Agriculture is full of traditions and customs that are passed on from generation to generation on the farm. At the same time, the industry is changing immensely in front of our own eyes creating a very uncertain future. Even pre-COVID-19, agriculture had some real soul-searching to do to meet the challenges ahead in the agri-food… Read More
You need only read the titles of his books to know Timothy Caulfield is no stranger to calling out misinformation. Caulfield is Canada’s Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, a professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, as well as research director of the Health Law Institute at the… Read More
One of the questions that come up this time of the year, when it comes to the growing season, is — what do the pest forecasts look like for 2020? Boyd Mori, assistant professor in agricultural entomology, at the University of Alberta, was at FarmTech in Edmonton, Alta, and broke down the top 5 insects in… Read More
Canada’s relationship with China could get worse before it gets better, depending on the outcome of the U.S. extradition request for Chinese telecommunications executive Meng Wanzhou, according to an expert on Chinese affairs at the University of Alberta. Farmers in both Canada and the U.S. have been paying close attention to their respective country’s relationship… Read More
Diagnostic testing for disease in livestock may be easier in the future thanks to a $5.6 million dollar project, led by Dr. Cheryl Waldner, professor of large animal clinical sciences at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM), and Dr. Simon Otto, an assistant professor in the University of Alberta School of Public Health. Waldner… Read More
It’s Friday, y’all. We made it! On this edition of RealAg Radio, you’ll hear from: Jessika Guse for the day’s top ag news Ken Currah, outgoing Certified Crop Advisor chair, about the growing number of CCAs in Ontario, and some new designations coming online for agronomists J.P. Gervais, economist with Farm Credit Canada, tackling the… Read More
Even if you don’t think you have herbicide resistant weeds in your fields, the best management practice might be to treat your fields as if you do. That’s the advice of Linda Hall, associate professor in the Faculty of Agriculture Life and Environmental Science at University of Alberta, in this episode of the Resistance Management School. There… Read More
The clubroot story in Western Canada continues to be written as researchers are finding additional strains of the pathogen that are capable of overcoming genetic resistance. So far, 13 new variants have been identified since the breakdown of resistance was first confirmed in 2013, explains Stephen Strelkov, plant pathology researcher at the University of Alberta. “We think resistance… Read More
Pundits have said the leaders of the next agricultural revolution – the digital revolution — will be big data-powered researchers, with a universe of information in hand to help make farming more efficient than ever. But no one said those researchers would be found in the labs, fields, and classrooms of some of Canada’s main… Read More
The producer-funded Western Grains Research Foundation has renewed its wheat breeding partnership with the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Agricultural, life & Environmental Sciences, committing $811,587 to the program over the next five years. “The wheat breeding program at the U of A’s Faculty of ALES is an important piece of the western Canadian wheat… Read More
Edmonton’s Prairie Urban Farm has an ambitious goal. They hope to convert a shipping container into a traveling food factory — a project that will require $100,000 to complete. Prairie Urban Farm has been running on the University of Alberta’s south campus for two years now. It was developed out of a growing concern that… Read More
Despite minimum size requirements and increasing license fees, it seems trophy hunting of bighorn sheep may have some rather alarming, and unintended consequences. David Coltman, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, alongside his colleagues from the University of Sherbrooke, has been studying data collected on bighorn sheep on Ram Mountain, near Nordegg, Alberta. The… Read More
With great sadness I found out this morning that Dr. Lloyd Dosdall has passed away after a long battle with cancer. See Dr. Dosdall’s bio on the University of Alberta’s website I remember back in July 2010 when I first met Dr. Lloyd Dosdall. It was at the Farming Smarter site on the east side of… Read More
Wild oat control is, like it or not, an increasingly costly issue in Western Canada. Not only is herbicide expensive (costing growers over $500 million annually), we are also seeing an increase in resistant wild oat populations. There are several fields with confirmed resistance to both Group 1 and Group 2 products. Farmers do and… Read More
Purebred cattle operations rely largely on DNA for parentage verification and identifying potential genetic defects, but where is the rest of the industry at with genomics? Is there a role for genome mapping in commercial herds? How will it help the industry as a whole? “There’s genomic tools for every sector of the value chain… Read More