Glacier FarmMedia – Producers have a new website to bookmark if they’re looking for weed information on the Prairies. The Western Grains Research Foundation has announced the official launch of a weed monitoring hub, prairieweeds.com. The website will be the new digital host for resources, data, weed maps and research under the Prairie Weed Monitoring […] Read more
New website against weeds launched
Weed seed destructors rare on Canadian farms
The devices are slowly gaining momentum in this country
Reading Time: 2 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – About 30 weed seed destructors were used last fall on farms across Canada, says an Agriculture Canada scientist. That isn’t a lot, as the country has some 50,000 grain farms that buy about 2,000 new combines every year. But adoption of the destructors, which pulverize weed seeds before they exit the combine, […] Read more
Agritechnica update: Give a big shock to weeds
Farmers are being pushed to find an alternative to desiccants to burn down crops, as companies are increasingly leery of herbicides approved close to harvest. People have been shocking weeds with electricity for 100 years, but the return on the electricity invested and the technology required to do so safely haven’t always worked. Crop.zone is […] Read more
‘Little hammers’ control weeds on organic farm post-harvest
Tillage, grazing and cover crops are options for organic growers
Reading Time: 5 minutes Conventional grain farmers have chemical tools to manage weeds post-harvest, but for certified organic producers like Ward Middleton, options are limited. “We don’t really have a sledgehammer-type problem-solving option to control weeds, so we have to use many little hammers,” said Middleton, quoting weed ecologist Eric Gallandt, who coined the phrase at the 2012 Canadian […] Read more
The best time to manage weeds post-harvest
Reading Time: < 1 minute Fall is a good time to spray perennials and winter annual weed species because pre-winter management can help preserve critical soil moisture for the following spring. Controlling winter annuals when they are small also offers better control. That said, spraying immediately after harvest will not offer the best results. Perennials that are chopped to stubble […] Read more
The benefit of bitters for horses
Bitter plants can provide a natural booster for horses’ gut health
Reading Time: 2 minutes Domestic horses are known for their preference for lush green pastures and sweet hay, yet their natural foraging behaviour intrigues equine professionals, scientists and horse owners: their attraction to a specific group of plants known as bitters. Horses, with their remarkable sense of taste and intuition, display a strong and deliberate inclination toward certain plants […] Read more
The time to attack Canada thistle is now (or soon)
A herbicide application after a hard frost can hit the noxious weed where it lives
Reading Time: 3 minutes Of all the weeds beef producers should focus on, Canada thistle is high on the list. Livestock avoid the prickly plant and it’s said to cost Canadian ag and forestry $7.5 billion in lost revenue annually. Fall control on pasture might be one of the most effective tools in stopping growth of the noxious weed, […] Read more
Palmer amaranth pops back up in Ontario
Weed infamous in U.S. for multiple herbicide resistances
A single plant that showed up this summer on the edge of a southwestern Ontario cornfield is cause for concern among Canadian farmers, weed specialists warn. Writing Monday in the ag ministry’s Field Crop News, Ontario provincial weed management specialist Mike Cowbrough said the plant in question, found in Wellington County, is confirmed as palmer […] Read more
At Ag in Motion: Herbicide resistance fight needs integrated seed management
'Those seedlings we don’t manage to kill (are) probably the most herbicide-resistant'
Harvest weed-seed control takes aim at reducing herbicide-resistant weeds that western Canadian farmers find more and more every year. At the Ag in Motion outdoor farm show this week, field residue management manufacturer Redekop won the Innovations Award for Environmental Sustainability for its harvest Seed Control Unit, which destroys more than 95 per cent of […] Read more
At Ag in Motion: Harvest weed control still in the mix
'You’re not going to spray your way out of this'
It’s a relatively new solution to the age-old problem of trying to get rid of weeds without broadcasting the seed or using increasingly less effective herbicides — mechanical separation and pulverization of weed seed. Harvest weed seed control might not be a golden bullet to tackle glyphosate-, fluroxypyr- and dicamba-resistant weeds, but according to Agriculture […] Read more
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