It’s raining today. My basement office is next to the cistern we’ve built into the basement of our house. Although we’ve tried drilling a few times, we haven’t found water yet, so we rely on this cistern for our household water. The good news today is that every drop of water that runs from the […] Read more
Editor’s Column: Make hay while the sun shines. If you can
Editor’s Column: Get in the van, man
It’s just a blood test. Really!
We’ve all seen the “Man Van” at farm shows. I’m not sure what I thought was going on in there, but it turns out there are a crew of volunteers taking simple, five-second blood samples to find out if you (or the man next to you) have prostate cancer. I saw this up close at […] Read more
Crops-a-palooza brings in farmers and researchers
On July 24, Crops-a-palooza brought together 10 different hosting organizations, a handful of corporate sponsors, and government researchers and other volunteers. More than 200 farmers and agronomists came out to see the crops and research on display at the Canada-Manitoba Crop Diversification Centre at Carberry, Manitoba. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada agronomist Curtis Cavers spent most […] Read more
What would you pay to fall in love?
A new face at this year’s Farm Progress Show was getting a lot of attention. Leanne Tregobov was there representing her matchmaking company, Camelot Introductions. With the decline of the Western Producer personal ads, many rural singles looking for dates have turned to the internet. Most online dating is free, and lots of farmers have […] Read more
PHOTOS: Crops-a-palooza brings farmers and researchers together in the field
Soil researchers provide a good look at the soil profile for farmers
On June 24, Crops-a-palooza brought together 10 different hosting organizations (see at bottom), a handful of corporate sponsors, and government researchers and other volunteers. More than 200 farmers and agronomists came out to see the crops and research on display at the Canada-Manitoba Crop Diversification Centre at Carberry, Manitoba. This show of industry cooperation was […] Read more
Editor’s Column: The farm income news is not good news
What exactly is “realized net farm income”?
The news app on my phone keeps bringing up more worrying headlines about agricultural trade problems that will lead to lower farm prices. Twitter is full of grim photos of durum headed out before its time and canola crops with bare patches. I won’t write here that, as of the end of June, crops in […] Read more
Getting the most from your wheat crop
Count the heads, grow a uniform crop, and manage residue for best results
While we’re still changing our seeding rate approach from bushels per acre to thousand kernel weight, Phil Needham of Needham Ag Technologies, has moved on to thinking about heads per square yard. An agronomist originally from Britain and now based in Kentucky, Needham has made a name for himself advising farmers on how to increase […] Read more
Editor’s Column: A petition to move the May long weekend?
Holding the May long weekend in the second half of May probably seems like a great idea for people in the city looking forward to a couple of days outside. And if the point of the weekend is to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday (May 24), I suppose having it at the end of May makes […] Read more
Editor’s Column: Things are looking up. Land prices, that is
At the end of April, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) released its annual Farmland Values Report. No Grainews readers will be surprised to hear that buying land has paid off over the past decade. Canada-wide, FCC reports that farmland values increased by 6.6 per cent on average in 2018 (after increases of 8.4 per cent in […] Read more
Manage herbicide resistance before you have it
Try a wide variety of weed control strategies
On BASF’s 2019 Herbicide Resistance Management Webinar in March, Andrew Reid, BASF technical service specialist, said it’s always easier to manage herbicide resistant weeds before you have them in your field. One way to do this is to keep things clean. “Cleanliness is key,” Reid said. For example, if you don’t clean your combine after […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
