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Here are a few market outlook tidbits from Crop Production Week. Bruce Burnett, the director of weather and market analysis for the Canadian Wheat Board says durum is about to reestablish its traditional premium over spring wheat. Durum has been at a discount the past couple years. Burnett says that over the next two to …

Alberta farmers are finally growing some lentils. The numbers are contained in the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Report which has just been published. In 2010, Alberta had 140,000 acres of lentils, up from only 45,000 acres in 2009. In the years previous to 2009, the stats show virtually no lentils in Alberta. At …

Drew Lerner with World Weather Incorporated out of Topeka, Kansas spoke last night to over 500 people attending the Special Session of Crop Production Week in Saskatoon. There were lots of charts and graphs and weather theories, but there were also take home messages from the presentation. Lerner predicts cool weather in the early spring …

Market analysts are expecting Canadian pea and lentil acreage to drop this year. Saskatchewan Pulse Growers had market outlook panels yesterday at Pulse Days, held as part of Crop Production Week in Saskatoon. For yellow peas, the analysts noted that some new crop contracts are available at $6 a bushel, but that just doesn’t cut …

Don’t underestimate the competition for acres that’s going to occur. That advice came yesterday from Marlene Boersch of Mercantile Consulting Venture as she presented a market outlook for canaryseed at Crop Production Week in Saskatoon. Today, Marlene is on the market outlook panel for lentils. She says growers have power in the current market environment …

Forgive the corny analogy, but in many ways, Crop Production Week and the corresponding Western Canadian Crop Production Show can be likened to a baseball game. Thousands of producers are flocking to the trade show and to the meetings in Saskatoon this week just like the crowds gather for a ball game. Nine months from …

One of the highlights of Crop Production Week will be hearing Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. out of Topeka, Kansas. His weather forecasts have gained quite a following in Western Canada. On Monday afternoon at the SaskFlax meeting, Drew Lerner will address the world weather outlook for flax. On Wednesday evening at the Crop …

The choice of Greg Marshall as the new head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders is going to have some interesting ramifications for Greg Marshall, the president of APAS, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan. In this football crazy province, the coach of the Roughriders gets more media attention than almost anyone else. This attention can …

Hopefully, we’ll never have to put this to the test, but here’s an interesting element of the Canadian plan to deal with a foreign animal disease outbreak. Most people don’t realize it, but part of Canada’s livestock traceability system involves the West Hawk Lake Zoning Initiative. Located on the Trans-Canada Highway near the Manitoba-Ontario border, …

Crop Production Week and the Western Canadian Crop Production Show are next week in Saskatoon. One of the overriding themes is going to be crop quality. The Pulse Growers have a session devoted to understanding lentil quality. Lentil grading has been a nightmare. At the Saskatchewan Seed Growers meeting, the presentation by Bruce Carriere of …

The Australian Farm Institute has asked me to write a short article on the pros and cons associated with GM canola. Whether or not to grow GM canola is still a big issue in Australia, whereas in Canada, the genie has been out of the bottle for a long time. In reflecting on Canada’s experience …

Well over a third of the American corn crop is used to make ethanol. Without all this corn consumed for ethanol production, there’s no doubt that grain stocks would be higher and all grain prices would be lower. South of the border, there’s a public relations war being waged over the merits of ethanol. It …