RealAg Radio: Fertilizer supply risks, winter wheat survivability, and spring tillage, Mar 30, 2026

This Real Egg Radio podcast is brought to you by Corygen Max Insecticide from fmc. Get fast selective extended control of grasshoppers, Bertha armyworms, diamondback moth and cutworms in a convenient concentrated formulation. And Corgin Max insecticide works alongside beneficials for a one, two punch that keeps the fight going long after you've left the field. It's time for Real Egg Radio on rural radio channel 147 on Sirius. RealAg radio and realllculture.com is your home for insight and analysis of the issues that are impacting your farm business. Let's get real and get connected with RealAg Radio. Hello and welcome to RealAg Radio here on rural radio channel 147, Sirius XM. It is Monday, March 30th. It is agronomic Monday and I am your host, Lindsay Smith. Yes, it is our last Monday in March and I am so glad. It has not been an easy month. This month of March. It has been where I am anyway. Stormy, incredibly cold and just feels like spring is taking its sweet time arriving in my area. That being said, today we did get some spring like weather, which is always nice. Gives us a little hope that maybe green grass is just around the corner. Of course, for us here on my farm, we're a livestock operation and so we are just biding our time until of course, we can turn everybody out onto green grass. And our lambing season starts early to mid May, May 10, May 12. Somewhere in there. So we're sort of just in a holding pattern, but of course for everybody who's got crop to put in the ground. Well, the flip to April later this week, it does sort of always have that vibe like March, hey, we've got April. Feels a little like it's go time. And so if where you are, you're already rolling or about ready to do so. We've got all sorts of topics to unpack today with our resident agronomist, Peter Johnson. We are going to talk a bit about fertiliser access supply because of course that is a main issue. And actually in our first segment, we're going to talk about what the grain farmers of Ontario are doing to encourage, of course, transparency and a lot of information sharing about whether or not Ontario specifically may end up short on nitrogen fertiliser. It's definitely a concern, what with the war continuing in the Middle East. So Bernthobin's got that report. In our first segment, we'll also have a product spotlight on today's show. And then as promised, we'll bring Peter Johnson in for our last two segments. I've got some questions, of course, about winter wheat and other fall seeded crops, about survivability, about snow moulds, about all sorts of other things that we have to think about in the early part of the season. We'll also talk about corn that is being harvested right now, which still just stuns me and maybe it shouldn't. It was definitely an odd fall for Ontario as far as dry down goes, but there's that happening and maybe even some spring tillage. So we'll talk about that as well. I did want to send a shout out to everyone who listened to the Friday radio show. Thank you for your feedback. We always appreciate it. Friday is a lot of fun. It's always interesting. Unpack the major news storeys of the week. In case you missed it, Avi Lewis did take the NDP leadership race and also highly recommend this is my one ask of you. Okay, actually there's two. Go to realagriculture.com hit that subscribe button. So if you go to realagriculture.com subscribe on that page you can choose whatever email blast you would like. So if you're in Western Canada, Eastern Canada, if you're into cattle, just like machinery and tech, you can sign up for it there. You'll never miss a storey that we do goes directly to your inbo and you can just scroll through what you want to see or not see. But we have a lot of news information and a lot of opinion columns rolling in that I don't want you to miss. So cheque that out. Also, shout out Tonight I've got Norm Sutherland and Warren Bills are going to join me for the Agronomist. We're going to talk about sales and communication and how the farmer agronomist retail relationship has evolved over the past few years. So cheque that out. That's tonight. RealAgriculture.com agronomist okay, let's get to today's show. Well, we're going to take a quick break and I'll be back with more of RealAg Radio right after this. If you're serious about agriculture, Real Ag's got you covered. For over 10 years we've listened to and shared what producers have to say about everything from policy to agronomy, from coast to coast. Keep up with the latest in Canadian [email protected] through daily newsletters and cheque out our YouTube channel. Thanks for joining us in the Real Light community as we continue to cover and serve North American agriculture. I'm Lindsay Smith, joining me now at Marika Vanderlin with Syngenta. If you're still in that spot of that. It's been a rotation crop for me. Get to know this crop like it will reward you. Boots on the ground, so important. Make a plan for that planting date. We know been involved in the yen for a couple years. That is like your number one thing is getting that planting date as close to optimal as possible. Something you can still change this year. Sulphur. If you're not putting sulphur on your wheat, like, think about that. And of course, from the Syngenta stacked cereal approach. I'm a big fan of that T1 fungicide. We have two options. We have a lower cost option with quilt and we have what I would consider. You know your Cadillac is near this Neo. Why am I caring about this T1 space? Well, last year we saw stripe rust again and we've had a similar winter than we had last winter that maybe allowed some stripe rust to overwinter. As we're climbing that yield ladder, we need to protect that crop. We have a beautiful website. Just Google stacked cereals. It will be the first thing that comes up. Welcome back to Real Life Radio here on rural radio channel147, SiriusXM. It is Monday, March 30th. It is agronomic Monday and I am your host, Lindsay Smith. This segment brought to you by MMP's AgriS Mental Management. With deep roots in agriculture, MMP's Ag Risk Management team helps producers protect their bottom line through smart, proactive risk planning. From agristability and agri invest to tailored private insurance strategies, MMP's Agrisk Advisors simplify complex programmes and build customised plans that fit your farm. Strengthen your operation with confidence. Connect with MMP today at MMP ca. Well, top of mind for most this week is of course, what's all happening in the Middle east and the impact it will have on fertiliser supplies and, well, the immediate impact it has had on diesel prices and fuel prices as well. Bernthobin was in Niagara Falls last week for the Grain Farmers of Ontario March Classic and spoke with a member of GFO on what is happening with fertiliser supplies into Eastern Canada. Bertra Tobin here at the Green Farmers of Ontario March Classic in Niagara Falls. In a full house. Catching up with Gus Turnoy now he's executive committee member of the Grain Farmers of Ontario. Sir, how you doing? Thanks for stopping by. Hey, Bern, I'm doing Fantastic. We are having a wonderful event here in Niagara Falls, this being a brand new location for the gfo and we have a, I would almost say capacity crowd. We have never had so many people at an event. This is a large group and as I said, I've been to a lot of classics over the years. Probably the largest group I've ever seen. Lots of people to talk to, Gus, and lots of conversations happening on the floor. But is it fair to say, I guess the events of the Middle east and the impact of fertiliser markets is dominating that discussion. What are you hearing as you travel around the floor when it comes to fertiliser, there's certainly a lot of discussion. There's a number of farmers who have pre bought their fertiliser earlier on last fall and they're sitting in a fairly comfortable position at the moment. There's also a lot of guys who couldn't afford to do that. We've had a lot of situations where the amount of capital that's available with the advanced payment plan has been reduced from 350,000 down to 100,000. Well, farmers need to come up with that quarter million dollars that came out of their pockets last fall and that made it difficult to pre buy fertiliser. So it's not always an option to do that. And they're sitting in a weaker position today looking at much higher price. What are you hearing from a cost and a price perspective, Gus? I mean, obviously you're purchasing fertiliser, talking to a lot of growers. Some got that purchase up front. Some are sort of in a tougher spot. What are you hearing from a price perspective? So the prices are probably double what they were last fall and they continue to climb at the moment. It's very, very difficult. Real concern is making sure we're able to get the fertiliser this spring. So far it looks like all of our retailers have put it on the ground already or it's on a boat on the way here. There's a little bit of shipping concerns with the pricing going up as far as getting it into the country. What about potential for changing crops here? Do you think we might see some slides of soybeans? What do you think? I think that's a real possibility. I know the markets have started to put a few signals out there to try to prevent that from happening. They down pricing soybeans at the moment to keep those corn acres going in. But it's definitely going to be a real situation where the high cost of inputs are going to cause farmers to change crops. Gus, what is GFO telling growers? Obviously, you know, starting that conversation with the retailer, you got to have that conversation. Absolutely. And that's the most important thing to do if you haven't pre bought or pre ordered your fertiliser is make sure that your retailer knows how much you're going to need. They are not going to be buying any extra fertiliser to bring it in. Not knowing how the prices are going to change over the next few months. We're probably going to see more of a fallout come fall and that's a lot of discussion. There won't be a whole lot of fertiliser coming in unless they know they have a market for it and that the price is fluctuating so quickly. Everyone's just very hesitant to buy anything unless they absolutely need it. So make sure you have a good comprehensive conversation with your retailer. Short term, long term solutions here, Gus. I mean, how important is it, I guess, you know, to cool that geopolitical tension, you know, in the Middle east and get fertiliser moving through the Strait of Herman? It's essential. The war in Iran has to come to an end. As long as that that conflict is ongoing. The risk profile goes so high, the supply potential just drops off. Like I believe it's 35% of the market comes out of that area. So we need to see that conflict come to an end before we can even get moving forward on what the next phase, the next steps are. How can the government help here, Gus? I mean, obviously we still have tariffs on fertiliser from Russia. Are you hoping the Canadian government will make a move on that front? From a long term perspective, they need to make a move on that. Any type of tariff causes barriers within the natural flow of trade and it doesn't benefit anybody and it certainly hurts the country. Putting the tariffs on. In the long run, short term, tariffs can have an effect that, that have a measurable potential. But on the long term, when we're starting talking years, it's time to move on. We need to find other ways to deal with our, our geopolitical disagreements. And tariffing our supplies for agricultural inputs is a very poor policy. It just shouldn't be allowed anywhere in the world. For that matter, let's let the free flow of those inputs move around. That's going to help farmers worldwide. Now you've asked the government for an increase in the advanced payments programme, you know, improved business risk management. How important is that a big part of this equation? When we have situations like going on right now. Those risk management programmes are the most important. That's the insurance that allows a farmer to protect. When those high costs of production come into play versus the lower cost of sales, you have some sort of protection in there. If nothing is in place, the farmer takes all the risk at the end of the day. And when you have these geopolitical decisions being made, you can literally bankrupt a significant portion of your food production. And you're not going to have food security if you don't have secure farmers. A final question. You know, invest domestic fertiliser production in this country. You know, it's going to take time and lots of money, but I guess the GFO has got to be a belief here that, you know, more domestic supply of nitrogen and phosphates is critical. The more domestic supply, the more resilient we are to these type of geopolitical conflicts throughout the world. The problem that we've got in this country is we have so much regulation that is actually preventing investment dollars from coming in. And the government needs to set a level playing field. So investments in Canada need to be as attractive as they are in the United States. And currently they're not. Regardless of what the structure is, you've got a better payback on your capital investment in other countries, and that's pulling money out of Canada. So they can fix that, they can make changes in that and they need to do it quickly. It needs to be easy for business to set up in this country before we're ever going to see billion dollar investments in fertiliser production here. And then we need to deal with the industrial carbon tax, which is another penalty upon industry within this country. And until they start to realise that investment in agriculture requires a level playing field at all levels, we're going to continue to be reliant on foreign imports of fertiliser in order to make production in this country. We are going to leave it there for just a moment. If you've got questions, feedback, etc. On this topic. There are so many questions and actually, later in the show, we're going to talk about some of the other impacts potentially of unrest in the Middle east and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. But if you would like to get in touch. Lsmithealagriculture.com or you can call or text that feedback line 1-855-776-6147. We are going to take a break and I'll be back with today's Product Spotlight right after this quick break. Peter Johnson at wheatpeatrealagriculture.com I'm the host of the Word and I love doing the Word. I love the questions, I love the challenges. I love having to apply agronomics to all over the globe and areas outside of my normal jurisdiction. Also, I love the feedback the most where growers challenge me, tell me about their plot results, help me to learn the Word. Absolutely the best part of my day. Since 2009, the Canola School on RealAgriculture.com has been providing relevant and timely agronomic advice to anyone involved in canola production. With over 15 years of video content on YouTube, the Canola School has been producers go to source for canola agronomy, research, marketing and more. The Canola School is brought to you by BASF and Invigor Hybrid Canola cheque us out on YouTube [email protected]. As you look ahead to the next growing season, there's a lot to consider when it comes to your crop. You need every possible advantage available to you. The Pulse School on RealAgriculture.com has everything you need to make the best choice for you and your Farm On Demand videos on with leading industry experts available anywhere, anytime. Go into the season confident and ready with the Pulse School on RealAgriculture.com. Welcome back to RealAg Radio here on rural radio channel147, SiriusXM. I am Lindsay Smith. It is time for today's Product Spotlight. I've got with me Dr. Andres Reyes gauge, technical manager for Acadian Plant Health. Welcome here, Andres. Thank you, Lindsay. It's great to be back here in the programme. Thanks for having me. Yes, now it is. I feel like the days are a little bit longer. Spring is just around the corner. Spring is of course an exciting time on the farm because we get that crop in the ground, but it's also potentially an incredibly stressful time for seeds and seedlings that are trying to get through sometimes not great conditions. Biostimulants are something that may be able to play a role there. What do biostimulants do at the seeding and seed window? Why are they gaining in interest from growers? And that is a really good question because as you know, the spring is always coming with a lot of different unpredictable weather conditions. So in many areas in the us, in Canada, all over the world really, growers are having to plant earlier because they're trying to look for that good moisture soil conditions to get their crops out to a good start so early in the Season, we're going to see a lot of many different challenges, like for example, cold soils, temperature fluctuations, we're going to see drought, and in many other cases, we are even going to see waterlogin all of these different factors are really going to have a negative impact on crop establishment. Even more, all of these conditions are packed in a very short window of time when the crop is trying to really grow and that early grow and vigour of the crop. So I think that is what's really driving that interest in biostimulants like our product. And that is because the biostimulants are going to help with different things, plant advantages like germination, root growth, water and nutrient uptake, and all of these benefits are going to help the crops handle stresses a lot better and maintain that final yield potential for the crops. Now, biostimulants, of course, get a lot of attention, a lot of questions about them. What separates products that really impact that early growth from those that maybe don't. So it comes down to two main things, consistency and biological activity. Effective biostimulants, like our Ascophylum Nodosum product, are backed by more than 20 years of research and testing. Even more, our products are packed with many different bioactive compounds that are going to help the crop handle stresses better, are going to help with root growth, are going to help with water and nutrient uptake, and growers like seeing all these different benefits on their crops. Now, you mentioned Ascophyllum nodosum. I hope I'm saying that right. It's really neat to learn about all these different, different things that we can, that we can add during a growing season. How does, how does this actually work? How does this biostimulant actually help a crop deal with early season stress? So that's another great question. And products like ours, they help by supporting the plant's natural internal processes. So this is what's helping the crop maintain that, maintain and protect that yield potential. So our bioactive compounds are going to help with that germination are going to help support that early root growth, are going to help with that water and nutrient uptake. So you're seeing a lot of different benefits throughout the season that stack up together. And all of these helps really maintain that final yield potential for your crops. So that's how it works, really. And so what do farmers typically see when they're using these products? How might a crop that has received this biostimulant look different in the season? So farmers and growers are going to see a better germination, they're going to see a more uniform emergence, they're going to see a better root ball mass at the beginning of the season, a better root growth, they're going to see better nutrient and water uptake. And all of these benefits are really going to take the plant to be able to stand and tolerate abiotic stresses better. All of these benefits that we see early in the season are really helping the crop because they are maintaining that yield potential that your crop has at the beginning of the season before we even plant the seed. Now, Acadian Plant health, of course, busy working on what's next. Can you give us a hint on what else producers might expect from your company in the coming months and years? That is very exciting because Acadian has always been committed to helping crops and plants from the very, very first moment that they start growing. Right now we have a really, really rich and great portfolio of products that can be applied to the soil or it can also be applied by foliar applications. And right now we are working on very exciting new seed treatment technologies that are going to help support germination, are going to help support that early root growth and help support that early stress mitigation. So we are very excited about the future and as you might know, Acadian is very committed to helping support the crop throughout all growing stages of it. Now, for those who are interested, of course, in ascophyllum, but maybe also what's coming down the pipeline, where can they go to learn more about Acadian plant health, you can learn more about us at our website, which is Acadian PlantHealth. All right, Andres, thank you so much for joining me here on the show. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Lindsay. Thanks for having me. Have a great day. All right, we'll be back with more RealAg Radio right after this. Until you've used Via Tude fungicide, you'll never know what your canola crop is capable of engineered. Excellent Excellence in Every Jug Via Tude combines two powerful actives, Group 11 and 3 for best in class. Sclerotinia protection and superior resistance management by penetrating the plant and protecting against infection. Treat your canola crop to a healthy and productive season with Via Tube. Ask your local retailer for more information. Before you get back in the field this year, spend some time with the corn school on RealAgriculture.com. get all the information you need on hybrid selection, planting depth, crop inputs and more from a wide range of industry experts. A massive library of video content is available on Demand when you need it most. Spend your time outside of the field, inside the classroom with the corn school on realagriculture.com. Welcome back to RealAg Radio here on rural radio channel 147, SiriusXM. It is Monday. It is Agronomic Monday and I'm your host, Lindsay Smith. This segment brought to you by CDC Evident Durham from Alliance Seed. It's the clear Choice for Plant 2026. It delivers high grain yield, strong disease resistance and excellent end use suitability. With CDC Evident, you'll set a new standard for Durham performance. Learn more at alliance or call 1-877-270-2890. And as promised, I've got Peter Wheat, Pete Johnson with me. Pete, how are you doing? I'm doing awesome, thanks, Lindsay. We, we are done the the Mighty Men of Zora. So that was the last play that I was in. So the last performance was yesterday. And, and I love doing it, but I also like to be done because it just takes a tonne of time. I was gonna say we may, we might be a little sleepy today. A little extra coffee maybe to get some pep in your step. But of course it does. That's good timing, Pete, because here we are, March 30th. The calendar flips this week. The weather maybe also will. But that brings up of course a lot of questions this week coming in about, you know, where we're at with this wheat crop, where we're out with fertiliser deliveries, etc. Which we heard in our first segment today. I want to start with though. Let's start with the wheat crop I was out and about yesterday and Pete, the geese and the deer are ample out there and I like on some fields, really bad. It does beg the question this time of year just how much of an impact geese damage or deer damage can have on the winter wheat crop or any, I guess false eater crop. What say you? How worried do I need to be? Oh, so, so Lindsay, you have to be worried. Just the reality of it. And, and it's really interesting how the different wildlife that feed on our crops affect them differently. So it's deer, it's geese. It's also wild turkeys because the wild turkeys will come out or sandhill cranes. Right. Like there's, there's so many different things that, that are impacting us now that I don't know. Sandhill cranes have been around in the bad areas for quite a while, but they seem to be getting worse. Sandhill cranes and wild turkeys are probably the worst because they'll pull the plants right out of the ground and eat the whole plant. In fact, sandhill cranes will eat corn seed, go down the road and row, rather, and eat corn seed all the way along. When we look at winter wheat or winter canola in the spring, the geese are far worse than the deer. And I think the reason is that geese don't have teeth and deer do. So way back when, when they first started actually growing more winter wheat in your area and having troubles with geese, my good friend Gilles Cannell did some work, and he went out with. With a lawnmower, and he continually clipped the wheat crop to see what impact it would have. And so every time that you mow it off, you basically reduce or delay, I should say delay maturity by one day. Now, that's not so bad. If you do it enough times, the plant dies. It just runs out of resources in terms of photosynthate that the plant can make to put out new growth. But so that. That represents the deer feeding fairly well, because deer have teeth just like sheep would. In fact, you know, there's places, New Zealand, they will actually pasture the wheat crop with sheep before it joints. Or you go down to Kansas or to Texas, Oklahoma, those states, they will pasture the wheat with cattle. And you can get away with that. It hurts it. I mean, you can't be a record wheat grower and also pasture wheat, in my opinion. But at least they bite it off. They basically act like the lawnmower, the geese. And Warren Schneckenberger sent a great picture of this to me, where the geese go along and they're e it, but they're pulling as they eat. And so they actually, if the ground isn't frozen, if it's wet there, they pull it out of the ground or partially out of the ground. And ripping those roots off is 100% different than just clipping. And so, you know, if the deer trim it off twice, well, we've delayed maturity by two days. Typically, that would be couple bushels per acre. It won't look as pretty, but. But, you know, it won't be a disaster if the geese come along and continue to feed and continue to pull it out of the ground. Yeah, you could end up. And we've seen this, you know, numerous times, where you end up with zero crop, and that's no fun. Mm. Certainly have seen, especially along, let's say, waterways, et cetera, where it's just. There's nothing left. It's just. It's gone. And sure, there's some fertility left I'll tell you that much, which is very slick, so be careful. But, yes, now, I will say this is one of those, you know, what do you do about it? It's not necessarily something that, you know, is it? There aren't really any viable options for this. Right. I mean, if it's a garden, sometimes people use noise makers, et cetera, or a dog to chase things off. But, I mean, we're talking field scale. There really isn't anything so. But yes. Scout. Scout, Scout. Okay, let's stick with our winter wheat and our winter or fall seeded crops. What about driving on wheat when it's too cold and we've done some damage? What are you hearing there? Yeah, and so, Lindsay, and we've talked about this numerous times, and we've had a real push down here in southwestern Ontario where the snow left. I mean, Ontario is a big province. So when I talk about this on the word, the people in New Liskerd say, what are you smoking, Johnson? We still have three feet of snow. So it's. It's all about the area that you're in. But we've had a huge push and some real opportunities to get out on our winter wheat crop, on our winter canola crops, on our winter triticale crops and put the sulphur on, in some cases, put some nitrogen on where we want that winter triticale as a feed source. We want to get the nitrogen there early. Winter canola also has high demand early. The challenge is. And my good friend Nick at Strathroy sent me a picture just this morning where he drove on his wheat, putting his sulphur on 125lbs of ammonium sulphate. It's hard wheat. So he wanted 30lbs of sulphur. So he got there, but it was -13 Celsius when he did it. And those leaves are destroyed. They're just all going to be. And the leaves where he didn't drive on are 100% perfect. Perfect. Meanwhile, wheat Pete got his sulphur on his wheat. Now, I only did 80 pounds because I'm a soft wheat grower, and 20 pounds is lots of sulphur. But we did it at about -4. And you can't even see where the applicator drove. That's how little damage there was. There was frost, and we didn't damage the wheat leaves at all. So it seems when we get into negative double digits, that. And I'm. I'm hypothesising here, Lindsay, because I'm not 100% sure exactly what happens, but it's almost as if that's cold enough that some ice crystals form in the leaves. It doesn't kill the leaves, like, they can still tolerate that, but when you drive on them, there's enough ice crystals in there that they destroy the cells. And once you destroy the cells, of course, all this things inside the cell leak out when it thaws out and then those cells are dead. So it's really interesting that we can do it in the spring at minus 6, at minus 7, you get to minus 10, minus 11 and things start to go south. So just phenomenally interesting how crops respond. Mm. It, it is very bizarre to me, but also very evident if you've made that mistake because the track, the tram lines or the track lines are clear as day when you've made this mistake. Now, what about snow mould? So this can be a huge issue, but you're seeing maybe less in the winter wheat crop, but certainly winter triticale cereal, rye maybe have more of an issue with snow mould. Yeah, absolutely. And so we were really worried about snow mould in last spring when the wheat came out of dormancy. You know, it wasn't too. There was a bit in the London area, but by the time we got further north, where the snow stays longer, because that's what creates the conditions that snow mould thrives under, is underneath the snow where we're at, you know, zero to to 1, 2 Celsius, the snow mould goes crazy. So you get that 6, 8, 10, 12 weeks of snow cover. Snow moulds a problem. So in the spring of last spring, in the spring of 2025, it was horrendous. I walked wheat and, and just. You just scratch your head and say, why? But you would walk wheat fields and in many wheat fields you'd have three feet of good wheat, one foot that the wheat was dead, and then two feet of good wheat and six inches of dead. And it was like. It was just. You left the wheat, but it definitely hurt the yield. This spring in those same areas, when I walk wheat, there's a little bit of snow mould, but not nearly as much. It's kind of like I get a 2 inch strip of damaged wheat and you go, like, why in that 2 inches? But it's just, it's micro environments. I think the difference is that we had a January thaw this year and not all the snow melted everywhere. So as we move further north, we may still have just as much snow mould as we had last year. But certainly in the southwest, that January thaw, it Breaks up the conditions for the snow mould. And so we are seeing significantly less in winter wheat. And that's a good thing. When we get a winter triticale cereal rye, they are just that much more susceptible to snow mould. And good for Joanna Fallings, the cereal specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture, she's doing some trials to see are there management things that we can, can do to prevent snow mould. But some of the triticale varieties that we thought were more tolerant to snow mould, Joanna has some on her own farm and they're just decimated with snow mould. So if you're looking for that winter triticale as a forage crop for the dairy cattle, you better get out there and have a look because there is a lot of snow mould in those situations. Well, and it begs the question, so I'm glad to hear that Joanna's doing some work on this as well, because, you know, is it. There is a function of a lot of green material going into winter, but it really does come down to exactly that. Those maybe those microclimates. And so, you know, it may be one of those, what do you do about it beyond being prepared that if you've got significant kill, what are you going to do about that as far as filling in gaps or taking a standout or whatever. Has snow mould ever been bad enough that it's like made someone take out a stand? Oh, yeah, last year there was. Yeah, for sure. Up in that Seaforth area, there was a whole lot of winter triticale. Just, just didn't make it. Okay, interesting. All right, last point before we go to a break on winter crops or false eater crops. What about winter canola? We get a lot of questions about, you know, freeze and thaw cycles and cold weather when the, when wheat's exposed, etc. And I think, Pete, you've got a pretty good handle on how wheat will survive or not. What about winter canola? Are we worried about it this year? Oh, we're worried about it for sure. Although winter canola, it always surprises us at how resilient it is. But it's really fascinating, Lindsay, when you mention that, because Brian Fowler, Dr. Brian Fowler, who long time at University of Saskatchewan, he did some tremendous work on winter wheat. And so I can tell you, you know, the LT50, the lethal temperature where 50% of the plants d in the wintertime with winter wheat in the spring, as it, as it goes to stage two dormancy. Wheat has two stages of dormancy. And like all of that is well documented. And I know that stuff because I'm a wheat guy. And then we start growing winter canola. And I've reached out to some people to say so what are Those lethal temperature? 50. Those LT 50s for winter canola in the spring as it breaks dormancy. And I have not been able to find it in the literature. The experts I've talked to have just said we don't know. And this spring in, in our part of the world, Lindsay, the snow went away and we got some super cold nights. As you know, nick driving on minus 13. Well, with the winter weed he was driving on, even though the, the leaf tissue is damaged. And we will see that, you know, it, it will, it's like the deer feeding or whatever, those will be delayed, but they're alive because that wheat growing point is three quarters of an inch in the ground. And so it's minus 13 air temperature, but it's not minus 13 when we get to the crown. And it survives to minus nine with the canola, it's right at ground level. And so we get this -13 with the wind driving that cold temperature in. And so is that canola alive or is that canola dead? And I just don't know. And I, I should know. I'm an agronomist, I should know that answer, but I do not. This is one of those ones you're just gonna have to scout. Give it a bit of time and we'll find out. Let us know and make sure you tell Pete if you've walked your fields and you think it's dead. So there you go. Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with more Real Egg radio right here in just a moment. Foreign. Smith from RealAgriculture.com join me Monday nights for the Agronomist, a one hour live and interactive show broadcast across YouTube, Facebook and X. Monday nights at 8pm Eastern, I host expert agronomists from all over the country to give you answers to some of the toughest agronomic questions. Join us live or catch the replay Tuesday morning. That's the Agronomist with me, Lindsay Smith. Monday nights live at 8pm Eastern. Hi, I'm Bernard Tobin, host of the Soybean School on RealAgriculture.com throughout the year on the Soybean School, we'll bring you timely agronomic video content from planting to harvest, from the latest agronomic research to the latest in production technology. Cheque out our massive video library on YouTube. RealAgriculture.com or download the audio podcast versions. Wherever you get your podcast. The Soybean School is brought to you by Mazic Seeds and Lalamom Plant Care. Welcome back to Real Life Radio here on rural radio channel147, SiriusXM. It is Monday, March 30th. We are almost done with March, thank goodness. I am your host, Lindsay Smith. It is Agronomic Monday, of course, and here at Real Agriculture we're looking for new and exciting shop builds, renos, retrofits, the whole bit to feature on RealAg Shops. It's a video series featuring smart and slick shops from across Canada, both big and small. And if you know someone who has a great shop, nominate them for a tour. You can email Shaun [email protected] of course, you can send me a message too. All right, we bring back in our resident agronomist, Peter Wheat, Pete Johnson. Pete, I want to start with, well, how we started the show, talking about fertiliser availability, the importance of talking to your retailer. But there's, you know, fertiliser is important, but of course there's crop protection products we have to worry about as well. And of course the war in the Middle east is impacting all sorts of things, including plastics, aluminium and now potentially some crop protection products. Products, yes. So, Lindsay, there was a. An agricultural chemical manufacturing plant in Israel that got hit by, I believe it was fallout from a missile that was destroyed in the air. But. And you don't think about these things, and I'm not sure that there's significant damage at that plant, but the impacts of this conflict are going to be, you know, felt more widely than I think any of us really realised at the beginning of the whole issue. And I, yeah, it's just one of those things that you kind of sit back and say, yeesh, that that's a big deal. Already in Ireland they are bringing in force majeure on, on urea fertiliser that they were going to put on their forage crops to feed their livestock because they just know that, that that's not going to get there. It was supposed to be coming by boat. Of course, Ireland is, is warmer than, than Canada or at least Ontario. And so they're already needing that fertiliser to get it on, to get that grass growing, to feed the sheep, to feed the cattle, and it just doesn't exist. So we talk about it here in Ontario and we have to be worried about it. Not just Ontario, but of course all of North America. But Other areas I think are even more impacted. And I don't know, like you don't think about an agricultural chemical manufacturing plant in Israel you don't like. At least that doesn't hit my head. But there we are. They exist there, which after you hear that you say, well, that makes sense. Why wouldn't there be one there? And now they're in the path of some of this fallout and it could have pretty significant implications. Now this also, all of this and we'll be tackling this, I'm sure the longer this goes on more often. And in fact the April 6th. Put it on your calendars, everybody. The April 6th agronomist. We're going to talk about nitrogen release from the soil and how we might measure that or count on that or anticipate that. And it just feels like it is, is that much more important this year because of these, these nitrogen decisions we're going to have to make. We may not have the supply readily available that we might need. That does beg the question though, Pete. It may have some growers thinking, hey, maybe I just solve some of these problems and I grow soybeans, which there are, I'm sure going to be people that do. We do have some news on short season varieties and also maybe some questionable germ rates on some of the seed that's out there. So what do growers need to be aware on the soybean side? Yeah. So Lindsay, when you, when we get into the group 1 and shorter maturity soybeans, it appears that supply has become very, very tight. And part of that probably is because the area that grows a lot of, of sub 1 group 1 maturity soybeans, it was super dry last year. So if, if seed production was in that area that only got 8 bushel per acre soybeans, guess what? We don't have the seed supply. They don't, they aren't all growing there. So this is not a, you know, alarm bells or an alert, alert, alert, so to speak. But, but absolutely we are tight on supply and now we are finding as, because we do the germs in the spring on seed supply and we're finding that, that soybean seed in that maturity range that you kind of think like it should be fine, why would it be below germ? And it's coming back low germination. So it's not making the 85% germ or at least some of it is not making the 85% germination level that is required for certified one seed. And we're tight on supply. And now we take some that isn't making certified one. And what do we do with that? Do we plant certified number two, which is less than 85% germ. If we do that, how do we handle that from a, a, a grower management situation? We up the seeding rate, but then it can, you know, seed gets more expensive. And also we've been seeing a fair few abnormals in some of these as well. Which, which makes you question the vigour on some of these soybean seed Lots. And so here's the other side of that is we've been pushing and pushing and pushing. You know, plant soybeans first. Plant soybeans before you plant corn, man. If that soybean seed is lower vigour, you have to, you have to step back and say, maybe planting those soybeans first is, is a little less of a, of a good idea if we don't have good vigour soybean seed. So it's some of those things that I think growers just have to pay attention to and ask those questions and we'll work our way through it. Mm. Okay, important notes there. There's also apparently corn harvest happening still. Again, I'm not sure what we, we do on this one. Definitely your neck of the woods more than mine. Pete, that, that had corn out there. What, what's going on? Why is it still out there? And what are farmers faced with trying to get this corn harvest wrapped up? So, Lindsey, I've been absolutely astounded this spring as I've driven around to different meetings and up north into Grand Bruce counties to visit my brother. There is so much corn out. I think this is the most corn that we have left out in Ontario since the winter of 1992, or actually the winter of 92 and into the spring of 92, because that was the, the, pardon me, the spring of 93, because 92, we had no summer. We got to the fall of 92 and we had 50% moisture corn and nobody would take it or didn't like. It was just a nightmare. So we left tonnes of corn out. We even destroyed corn out. This is the most corn I've seen out since that year, which was effectively almost a disaster here in Ontario. And again, it comes back to a lot of growers that corn never dried down and so they just left it out. And this spring there's, it's been coming out of the field, some growers at 17% moisture. And so that's a huge win. But the challenge is that, you know, you can't do it in the snow. So they were at it Friday night. In fact, there's some great pictures on Twitter of growers in that Grey county area that went out to harvest on Friday night. It was getting, you know, lots colder enough, and then it snows again. And so they get taken out of the field again because of snow. But, yeah, lots of corn harvest going on. I think Deb Campbell actually said that she has growers that need a full week of corn harvest to get corn harvest complete. And, yeah, it's just one of those things where it's like, wow, that's a lot of corn that got left out. Even in my area, there were growers left corn out because it did not dry down. So here's my one note. Lindsay and I talked about this on the word and. And I'm surprised that growers aren't aware of this, but if it is a management decision to leave that corn field out for spring harvest, then there is a little bit of added management you really should apply. So you leave four rows unharvested on the windward side on the west side or the northwest side, where the, you know, you get the prevailing winds, and then you combine the next 18 rows or whatever that number of rows is, because when you drive around the countryside in those unharvested fields, the first two or three, four rows are still standing, and then the next 18 or 20 or whatever that number is, are just flat to the ground because that's where all the snow piled in. You leave four rows to be your snow fence. The snow piles in just like it would along a snow fence. And then the rest of the field, that snow doesn't get as deep. And. And you don't get that lodging when. When snow goes over the cob, the corn cannot tolerate that. Like, as the snow melts, the weight of the snow on that cob just pulls it straight down to the ground. And if it pulls it straight down to the ground, there's no stock sticking across the row for the cornhead to pick up. The yield loss that is going to happen in those areas is big. And the volunteer corn that will be in those strips is also going to be big. Mm, it is. You made an important point, and I think this is a good one of. It's a management choice in a year like last year. Right. Some years you get. There's just no way you could get into the field. It's so wet, let's say, or whatever the conditions may be. And it just. I mean, the weather makes the decision for you, but for many this was a management choice. Right? And so exactly that it requires maybe some planning and some napkin math on what it costs obviously to dry it, etc. But when I think spring though in Ontario is we often think of, you know, full soil recharge, we think of maybe even overly wet scenarios, which of course begs the question on spring tillage, can it be successful? And Pete, you're actually seeing where it has been. Is that just because we were so dry? So Lindsay, we weren't that dry when you think about it. We had lots of snow and so you would say lots of snow, doesn't that mean lots of soil water? And for us, typically it does. But what I find as I go through this thought process, because not the first time I've seen it, when we do early spring tillage, even with that disc gripper, that wheat peak just hates that ground comes up. And I mean you're not running it 10, 12 inches deep, but if you, if you set it in at as shallow as you can at 6 inches deep, or if you spring plough, oftentimes that that soil turns up beautifully. It's mealy. It's not. It does in the fall. It comes up, it's shiny, it's slabby and, and Pete says you need the freeze thaw, you need the wet dry to make that stuff. So it'll make a seed bed next spring. And then we go out there in the spring and it comes up and it's like, wow, this is, how does that work? But I think there's a couple of things. You know, 10 inches of snow is only 1 inch of water. And so if you have 10 inches of snow, you think you have quite a bit of snow in the field. But as that melts over a two week period, well, one inch of rain in a two week period is nothing. And all winter, because our ground isn't frozen. I think that ground underneath that just the excess water gets a chance to move through the soil profile and get down and recharge the groundwater, recharge the water table. And spring tillage this year has been far better than I ever anticipated. And it'll probably end tomorrow because we're supposed to get a lot of rain tomorrow, tomorrow. But up until then it's been pretty good. It's been pretty good. Yeah, it does look so here I am in the Ottawa Valley. Finally some spring temps today, but the rest of the week cooler, but at least plus temps. But rain, snow, snow, rain, mix whatever it might be they're calling for it Every day this week. So mud season arrives with a vengeance by Friday, I suppose. Just quickly did want to send a shout out. There is some fantastic looking wheat in areas that didn't get winter. Idaho, Washington, etc. Pete, what say you? So long as it rains, are they in for, in for a record or is that merely maybe a false hope anyway, because it's not gonna. Oh no, they are set up. I mean that area generally, some of that area will get 8ft of snow, Lindsay, and this winter they got zero and it's like New Zealand. Through that area the wheat continued to grow. And so they have crops that they would normally have two or three tillers on at this time of year or still be under snow. And they are green and lush and 10 tillers per plant and oh my gosh, they are going to have lodging out the yin yang if they're not careful. But they are, it's not in the bin but they, they are set up for an amazing crop if Mother Nature continues to smile on them. Okay, well, we'll put in that order. And that's all the time we've got for this week, Pete, of course, a reminder for everybody. Pete's got his own podcast that goes up every Wednesday on wherever you get your audio. But of course also on Real Agriculture or you can go to wheatpeat.com or you can find it on YouTube. It's everywhere. And always, as always, Pete, everyone's supposed to give you a call, drop you an email, send you a tweet with their questions, observations, etc. Right. This is absolutely. I, I live on feedback. Yeah. So send it. Okay. All right, we're going to leave it there. Thanks everyone for joining us here on Real Life Radio on rural radio channel147, SiriusXM. If you've got any feedback, you can call or text 1-855-776-6147 or zip me an email lsmith real agriculture.com have a wonderful week. We'll talk to you later. Cheers everybody. Thank you for downloading this Real Egg Radio podcast brought to you by Corygen Max Insecticide from fmc. When you need to protect your crops from damaging insects, Corrigen Max Insecticide delivers fast selective extended control of grasshoppers, Bertha armyworms, diamondback moth cutworms and more. Ask your retailer today.