Reading Time: 2 minutes Seed growers should make arrangements early with the company they want to inspect their pedigreed seed crops this year. “The key message is seed growers and (inspection) service providers need to be getting together over the next two to three months and nailing down the service agreement or arrangement for 2014,” Dale Adolphe, executive director […] Read more
Line up private field crop inspection services early
A 109-year-old system is changing in just 18 months and nobody knows how smoothly it will go
New Canadian canola production target: 26 million tonnes by 2025
The Canola Council of Canada says almost all of the new production will come from increased yields, not more acres
Reading Time: 3 minutes After hitting its production target of 15 million tonnes average canola two years early, the Canola Council of Canada has a new one — 26 million tonnes by 2025. It says it will be achieved not by planting more acres, but through higher yields averaging 52 bushels an acre, instead of the current five-year average […] Read more
Could new trait make swathers disappear?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Bayer CropScience says it’s about to roll out a canola hybrid with patented pod shatter-reduction technology, and some farmers who’ve tested it say it might mean parking their swather for good. “For me that’s probably the most exciting trait of them all,” said farmer Frank Groeneweg of Edgeley, Sask. during a panel discussion during Bayer […] Read more
Could new trait make swathers disappear?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Bayer CropScience says it’s about to roll out a canola hybrid with patented pod shatter-reduction technology, and some farmers who’ve tested it say it might mean parking their swather for good. “For me that’s probably the most exciting trait of them all,” said farmer Frank Groeneweg of Edgeley, Sask. during a panel discussion during Bayer […] Read more
Glyphosate-resistant weeds a real and present danger in Western Canada
Canadian farmers are being warned to be careful not to lose their most precious weed-control resource
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s like an episode of the old TV show “The Twilight Zone” — farmers repeatedly spray their crops but the weeds refuse to die. But that’s reality for many farmers in the mid-southern United States. Glyphosate, “the world’s greatest herbicide,” is no longer effective there due to an explosion of glyphosate-resistant weeds caused by a […] Read moreTerry Boehm steps down after four raucous years heading NFU
Reading Time: 3 minutes Terry Boehm says his four years as National Farmers Union (NFU) president were “tumultuous.” The grain farmer from Colonsay, Sask. stepped down at the NFU’s 44th annual meeting in Ottawa last month. Jan Slomp, a Rimbey, Alta., dairy farmer, was acclaimed the NFU’s new president. Boehm said one of the biggest blows came when the […] Read more
Stress relief: Bayer says ‘plant health compound’ boosts yields
Reading Time: 2 minutes It sounds almost to good to be true — spring wheat yields averaging 6.5 per cent higher when treated with what Bayer CropScience calls a “plant health compound.” Bayer has yet to disclose the exact nature of the experimental product, but says it boosts yields by reducing plant stress. The results are based on 19 […] Read more
UPOV ’91 coming through ‘Agricultural Growth Act’
Besides stronger plant breeders’ rights Bill C-18 proposes changes to feed, fertilizer and advance payments legislation
Reading Time: 3 minutes Canada has started the process of implementing UPOV ’91 — a stronger form of plant breeders’ rights that Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says will encourage more private-sector plant breeding and is also expected to see farmers pay breeders more in royalties. The changes are part of Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act, introduced in the […] Read moreUPOV ’91 en route through feds’ ‘Agricultural Growth Act’
Canada has started the process of implementing UPOV ’91 — a stronger form of plant breeders’ rights that Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says will encourage more private sector plant breeding and is also expected to see farmers pay breeders more in royalties. The changes are part of Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act, introduced Monday […] Read more
CWB plan to buy elevators renews questions about contingency fund
Some farm leaders worry money they believe to be farmers’ is funding privatizing the federal government’s grain company
Reading Time: 3 minutes CWB Ltd. is buying handling facilities, but some farmers are wondering who’s paying the bill. CWB announced last month that it would purchase Mission Terminal, Les Élévateurs des Trois-Rivières and Services Maritimes Laviolette for an undisclosed amount. Some have concerns that the former Canadian Wheat Board’s contingency fund, which farmers claim as theirs, will bankroll […] Read moreCyber-Savvy Farmer
