Do you have your Christmas shopping done yet? Come on people there are only 49 days left and for people of a certain age you know how fast days fly by. And have I got a couple good gift ideas for you. I’m not usually an early Christmas shopper, but it was a “gift” I […] Read more
Let me save Christmas for you
Lee Hart offers up some early Christmas shopping suggestions to suit everyone
Check somebody’s body for a condition score
Maybe you haven’t been going to the gym yourself lately, well never mind — at least check the body condition of your cattle this winter and give them a score. It is probably one of those management things many producers say “ya, I should do that one of these days” and maybe others feel they […] Read more
Canada’s OYF: Quebec nominees
Philippe Laurendeau and Kristina Roarke have worked hard to build a dairy farm
They are not the biggest dairy operation in the country, but Philippe Laurendeau and Kristina Roarke from Ferme L’Authentic near Warwick, Quebec have accomplished much in eight short years, going from city life to milking a high producing 75-head dairy herd. Their hard work and success over less than a decade, earned them recognition earlier […] Read more
The world at my fingertips
Another internationally produced edition of Grainews has gone to bed. I’m still surprised some days how technology makes it so easy to access the world. Just with my small part of the publication, this coming issue of Grainews (December) is coming to you with contributions from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Montana, a bit of North […] Read more
PHOTOS: Manitoba hosting 2018 OYF celebration
Nominees, alumni and guests to gather in Winnipeg
Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmer (OYF) program is again making the point this November in Manitoba — that good farm operators are good farm operators whether it be producing pasture-pigs in B.C., grain, cattle or bison on the Prairies, or seed potatoes in New Brunswick. It’s all about hard work, good management and commitment to the […] Read more
Herbicide diversity tackles kochia
As the weed works hard to outmanoeuvre chemicals, farmers expand the toolbox
Joe Wurz takes kochia control seriously. The southern Alberta farmer at the Lathom Hutterite Colony takes all weeds seriously, but a few years ago when he observed some healthy-looking kochia plants standing in a patch of dead kochia on farm fields near Brooks — all had been sprayed with glyphosate — he suspected herbicide tolerance […] Read more
Calgary vet school ready to go ranching
Gift of a fully functioning ranch takes teaching and research to a new level
It’s not every day a 19,000-acre working cattle ranch lands in your lap, but that’s the very welcome problem the University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine School (UCVM) is dealing with this fall as a gift from an Alberta ranching family propels the 13-year-old school into a league of its own among vet schools in North […] Read more
The USMCA is stupid
Only four words on this trade deal: bad, bad, bad and very bad
I hate to say that anything that comes out of Donald Trump’s U.S. government is a good thing, so I will wait for more feedback before I decide if the new NAFTA agreement — now known as the new USMCA (U.S., Mexico, Canada-Agreement) is a really good thing or not. Maybe since my facts are […] Read more
Canola going down for the count
Like Goldilocks: you don’t want too few or too many, but the count that’s just right
It’s a message being delivered with all western Canadian field crops these days, but canola seed suppliers such as BASF’s InVigor line (formerly Bayer products) are clearly making the point — know the seed count going through the air seeding system and follow that up with a plant count in the field. InVigor, for the […] Read more
2018 weather—just part of cycle
Maybe there is climate change, but farmers figure this really isn’t out of the ordinary
Many farmers across Western Canada are counting on October to be a decent harvest month after combines in many areas came to a screeching halt about mid-September as daily rain showers, snow flurries and in some cases snowfall terminated what had largely been a hot, dry summer. But producers contacted in late September for this […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
