Archives for July 2010

It’s a great year for winter cereals, not such a great year for canola, flax and canaryseed. The crop condition ratings in this week’s crop report from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture show that winter wheat and fall rye and looking great. Winter wheat is rated as 33 per cent excellent and 50 per cent …

Most years, there’s a wide variation in Saskatchewan fields. Seldom is it as extreme as this year. In many cases, the millions of acres of unseeded and flooded land is a mess. It was too wet for good weed control early in the season. It’s common to see waste-high weeds that are drying down from …

A couple weeks ago, there was hope for a quick resolution to Mexican import restrictions on Canadian canaryseed. Unfortunately, there has been limited progress in resolving the problem. Canaryseed exporters in this province say that about half of the canaryseed railcars stopped at the Mexican border have been allowed to enter, but the status of …

It’s been a very different growing season and with that has come a very different in-crop weed profile. Most of my travels are in West Central and Southwest Saskatchewan, and in those regions it’s been a great year for wild mustard. It’s a weed that’s easily controlled in cereal crops and within canola, but it’s …

The state of New York is implementing regulations that could cripple traffic through the St. Lawrence Seaway. The regulations pertain to ballast water used by ships to balance their loads. The discharge of ballast water is blamed for the introduction of many invasive species into the Great Lakes. The New York regulations require ships to …

Wheat, durum and designated barley prices are showing some strength, but they still aren’t very attractive. In the latest Pool Return Outlooks from the Canadian Wheat Board, there is little change in the values for the current crop year, but price projections are up for the new crop year. Wheat futures prices have increased to …

At a news conference yesterday, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers announced that it is contributing a million dollars to the Phytotron Renewal Project at the College of Agriculture and Bioresources. These specialized growth chambers enable year round plant research and teaching. The news conference was a time to reflect on what field pea, lentil and chickpea production …

A farmer from central Saskatchewan emailed me farm chemical pricing comparisons he recently compiled. He got price quotes from a farm input supplier down in the peanut growing region of the U.S. and found a lot of the prices considerably cheaper than what we’re paying in Canada. Note that the U.S. quotes are in U.S. …

Producers will be making their 2009 AgriInvest deposit at the participating financial institution of their choice. Up until now, AgriInvest funds sat in the government’s General Revenue account. Those funds will now be transferred to the producer’s AgriInvest account at a financial institution. The 2009 deposit notices should start to appear in mailboxes over the …

The PMRA has approved an emergency registration for aerial application of Centurion EC herbicide for control for grassy weeds in broadleaf crops such as canola, flax, field peas, lentils, chickpeas and mustard. The emergency registration for Centurion applies to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. This information came as a note from the Alberta Pulse Growers last …

My wife Marlene and I have long attended the Craven Country Music Jamboree. We’ve been at nearly all of them dating back to the mid-80s. That’s where we are right now, camping in the mud in an amazingly wet year. As we enjoyed the music and festivities of the Thursday night beer garden, a farmer …

Within five years, Canada’s seed industry should not expect CFIA involvement in the field inspections of seed crops. That was the message from CFIA officials at last week’s annual meeting of the Canadian Seed Growers Association. Predictably, seed growers are not happy. They point out that since 1928, it has been through Agriculture and Agri-Food …