Populations of swede midge are high enough that certain areas would see the loss of a canola crop if it were planted.

The swede midge threat

Swede midge continues to confound Near North canola growers, and it could migrate farther south

Reading Time: 5 minutes By 2015, Terry Phillips, then chair of the Ontario Canola Growers Association, was advising growers in Ontario’s Near North to stop planting canola on farms that had been hit by the recent arrival of the swede midge. By then, yields were already getting cut by as much as 50 per cent by the pest, with […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

ICE weekly outlook: Canola waits for stocks report

Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — ICE Futures Canada canola contracts continue to chop around in the lead-up to the release of a major report. Statistics Canada is due to release its estimates for the country’s canola stocks (as of March 31) on Friday. The dominant July contract eked out a minor gain of $1.30 per tonne during […] Read more


Flowering plants such as alfalfa provide a home for beneficial insects such as parasitic wasps that can control diamondback moth, wheat midge, aphids and Hessian flies.

Be kind to your insect friends

Of the thousands of insect species around your fields, only a few damage crops. Here’s a guide to identifying and protecting the good bugs that eat the bad ones

Reading Time: 2 minutes It can be worrying to see insects crawling over your nicely developing crop, but are they doing any damage? And even if they are, before ordering the insecticide, will spraying kill the good bugs that are already at work controlling the bad ones, not to mention other insects that are important for pollination? While killing […] Read more

Parasitoids of potential pest insects
Insects that parasitize and kill other insects are called parasitoids. In their immature stages these parasitoids live in or on the body of another insect (the host), but they are free-living as adults. Many of the parasitoids of insects in Manitoba are either wasps or flies. Parasitic wasps do have what looks like a stinger, but they use this to lay eggs in the insects that they are parasitizing, and will not sting people.

PHOTOS: A guide to beneficial insects

Reading Time: < 1 minute There are thousands of insect species in the fields across Canada. But how can you tell which are the beneficial insects and which bugs are trouble? Here’s a quick guide to help you identify and protect the good bugs that prey on the bad ones. This guide is also available on the Manitoba Agriculture website at www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

Canadian canola stocks seen dwindling to four-year low

Reading Time: 2 minutes Winnipeg | Reuters — Canadian stockpiles of canola dwindled to a four-year low ahead of planting season after brisk demand from crushers and exporters, but wheat supplies swelled, according to a Reuters survey of 12 traders and analysts. On Friday, Statistics Canada will estimate crop supplies as of March 31, 2017, from commercial and farm […] Read more

(CaseIH.com)

Glyphosate clears Health Canada re-evaluation

Reading Time: 2 minutes Crop protection companies selling glyphosate have two years to make minor changes to parts of their product labels, as the 43-year-old herbicide formally clears Health Canada’s re-evaluation process. The re-evaluation, launched in late 2009 in a standard federal practice for registered pesticides in Canada, has ruled that products containing glyphosate — when used following the […] Read more


Brown mustard. (Peggy Greb photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Mustard acres feeling squeeze from canola

Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada –– Following the largest mustard crop in more than a decade in 2016, supply/demand fundamentals are expected to spur a reduction in Canadian mustard seedings in 2017. However, with more and more cropland moving into canola, mustard acreage increases may be limited in future years when supplies are tight again. After growing the […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

ICE weekly outlook: Rising canola watching weather

Reading Time: < 1 minute CNS Canada –– ICE Futures Canada canola contracts moved higher during the week ended Wednesday, as weather concerns mounted across the Canadian Prairies. While it’s still early in the Canadian planting season, persistent cool and wet conditions in many areas could lead to delays, said Mike Jubinville of ProFarmer Canada. Uncertainty over how much canola […] Read more


Photo: File

Alberta farm groups want provincial action on unharvested crops

Reading Time: 2 minutes A coalition of Alberta farm groups calling itself “Team Alberta” is meeting with the province’s agriculture minister and representatives from the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) on Wednesday seeking immediate action regarding approximately one million unharvested acres still sitting in farmers’ fields. They are recommending that farmers in the hardest hit areas of Alberta be […] Read more

KAP president Dan Mazier.  Photo: File/Shannon VanRaes

Keystone Agricultural Producers defends cash ticket deferrals

Reading Time: < 1 minute Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers has joined other farm groups in calling on the federal government to keep a regulation that allows farmers to defer grain sales into the following year for tax purposes. The government announced in its recent budget that it is considering eliminating grain ticket deferrals because it is a left over from […] Read more