Each fall, the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation holds an annual conference in a different part of Canada. This year, the conference was in the Quebec City area. The conference hotel was a short walk from the Old City and the Plains of Abraham, so I was able to check out both. The Old City is […] Read more
They do things differently there
Reporter’s Notebook: In Quebec, membership in the agriculture lobby group UPS is mandatory for farmers
PHOTOS: Helping with the harvest
Soybeans grown on the Ag in Motion site harvested for the Foodgrains Bank
On the morning of October 3, about 30 hardy souls braved finger-numbing cold to celebrate the Canadian Foodgrains Bank harvest at the Ag in Motion site north of Langham, Sask. The soybeans were a little tough, and so only a few acres were harvested for demonstration purposes. But close to 90 acres of soybeans were […] Read more
Developing resistance: Group 2 herbicides
Each herbicide group kills weeds differently. Weed resistance differs by herbicide group
When talking about herbicide resistance, Bryce Geisel likes to make sure people realize that spraying herbicides doesn’t cause resistance in a weed. Instead there are individual plants that, by chance, resist the herbicide. Those plants survive and pass on their resistance traits. “And with Group 2s in particular, it’s just altering the target site,” says […] Read more
Managing fungicide resistance
Your risk of resistance will depend on the disease you have and the fungicide you spray
Should western Canadian farmers be concerned about fungicide resistance? And if so, how should they manage it? Fungicide resistance shares some fundamentals with herbicides, says Jared Veness, field marketing manager at Bayer Crop Science. By applying fungicide, farmers are applying selection pressure to a pest. Within that pest’s population, there are likely individuals with mutations […] Read more
The most important harvest fuel: meals
Getting those meals to the field is a big part of the harvest season
Harvest can be a hectic, stressful time of year. Will the weather co-operate? Will that canola field yield as well as expected? Will the combine break down at the worst possible time? In the middle of all that action is a much-loved tradition for many farm families — meals in the field. As my friend […] Read more
Getting safely to the top of those bins
Grain storage: As farmers buy larger grain bins, companies are coming up with safety solutions
As grain bins become larger, climbing to the top grows riskier. Two companies had solutions on display at Ag in Motion north of Saskatoon this summer. Safety concerns spurred the creation of Darmani Grain Storage’s Skylift, a small elevator that bolts to the side of a grain bin. “It’s the whole idea of crawling up […] Read more
High tech feed research on the Prairies
The Canadian Feed Research Centre puts tech to work to increase the value of feed grain
From the outside, the Canadian Feed Research Centre doesn’t look much different from a regular feed mill. But the Centre, tucked into an industrial area of North Battleford, is a national institution, says Rex Newkirk. “It’s the only one in Canada of this nature. It’s one of the very few in the world where we […] Read more
DON tolerances in livestock
Feed mills everywhere are testing for DON right now, Rex Newkirk says. And different livestock species have different DON tolerances. Pigs are by far the most sensitive to DON — the limit is one ppm when formulating. Diets are about 50 per cent wheat, so often they can use wheat with up to two ppm, […] Read more
Know what you’re leaving behind
The ScherGain solution system will help you measure your in-field losses
Just how much grain are you leaving in the field? It’s a question Trevor Scherman and his father, Pat, pondered many times on their farm near Battleford, Sask. Trevor says they discussed “where that fine line was (between) how fast can we go and how much crop can we afford to leave in the field.” […] Read more
A new era brings change and challenge
Transportation players are working together after the end of the CWB's single desk
Greg Northey, industry relations director for Pulse Canada, says grain companies have had to handle more logistical challenges since the end of the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk’s, which he said was “probably an interesting learning curve.” Northey is unsure how that learning curve affected grain movement in years with big issues. But he thinks […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
