Michael Raine

An unprecedented amount of unharvested canola left in prairie fields last fall could mean a serious volunteer headache for farmers this spring. Aggravating the problem is that 80 percent of the 860,000 acres of unharvested canola are herbicide tolerant, and much of that is Roundup Ready. “Fifty percent of all canola grown in Western Canada […] Read more

Dealing with canola volunteers this year will take careful field preparation, herbicide selection and cultural control. As much as 18 percent of the prairie canola crop remains unharvested. Rather than harvest it, many farmers intend to spread the crop as evenly as possible across their fields and control the subsequent volunteers. “For the crop that […] Read more

REGINA – Regina’s 98th annual bull sale compared well to previous high-profile, multi-breed sales this spring, despite the withdrawal of some potentially high-selling animals. Barry Young of Young Dale Angus in Carievale, Sask., had to replace four of his best bulls due to cold shock damage to the yearlings’ semen. “I couldn’t bring some of […] Read more

REGINA – Cold January temperatures and unpredictable winds have hurt bull sales and purebred breeders this month. “The problem is more than having a bunch of cattle running around with short ears next year,” said Jim Duke of Square D Herefords of Langbank, Sask. “This hurts an operation when you can’t bring out some of […] Read more

The ratio of nitrogen to sulfur needed to produce maximum canola yields may not be the prescription the doctor ordered. Rigas Karamanos of Westco Fertilizer in Calgary says that despite “sulfur (soil) tests not always being the most accurate,” a soil test is still better than a ratio when judging how much sulfur is necessary […] Read more

A federal researcher is trying to find out why manure smells. “Corn smells a little better in feedlot manure than barley and in the last two years there has been a lot of corn fed in southern Alberta, but I’m not sure the province smells any better overall because of it,” says Sean McGinn of […] Read more

Barley must change itself into a feed product that creates specialized meat, rather than continue as a byproduct of the malt business, say experts. Jim Helm of Alberta Agriculture, one of Canada’s leading barley breeders, said barley is superior to corn in many ways. “It has a better protein amino acid balance. Hulless varieties are […] Read more

A method of delivering pulse seed inoculant has shown positive test results in southwestern Saskatchewan. Putting pulse seed rhizobia inside a polymer coating “is the most effective way of infecting the plants yet,” said Swift Current, Sask., research scientist Bix Biederbeck, a recently retired Agriculture Canada scientist. Biederbeck helped develop and operate a single-season research […] Read more

Granular inoculants outperformed peat-based systems in pulse crop trials in southwestern Saskatchewan. Yanti Gan, a plant scientist at the Agriculture Canada research centre in Swift Current, Sask., said the study also showed it matters little where granular inoculants are placed. Whether they are side-banded or laid with the seed in the row, the effect on […] Read more

A phosphate-processing soil fungus didn’t improve lentil and chickpea growth in recent trials conducted in the brown soils near Swift Current, Sask. JumpStart, a commercial product from Saskatoon inoculant maker Philom Bios, contains the fungus Penicillium bilaii. It was first developed by Agriculture Canada at Lethbridge. The fungus takes phosphates that are otherwise unavailable to […] Read more