are in headlands, fencelines and ditches where snow tends to sit insulating the ground from those killing temps.

[GrainBeetle]

There will be lots of winterwheat winterkill in the Eastern, Southeastern and and Northern Prairies this year.

SNOWCOVER is lacking:
Don't count on the 70 bpa yields we've experienced over the last few years unless you have a min 10" of snow cover evenly distributed across your fields since early January

Every year I have dug up plants throughout the winter months on parts of my fields where the snow cover was at it's least and brought the plants in the farm shop.

These plants almost always started growing within a few days, a good indication of strong vigour/winter survival.

But not this year. Many are dead, too cold, even under 6" of snow on 12" tall canola stubble.

The last several winters have been so warm that winter wheat was capable of surviving even on bare soils, with almost no stubble, or snow cover.

I don't think this will be the case this year.

You might want to carefully check the viability of your winter wheat crops this April. Walk your fields thoroughly, or ask a field rep for assistance if you are new to this crop.

This could be a year when you will need to rip up and reseed to spring crops (oats, barley, durum, spring wheat etc)

This is reminiscent of many years in the 1980's.

Good Luck,

GB