soil Archives - Country Guide

Unlike soil tests for phosphorus, potash or nitrogen, there is no current reliable soil test for sulphur in Ontario.

Why we need a sulphur test for eastern soils

Producers in the West routinely test their soils for sulphur. Soon the East may too

By Ralph Pearce October 7, 2021

Reading Time: 5 minutes For much of the past decade, a growing list of organizations have tried to build a link between soil health and soil test levels. They’ve wanted to raise awareness of the current status of soils on farms across Ontario, sometimes by pointing the way to higher productivity and profitability, and other times with a focus […] Read more

A 3-D illustration of Bacillus anthracis bacteria. (Dr_Microbe/iStock/Getty Images)

Livestock, Pasture, Sheep/Goats, Weather

Anthrax kills southeastern Saskatchewan sheep

Spores forced up by changes in soil moisture

By Dave Bedard July 10, 2021

Reading Time: 2 minutes Dramatic shifts in soil moisture are again bringing anthrax spores to the surface on the Prairies, this time in a southeastern Saskatchewan sheep pasture. Lab results on Wednesday confirmed anthrax as the cause of death of one animal in a flock of sheep in the R.M. of South Qu’Appelle, about 50 km east of Regina, […] Read more

Crops, Machinery

AGI to buy into soil microbe breeding firm

Machinery maker to take minority stake in MyLand

By Dave Bedard June 15, 2021

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

Flea beetle. (Photo courtesy Canola Council of Canada)

Canola, Crops, Weather

Forecast, flea beetles complicate canola timing

Dry conditions make ideal seeding time difficult to peg

By Alexis Stockford May 15, 2021

Reading Time: 3 minutes Drought conditions, and the odds of more to come, have some Prairie canola growers pondering when to roll the dice on seeding, if they want to do more than feed the flea beetles. Small-seeded crops, such as canola, have garnered particular concern from agronomists and producers worried about germination, given power dry topsoil across much […] Read more

John Deere says its new line of heavy harrows features a quick folding and unfolding sequence to help farmers move more quickly between fields. (Deere.com)

Crops, Machinery

Degelman to make heavy harrows for Deere

Regina company reaches OEM agreement for new line

By Dave Bedard February 12, 2021

Reading Time: 2 minutes Major U.S. farm equipment manufacturer John Deere Co. has launched a new line of heavy harrows — and is going to Saskatchewan to get them. Regina equipment maker Degelman Industries announced Tuesday it has reached an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) agreement to provide Deere with a line of three heavy harrow models, the HH50, HH70 […] Read more

The easiest fit in regenerative agriculture is for livestock graziers with no annual crops.

Crops, Livestock

Where marketing meets agronomy

Is regenerative agriculture a feel-good slogan, or an honest-to-goodness scientific advance?

By Ralph Pearce December 14, 2020

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

Erich Vetter was looking for challenge and opportunity when he abandoned Germany’s heavily regulated agriculture 13 years ago. In the valley, he says, he’s found plenty of both.

Crops, Features

The life of the Red River

It took vision to turn the Red River Valley into some of Canada’s most productive farmland. And it still takes vision to farm it today

By Bill Redekop December 8, 2020

Reading Time: 10 minutes Two centuries ago, when the Scottish settlers first began to arrive, the Garden of Eden was nowhere in sight. This place was marsh, it seemed all but useless, and it took farmers to find the value in Manitoba’s famously fertile Red River Valley and to make it habitable. The valley was 60 per cent wetland […] Read more

Use of inoculants — even in long-standing soybean fields — is a cost-benefit decision for a grower.

Crops, Soybeans

Soybean inoculant a rare find

This innovative inoculant begins with a new bacterial species, then stacks it with another

By Ralph Pearce October 28, 2020

Reading Time: 3 minutes Soybean inoculants have undergone considerable change in the past 30 years, evolving from non-sterile to sterile formulations in the 1990s and then to an almost complete reliance on the Bradyrhizobium japonicum bacterial species, with other strains added during the first decade of the 2000s, although primarily as nodulating triggers or plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium (PGPR). Now, […] Read more

“If adding practices doesn’t do anything to create value… why do it in the first place?” – Jonathan Zettler, Fieldwalker Agronomy Ltd.

Crops

A change in mindset on soil

We’ve always talked of soil productivity. Hmmm… what if we talked soil profitability instead?

By Ralph Pearce October 21, 2020

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

What’s happening below the soil has a greater impact on crop performance and yield.

Crops

Dig deeper to understand soils

Challenging what we’ve always thought can be enlightening, not disruptive

By Ralph Pearce September 28, 2020

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

Italy vetoes sale of seed producer to Chinese-owned Syngenta

Co-op to capture carbon at ethanol plant, refinery

Britain, New Zealand strike free trade deal

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