Les Henry

For many farmers in southeast Saskatchewan and some other areas, 2011 has been a year to forget, burn all the calendars and hopefully carry on. For those of you in that situation please skip this article and go on to the next. But for many of us in central Saskatchewan and parts of Alberta and […] Read more

City slickers will never understand what it means to play poker with Mother Nature and be lucky enough the win the odd hand. That s the story of 2011 for this canola crop. As always, the full story of a crop really begins with the crop that is harvested the year previously. 2010 October 1:Combined […] Read more

I was at an Agriculture Canada retirement recently and enjoyed visiting with many I had not seen for a while. During lunch the discussion included the need for old fossils to make sure valuable information was in a place where future generations could use it, i.e. a place where it will pop up when Google […] Read more

Western Canadian farmers have seen a revolution in canola yield potential thanks to the advent of hybrid lines and herbicide tolerant varieties. While yield potential of new hybrids is impressive, these varieties must be well fed to reach the top yields of 50 bushels per acre or better. On my little place at Dundurn. Sask., […] Read more

Waters seems to be on our mind these days and little wonder — one in 300 year events are unfolding as I write in mid May. In this article I will show a few photos on my Blackstrap Farm, east of Dundurn, Sask., and explain what is happening. All photos were taken May 14, 2011. […] Read more

Water is on every-one’s mind these days. As this issue went to press, people in the Red River Valley and parts of eastern Saskatchewan were lining up to see who will get on the ark. I flew in to Winnipeg in mid-March and was surprised to see how little snow was in that area — […] Read more

The advent and adoption of precision farming has led to the need for maps, maps and more maps. You can map yields, crop density, low spots and soil variation. Layout out where zones should start and end is part art and part science. Tools to help map variation, in this case by an EC (electrical […] Read more

When soil testing began in Western Canada in the mid 1960s the standard soil test for N was to measure the amount of nitrate N that was present in a soil to a depth of two feet. The original science came from Bob Soper, professor of soil science, University of Manitoba. His correlations with field […] Read more

I was in the university office a few days ago and the phone rang. In my heyday the phone rattled constantly, but is mostly quiet now as I am not there on any consistent basis. It was a farmer from southwest Saskatchewan who wanted help with engineering a drainage system to get rid of some […] Read more

For this article I have my farmer hat firmly in place. I have no credentials in agriculture economics or farm policy so take it for what it is. Many years ago I remember sitting in a University of Saskatchewan lecture theatre at a then Farm and Home Week program. The minister of the day had […] Read more