Columns & Production Tips

At Lethbridge just one year in the past 10 booked above-normal precipitation during its growing season.

A decade of dry

Let's review the variability of weather and soil moisture at Lethbridge

By Ross H. McKenzie February 26, 2024

Weather is often the greatest factor that influences crop production across the Prairies — in particular, growing season precipitation and level of heat. The southern Prairies, particularly the regions of the Brown and Dark Brown soil zones, have the lowest growing-season precipitation, in the range of 150 to 200 mm (six to eight inches) and […] Read more

Equipment, Wheat & Chaff

CNH backs compostable bale wrap

By Grainews Staff February 26, 2024

An Alberta company developing what’s billed as the first viable bale net wrap to be made from compostable material has picked up funding from the maker of Case IH and New Holland equipment. CNH’s investment arm, CNH Ventures, announced a couple of weeks ago it would put up an undisclosed amount of cash to back […] Read more

Oil inventories remain low, but recession fears leading to price declines continue to permeate the market.

Columns, Home Quarter Investing, Markets

How did 2023’s economic and market predictions turn out?

Predictions are often made but their accuracy never evaluated, yet this is an important step

By Herman VanGenderen February 23, 2024

For the past seven years in my newsletter, I have made annual “Fearless Predictions.” I also summarize predictions from the investment industry. The last chapter of my book, titled “If I claim to be a wise man…it surely means that I don’t know,” launched my annual prediction exercise, largely to poke fun at the process. […] Read more

What’s now known as the Evans cherry likely had ancestry in Siberia and was brought to Alaska by Russian immigrants.

Apples, Columns, Fruit/Vegetables, Practical Tips

Fruit growing on Prairie farms

Part 5 of a series on Prairie farm gardens

By Ieuan Evans February 23, 2024

Fruit growing on the Canadian Prairies is much easier and more rewarding than most people ever imagine. I am an avid fruit grower on my Alberta acreage, growing everything from plums, pears, grapes, apples and cherries to currants and raspberries. You name it, I am growing it. I am familiar with backyard Prairie gardens all […] Read more

Energy needs of cows for reproduction are low, but milk production and body maintenance create need for more feed.

Cattleman’s Corner, Columns

Reproduction planning necessary for this herd’s breeding success

By Peter Vitti February 23, 2024

Last year, I asked a friend who operates a 400-Simmental x Angus beef cow operation about his No. 1 goal, after all his cows dropped their calves by the end of April. He replied that all his mature and young cows should show a couple of strong heats before they are let out with the […] Read more

Rob and Sarah need a way to divide the farm that creates the necessary cash flow for a son moving back to the farm and maintains fairness for him and his brother.

Columns

Six quarters and two sons

The problem of fairness in an estate plan

By Andrew Allentuck February 23, 2024

Rob, who is 65, and Sarah, who is 61, farm six quarters of grain and pasture in northwestern Manitoba. They have two sons, Michael and Steven, each in his 30s and married. However, Steven, who has a town job, has decided he would like to try his hand at farming. The issue in devising a […] Read more

The temperature in a warm-to-hot shower or bath can help support a healthy vagal tone in the body.

Columns, Farm Life

Support the nervous system for whole health

Fit to Farm: Stimulating the vagus nerve can help you deal with stress-related conditions

By Kathlyn Hossack February 19, 2024

If you’ve read my articles before, you may know I am a total nervous system nerd. The nervous system is the mechanism of direction and feedback for our soft tissue which, in turn, moves our skeleton and connective tissues. The nervous system has sensory and motor pathways throughout the entire body, including our musculature, organs, […] Read more

Twelve binders at work near Wilcox, Sask., in what's now the RM of Bratt's Lake, year unknown.

Columns, Crops, Spring Wheat

Where the wheat was

Let's track 85 years of hard red spring wheat yields in Saskatchewan, by RM

By Les Henry February 19, 2024

The folks at Saskatchewan’s ministry of agriculture have produced a digital dashboard that has a complete record of wheat yields for each rural municipality all the way back to 1938. It is an Excel file, 20.5 MB in size, which means a lot of numbers. It’s very easy to select any RM in the province […] Read more

U of M professor Paul Bullock checks data from a portable weather station during development of the FHB risk assessment tool.

Cereals, Crops, Wheat & Chaff

Online fusarium management tool due out this spring

Preliminary tests of the online tool showed a good level of accuracy

By Jim Timlick February 19, 2024

A follow-up to a story we first brought you last July about a new online tool being developed by soil scientists at the University of Manitoba to make fusarium head blight (FHB) risk management in cereal crops easier for Prairie farmers. Paul Bullock, a senior scholar with the U of M’s department of soil science, […] Read more

Blueberries from last summer, when it was too hot to even consider canning, were kept frozen until the arrival of better jam-making weather.

Columns, Farm Life, Fruit/Vegetables

Fruits in a Prairie winter, part 1: Blueberries

Picked fresh or cooked into favourite foods, those purple berries leave their mark in memories

By dee Hobsbawn-Smith February 16, 2024

Last week I made jam from blueberries I had frozen last summer, when it was just too hot to consider canning. Stirring the pot reminded me of other lovely ways and words with the blue fruit. “The way the night tastes” is how the U.S. poet W.S. Merwin described blueberries. Another poet, Mary Oliver, wrote […] Read more

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