Viterra Inc. announced today that Glencore International PLC’s purchase of the company is on hold until at least December 10th. The deal is hung up on regulatory approval from the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China. Industry Canada has approved the $6.1 billion deal that will see Winnipeg-based Richardson International buy up… Read More
Year: 2012
It’s the nasty phytoplasma that took many Prairie farmers by surprise in 2012 — aster yellows. Carried on the aster leafhopper, aster yellows can infect over 200 species but took a particularly heavy toll on canola this year. The irony is, canola isn’t even a preferred food source, as the leafhopper tends to prefer grasses…. Read More
Lentil struggled in some areas this year, as areas of Saskatchewan still had a excess moisture or the hangover from it to deal with. Still other areas were very dry, or suffered from extreme weather. Of note, fields with tight lentil/wheat rotations certainly suffered lower yields versus fields with at least one year of an… Read More
An increase of fusarium incidence in Alberta, combined with a very hot summer, has left some farmers unsure of what’s wrong with some sample of wheat seed. In a very dry year, drought stress can shrivel kernels and cause them to look similar to fusarium damaged kernels. From a marketing perspective, knowing the difference and… Read More
In a good news/not so good news scenario, the 2012 corn crop is showing very low incidence of ear molds. That said, there are likely to be areas with higher numbers, and farmers are reminded to scout or test each field for possible infection, especially if the crop is destined for feed use. In this… Read More
Today, if you haven’t heard, is National Show Your 4-H Colours day — a day for current and former 4-H Canada members to wear green and white and show off their 4-H pride. As I donned my Roughriders shirt (2 birds, one-stone!) this morning, I got to thinking about my 4-H years and how they… Read More
The Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture held its annual speaking event last weekend in conjunction with the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, at Toronto, Ont. RealAgriculture.com was there to film the promising speakers — an amazing mix of passionate, well-spoken and wise-beyond-their-years individuals. This year’s junior and senior winners respectively, Dasha Metropolitansky and Lydia Harrison, both… Read More
Yesterday’s re-election of Barack Obama was the big news story, but tucked in amongst all the election fan fair and references to Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” was news of several bills being passed or defeated. Of particular note to agriculture was Prop 37, a Californian bill that would require labeling of products that… Read More
The 2012 canola crop is not just smaller than expected, it’s also light on oil content. According to the Canadian Grain Commission, this year’s crop is averaging a mean oil content of 43.5% (on a 8.5% moisture basis, No. 1 grade). That’s down quite a bit from last year when it was 45.2%. The 10-year… Read More
One of the most frequently asked questions I get concerns dormancy — what causes it and how it impacts crops destined for seed use. Dormancy in cereals is the most common of all, and it can be quite troublesome in certain years. This year, growing conditions have been excellent and very little dormancy has… Read More
After a very dry growing season, farmers in eastern Canada are hurting for hay. Western Canadian farmers know all to well what that’s like, having experienced a similar situation in 2002. Farmers, private companies and governments have come together to form Hay East — a program to send much-needed forage from the west to the… Read More
This semester at the University of Guelph, Ontario Agriculture College, Francois Tardif and Mike Cowbrough‘s Crops 4240 – Undergraduate Weed Science students were given the assignment of making a weed identification video for a weed commonly found in Ontario. The objective is for the students to discuss identification at different growth stages and methods of control of… Read More
As farmers approach the mid-way point of the Ontario corn harvest (and quickly surpass it, we hope), preliminary reports suggest decent yields in spite of challenging conditions. That said, it most certainly wasn’t an ideal growing season, and farmers aren’t likely to see their highest ever production this year. What a challenging year does allow… Read More
13.4 million tonnes of canola is, historically, a big canola crop. For 2012, however, it’s a total tonnage figure that disappointed many Western Canadian farmers. As we reported earlier this year, the swaths looked like a 35 bushel crop but yielded closer to 20. Many were shocked by the significantly lower Statistics Canada production number… Read More
A web-based crop protection selection tool, AgChemExpert, launched this week. AgChemExpert is a custom designed software program that helps farmers and agronomists alike understand what chemicals do what, how and when to use them and even what they are made up of, according to the company’s release. Developed by agronomist Chris Hawkins, A-C-E is an… Read More