Fruit/Vegetables, Agriculture News & Resources

DuPont to shed Kocide fungicide business

By Country Guide Staff August 21, 2014

Reading Time: 2 minutes DuPont’s copper fungicide Kocide, used in Canada to manage diseases in bean, potato and assorted hort crops, is set to meet a new maker. DuPont Crop Protection announced Wednesday it will sell its global copper fungicide business — including its Kocide and ManKocide brands and trademarks and its Houston, Tex.-based copper fungicide plant — to […] Read more

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables, Markets, Reuters

EU fruit, veg growers get $180M to help with Russia ban

By Barbara Lewis August 18, 2014

Reading Time: 2 minutes Brussels | Reuters –– The European Union’s fruit and vegetable growers will get financial aid of up to 125 million euros (C$181.9 million) to help them cope with Russia’s ban on most Western food imports, which has created a glut of produce in peak harvest time, the European Commission said. Russia has declared a one-year […] Read more

Don’t underestimate the value of farm marketing, say Cindy and Mike Wilhelm, who built a whole farm on that strategy

Fruit/Vegetables, Guide Business, Livestock

Dragonfly Garden Farm is ‘buzzing’ with activity

Eight years ago, the Wilhelm's struggled to get their farm off the ground. Now, they're working toward $1 million in sales

By Helen Lammers-Helps August 12, 2014

Reading Time: 5 minutes While many dreamers might spend their whole lives thinking they’d like to farm but never do it, Cindy and Mike Wilhelm made it happen. In fact, only seven months after making the decision to farm, they were the proud owners of a 70-acre farm near Chatsworth, Ont. that they named Dragonfly Garden Farm. Eight years […] Read more

Crops, Potatoes

Potato storage fungicide throws in three actives

By Country Guide Staff August 12, 2014

Reading Time: < 1 minute A new post-harvest fungicide to preserve potato crops in storage gathers three active ingredients for use against fusarium dry rot and silver scurf. Syngenta Canada last week announced the rollout for Stadium, a combination of fludioxonil (Group 12), azoxystrobin (Group 11) and difenoconazole (Group 3) for control of fusarium and suppression of silver scurf in […] Read more

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables, Markets, Potatoes

McCain to shut P.E.I. fries plant

By Country Guide Staff August 7, 2014

Reading Time: 2 minutes Prince Edward Island’s potato industry can expect a substantial blow this fall as french-fry giant McCain Foods moves to close its processing plant on the island by the end of October. The New Brunswick company, which supplies fries to both the retail grocery and restaurant and foodservice sectors, announced Thursday it will “cease operations” at […] Read more

Fruit/Vegetables, Poultry/Eggs

Feds fund poultry code updates and hort programs

By Country Guide Staff July 31, 2014

Reading Time: < 1 minute The federal government has announced funding of over $2 million to the Canadian Animal Health Coalition (CAHC) to develop and update poultry codes and further advance best practices for the care and handling of other farm animals. The government has also announced funding of over $1.4 million for the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre to […] Read more

Potatoes, Production

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

By Julienne Isaacs July 30, 2014

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

S. tarijense F1 hybrids beside a normal cultivated potato (S. tuberosum).

Crops, Potatoes

Wild varieties

A set of wild South American potato varieties with Colorado potato beetle resistance have donated genetic material to their North American cousins

By Julienne Isaacs July 22, 2014

Reading Time: 4 minutes When European explorers to South America first brought potatoes back to their home countries, it was a select few varieties they chose: those that could grow under longer day lengths. Most of the varieties at the Equator tuberize under short day lengths and can’t grow in the global North. As a result, the potatoes we […] Read more

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables, Markets

Juice maker Lassonde buys further into U.S. market

By Country Guide Staff July 4, 2014

Reading Time: 3 minutes Quebec-based fruit juice processor Lassonde Industries plans to buy its way further into the U.S. juice market — this time in the branded juice business, with a play for a national-level manufacturer. Lassonde and its founding family on Thursday announced an agreement to buy privately-held Apple + Eve, LLC of Port Washington, N.Y. for $150 […] Read more

Orange tree leaves with some symptoms of citrus greening. (Tim Gottwald photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables, Reuters

U.S. goes into battle against deadly orange disease

By Ros Krasny June 12, 2014

Reading Time: 2 minutes Washington | Reuters — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Thursday a total of US$31.5 million in funding to combat a plant disease that threatens to devastate Florida’s $9 billion citrus industry and has driven up the cost of a glass of orange juice. As many as 70 per cent of Florida’s citrus trees […] Read more

Daily Network News

U.S. researchers bet on hybrid, GMO seeds to make wheat profitable again

Hormuz-driven fertilizer shortage could raise grain prices, Goldman Sachs says

Prairie forecast: Arctic air keeps spring warming at bay

Fruit/Vegetables