Bill Strautman

FOSSTON, Sask. – In the spring of 2005, Herbert Hallman decided something had to be done about the high cost of seeding his crop. The size of Hallman’s farm didn’t merit newer air drill equipment. He had been applying nitrogen with an old air seeder and then seeding with a hoe drill, but the high […] Read more

HUXLEY, Alta. – Lawrence Moran direct seeds with a 39-foot Flexi-Coil 5000 drill, which is set up with 12-inch spacing and pulls a 1720 three-tank cart, followed by an anhydrous tank. The star of this show is a third generation hybrid Morris Flexi-Coil Stealth opener that Moran modified himself. “Originally, we chose Morris openers because […] Read more

While barley is the preferred silage crop for southern Alberta feedlots, corn silage continues to gain acres. Most recommendations for growing silage corn come from Ontario and the United States, however, so a group of researchers designed a study to produce local information on seeding rates and row spacing for corn silage in southern Alberta. […] Read more

RED DEER – Barley is the most competitive annual crop grown on the Prairies, but competitive ability varies among varieties. A recently completed two-year study compared barley’s competitive ability with oats as a way to shed light on how feasible it might be to rank barley cultivars for their competitiveness. “We know barley is a […] Read more

Growing peas and barley together for silage produced the highest dry matter yield in a two-year study in central Alberta. In the study, which was conducted in 2004 and 2005, barley, faba beans, lupins and peas were grown alone and the results were compared to intercropping barley with each of those crops. No commercial fertilizer […] Read more

RED DEER – The most beneficial agronomic practices for malting barley production in southern Alberta are early seeding and appropriate rates of nitrogen fertilizer. “My simple rule of thumb is, if you target what your yield potential is, what you probably need is around 1.2 pounds of nitrogen (per bushel per acre) – soil nitrogen […] Read more

RED DEER – While nitrogen is critical for wheat yields, it also affects wheat grain protein levels. But Ross McKenzie, a soil fertility specialist with Alberta Agriculture in Lethbridge, said research suggests that adding an in-crop application of nitrogen to boost protein may not boost levels enough to cover the cost of the fertilizer and […] Read more

REGINA – With low commodity prices and high input costs, one of the first places a farmer might consider cutting costs is fertilizer. However, Stu Brandt, an agronomist at the Agriculture Canada research farm at Scott, Sask., said this might not be the place to start. At the recent Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association conference in […] Read more

REGINA – Taking soil tests can be a miserable job, but without information on what’s in the soil, fertilizer rates are just a guess. At the recent Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association conference in Regina, Adrian Johnston, an agronomist with the Potash and Phosphate Institute, outlined how fertilizer recommendations are made. “The soil sample process involves […] Read more

RED DEER – With more than 500 millimetres of rain in parts of southern Alberta last year, hay producers with no storage saw severe product downgrading. Tracy Dow, a processed forage specialist with Alberta Agriculture in Lethbridge, said there were reports of small square bale stacks with all nine tiers showing water damage and stacks […] Read more