Karen Morrison

Keith Downey’s career path came to a fork in the 1950s, with tines of either forage or rapeseed research stretching out in front of him. He chose rapeseed and went on to play a major role in the transformation of the crop and development of the canola industry in Canada. He took the plant beyond […] Read more

Retired plant breeder Al Slinkard is content to grow traditional garden crops in his city backyard and leave the chores of the family’s mixed farm outside Saskatoon to his son. The former plant breeder with the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan is best known for helping change the landscape of farm fields […] Read more

Fifty-four fallow deer were removed from a game farm near Spiritwood, Sask., after an SPCA inspection found 116 others dead. Frances Wach, executive director of the Saskatchewan SPCA, said two white-tailed deer from the 170-head herd were killed on the farm Aug. 14. “They were in poor condition,” said Wach. The surviving animals are being […] Read more

Ray Prefontaine returned to the ranch where he grew up prepared to do things differently. After a stint in Ottawa as an economist, he came home to Lisieux, Sask., in 1981 and sought expert advice on how best to manage and sustain his cattle and his land. He quickly realized that cows selected and depleted […] Read more

At five feet seven inches tall, 13-year-old Stephen Richter is dwarfed by the organic corn he grows with his mother Aloma Fowler-Richter. The corn, which can soar to nine feet, is part of a one-acre research trial using Organa Power organic fertilizer. It began last year in greenhouses at the Richters’ market garden south of […] Read more

Chronic wasting disease is a little understood disease with a long incubation period that will take several agencies to manage, a veterinary researcher told an international conference last week. “We need to provide the resources to get answers sooner rather than later,” said Trent Bollinger, regional director of the Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre. Speaking […] Read more

The Canadian cattle crisis has forced Allan McLachlan to suspend his university classes and seek off-farm work to maintain the cattle herd that pays for his education each year. One case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy discovered on a northern Alberta farm in May closed international borders to Canadian beef. It also limited McLachlan’s ability to […] Read more

A market gardener can put off dismantling his dam for now, pending an appeal this fall. Berny Wiens was ordered by the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority to create by July 10 a three-metre wide hole in the second of two dams on his irrigated farm at Herschel, Sask., to maintain water flows to neighbouring farms. The […] Read more

On July 30, four Mortlach, Sask., teens took their message that Canadian beef rocks to the largest one-day music concert ever staged in Canada. The Toronto concert was held to showcase the city following its brush with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus this year, but it also became a venue to promote and […] Read more

A new labour contract will give rural mail carriers job security and rights on par with other Canada Post employees, said Alice Boudreau, former president of the Organization of Rural Route Mail Carriers. Boudreau, who was a rural courier for more than two decades, is now assisting the Canadian Union of Postal Workers as it […] Read more