FILE PHOTO

Manitoba farmers make good progress despite rain

Spring planting in Manitoba entered the home stretch at 83 per cent complete as of June 5. Manitoba Agriculture reported a 19-point gain from the previous week as farmers contended with wet conditions across much of the province.

(Alfio Manciagli/iStock/Getty Images)

Bigger cereal, pulse crops for Australia as canola contracts

Winter crop production in Australia has been projected to increase nine per cent at 51.3 million tonnes for 2024/25. That’s according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences which issued its latest supply and demand report on June 3.



University of Alberta researcher Ehsan Feizollahi helped test the use of cold plasma to decontaminate grains.

Plasma shows promise against fusarium-formed toxins

The fourth state of matter could someday be put to work at a malt house or feedlot near you

Researchers at the University of Alberta are harnessing a high-tech concept to decontaminate grain. They’re using cold plasma, which is created by electrical discharge in a low-pressure gas. One of the most common uses is in fluorescent lighting, which creates light with little heat. Cold plasma is the fourth state of matter, alongside solid, liquid […] Read more



This map from PrairieFHB.ca shows the FHB risk level for the CPSR wheat variety AAC Penhold, as of May 15. The higher-altitude Prairie-wide map was pretty green (low risk) so we’ve zoomed in here on the Medicine Hat and Lethbridge area of southern Alberta. Yellow denotes “moderate” risk; red denotes “high” risk, while black (not shown) would denote “very high.”

Maps now mark the spots for fusarium risk

Prairie-wide, variety-specific FHB risk maps now available online

Wheat, barley and durum growers in all three Prairie provinces can now check online whether fusarium head blight may be coming soon to a field near them. We’ve written before in these pages about the development and expected launch of new Prairie-wide fusarium head blight (FHB) risk maps — which have now gone live online […] Read more



Photo: Kelsey Pangborn/iStock/Getty Images

Feed Grain Weekly: A bearish market, especially in southern Alberta

Sufficient supplies of domestic barley and wheat along with the ongoing influx of corn from United States, have continued to keep a lid on feed grain prices on the Canadian Prairies. That’s especially so in southern Alberta, according to Darcy Haley, vice-president of Ag Value Brokers in Lethbridge.


File photo of grain bins in Saskatchewan. (Chinaface/iStock/Getty Images)

Most Canadian grain stocks tighter than a year ago

For many of Canada’s major crops, their holdings came in lower than a year ago, as Statistics Canada released its stocks of principal field crops as of March 31 report. There were declines in all wheat, durum, oats, corn, lentils and peas, but there were increases for barley and canola while soybeans were relatively steady.

Fed cattle are still at high prices despite a recent pullback.

Cattle market works to ration demand

Cattle prices are expected to reach historic highs this summer, then drop

During the first half of April, Alberta packers were buying fed cattle on a live basis at $240 per hundredweight delivered, up $8/cwt from a month earlier. Market-ready fed cattle supplies in Alberta and Saskatchewan are tightening, causing the fed cattle basis to strengthen. While the Canadian domestic slaughter is running slightly below year-over-year levels, […] Read more