Sunday midnight. Beneath the gliding northern lights, a few tractors till the land, preferring the calmness of the night to the blustery spring days that have begun lifting topsoil again.
As the annual ritual of working the land appears across the prairies, crop reports appear in our newspaper.
Each week we compile information gathered from elevator companies, provincial agriculture departments, extension agrologists, farmers and other agriculture experts to show crop progress.
Since not all official crop reports are released in time to meet our deadlines, our staff make many phone calls on Mondays to update our reports. The reports begin with seeding time and go until the majority of the crop is harvested.
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This week we begin with a story updating the percentage seeded in the prairies, but next week we will introduce a new format for our crop reports.
Combining graphics and written content, we plan to present a package that is visually easier to read.
The final tuning of our information package is taking place this week. Some of the things that need to be considered are content, size, format, information sources, timing and resources needed.
For example, content could include operations such as seeding, spraying, fertilizing, swathing, or combining; crops could range from grains, oilseeds, hay to vegetables; regions could extend from Peace River to Red River Valley, from Churchill to Pincher Creek.
When we’re considering sizes, we need to look at how much information farmers want versus what space we have on a page on a regular basis. If it’s a standing feature, this will influence which ad sizes can be placed on that page.
We realize during this busy season farmers want to be able to tell at a glance how their farms rate against other areas. We hope our new crop reports will help.
