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Tuesday June 24th 2025
Location: 0.5 Miles West of Enchant on Highway 526 or: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RA4jnz4SCgWB943c6 9:00 am - Refreshments 9:15 am
1:30 -3:30 pm
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We have about 50 pickups remaining to complete the season, so it has slowed down to about 5 people a day now or less.
What went well:
Mixed grain has been added. This means that cocktail crops with two cereal crops making up the majority of the plant stand (35 per cent or greater) will now be eligible for coverage as a cocktail crop. The primary crop is the one highest in population. The limitation that no uninsurable crop may make up 20 per cent or more of the plant stand has also been removed.
This information and more changes here. These changes allow for more cover crop options! We can blend cereals such as forage oats, smooth awn barley, awnless triticale, fall rye, fall trit (both in spring time) as well as grasses, alfalfa, clovers, brassica's, millet, sorghum, and more! Take a look at our pre-blended items we carry for polycrop/cover crop blends https://www.stampseeds.com/poly-crops--cover-crops.html (we do have to order these in, so plan early please) Forages is a broad group and is a large % of our sales. From Alfalfa and Grasses to Fall Triticale, Polycrop blends and Corn. Blair wrote a nice blog post showing some options in every forage type: https://www.stampseeds.com/blog/cover-crops-and-forages
What is a Polycrop? Polycrop is a trending name for cover crop forages that have a diverse blend of crop types to allow for diversity of growth and regrowth. We offer custom blends of these Click for more info on Polycrops from the Beef Cattle Research Council Polycrops & Forages Polycrops have trended in wording but basically its cover crop blends renamed :) Sales have been stable to trending upwards over the years and sometimes on larger orders we have blended in a cereal with it (smooth awn barley. awnelss spring triticale, hybrid fall rye or fall triticale and more!) Alfalfa, Grass, and more is also available:   I sure like the current Plant Growth Regulators, they allow irrigation to happen at and before flag leaf so watering can be reduced during flowering.
We had some crops last season where we used 2 PGR's such as AAC Schrader Durum, Trical Surge Triticale (forage specific but we are taking for seed), CDC Haymaker oat seed production When doing two passes (our experience is with Manipulator) we have done:
Always talk to your buyer/end users to be sure there are no issues before using, but I am not aware of any issues in the crops above. You may be a farmer, working for industry / farms, or have kids entering the agriculture world. Upstream Ag - Outcomes in Agribusiness
I sent this link to my daughter, and I had to ponder on some points for myself as well! When I came back to the farm after College / University in 2006 I had to figure out how I fit into the farm world and for me it was attending every event I could to try and learn as much as possible and eventually people started asking me questions :) My challenge now is to get better at what we do while scaling and to build the team that can do it together! Seeding rates are always so different between farms. This document shows some research done about 15 years ago by crop type on irrigation. Info here
We generally seed on the high side as we don't want tillers =
One day we will have better recommendations by the variety, for now this is as far as we are! I still like 32-40 plants on durum and 40 on all spring wheats. In the Brooks area and to some extent our area there has been some fields with some random areas of patchiness. I thought it was insects like wireworms / cutworms but did not see much in the fields I was in. In our fall triticale field the drier areas on sandy land seemed to be worse (it has been a dry spring)
Maybe it was snowdrifts impacting the crop or not impacting it, as it's not necessarily the low areas on this fields that have thin areas. Fall rye did fare much better. A few reports of cutworms are emerging: https://x.com/cronk_ag/status/1917713787706356111?s=46 This problem seems to be growing and can impact most crops, so we may need to consider using more Lumivia seed treatment as the insecticide component. (it is more expensive) There is a live cutworm reporting tool: https://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/app68/listings/cutworm/cutworm_map.jsp If you want control options or thresholds: https://www.alberta.ca/cutworm  Of course we need to guess what crop types and varieties will be needed for next season and 2-3 season from now. Here is a % chart of total acres of seed (not target seed needs) Interesting notes:
 AFSC publishes a yield guide showing reported yields across all the risk areas of Alberta. I do enjoy comparing real world yields but some caution is needed. Some varities are more commonly grown in wetter areas such as the highway 2 corridor vs in at Oyen or near Lethbridge vs near Brooks on dryland. But sometimes if a variety seems well distributed and compares pretty close we can make some inferences. Grainland Durum was one that struck out to me, It is a solid stem and typically suggested for the driest of dryland so it probably goes on soil that is very dry. Last season I would ave expected Stronghold to beat it but according to these charts it held its own and in previous drier years it beat stronghold on average. 
This fall we installed a crop intelligence probe in our hybrid fall rye plots via Western Tractor. I've enjoyed watching the soil moisture changes after irrigation this fall and snow melt into the soil being detected in the soil in early December. We are hoping we can learn more about water use timing in hybrid fall rye by using this sensor. Note the flat period of soil temperature had snow cover:    Drew thinks the 8 year summer drought in the Southern Prairies might be coming to a close and is optimistic for our areas spring and summer. He also thinks there could be problems for some areas of the USA that could impact some markets. Details here: Interview link
Decisions this spring can impact your winter crops planning
 AAC Brown Elite - New! AAC Brown Elite Hybrid Mustard is a replacement for AAC Brown 18.
Mustard Agronomy
New This Season: Buteo Start is available on all types of mustard for flea beetles & cutworm protection (as long as ordered early) AAC Yellow 80 - Yellow Mustard - composite (up to 9% advantage) Andante - Yellow Mustard Brown Elite - Hybrid Brown Mustard - hybrid (up to 40% advantage) Centennial - Brown Mustard Cutlass - Oriental Mustard Forge - Oriental Mustard AC Vulcan - Oriental Mustard Mustard Buyers: www.johnstonsgrain.com or view Sask Mustard's Buyers List https://saskmustard.com/grower/mustard-buyers-list/ Wanting more information on growing mustard? details here https://saskmustard.com/  If you have kids, or are hiring, what skills are needed? Here is an interesting article from Harvard Business Review
Quotes from the article:
This tweet talks about how tight corn supply and demand numbers are when China stocks are taken out of the equation with a thread below the initial tweet: https://x.com/kannbwx/status/1890060536123097131
Calls have been picking up for Yellow Pea Seed, PS Boost & AAC Beyond Yellow Peas are still available and ready to book/ship.  Malt Barley can be a finicky market and often farmers grow these varieties for feed as well. Chitting (premature spouting) can be a problem as well as high DON in some years, ergot, non barley grains, and low germination. The Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre has some great malt resources. Not all fungicides that are resisted on wheat are registered on malt barley. Some PGR's are registered but ask your malt buyer before you use one. Details lower in the email on PGR use. Bill Coors 100 - early, malt barley contracts with MolsonCoors within Canada AB Dram - 2 row - non GN distilling barley & malting barley SY Stanza - 2 row European style non GN distilling and malting New! (still in market development) CDC Fraser - 2 row - big yields CDC Churchill - 2 row - stands well AAC Synergy - 2 row Malt Barley Fertility Lower in this email I have feed barley fertility, and generally 10-20%+ less vs feed is needed to make sure the protein is in the 10-12% range for maltsters. Too high and extract can be lowered, as well as impact the brewing process. https://www.syngenta.ca/agronomy/good-fertility-balances-yield-protein AB Dram New Crop Contracts Canada Malting is interested in contracting new crop AB Dram 2 Row Malt Barley at a number of its locations, contact them for details: https://canadamalting.com/contact/ It's a unique variety as it is a non GN for distilling and should perform like CDC Copland for yield and standability. We have had yields as high as 140 bu averages with AB Dram and we do use Moddus PGR on irrigation to help it stand (but we do on all barley varieties). 2025 GrainsWest article on AB Dram https://grainswest.com/2025/01/good-to-the-last-drop-2/  Feed or the GP Red Programs can make you more money with less risk when the spread to CWRS is low as they are all about 20% higher yield vs a CWRS. High plant populations, PGR's, and higher fertility is key to making these yield on irrigation. Dryland you may still need more fertility as you are aiming for more yield. AAC Galore VB Soft Wheat - New! (coming soon) AC Sadash VB & AAC Awesome VB are parent lines AC Sadash VB Soft Wheat - Trusted top performer (lower FHB resistance) AAC Paramount VB Soft Wheat AAC Awesome VB Soft GP Wheat - I for FHB and big yields Alotta - GP Wheat - New, Red Spring GP Wheat The soft wheats/ triticale are often used for silage as well.   2 CP Red 11.5+ Program A few elevators have a GP Red Wheat Program (Winter, CPS, GP Red, CWRS) and is currently priced about 96.5% of CWRS. The prices will fluctuate but it may drive more winter wheat acres and maybe more demand for GP reds like the new Alotta (the new GP spring red). I feel like the CPS market has dried up a bit as people are either growing the new CRWS varieties that yield like a CPS (SY Manness CWRS) or the GP reds that can yield up to 20%+ more vs a CWRS.   Crop comparisons as of Feb 8th 2025 for net returns on both irrigation and Dryland. Rent, overhead, machinery are not in these numbers and the yields and prices are complete guesses. Irrigation:   Dryland:   GrainsWest has a great article about AB Dram 2 row non GN malt barley. https://grainswest.com/2025/01/good-to-the-last-drop-2/ Yields like CDC Copeland but has the unique market options for distilling with the non GN traits. AB Dram 2 Row Malt & Distilling Canadian Canola use in USA biofuels could be at risk due to changes to the Clean Fuel Production Credit changes. Details in this Real Agriculture Article
This leads me to worry about the canola market over the next year and more. Also a lot of canola meal goes to USA for feed use as well so that could be impacted if tariffs do come into play. Here is a video from last week talking about when you need to buy Fertlizer for this season and the risk of not buying now: https://youtu.be/gKtb1DHAq2E?si=ftvxN_D2RV9PxWtR
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AuthorsBlair Balog - Seed Specialist at Stamp Seeds Archives
November 2025
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