If you were given the choice between playing the game or sitting down together to come up with the rules of the game which would you pick? Here we see the inherent problem with the family business and the dilemma of succession planning. Unfortunately, we can play the game for years before we run into... Read More
Category: Eastern Canada
With the current drought devastating the US corn crop, some seed companies are already concerned about seed supplies in 2013. At the Canadian Seed Trade Association annual meeting this week two seed companies mentioned to me that a bad scenario is possible for supplies this coming winter. A chain of events has led us to... Read More
With recent dry conditions slowly sapping the potential from the Ontario corn crop, producers want to protect their corn in any way they can. Leaf disease on top of heat stress can add insult to injury taking even more of your yield potential. A well timed fungicide application, when it makes good economic sense, can... Read More
Today a twitter friend of mine, Brian Scott was featured on CNN. CNN visited his Indiana farm to have a closer look at the corn crop and the impact that the drought will have on farm incomes and food prices for consumers. There is definitely some ugly looking corn in this footage. If you cannot... Read More
With the recent very dry conditions, the Ontario corn crop has quickly moved from one of very high expectations to begging for water. This week while I was at the Canadian Seed Trade Meeting (CSTA) in Charlottetown many of the seed companies relayed the message to me that the majority of the province needs rain... Read More
For producers living in areas with a less-than-stable climate, trying to get in to the field to spray can often mean going out before the sun comes up or after the sun goes down. With current GPS technology, spraying in the dark is one option producers can now utilize more effectively than in the past.... Read More
The fortunes of a new wheat variety rise or fall depending on their end use characteristics. The food industry in particular needs varieties that exhibit certain traits during processing. If they don't meet those specific needs in a commercial area like milling or baking, they simply can't be used. SEE MORE EPISODES OF THE WHEAT... Read More
When someone mentions precision agriculture, what do you think of? Do you think of autosteer, GPS, variable rate technology or prescription mapping? The truth is that all of those things and more are involved in what we currently term "precision agriculture." In fact, much of the technology that we associate with precision agriculture is so... Read More
NAFTA has been very valuable for agriculture in Canada and the US. An agreement signed by Prime Minister Harper and President Obama looked to further reduce trade barriers. This agreement specifically addresses the crop protection industry and will streamline the product-approval process. As a result, I’m confident we’ll see significant benefits for Canadian farmers. How... Read More
Not every new product that hits the market is a major innovation. Many are just tweaks on existing products to try to add a bit of extra convenience or a slight change in formulation. Sometimes though, these little tweaks really make a difference. BASF’s new Cabrio Plus fungicide falls into this latter category. Cabrio Plus... Read More