Reading Time: 4 minutes From the September issue of Grainews Over the last few years, the term vertical tillage has slowly crept into many farmers’ vocabulary. And while many have recently made a leap of faith and purchased one of these machines, others are still trying to understand just exactly what vertical tillage is all about. To give farmers […] Read more
Is vertical tillage right for your farm?
More Horses
Reading Time: 5 minutes It was the shot that re-ignited the horespower war. Back in 2005, Winnipeg-based Versatile launched its HHT line with a flagship tractor boasting an unheard of 535 horsepower. That gave it 35 more horses than either John Deere’s 9620 or Case IH’s STX500, which were among the leaders until then. But it was hardly the […] Read more
Three steps to effective pre-harvest weed control
Reading Time: 3 minutes At this stage in the crop year, many farmers are thinking about making a late-season application of glyphosate to control perennial weeds. A pre-harvest pass can be effective weed control, but if it’s applied at the wrong time or under the wrong conditions, it’s just wasted time and money. Farmers shouldn’t rely on it to […] Read more
Aftershocks In Farm Machinery
Reading Time: 5 minutes The 8.9 magnitude earthquake that shook Japan at 2:46 p.m. on March 11 has shaken up the rest of the world as well, including the world of farm machinery. And just as the size and power of the earthquake itself was unexpected, so too has been the collateral fallout. As authorities in B.C. continue monitoring […] Read more
A Brand New Game
Reading Time: 5 minutes Back in the 1960s and ’70s, Massey Ferguson’s higher-horsepower tractor production was centred in the Detroit area. The facility there churned out a lot of machines. But then came the dark days of the late 1980s. A perfect storm of low farm commodity prices, high interest rates, declining farm machinery sales, and a variety of […] Read more
Fuel Fight
Reading Time: 5 minutes The high-price executives at the big companies don’t always read the public mood very accurately. So inevitably, their million-dollar ad campaigns can go splat, despite all the big promises that they’ll win market share. It’s happened before. Ford’s gambit to become the safety leader with its cars in the 1950s is a case that comes […] Read more
Up, Up And Up!
Reading Time: 5 minutes Remember 2008? Farm commodity prices skyrocketed, and right on cue, machinery sales jumped too. The 2008 bump was so big, farmers bought equipment even faster than manufacturers could build it. It was proof that commodity prices are all it takes to drive machinery sales. Or so it seemed. Optimism was everywhere that year. All the […] Read more
Down At The Elevator
Reading Time: 6 minutes Greg Brenneman, who farms near Salina, Kansas quickly put the question is sharp context. His home state has moved away from wheat production, as Gerald Pilger reported in last month’s issue of COUNTRY GUIDE. Instead, farmers there are growing more profitable corn. It’s a change that is putting huge pressure on the state’s grain handling […] Read more
After Oil
Reading Time: 6 minutes Efforts to find alternatives to oil are slowly gaining momentum, pushed on by fears about dwindling reserves and global warming. Indeed, sometimes it seems that every newspaper you pick up has a story about one new answer or another, such as biogas, biodiesel or hydrogen among others. Yet no single fuel has emerged as the […] Read more
Road Trip
Reading Time: 5 minutes Here’s a question. Which province can boast the largest share of Canadian farm equipment manufacturing? Most of us would likely guess Ontario, the traditional heartland of industrial activity. If we did, though, we’d be flat wrong. With nearly $474 million in goods produced in 2009, Manitoba now leads the industry. Ontario is actually in third […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
