While you're in the field checking canola to see if it's ready to be cut, or perhaps already swathing or harvesting it, it's also a good time to assess the toll disease took on your crop. Sclerotinia, blackleg and clubroot can all cause premature ripening, as disease symptoms become more obvious at the end of... Read More
Category: Western Canada
The grains complex continues to deal with decent growing conditions, better than expected yields, and a tougher global markets environment. This week we saw the market volatility index spike to levels not seen since last year when Russia was invading Ukraine (translation: market participants are pulling dollars out and parking it in cash positions as... Read More
If you're looking out over your faba bean crop and can't help but scratch your head over whether or not it's ready to desiccate, you're not alone. Desiccant timing for all pulse crops is tricky — too early and you risk destroying yield potential; too late and you've lost time, leaving the crop open to... Read More
There will be less wheat and slightly less canola grown in Canada this year than what analysts were expecting, if the first production estimates from Statistics Canada are to be believed. Prior to the report's release on Friday morning, trade guesses for total wheat production ranged from 24.8 to 27.1 million metric tonnes. StatsCan pegged... Read More
The Canadian Total Excellence in Agricultural Management (CTEAM) course offered by Agri-Food Management Excellence (AME) is open for fall registration until October 30, 2015. CTEAM is a national farm management training program for farmers and ranchers, that uses participants' own farm data to create a strategy and develop a plan specifically for their farm or... Read More
With the 2014-15 crop year coming to an end on July 31st, the Ag Transport Coalition has released its year-end report on rail performance in Western Canada. The data shows how despite not having a bumper crop on the prairies last fall, timeliness was still a challenge for railways servicing grain shippers. CN Rail and... Read More
There’s an incredible amount of demand for quality forage both within Canada and in international markets. Even still, the forage and grassland industry hasn’t always been a top priority for research, extension or market development in Canada. A few years ago, the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association was created to help remedy that problem. Cedric... Read More
This week’s ag news podcast, including harvest progress, federal party policies on GMOS, the first StatsCan production estimates and a discussion about to what length farmland should be protected for farming: Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down — Should Farmland Status be Made Permanent? Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS
A guest column by Frayne Olson, Crops Economist at North Dakota State University A farmer recently asked a very simple but extremely relevant question at a market outlook meeting: "Will I ever see high grain prices again in my lifetime?" The farmer asking this question started his farming career in the early 1980s and remembers... Read More
Now that we're several weeks into the federal election campaign, it's clear the words "agriculture" and "farming" have been left out of the main messages repeated by most candidates. It's disappointing, but given the precedent set in politics over the last few decades, it's not at all surprising. Rather than preaching to the choir at... Read More