Reading Time: 3 minutes They call it arsenic hour. It’s that time of day when the parents are back in the house, but before dinner is served. Everyone is tired. Everyone is hungry, and there’s an emotional meltdown waiting to happen, either to you or the kids. It’s no wonder we so often resort to processed or take-out food […] Read more
Healthy food for busy farm families
As Virginia Woolf wrote, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
A good idea goes to market
Converting your bright idea into a commerical product takes determination, plus help from the experts, but it can be done
Reading Time: 4 minutes On his farm near Drayton, Ont., hog producer Jake Kraayenbrink has built and perfected an automatic air inflation-deflation system that reduces the soil compaction caused by heavy manure tankers. Designing the system may have been the easy part, though. The path to launching a commercial version has been a long one. It was back in […] Read more
Saying goodbye
Reading Time: 4 minutes It isn’t as if you made the decision lightly. In fact, it may be the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make. The idea of retiring rather than working until you drop took months — years actually — to get used to, not to mention the hours of emotional wrestling before you could look yourself […] Read more
Stop that
Reading Time: 4 minutes Earlier this winter my back and neck hurt so much that I couldn’t sleep due to the pain, and I had no one to blame but myself. As in farm families across the country, I was spending too many hours hunched over my computer with posture that came right out of the “how not to […] Read more
What should we learn from 2011?
Every farmer gets about 40 chances to get it right when it comes to planting their crops. The problem is, every year it’s like a whole new game. If you want proof, just look at 2011. Then ask yourself how much you’d like to bet on whether we’ll get that same weather this year, or something completely different.
Reading Time: 3 minutes Lesson #1: Adjust N based on spring weather Cool and wet conditions in April, May and June resulted in lower-than-normal mineralization of nitrogen from soil organic matter, which was made worse by the loss of fertilizer N through denitrification. This was confirmed, Stewart says, when the Pre-Sidedress Nitrate Test (PSNT) Survey done June 10 to […] Read moreCorn choice
Reading Time: 6 minutes Farming is a risky business. Each spring, corn growers go to the field and invest thousands in seed, fertilizer, herbicides and more, all in the hope that the crop will grow. We know the odds, and we ante up regardless. The truth, however, is that the odds aren’t the same for everyone. Growers who do […] Read more
Keeping it together
Reading Time: 5 minutes The countryside isn’t immune to the trendlines in divorce. Recently I was at a party chatting with another farm couple when the subject of divorce came up. They told me they knew eight farm couples in their area who are in the process of splitting up. I was shocked, but as I talk to more […] Read more
Add it up
Reading Time: 4 minutes Kids learn about production agriculture at their parents’ knees. They ride in the tractor cab when the crop goes in, they learn to identify weeds when they go along on scouting trips, and they soon get asked to help feed the calves or milk the cows. Learning to become a farmer on the farm is […] Read more
Precision Farming: Best of both worlds
Variable-rate planting catches on as growers strive to make every seed count with their costly top-flight genetics
Reading Time: 3 minutes Precision agriculture may have got off to a patchy start in Eastern Canada, but one use that is generating a lot of excitement right now is variable-rate seeding. Indeed, the technology to have row units turn on and off automatically seems to have come at exactly the right time, Higher-priced corn seed may be worth […] Read morePrecision Farming: Finding the profit
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s no question that precision farming technology works. Yield monitors do monitor yields. GPS does pinpoint your location, and computer programs do combine the two to produce multi-coloured, ultra-accurate yield maps. For most farmers, however, the question isn’t whether the technology works. It’s whether it pays. At last, there’s more evidence that it makes economic […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
