Registration is still open for the Southwest Regional Crop Day to be held Tuesday, April 2nd at the Melita Legion Community Hall.

"Many of our provincial crop specialists are coming out to do their rounds and we have many good topics," shares Applied Research Specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Scott Chalmers. 

"We're starting the day off with Darren Bond who's going to be discussing how to manage your bottom line with your costs," explains Chalmers. "Then we have Ann Kirk, who's our Cereal Specialist, and she'll be talking about what's new with cereals, and she'll be discussing some of the yield Manitoba results in the southwest with respect to the cereal crops."

Later that morning, Weed Specialist Kim Brown-Livingston will be speaking on weed management.  "Hopefully she'll not be scaring too many farmers with what's happening with the weeds these days. She'll be wanting to give us an update on kochia and waterhemp in the province, and that's with respect to herbicide resistance."

WADO (Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization) will be providing lunch and participants will have the opportunity to meet the new Oilseed Specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Sonia Wilson.

Following lunch, Chalmers will be speaking on behalf of WADO, sharing on a number of different topics that include their crop research results.

"I plan to discuss some of the seed guide results that we have with the various crops," he explains. "I want to talk about lupines because we had one year of successful trials on lupines.  I also want to talk about annual forages and especially the inter-crop side of that."

Chalmers will also be sharing on greenhouse gas trials, dry beans, inoculant trials, pea fungicides trials and flax seed treatment trials.  Discussions will also include winter crops such as winter camelina, and some inter-crops in corn, the successes and failures with that.  "And just to finish off, we have some irrigated soybean project with the federal government where we're looking at protein, and it's just so interesting to see how different it is to irrigate versus just to have dry land soybeans," he adds.

Chalmers will also be sharing the new projects in store for 2024.

Entomologist, John Gavloski, will be sharing on what insects to watch for in this next grow season. 

"John's always interesting to listen to because he's got the inside scoop on insects," says Chambers. "So, we're expecting things like a grasshopper forecast, which sounds like it could be one of those formidable things that we have to deal with this summer, and maybe we'll get to know a little bit more about flea beetles.  John will have details on what to pay attention to and how to manage those."

Rounding out the day will be Pulse and Soybean Specialist, Dennis Lange, sharing what's to know about peas and soybeans.

CCA Credits are available at the April 2nd Southwest Crop Day, located at the Legion Community Hall - 95 Main Street, Melita

  • Registration time:  9:30 am
  • Presentations begin:  10 am
  • Lunch:  12:15 pm
  • Adjourn:  3 pm

Call to pre-register:

Scott Chalmers ~ 204-522-5415 (Melita)

Amir Farooq ~ 204-764-0303 (Brandon)

Lionel Kaskiw ~ 204-483-0531 (Souris)