40 The Business of Ontario Agriculture Better Farming | December 2024 “This year we saw the benefits of residual herbicides in soybeans. The setup rates of Boundary and metribuzin really worked well. We have problems with fleabane, and maybe 20 per cent of the fields have waterhemp, but we were able to keep them in check. “Bluegrass is a problem in a number of fields. We use Focus or Zidua wherever we can to stay on top of it. We like to use Focus the year prior to seeding down a field to forage. “It was interesting watching tar spot develop. As I’ve checked in September and October, there appears to be a big difference between sprayed and unsprayed fields in some geographies. The combine will tell the difference. “Although some people believe there is no difference among hybrids, I believe that by looking at fields that were not sprayed, some hybrids are weathering tar spot better than others. “Since we got the soybeans in early and off early, our wheat was planted in good time. It has been a good year.” I also asked Ryan Benjamins CCAON some questions. He has a consulting business called Benjamins Agronomy. He’s a hard-working consulting agronomist working mainly in Lambton County. His positive attitude toward crops did him well this year. “Lambton County started to have wet weather in September 2023, and it stayed fairly wet until late June 2024. This resulted in late soybean harvest, wheat and corn not planted, and many soybean acres planted late.” Through all this, Ryan’s attitude was to be patient and not give up. This helped farmers to keep going. Many acres intended for corn were switched to soybeans. Some soybean acres were planted into July past the crop insurance planting deadline. Ryan knows a grower who tried planting soybeans very early. The grower planted a strip on Feb. 27 to try out the planting equipment. He planted 100 acres on April 10. The February beans yielded about 60 bushels and the April beans 70. Ryan believes in early planting but maybe not as early as April 10 most years. Early planting of soybeans allows you to get wheat in early and increase wheat yields. He has customers who do not believe the present economics favour planting wheat. They realize the extra yield from corn and soybeans by planting wheat, but they don’t like to give up soybean yield by planting an early soybean variety. Ryan’s solution is to plant soybeans earlier on fields intended for wheat. Ryan saw a lot of tar spot on corn the last two years. In 2023 he said many growers saw the benefit of spraying a fungicide on corn. In 2024 a lot more acres were sprayed with a fungicide. He believes there is a difference among hybrids in tolerance to tar spot, but says that “even some hybrids with poor tar spot resistance are yielding very well when sprayed with a fungicide.” He also says that growers must not just focus on tar spot when picking a hybrid for 2025. There are other characteristics to consider, such as yield, ear moulds, and herbicide resistance. Lambton County has a lot of soybeans. With all those soybeans comes resistant weeds such as fleabane and waterhemp. Ryan likes the Enlist soybeans that allow post-control of these weeds by using Liberty, Enlist 1, and AMS. He says that you need different weather conditions to make those products work well compared to glyphosate. Also, he believes you need a strong pre-emerge herbicide program in the Enlist system to stay on top of these weeds. Dicamba in the Roundup Ready 2 Xtend Crop System gives better residual weed control than 2,4-D choline. TELL US HOW you’re growing: Paul.Nolan@BetterFarming.com CONGRATULATIONS to Troy Smith from Lynden, our Yeti Roadie Cooler Winner! Troy was among the 380 OFA members who stopped by our Federation House exhibit at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in September. Besides working full time in Mississauga, Troy farms 100 acres of corn and soybeans along with a few beef cattle and poultry. THANK YOU to all OFA members who stopped by our booth. crops: the lynch fileS Ryan Benjamins
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