Reading Time: 7 minutes Too often, talk about wheat yields in Eastern Canada turns to what’s happening in places like Kansas, the United Kingdom or northern Europe, as if our best hope to increase our productivity here is to use the ideas they’re developing there. Increasingly, however, the smart money is on taking a harder look at our own […] Read more
The path to bigger wheat yields
Partly it’s genetics. Partly it’s agronomics too. But mainly it’s management
A better way to mill barley?
Cigi investigates improved milling of food barley by blending it with wheat
Reading Time: 3 minutes The milling performance of Canadian food barley may be improved by blending it with wheat, opening up commercial potential for its use as a healthy ingredient. Funded by the Agriculture Funding Consortium, with food barley varieties supplied by the Alberta Barley Commission, a one-year project conducted by Cigi (Canadian International Grains Institute) is aiming to […] Read more
In search of a good label
On virtually every pesticide container, it’s written in big, bold letters, “Read the label and booklet before using.” My guess is almost no one complies, and with good reason
Reading Time: 4 minutes It can be a ridiculous request. Labels have become virtual novels. The label for the most widely used pesticide in Canada, glyphosate, can be over 100 pages long. If you tank mix glyphosate with another herbicide such as Pardner, add another 59 pages to your bedtime reading. Has anyone ever taken the time to read […] Read more
Agronomy project aims to raise yields 25 per cent
Complex project will study intensive systems approach to crop management
Reading Time: 5 minutes Sheri Strydhorst isn’t doing a lot of fishing this summer. And if her research bears out, you just might be willing to give it up, too. An agronomy research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development in Barrhead, Strydhorst is leading an incredibly complex, multi-layered, multi-site, multi-crop research project designed to find out the extent […] Read more
Fungicide question on wheat is settled
For these farmers, it’s every acre, every year… but always at the right crop stage
Reading Time: 8 minutes Kristjan Hebert knows exactly what his target is when he is spraying fungicide on his wheat. “One hundred per cent,” says the Moosomin, Sask.-area grain grower, who farms with his father. “Our goal is to get it all covered at the heading stage.” That’s a far cry from just a few years ago, when the […] Read more
Preserve blackleg resistance
Clip canola stems this harvest to check for blackleg in your fields
Reading Time: 5 minutes Blackleg has a way of sneaking up on you. A farm can go for years without any noticeable problems. But without the grower knowing, blackleg races within a field can shift — often in response to seeding the same genetic resistance source over and over — and infection starts to show up where it hadn’t […] 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
The evolution of vertical tillage
It’s how you use your deep tiller that makes all the difference in crop performance
Reading Time: 7 minutes What’s vertical tillage? It seems like a simple three-word question, and you’d expect the answer to be just as straightforward. But no matter which farmer, equipment dealer or agronomist you ask, or how many times you ask them, you’re likely to get a different answer every time. In no small part that’s because the focus […] Read more
Brave new world of corn
It can feel like the glory days are over for corn, until you take a harder look
Reading Time: 7 minutes It’s easy enough to get pessimistic about corn these days. Just look at Chicago prices, or look at all the news reports from all around the world about the tremendous corn production potential of everywhere from Brazil to Ukraine. Or you could look closer to home, and get a dose of optimism. That’s what Ken […] Read more
On the rebound
Higher premiums and strong global demand are rekindling interest in IP soybeans
Reading Time: 6 minutes Ask anyone involved in identity-preserved (IP) or non-GMO soybean trade, and there’s plenty to say in favour of Canada’s reputation abroad and its leadership in quality. Unfortunately, they’ll also tell you that it’s been a tough go in the past two or three years. Since 2010, as total soybean production in Canada has increased, the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
