Reading Time: 4 minutes As you enter the gates of Farmfair International in Edmonton next month, there are some things you won’t see: rabbits and urban chickens. Those were a couple of the events former Farmfair organizer Northlands had set up in 2019 (the last show before the pandemic) to attract urban audiences. This year, with the stakes higher […] Read more
Where’s the beef? It’s at Farmfair International
New management goes back to basics with the focus squarely on the cattle shows
Wheat supply drop sharpest in a decade
Not only are supplies tight — so are ocean vessels for delivering to customers
Reading Time: 3 minutes It wasn’t only a bad year for growing wheat in Canada and the U.S. — poor weather in other major producers has sharply reduced the world’s exportable supplies. In a recent webinar held in conjunction with Alberta Wheat and Barley, Jade Delafraye of London-based Argus Media said the U.S. Department of Agriculture has dropped its […] Read more
The Big Surge: Elevator capacity soaring across the Prairies
The growth in the last four years has been phenomenal
Reading Time: 5 minutes The business of building grain elevators is — pardon the pun — on a runaway train. The growth has been, by any measure, phenomenal. In just the last four years, elevator companies have added 1.2 million tonnes of storage — a 16 per cent jump. And that expansion train isn’t slowing down. Late last month, […] Read more
Spot spraying gets lots of looks but many farmers seem hesitant
Some are holding off on ‘green-on-brown’ weed tech until it costs less and does more
Reading Time: 3 minutes When it comes to precision-farming technology, automated spot spraying of weeds would be a science fiction dream come true. If it lives up to its promise, farmers would save countless dollars in reduced herbicide use, benefit the environment, and maybe even gain the upper hand in battling herbicide resistance. In Canada, the face of spot […] Read more
B.C. startup company says it’s found a better way to deliver fertilizer
Product uses cellulose to bind micronutrients and keep them from leaching away
Reading Time: 4 minutes A Vancouver startup says it has created a “sustainable smart fertilizer” with a product made out of the hulls of lentils and peas. Lucent BioSciences says its product, called Soileos, drives an “on-demand” delivery of nutrients to plants while reducing farmers’ carbon footprint. And because it is made with cellulose, it is not water soluble […] Read more
The ball game has changed but the fundamentals haven’t
After a bruising year, farmers need a game plan to lower their risk in 2022, says veteran agronomist
Reading Time: 5 minutes Start planning to minimize next year’s risk as soon as you’ve parked the combine — and that starts with fall soil testing, says agronomist Matt Gosling. “There has probably never been a more critical year in my 18 years of doing agronomy to soil test,” said the owner of Strathmore-based Premium Ag. “Soil testing is […] Read more
Damp Ireland offers some grain drying tips for the dry Prairies
Farmers here can learn a few lessons about drying malt barley from the Emerald Isle
Reading Time: 3 minutes What can malt barley producers on the Prairies learn about grain drying and storage from a country like Ireland, where the climate almost couldn’t be more different? Quite a bit, says an expert familiar with both. The weather is very different but Ireland and the Prairies share some similar challenges, notably dealing with high-moisture malt […] Read more
Better grain bin sensors could put you in the combine a week earlier
The key to an earlier start is being able to successfully dry down higher-moisture grain, says expert
Reading Time: 4 minutes To some, new research on wireless sensors and automated fans for grain bins may seem like just another technical study. But there’s big stakes in play — an opportunity to move up harvest by a week or even two, says Chandra Singh. “When I joined Lethbridge College in 2019 there was a very early snow […] Read more
DOT earns passing grades at college, but not straight A’s
Fuel and labour are issues but the driverless implement shows plenty of potential in Olds College trials
Reading Time: 4 minutes Is the DOT ready for a full-time job on your operation? It might be too early to say, but researchers know the self-propelled, driverless tractor-minus-the-tractor finishes what it starts. “Every mission we started with DOT we were able to finish with DOT,” said Joy Agnew with Olds College. “There was never a catastrophic failure or […] Read more
Here’s how to stay (properly) grounded when installing electric fencing
Quality — whether ground rods, wire or insulators — is worth the money, says fencing expert
Reading Time: 4 minutes To anyone who’s never built one, an electric fence can seem like a pretty simple structure. In some ways they’re right — like any kind of electrical circuit, an electric fence requires a source of power, a conduit, some kind of ground and usually insulators. But, as is often the case, it’s only as good […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
