Christalee Froese

As Louis Giroux stepped down from his tractor on a September day in 1979, it crossed his mind that he should turn the PTO off. But it was harvest, time was of the essence and he was confident that unplugging his pull-type combine would take just a few seconds. Those few seconds are ones Louis […] Read more

When Tony and Denise Vandenhurk began farming in the 1980s with just three quarters of land, an off-farm income was the only way to make ends meet. “Farming was not good then, but we just loved the lifestyle,” said Tony. “One of my brothers always said, ‘it’s a very poor living, but it’s a good […] Read more

For Blaine Hjertaas, it’s all about the grass. Wherever his eye wanders on his 800-acre farm near Redvers, Sask., it instinctively zeroes in on the grass, analyzing its height, its composition and, most importantly, its nutrient content. “See that area there?” he said pointing to a 10×10-foot block of emerging grass. “We had chickens there […] Read more

The rain pelting southeast Saskatchewan this past spring threatened to sink my soul, so I headed for higher ground. So high in fact, that it just happened to be the highest point in Canada between the Rocky Mountains and Labrador. Even in Saskatchewan s Cypress Hills there were sloughs filled to capacity, impromptu brooks spilling […] Read more

This is definitely not our momma s social club. The slogan adopted by Alberta s Dames on the Range is about as straightforward as they are if you re expecting to come out to rural Alberta for crumpets and tea, think again. What you re more likely to be doing is fixing fence, driving cattle […] Read more

A forage project undertaken by the South East Research Farm (SERF) in Redvers, Saskatchewan is demonstrating that heavily grazed pastures can lead to permanent damage. The 2010 Fairlight Grazing Project showed the negative effects of overgrazing by dividing a section of southeast Saskatchewan land into six paddocks. Two paddocks were planted with a sainfoin- alfalfa-meadow […] Read more

It’s a concept that developed in France approximately four decades ago, before being adopted in Quebec in the 1990s. Now “terroir” is being practised in Saskatchewan. This unique approach to farming counters some of the negative effects that large, commodity-based markets have created in the agricultural sector. Defined literally as “the taste of place,” the […] Read more

With one click of a button, consumers can be viewing the very field where their salad oil was grown. And, they can meet the farmer who produced it, learning about his farming practices and his agricultural philosophy. “Your Farmer — Colin,” reads the web page that comes up after entering a code found on a […] Read more

Increasing yields by planting two crops in one field has consistently worked for one southeast Saskatchewan farmer. However, the results were not replicated in a field trial conducted by the Indian Head Agricultural Research Foundation (IHARF) in 2010. Research manager Chris Holzapfel said he believes there are merits to intercropping, but the study IHARF conducted […] Read more