Reading Time: 5 minutes Keith Gabert rarely tells Alberta canola producers straight up not to spray fungicide as a preventive against sclerotinia stem rot. But last year, the Canola Council of Canada’s agronomy specialist for central Alberta south did just that. “In the Drumheller area, where they don’t always have as much moisture, they’d sprayed for sclerotinia in the […] Read more
To spray or not to spray?
A preventive canola spray for sclerotinia can pay off, but not necessarily for blackleg
Growing your own N
New research in Saskatchewan proves forage rotations of only two years can provide a valuable fertility boost
Reading Time: 3 minutes When Duane Thompson talks about sustainability, he makes no bones about the fact that nothing is sustainable unless it’s economical for the farmer. “Sustainability is a nice notion but you want to be improving and getting better,” he says. “I’m not really big on sustainability — I want to be sustainable-plus.” Thompson is a case […] Read more
Costing out your grain storage options
Grain bags are only economic for larger, 70,000-bushel-plus storage, according to an Alberta Agriculture analysis
Reading Time: 4 minutes The cheapest option for grain storage — piling it right on the ground — is a genius idea if it works, but it’s a disaster if it fails, says Mitch Smith, a customer account manager at United Farmers of Alberta in Vermilion. “Lots of guys do it with a straight-up grain pile into the fall […] Read more
Moisture in or moisture out?
Are you really drying that grain when you turn on the fans?
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s the disaster no one wants to admit — a bin of spoiled grain can represent the loss of a producer’s entire year of profits. When grain spoils due to problems with storage, “farmers usually sell it, burn it or hush it up,” says Joy Agnew, project manager for Agricultural Research Services at the Prairie […] Read more
Foraging for better soils
If you aren’t growing forages, can you really say you’re farming sustainably?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The soil has its own perspective, says soil scientist Mario Tenuta, which explains why in Western Canada, where intensive farming has “only” been going on for 100 years, our soils are actually still young. “Our soils are not mature, compared to places like Europe or Africa,” Tenuta says. Over the last 50 years of farming, […] Read more
The ‘sustainable’ agriculture advantage
Staking out the high ground in this debate could be good not just for the soil, but for bank accounts too
Reading Time: 4 minutes Is “sustainability” just another buzzword, or will it have a genuine impact on how farmers in Western Canada do business? Denis Trémorin, director for sustainability at Pulse Canada, believes there is substance behind “sustainability”— but it might not mean exactly what you think it means. Trémorin says sustainability is about operating in a socially, economically […] Read more
So you’ve got a drone — now what?
Until drone technology gets a lot more user friendly, farmers may want to leave it in the hands of agronomists
Reading Time: 5 minutes Chances are, you’ve got a drone — maybe it’s a Parrot AR you picked up for $100 at Walmart. Possibly it’s a $1,500 DJI Phantom 3 that takes great aerial photos. Or maybe you’re one of the few western Canadian producers who’s purchased an NDVI-capable drone that takes orthomosaic images that can be layered in […] Read more
Grasshoppers, aphids top crop pests in 2015
There were some of the usual suspects, but also some welcome parasitic visitors
Reading Time: 5 minutes At what point is it too late for control? This is a question Prairie producers ask every year, and every year the answer is slightly different, depending on weather and the state of the crop. This year, many producers had to decide how firmly to respond to pest pressures hovering around the economic threshold. Scott […] Read more
Winter canola catches on down south
Winter canola took a drought hit in the southern U.S. in 2015, but experts are optimistic about industry expansion
Reading Time: 4 minutes It may have struggled with tough weather, but winter canola seems ready to take off in the Great Plains region of the southern United States. Spring canola is already widely grown in the northern states, but winter canola is a relatively new addition to rotations in the southern Great Plains, where temperatures prohibit spring varieties. […] Read more
Genetic sequencing technologies open doors for potato breeders
Next-generation technologies have ushered in a new era of potato breeding, allowing researchers to select key traits with a high degree of efficiency
Reading Time: 4 minutes The potato genome is a medium-size plant genome, consisting of 12 chromosomes with a haploid length of about 840 million base pairs. In 2011, it was successfully sequenced through the efforts of the Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium (PGSC), an initiative of the Netherlands Genomics Initiative and Wageningen University and Research Centre that combined the efforts […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
