Grain markets ended mostly in the red this week as the market dealt with some full-tilt planting progress and a few reports. There were some bullish ideas in Thursday’s May World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report from the USDA, but it didn’t seem like the market believed it! (much like other grain reports,... Read More
Category: Eastern Canada
Perhaps you saw it differently if you took in the televised Ontario leaders' debate earlier this week, but from what I saw, Kathleen Wynne is done, Doug Ford did not impress, and — and I can't believe I'm saying this — the NDP's Andrea Horwath knocked it out of the park. It's most certainly Doug... Read More
With the Ontario election campaign in full swing, the drive to arm rural-friendly politicians with substance for strategic policies and talking points has received a huge global boost. The international Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has issued a report called Rural 3.0. – A Framework for Rural Development, saying rural regions will play... Read More
In another move towards automation, Claas has unveiled a system for automatic steering of cultivators in row crops. The Culti Cam uses a high-resolution camera to detect rows, and then adjusts the position of the implement, centring it between rows, independent from the tractor's steering. Using colour and 3D surface information, Claas says the camera... Read More
It's not necessarily the happiest of discoveries, but it's a first-of-its-kind discovery, nonetheless. Work out of the University of Guelph has confirmed Group 14 resistance in waterhemp at multiple locations in Ontario. What's more, Dr. Peter Sikkema's research team, including graduate student Lauren Benoit, has also confirmed waterhemp with cross-resistance to Groups 2, 5, and... Read More
In 2013-14, the idea of nitrogen-fixing, non-leguminous crops hit the media big-time. UK-based Azotic Technologies was one of the companies making bold predictions, including that it expected to offer its commercial natural nitrogen-fixing technology, N-Fix, in two to three years. It's been five. So, where is it? In 2014, we spoke to David Dent, director... Read More
After a late spring, including snow only a few weeks ago, Ontario corn planting is off to the races. A Twitter roll call, with over 100 Ontario producers reporting their progress, suggests that about 10 percent of Ontario’s corn has been planted, as of Sunday night. The majority of producers with 20 percent of planting... Read More
20/20 Seed Labs is pleased to offer the Sporometrics-designed Spornado to assist with the early detection of crop disease. Originally used in Ontario potato crops and now being rolled out across the prairies, Spornado is a passive spore catcher designed to catch both fusarium graminearum and sclerotinia spores. What can the Spornado detect? The Spornado... Read More
The beef markets are riding an unusually high basis in both Canada and the United States, but that's set to change. "So over the next eight weeks — between now and when June goes off — we will see the two converge," says Gateway Livestock's Anne Wasko, adding that in 2015 basis was +20 when... Read More
Grain prices this week were mostly in the green as the market continues to weigh geopolitical risk versus weather risk (and thus, planting risk). And though planting is certainly behind in many areas of the major North American growing regions, it’s still early (relatively speaking). U.S seeding is well below behind the usual averages, and... Read More