I attended the Canadian Seed Trade Meeting this week in Montreal. Every year the Canadian seed trade gets together to discuss the issues affecting the industry and meet within the industry to discuss business deals. The seed industry has many issues affecting it currently. Between flax exports, potential introduction of transgenic wheat, pollen flow and… Read More
By Garth Donald, DynagraVRT Farmers look at many costs when they are making a crop plan. But the one thing I always hear from a lot of growers is that certified seed doesn€™t pay year after year. Coming from Manitoba to Alberta back in 1997 I wondered why there were not more seed growers and… Read More
I was at AgriTrade in Red Deer, Alberta on Wednesday and I talked Sarah Foster from 20/20 Seed Labsabout how they are finding lower germination results in peas this winter due to glyphosate damage. It is essential that you test your saved seed before you make any plans on planting. Planting high quality seed is critical to giving yourself… Read More
Trevor Nysetvold from BioVision Seed Lab, talks about some of the early seed quality results from the fall 2009 harvest. Obviously harvest is dragging on for many producers but Trevor says that the early results are interesting. Trevor talks about germination and fusarium results so far. Trevor recommends sampling procedures for farmers to get the… Read More
As I have noted before on this site, this summer has been very interesting in terms of the changing landscape in wheat research and breeding. Monsanto, Bayer, and Syngenta are all engaged in the wheat breeding game. I have received, many emails from readers, asking the same question. “What will this mean for my farm… Read More
In case you have not been following the story very closely, the debate over biotech wheat is about to restart again. Cereal breeding in North America has been on the downtrend. The past three months have brought wheat breeding investments by Dow Agro, Monsanto and Bayer. These strategic moves are quite obviously being executed so… Read More
With this weeks announcement that Monsanto is buying Westbred LLC it is very clear that the biotech industry will have a say in the future direction of the wheat breeding business. As I have mentioned on this site before, pull type traits like drought and nitrogen use efficiency will be big components of the Monsanto… Read More
This afternoon I talked to Richard Phillips, Executive Director of the Grain Growers of Canada about the possible introduction of biotech wheat to the agricultural system. The Grain Growers of Canada were members of the Biotech Wheat Coalition that is trying to push the international community to support biotech wheat. Shaun: Why is the Grain… Read More
Canadian, Australian and American wheat organizations have formed the Biotech Wheat Coalition “in support for more efficient, sustainable and profitable production of wheat around the world”. See the Joint Statment Here As RealAgriculture.com has discussed before the need for biotech wheat is rising and the usual roadblocks are presenting themselves as discussed by the Canadian… Read More
Tuesday on #agchat there was quite the discussion about many agricultural topics (see the Agwired review). The whole goal of agchat is to discuss the five questions posed by the moderator @mpaynknoper. The goal is not to have specifically a pro GMO or organic discussion but rather a pro agriculture discussion with all stakeholders. I… Read More
This article orginally appeared in the Winter 2004 edition of the Haney Farms Quarterly Traditionally farmers have always thought of planting their crop in terms of bushels per acre. Bushels have been a unit of measure that we have felt comfortable with in the past because it was a function of pounds. For example, one… Read More
In this segment of our Canola School, Matt Stanford of the Canola Council of Canada discusses how you should be caring for the canola seed you purchased. Matt talks about why you should keep a seed sample and a blue tag from every lot of seed to help you if issues arise. I tell customers… Read More
There has been a lot of confusion amongst some people regarding Monsanto‘s application for GM drought tolerant corn for feed and food use in Canada and the United States. The application has been made and could be ready if approved fro commercialization in 2012 or 2013. This gene will provide farmers with the ability to… Read More
In part 2 of my interview with Lloyd Dyck, CEO of Brett Young we discuss how the access to credit is a bigger concern than the commodity price volatility for people in agriculture. Lloyd also talks about the forage business at Brett Young, where forage genetics are coming from and how hybrid alfalfa is growing… Read More
This is part 1 of 2 of my interview with Lloyd Dyck, CEO of Brett Young. Brett Young is truly unique because it is family owned and provides a a very diversified product line to the marketplace. In this video Lloyd discusses how the future growth of the company is in biologicals like PodCeal and… Read More