Reading Time: 7 minutes It was in the wide-open spaces of Saskatchewan where the trend was perhaps most apparent a few short years ago. A one-two combination had suddenly brought a lot of new attention to farming and farmland. First, crop prices spiked, creating attractive margins for the first time in a generation. Then, predictably, farmland followed suit, as […] Read more
Sizing up the farm
Lane Stockbrugger is betting that the age of the family farm has got a long ways to go yet
Double-cropping on a comeback
Today, the double-crop odds are even more in the growers’ favour, thanks in part to short-season varieties bred for Western Canada
Reading Time: 8 minutes When comparing current commodity prices against everything they have to pay for, including land values and rents, plus seed, fuel, chemicals and fertilizer, it’s no surprise that farmers want to maximize their soil’s performance. It’s enough to make double-cropping, especially after cereals, seem like an obvious choice — if only it wasn’t so risky. Maybe […] Read more
Pest Patrol: What advances in precision agriculture would benefit weed control?
#PestPatrol with Mike Cowbrough, OMAFRA
Reading Time: 2 minutes Auto steer and real-time kinematics (RTK) that allow an operator to repeatedly get within millimetres of a target are, to me, the most obvious investment that you could make to improve the efficiency of mechanical weed control practices like inter-row cultivation. Operator fatigue and accidental damage to the crop would be greatly reduced by integrating […] Read more
New in spring cereal crop varieties
Developments in the public breeding sector are generating excitement in spring cereals
Reading Time: 2 minutes The world of spring cereals may never be the same in Eastern Canada, especially in the next few years. In the past 12 months, two new positions have been filled within the public breeding sector, with new breaders at the University of Guelph and at Agriculture and Agri-Food’s Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre (AAFC-ECORC) […] Read more
Riders’ effects on therapy horses up for study
Reading Time: 2 minutes A new study in southern Ontario plans to look at the effects of the relationship between a therapy horse and its rider from the horse’s point of view. Katrina Merkies, a professor in the University of Guelph’s animal biosciences department, has picked up a $10,000 research grant from the Ohio-based Horses and Humans Research Foundation […] Read more
The case for long-term weed programs
With Enlist soybeans and Roundup Ready Xtend coming, the time to start stretching your weed control horizon is right now
Reading Time: 5 minutes As a concept, a long-term weed management plan may be nothing new. Even so, however, the reasons to adopt it are looking stronger than ever thanks to a combination of new technologies and a weed-resistance threat that keeps intensifying. The concept certainly has merit, says Dr. Peter Sikkema, professor of weed science with the University […] Read more
Better employees for a better business
It turns out that giving your employees opportunities to improve their skills really can be good for business
Reading Time: 6 minutes When you want a little more crop from the field, you shell out a little more for fertilizer. Or if it’s a few more pounds you’re looking for from your livestock, you spend a bit more on feed. Is it true of employees too? Can a little extra investment boost your results? There’s an extra […] Read more
Weather derivatives to mitigate weather risk to crops
These new risk-management contracts are finally getting easier to price and evaluate
Reading Time: 5 minutes Agriculture may be the most weather-impacted industry on the planet — by far — but it isn’t the only industry that’s affected by the vagaries of temperature and rain. It’s estimated that a third of the United States’ GDP and 70 per cent of firms in the United Kingdom are also exposed to weather risk. […] Read more
Pest Patrol: How do I control tansy ragwort in my pasture?
#PestPatrol with Mike Cowbrough, OMAFRA
Reading Time: 2 minutes By Kate Ayers University of Guelph, Ontario Agriculture College Tansy ragwort is a noxious weed most often found in pastures and hayfields. It is a biennial or short-lived perennial that reproduces through seeds and roots. Tansy is poisonous to livestock and can cause liver damage. Symptoms that may occur after plant consumption include: weakness, high […] Read more
Are farmers suffering from too much information?
With today’s big data, it sure would help to have those provincial crop advisers back on the team
Reading Time: 7 minutes While agriculture in Canada has been evolving in the past 10 to 15 years, there has also been a curious evolution in the quantity and the quality of information available to farmers. In the late 1990s, at least in Ontario, the governing Conservative Party began scaling back on what was referred to as “bricks and […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
