Steady harvest progression, but yields, crop quality suffers

Alberta crop conditions as of August 22

Reading Time: < 1 minute A week of warm and relatively dry weather throughout the province benefited crop development in the northern regions and allowed harvest to progress rapidly in the South. Crop Conditions have stabilized at 54 per cent rated good or excellent, down less than 2 points on the week. Provincial harvest progress has advanced to 6 per […] Read more

A Whole Foods storefront in New York City. (WholeFoodsMarket.com)

Amazon to cut Whole Foods prices amid intense grocery turf war

Reuters — Amazon.com said Thursday it will cut prices on a range of popular goods as it completes its acquisition of Whole Foods Market, sending shares of rival grocers tumbling over fears of even more brutal market share battles. Amazon’s $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods, which won antitrust approval from U.S. regulators on Wednesday, […] Read more


A Whole Foods Market store in San Francisco. (WholeFoodsMarket.com)

U.S. FTC clears Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods

Washington | Reuters — The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday it has cleared Amazon.com’s planned US$13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market. The FTC said in a statement that it had reviewed whether the deal would substantially lessen competition or constituted an unfair method of competition and opted not to pursue its investigation […] Read more

Representatives of Nuffield Canada visit Canada Malting in November 2016. (Nuffield.ca)

New crop of Nuffield scholars named

Canada’s agriculture sector has yielded four new scholars to join the international Nuffield community and receive funding for research in their fields of interest. Nuffield Canada, the Canadian arm of the international Nuffield organization since 1986, has named Ellen Crane, Josh Oulton, Gavin Robertson and Shelley Spruitt as its Nuffield scholars for 2018. The new […] Read more


Dry conditions continue to reign in south, six per cent of crops harvested

Alberta crop conditions as of August 15

Reading Time: 2 minutes Dry conditions continued in the Southern Region and some parts of the Central Regions, with a few areas receiving a brief reprieve. A portion of the North East Region received up to 70 to 90 mm rain, while most of the Peace region had less than 5 mm of rain. Provincially, crop growing conditions did […] Read more

There are five pesticides that grain companies belonging to the Western Grain Elevator Association don’t want to have been applied to crops they buy in the 2017-18 crop year started Aug. 1.

You’re being watched — by grain buyers worried about residues

It hasn’t happened yet, but exceeding residue limits on exported grain could cause a ‘big problem’

Reading Time: 3 minutes Grain growers are again being urged to heed the labels on their pre-harvest pesticides and avoid going over maximum residue limits. “We’re selling our crops mostly into export, and our exports markets are very sensitive to residual levels of different crop protection products that we use,” said Alberta Wheat Commission chair Kevin Auch, who farms […] Read more


Dry weather worsens declining crop conditions

Alberta crop conditions as of August 1

Reading Time: < 1 minute Provincial Crop Condition ratings declined a further 3 percentage points on the week to 57 per cent rated good or excellent as hot, dry weather continued throughout the South region and has broadened its hold in the Central region. Crop conditions declined 6 points in the South and recorded a significant 14 point drop in […] Read more



Crop conditions decline, hot, dry weather continues

Alberta crop conditions as of July 25

Reading Time: < 1 minute Crop condition ratings declined a further 4 points this week to 60 per cent good/excellent, compared to the 5 year average of 74 per cent. Hot, dry weather continues to cover the South region and is now affecting significant portions of the east half of the Central region and parts of the NE region. Heavy […] Read more

A screengrab from a promotional video for Bayer’s Proline fungicide. (Bayer CropScience Canada via YouTube)

Finer nozzle screens linked to Proline plug-ups

Bayer CropScience is recommending users of its Proline foliar fungicide double-check the nozzles they’re using before spraying, to avoid the “plugging issues” affecting some customers’ sprayers. The company on Wednesday reported a “small” number of cases in which farmers’ sprayers were plugging up during applications of Proline, a broad-spectrum prothioconazole (Group 3) suspension Bayer bills […] Read more