Although there was lots of green in the field, some areas were patchy where the plant stand was thin. In other spots, entire rows were missing plants. There was no obvious pattern.

Crop Advisor’s Casebook: What’s attracting seagulls to this canola field?

A Crop Advisor's Solution from the January 23, 2018 issue of Grainews

Paul, who farms 3,500 acres north of Camrose, Alta., was convinced cutworms were taking a bite out of his canola crop. It was mid-June last year when he noticed his canola plant stand was thin. Also, many seagulls were circling the field. He thought cutworms were attracting the birds, as well as damaging his crop […] Read more

Blooming rapeseed field at sunset

Canola 100 “game on” for 2018

The big green prize is still out there waiting to be claimed at the end of the coming growing season

Merle Klassen is definitely “in” for competition for the big green prize in 2018. Klassen, who farms with family members near Linden, about an hour north of Calgary is yield leader so far in a Canada wide contest among canola growers to produce a 100 bushel canola crop. Klassen produced 85.88 bushels per acre on […] Read more


The annual rebate roundup: 2018

The annual rebate roundup: 2018

Get the most for your hard-earned input dollars by understanding these cash-back plans

Once again, it’s time for the Grainews annual rebate roundup. We’ve talked to experts at 11 different companies to ask what they’re offering in the way of cash-back savings for the 2018 growing season. Three of these companies have no special rebate programs, some have simple programs, and some companies have rebate programs with so […] Read more

When compared with the other two, the plants in the third field were visibly stressed — slower growing, smaller and paler in colour.

Crop Advisor’s Casebook: Barley blues. Why aren’t these plants growing faster?

A Crop Advisor's Solution from the January 9, 2018 issue of Grainews

Thomas, who owns a 3,000-acre mixed dryland and irrigation farm near Magrath, Alta., asked me to visit his operation in early June. He wanted help identifying the weeds in three barley fields as well as advice on a herbicide package that would best fit his farm. He also mentioned the plants in one of the […] Read more


Tips to help manage clubroot proactively, not reactively

Tips to help manage clubroot proactively, not reactively

Clubroot continues to spread. Don’t be too sure it won’t happen to you

Clubroot is rapidly spreading across Western Canada. Whether or not it’s in your fields, all canola growers need to be concerned about clubroot. Once a field is infected, clubroot will always be present, so preventing the spread of the disease is critical. A clubroot infection, in good environmental conditions, can devastate a canola field and […] Read more

New oilseed and soybean varieties for 2018

New oilseed and soybean varieties for 2018

XTend soybeans have become a standard part of the soybean variety portfolio


In August the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association surveyed retail companies about their experience with the herbicide dicamba in the 2017 growing season. Of the 124 respondents (including some head offices with several branches), more than 80 per cent said they’d seen dicamba damage in soybean fields adjacent to where soybeans were sprayed, although they […] Read more


The PPS, a two-row single-pass planter designed on a Manitoba farm is capable of handling a wide range of seed types. 


A one-pass, hybrid planter-drill born on the farm

Manitoba farmers debut their do-it-all planter designed for Western Canada

A look back at the origins of Western Canadian short-line ag equipment manufacturers would reveal one thing common to almost all of them: their founders were farmers making on-farm machine modifications or inventing new systems to achieve goals not possible with then-existing equipment. The new PPS single-pass planter on display at this year’s edition of […] Read more

As growers know, canola can be a very durable crop able to bounce back from heavy rain, insect pests and even to some extent hail events. It does have its limits, but despite adversity can recover amazingly well. With good agronomic practices and variable weather conditions the question is still to be answered — did any fields in the 2017 Canola 100 challenge produce that magic yield?

Extra canola inputs appear to pay off

That 100-bushel yield still a bit elusive, but growers are pushing their fields to the limits

David Harrish figures the extra agronomic attention he paid to a Canola 100 contest plot on his north-central Alberta farm in 2017 would probably pay off for the rest of his canola acres. Harrish, who dished out some extra TLC to about 70 acres of Pioneer Hi-Bred canola this past season, says it produced about […] Read more


Rob Saik says he is pleased with farmer participation in the Canola 100 challenge, and impressed with decent yields despite adverse growing conditions.

Drumroll for the 2017 Canola 100 challenge results

Results of the second year of the contest to find a 100-bushel canola yield to be announced this week

Is the “green” going home this year? That’s the question that will be answered this first week of December as the results of the 2017 Canola 100 challenge are revealed at the Agri-Trend Agrology Farm Forum conference in Calgary. This is the second year of the three-year Canola 100 contest challenging canola growers from across […] Read more

What does the harvest mean for the market?

What does the harvest mean for the market?

A look at the post-harvest impact on Prairie canola, wheat and malt barley markets

By October 12, snow was already falling for the second time in two weeks and harvest was only about 80 per cent complete in the Central Alberta area. Other that than, the fall for the most part was amazing and has allowed farmers across the Prairies to get the harvest off in record time. Harvest […] Read more