Crop Management
Common burdock is a tenacious biennial weed that reproduces from seed. It is the seed that makes this weed such a pest. The plant’s burrs are two to three millimetres with barbed bristles that stick to nearly any hair or fibre. Animals can become heavily burdened by these seeds. The weed is heavily branched up […] Read more
Crop Management
Weed of the Week: Common burdock
Grain bag roller easy on wallet, environment
Steve Greenslade got to work when a customer told him that what he really needed was a grain bag roller. The owner of Greenslades Northern Welding Ltd. in Hanna, Alta., has spent the last couple of months taking the idea to prototype, patent and product. Last week he attended the Western Canada Farm Progress Show […] Read more
Plant breeders eager to begin genomic research
The first cheques from a new multimillion-dollar research funding program are now arriving at the University of Saskatchewan and Agriculture Canada. The Western Grains Research Foundation established the Directed Research Program (DRP) last year to fund large, co-ordinated research initiatives in high priority areas. Funding comes from investment earnings on the WGRF’s endowment fund, which […] Read more
Alternative to CWB check-off collection sought by foundation
The following two paragraphs originally contained errors. Those errors have been corrected in the story below: “Our objective is to have something ready that can be on the ground and ready to go (by August 2012) so we don’t have an interruption in our check-off revenue stream.” “Scott said a recent study estimated that […] Read more
Western Producer Crop Report – for Jun. 23, 2011
MANITOBA SOUTHWEST Rain ends seeding Storms that dumped 10 to 50 millimetres of rain early last week ended any chance of seeding this year for producers who have been dealing with soggy fields all spring. Seeding progress ranges from 25 to 40 percent complete in the Killarney-Boissevain area to 15 to 25 percent near Souris […] Read more
Late seeding threatens scant crop
Thousands of farmers have already been devastated by large acreage losses because of flooding and saturation, but many thousands more will be worrying all summer about frost. A large minority of the Prairies was seeded late and is developing slowly, opening the window to the threat of frost. Long, warm falls have saved many farmers […] Read more
Rain brings more heartache to Manitoba
Hundreds of Manitoba farmers have been annoyed, aggravated and exasperated this spring by fields too wet for seeding. Yet, Andy Barclay, who farms north of Souris, Man., was dealing with an additional water crisis last week. The basement of his home in Souris was flooded after a 75 millimetre rain drenched the community. Barclay pumped […] Read more
Flax crop stalled by weather
David Sefton doesn’t hesitate when asked to describe his farmland near Broadview, Sask. “It looks like lakefront property,” he said. Fortunately for him, 1,200 of his 4,500 acres are in the Qu’Appelle Valley where the land’s natural slope has thwarted the development of swamps and sloughs. “The land out of the valley, we probably won’t […] Read more
Wet fields bring grim outlook for oat crop
How do you peg a crop that’s good, bad, seeded, unseeded, late and early? That’s the conundrum confronting the oats industry as it sorts through the wildly varying conditions facing prairie farmers. It’s true for many crops growing on the Prairies, but the question is especially relevant for the oats industry, which is almost totally […] Read more
Troubled economy threat to grain prices
A host of economic and financial problems threaten the commodity market rally that has driven crop and meat prices to record highs in the past year. However, many analysts doubt that those problems will come together to snuff out world economic growth and recovery. And agricultural commodities have the best chance to ride out any […] Read more
