Category: Crop Production

While the majority of the Western Canadian crop is no longer vulnerable to frost, there are still areas where wheat and canola, as well as longer-season soybeans and corn, are not ready for the freezing temperatures that are expected over the next few nights. According to Bruce Burnett, weather and crop specialist with CWB, between... Read More

Here's a fun question: what nitrogen recommendations do you follow? Do you vary it by crop type or by field, ie. do you have a "canola blend"? Do you use tried-and-true removal rates compared against a current soil sample analysis? Or do you work backwards from a target yield? No matter which way you currently... Read More

Following the snow in parts of Alberta on Monday, weather models are indicating the 2014 growing season will likely come to an end across much of Western Canada this week. It's not what any farmers want to hear, but the first widespread killing frost is expected to arrive over the next few nights, says Drew... Read More

Representatives from across Canada's soybean industry have joined together to form Soy Canada, "a national voice to drive growth and progress for the sector," according to a press release. To date, 27 organizations and companies representing the entire value chain have signed a letter of intent to support the formation of the organization, with an... Read More

Challenges with getting this year’s canola crop off the field are shortening the window for seeding winter wheat. While canola stubble is the preferred seed bed for winter wheat, a delayed growing season and untimely rains over the last few weeks have resulted in canola harvest running later than normal in much of Western Canada.... Read More

Coming off the long weekend in North America, the grains market started the month of September trying to hold onto higher levels on varying weather affecting crop development and the situation continuing to unfold in eastern Europe. While reports vary on a proposed ceasefire between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists, the latest rumour to... Read More

When it comes to diseases that rob canola yields, blackleg often doesn't get the credit it deserves. Many farmers underestimate the significance of blackleg, says Bruce McKinnon, an agronomist with Dekalb in Alberta, in the video below. "Blackleg is a powerful disease that seems to be able to adapt to whatever we throw at it.... Read More

Commercial beekeeper Hugh Simpson believes farmers and beekeepers have to collaborate, communicate and co-operate to ensure Ontario's bee population remains strong and healthy. Simpson is a founding member of the Independent Commercial Beekeepers Organization. The group was founded by like-minded beekeepers who make a living keeping bees as livestock based on economics, logic and practical... Read More

By Larry Martin As this is written, December corn futures have traded in a range between US $3.81 and $3.58 for six weeks, since mid-July. This range came after a precipitous drop from the $5.00 area in April and May. Everyone is trying to guess where the market’s going from here. Of course no one... Read More

Once upon a time, something like a cabbage and a turnip-like plant engaged in a very "fortuitous cross pollination" and a new species was born, first known as oilseed rape, and then further cross-bred to become the human-consumption form, canola. It's this cross-pollination so long ago that has made mapping of the canola genome a... Read More