The forgotten plant and animal mineral micronutrients

The forgotten plant and animal mineral micronutrients

Ten nutrient minerals essential for plants and animal nutrition

How many times have you read about plants needing 16 nutrients for growth? The usual carbon, oxygen and hydrogen as well as the macrominerals nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, calcium and magnesium (N, P, K, S, Ca and Mg, respectively). This is followed by micronutrients such as boron, copper, chloride, manganese, iron, molybdenum and zinc (B, […] Read more

Organic farmer Boyd Charles, pictured here with wife, Gloria, of Stoughton, Sask., says his pelletized and cooked chicken manure packs more fertilizer punch for his grain crops than commercial fertilizer ever could.

Saskatchewan organic producer wins with chicken manure

Pelletized, cooked manure an organic fertilizer solution

Ask Boyd Charles what he considers his happiest day as a farmer and he’ll probably tell you it was the day he sold his sprayer. “I was tired of giving away most of my profit to the chemical companies,” he says of his decision to become an organic farmer in 1996. He hasn’t looked back. […] Read more


Rather than a loop system, South West Terminal in Saskatchewan installed three parallel tracks for the siding at its elevator. Each is 8,500 feet long.

Smaller cars, more capacity to help move grain

Who knew they even made a three-mile-long train?

Everyone is impressed this year with improved grain handling efficiency across Western Canada and that is a good thing. In some recent years with bottlenecks and mysterious delays in grain movement, it was almost like the rail companies were surprised Western Canada had grain and other commodities that needed to be moved to export position. […] Read more

Rebate roundup 2021

Rebate roundup 2021

Program details to maximize your input dollars and put cash back in your pocket

Once again, it’s time for the Grainews annual rebate roundup. While rebate programs aren’t the main factor in decision-making for the crop protection process, producers need to know their options. Without further ado, and in alphabetical order, here’s our annual roundup of available rebates in Western Canada for the 2021 growing season. BASF The 2021 […] Read more



This full-season cover crop, which ended up being mostly oats and volunteer mustard, provided excellent summer pasture for cow-calf pairs under a strip grazing system.

No such thing as failure, it’s all a learning experience

Plans are good in theory, but moisture is needed to really see what works

When Josh Beck describes some of the practices he’s tried in a bid to incorporate regenerative agriculture practices on his southern Alberta farm, you’ll probably hear him say a few times, “Everything was looking really good early in the growing season … and then it turned dry.” Lack of growing season moisture is not only […] Read more


It’s not very glamorous but you can learn a lot by studying the shape and consistency of a cow pie.

Be careful not to step in it

Watching cows’ poop helps you learn about what they’re eating

Anytime that I walk through a dairy barn, I walk in front of the feed bunk and usually watch the cows defecate. Their fresh cow pies reflect on how well their milking diet is being consumed and digested. If something is out of line, manure consistency and content warn me almost immediately. So then I […] Read more

Source: Sask Mustard

New hybrid brown mustard offers yield boost over conventional options

AAC Brown 18 pushes through 40-year yield ceiling

AAC Brown 18, the first hybrid brown mustard available in Canada, has pushed through a yield ceiling that breeders have been trying to break for 40 years. “The trials we did this year in Swift Current, open pollinated varieties were running about 25 bushels per acre — Hybrid 18 was 29-ish. It’s quite consistently a […] Read more


Anderson cattle graze in early winter an area of the stockpiled annual forage blend that wasn’t cut for swath grazing.

Improving pastures through regenerative agriculture

A low-input strategy is paying off for this central Alberta producer

Brendon Anderson took over the family farm near Rimbey in central Alberta a few years back and is now focused on regenerative agriculture to improve soils and forage production. Ultimately he would like to get to a system of year-round grazing, but that may not be possible in some winters that deliver nearly four feet […] Read more

Base map courtesy of Andrew Nadler PEAK HydroMet Solutions.

Les Henry: Soil moisture map for 2021

The situation shows a lot of red ink on the Prairies

To start with, we must realize this is a very general, high-level picture of the situation. It is meant to do just that, as well as provide a framework for farmers and agronomists to relate their situation to. Having it available early in the new year, means it can be part of the decisions made […] Read more