There were celebratory handshakes and hugs among staff and farmers on the steering committee after the results of the Manitoba farm group amalgamation vote were announced last week at CropConnect. Among the crowd, standing nearby with a relieved grin on his face, was a farmer from southern Manitoba who led a public campaign to unite... Read More
Category: Western Canada
Growing pulses in 2019 was a challenge across the board. The growing conditions that were needed simply were not there, especially in the areas that saw a lot of rain. Robyne Bowness Davidson, pulse research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, says that due to all of said moisture, a lot of the pulses such... Read More
Spring is coming, and it always seems to creep up a little quicker than anticipated. After the year that was 2019, many producers are wondering how they are going to best deal with their soils moving into the season. Many across the Prairies that traditionally put down fall fertilizer or do tillage operations in the... Read More
Data collected between 2008 and 2015 by Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp suggests many farmers in the province are using tight rotations, or no rotation at all (coyly referred to as a "canola-snow" rotation). "The tight rotations that we are talking about — canola, wheat, canola, wheat — are in the northeast of the province and... Read More
The last of the major Prairie crop conferences — the CropConnect Conference — was held at Winnipeg, Man., this week, with a sold-out crowd braving some quintessential Manitoba farm show season weather to hear from several dozen speakers, and discuss opportunities and plans for 2020. Here are some of the takeaways from the two-day event:... Read More
New farm equipment sales in Canada declined again in January, according to the latest monthly sales numbers from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM.) 4-wheel drive tractor sales were down sharply from January 2019, falling from 69 to 11 units — an 84 percent drop. Overall 2-wheel drive tractor sales were only down 2.8 percent,... Read More
A Manitoba tile drainage pipe-manufacturing facility is back in the hands of its original owners. Winkler, Man.-based Precision Land Solutions (PLS) announced today that it has re-acquired the high density polyethylene pipe-making plant at Winkler from Prinsco, which has operated pipe-manufacturing facilities across the U.S. since the 1970s. PLS originally established the plant in 2012,... Read More
Five Manitoba farm groups have voted in favour of amalgamating into one entity known as the Manitoba Crop Alliance. Farmer members of the Manitoba Corn Growers Association (MCGA), Manitoba Flax Growers Association (MFGA), National Sunflower Association of Canada (NSAC), Winter Cereals Manitoba, Inc. (WCMI), and the Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers Association (MWBGA) passed a... Read More
Rail blockades near Belleville, Ont. and in northern B.C. in support of a B.C. oil pipeline standoff in Wet'suwet'en territory will soon begin to significantly impact CN Rail's network if they're not removed, the company says. CN Rail notes the blockades are unrelated to CN's activities, however the Belleville line is CN’s only eastern link... Read More
With multiple wet harvest years in central and northern Alberta, many producers have invested in a grain dryer, or are certainly looking into it. Scott Keller, a farmer from near New Norway, Alta., recently dug in to the numbers surrounding the cost and benefits of owning a grain dryer. Keller first set up a grain... Read More