Today, October 4, me and the Little Mrs. are marking five years of wedded bliss. Oh, we’ve been married for 35 years, I’m just counting ones that were happy. I think that is an old Rodney Dangerfield joke, but I didn’t want my wife to think I had gone all mushy or something. But, 35 years […] Read more
35 years down and another day to go
“T” Word Creeping Into Fall Plans
You know it’s a crappy harvest season when I can phone farmers, almost anywhere in Western Canada at 8 a. m. on a weekday morning in mid-September and still find them fairly close to their home phone. Some farmers in Manitoba were midway through or wrapping up harvest, while many in Saskatchewan and Alberta were […] Read more
Manitoba Hit Hard By Fusarium
As of mid-September it was still too early to tell, with great detail, how the 2010 cereal crop across Western Canada fared against the effects of fusarium head blight (FHB). Disease levels were higher this year, because of all the moisture across much of the lower Prairie region, compared to average years. And specifically in […] Read more
The Lucky 13 In Cereal Varieties
Western Canadian farmers have 13 new wheat, barley, oats and triticale varieties to consider for their cropping plans for 2011. Seed distribution companies report there are three new Hard Red Spring wheats, two general purpose wheats, two new durum varieties; a two-and a six-row feed barley, and a two-and a six-row malt barley, along with […] Read more
A Solar Water System Gains Capacity
Two Alberta companies, long involved in providing off-site watering systems for livestock producers, have teamed up to produce a package system for year-round, self-powered watering of cattle, anywhere you need it. CAP Solar, based in Olds and Promold Marketing of Crossfield, Alberta have partnered on this project to supply a system that combines CAP Solar’s […] Read more
Corn Helps Close Grazing Gap
Ian Murray’s first experience with grazing corn may not be a roaring success, but the south central Alberta beef producer says even this so-so crop, on a more average or better year, has a good fit in developing a year-round grazing program. Murray, who along with his family, operates Shoestring Ranches, near Acme, about an […] Read more
Few Profits Grow In Compost
For a smaller feedlot operation, even based at the doorstep of a million people, it’s a tough job trying to make a dollar selling compost, says a southern Alberta beef producer. Todd McKinnon, who along with his family runs a 4,000 head feedlot, just north of Calgary, dabbled in the compost business for nearly 20 […] Read more
Humpty gets repaired
A lot of us might think our kids (or someone else in our lives) have a hole in their heads, well for those of you who have followed my reports of injuries suffered by a young man from southeastern, B.C. in an ATV accident, I am glad to say the literal hole in Bryce […] Read more
UFO sightings at Nanton, Alberta
I had the bjeezus scared out of me Saturday afternoon. I ran into a small fleet of UFOs (Unfamiliar Farming Objects) near Nanton, south of Calgary. There I was out on a beautiful fall day, having a routine look at manure spreading operations – sure, maybe I was a little excited, who wouldn’t be – […] Read more
Hard to stop those mature farmers
I had a call yesterday from Ed Molzan who farms in southwest Ontario – west of London, south of Sarnia, near a little place call Alvinston. As a long time reader of Grainews (25 years) and as a soybean grower (for 60 years), Ed called to let me know he had the earliest soybean […] Read more