By Lee Hart Does preconditoning calves at weaning make economic sense? Most articles and arguments I’ve seen over the years usually point toward “Yes”, but the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) recently posted a report with a preconditioning calculator. Don’t just wonder if weaning, feeding, vaccinating calves for a few weeks or months before they […] Read more
Pencil out preconditoning economics with BCRC calculator
Spoiler alert — lean toward 45 and 60 days programs
Have meal, will travel
A modified version of Farmer Appreciation night in southeast Sask.
The Weyburn Chamber of Commerce in southeast Saskatchewan didn’t let a little pandemic completely interrupt their plans to host an annual Farmer Appreciation Night this year. Rather than host a nice sit-down dinner in town that would draw farm families from surrounding Rural Municipalities, they did the next best thing under COVID-19 protocols and brought […] Read more
A real-time soil analysis in minutes
New technology brings diagnostic tool to the field
Are you ready for in-field soil testing technology that in a matter of minutes can give you a read of what nutrients are available or perhaps, more importantly, deficient for your crop? Here comes NutriScan. That’s the technology Concentric Ag and its plant nutrient division, ATP Nutrition, is offering to western Canadian farmers this fall, […] Read more
Ag Excellence Conference all about farm management
Time to fine tune those management skills, be exposed to new ideas
And save the dates Dec. 8 to 10, 2020 for a great line up of speakers with all kinds of good farm management advice as part of the Ag Excellence Conference that will be going virtual this year. Organized by Farm Management Canada (FMC), the three day conference features speakers on a variety of topics […] Read more
What’s planned for farm shows and conferences this fall and winter
Several events have just shut down for the year, others have gone on-line
Well seven months into this pandemic thing and if you were expecting that life would be getting back to normal by now, well it isn’t — not completely anyway. I think the world and certainly Canadians are getting a bit more comfortable with COVID-19 protocols and social distancing requirements, which is a good thing because […] Read more
Charges dropped against young Alberta farmers
Still a few important legal issues to be sorted out
It was good to read news reports this week, that some flimsy but serious charges against two Calgary area brothers involving their tractor and the sheriffs at a highway check stop have been dropped. The Alberta Crown has withdrawn charges against Jeremia Leussink, 19, who was driving his tractor to do some haying in a […] Read more
BC cattle ranchers awarded 2020 TESA
Lethbridge beef researcher also recognized for outstanding work
A ranching family from the B.C. Cariboo Region and a longtime beef researcher at the Agriculture Canada Lethbridge Research Centre (LRC) were honoured with awards during the annual Canadian Beef Industry Conference (CBIC), which this year ran online August 11-13. The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association 2020 TESA environmental stewardship award went to the Seelhof family, who […] Read more
Tech advice without the 1-800 hurdle
Partners with Tech Direct Solution make staff easily accessible
If calling a 1-800 number for technical support from crop input or service providers has proven time consuming and even frustrating, a new service launched this spring is helping farmers to connect directly with people they need to talk to — and it’s free. The service is called Tech Direct Solution and was launched in […] Read more
Sollio Agriculture name comes west
Larger company strengths livestock nutrition business
Western Canadian livestock producers will be seeing a new name at various retailers across the West as the long-operating Standard Nutrition Canada is replaced with the Sollio Agriculture name. Based in Quebec, but now with a reach across the country, Sollio Agriculture is a co-op-structured company providing a wide range of crop input and livestock […] Read more
Website hosts the eKonomics of crop fertility
Online calculators help with "what-if" scenarios
Western Canadian farmers looking to connect with some of the latest research in crop fertility can log onto a fairly new online resource developed by Nutrien, which delivers field-tested, science-based facts geared to helping producers get the most out of their fertilizer dollars. Nutrien has created a website called eKonomics that brings together reports on […] Read more