Last year’s cool, wet weather was good for at least one thing: controlling grasshopper populations. The 2011 forecast shows just a few hot spots, mainly in southwestern Saskatchewan, said provincial insect specialist Scott Hartley. Areas showing the possibility of severe risk to cereals include the rural municipalities of Val Marie, Lone Tree, Pinto Creek, Auvergne, […] Read more
Tag Archives Production
Grasshoppers pose minimal threat in Sask.
New products – for Mar. 3, 2011
NEW WINDROWER MacDon of Winnipeg is offering a new windrower. The M205 and R8 rotary disc machines replace the M200 and R80 machines. Cummins diesel engines rated at 220 horsepower, with a boost to 230 can run draper headers up to 40 feet wide on the M205. The R85’s rotary head now sports an overshot […] Read more
Gov’t not hearing organic sector’s demand for choice on GM
Companies that develop genetically modified crop varieties plan to produce more such varieties in the future. Organic farmers wish to avoid GM plants and seeds in their systems. They are at opposite ends of the issue. Why can’t they just agree to coexist? The debate heated up recently when the U.S. Department of Agriculture authorized […] Read more
From auto steer to autonomous
ATLANTA – Fieldwork has been a solitary task since oxen first replaced the spouse on the plow. The step from automated guidance and steering to automated operation may change that and result in fewer lone farmers in the field. The first glimpse of what autonomous machines might look like in the field came in Soviet […] Read more
Manitoba’s wet weather reduces hopper threat
Manitoba’s provincial entomologist is confident grasshoppers won’t be a problem in the province this year. Rainy weather last August and September made it difficult for grasshoppers to lay eggs, which means fewer of them should emerge from eggs this spring. “We had a lower population to start with and they didn’t get great egg laying […] Read more
Knife-type applicators reduce nitrogen losses
At today’s nitrogen prices, a five percent loss of anhydrous ammonia is a hard pill to swallow. Work by agricultural engineer Mark Hanna at Iowa State University has shown that some applicators are better at anhydrous ammonia retention than others over a range of soil conditions. Shank-type units tend to lose less anhydrous ammonia than […] Read more
2010 great year in Alberta for crop diseases to thrive
Weather that favoured crop disease and the breakdown of resistant crop varieties resulted in a nasty year in 2010. Ron Howard, an Alberta Agriculture research pathologist based in Brooks, Alta., provided a synopsis of crop disease at the Agronomy Update Conference in Lethbridge Jan. 18. “This is one of the worst years that we’ve seen […] Read more
New wheat board chair wants meeting with cabinet minister
Near the top of Allen Oberg’s to-do list is arranging a meeting with Gerry Ritz.Oberg, the new chair of the Canadian Wheat Board, said that since becoming a wheat board director in 2002, he has met Ritz, the minister for agriculture and the CWB, only once.“I’d welcome a face-to-face meeting with the minister at any […] Read more
Oberg wants new barley vote
Any move toward ending the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk for barley will require a new plebiscite, said the chair of the Canadian Wheat Board.And this time, said Allan Oberg, it needs to be done right.To Oberg, that means public discussion is needed before the vote to sort out what format a new plebiscite should […] Read more
New Product – for Jun. 17, 2010
Blight control Fusarium head blight has a new enemy in Canada.The Pest Management Regulatory Agency approved Caramba, a Group 3 triazole fungicide, for registration last week.Caramba, metconazole, protects and cures a variety of fungal diseases in a variety of crops. It is made by BASF.In fusarium graminearum infections, it reduces deoxynivalenol contamination in the seed […] Read more
