For the next year, this column will mark The Western Producer’s 100th anniversary by taking a deep dive every week into a past issue of the paper.
If it’s summer at the Western Producer, readers can be confident that there will be at least one storm story.
That was certainly the case in 2013, when we ran a story in the July 11 issue about a storm in southern Alberta that dropped so much hail that some of it was still on the ground two days later.
Read Also
Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
“Some areas had to get the snow plows out to clear the roads,” Jacob S. Hofer of the Tschetter Colony near Irricana, Alta., said with a laugh.
“In 60 years, I’ve never seen something like that in this area.”
The soybean boom has come and gone in Saskatchewan, but in July 2013 it was still very much a hot topic.
The province’s farmers had planted approximately 170,000 acres that year, doubling the previous year’s acreage. However, with the boom came growing pains as many first-time growers struggled with variety choices.
The main problem, according to Kevin Elmy of Friendly Acres Seed Farm near Saltcoats, Sask., was growing varieties that really weren’t early maturing.
“Just because you call them early doesn’t make them early,” Elmy said.
The Western Producer’s editorial in the July 11 issue pointed out the potential scourge of zebra mussels and warned that their arrival on the Prairies appeared inevitable.
It said that if everyone took the proper precautions, the arrival could be delayed until researchers had enough time to find solutions.
Eleven years later, the mussels are still a potential threat but not a reality. I guess we must be doing something right, but the need for vigilance remains.
In some sad news, long-time Western Producer food and lifestyles columnist Emmie Oddie died at the age of 97. She wrote her column from 1949-95 and had a major influence on rural farm families.
TEAM columnist Betty Ann Deobald’s monthly column this year looking back at how the Producer covered rural lifestyle issues over the decades has regularly quoted Oddie’s advice.
