Seeding Moving Along Well This Spring

Following a cold April, May has seen a big change to our weather and longtime crops specialist Harry Brook is confident that 70 percent of seeding has now been completed in south central regions of the province. Overall, he says the moisture in the soil seems decent for seeding, but it will soon be used up once the plants get established.

Brook shares some challenges that emerge with the warm temperatures we have had this spring. "It does mean that the crop that gets in the ground, if there's moisture there, it very rapidly will emerge. Problem of course is once it emerges and start using moisture, the question is how long will the reserves last. It's it's like anything else, right? We're always a day closer to the next rain, but it feels like if it hasn't rained now, it's never going to rain, which is of course not true. Human nature being what it is we tend to think that whatever we've got now will continue until proven otherwise."

There have been concerns in our region of club root and kochia disease. Brook shares why kochia disease is so concerning. "Kochias are particularly a bad weed, mostly because it forms a tumble weed and can travel long distances with the wind. Plus the fact that out cross is a lot, so it's very can can very rapidly take on a resistance to a herbicide group., and then spread that. It wasn't that long ago we had glyphosate resistant kochia show up in southern Alberta, now it's everywhere. The latest one was they found some group 14.  Group 14 is one of our newer groups that we've used. It's often used.as a pre seed treatment of the soil for soil treatment and they're finding now that they got kosha, I think it was Manitoba, where it was group 14 resistant, so if they found it Manitoba, it's only a matter of time before it gets here in Alberta. It points to the larger issue, I guess, of stewardship of the resources we have and the tools. And, well, there's kosher. There's wild oats. There's a lot of herbicide resistance out there and it seems to be a growing problem every year. "