Screengrab from a Farm At Hand promotional video via Vimeo.

Telus buys Farm At Hand

Vancouver farm management software development firm Farm At Hand has become an arm of one of the Big Five in Canada’s communication services sector. Farm At Hand, which makes the cloud-based Crop Planner software suite for farmers and the Farm At Hand Agronomy suite for agronomists, announced Tuesday it has been wholly acquired by Telus […] Read more

(ThompsonsLimited.com)

Sylvite set to buy Thompsons agronomy business

Ontario grain and bean handler Thompsons Ltd. is set to sell its crop agronomy business to a retail business partner in that province. U.S. grain firm The Andersons, the owner of Thompsons since January, announced Tuesday in its second-quarter report it plans to sell Thompsons’ “agronomy assets” to Burlington, Ont.-based Sylvite Holdings. Financial terms of […] Read more


Emptying the tool box on fusarium head blight

Emptying the tool box on fusarium head blight

There are no silver bullets, but these 11 agronomic practices can help

While there is no so-called cure for fusarium head blight a whole series of proper agronomic practices can be applied to stave off the impact of the disease, say Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researchers. Using FHB-resistant cereal varieties and applying registered fungicides is part of the story say Kelly Turkington, plant pathology researcher in Lacombe, Alta., and […] Read more



This almost-robot looking device is the John Deere Field Connects weather station that collects a wide range of environmental data such as rainfall, solar intensity and wind speed. The weather station also ties into the moisture probe which is installed near the steel post at right.

Are you leaving water on the table?

New app and service gives producers a better handle on moisture

Since technology so far can’t make it start or stop raining on dryland farms, it is obviously important to make the most efficient use of moisture that is available during the growing season. But how much moisture do or will you have for that crop? Depending on the year and location, spring seedbed soil moisture can range from […] Read more

A CRMS helps you maximize production capabilities, and make better agronomic and weather-related decisions

Building a crop risk management strategy

A crop risk management strategy is your plan to protect your farm from unexpected loss

What is a crop risk management strategy? It’s a fancy name for what do you do on your farm to protect yourself from production and/or revenue loss. What do you use as part of a CRMS? Crop insurance, AgriStability, hail insurance, Global Ag Risk Solutions (revenue protection insurance), Just Solutions (business interruption insurance), or maybe […] Read more


Some modern agricultural practices are reducing stable organic matter and driving many soils to be bacterially dominated.

Bacterial-based soils: addicted to crop inputs

Adding high-quality carbon to our soils can make farming more fun and profitable


Soils everywhere in the world consist of air, minerals, water and organic matter. Where the difference occurs is in the composition of soil in different places. As agricultural producers, we can only really manage the organic matter. In a conference this winter, Jay Fuhrer, a conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Bismarck, North […] Read more

Tractor spraying soybean field

Avoiding herbicide mis-use

Herbicides have made it easier to feed the world, but beware of residuals and improper use

Herbicides are an integral and essential aspect of modern productive farming. Without our effective and efficient herbicides our dollar costs for food production would be double or triple what we now pay. Can your even visualize hand weeding agricultural and horticultural crops? As a youth I earned pocket money hand hoeing turnips and beets and […] Read more


Soil background

Finally, soil moisture measuring meets new tech

A map of soil moisture at freeze-up can give you a good indication of your yield potential

Water in the bank is a certainty; rainfall is a probability. Much of what we do in farming is based on probabilities — a game of chance. What are the chances we will get timely rains to keep a crop from withering away to a low yield? What are the chances we will suffer disease […] Read more

Dyck’s future oat breeding projects include looking at increasing yields through restructuring the plant architecture, increasing protein content and developing oats that are less dusty and itchy.

Two new oat varieties from Oat Advantage

These two oats varieties are Ore: they’re re-designed and re-imagined

It’s taken 10 years, and a lot of hard work and persistence for Saskatchewan oat breeder Jim Dyck of Oat Advantage, to launch his two, new oat varieties that are getting oat growers and miller excited. The two varieties — named ORe 3541M and ORe 3542M — will be available through SeCan. They’re are both […] Read more