Fungicides with dual modes of action, a new insecticide seed treatment and foliar fungicides containing a brand new active ingredient are available for 2020.

Get ready for improved pest control

Companies offer new products and new actives for coming crop year

With the start of the 2020 growing season just a few weeks away, crop protection companies are introducing farmers to new products with new chemistries promising improved pest control — some with wider windows of application and some with dual modes of action — and all are intended to provide a bigger bang for the […] Read more

Gordon Harrison. (Manitoba Co-operator file photo by Allan Dawson)

Lots of flour to go around, millers’ association says

System is 'doing extremely well' and should have no problem keeping up with demand, CNMA's Gordon Harrison says

The grain supply chain is working as it should during the COVID-19 pandemic, says the president of the Canadian National Millers Association. “From the milling industry vantage point, the movement of grain from farm to the producer to the elevator systems to mills is doing extremely well,” Gordon Harrison said Tuesday. “The grain supply chain […] Read more


Ardent Mills’ milling facility at Saskatoon. (ArdentMills.com)

North America’s millers, bakers scramble to satisfy bread binge

Chicago/Winnipeg | Reuters — North American flour mills and bakeries are rushing to boost production as the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus leads to consumer stockpiling of staples such as bread and pasta. The virus’ spread prompted orders to stay at home in some U.S. states, including New York, California and Illinois last week, following […] Read more

Tribulations and field trials

Politics as much a concern as the weather and agronomics

I’m hoping by the time this column appears in print that all road and railway blockades have been removed and truck and rail commerce has returned to normal across the country. If it hasn’t by this March 10 publishing date, we might very well be in a state of war. I was writing this column […] Read more


Dallas Vert and daughter Tegan check on silage corn, which is an important part of the rotation.

Hope springs eternal for the 2020 crop year

If weather, markets and politics align even somewhat better, it should make for a good crop year

Believe it or not, exactly the same early-spring conditions persist for the 2020 growing season on all western Canadian farms, according to several producers contacted for the March 10 Farmer Panel — that universal condition? The optimism that a good year lays ahead. None of the panel members exactly stated that things couldn’t get much […] Read more

Wheat leaf rust. (James Kolmer photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Digital supercluster backs precision fungicide development

Project aims at wheat leaf rust, reducing pesticide load

A West Coast ag tech company in the crop pest control business is setting its sights on wheat leaf rust, with support from one of Canada’s five research superclusters — but not the cluster you might expect. Out of the five federally-supported superclusters launched in early 2018, Protein Industries Canada has been most closely linked […] Read more


Aster yellow damage in 2012

The real extent of the crop yield damage done by aster yellows that summer

Aster yellows is a minute phytoplasma bacterium that causes losses annually to a wide range of farm and horticultural crops. Most years, it is usual to see little in the way of aster yellows damage to canola, the most obviously affected crop. When you check canola fields in full bloom you can often pick out […] Read more

Granvita is Grupo Vida’s consumer oats brand, including breakfast cereals, snacks, granola, oatmeal, oat flakes and oat milk. (Granvita.com)

Mexico wants Canadian oats

MarketsFarm — Mexico’s largest oat manufacturer is calling for Canadian oat producers to explore new varieties and increase acreage in order to keep up with global demand. Jorge Sanchez, chief financial officer of Mexico’s Corporativo Grupo Vida Internacional, said Canada’s oat crops need to “adapt to changing growing conditions” in order to meet world demand, […] Read more


(Greg Berg photo)

Oat area poised to rise

MarketsFarm — Solid prices and growing demand — and risk aversion among growers — should see more oat acres seeded in Canada in 2020, with early signs pointing to the largest oat crop in more than a decade. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada predicted 2020 oat area at 3.93 million acres in its January report, which […] Read more

Members of Grain Farmers of Ontario sport a banner outside a provincial cabinet minister’s office in 2015. (File photo by Ralph Pearce)

GFO quits Grain Growers of Canada

Grain Farmers of Ontario flags national group's 'governance' and structure

Grain Farmers of Ontario has dropped out of Grain Growers of Canada. The Ontario organization, which represents about 28,000 barley, corn, oat, soybean and wheat farmers in the province, cited a lack of representation in the national policy group. GFO publicly announced its withdrawal in a news release on Thursday, days after it informed the […] Read more