Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan’s Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence want to know if bull neck collars that are supposed to alert producers when they detect cows in heat actually work.

Automating heat detection

Researchers test whether monitoring technology will predict reproductive cycles

Glacier FarmMedia — Labour challenges on cattle farms could be alleviated by sensors now being tested to help detect females in heat. Dr. Dinesh Dadarwal, a veterinarian and assistant professor in large animal science at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, says the Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence tests technology so producers can make […] Read more

green spring wheat in a demonstration plot

Field-scale trials with wheat present seeding and yield mystery

Trials see little yield difference by boosting seed count -- but don't plant less

Glacier FarmMedia — Call it an agronomic mystery. It’s been proven time and time again that, barring unforeseen challenges, the more seeds planted, the more crop harvested. But those aren’t the results the Alberta Grains Plot2Farm program has seen in its field-scale trials on spring wheat. Four years of field trials have consistently shown that […] Read more





Lorne Hepworth (right), pictured here in 2021 accepting the Saskatchewan Order of Merit from Sask. Lieutenant Governor Russ Mirasty. Photo: Brighten Creative Group

Hepworth honoured for agricultural achievements

The London, Ont. resident started as a Sask. farmer and vet before moving to politics, then research

Lorne Hepworth, former Saskatchewan agriculture minister and current chair of the Agriculture Research Institute of Ontario, has been named a member of the Order of Canada.

An artist’s rendering of the Prairie Crops and Soils Research Facility at the University of Manitoba. Photo: University of Manitoba

Feds, Manitoba pledge $6.4M to ag research facility

The new facility will modernize crop and soil research and training at the University of Manitoba

The Federal and Manitoba governments have thrown their weight behind development of a facility touted to become Canada’s pre-eminent resource for field crop research. “A great deal of our agriculture industry’s success comes from research and skill development,” said federal ag minister Marie-Claude Bibeau in a news release, Tuesday. Bibeau and Derek Johnson, Manitoba’s minister […] Read more


The Resilient Rotations trial site in Lethbridge, Alta., is seen here on July 15, 2021, during extremely dry conditions. Lethbridge received 4.4 inches of precipitation during the 2021 growing season.

Resilient rotations

Researchers focus on precipitation use efficiency as a way to assess crop rotations

While extreme heat and drought made life miserable for farmers in many parts of the Prairies the past few summers, those conditions proved to be something of a silver lining for a group of researchers leading a project called Resilient Rotations. A key area of the study, which aims to develop a new approach to […] Read more

(Xinzheng/Getty Images)

China must raise self-reliance in ag tech, Xi says

Seed industry seen as weak link in food chain

Beijing | Reuters — President Xi Jinping wants China to accelerate efforts to achieve self-reliance in agricultural technology, identifying seed development and core equipment among areas to focus on, state media reported. The central leadership had said in 2020 that the country’s seed industry was a weak link in the food chain and needed to […] Read more


Sergio Rocha, executive director of a cannabis cultivation research project, works in a greenhouse at Brazil’s Federal University of Vicosa on Aug. 18, 2021. (Photo: Reuters/Washington Alves)

Cannabis firms catch whiff of opportunity in Brazil

Canadian producers among those now supplying Brazilian market

Sao Paulo | Reuters — International cannabis companies are showing interest in Brazil, both its large consumer market for medicinal products and a proposal that could legalize planting of the crop. Major producers such as Colombia’s Clever Leaves and Canada’s Canopy Growth are developing and selling medicinal cannabis products to a Brazilian consumer segment estimated […] Read more

(Solidcolours/iStock/Getty Images)

BAT looks beyond tobacco to Canadian marijuana

Lucky Strike cigarette maker buys into Moncton's Organigram

Reuters — British American Tobacco (BAT) said Thursday it will buy a nearly 20 per cent stake in New Brunswick-based cannabis producer Organigram for about 126 million pounds (C$221.3 million) as it seeks to expand beyond its main tobacco business. Organigram, headquartered at Moncton, grows cannabis and makes cannabis-derived products in the Canadian market, where […] Read more