Can agriculture help to mitigate the effects of climate change while protecting biodiversity and maintaining profitability? That is what Dr Pam Berry refers to as the triple win scenario. Dr Berry is with the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University in England. She realizes that these opportunities are rare, but she also notes that it... Read More
Category: Research
By Holly Gelech, Biovision Seed Labs The 12th International Symposium on Pre-Harvest Sprouting in Cereals was hosted the week of July 24th in Red Deer, Alberta and was attended by 60 participants from all regions of the globe. The 35 speakers, who originated from Australia, China, Japan, United Kingdom, Africa, Canada and many others countries,... Read More
Test weights on wheat are down below average in parts of Ontario. Compared to this time last year, yields by test weight alone are down by as much as 10% in areas. There are a couple of reasons behind this. The first involves under-filled kernels from plants surrounding dead zones in the field being... Read More
Wheat is an important crop globally. From a food production standpoint, with regards to rotation on the farm and from an economic standpoint, wheat is "key" crop worldwide. The biotech industry has taken notice of this, and a great deal of new interest has been invested into wheat. Companies like Syngenta have expanded their efforts... Read More
Anyone who grows malt barley knows the number of specifications it has to meet in order to be acceptable. There are some years where those specifications can prove very frustrating to growers. When that barley doesn't meet specifications, one of the areas that gets the blame is variety, the grain company or the CWB. After... Read More
This episode of the Wheat School can be summarized as a bit of a fusarium clinic. Peter Johnson, Cereal Specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs gives us a first hand look at the difference in resistance between older wheat varieties and some of the newer generations. Here we get confirmation... Read More
By Ken Coles, FarmingSmarter.com In July I attended the Precision Ag Conference in Springfield, Illinois. I though in my first blog post I would cover my thoughts and observations at the conference. Day 1 Last week Brent Nicol and I attended the infoag, precision ag conference in Springfield, Illinois. (www.infoag.org). Not being a seasoned... Read More
Studies are underway to help winter wheat producers to improve production in a number of areas and to help expand the amount of acres being grown by farmers across the west. The two year study by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission will look at a number of factors that... Read More
Stripe rust is one of those diseases that has been around for a while, but hasn't really been that much of a threat. A few new developments with regards to the disease may have changed that. Firstly, resistance to stripe rust in one variety of winter wheat was found to be ineffective. Second, the disease... Read More
If you talk about controlled traffic farming in Alberta, you'll only come up with a handful of names of farmers involved in the practice. Steve Laroque is one of those farmers. We talked to Steve a while back about his involvement in controlled traffic farming and why he thought it had the potential to fit... Read More