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NEW CANOLA VARIETIESThis second October issue of Grainewsis dubbed the new canola varieties issue. Starting on page eight, you ll find 20 new varieties to wade through as you begin crop planning for next year. It always amazes me, but yes, farmers are already buying canola seed for next year. It seems a bit rushed,[...]

FEEDING A HUNGRY WORLDI ve just returned from a week in Ontario at the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists congress ( www.ifaj.org). More than 260 writers, broadcasters and the like from over 30 countries descended on southern Ontario to learn about new world agriculture. While a large portion of this congress is about farm tours[...]

MAKE THE MOST OF WHAT YOU HAVEYou likely farm the same land, give or take, that your parents, your grandparents or maybe even your great-grandparents did. The classification and type of land that you farm was determined long ago by where your ancestors decided to settle, and not because it’s necessarily your first choice of[...]

NEAR PERFECT TO DISASTROUSAs I write this, we’re well into May and the weather has turned very cold. On the plus side, many areas of Alberta have wrapped up seeding and parts of western Saskatchewan could actually use a nice rain. I’ve actually heard some farmers mutter that they seeded into “nearly perfect” conditions. As[...]

DOWN TO BUSINESSBy the time you read this, our new prime minister will have been named. While politicians love to put all the emphasis on the election, the real work starts now. Whether the person you voted for won the riding or not, your MP is still your MP, for better or for worse. As[...]

THE VALUE OF TECHNOLOGYThe world can really knock you down if you let it. As I write this, a near blizzard is raging out my door (and it’s late March, for crying out loud) adding insult to injury on our already snow-laden fields; the fallout and devastation from Japan’s earthquake is all over the news;[...]

HOW’S THE WEATHER?Someone once told me that talking about the weather means you have nothing else to really talk about. That person was clearly not involved in agriculture. Even in an average year, there’s no greater variable to crop production than the weather. In a year with conditions far outside “normal” ranges, there is no[...]

BEST BANG FOR YOUR BUCKArticles end up inGrainews in one of two ways: either I notice a particular topic or have a curiosity about something and ask a writer to tackle it; or writers out on the landscape let me know what they’re thinking of covering and I say yes or no. It’s rare, then,[...]

YOUR FRIENDS BELOW GROUNDWay back in my university days (I’d like to think it wasn’tthatlong ago), the soil science classes were not the popular ones. For me, however, my first glimpse into what lies beneath sucked me in and hasn’t failed to fascinate me since. While fellow students’ eyes glazed over in regards to cation[...]

Now that the crop is in the bin, I’m sure you’re all pleased to call time of death on this growing season. This, of course, doesn’t mean the work for this year is done; in fact, now that you know what you have, it’s time to turn crop into cash. All the production in the[...]