Food safety in the beef industry was a topic that was front and centre at this years Canfax Cattle Market Forum. Producers and industry members were left questioning just how far the impact of the recall would reach and how long the hangover would last. As we found out when we sat down with Brian... Read More
Category: Western Canada
Tuesday nights are pretty important on Twitter if you're involved in agriculture. Tuesday nights are #AgChat nights — a few hours of moderated conversation on a particular topic of interest for farmers, industry and anyone else interested in agriculture. Last night's topic was farm business management. Farmers and aspiring farmers alike weighed in on questions... Read More
BASF has completed the acquisition of Becker Underwood from Norwest Equity Partners, a U.S.-based private equity investment company, for a purchase price of US$1.02 billion, according to its press release. With the acquisition, BASF is now a global provider of technologies for biological seed treatment as well as seed treatment colorants and polymers. BASF has... Read More
Welcome to what I hope will become part of your regular reading — The Bug Counter blog, here on RealAgriculture.com. As Insect Management Specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development my role is largely to count insects. Along with my technician, Shelley Barkley, and in-season help from summer students we have set out to create... Read More
Sometimes you just need more than germ and vigour seed testing. There are a variety of reasons why you may need a variety test, for example, or perhaps you need to know the parts per million of vomitoxin levels in fusarium damaged grain. Whatever the question or problem, there's a seed test for it. In... Read More
Graze it. Use it as a cover crop. Use it instead of iron to break up hard pan. It would seem no matter what your cropping system, farmers in Western Canada could find a use for Tillage Radish. Nature's own plow, the massive tap root that the crop grows in a very short amount of... Read More
Soil is a magnificent thing. It's the medium that makes crop production possible. It's also rather mysterious. Even now, scientists are just beginning to scratch the surface of naming all the microbes that live in soil and understanding their functions and interactions. There's also much we do know and understand about soil and its ability... Read More
Todd Hirsch, ATB financial senior economist, spoke at the Canfax Cattle Market Forum. The outlook he provided was one of cautious optimism mixed with a little bit of wait and see. The cautious optimism stems from the overall stability of the Canadian economy and the growth in provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan. The wait... Read More
The very dry conditions in Ontario this summer have left many livestock producers very short on forage. The Hay East initiative (www.HayEast2012.com) is still looking for donations from the west and now has widened the request to include Ontario farmers with a little extra to spare. Jim Hair (@OFA1) posted this tweet this morning: #HayEast... Read More
Wheat midge feeding on kernels can cause significant damage, downgrading the crop and eating into yield. One of the big trip-ups for many farmers is timing a spray application — is anthesis too late? Do you wait for the entire head to emerge? (Hint: Anthesis is getting too late -- more on ideal spray timing... Read More