It is almost impossible for me to listen to a news broadcast or skim through any “news” publications without having a million comments. Three of my most frequent observations: “boy that’s stupid” or “some people need to get a life” or “wow, that’s new to me!” In the Calgary news lately, a group of naturists […] Read more
Armchair critic strikes again
Lee Hart can find something to natter about on just about every news page
New Trimble technology helps manage water
GPS-guided dozer blades can help contour fields prone to ponding and flooding
After a widely-felt dry year like 2017, many western Canadian producers aren’t likely concerned about too much moisture, but the fact is not all areas were dry last year. And the reality also is most producers can remember in the not too distant past growing seasons, that standing and ponded water on cropland was a […] Read more
Get your meat hoodie, go to Woolworths
Hart Attacks: A new Stanford study shows “going green” impacts farming practices
If you are looking for a conversation starter next time you’re at a vegan dinner party, a friend sent me a link to these attractively designed sweatshirts from the U.S. The Gamiss company makes a wide range of hoodie styles and patterns, but this particular one looks like real meat — unlike some art and […] Read more
Consider options for protecting nitrogen
N-stabilizing products are not new, but there are still questions about how they work
If you are concerned about the all-important nitrogen losses due to environmental factors, there are several solutions in the form of nitrogen stabilizing or Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer (EEF) products to choose from. All can be quite effective according to private, government and university researchers, but along comes the big depends. It depends on moisture conditions, […] Read more
Big boats and Bitcoin boggle me
Keeping up with new technology is a full-time job. Lee Hart hopes there’s no test
Imagine my excitement the other day when I saw China had just launched another of the world’s largest container ships. All I could think about was how much great merchandise this boat could carry to my nearest Canadian Tire Store. So much good stuff — much of it I probably need. But then I read […] Read more
Old Ballantyne house an important part of my roots
Hart Attacks: Where or who would I be without the old Ballantyne place in Eastern Ontario?
It was just an old house at the end of the road I grew up on in Eastern Ontario, but for some reason news I received on New Year’s Eve that the Ballantyne place had been destroyed by fire, really hit home — it was a bit like losing a friend. I had only been […] Read more
New non-GMO canola variety for the market
Manipulation and natural plant enzymes create sulfonylurea-resistant variety
For western Canadian farmers waiting for a herbicide tolerant canola variety with a different mode of chemistry action to help reduce the risk of herbicide tolerance, SU Canola is here. Commercially available on a limited basis, Cibus (pronounced See-bus) is launching its first herbicide-tolerant, non-GMO canola variety, resistant to sulfonylurea herbicide, to Prairie farmers for […] Read more
Most hoping for rain in the forecast
With low soil moisture reserves most Prairie farmers are hoping for snow and rain early this year
It would be a hard sell to convince Robert Semeniuk of Smoky Lake, Alta., that 2017 was a very dry growing season. He is the only participant in the January 2018 Farmer Panel who, on his northeast Alberta farm, had to fight with too much moisture from seeding through to harvest. In many other regions […] Read more
30 years in and still on the learning curve
Hart Attacks: There’s always more to learn, even after 30 years in the writing field
Man I have to start off my 30-something year of writing agricultural stories for this company with a correction. Fortunately I only had to take off one glove to do it. One of my Hutterite reader friends phoned the other night to point out in my December column where I was talking about available agricultural […] Read more
Complex issue of water and beef
Looking at the question of much water is used to produce beef from pasture to packer
How much water does it take to produce a pound of beef? That may not be the most urgent question on the mind of beef producers, but for some schoolkids in Surrey, B.C. it was an important question to have answered for a class project. And when multiple letters asking the same question recently landed […] Read more