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A Newsletter From Your Local Independent Grain Elevator and Crop Inputs Supplier
Christmas Holiday Hours December 24th: 8am-1pm December 25-28th: Closed December 29-30: 8am-5pm December 31st: 8am-2pm January 1st: Closed 2020 has been quite a year-- COVID-19 being the main event. As the world works through this, we want to recognize all the front-line health care workers and essential services like food production and transportation services that continue to provide the products and services that we need in our daily lives. We also want to mention how we appreciate your loyal business. There are some big changes happening in the crop input and grain industry. We are proud to be a small, independent, family-run business and enjoy being able to work with you as we continue to invest a lot in improving our people and services to help your farming operation to be successful. John Snowe retirement For almost 20 years, we have been blessed to have John as the key part of our crop input business. After a number of successful years on the manufacturing and wholesale side of crop protection products, John joined our team and built a tremendous loyal customer base in the retail market. His knowledge, service, attention to detail and professionalism was unmatched. He truly loved looking after “his customers” and interacting with a wide variety of industry people as well. John will be pulling the pin on a tremendous career at the end of this year. He will have more time to spend with his wife Katherine, their children, and grandchildren. Thank you, John, for all you have done! Welcome Kris! We are excited to announce that Waterloo Crop has a new Sales Agronomist! Kris Van Raay joined our Agronomy Team this fall. Kris comes from a cash crop farm in Blenheim, Ontario. He is a recent graduate from the University of Guelph with a BSc. Agriculture and certificate in business. Kris has also recently become a Certified Crop Advisor. He worked as an Agronomy intern with Pioneer for three years in Southwestern Ontario and more recently worked at Haggerty Creek as a Customer Service Manager located in Bothwell. COVID-19 Procedures- Front door is open Just a reminder that we still have our COVID-19 procedures in place to help keep our customers, staff and everyone’s families safe. Please call ahead if you need to pick up or drop off products. However, we have opened the front door to the front lobby area. We have installed Plexiglas so please wear a mask and come in. We really do appreciate your business and working together through this situation. We will be available to work through your crop plans this fall and winter whether it be in person or over the phone; we want to help you plan ahead. Please contact us to make arrangements. Grain Markets In the last newsletter we mentioned that some optimism has surfaced in the grain markets - we never imagined a rally like we are experiencing. Wheat has held up nicely while 2020 soybeans have run up well into the $14/bu range while 2021 is approaching $13/bu. Outlook for soybeans looks positive as USDA reports tightening supplies and the pressure will be on South America to grow a big crop. Corn pricing is also strong and as exports to China and other countries like Mexico, available supplies get a little tighter so watch export sales from the US. It is truly amazing and certainly strange how global supplies have tightened up in the past 10 weeks or but it goes to show how in the world of grain marketing, surprises are the one consistent thing that always comes out of the blue. Those who forward contracted at lower prices are feeling somewhat left behind, but hopefully big yields and having more crop to sell at these prices has helped. Long term, forward contracts on a portion of your crop have still been a good way to reduce price risk and lock in some profits. Feed buyers have also been surprised at the strength of the corn and soymeal markets and no significant drops in pricing look to be in the near future. Then there is the old saying “if the Bulls get Thanksgiving (US), the Bears get Christmas.” Will have to see if that plays out...and markets go down faster than they go up! Fertilizer corner -- Potash Potassium was one of the first products American colonists could sell for cash. They cleared trees, burned the stumps and scraps, boiled the ashes down and shipped the remaining product to England - pot ash as it was called then became potash. Potash mining then started in the mid 1800’s and now Canada is a large supplier of potash used worldwide. Potash is the product -- red potash is 60% potassium so when you apply 100 lbs/acre of potash, you are applying 60 lbs of actual potassium/acre. K is the elemental symbol for potassium (short for Kalium) … phosphorus already had the symbol P. K2O is the plant available form of potassium. Uptake vs removal: We often refer to how much potassium a crop removes when we are making recommendations, but we also consider the crop uptake. For example, a 200 bushel grain corn crop removes about 55 lbs of potassium but the plant actually needs to take up over 200 lbs through the growing season to maximize yield. Alfalfa takes up closer to 300 lbs/acre of potassium and since the entire crop is removed, like corn silage … a lot of potassium leaves the field. Soil Tests: We like using soil tests to look at what is in the soil -- also, soil types and organic matter make a big difference in how much potassium is available to the plant. Sandy soils can have significant K available to the plant but might not have the capacity to hold as much K as clay … but clay soils hold the K tighter to the soil particle, making it less plant available. K is mobile in the plant: The plant will try to take up a lot of K up early in the growing season and store it to use later in the season if it’s needed. The potassium moves from the stored areas in the older parts of the plant to the newest which can result in weak stalks and/or cannibalizing older leaves. This movement can leave the older parts of the plant deficient in K, which is why we tend to see potassium deficiency symptoms show up in the older leaves first. It is very important to have consistent K available for plants to uptake throughout the growing season. As you can see, there are a lot of considerations that go into making potassium recommendations. Usually, our goal is to get the soil potassium ppm into the proper zone and then start working on fine-tuning the balancing aspect with other nutrients. Aspire trial on Soybeans Aspire is a unique granular fertilizer from the Mosaic company that has two forms of boron, sodium borate (quick release) and calcium borate (slow release), combined with potassium in each granule which gives a much better distribution of boron across the field for plants to access. We applied 175 lbs/acre Aspire to a portion of all the soybean varieties in our test plot on June 30th. We noticed a greater pod set on the top ? of the plants, as well as more 3 and 4 bean pods where Aspire was applied.  Aspire and KMag with Aaron Stevanus (Mosaic) Check out these videos: 1. Aspire fertilizer with Aaron Stevanus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRgta1kdHmY 2. Aspire on Alfalfa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKaPy9R0BgE Pre-Pay Fertilizer for Spring 2021 Take a look at your finances and prepay some of your fertilizer for 2021 if you can but if you have other pressing cash flow needs, not buying ahead won't break the bank as $20-$30/tonne increase might come into play. At this point fertilizer prices look to be stable but with rising grain prices ... expect fertilizer prices to increase as well…. but a rise in the Canadian dollar might temper this strength. Variable Rate Options Variable rate seeding and fertilizer applications are coming! Waterloo Crop Services has invested in a Rogator with variable rate application functionality. Creating variable rate application maps can be as simple as using a yield monitor, or elevation maps. For more accurate results ask us about investing in grid or zone soil samples to take your fertility to the next level. Talk to us about the future of digital ag and whether it makes sense for your operation at this time.  New Crop Protection Products for 2021 Laudis (Bayer) Bayer has announced the launch of Laudis, a new Group 27 herbicide, for use in corn for the 2021 season. Laudis is a post emergence herbicide that can be applied up to the 8-leaf stage in corn for the control of broadleaf weeds and suppression of green and yellow foxtails. Saltro (Syngenta) Saltro is a new fungicide seed treatment option for canola and soybeans available from Syngenta. Saltro contains Adepidyn, a Group 7 fungicide. In soybeans Saltro aids in the management of Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS); in canola Saltro provides early season protection against blackleg. Tar Spot Detected in Ontario 2020 It was not a matter of if but when tar spot would be detected in Ontario. The first confirmed cases of tar spot in corn were detected in Ontario in 2020. Since tar spot was found in the state of Michigan, it was expected to show up in Essex, Chatham-Kent, Middlesex or Huron counties first due to wind patterns. As expected, the first confirmed cases were found in Chatham-Kent and Lambton counties. At this time, research is being conducted to determine hybrid tolerance/susceptibility to tar spot as well as determining which fungicides and application timing is best to reduce the impact of the disease. OMAFRA has been a part of a tar spot working group including colleagues from the U.S. to work together to share information and determine best practices for disease management. The tar spot incidents reported in Ontario in 2020 did not result in significant yield losses but we will keep an eye out for the disease in 2021. NCLB Low pressure this year, very little NCLB found-- know what varieties are susceptible to NCLB, good crop rotation to help reduce inoculant load, foliar fungicide at tassel timing. Tar spot in corn is showing some signs of moving into Ontario in the next few years. Albert Tenuta is working with colleagues in Michigan to learn more about the pathogen and potential management practices to reduce the impact on the crop. You can catch the whole story at: https://www.realagriculture.com/2020/07/ontario-diagnostic-day-2-tackling-plant-disease-and-yield-robbing-pests/ SCN (Soybean Cyst Nematode) We are also starting to detect more fields in the area with moderate to high soybean cyst nematode (SCN) numbers. A SCN soil test can determine SCN pressure in your fields. Higher pressure tends to start in fields that have soybeans planted 3+ years out of 5 and with lighter soil types. Yield losses can be 20-50% for high pressures. Fields that intend to be planted to soybeans for 2021 can be tested this fall. If cyst numbers are significant, there are SCN resistant varieties that can be used to help manage this pest and bring more yield.  SDS (Sudden Death Syndrome) Albert Tenuta walks us through the soybean SDS and Fusarium research trials he has planted this year. Learning how to tell the difference between and management practices for Fusarium, SDS and other soybean diseases. You can catch the whole story at: https://www.realagriculture.com/2020/07/ontario-diagnostic-day-2-tackling-plant-disease-and-yield-robbing-pests/ SDS and SCN can be connected. New Way to Update Environmental Farm Plans (EFP) Farms with a third or fourth edition EFPs can now renew their plans through a one-day workshop. Workshops are held across the province year-round and are fully funded by the federal and provincial governments. Please visit https://www.ontariosoilcrop.org/oscia-programs/workshops-webinars/environmental-farm-plan/ for more information. We are really excited to see some new corn varieties coming out for 2021! These new varieties will be a great compliment to your existing Pioneer varieties. New Pioneer Hybrids 2020/2021  P8537Q (2550 CHU)- High drought tolerance, above average test weight and great tolerance to NCLB. Available in AM and Qrome versions. P8820Q (2600 CHU)- Shorter plant with good stalk strength and later silking. Available in AM and Qrome versions. P9233Q (2750 CHU)- Earlier silking for maturity, good root strength. Available in AM and Qrome versions. P9301Q (2750 CHU)- Good test weight, good response to foliar fungicides. Available in AM and Qrome versions. P9535AM (2825 CHU)- Great drought tolerance and test weight. Pioneer: What’s New for 2020 with Scott Cressman Check out these videos: 1. News from the field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTSNSySQBsQ 2. Pioneer Corn lineup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNpvHBV4R00 3. Soybeans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBg9CQiiyI8  From left to right: P8537Q, P8820Q, P8989AMXT, P9188AM, P9233Q, P9301Q, P9535AM, P9608AM. P9946AML, P0075Q. ***************** For more information on which Pioneer product would be the best fit for your acres talk to Brad, John, Tasha or Kris. NEW* Seed Variety Use Agreement (SVUA) At the beginning of the year, the Canadian Seed Trade Association (CSTA) and the Canadian Plant Technology Agency (CPTA) announced the SVUA pilot program. The SVUA allows plant breeders to set a royalty fee for farm saved seed. Currently the SVUA applies to a small number of new wheat, barley and soybean varieties; older varieties are currently not part of the pilot program. The goal of the program is to increase investment in plant breeding in Canada, while allowing growers the opportunity to retain harvested seed of new varieties for use next year for a predetermined fee. Visit https://seedvaluecreation.ca/en/ for more information. Grower Pesticide Safety Courses If you need to renew your Pesticide Applicator license, there are now courses posted online at https://www.opep.ca/courses/course-offerings/. The courses are being offered both online and in person in multiple cities at various times. ***************** Thank you for your business!! Stay healthy and Safe!! From all of us here, a very Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all of you and your family! |
