In Western Canada, canola has become the key cash crop. This makes it even more incredibly important to ensure your canola crop has an adequate amount of fertilizer. Managing the nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur is incredibly integral to achieving the yield objectives you have set on your farm. Many times I hear farmers talk about… Read More
Category: Agronomy
Coming out of the winter months, making sure that your winter wheat has an adequate amount of nitrogen is critical for achieving your yield objectives. Making some nitrogen decision in the spring is critical and cannot be ignored by the grower. Based on where you farm, how you approach the topic will differ. Because of… Read More
One of the first things that you need to do as winter comes to a conclusion is evaluate your winter wheat stand. Depending on the conditions of the past winter, the amount of winter kill can vary and difficult to properly evaluate. If you are too hard on your self you could decide to rip… Read More
Have you ever wondered if the weeds in the field have a greater impact than just taking up nutrients. Is it possible that the weeds in the field have a greater impact on yield than we first thought? Dr. Clarence Swanton, Professor at the University of Guelph has been researching how corn plants and weeds… Read More
The most attractive and popular booth this year at the London Farm Show was the Syngenta Crop Protection booth. With a booth full of live corn plants under heat lamps, many farmers were drawn to the bright green plants. Nothing gets farmers motivated and excited more than than the opportunity to see a live plant… Read More
Sean Gardner may have the future of the wheat industry in his hands. As the Monsanto Global Wheat Lead, Sean is charged with the task of leveraging Monsanto’s current breeding technologies to bring biotech wheat to the market and to develop a value capture model for wheat. It is no secret that the wheat game… Read More
What does it mean to farm? Why do it? For many, it is a question of passion. Passion for the lifestyle €“ the satisfaction of working the land; the freedom to be your own boss in a world that€™s not constricted by office walls and collared shirts; the day-to-day enjoyment of hard work and fresh… Read More
Want to know how to increase your spring wheat yield by 40%? Looking for a way to spread out the seeding of your spring crops? If you are in an area of Canada that is applicable to frost seeding the rewards can be high but it is definitely not a simple process. I talked to… Read More
I have always considered farmers to be a very innovative group. I mean think about those episodes of the Prairie Farm report that showed a guy converting a truck into a high clearance sprayer and it also could be used to mow the grass when needed. This week I spent some time at the Innovative… Read More
By Garth Donald, Dynagra As the world grows, the agricultural industry is asked to produce more to help feed the expanding population. The main issue growers face is that urban sprawl is eating up the productive farm land. We have less arable acres to work with as a result. Now our crop varieties are getting better for… Read More
Emotion is a powerful thing. Many people make decisions based on emotion and not science. There is some irony in all of this based on our scientific knowledge has never been higher. We know more about the genome of plants than ever before in our history. Yet at the same time emotions are high and… Read More
I am finding more and more ranchers and feeders are struggling to find the answers to their short term profitability issues. I just hope that if ALMA has success there is enough people in the industry still to benefit from the hard work. At the Tiffin conference I really detected frustration from producers on how… Read More
I talked to Dustin Gosnell, Director of Strategic Planning and Corporate Policy, Canadian Wheat Board about GM wheat and the CWB’s position on the latest WTO issues. Agricultural trade issues are really sensitive and controversial issues right now. Never mind the trade issues that North America has with China and the other BRIC countries but the… Read More
Buying a combine has become a much larger decision than in the past. Combines are a piece of equipment that you use only in the fall but are incredibly important to getting the crop in the bin. Like most pieces of machinery they have become more sophisticated although the threshing concept is still based on… Read More
I have seen some of my grandfather Mehalko’s old farming photos where they were seeding with twelve foot drills. That twelve foot drill had a relatively inaccurate rate seeding tool and it was fairly difficult to manage depth. All of this and not to mention the open cab. I visited the SeedHawk booth to check… Read More