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Tillage equipment

A “little potato” crop at six to nine tons an acre in central Alberta does not need the same extra moisture as seed potatoes and can be planted directly into standing canola stubble in the spring.
Columns, Crops

‘Sustainable’ ag systems for Prairie croplands need clearer definition

By
The word “sustainable” has become one of the most misused words in agricultural information systems. What we have to realize on Canada’s Prairies is that “sustainable” really means farmers maintain the status quo for good, achievable, economic agricultural practices on their cropland. What may be sustainable agricultural systems for Eastern Canada or the north-central United […] Read more
bourgault corporate headquarters sign
Columns, Editor's column, Wheat & Chaff

Editor’s Rant: In good company

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So for weeks I’d been planning to fill this space with a tirade about last month’s cynical-yet-predictable developments in Ottawa on Bill C-234, but when Linamar went public with its plan to buy Bourgault Industries I got distracted by developments closer to home, so to speak. In case you missed the news shortly before Christmas, […] Read more
One of the potential downsides to leaving crop residue on a field is that it can make planting more challenging the following spring.
Features

Crop residues’ rewards versus risks

Leaving crop residue after harvest can be beneficial — but poses some challenges

By
John Berger marked the completion of his 57th harvest on his family farm near Nanton in southern Alberta this fall. By most accounts, it was another productive year on Berger’s 5,000-acre grain farm. Still, something didn’t sit quite right with the long-time farmer. Whenever he toured the nearby countryside post-harvest, he noted many farm fields […] Read more
John Gehrer delivers up to 1,000 litres of diesel per day with an electric car.
Features

Searching for sustainability in agriculture

A southern Manitoba farmer’s quest for a “greener” farming system has left him with more questions than answers — and feeling a bit hypocritical

By
In 1888 Bertha Benz drove her homemade car on a 212-km round trip to Mannheim and Pforzheim in Germany. The fuel tank was 4.5 litres, and there were no gas stations along the way. There were probably no paved roads either and the reliability of the car was unproven. It might have been easier to […] Read more
les henry's soil moisture map 2023
Columns, Crops

A new year, a new soil moisture map

Let's take a Prairie-wide view of soil moisture at freeze-up in 2023

By
To make a soil moisture map, you need to understand the soil moisture constants: saturation, field capacity, wilting point and plant-available water. Saturation (Sat) is when all soil pores are filled with water — in other words, the water table. Until recently we did not consider the water table to be high enough to provide […] Read more
farm equipment
Columns, Equipment, Machinery

Expensive new equipment or older/cheaper: Which makes more sense?

Higher cost of newer equipment can pay off, but only if there's a benefit

By
In late 1978 I bought a new Ford 4×4 pickup truck. The sticker price was under $10,000 and my job at the time was paying me around $25,000 a year. That meant the truck, at about a third of my annual income, was pretty affordable. Using the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator, that truck would […] Read more
Marcel Kringe, founder and CEO and Courtney Baxter, global marketing manager, with Bushel Plus show one of the combine concaves they are marketing at Agritechnica. Photo: John Greig
Machinery

Agritechnica update: Canadian content and a John Deere update

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There’s significant Canadian content at Agritechnica. Large companies like AGI and MacDon have impressive displays with significant real estate. I also happened upon the Canada pavilion, packed with companies familiar to many of us, including Honey Bee, Mankato, Schulte and Bushel Plus. The companies say that there’s value in companies from Canada banding together to […] Read more
Axten Farms has been using controlled traffic farming on their southern Saskatchewan farm for about eight years. It is one of the changes in production practices that is helping to break up soil compaction, improve water infiltration rates and support improved crop yields.
Equipment, Traction & Compaction

Farmers assess the effects of soil compaction

How some producers recognize and manage the issue

By
While Mother Nature does its best in Western Canada to alleviate soil compaction through the freeze and thaw cycle, researchers suspect nature has a hard time keeping up with the pressure (figuratively and literally) of modern agricultural technology. Bigger, heavier equipment travelling over fields, particularly when soil conditions are wet, is believed to cause soil […] Read more
An entomologist with the University of Manitoba stresses that farmers can be proactive in protecting predator and parasitoid populations.
Crops

Predators and parasitoids – your bug buddies in the field

How to spot and protect beneficial bugs in your crops

By
When scouting for insects in your fields next year, it’s not only crop-devouring pests you should keep an eye out for. That’s because insect predators like ground beetles as well as parasitic wasps and flies can take a big chunk out of pest populations. “It’s important to recognize there are a lot of natural enemies […] Read more
A strip tiller in action on a Farming Smarter field near Lethbridge, Alta.
Crops, Equipment

Let’s talk strip tillage

An Alberta farmer shares his experiences with the system that provides a middle ground between full till and no till

By
John Kolk’s farm near Enchant in southern Alberta, like many others in his area, sits on light, sandy loam soil. That can be a problem come planting time when strong chinook winds roll down from the Rockies as they typically do in the spring. Kolk says the combination of hard-blowing winds and sand that’s whipped […] Read more

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AGCanadaTV: In case you missed it; your national ag news recap for Sept. 5, 2025

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