Reading Time: 2 minutes Lantic Sugar’s factory at Taber usually processes beets 24 hours per day, seven days a week from late September to April, running at a lower rate through the summer. Processing beets starts with a flume that carries the beets in water over screens that remove rocks and trash into a washer. Beets are dried off […] Read more
Beets To Sugar — What’s Involved
DDGS — Plentiful, Cheaper Than Barley, And Good Feed
Reading Time: 3 minutes “In a feedlot ration, it takes very little DDGS to provide excess protein. But the protein might be a real benefit in a beef cow diet.” Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) is now the lowest-cost feed energy source, and is now replacing barley and other domestic feed grain at feedlots in southern Alberta. “It’s […] Read more
Finding Markets For Alberta’s Multicoloured Crop
Reading Time: 3 minutes With a reasonable harvest complete, Viterra’s bean plants at Taber and Bow Island have switched to their winter work, cleaning and shipping beans. “It’s turned out not too bad a year, though our yields are down a bit,” says Taber plant manager Owen Clelland. “A few fields were hurt by a late frost, but quite […] Read more
Sugar Beet Growers Wait For Processor To Catch Up
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sugar beet growers have been in the “hurry up and wait mode” this fall, constantly watching their computers for emails from the sugar factory telling them they can harvest for a few days. The growers had barely started harvest of one of their best crops ever when an early-October blizzard took temperatures well below freezing, […] Read more
Alberta Sheep Industry Needs More Producers
Reading Time: 3 minutes “The Alberta sheep industry has a really bright future, with plenty of opportunity.” It may not be the thing to say in cattle country, but there’s plenty of room for more sheep producers in Alberta and Canada. Better yet, there’s money to be made raising sheep, says Alberta Lamb Producers (ALP) executive director Margaret Cook. […] Read more
Exploding Lungs Responsible For Wind Turbine Bat Deaths
Reading Time: 3 minutes “By delaying the turbines’ rotation until highest possible wind speeds and feathering the blades we can maximize our energy production and not injure bats.” Wind power has been one of the big success stories of the move to more environmentally sustainable power generation, but it turns out it’s not so sustainable for bats. In recent […] Read more
Alberta FCC Drive Fills Up Food Banks
Reading Time: 2 minutes FCC held its annual fill up the food bank drive across Canada on October 15, with Alberta employees collecting 83,572 pounds of food for local food banks. FCC has been running the food drive since 2004. That year, a single employee from the Listowel, Ontario office wanted to do something to help his local food […] Read more
Paperwork: Costly, But Doing The Job
Reading Time: 3 minutes At every turn there’s more and more paperwork around the cattle business, but it does pay off or at least reduce the downside. It may seem you don’t see the benefits but without that paperwork and the processes behind it, there’d be even less money circulating in the whole cattle industry. “It isn’t getting easier. […] Read more
New Mite Control Product Cheers Beekeepers
Reading Time: 3 minutes After three years of misfortunes from weather and disease, Alberta beekeepers may finally have some good news. A new mite control product, Apivar, with its active ingredient, amitraz, has been given emergency registration and will be available this fall for all beekeepers to treat their bees before they winterize hives. Apivar was available late last […] Read more
Cattle Feeder Searches For Signs Of Good News
Reading Time: 3 minutes “Right now, our dollar is going up and, to make that worse, fats are going down. So calves are going down too.” If you’re looking for good news on cattle prices, don’t call prominent southern Alberta cattle feeder Rick Paskal. He says that generally, low feed prices are good news for cow-calf producers selling spring […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
