Studies are underway to help winter wheat producers to improve production in a number of areas and to help expand the amount of acres being grown by farmers across the west. The two year study by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission will look at a number of factors that... Read More
Category: Western Canada
When you consider the temperatures across the prairies even a month ago, it's hard to believe we'd be here now talking about the effects of high temperature on canola. That's the nature of life on the prairies though. While prolonged periods of high heat may not be in the cards for most of the prairies,... Read More
A number of industry partners came together in Lacombe, Alberta in an effort to promote winter wheat production as a good choice for producers from both an economic and an environmental perspective. Bayer CropScience, Agrium and the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission have partnered with Ducks Unlimited Canada in an effort to help in conservation... Read More
Wet conditions over the past few years have brought the importance of fungicide back on to the producers radar. Those conditions are the final piece of the puzzle diseases like sclerotinia need to get established and cause real damage to canola. The devastating results of fungal diseases are helping producers to realize the importance of... Read More
Stripe rust is one of those diseases that has been around for a while, but hasn't really been that much of a threat. A few new developments with regards to the disease may have changed that. Firstly, resistance to stripe rust in one variety of winter wheat was found to be ineffective. Second, the disease... Read More
If you talk about controlled traffic farming in Alberta, you'll only come up with a handful of names of farmers involved in the practice. Steve Laroque is one of those farmers. We talked to Steve a while back about his involvement in controlled traffic farming and why he thought it had the potential to fit... Read More
When you're looking at controlling costs on the farm, the issue of overlapping with seed and fertilizer can be a big one. Especially in crops like canola, over seeding and over application of fertilizer can have a very negative impact on growth and development and end up being very costly for the farmer. Controlling that... Read More
Between the internet, the radio the t.v., the newspaper your phone or your neighbour, there are a host of options when it comes to getting your local weather forecast. When you're farming however, you need a degree of accuracy on a local level that most times can only be provided by a drive to the... Read More
While giving a presentation this week at the Canadian Seed Growers meeting in Hamilton I talked about the critical role that mobile plays in the deployment of social media on the farm. A very bright young seed grower friend of mine asked some very interesting questions during the panel discussion. Eric’s thoughts were, “Every time... Read More
Climate change is one of those things that has forced scientists to speculate, to project and to anticipate scenarios in an attempt to help humanity deal with potential problems on the horizon. Some of those potential problems were discussed at the Climate Change Symposium in Guelph, Ontario. One area discussed was that of climate change's... Read More