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Tag Archives Les Henry

A peat slough by Highway 26 north of Pine Cove.
Columns

For peat’s sake: a picture story

Crops can be grown on shallow peat -- but there are very wrong ways to develop that land

By
Let us start with a mystery. Inga was raised on a farm near Loon Lake, Sask., west of Meadow Lake in the province’s northwest, so we have visited there many times in summer months. While driving Highway 26 north of Pine Cove nearby, I noticed what looked like peat sloughs. The trusty soil probe proved […] Read more
A combine harvests wheat in September 1952 at the Matador Co-operative farm in what's now the RM of Lacadena, about 65 km north of Swift Current, Sask.
Columns, Weather

Precipitation cycles: When will the dry cycle end?

There's no way to predict from here what the 2024 growing season will provide

By
Many farmers in the Brown and Dark Brown soil zones of the Palliser Triangle have spent a few years now looking at the sky and hoping for rain. In some areas the snowmelt went straight to soil moisture and was a big factor in providing something for the trucker to do. But multiple years with […] Read more
farmland for sale
Columns, Markets

A hundred years of Prairie farmland prices

Don’t bet the farm on that much-anticipated easing of interest rates

By
Farmland prices continue to go up like a helium balloon, leading to speculation that it might continue and speculation in land as a commodity. In this piece we will look at a long history and provide some guesses about the future. Anyone who thinks they can actually predict the future is living in dreamland. Figure […] Read more
les henry's soil moisture map 2023
Columns, Crops

A new year, a new soil moisture map

Let's take a Prairie-wide view of soil moisture at freeze-up in 2023

By
To make a soil moisture map, you need to understand the soil moisture constants: saturation, field capacity, wilting point and plant-available water. Saturation (Sat) is when all soil pores are filled with water — in other words, the water table. Until recently we did not consider the water table to be high enough to provide […] Read more
Going down Riding Mountain is a drop of more than 1,000 feet to reach the Manitoba Plains. This was a trip I took in the early ’90s to address the then Western Canada Fertilizer Association about ground water nitrates.
Columns

Les Henry: Prairie mountains

It’s not all flat land on the Prairies, and each “mountain” has a story to tell

By
“Prairie Mountains” was to be the title of my third book, after Catalogue Houses: Eatons’ and Others and Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water. The objective was to expel the myth that the Prairie provinces are one flat plain from Winnipeg to Edmonton. It would also talk about the people and resources in the various […] Read more
Les Henry: Climate change in our neck of the woods
Columns, Crops, Weather

Les Henry: Climate change in our neck of the woods

We have much more to fear from cold than warm

By
Regular readers may recall my Jan. 21, 2020 column that showed monthly temperature data for Swift Current, Sask., from 1886 to 2018. That was followed by my March 24, 2020 column that included sites from North Dakota, which provided the same conclusions. Weather is the day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year conditions that we experience. Climate is […] Read more
Les Henry: A note to readers
Columns

Les Henry: A note to readers

A health wake-up call, but soldiering on

By
On July 12, 2022, my world took a sharp downturn on the health front. It was a very hot July day. I worked too hard for too long in the heat at my Dundurn farm. The end result was a bad case of atrial fibrillation, AFib for short. For some, AFib means you get a […] Read more
The Massey-Ferguson 510 with phone booth hot cab.
Columns, Equipment

Les Henry: Memories from combine days

I had 63 continuous years where it was my pleasure to rub out at least a few loads

By
By the time this issue arrives in your mailbox, harvest should be well underway. In parts of the Palliser Triangle, the meagre harvest may be all over. Thankfully, many areas in 2022 will be a much different story than the huge drought of 2021. Some areas were too wet and needed heat to advance the […] Read more
This photo shows Earl Christiansen at the Shaunavon site in 2006. Earl and I had gone to check out the site after 24 years. Farmer Bruce Poppy left the patch of grass as we suggested and left our nest of piezometers. The “deep” 53-foot piezometer has since started to flow but not enough to cause flooding, so it is OK. In this case “deep” was 53 feet.
Columns, Crops

Les Henry: How deep is deep?

Let us stretch your brain

By
Thanks to readers for your book orders and kind notes of encouragement about my column. A recurring comment from readers is they appreciate the “thought provoking” ideas. Over many years of writing, there have been many articles that just provide facts and figures and specific recommendations for crop and soil conditions. However, some are designed […] Read more
My experiences with Saskatchewan Crop Insurance have been mostly positive. – Les Henry
Columns

Les Henry: Government farm programs

My experience as a two-bit farmer

By
Farm programs are much in the news these days. “I am from the government and am here to help you.” Have you ever heard that one before? Full disclosure — I am not an ag economist so this is largely opinion backed up with facts based on my experience as a two-bit farmer. A bit […] Read more

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