Reading Time: 2 minutes A U.S. company ramping up a system to harvest, reproduce and restore beneficial microbes from a field’s own soils, as a way to restore peak fertility, expects to get backing soon from a Canadian farm equipment maker. Winnipeg-based Ag Growth International (AGI) said Monday it has signed a conditional letter of intent with Phoenix-based MyLand […] Read more
AGI to buy into soil microbe breeding firm
Machinery maker to take minority stake in MyLand
Federal NDP introduces soil health bill
Proposal calls for a National Soil Health Advocate
Reading Time: 2 minutes The federal New Democrats propose to set up a plan they say could help build up Canadian agriculture from the ground down. The NDP’s agriculture critic, British Columbia MP Alistair MacGregor, on Monday introduced a private member’s bill in the Commons to create a national soil health strategy for Canada. The strategy as proposed in […] Read more
Managing salinity with forages
Some saline areas can never grow a profitable annual crop. Two farmers share their experiences with seeding perennial forages instead
Reading Time: 8 minutes Some acres were never suited to annual crop production. As some farmers get a better handle on the profitability of each cropped acre, they are putting the most dismal of these acres back into perennial forages where they belong. Salinity is a common reason for chronic underperformance. Severe saline areas are sickly white, rimmed with […] Read more
Where marketing meets agronomy
Is regenerative agriculture a feel-good slogan, or an honest-to-goodness scientific advance?
Reading Time: 7 minutes It has taken social media by storm, as well as all manner of other discussions about food and how we produce it. But, really, what is regenerative agriculture, and why has it become such a focal point? Skeptics may dismiss it as just another fad, something manufacturers and processors are promoting while filling web pages […] Read more
A change in mindset on soil
We’ve always talked of soil productivity. Hmmm… what if we talked soil profitability instead?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Ordinarily, rebranding is an exercise that involves a change in marketing direction in a changing marketplace or inside a changing company. We see it so often in agriculture. A product gets rebranded because of new use patterns or new tank mixes, or just because of corporate restructuring. Occasionally, though, a concept gets rebranded because of […] Read more
Dig deeper to understand soils
Challenging what we’ve always thought can be enlightening, not disruptive
Reading Time: 7 minutes Traditions and routines can provide stability, familiarity and perhaps a sense of purpose. Yet when they keep us from exploring new possibilities — for whatever reason — there’s less room for meaningful change. Earlier in 2020, Greg Patterson was a presenter at the Certified Crop Advisor (CCA)-Ontario chapter annual meeting in London, Ont., and created […] Read more
Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show looks to lock in land base
GFM plans to buy research land for eastern Discovery Farm
Reading Time: 2 minutes As Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show goes digital this week, its operator is preparing to secure its real-world footprint in southern Ontario and put that real estate to year-round work. Glacier FarmMedia and the Ontario government on Tuesday announced their intent to work toward a land deal with the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario (ARIO), which […] Read more
New directions in cover crops
Today, factors like microbial interactions and soil quality are influencing choices and practices
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the midst of a renaissance in soil health, researchers, agronomists and extension personnel have been pushing the message that everything a grower does in a field is connected to everything else. Fertility is linked to planting depth, just as mycorrhizal fungi are connected to weed management. Nothing happens on its own without some effect […] Read more
Call in a nurse. A “nurse” crop that is
A second crop planted along with potatoes protects the soil and boosts yields
Reading Time: 3 minutes Recent years have seen increased attention on the health of the soil used in potato production, and attempts to bring potatoes into longer rotations with other crops. In the Maritimes, seed companies are promoting soybeans or corn as rotational options and McCain has developed one- and two-year multi-species cover crop blends to help boost organic […] Read more
Timmerman trains the Tiger Hills of Treherne
A Manitoba farmer has seen major yield improvement by recapping his hills with topsoil from his lower land
Reading Time: 5 minutes Dallas Timmerman farms in the Tiger Hills around Treherne, Man., and sometimes those tigers need training. “We have a lot of hills and sometimes you need to be aggressive with them,” he says. Timmerman’s chair and whip are a Leon scraper and Versatile 4WD. He started training his hills over a decade ago, working on […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
