Sunflowers may rival flax for the honour of “prettiest crop,” but this brightly flowered food and oilseed crop has another rather dubious distinction — disease magnet. From the very ominous sounding phoma black stem, to the insidious sclerotinia, Real Agriculture caught up with Sam Markell, extension plant pathologist with North Dakota State University to talk... Read More
Category: Western Canada
Each farm has its own advantages that make it viable and competitive. So if you sit down and think about it, what's one piece of technology that gives you that advantage? Or is there something that another farm is doing that you could implement to make your farm more competitive? Each stop on the TechTour... Read More
Not surprisingly, like any livestock farmer I’ve ever met, you’ll find me enjoying a glass of milk, a steak or a hard-boiled egg on any given day. And as a conventional farmer, I believe in the safety of the food system I produce for, so am not likely to buy organic. They are things I’ve... Read More
The wheat market is due for some additional volatility in the weeks leading up to seeding season in North America, says the general manager of FarmLink Marketing Solutions. Sharing the wheat market outlook at Grainworld '15 in Winnipeg last week, Lawrence Yakielashek (formerly with Toepfer Canada) said he believes the bearish sentiment in the wheat…Read More
What's the difference between non-performance of a herbicide application and weeds being resistant to the herbicide application? While less-than-stellar control can happen for a number of reasons, it's usually marked by sprayer-associated-patterns in a field. Herbicide resistance, however, can be much more subtle but far more serious in the long run. Herbicide resistant weeds are... Read More
A full-court press, led by Canadian mushroom growers, is on to try to stop hundreds of foreign workers specially trained for agriculture jobs in Canada from having to leave. On April 1, a federally mandated rule kicks in that requires them go home if they’ve been here four years. And it’s going to affect the... Read More
In farming, time is often the most scarce resource. Working longer hours isn't an option. So RealAgriculture.com, together with Dow AgroSciences, are hosting a series of one-day conferences across Western Canada focused on making the most of our time — being as efficient as possible. TechTour Live kicked off in Brandon on Monday, featuring business... Read More
As part of McDonald’s 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability Framework, the company has commited to begin purchasing a portion of verified sustainable beef in 2016. Using principles and criteria approved by the Global and Canadian Roundtables for Sustainable Beef, the company is currently recruiting for the pilot project. “When you look at consumer data,... Read More
Have you ever heard someone say that today's business environment is "the new normal"? There is no such thing as the new normal. Most times the "old normal" is the reality in the long run. Remember when corn was $7.50 and canola was $15 and it was a "new normal" in the markets? We've recently... Read More
Testing for clubroot falls into an interesting classification — it's a disease, yes, but it's in soil. Do you send samples to a soil lab or a seed lab? In this edition of Under the Microscope, Holly Gelech, business development manager with Biovision Seed Labs, walks us through how labs test for clubroot and while... Read More