How many farmers really know what's happening in their fields!

[SASKFARMER3]

Just wondering how many out their really get what
happens in their fields. A agrologist is good but
they can't guess rain humidity or hail. They can
tell a disease when it's severe. Other than that it's
still up to the farmer to check.
This is one thing that's hitting home this year in
our area, over and over it seems double
fungicides would have helped out a lot, field after
field where guys did it according to text book but
will come up empty.
Have we become southern Manitoba with all the
moisture.
Is it timing, guys who seeded hrs first then peas
then canola look good depending on frost free
sept.
Fusarium is a problem dd it get worse with the
leaf hopper and aster yellow.
Again now their is a Bertha presents, their is lots
of leaves to eat, does one spray or wait and let
them eat the plant.
Some thin wheat stands will do better than the
thick ones.
One thing is for sure mother nature can f$&k up a
good crop, no matter how hard you try to beat her.

[freewheat]

SF3, you bring up many good points. The
farmer can only do so much to protect
his crops. Some years you could baby the
crop start to finish, spend 100 bucks an
acre more than the old neighbor with a
half section of summerfallow, and still
come up short. Another year, you could
look brilliant. I think as farmers we
need to come up the middle somewhere. I
don't spray much for diseases or
insects, because first, I am usually
maxxed out once it is sprayed, and
second, it is not often a tangible,
provable return on investment like
fertilizer for example. This year I did
some hrs, and left some untreated. It
looks identical so far.

I have not yet seen a bertha, and have
been looking extensively.

I think seeding date, a spotty shower,
or such can cost way more than we think.
Last year, I had a freak 2 inch rainfall
in half an hour, that none of my
neighbors got, and it showed up in the
end. So many things happen that we don't
even see out there. Had I not been home
that day getting the drill ready, I
would not have known it had even
occured, and I would have wondered why
the heck my crops seemed so poor vs. a
half a mile down the road. That kind of
thing happens all the time, and is so
uncontrollable. Knowing you are
harvesting 20 bushel canola, while the
neighbors get 40 or so is tough to take
at 12 bucks a bushel. All due to a freak
downpoor.

This year, I am in a garden spot
relatively, in the spring I would never
have guessed it would look this decent.
Decent, but oh so very late.

I guess what I am saying, is like you.
We can do all we can to help our crops,
but in the end, too wet, too cool, too
hot, too humid, too much southerly winds
in the spring... It is a tough racket. I
do not think chemicals for everything
are the answer necesarily. Nature needs
to take its course at times.

[TOM4CWB]

SF,

Our crops in east central Alberta are comming on VERY fast. 2 weeks ahead of last year.

Hail, rain, pushed down... but overall if we don't get pounded too much by hail... a nice early crop coming.

[furrowtickler]

Contiuous farming, shorter rotations and ever expanding acres are snow balling, because S/F you are right, mother nature rules. Some are now realizing ship can / will happen very quickly and it matters not the size of your wand, it is how you use it. Some areas I understand it "may" not have mattered, but most areas due dilligence will pay ten fold, if not hailed out.

[furrowtickler]

As for your post statement, saddly very few. This year shows it, in this area, maybe not all, as has been pointed out.

[hobbyfrmr]

I'm into heavy intrusive tillage, legume plow
downs. I seed heavy, I seed late, I seed deep. I
use antique tractors and primitive tillage tools. I
pass a rod weeder after seeding. Smash some
crops with tine harrows around 2 leaf stage if
necessay. I goto the lake and small talk with the
neighbors' wives while they are out trying to spray
for everything under the sun that they paid a
fellow to tell them.
I am not against agrologists, fertilizer or
herbicides. Go right ahead and buy them.
You do not have to own a grain cleaner, or pay for
those kinds of custom work. Some guys feed
those screenings to cattle, chickens, sheep etc.
Sorry, short answer long. After June 10 I don't
know what is going on in my fields.

[SASKFARMER3]

Hobby thats nice your organic, Our one
neighbor near the Red Army camp also is,
Yea that diseased HRS and sick Barley crop
sure is a winner.

[Burbert]

Don't know, don't care, nutting that I kin
do aboot tings, except give angribusiness
more money, worry aboot spraying, spraying
,spraying, F#$k it the stuff is only worth
so much anyway. Throwin more cash at
it'll only be a waste of more cash! After
all this is only Comedian framing.......

[sumdumguy]

If only we could turn back the clock on this year.
The old saying, hindsight is 20-20.

Intensive, no- till chemical farming is entrenched
in farmer's minds and probably will work for
awhile, but IMHO , it may not be sustainable due
to disease and wet weather. We may not be able
with our mound of research, to monitor or
quantify the soil borne diseases and increase in
insect habitat that we are creating by the
decaying matter accumulated by continuous
cropping. Just a hunch, for what its worth.