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Tag Archives University of Guelph

Shawn Brenn of Brenn B Farms.
Crops, Fruit/Vegetables, Guide Business

The challenge of optimism

A look inside a modern Ontario hort operation finds a farm family wrestling with issues that may soon dominate the farm agenda coast to coast

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Reading Time: 8 minutes Some days, farming is more fun than others. Although he’s driven by a belief in agriculture, and although he’s working hard to keep building their farm enterprise, Shawn Brenn, president of Brenn B Farms Ltd. at Waterdown, Ont., admits there are also days when the frustrations can make him wonder. Every farmer knows the feeling. […] Read more
Guide Business, Management

Job descriptions: The right HR tool for our farms

“Self-efficacy” is a concept worth learning for farmers who want to manage their way to better farm productivity

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Reading Time: 5 minutes “It’s different than self-esteem,” says Sara Mann, of the University of Guelph. “Self-esteem is your overall belief in yourself. Self-efficacy is task specific… it’s the belief that you can actually do your job.” Self-efficacy is an idea whose time is right, says Mann, who has trained over 120 farm owners and supervisors on how to […] Read more
Portrait of a female farmer
Guide Business, Management

Your next employee

The solution to your labour shortage may be just waiting for you to give her a chance

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Reading Time: 5 minutes There’s a labour shortage on Canadian grain farms. And if industry predictions are correct, it’s only going to get worse… a lot worse. Following a three-year study, the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) reported in 2016 that several factors will combine to create a growing shortage of domestic labour for farms. With an anticipated […] Read more
Managing for glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane — and other weeds — is possible, but it will cost farmers more.
Crops

Tough news on fleabane

It takes a well thought out plan to keep glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane in check

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Reading Time: 6 minutes The world of science can often provide insight into some rather grim realities. But sometimes, fortunately, it can provide more than just insight. It can provide strategic help too. That’s the case with Dr. Peter Sikkema, who opened 2017 by making a presentation on herbicide-resistant weeds at the two-day Southwest Agricultural Conference (SWAC) at the […] Read more
Clubroot resistance in Canadian canola varieties has relied almost entirely on one source, “Mendel.” Fengqun Yu, research scientist with AAFC Saskatoon, led a project that identified many other clubroot-resistant (CR) genes, found genetic markers for them and then crossed some of them into B. napus lines that could be used for breeding.
Canola, Crops

Real results from public canola research

Potential benefits include genetic resistance to sclerotinia and clubroot

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Reading Time: 4 minutes Publicly funded canola genetics research is producing results in Canada. I recently heard presentations from the following scientists and was impressed with the potential for each project to increase yield or lower input and management costs for Canadian canola farmers. A new way to produce pure seed Tim Sharbel, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the […] Read more
The road to using variable rate can be overwhelming for many farmers, whether you’re using it for planting, spraying or managing specific zones in a field.
Crops

Who’s to blame?

Variable-rate technology is getting adopted, but not nearly as quickly as many farmers would like. Finally, this may soon change.

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Reading Time: 9 minutes When variable-rate technology first came onto our radars roughly 20 years ago, it was supposed to revolutionize agriculture. We’re still waiting. But maybe not for much longer. In fact, maybe we don’t have to wait any longer at all. The advanced equipment systems needed for variable-rate technology have started to become available in the past […] Read more
Dr. Viliam Zvalo.
Crops, Guide Business

Making ethnic markets pay

In Toronto alone, consumers are buying $400 million a year of imported ethnic vegetables. Could it make sense to grow them here?

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Reading Time: 5 minutes Edamame, okra, bitter melon, quinoa, Chinese long eggplant — all these are edible crops that you’d have had a hard time finding on the country’s store shelves 50 years ago, let alone growing in Canadian fields and greenhouses. They’re still crops that few Canadian farmers know about, and that even fewer have considered growing. But […] Read more
Can higher production co-exist with monitoring and maintaining the environment? The answer seems to be “Yes!”
Corn, Crops

Improving nature

Corn and the environment can work hand-in-hand, and thanks to our farmers, in many cases, they already do

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Reading Time: 6 minutes Every harvest season, word spreads quickly about yield. And happily, that trend line is up, with growers taking off phenomenal yields whenever the weather is halfway co-operative. But can today’s yields co-exist with a healthy environment? It’s a question that is getting asked more and more. And for the most part, it seems, the answer […] Read more
What’s your cultural intelligence quotient?
Guide Business, Management

What’s your cultural intelligence quotient?

Creating an environment that welcomes and is open to other cultures actually helps boost farm performance

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Reading Time: 4 minutes Along with the country overall, our rural communities are becoming much more culturally diverse. The evidence is that this is a good thing for agriculture. Research shows that diversity enhances innovation in the workplace. As well, agriculture relies on newcomers to fill the growing demand for workers in the industry. However, diversity in the workplace […] Read more
A response at this stage to sulphur likely won’t show up in soybeans, given the late summer demand of the plant.
Crops

Sulphur: Neglect it at your cost

Sulphur levels are falling in our soils due to reduced air pollution. It’s time to start monitoring yours

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Reading Time: 7 minutes For years, something that has been a scourge to the rest of society has been a serendipitous benefit to growers across much of Eastern Canada. But with industry and governments combining their efforts to “clear the air,” farmers are faced with a situation that’s slowly becoming an issue: sulphur deficiency in soils. It’s not that […] Read more

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