Reading Time: 5 minutes In the mid 1990s a team of computer engineers came up with a new way to plug devices into computers and called it a USB port. It was different from the old ports so it wasn’t compatible with older peripherals and they became useless. Computer companies called this progress but many users called it a […] Read more
Stacked deck
Weeds have put millions of years of evolutionary experience to work against just a handful of weed killing chemicals. The results are predictable
Into the corners
There’s no polite way to say it — our modern crop varieties are very productive, well-bred wimps
Reading Time: 6 minutes Hockey legend Gordie Howe was born on the Canadian prairies in Floral, Sask., on the outskirts of Saskatoon. Tough and scrappy, he dominated along the boards and in the corners where his legendary elbows secured his space and made him a formidable competitor. At one point Canadian farmers fielded entire teams made up of those […] Read more
Unsilent spring
The funny thing about farm chemicals is they’re a lot less scary when you learn a bit about them — and some of the cautionary tales from the past have actually shown us how to use them more safely and effectively
Reading Time: 5 minutes Back in the early ’80s, when I was a science student, I took a pollution geography course and wrote a term paper on pesticides. I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the book credited with birthing the modern environmental movement, and dug through the library for all available references. I wound up getting a pretty good […] Read more
Open-door policy
Unless the livestock sector is content to let animal rights activists set the agenda, it needs to become a whole lot more forthcoming and welcoming
Reading Time: 5 minutes Why does it appear to be so easy for animal rights activists to get a camera into a livestock operation, and so hard for the popular press to do exactly the same thing? The most recent example was when the industry got yet another black eye with an “inside” look at turkey farms, courtesy of […] Read more
Crossing the threshold
Nobody likes to see hungry insects in their field — but spraying in the absence of an economic rationale is bad economics and agronomics
Reading Time: 5 minutes Farmers and insects have always had a complex relationship and it hasn’t become any simpler with modern chemistry. There’s no doubt that a lethal application of an insecticide can do wonders for crop production if it’s needed and timely. But it’s a waste of good money if it isn’t. Every year farmers have to make […] Read more
New era, new tools
Selection pressure and an ever-increasing list of glyphosate-resistant weeds mean we’re in a new era. Herbicide researchers are reacting by tapping the biomedical world for new tools for a new challenge
Reading Time: 6 minutes When most people think of 1973, they think of world changing events such as the Arab oil embargo and the end of the Vietnam War. What they don’t think of is the introduction of a world-beating pesticide that not only changed the way that farmers would come to think about weeds, but also fundamentally altered […] Read more
Keeping bees
Neonicotinoid pesticides are under the spotlight following bee kills — but it’s not all doom and gloom
Reading Time: 5 minutes The southern Ontario spring of 2012 was an early one, and corn growers got busy as soon as they could get their planters out into the fields. Beekeepers got their troops mobilized early too, but high hopes for a good season quickly evaporated as the body count started piling up around the hives. It turned […] Read more
min-till
Reading Time: 3 minutes The near-total adoption of reduced tillage management systems in many areas of the country is having a liberating effect on the emergence of a weed spectrum suited to this new ecology. There are some pesky weeds out there that germinate in fall stubble and can be difficult to control in the spring. Modern low-tillage systems […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
