Category: Western Canada

The Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) was created in 1981, when 12 leaders came together with the vision of an agricultural research funding organization that consulted with farmers and worked with researchers. Since then, WGRF has provided more than $183 million in funding to support crop research projects. "It is a farmer organization," says Garth... Read More

Farm groups across the country have ramped up pressure on the federal government to address the impact of the federal carbon tax and to recognize agriculture's positive contributions in capturing greenhouse gases. Both Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) in Manitoba and the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) have released studies quantifying the cost of the... Read More

As technology evolves, more and more of the players in the machinery business are coming up with ways to store and track the data we get from our implements. With so many different moving parts, it begs the question — is there a way we can store our data cross-platform? CLAAS's recent launch of DataConnect... Read More

The Pottinger Alpha Motion mower has been around since 1996, but with never-ending technology advancements come updates to machinery. At the end of 2019, the company released some updates to the implement to allow it to be more user-friendly. Marco Otten, sales manager for Pottinger, was at the National Farm Machinery Show at Louisville, Kentucky,... Read More

At the end of the day, canola growers and the industry that supports them all want the same thing — to increase yields, profitability, and sustainability, and reduce production risk. Curtis Rempel, vice president of crop production and innovation for the Canola Council of Canada (CCC), couldn't agree more, and he says it's our agronomic... Read More

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

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