Michael Raine

LANIGAN, Sask. – Dale Termuende’s loafers slipped on the wet grass as he pushed through the overgrown caragana and honeysuckle hedge. Rainwater from the bushes splashed off his trench coat sleeve as he swept away the branches to reveal his heritage. A one-room house. A few small windows. A home for a pioneer family of […] Read more

When it comes to fall fertilization, the early bird could miss the worm if it shows up when the soil is too warm. Experts say fall application of fertilizer saves producers two of their most precious resources in the spring, time and money. Also, simple equipment can be used in the fall fertilizer application versus […] Read more

DALMENY, Sask. – Garry and Tina Vanderveen’s farm yard is full of pickup trucks and their poultry barn is full of people and chicks. It is a good day for a tour of the couple’s new high-technology broiler barn near this central Saskatchewan town because the uncomfortably hot 30 C outside should put the barn’s […] Read more

CONQUEST, Sask. – On a prairie plateau, with only the red gables of a few barns to bear witness, nine crop circles were formed in fields near here about three weeks ago. Who or what made them, and why, are the subjects of speculation similar to that surrounding most crop circle discoveries. Natural causes, pranksters […] Read more

HAGUE, Sask. – Len Hankins pulls a frozen Ziplock bag from a two-metre long freezer. The litre of frozen yellow liquid he holds sells in the city for $2. Each of his 32 milking sheep produce 3.25 litres every day during the 180 day milking season. “Establishing a sheep dairy has been a lot of […] Read more

A five-wood to the green for an ace and Trent Moskal became one grain bin richer. Moskal was golfing in the annual Tisdale Lions Farmers’ Golf Tournament at the nine-hole Riverside Golf and Country Club. On the 200-yard par three eighth hole, he dunked his ball for a hole-in-one. The eighth was a tournament sponsored […] Read more

Canola without petals: That’s like bread without butter. But Zeneca’s latest oilseed research is taking the golden color out of blooming canola fields in an attempt to fight the disease sclerotinia. It has research plots of a new Argentine variety growing at several sites across the Prairies. “It doesn’t look quite like other canola crops. […] Read more

Short-season prairie canola growers might get the opportunity to plant a hybrid Roundup Ready Argentine canola that matures a few days earlier. Canola growers near the American border and those on the northern edge of the farming belt often have had to choose the shorter season, lower yielding Polish canola if they wanted to grow […] Read more

NESS CREEK, Sask. – A lifetime of hard labor may have dulled the ears and hardened the hands, but it hasn’t stolen the soulful sound that Jack Millikin can make with a bow drawn across a saw. Pushed and pulled across a “cheap, old saw that I still use to rip a one by six […] Read more

Fire. Our prairie immigrant ancestors feared it. Subsequent generations farmed with it and now some of our native prairie needs it. “Once every 10 years is often enough. But well-managed fire is a necessary part of maintaining our native prairie … it can be an important tool for dealing with unwanted (domestic) plants and weeds,” […] Read more