Shelterbelts still important Re: Kevin Hursh’s column, Field shelterbelts were never the right solution, Western Producer, page 11, June 26. Well, it’s apparent that Mr. Hursh never had to deal with the dry and wind years of the 1930s, when never-ending dust clouds, grasshoppers, Russian thistles and no rain settled on the Prairies. The settlers […] Read more
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Letters to the editor – July 11, 2024

Field shelterbelts were never the right solution
Sometime in the mid to late 1980s when drought, soil erosion and terrible grain farm economics were plaguing the sector, I recall a Save our Soils meeting in my hometown. A portable sign helped advertise the meeting, but someone rearranged the letters to spell “Save our Souls.” That actually captured the sentiment at the time […] Read more

Three new books offer winter reading
REGINA — Bill Schroeder was told to halt his genetic work at the Prairie Shelterbelt Centre when the then-Conservative federal government closed the Indian Head, Sask. facility in 2013. The gene pool of hardy prairie trees that had been developed there since the 1880s was deemed unneeded. “I was told to discontinue my program and […] Read more