They've built it, now it’s time to come. With the 2016 Canadian Dairy XPO just two weeks away, show organizers are getting ready to unveil the new WeCover Cow Coliseum and pedestrian bridge that will connect the building to the Stratford Rotary Complex. The steel bridge will carry the more than 15,000 visitors expected to... Read More
Category: Western Canada
In this week’s Word, Peter Johnson, resident agronomist for RealAgriculture, examines everything from early N applications in wheat to the maple syrup harvest. Have a question for Wheat Pete? Call 1-888-746-3311, send him a tweet (@wheatpete), or email him at peter.johnson@bell.net. Highlights: The 2016 crop season has begun in Ontario with some nitrogen going down... Read More
Cows aren't the only creatures that need to be trained to use a dairy robot. The value a dairy farm gets out of an automated system depends on all the people involved knowing how to utilize the machine's capabilities. "That robot is doing nothing more than milking your cows," explains Ben Smink of Lely North... Read More
"The world’s bee population is in crisis and Honey Nut Cheerios is coming to the rescue, minus its perky mascot." — Toronto Star, March 15, 2016 Move over Kathleen Wynne and Glen Murray. There's a new saviour of bees in town. General Mills Canada announced last week "Buzz" the honeybee will disappear from its Honey... Read More
The federal government is finding ways to spend $19 billion more than promised during the election campaign last fall. Some of that money will be spent in agriculture-related areas. Finance Minister Bill Morneau's first budget, unveiled Tuesday, projects a $29.4 billion deficit in 2016-17 — well beyond the $10 billion deficit outlined by the Liberals... Read More
A guest editorial by Cam Dahl, president of Cereals Canada Saskatoon recently saw a meeting of some of the most important minds in Canadian wheat research. A workshop was held that included public and private researchers from across Canada, farmers from coast to coast, and Canadian exporters. Our goal was to move forward on the... Read More
Working capital is the king of financial metrics, especially during the bottom of a market cycle. A farm can have large swaths of land and other equity on its balance sheet, but if it doesn't have cash or liquid assets to make monthly payments, the business will soon be in trouble. "A wheelbarrow full of... Read More
While sunflowers often pencil out well, concerns about quality and yield risk at the end of the year are all-too-common when it comes to growing them. "It's a high value crop and if you treat it that way, it's going to pay," says Troy Turner, agronomist for the National Sunflower Association of Canada, in the... Read More
Anybody thinking of growing lentils or peas in Western Canada this year? Syngenta is introducing a new fungicide to help growers protect pulses from foliar diseases such as anthracnose, ascochyta blight, mycosphaerella blight and powdery mildew. Elatus features two modes of action — a combination of Syngenta's new Group 7 fungicide known as Solatenol (benzovindiflupyr)... Read More
In this episode of the Corn School, Real Agriculture resident agronomist Peter Johnson goes cover crop crazy. Standing in a residue-covered cornfield, Johnson sounds off on growers who insist on chopping corn stalks: “What a labour intensive, fuel expensive, ridiculous thing to do – it makes no sense whatsoever.” What makes better sense for growers,... Read More