Pulse School: The peas are seeded — now what?

(Kara Oosterhuis/RealAgriculture)

Growers spend the winter making sure the equipment is ready, the seed variety is selected, and the inputs are budgeted for.

Some may forward sell crops, while others want to hold off and store it in their bins.

Farmers work hard to make sure seeding timing is correct, and the soil conditions are fit. But once that seed is in the ground the question becomes, now what?

On this episode of the RealAgriculture Pulse School, Lyle Jensen from AgroPlus Inc. offers scouting tips for growers on what to look for when they head to the field after seeding. The first thing to do is dig around the seed row and determine whether the seed was seeded at the proper depth, and into moisture. From there, growers should start seeing germination.

“You’re going to see the shoot start coming out of the seed, and start heading downwards for the root, and up for the above ground growth,” he explains. “So peas are relatively frost tolerant, they can handle a pretty good dose of frost if we do happen to get that in the next few weeks, but you might still see a little bit of damage in some of the low areas,” he adds.

The second thing to look out for early on is insects — in the form of both beneficial insects, and pests.

When scouting early season for insects, the number one thing on a grower’s radar should be the pea leaf weevil, says Jensen.

“For the most part, we’ve been pretty lucky the last few years, there’s been pretty minor feeding damage in this geography anyways. And the first thing we’re going to be looking for really is just a stereotypical paper cut kind of notching on those leaves.”

Learn more in this Pulse School, filmed at Monarch, Alta., below:

Click here for more Pulse School episodes.

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