Editor’s Note: Western Producer journalist Ron Lyseng took an in-depth look at Alberta’s now completed controlled traffic project and report and has provided his analysis. Controlled traffic farming is similar to the time-proven tramline concept, except that CTF takes it all one important road forward. All equipment tires must follow exactly same paths in the […] Read more
Author Archives
Grow wheat on shale
Twenty bushels of wheat per acre isn’t impressive, but if that piece of ground had a long history of giving you zero bu., then all of a sudden it is significant. That’s how Dallas Timmerman feels about his knoll rehabilitation program. Timmerman farms at Treherne, Man., an area where tops of the eroded hills expose […] Read more
Simplified drop pan reduces combine losses in field
Seed for the ScherGain magnetic drop pan concept can be traced back to a father and son argument out in a field in western Saskatchewan. Pat Sherman recalls that he and son Trevor were having one heck of an argument about which way to go with combine adjustments. The only thing they could agree on […] Read more
Grain bags: Rolling and recycling
Waste agricultural plastic, including grain bags, is attracting the evil eye of media outlets and the public. It’s easy to criticize massive piles of useless, used plastic. That’s why farmers and industry must jointly find a solution to the problem, a public relations dilemma and an environmental issue, says Rob Wierenga. The co-owner of Neeralta […] Read more
Bin monitor makes money
If you save a 13,000 bushel bin of $12 canola, worth $156,000, you have more than paid for the price of a good monitoring system. That’s the conclusion Yorkton farmer Siegert Wenning arrived at last winter while vacationing in his homeland of Holland. Wenning grows 4,500 acres of canola, peas and oats annually. While in […] Read more
Farmers have got grain in the big poly bag
Grain bags have come a long way in a decade. No longer an emergency measure, bagging is now standard on many farms. Three factors pushed grain bags into the mainstream of prairie farming: expanding farm size means producers are growing grain further from their main yards, often on leased or unserviced land, where many growers […] Read more
Not big on bagging
Not everyone is big on bagging. Some growers think their money is better invested in long-term steel bins rather than temporary plastic that becomes a liability once the bag is empty. Ten years ago, farmers were skeptical about storing grain in these new plastic bags. At that time, one of the biggest suppliers of steel […] Read more
Wireless real-time NPK readings from your field
Automated warning system provides alerts in emergency situations
Real-time 24/7 NPK data from the field can help fine-tune your fertility program. Wireless soil sensors relay critical information you can use to reduce waste and boost yields. The Teralytic probe is a metre-long, battery-powered device a farmer shoves into the earth. The shaft contains 26 sensors that measure localized subterranean moisture, salinity, nitrate, potassium, […] Read more
Kinze continues tuning its tillage tools
Mach Till cuts and throws soil at an angle to avoid creating a smear or compaction lay
Tillage technology continues to evolve as farmers move toward precisely controlled cultivation. That process took another step forward when Kinze introduced four new devices, spotlighting hybrid horizontal tillage. Vertical tillage was the big buzzword in field preparation a decade ago. Although most manufacturers still build vertical tillage machines, hybrid horizontal tillage is the latest step […] Read more
Green guidance on off-color combines
Move your Greenstar to the red, yellow, blue, orange or purple implement of your liking
Tt’s not unusual to see a prairie farmyard with mainly green implements, and then combines in other colours contrasting with the other machines. The farmer with the mismatched combines is probably cursing because he can’t get his favourite combine GPS to communicate with his trusty Greenstar Starfire. That’s the situation in which Johannes Heupel was […] Read more
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