Alberta farmers, agronomists and agriculture retailers can get ahead of the busy growing season by placing their 2023 Blue Book orders.

Shipping was scheduled for early March. Hard copies will be available for $15 and PDFs at no charge.

To order, visit albertabluebook.com.

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“Along with annual updates to crop protection products and information, enhancements to the 2021 Blue Book included a revised sprayer operations section and a new section on pesticide resistance,” they said in a news release.

Officially called The Crop Protection Guide, the 2022 edition costs $15 and can be pre-ordered at albertabluebook.com. Shipping of the guide (which is more than 600 pages) will occur at the beginning of March.

“Blue Book sales from the 2021 season were consistent with levels from previous years further indicating that the resource remains a valued tool in Alberta’s crop industry,” the commissions said.

Last year’s edition is now available as a free PDF download at the website.

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When the province announced last year it would no longer publish the crop protection guide on fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and seed treatments, the big four crop commissions stepped in.

That includes a rewrite (by AgSafe Alberta) of the farm safety section and revisions to the spraying section and spray sizing nozzle charts by expert Tom Wolf, Alberta Wheat said in its most recent edition of The Grain Exchange magazine.

The new Blue Book (available at albertabluebook.com) came out in March and the crop commissions are now considering a collaborative pan-Prairie version, the magazine said.

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In 1970, the Liberal Government of Canada led by Pierre Trudeau decided that Canada should go metric.

By 1975, farmers were faced with converting land measurement to hectares, having chemicals measured in litres and spraying with kilopascals instead of pounds of pressure. The farm chemical companies followed federal instructions and started giving chemical spraying information labels to farmers in metric only.

I was appointed Alberta Minister of Agriculture in the spring of 1975. The next year in late June, I was home on a weekend trying to spray some newly seeded crop with information on the label all in metric.

We had been spraying for years in fluid ounces of chemical per acre with generally 40 pounds of pressure and always on an acre. How do you convert all of this, especially hectares to acres then fluid ounces to litres and what is a kilopascal?

I went back to Edmonton on a Monday morning and met with my Deputy Minister, Dr. Jim O’Donoghue.

I said to Jim, I just had the most difficult time trying to spray chemicals with all this metric information, the worst being hectares and converting from acres. I suggested to him that we should take all the chemical companies’ info and convert it to acres and pounds of pressure, and put it into a book for farmers to use. (We had already been using metric measurement of liquids and that was actually better than fluid ounces as everything was in tens, so we did not need to change that.)

Dr. O’Donoghue went back to senior staff in the Department of Agriculture with my idea.

A couple of weeks later they reported that it would not be possible as the Federal Government had mandated the metric system and chemical companies would be reluctant to provide information for a book using parts of the old system and against Federal instructions.

Remember this was before the internet and cellphones, so the only information you had was what was on the label. You had to do all the conversions yourself.

I said to Dr. O’Donoghue, we need to print the book and if some chemical companies don’t want to be in they will be left out. I said it will only take a few years and they will all be in, and the federal government is not going to win the war of converting all farmers to metric.

The Deputy Minister agreed and arrangements were made to publish the first book the next year.

I said it should have a blue cover.

Why blue? The PC Party under Peter Lougheed had only been in office since 1971 and we were still trying to replace some of the green Social Credit colour slogan with blaze orange or blue — which were our colours.

So this is why 43 years later you have a Blue Book in print and on the internet — all because of one frustrated farmer from DeBolt who happened to be Minister of Agriculture in 1976, and only had a Grade 12 education and could not figure out how many acres were in a hectare or what a kilopascal was.

And that is how the Alberta Agriculture Blue Book got started.

Happy Spraying,
Marv Moore

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The popular annual update of information on herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and seed treatments has been published by the provincial Agriculture Ministry for more than two decades.

But the province’s wheat, barley, canola and pulse commissions are now taking over the publication of the Blue Book (officially called the Crop Protection Guide).

“We wanted to ensure this long-standing publication continues to deliver value to Alberta farmers and agronomists,” Alberta Wheat/Alberta Barley general manager Tom Steve said in the latest edition of The Grain Exchange newsletter put out by the two farm groups.

A consultant has been hired to lead the process of pesticide product additions and updates and the new edition will be available in mid-March, the newsletter article said.

Further information, including when copies can be purchased, will be available at albertawheat.com or albertabluebook.com.

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“There are a couple of new herbicide products, but there are many more minor changes to existing registrations,” said crops specialist and co-editor Harry Brook. “The most significant change in herbicides this year is that quinclorac has an international maximum allowable residue level. It is in a number of products specifically to control cleavers in canola. Up until the fall of 2018, there was no recognized safe level and these herbicides could not be used in canola.”

The Blue Book can be downloaded at the Alberta Agriculture website while hard copies can be ordered by calling 780-427-0391.

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The Crop Protection book (as it is officially known) is updated annually for previously registered products and includes newly registered pesticide products — herbicides, pesticides, seed treatments, and foliar fungicides.

But this year’s edition has been converted to an app by the AAAF (Association of Alberta Agricultural Fieldmen). The Crop Protection 2018 app comes in both iPhone and Android versions, allowing farmers to get information on the go.

When it comes to chemical crop protection, the writeups for all product registrations in the Blue Book app make finding information easy. App users can narrow down results using filters through a specific crop type and pest to find applicable pesticides for weed, insect, and disease controls. These pesticides can then be saved as a favourite for quick and easy access at any time.

For more information on pesticide use or invasive plants, please contact your local agricultural fieldman. A searchable directory of fieldmen can be found at the Association of Alberta Agricultural Fieldmen website.

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“An important part of the annual update includes newly registered pesticide products,” said crop specialist Mark Cutts, co-editor of the book, officially known as Crop Protection 2018.

“This year’s edition includes new additions to the four main pesticide types: herbicides, insecticides, seed treatments, and foliar fungicides. In addition to including new products, previously registered products are updated. Significant changes in some products, crops covered, and usage instructions give producers more options than ever.

“For 2018, foliar fungicides are the pesticide type with the most new registrations, continuing the trend seen in recent years of significant growth in registered foliar fungicide products.”

The new fungicides are registered for use on canola, cereal crops, pulse crops, and potatoes.

There are limited new registrations for seed treatments and insecticides. One new seed treatment will be available in 2018, and it is registered on a variety of cereal crops. Newly registered insecticides are available for use on cereal crops, oilseed crops, and potatoes.

“New herbicide registrations include products that can be used in pre-seed applications or in-crop applications,” said Cutts. “Pre-seed herbicides are registered for use ahead of seeding wheat or on fallow acres. New in-crop herbicide products are registered for use on wheat.”

When using pesticides, it is important to be aware of pesticide resistance. It is recommended that pesticide products be selected based on chemical group and active ingredient. All pesticide products presented in the Blue Book have their chemical group and active ingredient listed.

The book can be downloaded for free on the Alberta Agriculture website. A hard copy, which costs $12, can also be ordered online or by calling 780-427-0391.

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This includes new herbicide registrations for pre-seed products and a number of new fungicides, including products for use on canola, cereal crops, and potatoes. Newly registered seed treatments are available for use on pulse crops, oilseed crops and potatoes. One new insecticide will be available in 2017. It is registered on a variety of crops including pulse and oilseed crops.

Printed copies of Crop Protection 2017 are available for $12 or it can be downloaded for free at www.agriculture.alberta.ca.

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