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For fresh eating and freezing, fava beans must be picked when they are full-sized beans.
Columns, Practical Tips, Pulses

Fava beans for Prairie gardens — and fields

Part 3 of a series on Prairie farm gardens

By
The fava bean (Vicia faba) in Canada is often misunderstood, treated as though it is strictly a southern European or Middle Eastern legume crop. I have even seen the large fava bean type labelled as a Chinese crop. In point of fact, all of Europe grew fava beans. The beans were traditionally classified according to […] Read more
A “little potato” crop at six to nine tons an acre in central Alberta does not need the same extra moisture as seed potatoes and can be planted directly into standing canola stubble in the spring.
Columns, Crops

‘Sustainable’ ag systems for Prairie croplands need clearer definition

By
The word “sustainable” has become one of the most misused words in agricultural information systems. What we have to realize on Canada’s Prairies is that “sustainable” really means farmers maintain the status quo for good, achievable, economic agricultural practices on their cropland. What may be sustainable agricultural systems for Eastern Canada or the north-central United […] Read more
brussels sprouts
Columns, Fruit/Vegetables

Vegetable crop production on the Prairies

Part 2 of a series on Prairie farm gardens

By
At the countless farm sites I have visited over almost 50 years from coast to coast in Canada, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, I have come across outstanding crop growing innovations and excellent crops as well as abject crop failures. To deal logically with the extensive range of crops, I put them, as described previously, […] Read more
photo:
Columns

Prairie farm gardens

Growing vegetable and fruit crops in Canada: Part 1 of a series

By
Garden crops from beans to apples have been a passion of mine from my childhood in Wales. On our small 17-acre Welsh farm in southwest Wales, we grew or raised most of the vegetable food that we ate from potatoes to apples as well as milk, eggs, pork and chickens. The mild climate allowed us […] Read more
What manure does over and above its nutrient content is to provide organic carbon matter, which does wonders for soils.
Columns, Crops, Livestock

Manuring cropland can be misunderstood and overdone

Sources of manure and compost

By
There are some 60,000 cow-calf farms and 20,000 dairy operations in Canada. Cattle numbers are around 12.5 million with more than 40 per cent of this total in Alberta. Alberta also had 90 per cent of the beef feedlots with lesser numbers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. There are 14 million hogs at any time in […] Read more
According to 2019 data, in Canada, registered breeds totalled 118,816 cattle, of which, 56,003, almost 50 per cent, were Angus.
Columns

Do you know your cattle?

Notes on Canada’s dairy and beef breeds

By
The cattle breeds I knew as a teenager are gradually disappearing. When it comes to milk breeds, we have essentially one type of cow, the black and white Holstein, which makes up 94 per cent of Canada’s dairy herds. Holstein is a misnomer in my thinking since in Wales we called them Dutch Friesians. I […] Read more
photo: Shuvam Paul/istock/getty images
Columns, Crops

Mustard production in Western Canada

Canada is one of the world’s largest producers of yellow, oriental and brown mustard types

By
Yellow mustard, just like ketchup, is an ever-present condiment with almost all conventional fast foods. Who could eat a hot dog in Canada without first lathering the bun with swaths of yellow mustard? Canada, as it turns out, is one of the world’s biggest producers of three kinds of mustard — yellow, oriental and brown […] Read more
Canada could become a major grower and exporter of poppy seed or, perhaps, we could explore its oilseed and feed or food potential for the Prairies.
Columns

Poppy crops for Western Canada

Could this be an opportunity for Prairie farmers?

By
My interest in this topic was piqued by the fact that I purchased a pound of poppy seed at an Edmonton grocery outlet and it cost me more than $10. I checked the internet and the literature on poppy seed growing and was surprised to find that Australia, Turkey, the Czech Republic and even Britain […] Read more
To produce ammonia, the fixed nitrogen requires huge quantities
of energy in the form of heat and pressure plus natural gas. That is why urea is $1,000 or more per ton.
Columns, Crops

The many forms of nitrogen fixation

Huge energy inputs are required

By
How many of you know almost all of the non-nuclear munitions or bomb explosions that occur worldwide are due to the fertilizer nitrogen? There are other explosive chemicals, like potassium chlorate and silver iodide, but they are minor compared with fixed nitrogen. Dynamite, Semtex, picric acid, gun powder, gelignite and all of those other explosives, […] Read more
This apomictic process, if successful, allows superior combinations of plant traits to be captured and preserved without any cross-pollination.
Cereals, Columns, Crops

Hybrid wheat and apomixis

Practical Research: Are we any closer?

By
Eureka! Not really. In the next year or so, Syngenta will release a hybrid wheat variety using complex crossbreeding systems just ahead of a few rival companies working on the same problem. Hybrid wheat varieties combine the traits of two parent selections. Work started on hybrid wheat around 2010, and by 2023 there will be […] Read more

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