Crop Management
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
Crop Management
Plant breeders eager to begin genomic research
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
Farmers desperate to seed
POPLAR POINT, Man. – A trip through many parts of the Manitoba countryside is a journey through farmer hell, with big weeds, unseeded and late seeded fields and refugee cattle making the landscape an ugly quilt of bad-looking farmland. Super-saturated soil has hobbled farmers across large parts of the province since spring thaw, and the […] Read more
Clock ticks on China’s canola import rules
The anniversary of the one year extension on Canadian canola seed’s restricted access to China is fast approaching. The Canola Council of Canada announced a year ago that China had agreed to extend access for canola seed imports for another year under a certain set of restrictions designed to keep blackleg disease out of the […] Read more
