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The Rural Voice, 2003-02, Page 18FROM SEEDING TO SALE Speakers tell how to get more gield, and have it gield more bucks By Keith, Roulston As erratic weather conditions become commonplace for Ontario growers, weather- proofing your soil can be an important risk -management strategy, Peter Johnson. OMAF cereals specialist told farmers attending crops day at Grey -Bruce Farmers' Week. "You can't do diddly-all about the weather," he told growers. "You can try to weather-proof your ground so the crop can withstand the stresses." The organic material in the soil helps it hold onto whatever moisture there has been in times of drought, Johnson said. Soils that have been worn out of organic material in southwestern areas were the areas where yields were hardest hit by last summer's drought conditions, he said. "Essex and Kent are no longer weather -proofed because they don't have any organic matter to hold the moisture," he said. "You can create a seed bed but you have no root bed. Crop rotation and cultivation affect the organic matter in the soil, he said. "Rotation makes yield", he said. Too much cultivation destroys the humus in the soil. "The more tillage you do, the more organic matter you burn up. You can be too wet, too deep and too 14 THE RURAL VOICE often." Also affecting last year's yields was the cold, wet spring, Johnson said. "We're really starting to learn stuff about planting dates and it surprises me," Johnson said. Generally the feeling has been that the earlier the planting date the better. With cereals, for instance, every day's delay after the optimum planting date means a bushel per acre loss in yield. But the unusually wet and very cold conditions of 2002 brought new revelations. One farmer planted corn on May 5 and got only 120 bushels per acre yield but a crop planted May 29 yielded 160 bushels. "Until crops get out of the ground they can't stand cold wet conditions," Johnson said. "They can take cold or wet but not together." Weather forecasters are not particularly good at forecasting the amount of precipitation, he said, but they are much more accurate predicting temperature. "Pay more attention to the forecast for temperature," he said. If the soil is warm, it won't matter so much if it rains a lot but "if you see rain clouds and the temperature is dropping, you can get in trouble. Don't push the planting date when it's cold." That said, Johnson is involved in experiments to explore the value of frost seeding of cereals to get an early start on planting. "It helps push the seeding time ahead," he said. The experiments used a no -till drill and put the seed just into the ground. "You can frost seed on tiled ground better than on untiled ground," he said. But while weather is beyond a farmer's control and he can only try to adjust, there are some important factors in profit-making that are totally within a farmer's management, Johnson said. He urged proper maintenance of seeding equipment. "It's one place you are not paying enough attention to," he said. With worn openers you get uneven emergence, he said. "If you've never looked at them, get out there and look." He also urged care in spraying herbicides, warning against using sprays with dicamba on cereal crops. As well, he warned against late application of herbicides. "On all crops we don't spray early enough," he said. "If you are spraying cereals at the end of May often the yield Toss will be greater than not treating the crop."