(Merschman Seeds video screengrab via YouTube)

Corteva wins final OK for global launch of Enlist E3 soy

Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — DowDuPont has won the final international regulatory approval needed, from the Philippines, for a global launch of a new line of genetically engineered soybeans, the company said on Thursday. The approval means seed companies can sell the soybeans, named Enlist E3, to farmers for planting as early as this spring without […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

U.S. judge to allow controversial evidence in Roundup cancer trials

Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — A federal judge overseeing lawsuits alleging Bayer’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide causes cancer on Monday tentatively allowed pieces of controversial evidence that the company had hoped to exclude from upcoming trials. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria during a hearing in San Francisco federal court called his decision “probably most disappointing for Monsanto,” the Bayer […] Read more


File photo of a sprayer at work on a field in France. (Debove Sophie/iStock/Getty Images)

France’s glyphosate exit seen 80 per cent complete by 2021

Reading Time: < 1 minute Paris | Reuters — France expects to have cut the use of glyphosate herbicide by 80 per cent by early 2021, its agriculture minister said on Friday, less than previously anticipated due to the number of farmers who will qualify for an exemption. In November 2017, President Emmanuel Macron pledged to ban glyphosate in France […] Read more

Grain Millers’ Saskatchewan milling plant at Yorkton. (GrainMillers.com)

Glyphosate raises milling questions

Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s more to the controversy surrounding glyphosate than whether the herbicide is safe to use or not: one miller has said it found oats and other grains treated with pre-harvest glyphosate don’t mill as well as untreated grains. Since 2015, Grain Millers Inc. has had a glyphosate-free policy on oats, said Eric Deblieck, a crop […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

Health Canada dismisses glyphosate objections

Reading Time: 3 minutes Health Canada’s 2017 decision requiring no major changes to product labels for glyphosate herbicide will stand, despite the objections filed in its wake. The federal health department said Friday it has reviewed eight notices of objection received after it released its final re-evaluation decision on glyphosate in April 2017. The objections were filed with Health […] Read more

Tom Button

Editor’s Note: Our greatest risk

The defining events of 2018 may have been the things that didn’t happen, like ripping up NAFTA or pulling the plug on ethanol supports. That’s not how it’s going to be in 2019

Reading Time: 2 minutes Our January 2019 issue of Country Guide, like our issues all through 2018, is full of good news. Has there ever been a time when farmers have felt so capable of withstanding weather and marketplace shocks that would have had them spinning in other decades? And has there ever been a time when farmers have […] Read more


Growers in the U.S. are dealing with the spread of Palmer amaranth, which overcame glyphosate as far back as 2010.

Better herbicide tolerance technologies are on the way

Better technologies are coming, but we’ll need patience and shrewd management until they arrive

Reading Time: 4 minutes Count off the many challenges facing a farmer in any growing season and outside of weather conditions, the biggest impediment has to be weed management, particularly as it relates to herbicide tolerance. In spite of the importance of varietal or hybrid selection and fertility, and the potential for yield losses from insect pests and diseases, […] Read more

The U.S. ‘No. 1 weed problem’ heads north

The U.S. ‘No. 1 weed problem’ heads north

Other weeds are higher priority for now, but be on the lookout for Palmer amaranth

Reading Time: 4 minutes It can grow two to three inches per day and reach eight feet tall. Each plant can produce more than a million seeds that can emerge right through the growing season. It has reduced yield up to 91 per cent in corn and 79 per cent in soybeans. It’s resistant to glyphosate and multiple other […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

U.S. judge selects first case in federal glyphosate litigation

Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — A U.S. judge overseeing the federal litigation against Bayer’s Monsanto unit over glyphosate-based herbicides allegedly causing cancer on Tuesday selected the first case to be tried in federal court in February 2019. U.S. District Judge Vince Chaabria in San Francisco in an order said the case of California resident Edwin Hardeman will be […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

U.S. judge orders next glyphosate cancer trial for March

Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — A California judge on Thursday granted an expedited trial for March in the case of a couple suffering from cancer who sued Bayer’s Monsanto unit, alleging the company’s glyphosate-containing herbicide Roundup caused their disease. The order by Superior Court Judge Ioana Petrou in Oakland, Calif. comes on the heels of a $289 million […] Read more