A John Deere combine sits on the show floor at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky, on Feb. 13, 2025.

The pros and cons of new technologies

New tech and equipment can be fun and often helpful, but experts caution against “new and shiny” syndrome

Reading Time: 3 minutes New farm technology hitting the marketplace can be awfully enticing, and it’s not been unheard of in years gone by to cause a frenzied “must-buy” reaction from those wowed by a demonstration. But just because the latest whiz-bang creation can, for the sake of argument, combine, check the markets, and cook an egg, all while […] Read more



A spray drone used water to demonstrate the potential of the technology during a Manitoba crop tour this summer.

Legal drone spraying takes step closer to reality

CFIA says the work that is ongoing to satisfy federal regulatory authorities is moving faster than previously anticipated

Reading Time: 3 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – The ray of hope might be dim right now, but farmers wanting to legally spray pesticides on their crops using drones may be seeing the first hint of light at the end of the tunnel. Ross Breckels, a senior scientific evaluator with Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), said the process […] Read more


Australia’s XAG promotes on-farm drones, confidently calling the machines the “agrifuture”.

Summer Series: Drone spraying

[Change Management] Farmers really don’t care who is to blame for the delays. They just want the regulations changed yesterday so they can spray tomorrow

Reading Time: 8 minutes The off-label application of pesticides in Canada is going to increase exponentially over the next few years. This is what I believe and expect, and I expect too that it will pit farmers, government regulators, pesticide companies, equipment manufacturers and environmentalists against one another. In fact, the blame game has already started. At issue is […] Read more

Felippe Karp is a a PhD candidate from McGill University doing fieldwork at Olds College of Agriculture & Technology. Through a McGill, Telus and Olds College joint project, Karp is studying how to bring together multiple layers of farm data to support agricultural decision making.

AI for data analysis

[AI for the Farm] Farms are building giant heaps of data. Somewhere in them is something valuable, call it a star of hope. But how do you pick out the useful stuff? It looks like artificial intelligence will help

Reading Time: 6 minutes Your conversation starts with a text on your device: FARMER: “Farmbot, please make me a prescription map.” BOT REPLIES TO FARMER VIA TEXT: Would you like to do variable rate seeding on field 10?FARMER: Seed costs are higher, so yes.BOT: Would you like me to produce a rate map for you?FARMER: Yes.The Bot provides the map […] Read more


Stephen Vajdik and Adam Gurr run an Agrifac sprayer, made in the Netherlands, mounted with a Bilberry optical system. The sprayer has industry-leading features they wanted, including a recirculating boom, individually controlled nozzles and stable suspension.

How optical sprayers do a whole lot more

[Better Advice] Optical spraying systems can pay off if used only for pre-seed burnoffs, but with a little pushing of boundaries, these farmers are finding they can also use the technology to target fungicides and pre-harvest desiccants

Reading Time: 5 minutes Early adopters are buying optical spraying systems to greatly reduce the amount of herbicide required for pre-season burnoff of weeds. This alone is often enough to justify the cost for larger farms that cover thousands of acres per year. But pre-seed burnoff — seeing green weeds on brown ground and spraying them — is just […] Read more

The big ag equipment makers are all focused on growing their profit margins. Want to guess who will pay?

More features = more of your money

How you pay for your next new machine and get to use all the advanced features built into it is set to change dramatically

Reading Time: 6 minutes An unusual thing happened in the automotive industry during the last couple of years. Or, rather, two things happened. Overall, sales of cars and light trucks fell pretty significantly. Yet corporate profits went up anyway. In fact, they soared. How? Well, to find out, just walk through any dealership lot and look at what all […] Read more