Articles by Lee Hart

This 1932 photo of the Grainews ladies softball team, can suggest everything in life can go from one extreme to another. The real challenge is to find a balance.

Fuel your tank — one way or another

Will medical marijuana be enough to ease Lee Hart's modern day stress

By Lee Hart April 13, 2016

One mission I am on this week is to get a prescription for medical marijuana so I can better cope with this struggling economy, or maybe I am worried about the terrorist threat that comes with allowing immigrants into Canada, or, man, have you seen the price of celery lately? … I don’t even want […] Read more

Good, healthy and mobile bulls can do the breeding job, but AI service may have a role in increasing overall herd productivity.

Cattleman’s Corner, Cow-Calf, Livestock

AI study produced higher beef profits

Bringing an AI technician onto the farm may make more economic sense than buying more bulls

By Lee Hart March 31, 2016

While there will always be a role for breeding bulls on the farm, a recent Saskatchewan study says producers may want to look at artificial insemination of commercial beef cows, which could put more calves and more pounds of beef on the ground. In the report published late last year by the Western Beef Development […] Read more

Heifer calves with more moderate growth can be just as productive at a lower development cost.

Cattleman’s Corner, Cow-Calf, Livestock

Fine-tuning replacement heifer savings

Heifer calves still need to grow but perhaps not as much as earlier thought

By Lee Hart March 31, 2016

On a scale of one to 10 do you know what your replacement heifers weigh? It’s not a trick question, but if you’re interested in fine-tuning management to save about $60 per head and produce efficient replacement heifers, using a weigh scale is an important place to start, says an economist with the Western Beef […] Read more

Crops, Features

Protected fall N improves efficiency

Nitrogen stabilizer products have a good fit where farm labour and time are limited

By Lee Hart March 30, 2016

Dan Hacault likes to use nitrogen stabilizer products on his farm for time management, convenience, nutrient efficiency, cost effectiveness, and making it easier for him to manage seeding when working by himself… and oh, yes, on-farm field trials show his yields are holding steady as well. Hacault, who has downsized to crop about 1,300 acres […] Read more

Dr. Ieuan Evans says producers must continue to use good bee-safe management tools and beekeepers need to control the pest infestations in their hives and to collaborate with responsible farmers.

Columns, Hart Attacks

Facts about bees, birds are next

Something is afoot in the bee community, but is agriculture really to blame?

By Lee Hart March 21, 2016

We’ve heard a lot about honeybees in the last couple of years, particularly concerns that some crop protection products are a leading cause for the decline in bee numbers. The finger has most recently been pointed at a chemical compound known as the neonicotinoid class of pesticide, which in the past decade or so has […] Read more

Lorne and Megan Davey run a 200-head commercial cow-calf ranch and small backgrounding operation near Wilkie, Sask., but they also train a few ranch and performance horses as well. This seven-year-old Palomino passed its physical and was being washed and groomed for the Ranch Horse Sale at the Calgary Bull Sale. Lorne is also general manager of West Central Pelleting Ltd at Wilkie.

Cattleman’s Corner, Livestock

PHOTOS: Lots of bull, but people too at Calgary Bull Sale

By Lee Hart March 17, 2016

Breeders were optimistic the opening morning of the 116th Calgary Bull Sale, held in early March at a totally new venue in the barns of the Century Downs Racetrack, at Balzac, just north of Calgary. While the full story would be told over the next couple of days, once the auctions actually started, the 25 […] Read more

These field peas were seeded using the CTF system tucked in close to the standing stubble of the previous crop. The pea crop is able to use any residual nutrients from the previous crop and the standing cereal stubble provides protection and may help to support the pea crop as it matures.

Crops, Features

CTF delivers improved crop emergence

Consistently higher yields are yet to come, but CTF improves overall efficiency

By Lee Hart March 11, 2016

Steve Larocque is using his precision farming system to get to the root of improved crop emergence, which in the last few seasons appears to be getting about 80 to 90 per cent of the seeds coming out the ground. The word root is used both literally and figuratively for the central Alberta farmer and […] Read more

This is what is known as an NDVI image (normalized difference vegetation index) of an on-farm, field-scale soybean trial. This trial, with different treatment strips across the field, was looking at using a pre-seeding herbicide, such as a granular which was incorporated, compared to a glyphosate treatment. In some areas where the pre-seeding product was ineffective they went back in with an in-crop herbicide treatment which in some areas damaged the crop. The mostly green area is a relatively healthy crop with the strips indicating different treatments. The red areas show problems in the field. The headlands may indicate a different crop or different type of vegetation, or higher compaction. The larger red patches on the upper left hand side show areas that have likely been flooded out or have a disease problem. The yellow areas indicate crop that has been damaged by in-crop herbicide. There is a powerline or pipeline right away cutting diagonally across the upper right hand side of the photo.

Crops

Digital pictures: They’re worth a thousand steps

Ground truthing is important, but aerial imagery can tell stories you can’t see with the eye

By Lee Hart March 9, 2016

You can’t beat an eye in the sky when it comes to telling you what’s happening on the ground with your crop, says a longtime Iowa crop management specialist. Different types of aerial imagery that show visual differences during the growing season can be an extremely valuable tool for pointing to shortfalls or successes concerning […] Read more

Walter Decker, egg barn manager at the Riverbend Hutterite Colony at Mossleigh, south of Calgary with one of the laying hens in their new barn outfitted with an enriched cage system.

Columns, Hart Attacks

Let’s open the barn doors

Hart Attacks: Positive changes are coming in the livestock production world

By Lee Hart March 3, 2016

As I was recently reading about the Canadian egg industry’s commitment to turn its ocean liner around, I figured a motion was in order — if consumers and the food industry are so concerned about animals produced “free range” or in loose housing, farmers should just turn everything loose and then charge four times as […] Read more

saskatchewan farmer Florian Hagmann credits several factors including good seed, decent moisture, and effective rates of liquid fertilizer products from Kugler Co. for helping him produce a field of a record-yielding 116 bushel canola crop in 2015. Albert Cochet of Birch hills (pictured) who actually combined the field for Hagmann stands next to one of the fertilizer signs.

Canola, Crops

Big fertility package produced a big canola yield

Liquid fertilizer blends seemed to make a difference for this Saskatchewan farmer

By Lee Hart March 1, 2016

Florian Hagmann threw everything he had into producing a quarter section of canola that topped 116 bushels per acre and averaged 111.3 bushels per acre last year. The Saskatchewan farmer, who farms near Birch Hills, northeast of Saskatoon says the input costs pushed his comfort zone, but the real point was to “push the limits” […] Read more

Lee Hart

Stories by Lee Hart