The company announced the deal in a Sept. 22 news release outlining the purchase agreement.

It includes the grain elevator and storage assets but not the fermentation and distillation facility on the same site.

The facility has storage capacity of 63,000 tonnes, making it one of the largest in Western Canada, as well as full cleaning and drying capability. Both CN and CPKC provide rail service to the site.

NWT, however, has booked several years of financial losses and announced last September it would indefinitely halt operations at the Unity elevator, about 80 km southwest of North Battleford.

NWT said in a separate release Sept. 22 it expects the aggregate purchase price to be $27 million, “substantially all” of which would go to pay down debt.

“Given the current state of the grain industry and the recent financial results of the company’s grain division, the board believes it is in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders to sell the company’s grain assets, make a significant repayment of debt and continue to operate the fermentation and distillation business,” NWT chairman Brad Sperle said in the release.

The sale is subject to approval by NWT shareholders — who include local farmers and others — at a meeting to be held the week of Oct. 20, and would then close on or about Oct. 29.

“We firmly believe that our operational and logistical expertise, focus on superior service and targeted future investments in the facility will allow us to bring it to its full potential for the benefit of our customers,” Bunge Canada CEO Kyle Jeworski said in a separate release. — Includes files from Grainews staff

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SaskCanola on Monday reported the discovery of the disease in a field in crop district 9B, but didn’t give its specific location. District 9B is a group of 16 rural municipalities east of Lloydminster, west of Meadow Lake and north and west of North Battleford.

“We’ve been advised that one new field in the northwest region of the province is heavily infested with clubroot,” SaskCanola executive director Janice Tranberg said Monday in a release.

The report follows news last week that clubroot has made its way further northwest up into Alberta’s Peace region — findings which the Canola Council of Canada said Monday “should encourage all canola growers in Western Canada to scout fields for the disease.”

“In response to this finding, SaskCanola is working with the Canola Council of Canada and the Saskatchewan ministry of agriculture to reinforce producer awareness of the clubroot management fundamentals,” Tranberg said.

A soil-borne disease of cruciferous crops, clubroot is caused by a fungus-like organism, Plasmodiophora brassicae. There are no known economically feasible controls to get it out of an infested field.

In clubroot-infected canola, swellings or galls appear on roots, cutting off a plant’s water and nutrient supplies so it prematurely ripens and dies. Typical yield losses run around 50 per cent but can run up to nearly 100 per cent in fields under severe clubroot pressure.

Clubroot is established in Canada mainly in vegetable-growing regions of Quebec, Ontario, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia. Its first appearance in Canadian canola was in Quebec in 1997, but it took until 2003 to appear on the canola-rich Prairies, near Edmonton.

Cases have since been confirmed in thousands of canola fields elsewhere in Alberta, mainly in central regions and particularly around Edmonton, but also as far south as Medicine Hat, as well as in fields in Manitoba and Ontario.

In Saskatchewan, the clubroot pathogen was detected in a soil sample from a west-central field in 2008, though no symptoms appeared on plants from the field. Clubroot was deemed an official crop pest in the province in 2009.

The disease’s first appearance in Saskatchewan canola plants came in 2011 in two fields, both involved in research trials, in the north-central RMs of St. Louis and Aberdeen. Another clubroot-positive field was identified from a 2012 disease survey in the RM of Biggar. The disease otherwise wasn’t detected in soil surveys between 2009 and 2016.

Saskatchewan growers shouldn’t assume clubroot isn’t already in their community or even on their farm, SaskCanola said Monday. “When the pathogen arrives via soil movement into a field it is often unnoticed for the first couple of years, especially if producers are not looking for it.”

Once the clubroot pathogen gets into a field or community, growing susceptible crops can increase clubroot spores, “which can eventually lead to visual symptoms, yield loss, and reduction in the durability of clubroot resistance.”

To manage the risk of clubroot in canola, growers are urged to follow rotation with at least a three-year interval between canola crops, to grow clubroot-resistant varieties and to control volunteer canola in all crops.

In non-canola years, volunteer canola and other brassica weeds such as wild mustard and stinkweed should be controlled to limit plant populations that harbour the disease.

It’s also recommended that growers “minimize soil movement between fields” by ensuring equipment is clean when moved from field to field, and to limit tillage and other soil disturbance, as well as soil movement caused by wind and water.

Taking time to scrape and sweep dirt off machinery used in an infested field, asking custom applicators to clean equipment before taking it onto a field, reducing tillage post-harvest and working in least-infected fields first and most-infected fields last, where possible, “can make a big impact on the prevention of spore movement in your fields,” the Canola Council said.

Before or during swathing is the best time to scout for clubroot, the council said Monday, because diseased patches will be most obvious and clubroot galls, if present, will be at their largest.

“Dig up plants in all areas that show premature ripening and check a few random plants at each field entrance looking for galls on the roots,” Curtis Rempel, the council’s vice-president for crop production and innovation, said in Monday’s release.

Severely-infected roots will lead to stunted growth and premature yellowing on the plant above ground, but spore-producing galls “can be present even without obvious above-ground symptoms,” he said.

“That’s why digging up random plants, especially at field entrances, is an important step in early detection.”

More information on clubroot scouting and management is available on the Canola Council’s clubroot site. — AGCanada.com Network

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But there are still a few strategies for producers to make the best — and avoid the worst — of what the weather has left them.

Watch for nitrates

Spring frosts mean nitrates in pasture and feed could be a problem for livestock producers.

Bacteria in a cow’s rumen convert nitrates in feed to nitrites. If nitrate levels in feed are high, both nitrites and nitrates accumulate in the rumen. Ruminants such as sheep and goats are also vulnerable to high-nitrate feeds, according to Alberta Agriculture and Forestry.

High nitrite levels are a problem because they prevent haemoglobin from carrying oxygen, according to Stephanie McMillan, an agronomist and beef nutritionist with AgriTeam Services at Glaslyn, Sask.

“They’ll start to look really lethargic and like they’re having troubles breathing,” she said. Eventually, cattle might choke, have respiration issues, and die if left untreated.

Producers should be wary of alfalfa fields, she said, but if the proportion of alfalfa is low enough to dilute the nitrates, it shouldn’t be a concern. A pasture of 60 per cent grass, 40 per cent alfalfa should be fine, for example.

“But definitely kind of keep an eye on it in the first few days that they’re out,” she said.

Nitrates could also be a problem in hay fields touched by frost, so McMillan recommends forage testing.

Saskatchewan Agriculture is also encouraging producers to test their forages, as part of its Hay Harvest Challenge. Participating producers will be eligible for prizes such as $250 vouchers for feed testing and a $1,000 voucher from Peavey Mart.

Alfalfa isn’t the only forage vulnerable to nitrate accumulation. Annuals, such as greenfeeds, canola and sorghum, are a few common nitrate sources, according to Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. Some weeds, including lambs quarters, pigweed and various thistles, also accumulate nitrates.

Any stress, such as drought, hail or even cool, cloudy weather, can trigger nitrate accumulation.

Nitrate levels will return to normal over several days if the stress ceases and the plants recover. But if the plants are grazed or harvested shortly after the stress, nitrate poisoning is a danger.

For more information on nitrates, see Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s website.

Breaking early dormancy

Dry conditions also pushed some pastures into early dormancy this year. Livestock producers were considering grazing pastures or cutting hay early to stop seed from setting, McMillan said.

If rain later fell on those pastures or hay stands, they would regrow, she said.

That strategy would have paid for some producers in the northwest, which did receive some moisture in June, which in turn should rejuvenate some of those pastures.

Stretching feed

Some farmers reseeded frozen canola to greenfeed, McMillan said, as they knew it was going to be dry, making a little more greenfeed available for livestock producers.

Cow-calf producers can also look at creep-feeding calves to stretch pastures, McMillan said.

“(Creep-feeding) does directly correlate to lowering how much they are consuming and so then you’re going to end up with a little more dry matter for your cows.”

Rotational grazing should also pay in a dry year, as these pastures will regrow after a rain.

“If you can, you really only want them to chew down 50 per cent of the biomass above the ground,” McMillan said. “So if you can move them before they get lower than that, it’ll be able to grow back a little bit better, sooner.”

— Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews and Country Guide at Livelong, Sask. Follow her at @LtoG on Twitter.

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“Canola — it’s kind of hit and miss. They’re just all over the place,” said Stephanie McMillan, an agronomist with AgriTeam Services at Glaslyn, Sask., about 90 km south of Meadow Lake.

One field might have some plants at the two- to four-leaf stage, and others at the five- to six-leaf stage, she said.

Canola crops are a couple of weeks behind normal development, she said — and how hard late frosts, flea beetles and dry weather would hit canola yield remains to be seen.

“If we keep getting those shots of rain up till harvest, we might still be able to do OK,” she said.

Geoff Schick, operations manager at AgriTeam, was also optimistic that canola crops could recover in the next week if they got some moisture. “The heat’s going to be the worst thing on it now.”

Other crops are faring better this year. Both Schick and McMillan said cereals were generally looking good in the area.

Cereals were thick, uniform and at the normal stage of crop development, said McMillan.

Peas also look good, she said. Some pea plants had shot out a secondary stem because of fros; whether those plants suffer a yield drop remains to be seen, she said.

Precipitation spotty

“I think we’re better off than a lot of places in the province ’cause we have had some rain,” said Schick.

But precipitation has been “hit and miss,” he said. The Midnight Lake area, just north of Glaslyn, was almost wet enough to get stuck during a recent drive.

Meanwhile, 11 km south of Midnight Lake, there was “dust flying,” said Schick.

Livelong, about 30 km northwest of Glaslyn, has only seen trace amounts of rain in the last week.

And drought goes hand-in-hand with grasshoppers. Grasshoppers seem to be “creeping up on us right now,” said Schick.

McMillan said she knew of one local farmer who had sprayed for hoppers, and others should keep an eye on them. “They’re probably going to be on the edges of the fields, but definitely be walking into the middle, and see if they’re hopping,” she said.

McMillan doesn’t foresee disease issues this year if the weather stays dry. But farmers could see disease set in, especially in damaged or stressed crops, if the weather turns wet, she said.

Schick said farmers should also check to make sure their herbicides were working. They’d had some reports of herbicides not doing the job, he said.

— Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews and Country Guide at Livelong, Sask. Follow her at @LtoG on Twitter.

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Tom Brown raises cattle and is a crop reporter for Saskatchewan Agriculture and the reeve for the Rural Municipality of Mervin. His farm at Turtleford, about 80 km east of Lloydminster, received 11 mm of rain on Thursday night, an amount he said was pretty consistent throughout the RM.

After that first shower, the fire chief “felt we had enough green growth now that we could take the fire ban off. So that’s a plus,” he said Friday afternoon.

Thursday’s shower was the first of several over the weekend. A weather station in the RM reported 1.8 mm of rain between Saturday and Monday.

Crop district 9B, which includes Mervin, reported 20 per cent of cropland acres and 23 per cent of hayland and pasture was very short of topsoil moisture in Saskatchewan Agriculture’s most recent crop report.

“The cereal crops are actually in pretty good condition,” said Brown. “They’ve rooted deeply and there is moisture down there. It’s the oilseed crops, the native and seeded pasture, that I think that have probably suffered the most.”

Earlier this month, much of the canola was reseeded, said Brown; crops have been under drought and frost stress, some farmers have sprayed for flea beetles and much of the canola hadn’t germinated as of last week, he added.

While the rain is likely a relief for ranchers as well, Brown said it may have come too late for some of the pasture. Cold and dry weather has set back both hay and pasture in the area, he said.

Brown has been a crop reporter for about 18 years. He said the springs of 2002 to 2004 started out quite similar to this one, but the heavy frosts, some dipping below -5 C for over four hours, were unusual. “We had a number of them this time around and I don’t recall that (in past years).”

More crop reporters needed

At interview time, Brown was the only crop reporter in the RM. “It would be nice to have the reporters scattered out,” he said, adding he’d like to see one more reporter in the east, and one in the northern part of the RM. Some RMs have a few reporters, he said.

Brown knows many people who keep detailed records. “But I guess it’s another thing to do a detailed crop report and send it in every Tuesday morning because it is a volunteer position.”

Asked why he’s crop-reported for 18 year, Brown said he’s always had an interest in weather conditions and how they affect crops because of his involvement in farming, and tracks weather conditions anyway.

Because he’s rented out his grain land, he also checks with local agronomists about crop conditions before submitting his reports.

Mervin wasn’t initially included in the disaster zone after the 2002 drought, he said, because the municipality didn’t have an official Environment Canada recorder — but his weekly reports convinced the government to add the municipality to the drought zone.

That designation allowed livestock producers to access financial assistance to haul forage and to defer income from breeding animals sold that year.

Brown said he has no idea how many people benefitted that year. “I know in my own case it was significant because we had to haul feed from southern Saskatchewan and we did sell off some of our herd.”

To learn more about becoming a crop reporter, call Saskatchewan’s Agriculture Knowledge Centre at 1-866-457-2377.

— Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews and Country Guide at Livelong, Sask., and is also a provincial crop reporter in northwestern Saskatchewan. Follow her at @LtoG on Twitter.

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“It’s scary out there. The buffalo don’t want to eat hay anymore,” said Wilkinson, who with her husband Kevin raises bison on the forest’s edge near Turtle Lake, Sask.

“They’re on the move, just looking for something to eat. And there is nothing.”

Wilkinson’s worry was on target, it turns out. Later that day, a forest fire sparked in the provincial forest, just seven or eight kilometres north of her home. Several other farmers and ranchers, acreage owners and cabin owners at nearby Turtle Lake live a short distance south of the fire as well.

The fire started in a cut block harvested in 2013, said Al Balisky, general manager of Mistik Management Ltd., a forestry company based 85 km further north at Meadow Lake, managing logging, tree planting and other forestry operations in northwestern Saskatchewan.

Balisky said Mistik was investigating, but hadn’t determined a cause yet. A tree-planting crew was working in the area, Balisky said, adding that no one was injured.

Thursday’s south winds were slowly driving the fire north, said Balisky, who put the fire at about 50 hectares as of Thursday afternoon.

Forest fires aren’t often seen in that region, he said, but “it’s super dry out there. The entire northwest side of Saskatchewan is under an extreme fire hazard.”

By late afternoon, a few local residents had gathered in a pasture, about two miles south of the fire, to analyze the smoke columns and watch the fire-fighting aircraft. A bird dog airplane guided two CL-215 water bombers to the fire. At one point, the bombers were dropping water on the fire every five minutes.

Doug Taylor, an artist and business owner, was one of the fire-watchers. Taylor lives on an acreage a few miles southeast of the fire, but wasn’t worried about the fire spreading south. For one thing, there are plenty of poplar bluffs between his home and the fire.

“When I worked on forest fires we would steer fires into poplar to stop them. They make a pretty good fire block,” he said.

Taylor used to ride shotgun on a bird dog aircraft, the small plane that leads the water bombers into the fire. He’d map the fire, decide where the bombers would drop their loads, and track the fire’s spread, he explained.

Fires can grow big enough to create their own weather, Taylor said. He pointed to the top of the smoke column to the north, which looked like a cloud. “It’s got moisture condensing out to form a cap.”

Tree planters evacuated

On Thursday afternoon Kevin Wilkinson was on traffic control duty. He had parked his truck on the fireguard road leading north, stopping curious people from venturing too close to the fire.

There were few indications that a forest fire was burning a mile and a half away. Spruce trees towered over us, hiding the smoke columns. There wasn’t even a hint of smoke because of the wind direction. The only clue as to what was happening was the drone of aircraft overhead.

The tree-planting crew had been camped at the spot Wilkinson now waited. They’d packed up and left 10 minutes or so before I’d arrived. All that remained were a few outhouses, a stack of wood, and flattened cardboard boxes that had held their trees.

Wilkinson had been one of the first people on the scene when the fire started. He was worried enough that afternoon that he’d decided not to join Judy at the Cathedral Arts Festival in Regina, where they’d planned to sell their bison jerky together. Instead, he’d keep an eye on things at home while Judy went alone.

By Friday morning, there was still smoke coming from the fire, Judy said. But the situation didn’t seem as dire as the day before. “Yesterday it was just brutal here,” she said.

This isn’t the first time the Wilkinsons and their neighbours have dealt with fire on their doorsteps. In 2002, a fire on Turtle Lake’s edge destroyed homes and cabins, and saw many locals pushing it back from their farms and acreages while water bombers and provincial fire crews suppressed it. And on a dry spring day years earlier, people cooking fish had started a fire close to the Wilkinsons’ land.

So while people are already talking about the dry conditions and lack of rain in the forecast, it’s nothing Judy Wilkinson hasn’t seen before.

“I’m sure we’ll get through it. We always do.”

— Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews and Country Guide at Livelong, Sask., south of Turtle Lake. Follow her at @LtoG on Twitter.

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