If you’re looking for some holiday reading this week while waiting for Canada Post to put through a month’s worth of your mail, we’ve drilled down into our most-read online articles from the year-to-date and come up with a cross-section of features for you. As always, we appreciate the time you’ve chosen to spend here with us and look forward to bringing you more good reading in the new year.
The horsepower race is back on again, Jan. 16, 2024, page 1
For several growing seasons, our machinery editor Scott Garvey was observing a sort of holding pattern in the horses available from the major tractor manufacturers, but as 2024 approached, the machinery makers stopped holding their horses, cranking up the muscle on their flagship models, including some touching and even crossing the 700-hp line.
Farmers refresh a Roto Thresh, Sept. 17, 2024, page 23
Read Also
Good news, bad news for fungicides meant to fight stem rot in canola
A report shows overall insensitivity of sclerotinia to three fungicide groups hasn’t changed in a big way between 2010 and 2024 — but shows some sclerotinia populations have been discovered with elevated insensitivity to all three.
In 2011, Scott Garvey spoke to Mervin Lloyd of Fiske, Sask. about his memories of the unique Roto Thresh combines he owned and used on his farm. Flash forward to 2023, when Arnold Somerville of nearby Milden called Scott to say he now owned those machines and was in the process of restoring one of them back to working condition — a restoration many farmers across the country were keen to see.
Earlier than early, Feb. 6, 2024, page 1
Lee Hart checks in with the Gould brothers near Consort, Alta., who’ve found that “ultra-early” seeding gave them opportunities to optimize yield and improve their seeding efficiency. How early, you ask? Soil temperatures have barely thawed, and germinated seedlings have been exposed to snow, followed by temperature swings ranging from +20 C to -20 C — and they report the crop has gone on to produce excellent yields.
Creating the Combuggy, Feb. 6, 2024, page 22
Mike Belan and his family, who farm southeast of Sarnia, Ont., have merged a John Deere 8820 combine with a Brent grain cart in a workshop creation dubbed the Combuggy, which has been at work handling grain on the farm since 2000. As he told Scott Garvey, the unit now sees year-round use, helping to speed up truck loading or to temporarily hold corn coming from the grain dryer.
A key to cattle business survival, March 19, 2024, page 28
North America producers are receiving higher prices for cattle than ever before — “yet very few are really profitable,” U.S. rancher Kit Pharo says in this article by Heather Smith Thomas. Most cow-calf producers “are too dependent on outside inputs, which are also at record-high costs,” Pharo told the Holistic Herd Management Conference at Valleyview, Alta.
ALSO: Check out these sought-after columns from our contributors in 2024.
A hundred years of Prairie farmland prices, Les Henry, Feb. 6, 2024, page 14.
More cattle tags being retained, Roy Lewis, May 28, 2024, page 28.
Six quarters and two sons, Andrew Allentuck, Feb. 13, 2024, page 17.
Precipitation cycles: When will the dry cycle end? Les Henry, Feb. 27, 2024, page 16.
