Repeating wet seasons can leave fields leached and water profiles filled to the brim. Marleen Smith asked some experts about the measures grain farmers need to keep in mind when preparing for planting in wet soils. Root development and fertilisation are two factors that play a crucial role in the…
Don’t let the supposed fear of moisture loss keep you from cultivating cover crops, says Gabe Brown, cover crop pioneer from the US state of North Dakota. He plants all his cash crops in grazed cover crops. Brown says the last season was the driest in decades in the region.…
It appears that next year may be another favourable season for South African grain farmers in summer rainfall areas - the rainy season has started two to three weeks early. Anthony Clark, market analyst at Vuyani Securities, says soil moisture levels in key production areas like the North West and…
Modern day farmers must abandon monoculture cultivation in livestock and crop farming if they are to win the war against weeds and plagues. This is the warning from Walter Davis, well-known American cattle farmer and consultant. Davis was a speaker at an annual farmer’s day about Regenerative Agriculture on the…
Soil testing has rapidly advanced and now, instead of offering only chemical data as part of scripts, tests are increasingly being conducted in both laboratories and on farms at reasonable cost. Old underwear and tea bags are two of the instruments American farmers are using to affordably measure biological life…
When a milk buyer shut down one of its routes, this farmer decided he couldn’t leave his workers in the lurch so he started a factory. Today his float valves are sold nationwide – and pay nine salaries. In a former dairy on the farm Sweetwater outside Wepener in the…
It is unnecessary to spray as preventative measure against fall armyworm, says Dr Johnnie van der Berg, entomologist from the North-West University. He warned members of the KwaZulu-Natal No-till Club at the annual conservation farming conference to constantly be on the lookout for the plague. However, they should not be…
According to the latest climate outlook model, chances are slimming that the El Niño will be revived in the next few months. At the middle of July, the ocean temperatures in the tropical part of the Pacific Ocean, indicated El Niño or La Niña in a neutral phase. Ocean temperatures…
Many countries concerned, disappointed with merger The merger of the international companies Dow and DuPont, providing input products to the South African agricultural market, has been approved. This comes after similar approvals in places like the USA, China, Brazil and Europe were met with disappointment. Like in other countries, South…
Amid news that the South African economy is officially in a recession, agriculture remains a beacon of hope. The sector made the biggest contribution to the small growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first quarter of the year and for the first time since 2014 showed positive…
Forget about government and its promises – rather forge partnerships with commercial farmers. That’s the advice given to prospective black farmers from Sernick Agriculture Group’s Nick Serfontein. Serfontein was a panellist at the Nampo harvest day in South Africa’s North West Province where he discussed the Land Bank’s new financial…
Up to 300 head of cattle can be handled in a day by just three workers in this feedlot - a carefully planned wagon wheel set-up. Many years before hormone-free and growth stimulant-free meat became fashionable among the health conscious, André Ferreira of Bethlehem in the South African province of…
The compulsory and timely disclosure and reporting of the import and export of grain and oil seed will relieve the type of price fluctuations on maize markets recently experienced during the drought. That’s the hope of grain producer organisation, Grain SA, who applied for changes to the statutory measure which…
South Africa can potentially produce its second largest maize harvest yet, if the first crop estimate for 2017 becomes reality. The first official estimate from the National Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) predicts a maize harvest of 13.918 million tons for 2017. This is almost 80% more than the 2016 harvest…
