Casebook: surfactant slip up

Adding the correct adjuvant to your tank mixture is as important as getting the herbicide tank-mix partners right. Getting it wrong can be a costly mistake, as one producer from Alberta found out last spring. Two weeks after spraying his wheat crop with a grass and broadleaf herbicide mixture, Jim found healthy wild oats growing […] Read more

Casebook: Canola conundrum

Last June, Landon, a local producer, walked into our Ag Business Centre at Strasbourg, Sask., carrying a handful of feeble-looking canola plants. “Something’s affecting the vigour of my canola. Could be low fertility, or maybe a disease. I also heard some rumours about insects damaging canola in the area,” he said. He set the yellow […] Read more


Repositioning after a bad year

Franklin Fungusfut called last week, concerned about the situation on his 3,000 acre grain farm. He had a rough year, with poor seeding conditions crops got in late and got off to a slow start. He only seeded 1,500 acres and most of these crops were not great. Frank called, concerned about his position headed […] Read more

Stubble soil moisture

Every year I put together a map of Prairie soil moisture for Grainews readers. This year’s map is simply a compilation of the three provincial maps — using standard criteria for all three. Refer to the provincial websites for the individual province maps. In its original farm, the categories for the Manitoba moisture map start […] Read more


Writing and plowing

ethro Tull (1624-1754) invented the first seed drill in the early 1700s. He had observed that “a thin sowing produced the thickest crop,” and the expense of enough seed to broadcast was high. Jethro was the Jim Halford (and Beaujot brothers and Bourgault and Morris) of his time. Here is a quotation attributed to Tull. […] Read more

Momentum investing

Financial prophecies have lives of their own and, much of the time, they are dead wrong. Read the financial press and with every runup of price of some asset, there are stories saying that zooming prices of gold, potash, various hot stocks and even some junk bonds are only the beginning. With a little numerology, […] Read more


In the life-just-ain’t-fair department

It has been a bummer of a winter so far. Okay, the spring-like weather across much of Western Canada has been good/great. But the country is well into calving season and seeding season isn’t that far away, and I have yet to be given any awards or titles, been snapped up for a senator, or […] Read more

Six Steps To Better Tank Cleanout

Improper or inadequate cleaning of sprayers following the application of Group 2 herbicides can cause significant damage to canola and other susceptible crops. If not cleaned out thoroughly, residue can hang around in the sprayer tank, nozzles or screens. Tom Wolf, a research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Saskatoon, Sask., has done extensive […] Read more


Wheat &Chaff – for Nov. 7, 2011

ADDING MOISTURE TO GRAIN It s quite common for me to get requests for articles that are two or three years old. With the help of our digital archives (available to all subscribers at www.grainews.ca; click on Digital edition in the top right-hand corner), it s relatively easy to find your favourite articles on your […] Read more

Farm Safety Is Your Responsibility

by CASA Farm owners, operators and managers are responsible for knowing and applying best management practices and laws to ensure the health and safety of everyone who lives on, visits or works on their farms. Read that sentence again. It means you are responsible for the safety of everyone who lives, works or visits your […] Read more


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