RealAg LIVE with Jeremy Boychyn of the Alberta Wheat & Barley Commissions

Introduction [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] this is real ag live hey cara oosteros here with real agriculture.com i am here it is monday i don't know about you guys i am in southern alberta the wind has been blowing i mean i guess that's what we get for going from minus 32 plus 10 in the span of like four days but finally it has calmed down and i'm just feeling like it is going to be a wonderful monday afternoon and i'm sure our guest is feeling the same way as he is based in calgary alberta so i'm going to bring him in here today i have jeremy boychen who is an agronomy research extension specialist with alberta wheat and barley commissions how is it going today it's going good kara yeah i i did notice a bit of wind yesterday i think in calgary it was only about 50 clicks though and then i read that you guys were somewhere around 100 at some points yeah we were augustin 80 to 100 and it was uh it was nasty we had full i mean like we're in a pretty dry area here in the palace triangle and it was we had some serious soil erosion going on yesterday so a little a little frightening for maybe february could use maybe a little bit of moisture on top of that but other than that it is now calm so just crossing my fingers maybe we can just have a good afternoon yeah hopefully no one has to run down and chase their bins yeah that too i was uh touring around last night didn't look like there was a lot of uh pivots or anything or bins that were blown over so that's always good i know we had what was that a month or two ago that we had all those problems so let's just keep the wind down a little bit that would be cool yeah so we're getting to the time of the year Top things producers need to keep in mind uh it is already end of february i cannot believe next week we're getting into march so we're starting to look at uh agronomic things we want to keep in mind um we're especially like you said we're coming into seeding comes a lot quicker than we think you know you can sit here and be like oh well it's still only february but before we know it we'll be we'll be seeding so what are some of the top things producers need to keep keep it in their minds right now as we're headed into that time of the year yeah i think you know there's a number of things that seem to uh come on a lot faster than we anticipate them to you know january kind of feels like a relaxed time and then february starts to roll in and we're going oh man some decisions need to be made and start to send in seed tests and and really hammer down what that crop rotation is if we haven't done that already get an idea of what our exact fertility rates are going to be if we haven't selected those last few varieties that we're looking at you know make a selection on those on the cereal side i know there's still some decisions maybe that are happening between malt and and feed barley uh because some of those prices were looking interesting this year so you know there's a lot of things that i think um you know it always helps to have these discussions as we head towards that that spring season of you know what i really need to be thinking about as we're hitting the ground and what do i need to do to get this crop off to a really good start you know i love these discussions because all of the things that we do in crop throughout the rest of the year whether it be a herbicide application a fungicide application um an in-crop um nitrogen application or or harvest all of these things pivot around the idea of establishing a good strong healthy even crop and the better we can do to establish an even strong and healthy crop the more impactful each of those decisions are going to be when we're in the season so if we're better able to time a herbicide application across the entire field because our field is more even we're going to get more efficacy and efficiency out of that application same with the fungicide timing whether it be a head timing or a flag leaf so we're getting more impact more bang for our buck out of this so you know i can't i can never put enough weight on the importance of making sure that you're you're getting that crop in the ground and started uh well in the spring but before you're even putting into the ground one of the things is uh Seed testing seed testing and as well variety selection so do you wanna do you wanna talk a bit about what's when it comes to you know before even getting that seed in the ground what are some things we can do to make sure it's off to a good start i there isn't a producer that i talk to that i don't encourage to do seed tests um you know to me it's like going to the bank and and figuring out what you have to work with before before going to make a purchase you know what what is my germination what is my vigor um what's my thousand kernel weight am i dealing with any diseases on this seed that i'm going to have to you know either make a decision on do i want to use this seed lot or am i going to have to treat this seed lot with a specific seed treatment um so we're able to use that information to then make the most out of our seed um you know for dealing with a couple of different seed lots and we have one seed lot that's that's looking like a lower germination you know should we be managing that in a different way should we be increasing our seeding rate for that to make up for it or is there a different seed option that we can utilize and implement um you know fungal screens there can be a lot of information that comes from those that can help make a decision one thing that's big on the alberta side this year is is fusarium and for serum gram near i actually just got a phone call from a producer who who works in an area grows in an area who has never seen downgrading from fusarium um who's never had any fusarium show up on their seed tests and they were looking at a seed option and it came back as having you know point five percent you say i'm graminarum he's going should i should i bring this into my region is this is this something i should be doing is this a low enough number and you know if you're not seeing any um fusarium in your area for for you know any past history you haven't seen any downgrading or any infection um this is the kind of information that can help you make a better decision not just for this year but for you know your crops down the road because you're not just making a decision on that crop that's going in this year when it comes to defusarium but multiple crops down the road that we can potentially mitigate having risk of fusarium headblade on and then we look at other diseases that can come up on your seed test um cochleobus sativas um pyronophra paraqus uh parasitus for for agnospora um you know these are our diseases that you know when we get into the the 10 15 range can actually impact the amount of germination that we're seeing out of that crop um so when we get that that seed test back and we see okay we have a drop in germination we can run through that seed test and ask the question of what is causing the impact of the drop of germination and and will a a seed treatment mitigate the risk of that or or reduce um the impact on germination and this is a question that you can actually ask your your seed testing lab as well so if you get results back and you're not too sure you know will a seed treatment help this they can actually do comparisons between treated and untreated seed so then you can really get an idea okay once i put the seed in the ground with the seed treatment on this is what my actual germination is going to be like so you can really it can really help you make stronger decisions on the seed that you're using and and how it's going to impact your crop through the year so you know i can't i can't i can't emphasize enough the importance of really getting an idea of what that seed quality is and again it comes back to the idea of it really does impact your decisions in season and it impacts the the amount of value you get from that those those improp decisions those improv applications absolutely and when it comes to um Early vs late maturing varieties you're still talking before you even get it in the ground um lots of producers have probably chosen their varieties already but they're still there's still probably a fair amount that have not um do you want to talk a bit about early versus late maturing uh varieties when you're making that decision yeah you know this is a conversation that's been coming up um more and more often and more producers when i'm having conversations you know they're entertaining the idea of maybe going with a shorter season variety and i think this is conducive of you know the past three four years in the northern part of alberta um having issues around harvest and having crop left out over winter which is no fun for anyone it's impacting quality it's impacting profitability um it just leaves a lot of risk and money in the field and that's not what we want to be dealing with um so the question then comes you know is there a way i can i can reduce my risk here um and and not only that sometimes the the question and the conversation comes from you know i'm having trouble um maybe getting protein with my cwrs uh and and maybe they're looking at at varieties that in their region you know they're a little bit longer um so a lot of the nitrogen ends up going to yield and then doesn't have the time to go to protein so they don't end up getting the the quality that they're looking for for the profitability um so um i think with both of these options looking at a shorter season variety could potentially provide some value there because when you uh when you bring in a shorter season variety obviously you're gaining the ability to get that crop off a little bit earlier before you start seeing um some of that adverse weather that comes in in the fall and hopefully still able to gain that higher quality out of that cwrs so this is a conversation that's going on a little bit more often uh and i think it's an important question to ask on your farm is this an option um you know even if it's just a couple sections or a couple quarter sections this year is it something that could be a viable option to mitigate risk to diversify the grain that i have in the bin and to be able to better market my farm to create more profitability so i think it's rather interesting you know there's a lot of conversation around new varieties because there's a lot of new varieties that have come to market in the past couple of years and i really you know it really comes down to me when i have a conversation about selecting a variety varieties knowing what's impacting your profitability and and your capacity to to pull value from that crop um you know if if fhp is your serious issue um then you know apart from from looking for a high-yield variety then you need to be targeting something that has good fhp resistance if lodging is your issue and you're also dealing with fhb then looking for a variety that fits all those needs um this year we're looking at a lot of wheat midge issues that are coming into central alberta um so the conversation around can i still fit my my yield goals while mitigating the risk that comes from wheat midge by using um a tolerant or a resistant variety to that so really a lot of these conversations and a lot of these ideas will come from bringing your grain to the elevator at the end of the year what are you getting downgraded for um and then you can start asking the questions is there varieties that can media or resolve some of these issues in following years Are cereal growers slower to adopt new varieties and lindsay on that note is asking a question she says are cereal growers slower to adopt new varieties if yes why what's your take on this um i don't think that there that's an interesting question because my immediate comparison would be you know compared to corn or soybean or corn or canola where you know there's a lot of new varieties coming out every couple of years the genetics move pretty quick um so it doesn't take long before you're you're almost feeling like you're behind and then in some cases the the companies are saying you know we're not going to be producing this variety anymore this cultivar anymore so um time to jump out but i think you know the the the process that we have in place for the development of the varieties that we have we produce very strong varieties that find niches in western canada i mean you look at a variety like brandon which you know for a number of years has has been a very strong staple and i think you know i don't think that producers are are you know against adopting new varieties or slow to adopt new varieties i think um they're they're cautious with their move because they're making large acre decisions on these and they still are making the comparisons but when they find a variety that fits um and fills those needs just like i mentioned before of you know here are the needs that they consistently see year by year um selecting that variety and keeping that variety and knowing that it'll consistently perform for you um you know i i think weighs a little bit more on the cereal side but i do think that that doesn't mean that those producers are keeping their eyes open to new varieties that are coming down the pipeline so we've talked about some of the things What can producers do to get an even emergence before you're even putting it your seat in the ground now once that seeds in the ground what what's kind of the producer's next step to getting that even emergence what what sorts of things can they be doing well you know they could do a dance for rain i think would be a wonderful thing that most producers would love to do to get a nice even emergence uh crop out of the ground but um you know i think once we start to see emergence um it's it's a good idea you know to get out there and do your plant stand counts uh and this is something that i say over and over again every year um and it's i think it it rings true every year because you know we we make these decisions on these seed lots and we make a decision on how much seed we want to hit the ground based on how what our plant stand is going to be and then in some cases it hits the ground and then we walk away and we just accept what's there uh and i i think we're missing a large opportunity to even fine-tune our seating rates and our practices a little bit more you know if if you're working with a cwrs and you are want that target plant stand to be at about you know 300 plants per meter squared or 30 plants per foot squared and you seed for that based on your thousand kernel weight based on your germination um and and if you're putting a seed treatment on there and you're going okay that was my estimated germination i expect that to work and walk away and and then you look at it and and you think you know it's it's probably close but then you go and take a look and you count and you're actually at 25 plants per square foot or 250 plants per meter squared you know where's that loss coming from what why you did the calculations you know that you were going to have this much germination based on your on your seed quality so why am i lacking that emergence why isn't that showing up and you're never going to know that there's that gap between what you think is going on and what's actually going on until you get it in the field and take account do your plant stay accounts and get an idea of what's actually emerging and you know the research shows the variation in the amount of emergence that can actually occur uh if you look at brian barris's research he's done a ton of research looking at you know this is how much seed we put on the ground and this is how much is actually emerging and this is based on germination 1000 kernel weight vigor and getting an estimated of germination and they're still in some cases where they're seeding 400 seeds per meter squared they're getting emergence rates of 60 sometimes as low as 45 and this is just based on environmental conditions for where they're growing it's based on management practices each management practice on a different firearm is going to impact your germination a little bit differently whether you're using um this type of drill or or that type of cedar you know it's going to affect how much emergence is going to happen you know where's your moisture level at are you typically seeing these types of moisture levels in your field so if you if you year after year go out take a look do your plant stand counts and get an idea of what your actual emergence is then when you're doing your seating rate plans for upcoming years you can say i know in this field or i know in this area that this is what my actual emergence actually is instead of you know the the the the germination rate that you get from your your seed test is important but it's used in conduct in conjunction of what actually happens in your fields so aligning those two together can help you be even more accurate with with what your plant staying count is going to be and you know your risks Importance of record keeping and that was going to be my next question was you know how how important is it when it comes to record keeping like do you think a lot of producers like not to talk down of any producers but i know myself even you go out scouting sometimes and you go okay yeah and you look at what's going on but you don't necessarily use that information you don't write it down do you want to talk about a bit about uh the importance of why you should be keeping those records year to year to year yeah it's you know even i catch myself doing this um you know this has been a year of zoom meetings and and webinars where you're you're taking notes um or you're listening and then you know what i like to do is go back and reiterate those notes and get an idea and kind of fine-tune them and you know sometimes when you've had three-hour meetings in a row you just want to walk away and not even look at anything and i think you know there's a lot of this decision fatigue that comes in during seeding season you know you've been making decisions since january february on what you're going to do and how it's going to get in the ground and where it's going to go and how much of this and how much of that and you know the stress of breakdowns during seeding season and i you know by the time it's all done you just kind of want to walk away and put your hands up right which makes it it's understandable it's it's it's a lot of effort and it's a lot of time and that decision for fatigue sets in um but you know i think the the idea of of keeping these numbers and going in after the fact you know it's 21 days after seeding go in and get an idea of your serial emergence and when you collect those numbers you can really start to paint a strong idea of what is actually going on on the farm you know it's taking that theoretical concept and those plans and and really getting getting a practical application of what's going on you know last year we talked about the plot to farm projects we have going on in in alberta and one of the producers i worked with was comparing to two varieties that he was he was trying to get an idea of whether he was going to move to a new variety um and he had his his seed tests uh and he said jeremy you know based on these seed test numbers this is the seeding rate i'm gonna go at based on what i've seen on my fields um you know i'm expecting eight percent of this not to emerge and you know i i asked them the question i said a lot of the the research we've seen you know eight percent would be a high emergence based on what we've seen from from some small plot research you know does that still make sense to you you know i've seen it i know my numbers you know i i asked him made sure he was he was confident with it and then when we went back and did the plant stand counts because we had to see seed each variety at different rates to get as close to we can as we can to 30 plants per square foot um you know he was bang on and that comes from knowing based on his environmental conditions based on moisture based on the equipment that he uses and the residue that's on there he had a strong idea of what his emergence was going to be and i'll tell you it wasn't exactly what was on the paperwork based on the seed uh the seed test it was based on the paperwork and what he knew his fields were going to produce so when you start to do that year after year you can get a much more confident decision once you get into you know what seeding rate am i going to go with this and then that helps build on to future decisions and just allows you to be more confident moving forward so we got some weed geeks in here uh Thresholds for reseeding asking some questions uh brienne is saying jeremy you better mention scouting and weeds because she's listening and as we know breanne is a fantastic weed scientist and but uh the question here is actually from lara she says what would be the thresholds for a reseed so say it's you know a bad year and we're it's just not doing great what what sort of thresholds are we looking at that's a great question um and i don't remember the exact numbers um you're going to have to probably be you know decently below 15 plants per square foot i think before you're going to have to rethink the seed the reseed and i have to double check my numbers to make sure um so donald don't take this to the wall but um you know it's it's it's not just about what your expected yield is going to be it's about you know what's going to be the cost of reseeding this am i going to have to spray some of it out um so it's it's generally pretty significant of a drop that you have to see before you have to reseed and i think somewhere in that 10 to 15 plants per square foot range i think is is where you start to really ask that question um i mean you can still get reasonably good yields on that 20 plants per square foot but you're really not maximizing um the the potential of your fields if you're in that range Herbicide carryover yeah and uh when we're looking at uh weeds like bran would like to what have you have you been talking to any scientists or any researchers around um what what's the outlook if we have a dry year this year again are we looking at any sort of herbicide carryover i mean there's always the risk of herbicide carryover when you don't get that moisture um and maybe you have less organic matter in certain areas and you have that carryover i think there's a risk um i was just looking at uh specifically in alberta um you know we're in a 90-day dry period right now we had a decent amount of moisture in the fall i haven't gone through to check whether we've seen enough rainfall across the province to get an idea whether there's going to be herbicide carryover risk but you know if you're in one of those areas that that hasn't seen a lot of moisture i think it's a good question to ask your your chemical reps um but yeah i mean it's it's always a question i think that's important in western canada where we see challenges with rainfall and um you know one thing that i'll hit on while we're talking about weeds and and i'm sure brianne will be happy about it is um you know we're seeing increased occurrences of resistant wild oats popping up across across alberta across the provinces and this is a significant issue that um you know it's only going to increase the cost of producers if we allow it to to continue to push or if we don't monitor for it um so one one of the uh important things that that producers should be thinking about this spring after herbicide timing is really taking a walk through and seeing you know whether they're seeing patches of wild oats that escaped um and this is going to be your first inclination of of maybe i have issues um or maybe i have a risk on my hands uh you know i was talking to an agronomist who's maybe about an hour north of calgary just west of highway 2 and you know there's a lot of producers he deals with he deals with that this past year um sent in a lot of the the seeds of wild oats that made it past herbicide applications and they're seeing a lot of resistance that they hadn't seen before or they didn't notice and and some of this could be historical um overuse of group ones or group twos that you know finally it's coming back to to be an issue um so monitoring for these things is you know while you're out there doing um doing your monitoring for you know whether you want to start to align a fungicide application or seeing how your crop looks just look at those those weeds and get an idea is there areas that are are higher risk where you're seeing a more dense population of wild oats that that you may see those issues or maybe even areas where uh you know your your spray application maybe only gets part up part of a full application because you're spinning around that corner quickly over multiple years and that that kind of half dose starts to add up um so it's it's it's it's an important thing to monitor because once it does begin to create an issue where you're seeing group one or group two or group one and two resistant wild oats it then becomes an every year cost for those producers so catching it before it becomes a larger issue is is you know saving yourself a ton of money in the future uh and there's there's a variety of different places you can send in seed samples the important thing is is if you think you have resistance don't destroy them right away um you know keep them flagged them monitor them to the end of the year collect those samples uh dr charles getty's at the um uh aafc lethbridge research station last i heard was collecting resistant wild oat seeds to test for group one and two um so you can reach out to him and they'll send you information to send that in um but you do need a decent amount of seed to send in um so not killing those but flagging them and monitoring them is the correct move yeah absolutely and is is this just a a spraying conversation or is it Crop rotation rotation too is is there other factors that kind of play into this persistent we might resistance we might be seeing oh it's everything it's the way we produce our crop is the environment that we're setting for these weeds how often you till how often you spray what you spray with what crops you use how often you use those crops what rotation you use those crops all of these things are going to impact how these weeds are being impacted by the environment that you're setting and in any situation um if you're using the same practice over and over again whether it be the same herbicides um the same the same um crop over and over again not layering your herbicides you're creating a consistent pressure that then those weeds can escape or create resistance from so when we think about weed control and we think about weed resistance management it's not just about a question of herbicide it's a question about how am i managing this cropping system am i managing this cropping system in in a way that is going to create ease for these weeds to overcome a consistent pressure that i'm never changing because if you're using the same herbicide group year in and year out or you know we're in a situation where it's wheat canola wheat canola and we're using the same herbicides in that wheat every year you know you're creating that potential creating that risk so it is about rotating the crops it is about rotating your herbicides it is about layering your herbicides um try and be as unpredictable as possible is is the goal and and you know there's going to be no complete solution for for herbicide resistance um every time i think about herbicide resistance i think about jurassic park uh when he says your life will find a way and that's exactly that's exactly it um any pressure we create um life these weeds are going to find a way to to to survive within them um so we need to keep creating scenarios where the weeds are guessing that is give me speechless that was one of the best references i've heard all day so thank you for that um next guest if you're watching top that um but brianna's reminding us here she says charles uh so you were referencing charles gettys at aafc lethbridge um she says charles only tests unique resistance not group one and two but provincial labs and resistant wildload action committee has an infographic on where to send wild oat samples so check that out if you're interested in sending your wildlife oat samples uh they'll be happy to have them i'm sure yeah if you search the wild action committee on google it'll be one of the first things that pop up there and there's you know there's not just that but there's a bunch of other information about managing um resistant wild oats so it's a it'll be a great resource for producers moving forward and just one one last quick comment before our question before we uh sign Diseases off today um is there any sort of diseases producers should have their eyes open for i've heard rumblings of stripe rust could be an issue this year do we want to do you want to touch on some of the things you're seeing or that you're expecting sure yeah um so definitely stripe rust is is on the kind of watch list this year um and that is because um you know thanks to the prairie crop disease monitoring network which is really driven by dr kelly tarkington out of aafc lacombe out of the pacific northwest they're seeing higher levels of stripe rust in their in their um their wheat populations um so when we deal with stripe rust typically it comes from um [Music] wind dispersion so winds that will come from the pacific northwest and then deposit the spores from stripe rust in southern and central parts of alberta and saskatchewan um so when we start to see uh increased risks in the pacific northwest uh that means increased risks for alberta you know that's not the only place that we see stripe rust come from it's also out of kansas uh and texas um you know with this cold weather i'm not sure whether texas is going to continue to be an issue um i think that's a you know it's an interesting question but out of the pacific north northwest as of them the most recent update it looks like it's going to be a risk so it's something for producers to be keeping an eye out for and you know the recommending spray for that is is prior to five percent flag leaf infection after that it starts to become much more of a challenge to control um you know if you're using a resistant variety to stripe breast um you're look there's a little bit less value on a spray application depending on the race but if you're using a non-resistant variety it doesn't take much to get the payback on that some other things to keep an eye for [Music] bacterial blight is one that has been growing more recently this is something that looks very similar to a lot of fungal diseases that we get fungal leaf diseases on wheat you know it kind of starts at the apex of the wheat leaf you know where the the dew hangs out the most and it's a it's a bacterial disease so it's not impacted by a fungicide application so what happens is this bacterial infection starts in the seed so it starts from an infected seed you seed that crop and then the crop grows you start to see it maybe at the five to six leaf stage sometimes but it really starts to advance when you get into the flag leaf timing and it starts as little water soaked kind of lesions and then it grows and it can take over the entire leaf and it looks like a very dead dried leaf as everything kind of all those lesions grow together um and then what happens is the grain that is produced from that infected plant is then itself infected with bacterial blight so if you take that seed and seed it into a new crop you're then seeding a new crop that's already infected with bacterial plate so understanding what these symptoms look like scouting for them knowing whether that crop is at risk is is going to be important because it's going to help you make decisions on whether to use that grain for seed or not use that grain for seed in following years and i'll repeat the idea that you know this this isn't something that can be remedied with a fungicide so proper id is important because this bacterial infection thrives in moist conditions so when you spray water that has fungicide on it on something that isn't impacted by fungicides but you're just increasing the amount of moisture and moving your equipment through and taking bacteria from one plant and moving it to another you're increasing the impact increasing the the risk of you having issues later on down down the road in future crops so um you know the alberta wheat alberta barley sask barley sass wheat and manitoba crop alliance developed a fact sheet that you can find if you search any of their websites on bacterial leaf streak you will find information on how to to monitor for it okay sounds good be sure to check those out anyone listening because i'm sure they're very valuable pieces of information and like you said it's sometimes important to really have that background knowledge before you just go out there with a fungicide so um and on a lighter note jeremy i think lara and lindsey are creating a t-shirt for you right now um lindsey says it's gonna say it's not one thing it's everything um and valera is debating that it's going to be your head with jeff goldblum's body as a graphic on the shirt so if i'm thinking correctly about what body and scene that is i don't know how how public appropriate it is but uh we'll have to see yeah absolutely and lara brings up a good point uh check out the weed school i recently did with uh jeremy we talked about c testing so if you want to uh get more into depth on seed testing than what we did today go check it out at www.wheatschool.com and uh thank you very much for joining us today jeremy thanks for having me cara always a great time yes absolutely and every time i see you there's less space to be seen so he said i didn't have time to clean my beard but i trim it i just not as aggressively more recently yeah oh it's all good and uh thank you for everyone i always appreciate all your comments your questions uh it's great to have you guys along and be able to just talk to you so thank you very much um and uh we will be back tomorrow with real egg live i i always get myself here i'm not sure who is the guest tomorrow but uh we'll be social it'll be up on our social media later this afternoon um who will be our guest um so be sure to check that out and we are monday to friday we just love having you guys along so tune in um and we'll we'll be here so thank you very much and thanks for getting real and getting connected [Music] you