Its not only a struggle to decide what to grow but also how to price the crop in this volatile pricing market. With special crops price discovery is an even bigger challenge fro many producers. With the poor growing conditions last year, lentil growers that got the crop off in a timely fashion and got... Read More
Category: Western Canada
When farmers choose varieties one of the most common used criteria is stand ability. Sometimes crops lodge no matte what variety you choose due to late moisture, wind or above average weight of the crop. One of the tools that farmers are including on their combine headers is Flexxifinger crop lifters. At CropWeek 2011 in... Read More
The Triffid flax export issue with Europe was a major story of 2010. All stakeholders in the flax value chain were impacted with great severity. Farmers couldn't move inventory, prices plummeted, and exporters had cargo in limbo. The finger pointing was intense as everyone searched for the reasons that the previously approved trait had worked... Read More
There are lot of choices for farmers this year which is creating a significant battle for acres, even amongst the special crop acres. Yellow and green peas are not one of the true sexy selections in comparison to canola but are still an option for farmers looking to diversify the rotation. With all the focus... Read More
Canary Seed is not a high acre crop in Western Canada but it has been in the news lately. Mexico and Canada have been in a real trade dispute which prevented Canada exports to enter Mexico. Mexico is Canada's largest buyer of canary seed which has created a real disruption to the crop. It is... Read More
With the pricing advantages for canola and lentils right now in the prairies, many growers are moving to tighter and tighter crop rotations. These tighter rotations include lentils more often and the exclusion of cereals in a canola lentil rotation. This is similar to the exclusion of wheat in corn soybean rotations in Ontario. Balanced... Read More
Is there anything more exciting than a new USDA report? With the increased interest in commodities USDA reports have become like the new gambling lines coming out for Superbowl weekend. The hype is high and everyone has an angle that they play. The markets moved huge today as a result of the report from the... Read More
At the Sask Canola meeting this morning Gerry Ritz gave an announcement on some new funding. I attended the scrum with the rest of the ag media and just caught the end of the discussion where he addressed free trade with the European Union and the long term benefits for farmers. Mr. Ritz also commented... Read More
The year of 2010 was a year to forget for many farmers in Western Canada who had to deal with the intense wet weather. I talked to a farmer tonight who got a fraction of his acres even seeded and actually only had nine seeding days to get some crop planted. Drew Lerner, World Wide... Read More
Spring is a very hectic time for farmers. As farmers know there are time on seed restrictions for inoculants. We have all been through the scenario of applying inoculants to your soybeans in the morning and by the afternoon it is pouring rain. As you can imagine this can be very stressful when you use... Read More