To ease your mind, this column has nothing to do with cardiovascular health (or lack thereof). It is just the ramblings of an old farm boy and a long-time, somewhat, most-days retired agricultural writer.

Hart Attacks and my name might be new to some of you while others are saying “oh, that guy again.” The fact is, I have been writing a Hart Attacks column for most of the past 50 years. And if over the past three decades you flipped through Country Guide magazine or Grainews, you might have seen my name and this column.

Yes, my retirement in 2022 was widely noted — thanks to both of you for sending best wishes. But you know that feeling you get deep in your gut that says you still have something important to contribute to life? Well, me neither. But when the editor of Alberta Farmer Express said they’d pay me a few bucks for a column, I was all over that idea. So here we go. Turns out the editor of Grainews wants to pick it up occasionally too!

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I need the money. I met with my financial advisor yesterday and he said I can live comfortably in retirement until next Thursday. So things are golden on that front.

I’m not sure what this Hart Attacks column will be about. I thought I might focus on politics and religion — but I figured there’s a high probability of running out of material. Are they doing anything worth talking about?

And what about that new Pope — who saw that coming? Or what about those Flames, or what about those Oilers? Do the Elks really think they can outmanoeuvre the Stampeders’ Vernon Adams Jr. this year? Truth is I don’t follow sports close enough to comment on anything. I do like watching curling and golf — they are easy to nap through.

And speaking of golf, as of this writing I will have been out twice so far this year. A flat tire on my pull cart is slowing me down. If anyone sees my scorecard they might think it’s the final score of an NBA game rather than nine holes of golf.

I did not come from a family of golfers; we were dairy farmers and there was no time for fun. I was born and raised on a dairy farm in eastern Ontario back in the day when a 25-head milking herd was a pretty typical-sized dairy operation. My dad had a new dairy barn built in 1963, and as I recall, it had 30 stanchions, which as I look back was a pretty big herd for our road in Williamsburg Township of Dundas County.

No, there was no fun in my childhood — milk cows, feed the pigs, bale hay, kill a chicken for supper, sleep and then get up and do it all over again. It was like a work camp! But seriously, there was a lot of fun and good times for me growing up. You can’t beat life on a farm, that’s why I chose a career in journalism.

I started out as a writer and editor for newspapers, and then discovered and was drawn to the glamorous, high-paying life of an agricultural writer. I’m still waiting for my ship to come in, however. So far all I’ve seen is a 12-foot rowboat with one oar.

I often think about the changes in agriculture since I was a boy on the farm, and I compare it to the difference between riding in a stagecoach and a SpaceX launch. There might have been a week or so over my career where I thought I could keep pace with changes in ag technology, but I realize I was just kidding myself.

So that’s it for this column. They don’t pay me overtime, and also I see a nap in my future. With this column I say hello. And say that if you’re interested in lifelong learning, and making the best use of your reading time, I’m sure I can find someone to help you.

The post Lee Hart: Out of the ashes of retirement appeared first on Grainews.

Over four years ago during the pause in life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Alberta farmer and former CWB director Ken Motiuk thought it a good time to start researching a book recounting the decades-long fight by many farmers like himself and other grain industry players to win the freedom of choice in how to market their grain.

That effort resulted this spring in the publication of a treatise by Motiuk titled Culture of Control: Farming with the Shackles of the Canadian Wheat Board. If you like agriculture and history and ever wondered about the rise and fall of the CWB era, the 330-page book is a good read.

This isn’t just the rainy-day musings of a 70-something, third-generation farmer from the northeastern Alberta farming community of Mundare. It is a well-researched, well-written, well-documented, easy-to-read recounting, albeit from a “reformer’s” viewpoint, of how the CWB came to be and served a useful role in grain marketing in 1936; how some 35 years later the power of the agency had weakened the western Canadian grain handling and marketing system; and how it took another 35 or more years of protesting, lobbying and political wheeling and dealing to finally free the industry from the marketing monopoly.

Motiuk opens the book with a look at growing up on a mixed farm in Alberta in the 1960s and ’70s, recognizing then that the control, policies and programs of the CWB had created a “mess.”

“The problem was too much regulation, too many regulatory bodies with overlapping jurisdiction controlling the system, lack of market signals to farms and a disinterest from railways in hauling grain because they were losing money on every bushel they shipped,” he writes.

“This monopolistic structure was supported by self-serving farm organizations led by the Prairie wheat pools, who continually planted fear and uncertainty in the minds of farmers that any change to a market-driven system would be to the demise of their finances and the Prairie farm economy.”

Motiuk walks the reader through the evolution of western Canadian farming from the beginning of the 20th century and introduction of the first short-lived wheat board during the First World War. As the Prairie pools were established, they banded to create the Central Selling Agency (CSA), a system which failed during the Great Depression. The federal government bought all the CSA grain inventory with the pools lobbying the federal government to create a compulsory wheat board. The new CWB was formed in 1936.

Motiuk got to experience that Prairie grain handling and marketing structure from several different angles. He was a quasi-political creature, working for many years as a special assistant to Vegreville MP Don Mazankowski. “Maz” served in a number of roles including federal transportation minister. In the early days Motiuk worked for Alberta Agriculture’s statistics branch. He also served on the federal Farm Debt Review Board and the Senior Grain Transportation Committee, was a public governor on the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, and was involved with commodity organizations such as the Western Canadian Wheat Growers. Eventually he was elected a director of United Grain Growers (UGG). Somewhere in all that activity, he and wife Wendy also in the early 1990s were named Canada’s Outstanding Young Famers.

Motiuk describes the Prairie pools and UGG as grain handling entities with widely different philosophies. They both had all or partially farmer-elected boards, “but the pools attracted farmer-directors with a socialist mindset that called for government intervention and CWB control,” he writes. “UGG tended to elect farmer-directors who believed in market-based solutions with more freedom for farmers to make their own decisions.” While he liked the UGG philosophy, his time as a director to his dismay eventually fell victim to UGG internal politics.

The end of the Western Grain Transportation Agency and the payment of the Crow benefit to railways in 1996 sparked a movement toward consolidation within the Prairie grain handling companies. With federal Liberal governments in power, the CWB was well entrenched. The Mulroney government was cautious about rocking the CWB boat too much, but in 1989 Charlie Mayer, as minister responsible for the CWB, did manage to get oats removed from CWB jurisdiction. With Stephen Harper’s Conservative government elected in 2006, the tide began to turn.

On the 15-member CWB were both government-appointed and farmer-elected directors. Motiuk was appointed to the board by the Harper government in 2006, and during elections James Chatenay of Alberta and Dwayne Anderson of Saskatchewan were also elected. They were among the first “reformers” to sit on the CWB board. They didn’t have much influence against the majority of directors but served as a burr under the CWB status quo saddle … it was a start.

In these chapters Motiuk takes the reader behind the scenes of the CWB operations. At his first meeting for example, he was appointed to serve on the audit committee and governance and management resources committee. “I was walking into a situation where my beliefs were directly opposed to the majority in the room,” he writes. It wasn’t the most pleasant environment, as he notes there was even a very rigid seating hierarchy and “many of the board members lacked social decorum, business acumen and financial knowledge. This meeting was a real gong show. The CWB was run by a group of financial neanderthals. Their main interest was mindlessly supporting and promoting the CWB without question.”

That was 2006. It wasn’t until 2011 when the Harper government won a majority and then-agriculture minister Gerry Ritz introduced the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act — the act that spelled the end of the CWB monopoly. Through the chapters Motiuk “pulls back the curtain” to describe, from his front-row seat, the people, places, events and attitudes that prevailed through those changing times.

Motiuk notes despite decades of fearmongering claiming the loss of the CWB would be the end of Prairie agriculture, it soon became clear that “No, Chicken Little, the sky did not fall,” as the single-desk agency passed into history.

In the closing pages, Motiuk has a thoughtful look at the future of the family farm, noting the impact of climate change and politics surrounding the environment can’t be ignored.

The book is well done with lots of photos and illustrations. Although I wasn’t a farmer, I was an observer of the Prairie agriculture industry for more than 35 years, so the mentions of people and events from the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s make for a great walk down memory lane.

Culture of Control, published by Friesen Press out of Manitoba, will be available in June. You can buy from the publisher or directly from Motiuk via email ($30 plus $18 mailing), or from selected stores or online booksellers. The price will vary with who’s selling (and shipping), but it’s going to be in that $40-$60 range.

If you consider the cost of the book is about the same as six or seven bushels of wheat at 2025 prices, note that thanks to the events described in that book you do have the freedom today to handle your own marketing; in many respects, that is pretty good value.

The post New book reveals details leading to CWB’s exit appeared first on Grainews.

As a community resident walking the pathways of Tomas Opalinski Park for nearly 40 years, he says, every once in a while, he would venture off the path just to check on the remains of the tractor, which amounted to little more than a rusted frame and four wheels. It was a short distance off of the actual path sitting on a utility corridor. At one time he used to bring his own kids to check on the tractor … they named the spot Tractor Point.

“On my morning walks around the Blackmud Creek in Edmonton, I have been aware of an old tractor, or what’s left of it, for over 30 years,” says Lorentz. “I’d pop in and visit the old girl every once in a while, without giving much thought as to who she was. Recently, I thought I would like to get to know more.” His own research didn’t reveal too much but he figured the round-spoked rear wheels might be a clue for someone with great knowledge of farm machinery. That’s when he came to me.

Of course, I only needed a quick look at the photos that Darren supplied to determine I didn’t have a clue, but, fortunately, I knew someone who might.

I had been in touch with Brian Manning, curator of the Agriculture and Industry Collections at the Reynolds-Alberta Museum at Wetaskiwin, just south of Edmonton, in the past. The Reynolds museum has an extensive collection of agricultural, industrial and transportation equipment and vehicles.

A few years ago, I was looking for information on the little grey Fordson tractors introduced to Canada in 1917 and Brian was able to help. I sent him the photos that Darren provided and a couple of days later he had the answer.

The mystery tractor frame sitting in the southwest Edmonton bush was originally a Cockshutt tractor.

“You gave me a good one to research, but I was able to identify the tractor,” says Manning. “It is what I believe is the remains of a circa 1939 Cockshutt 90 or 99 Standard tractor. 

“The picture has the same front-end casting, hole for the hand crank, as well as the spring stops for the front axle. The main frame for the Cockshutt 80 is a totally different casting with the engine bolted to the sides of the casting, while the 90 and 99 were on mounts inside the casting.”

Manning says the tractors sold in Canada were painted red with cream wheel rims, while the ones sold in the United States were green with red rims. Another identifying feature was the unique grease fitting in the middle of the front wheels for lubricating the bearing. (I don’t know how I missed that….)

“The rear wheel on this one gave me a bit of trouble,” he says. “I have never seen (a Cockshutt) with round spokes, but advertising shows they actually manufactured them perhaps in limited quantities, as internal wheel weights would not have been able to be attached.” He says it is possible the tractor may also have been retrofitted with pull-type grader rear rims.

Discovering the make and model of the old tractor wasn’t a life altering experience, but Lorentz says it was good to know.

“Thanks for looking into this, I hope you enjoyed the adventure as much as I did,” says Lorentz. “I started out thinking it might be a tractor from the late ’30s but by focusing in on the wheels I was unable to find the round-spoked rear and non-spoke front and that sent me drifting off all over the place. Farmers are a resourceful lot, so I have no doubt that there may have been some modifications over the years. Thanks again for identifying my old friend.”

Lorentz also learned during his bit of research that this built-up area of Edmonton was mostly open farmland annexed into the city in the early 1970s. The annexation applied to about 700 acres, with part of that including a half section or more owned by farmer Tomas Opalinksi — hence the park name.

Lorentz says he has had no direct connection to agriculture over his life, other than summer visits to his grandparents’ farm in southern Ontario in that eight-, 10- and 12-years-of-age range. He remembers those as exciting visits for a “kid from the city.”

Manning says the museum is often asked to help identify old pieces of farm machinery and finding answers isn’t always as easy.

He said one challenge earlier this year involved a person who brought him a grainy picture of two combines probably from the early 1920s. The person wanted to know the makes. The machines were old and the photo quality wasn’t great.

“It took about a month or more when I was at a farm in eastern Alberta picking up a piece of equipment. And this place had a few relics sitting around and I took some pictures,” says Manning. “I got looking at these photos and I realized that’s it, that’s the combine I’d been looking for.”

Manning says there is a certain satisfaction in being able to do some detective work to help solve a machinery mystery. If you have any inquiries, contact Manning at Brian.manning@gov.ab.ca.

The post The case of the mystery tractor appeared first on Grainews.

Scott McClinchey, a canola breeder based in Guelph, Ont., says farmers can’t change the weather but they do have other measures within their control to help minimize the effect of the disease on their crops, which in severe cases can result in as much as 50 per cent yield loss.

“We develop new varieties with a great deal of potential in terms of yield and with traits such as disease resistance,” says McClinchey. “But it is important through proper management to protect that yield potential as much as possible.”

Now the 2022 canola crop is the bin, the coming months are a good time to get plans in place for the 2023 cropping season. McClinchey says some things to consider are figuring out a rotation that optimizes the break between canola crops, lining up seed for sclerotinia-resistant canola varieties and making plans to apply a fungicide if growing conditions warrant.

Growing canola in a proper rotation with other crops is one important aspect of disease management, says McClinchey. Developing a rotation that leaves a two- or three-year break or more between canola crops — for example, canola-corn-cereal or canola-pulse-cereal — helps to reduce the risk of disease development.

Also determine that other crops in the rotation are not susceptible to sclerotinia, such as dry beans or sunflower, as they can add to the level of disease load in the field. Keep in mind too the sclerotia bodies from sclerotinia can survive in the soil for up to seven years.

Varieties with sclertoinia resistance

On the plant breeding front, McClinchey says it takes a lot of work over a number of years to develop varieties with disease resistance. Corteva has three hybrid canola varieties with sclerotinia resistance.

“One important tool in reducing the risk of losses due to disease is to grow a resistant variety,” says McClinchey. “Varieties with disease resistance can reduce sclerotinia incidence by over 65 per cent.”

New hybrid varieties are developed with multiple or “stacked” traits to improve the overall performance of the variety on several fronts. As Corteva develops new lines of canola, they are put through rigorous testing at disease nurseries. High levels of disease pressure are applied to select those lines that show the highest disease resistance.

Within Corteva’s Brevant seed line, B3014 is a newer LibertyLink canola hybrid that combines sclerotinia, clubroot and blackleg resistance in a high-yielding package. Within Corteva’s Pioneer brand, P505MSL is a newer LibertyLink hybrid with a high rating for sclerotinia resistance and resistance to clubroot, blackleg and fusarium wilt. And producers may be familiar with a slightly older Pioneer variety 45CS40, a Roundup Ready canola hybrid developed with sclerotinia, blackleg and clubroot resistance.

McClinchey says while selecting varieties with sclerotinia resistance is an important step in protecting the crop, it does not provide a 100 per cent guarantee against disease loss. Depending on growing conditions and disease severity, applying a fungicide such as Acapela (the active ingredient is picoxystrobin) might also be required.

“The issue with sclerotinia and some other diseases is if you see signs of disease on the crop it is too late to apply a fungicide,” says McClinchey. “So producers need to be proactive, assess their disease risk and decide if a fungicide is warranted.”

Under dry growing conditions, disease risk might be quite low, while under warm, moist growing conditions the risk could be quite high. A fungicide application might be good insurance against disease loss, McClinchey says.

Corteva grower information says infection occurs during flowering from airborne spores and is highly dependent on weather conditions at the time of infection. Wet conditions, moist soil, high humidity and temperatures between 15 C and 25 C within the crop canopy are conducive to sclerotia germination. Once infected, the disease can cause lesions, bleached and weak stems, premature ripening, crop lodging and reduced yields from fewer pods and seeds.

Here are some of the factors during a growing season that can point toward the need for a fungicide application:  

• Warm soil temperatures throughout June and early July.
• Soil moisture at or near field capacity throughout June and up to flowering.
• The presence of sclerotinia in previous years.
• High humidity levels in the canopy and moisture on the plants, allowing for “petal stick.”
• Frequent showers and moderate temperatures in July.
• Rainfall (at least five to 10 millimetres) on more than two days per week.
• The crop canopy is wet throughout most of the day.
• Temperatures during the day and night are warm rather than cool.

As a general rule, canola yield loss due to sclerotinia will be about 50 per cent of the disease infection level. When deciding to use a fungicide, it’s important to consider the economics.

Corteva offers the following example. If you estimate 30 per cent of the crop is infected, that translates into about a 15 per cent yield loss. In a 40-bushel crop, that represents a yield loss of about six bushels per acre, which at a market value of $20 per bushel means a $120-per-acre revenue loss. If the cost of fungicide application was $30 per acre, then spraying a fungicide for sclerotinia control would be very economical in this example.

Agronomic improvements

McClinchey says while it can be a challenge to introduce disease resistance into new varieties and still maintain or perhaps improve many other desirable traits, progress continues to be made in developing improved canola varieties.

McClinchey says Corteva’s breeding program is always looking to improve quality and agronomic characteristics of new varieties. Increased yield is always on the shopping list, along with improved disease resistance and other traits such as shatter resistance.

“We have a very dedicated team working on the breeding program to produce improved varieties,” says McClinchey. “And we are proud of the progress we have made in recent years in bringing some very competitive hybrid varieties to the market. It is all part of bringing increased value and profitability to Canadian farmers.

“Shatter resistance is an important feature that helps protect the value of that canola crop,” he adds. McClinchey welcomes the creation of a new industry-wide rating system for shatter resistance that makes it easier for farmers to compare shatter resistance levels among different varieties.

Developed in a co-operative effort by the canola industry and introduced in 2022, the system rates pod shatter resistance in canola cultivars on a scale of one to nine. It was designed in part to help canola producers understand their options if they decide to delay harvest — a choice several growers considered in 2021 as the hot, dry growing season extended into harvest time in many parts of the Prairies.

The post Sclerotinia control in canola appeared first on Grainews.

October 20 is my birthday. I will be turning 71 (where the heck did that number come from?) and I have decided it is a good day to wrap up this full-time writing career. I am so looking forward to the morning of October 21, waking up and saying, “I have nothing to do today — there is no deadline looming out there waiting to be met.” That warm fuzzy feeling may only last for a day, but at least I will have that.

I have been a writer and editor with Grainews and previously Country Guide (same company) for more than 30 years. I was a writer with Alberta Agriculture in Edmonton for a couple of years before signing on with Country Guide in Calgary in 1987. I joined Grainews as a field editor in 2005.

And it has been a great run. I have learned enough over these past three decades that I may just go farming myself and get rich. Why not? How hard could it be? On the other hand, have I learned nothing from farm retirement/succession specialists such as Merle Good — get out while you can still walk, or some advice similar to that.

But seriously, it has been a great career. I started out working as a newspaper reporter in about 1970, and then in the mid-1980s switched over to writing about agriculture. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an agricultural writer, but the idea caught my attention.

My humble beginning into agricultural writing began while I was a reporter with the Lethbridge Herald. Somehow, I connected with Tom Bradley, publisher with Farm Light and Power in Regina. I agreed to do a freelance article for that publication. Obviously, this is seared into my memory. I believe the first article I did was a feature story with farmer Don Opp at Claresholm, about an hour north of Lethbridge, talking to him about this new concept in the early 1980s of conservation farming. I didn’t have a clue.

So what is an air seeder, what is a cultivator, what do you mean by “keep your stubble up”? I had grown up on a dairy farm in eastern Ontario, but I was painfully ignorant about anything to do with grain farming and Prairie agriculture. Somehow we got through it.

Thirty-some years later, I’m still lost when they talk about building algorithms to do facial recognition to track livestock, or who can manage field crops without georeferenced data collection that includes field imagery collected and analyzed but may or may not be integrated fully into decision making. And the GPS resolution, at a minimum, is assisted by the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). You know me, I’m all over that stuff.

October 20 I’m retired, but I’m not planning to disappear from writing entirely. I know a few other fossils still active in the agriculture industry. I’m thinking if they are still at it, and as long as my mind holds out, I will see where I can fit in the occasional writing project.

If asked what’s been great about this career, it wasn’t the crops and livestock. It is terribly cliche but I have been so fortunate to work for, to work with, and to meet and interview just an amazing group of people. There has been the odd pain in the ass, but the vast majority have been the finest people I’d ever care to meet.

The one thing that’s a bit alarming the longer I’m in this business — I’ve talked to people when they first started their career, some of them are now retired. And in other circumstances, I remember talking to young farmers in the 1980s, now I am talking to their children as they continue the family farm, and if I hang in there it won’t be long before I’ll be talking to the grandchildren — the third generation. Yikes. I can see me getting out to a barley field somewhere and these young whippersnappers decide to hide my walker … and then where will I be?

The post Time for the ‘Big R’ has come appeared first on Grainews.

One of the mysteries that has confused me in recent months as we sorta, somewhat, maybe turn the corner on this COVID thing is where did all the workers go?

I’m sure it is as noticeable on the farm or in rural communities as much as it is in the city. It doesn’t seem to matter where I turn today, there is a help wanted sign, or if some service has slowed or is not available, it’s because the business couldn’t find workers.

And, of course, one of the big factors in the whole supply chain failure over the past few months is this colossal worldwide traffic jam in the movement of goods, blamed not only on exceptional demand (and that guy who parked the container ship sideways in the Suez Canal) but compounded by the fact that companies can’t find workers. Where did everyone go? A lot of people died during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic (and some are still dying) but not everyone died.

It is like a scene from a science fiction movie, where the world is overcome by some mysterious fog. And when the fog lifts, the few survivors come out of their secure bunker to learn they are the only ones left. Everyone else has mysteriously disappeared — just vaporized.

It is good in a way that unemployment is low, and it is relatively easy for people to find jobs, but I still haven’t heard a really satisfactory explanation of where did everyone go? Some reports blame it on COVID-19. Others say don’t blame it on COVID. Blame it on the war in Ukraine, no don’t blame it on the war in Ukraine.

The country and the world seemed to have been gainfully employed up until March 2020 — COVID Day.

Personally, I haven’t been looking for work for a few days, but it seems back in 2018 and 2019 there were stretches where it was difficult to find work. Hearing from friends in Calgary, contractors had a wide open choice of workers. You needed a college degree to get a labourer job on a construction site. Today, if you just know someone who knows how to hold a broom you’re hired on the spot.

Just about every service sector has a shortage of workers. Restaurants are closed or have limited seating due to a shortage of workers. The construction industry is looking for skilled trades people as well as labourers.

I almost took a trip

For a few minutes after COVID restrictions lifted, I thought it might be fun to do a bit of travelling again, until I saw news reports that there is only one baggage handler left working in all Canadian airports, so luggage does not move.

There are fewer pilots and flight attendants. Airlines have cut thousands of flights from the schedule because there aren’t enough pilots to fly the planes or attendants to look after passengers … never mind that poor baggage guy who is remarkably overworked.

And now hospitals and urgent care centres are shutting down across the country because there are not enough doctors and nurses and other support staff to keep the doors open. Perhaps many people are still receiving timely care but the only reports I hear are about people sitting for eight, 10, 12 hours in an emergency room waiting to be seen by a doctor. There are a few reports of patients dying before they could be treated. Thank God I am feeling well because going to a hospital for help does not seem like a viable option. What the hell is wrong with the health care system?

And at all political levels everyone wrings their hands, looks very concerned and says this is “unacceptable” but that seems to be where it ends. As long as the situation has been described as “unacceptable” that takes care of it — now let’s go talk about something green and environmentally sustainable.

Speaking of that, what the hell happened to the price of fuel? I like that joke about the guy at the gas station on pump No. 3 who bought $10 worth of gas. Somebody asked him where he was going and he said pump No. 4. Another moment of gratitude — thank God I don’t drive for a living.

Fuel prices are high, food prices are ramping up!! I’m not losing any weight, mind you, but if this keeps up there is a very real risk that I could be eating less. And that really would be unacceptable.

I think that’s why Queen Elizabeth is staying on the job at the age of 96. They just can’t find a replacement.

Probably every generation since the ice age has had that “what is the world coming to” moment. Well, I guess this is my moment. After all of my complaining, the facts are I am feeling good, and I know there is supper ahead tonight. Maybe I’ll get reckless, throw $15 worth of gas in the truck and just see how far that takes me. Born to be wild — that’s just the way I roll.

The post Are we going somewhere in a handbasket? appeared first on Grainews.

This fuzzy photo of a kid riding a milk cow is the first livestock tracking system my dad had on the farm. The rider would be with the cow all day and report back on how long and what she ate and how long she chewed her cud and compare that data to milk production records. A great management tool! Or not.

Okay, so I sort of made that last part up. It never happened. That’s just a photo of me perhaps in the late 1950s riding a smaller, quieter Holstein I called Blackie. It is the closest I ever got to the rodeo circuit. Me and Blackie never went anywhere except around the yard and one of the few things I remember from those days was the ridge of her bony backbone was hard on my butt.

A few things come to mind from that photo. First is, I should have hired a better photographer. That photo was probably taken by my mother with an old Kodak box camera. One roll of film with 12 frames that stored images of everything from Christmas to Easter, to a picnic by the St. Lawrence River, to a group shot of cousins who visited from New York State — all on that one roll, a year’s worth of memories. Taking one photo of each event was lots. (Compare that with the 1,100 photos I have on my cellphone today, and I’m not even close to being a selfie fanatic. Time and technology change.)

The other point that comes to mind is just how simple those farming days were in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Fast-forward to 2022 and I dare you to keep up with technology.

Earlier this month, I spent a few hours along with other Alberta farm writers touring some of the new features, the new technology at Olds College in south-central Alberta. A lot of this technology is stuff you read about or you may see in a booth at a farm show, but a few hours at the college and here it all is. So many aspects of new technology, in focus, out of the box and all being applied to so many facets of crop and livestock production on the college’s 3,600-acre Smart Farm.

A lineup of autonomous seeding, fertilizing and spraying equipment, precision farming technology, regenerative agriculture practices, sensors to sense things you didn’t know you could sense, a fleet of drones that could outmanoeuver the Star Wars Imperial Army, floating islands that can keep dugouts and ponds free of algae, $12,000 on-farm weather stations that can make it rain (I made the rain part up too), a real livestock tracking and traceability system — and you may never need to buy another roll of fencing wire again. And that’s just some of the stuff I remember.

The college is trying it all. They’re not saying it all will have value or application in day-to-day farming operations, but that’s the point. They’ve got more than 95 applied research projects on the go having a look at what works and what doesn’t. And it is all woven into teaching and learning experiences for several hundred students learning about crop and livestock production and management, and using the new technology to produce grains and protein.

The students aren’t just sitting back watching. They are out in the field or the barn learning how to use and evaluate this technology on a daily basis. It makes you wonder who’s running the asylum? Doesn’t matter — so far as it is working pretty good.

And this new era of farming technology isn’t just happening at Olds College. Lakeland College in Vermilion and Lethbridge College in southern Alberta are also dialed in and applying new technology in their programs too. I need to get there and have a look.

I also learned that concerns Olds College might be wasting its time with an on-campus microbrewery program appear to be unfounded. Sounds like quite a few people are interested in seeing what happens when you put water and Alberta-grown barley and hops together in the same kettle. Apparently great things happen, and in a wide range of flavours.

The post Olds College takes a hands-on look at new technology appeared first on Grainews.

Both our daughter and son have or have had dogs at different times and we end up dog-sitting. Also, friends and other family members go on holidays and need dog-sitters. So, we get our dog fix on a fairly regular basis — our door and backyard is always open.

Recently, our son announced he had purchased or put a down payment on a pup — an Australian labradoodle — that, if the breeding program goes well, should be ready for home delivery sometime in May. He didn’t reveal the exact price, but it sounds like this pup is somewhere around $3,500 — and that’s about the time I blacked out.

I know I am outdated. This is the era of designer dogs, but spending $3,500 on a dog is still a fantastic amount of money. There were always one or two dogs on the farm when I was growing up as a kid (and after I left). Their names over the years in order of appearance were Old Bud, Ginger, Sam and then Joe (son of Sam) and, finally, Louis (he was from Ottawa and so had the French Canadian connection). I am quite sure my dad never bought a dog in his life. They were either given to him or showed up as strays and never left. And as I recall, doggie funerals, if they happened at all, were dignified, simple and low cost … like zero dollars.

And we had dogs ourselves for many years. First there was Abbey, who I bought as a pup for $10, who was later joined by Bosco, who was somehow bequeathed to us. And, finally, there was Molly, a little allergy-free spaniel/poodle/cockapoo combo I paid a crazy $150 for, but if you amortize that over her lifespan, the capital cost was about $10 per year — a livable figure.

I have usually liked most dogs. My sister-in-law once had a chihuahua who didn’t like anyone except her, so that yappy, snarly little creature was hard to warm up to. A longtime friend, Mike, always had Brittany spaniels for hunting dogs. They were smart dogs, although Mike wasn’t the best trainer. The dogs didn’t always respect commands. Sometimes Mike had to lie on the ground and play dead, and when the dog came close to check him out that was the only opportunity he had to catch it. I don’t think that is recommended in the dog-training manual.

And I had another friend who had one of those furball Shih Tzu/bichon-cross dogs that certainly had a mind of its own. My friend yelled at it quite a bit, but there really wasn’t any consequence to the yelling, so I think the dog came to understand her screaming was normal human and dog interaction. That dog was either really dumb or really smart.

So, I was interested in a column from Reuters news service recently that talked about how much human language dogs understand.

This researcher in developmental psychology at Dalhousie University was looking at how kids begin to understand human language — their cognitive development, especially their executive functions — which is a set of mental skills that include working memory, flexible thinking and self-control. The researcher, Sophie Jacques, wondered if the relation between language and executive functions exists only in humans. So how well do dogs understand human language? (My first thought is for some dogs the answer is zippo, but I’m not a researcher.)

A few key points of this research with dogs are dogs can perceive different words and can learn to respond to specific words. For example, three dogs — two border collies named Chaser and Rico and a Yorkshire terrier named Bailey — learned to respond to more than 1,000, 200 and 100 words, respectively.

In another project, Jacques began a collaboration with psychologist Catherine Reeve, at the time a graduate student working on dogs’ scent detection abilities. The goal was to develop a similar measure of vocabulary for use with dog owners that could then be used to examine links between language and executive functions.

They developed a list of 172 words organized into different categories (for example, toys, food, commands, outdoor places) and gave it to an online sample of 165 owners of family and professional dogs. The owners were asked then to select words that their dogs responded to consistently.

On average, service dogs respond to about 120 words, whereas family pets respond to about 80 words, ranging between 15 to 215 words across all dogs. They also found that certain breed groups, such as herding dogs like border collies and toy dogs like chihuahuas, respond to more words and phrases than other breed types like terriers, retrievers and mixed breeds.

They couldn’t determine whether dogs who respond to more words also had better executive functions. That’s still being studied.

This isn’t just “nice to know information.” The researchers are hoping the research might also provide important practical information about dogs. For example, it is very expensive to train puppies for service work and many do not make the final cut. However, if early, word-based responding abilities predict later behavioural and cognitive abilities, it might become an early-warning system to predict which dogs are likely to become good service animals.

I’m still thinking about that $3,500 puppy that may be coming. For that money, that thing will not only need to know how to read, but how to set up the coffee pot for the morning, mow the lawn and rake and bag leaves, and if I don’t have an autonomous vehicle by then, it will also need to be able to drive me to a doctor’s appointment during light-traffic times of the day. My expectations may be a little high, but I could pay that much for a decent Angus-cross bull and then get to eat it afterwards.

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I’m one of those Fitbit people. I wear a fitness watch on my wrist because I’m such a fitness nut. It tells the time, keeps track of my steps and confirms that my heart is still beating, along with a dozen other features I really don’t use to their fullest extent. I can read text messages on this wrist device too. Also, I can see on my watch who is calling my cell number, but I still need to use my smartphone to actually talk to people. I’m a dinosaur in that regard, for sure. I don’t know how I cope with that, but I do.

Anyway, the bittersweet story is that my roughly year-old Fitbit watch froze one day — just locked up on one screen I don’t even use and there was no way to release it. I couldn’t even reboot the watch. That’s the bitter part.

I was really dreading the prospect of finding a customer service rep or meaningful product support, but I went to the Fitbit website, read some of the self-help solutions, which didn’t fix anything, and finally clicked on the customer service link — and there was a 1-800 number open 24 hours a day.

Now here comes the sweet part. At first, I thought, “Ya, right, like there will be a real person to answer the phone.” I dialled the number, it rang about four times, a young woman, who was a Fitbit customer service rep, answered the call and asked how she could help. I told her my problem with the watch, fully expecting to be transferred, or at least put on hold.

However, over the next few minutes, she ran through a few diagnostics … let’s try this, this and this. The watch remained frozen. Finally, after about seven minutes of effort without remedy, she sent me an email that contained a link to another Fitbit website. There I had the option of ordering a free replacement Fitbit watch — the same model that I had, or, behind door No. 2, I could take advantage of a 50 per cent discount and upgrade to a newer model. I liked the model I had. It has all the features that I need.

I selected the replacement option and filled in my mailing address. The order was confirmed with a message that my replacement Fitbit watch should be delivered within five to seven days.

The whole process was done, complete with a very satisfactory resolution, in about 10 minutes. I can’t think of the last time when customer service has gone so smoothly.

I have probably ranted about it before, but good, helpful, timely customer service is just something that rarely exists anymore. It’s like the sighting of a unicorn. In my experience, I think I’m doing good if I can resolve a problem even with an hour’s waiting time on the phone.

I find it really frustrating these days to be looking for information from a company or organization. I’m not looking for the combination to the company vault, but just some basic information on a product or program, or answers to questions about how something works. Sometimes I strike it lucky, but more often than not it is a process.

Often, I can find a flashy website, with photos and graphics that can be dazzling. But I am looking for this basic how-to information. Somehow, I get directed to “Frequently Asked Questions.” There are only about 50 of those, but none of them really deal with my specific inquiry. Maybe if I could find someone to talk to.

I start looking for a human being to contact. Sometimes I find a staff directory, it may or may not show photos of staff members and their positions, but there is no direct contact information. I click a button that says “Contact us,” and it flips to a screen where I can leave my name and number and go to a box where I can type in my question and then someone will get back to me within the next business day or so. But I am sort of in the middle of something, and it’s just a fairly simple question — it would be good to talk to someone now. Dream on, Lee, … that just ain’t going to happen.

And customer service phone “helplines” can be equally, or more, frustrating. If I have a fairly simple question for my cellphone provider, for example, I plan on at least one hour of wait time on the phone. If I’m lucky, sometimes it gives me the option of leaving my phone number and they will call back, but other times “due to higher-than-expected call volumes” I am just put on hold and can listen to some disturbing music until someone answers.

And let’s not forget the self-service calling options, where you can “press one” for this or “press two” for that. Some of those automated services have up to seven or eight selection options and still none of them ever really address your specific question. It used to be that the last option would be to “press zero” to speak to an operator, but they seldom do that anymore. Most often it is “press the star button to repeat this menu.”

Maybe it is just that it is 2022 and timely customer service is a thing of the past. I just hope that Fitbit and the remaining few others who still provide good customer service don’t get the memo that times have changed anytime soon.

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Yes, there was disappointment and frustration for many that the dry conditions stretching into drought during the past growing season produced from average to extremely poor results. But I believe it was soon followed by an attitude that 2022 brings a new growing season and an opportunity to be a pretty good year. As bad as 2021 was, I talked to a few producers who said they had already come through worst years due perhaps to another drought, or too much rain, hail, or snow, or some combination of weather events.

It might seem like a backwards way of looking at things, but some of the world events that wrapped up 2021 have certainly reminded me of the need to be a very grateful person. My philosophy may be feeding off of someone else’s grief, but some days I just need to pay attention to all the good things in my day.

Last fall, I saw those desperate families, thousands of people, in Afghanistan begging and even clinging to the undercarriage of taxiing airplanes, all to get away from a violent, extremist regime that had taken control of their country. And I thought other than some slick attitudes and policies among politicians here in Canada that I may not fully agree with, what do I have to complain about at home? Yes, there can even be daily isolated violent events in some parts of Calgary, but I am not waking up each day fearing for the life of myself or my family. And for that I need to be truly grateful.

Similarly, and not long after the Afghanistan reports, there were other clips on the nightly news, for a while at least, of thousands of refugees — Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis — lined up in tent and tarp camps along the razor wire-protected border with Belarus, as they sought refuge from war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and beyond.

Again, desperate families with absolutely nothing just looking for some safe place. I couldn’t imagine being in a situation like that with my own family, cold and hungry in a barren no man’s land, where no country wants you. Perhaps the only real issue I had that day, here in Calgary, was not understanding the logic of anti-vaxxers protesting in front of city hall. And for that I am truly grateful.

And then closer to home in late November into early December, it was hard to believe the TV images of the extent of flooding from the B.C. interior through to the West Coast.

Merrit under water, major highways washed out, hundreds of farms in the Lower Mainland flooded to the rooftops. There were probably some of those dairy and hog operations I had visited on warm summer days over the years. It was just unbelievable that there could be so much water and the destruction it left behind.

There were estimates that about 700,000 farm animals were lost — most of that was poultry — including an estimated 12,000 hogs and 420 dairy cows. Obviously, a huge economic cost, but the loss and cleanup all has to take a tremendous human emotional toll. My biggest complaint is that during the summer I had to run the sprinkler more than I wanted to keep the grass green in my yard. And for that I am truly grateful.

And then, just in the days before I wrote this column, again it was hard to believe the unprecedented extent of destruction caused by nearly three dozen tornados that ripped through six U.S. states — Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee — killing about 100 people or more and destroying whole communities. There was a continuous path of destruction greater than the distance between Calgary and Edmonton.

I would watch news interviews with these bewildered and tearful people standing in the debris of what used to be their homes thinking I can’t even imagine that in my neighbourhood at any stage, but, particularly at this stage of my life, where does a person start to rebuild when there is absolutely nothing left? It was indeed another moment to be extremely grateful.

I don’t mean this column to be a downer by revisiting just a sample of all the misery that has happened in parts of the world in recent weeks, but it is just a reminder to me that I can bitch and complain and be full of self pity about dozens of so-called “first world problems” almost on a daily basis.

It doesn’t mean there aren’t real and valid problems, frustrations, challenges, disappointments and, yes, even grief that I will have to deal with, but I think the message is to keep it in perspective.

One quote I read somewhere was “for some reason God (the Creator or a higher power) has given some of us a more difficult road to trudge than others.” I wish those people didn’t have to go through the suffering they do and hopefully at some point they find relief. If there is any value in the misery is that it reminds me to be grateful for where I live and for what I have and try to carry that attitude of gratitude into 2022 on a daily basis.

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