Reading Time: < 1 minute AARD release – Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has released a new 44-page booklet entitled Native Pollinators and Agriculture in Canada. The publication looks at the lives of important pollinators, how to protect wild pollinators, and creating and managing a pollinator habitat on a ranch or farm (such as building eco-buffers and creating nesting areas). To […] Read more
Free ‘Native Pollinators’ booklet
The ‘new’ wore off of ‘normal’ pretty quickly
The grain industry may have gotten a little too optimistic after last year’s whopper of a crop
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s easy to get a little giddy when things go much better than expected. For example, take last year’s bin buster of a crop. By any measure, it was an astounding production feat. Western Canadian farmers shattered all previous records on most major crops, growing a whopping 76 million tonnes, 50 per cent higher than […] Read more
Out of step with the people who matter most
A $100,000 study of consumer perceptions of agriculture speaks volumes about those asking the questions
Reading Time: 3 minutes The final report to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada from a series of consumer focus groups it commissioned last year is enlightening — but not because of what it tells us about how domestic customers view this country’s agriculture sector. Rather it speaks volumes about the people asking the questions. The final report “Modern agriculture and […] Read more
Aussie weed ‘seed destroyer’ ready to roll in Alberta trials
The Australian-made Harrington seed destructor shows promise for cleaver control in Alberta, but likely won’t work on wild oats
Reading Time: 2 minutes A novel way of controlling herbicide-resistant weeds has emerged from Down Under, but whether it will take off in Canada is still up in the air. “We know that herbicide resistance is a problem here, but it’s also a really big problem in Australia,” said Breanne Tidemann, a graduate student at the University of Alberta. […] Read more
Winter cereals match herbicides in controlling wild oats
Producers might be ‘fairly shocked,’ but study finds winter cereals are as effective as herbicides in wild oats control
Reading Time: 2 minutes Winter cereals control wild oats just as well as herbicides do, suggests a study underway in Lacombe. “When we had two years of winter cereals — either running or with an early-cut silage in between — we had as good of wild oat control as when we went three years of alfalfa or canola-wheat-canola-wheat with […] Read more
Expert says productivity has trumped welfare in breeding programs
New breeding techniques could improve welfare-related traits in animals, creating a win-win for livestock industry
Reading Time: 3 minutes Animal welfare shouldn’t take a back seat to productivity, says an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research scientist. “Health and welfare traits should take precedence over production traits,” said Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein at the recent Livestock Genomics in Alberta conference. “Successful livestock production will only be accomplished through welfare-conscious management.” But that hasn’t been the case in […] Read more
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