Canola growing with sun rising behind

Canola’s changing climes

Trends in the Prairies’ climate should generally be net good for canola crops, even as pest pressures here adjust accordingly

Canola cropping patterns in the Prairies may have to adapt to climate change in the coming years — but the changes should be relatively positive for production. Canola area continues to be the leader in Western Canada, with a total of 21.9 million acres sown this year according to Statistics Canada. This is over 3.2 […] Read more

DeKalb campaign marketing lead Nikki Vercaigne introduces a canola development panel including Dale Burns, Liz Simpson and Xuehua Zhang (l-r) at Ag in Motion.

New tools clear paths for canola’s next steps

Gene editing, artificial intelligence bring new efficiencies to the process

Recent technological advancements applied to canola breeding are already making selection a more efficient process. On an industry panel during Ag in Motion in July, asked about what’s next in the canola development pipeline, breeders and developers with Bayer spoke of the new processes and pathways they can now use to get there. One significant […] Read more


BY 6219TF, shown here at right in a display plot at Ag in Motion in July, is billed as a medium-maturity canola suitable for all growing season zones.

New canola hybrids for 2025

Nineteen more options are on deck for Prairie canola producers

Looking for a new canola hybrid to plant? Nineteen are hitting the market next year, many of them featuring strong disease protection packages and improved pod shatter tolerance. Please note: the following list includes only brand-new hybrid releases for 2025. BASF InVigor L330PC is an early-maturing hybrid that comes with high yield potential and BASF’s […] Read more

canola development illustration

Pipeline offers promise

Some of the country’s leading canola seed companies discuss what comes next — and what’s driving those decisions

A wise man once said the times change and if you don’t change with them you get left behind. While he likely wasn’t talking about canola, the industry’s ability to change with the times has been a key factor in its continued success in this country. It’s been estimated Canada’s canola value chain generates around […] Read more


(Adama.com/YouTube)

Broadleaf herbicide formulations set for cereal crops

Corteva, Adama launch new combination products

A combo of Group 4 and 2 actives is Corteva Agriscience’s latest entry for spring and winter wheat and barley growers in the Prairies’ Black and Grey soil zones to use against broadleaf weeds. Extinguish XL, launched in mid-March, is billed as a “pre-formulated, all-in-one application that delivers control of tough weeds like cleavers, dandelion, […] Read more

Red-morph English grain aphids, seen here feeding on wheat, are a common cereal pest on the Prairies.

Keeping aphids in check, online and off

Improvements could come for a smartphone app targeting the cereal pest, but you can also take steps to help the pest’s natural predators

Cereal Aphid Manager is a useful smartphone app for farmers looking to control one of the main pests in wheat, barley, oat and rye crops in the Prairies. The tool’s scientific developer, Tyler Wist, believes it’s time to hit refresh on the mobile app first released six years ago. Cereal Aphid Manager helps farmers and […] Read more


This map from PrairieFHB.ca shows the FHB risk level for the CPSR wheat variety AAC Penhold, as of May 15. The higher-altitude Prairie-wide map was pretty green (low risk) so we’ve zoomed in here on the Medicine Hat and Lethbridge area of southern Alberta. Yellow denotes “moderate” risk; red denotes “high” risk, while black (not shown) would denote “very high.”

Maps now mark the spots for fusarium risk

Prairie-wide, variety-specific FHB risk maps now available online

Wheat, barley and durum growers in all three Prairie provinces can now check online whether fusarium head blight may be coming soon to a field near them. We’ve written before in these pages about the development and expected launch of new Prairie-wide fusarium head blight (FHB) risk maps — which have now gone live online […] Read more

A plot-scale unit seeds wheat into one of the research plots. Wheat varieties were chosen based on regionally popular varieties for each test site.

It pays to adjust seeding rate based on moisture

Keep wheat plant count in line with moisture expectations — and limit the amount of tillering

Research done across Saskatchewan recommends that the best way to optimize wheat yields is to adjust your wheat seeding rate to reflect moisture conditions, says a report from the Western Applied Research Corporation (WARC). The research concluded if you’re heading into what looks like a drier growing season, a mid- to lower wheat seeding rate […] Read more


green spring wheat in a demonstration plot

Field-scale trials with wheat present seeding and yield mystery

Trials see little yield difference by boosting seed count -- but don't plant less

Glacier FarmMedia — Call it an agronomic mystery. It’s been proven time and time again that, barring unforeseen challenges, the more seeds planted, the more crop harvested. But those aren’t the results the Alberta Grains Plot2Farm program has seen in its field-scale trials on spring wheat. Four years of field trials have consistently shown that […] Read more

a 60-foot Pillar disc drill to seed hard red spring wheat

Earlier-than-early seeding

These farmers use soil temperature, rather than the calendar, to time seeding wheat

Not long ago, brothers Matthew and Farley Gould, who farm in east-central Alberta, had no idea of the resiliency of wheat seedlings against adverse growing conditions. But over the past three growing seasons they’ve seeded part of their hard red spring wheat crop early. How early? Soil temperatures have barely thawed, and germinated seedlings have […] Read more