How far have we come in 30 years of plant breeding and agronomic knowledge? Well, in this edition of Wheat Pete's Word, host Peter Johnson reflects back on corn and soybean yield averages for Ontario and the gains may surprise you. What about wheat? Well, you'll have to listen to find out if we've made... Read More
Category: Crop Production
It has been quite the ride for soybeans over the past five years in Western Canada. From the promise of a can’t lose proposition, to the struggles of the past two years due to environmental conditions, soybeans are still working at finding a stable base of acres in the west. Due to the dry conditions... Read More
Chances are, if you like the look of old crop oat prices your neighbours do, too. And while the human consumption oat market is steady to increasing, Lorne Boundy, with Paterson Grain, cautions against counting on that to keep prices where they are. With old crop prices taking off and sitting around $4/bu in southern... Read More
The advent of herbicide tolerant crops has simplified herbicide selection and timing for those crops types, but that convenience doesn't apply to all. Plus, the reliance on a few chemistries has left farmers with herbicide resistance issues of several weed types. While the spectre of multi-resistant kochia or even worse weeds might seem insurmountable, Manitoba... Read More
Although the wheat market is often considered a stagnant one, it is in fact growing, says Marlene Boersch, owner of Mercantile Consulting Ventures. The market only seems stagnant because supplies have been growing as fast as demand. This may be changing, however, as Russia's — one of the world's largest wheat exporters — upward trend... Read More
When most people hear the term biotechnology they think GMOs. It's important to know that biotechnology is much more than just GMOs because understanding this helps us to understand how scientists are helping to provide food for the seven billion people on the planet. In this episode of the Wheat School, Dr. Harpinder Randawa, research... Read More
A streamlined process for grain dryer inspection and approval should make it easier for farmers in Manitoba to get up and running this upcoming harvest season. As all grain dryers have to be inspected by the Office of the Fire Commissioner (OFC), the organization has established a central booking process co-ordinated with Manitoba Hydro to... Read More
What would agriculture look like without livestock? It may sound like an extreme idea but it's one farmers and all stakeholders in the entire agriculture value chain need to contemplate, says Dr. Robin White, an assistant professor of animal and poultry sciences at the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Over the decades,... Read More
Planting depth, down force, row cleaners and closing wheels — they’re all key considerations when setting up your planter, says corn agronomy guru Ken Ferrie. At the CropSmart 2019 conference held at Kitchener, Ont., last week, Ferrie, the driving force behind Crop-Tech, one of North America’s leading independent agronomy firms, spent almost seven hours sharing... Read More
What a difference a couple of years make. It was not that long ago Saskatchewan Pulse Growers (SaskPulse) was sitting on a $30 million surplus and the projection was for the surplus to just get bigger and bigger. Now, after what may have been the most disruptive year in Saskatchewan's pulse growing history, reducing the... Read More