Fertilizing for optimum economic yield requires less fertilizer than fertilizing for maximum yield.

Maximum versus optimum economic yield

Agronomy Management: Often, aiming for maximum yield doesn’t give you the maximum bottom line profit

Is your farm most profitable when you achieve maximum yield or optimum economic yield? There can be substantial differences in the amount of inputs needed for maximum crop yield compared to the economic optimum yield. Applying a higher level of inputs may give you maximum yield but often won’t provide the greatest profit per acre. […] Read more

Plan in advance to harvest good trial data

Agronomy tips... from the field

When a rep approaches you to be involved in a company trial, it’s typically because they see you as having good practices that will help provide strong trial data at the end of the season. Company trials can be a great opportunity for you to “test drive” pre-commercial varieties or products, and get a clean […] Read more


Bubble in the finance world

Guarding Wealth: When will the stock market bubble pop?

Stock markets are soaring in spite of increasing risks. If this is a bubble, will it last?

When is a bubble a bubble? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bubble as “a significant, usually rapid, increase in asset prices that is soon followed by a collapse in prices… typically arises from speculation or enthusiasm rather than intrinsic increases in value.” The question is vital right now, for one of the best guides […] Read more

A ripe canola swath hampered by poor weather sits idle in Saskatchewan. (Oct. 2016)

The value of spring-threshed canola

Will it be worth salvaging and selling the canola left out in your field this winter?

Many growers across the Prairies are facing the reality of canola that’s been left out in fields over winter. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking to players in the canola buying and processing industry to find out who will buy spring-threshed canola, and to learn about some of their concerns. Major grain companies […] Read more


Selling your spring-threshed grain

Selling your spring-threshed grain

Brian Wittal has talked to potential buyers of those cereal crops still out in the field

Another warm spell has some producers who face the unenviable task of spring combining calling to ask what they’ll be able to do with the grain they harvest in the spring. Farmers are wondering where they can sell it and what it will be worth. Some are wondering if they should even bother trying to […] Read more

How good or bad is that unharvested crop?

How good or bad is that unharvested crop?

Hart Attacks: Farmers and processors won’t really know until quality is tested

I am sensing a muffled drum roll in parts of Western Canada right now as a few thousand farmers across central and northern B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan are waiting to see what this unharvested crop looks like, when they do have a chance to get it combined. There were several thousand acres — about 10 […] Read more



Monitoring the mainstream media

When city newspapers get ag information wrong, it causes a problem for all of us

Real estate, housing prices, parking, city planning — these kinds of headlines litter my mainstream newsfeeds. Then, out of the blue, a national outlet runs a negative story on GMOs or hormones in beef, or agricultural byproducts contaminating a water or food source. My ag news feed is very different. Its writers know the industry, […] Read more



This photo shows Goodeve wheat, not sprayed with fungicide. The photo was taken on August 2, 2012.

Looking for solutions for fusarium

Fusarium head blight is on the rise, and Les Henry is looking for a solution

The title of this piece might suggest that the author is an authority on plant disease, but that is not true. For this I have my farmer hat on. There is nothing like a little skin in the game to force one to read the literature and learn. My rotation had been wheat/peas/wheat/canola for 15 […] Read more