40 The Business of Ontario Agriculture Better Farming | October 2024 crops: the lynch fileS A SEASON LIKE NO OTHER Ideas, insight & reminders as harvest season continues. By Patrick Lynch Well, you’ve made it to October. The past season was one we’d never seen before. We had a lot of rain, probably more than ever on most fields in Ontario. The wheat crop looked phenomenal. I thought yields would be lower than average due to a lack of sunlight, but I was wrong. It just proves that water trumps sunlight. If your wheat didn’t yield as well as you thought, it was because of a lack of sunlight during the critical filling period – but it does reinforce the idea that rain makes grain, and you need to do everything possible to conserve moisture. This means working to increase organic matter. On another topic. I have just read another research report stating that adding a nitrogen inhibitor does in fact reduce the amount of nitrogen that escapes into the air. But this report, like most others, did not show a yield increase by using the nitrogen additive. The researchers did not give an explanation, but here’s what I think is happening. If you apply 120 pounds of actual nitrogen and the additive reduces the amount of volatilization by 25 to 30 per cent, you end up saving 30 to 40 pounds of actual nitrogen. That saved nitrogen gets put into your nitrogen bank. It gets tied up and builds organic matter. An average soil has about 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of nitrogen tied up in organic matter. Now you have 2,030 to 3,030 pounds. It is a very small increase. You will not see a percentage change in organic matter for years. By using a nitrogen stabilizer that reduces nitrogen lost to the air, you are helping the environment and long-term building of organic matter. And you can sleep better at night because you are not worrying about nitrogen escaping into the air. Another topic is the use of glyphosate preharvest. There are too many acres of crops treated with glyphosate preharvest. Glyphosate is showing up in wheat and soybeans after harvest and, soon enough, buyers will start wanting these crops to be harvested without it. I was shocked the first time I read a report on glyphosate in edible beans. Didn’t think it could be. People are eating products made from soybeans and wheat, and they’ll demand that they don’t want glyphosate in their food. When I ask growers why they use glyphosate preharvest, one reason given is to dry down the crop. But glyphosate is not a desiccant. It will not dry down crops or weeds. If you want a desiccant, you should use diquat, sold as Reglone. There are practices that you must follow, like spraying in the evening before a sunny day. Other practices are on the label. Another reason growers give is weed control. Glyphosate preharvest does a good job controlling weeds like perennial sow thistle. But if we lose the use of glyphosate preharvest, you are going to have to control weeds like perennial sow thistle other ways. And there are many other ways to control perennial sow thistle. Weeds in manure Some of the “new weeds” are being introduced in livestock feed. This begs the question of whether ingestion, ensiling, or composting gets rid of the weed seeds. A lot of researchers have looked into this. The short answer is no. Feeding weed seeds reduces the viability. The viability of weed seeds is reduced more in poultry manure than in cattle or hog manure, but there are still lots of weed seeds. Ensiling also reduces viability. Composting manure can reduce viability if the temperature is hot enough for a long enough time. You need temperatures between 140 to 170 F (60 to 77 C) for hours. The percentage Adding a nitrogen inhibitor reduces the amount of nitrogen that escapes into the air. Patrick Lynch photo
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