News and updates

Continuing the series on soil microorganisms, let's talk about the importance of soil rhizobacteria. Rhizobacteria are a type of bacteria that inhabit the soil zone immediately around plant roots as well as the root surface and nodules.

This week we talk to you about durum agronomy and specifically, planter research. Someone told Ken Coles that durum agronomy hasn't seen updates for 20 years. Coles got on the case to do multi-factor durum research.

Jamie Puchinger, Farming Smarter Assistant Manager and Morton Molyneux, K2 communications, talk about taking Farming Smarter events digital.

In this episode, Michael Kaake talks to Andre Lacoursiere, 2nd Opinion Consulting Inc., about agronomy and how COVID-19 affected his company in 2020.

Farming Smarter joined Dr. Randy Kutcher, University of Saskatchewan Chair in Cereal and Flax Crop Pathology, to study fusarium head blight in rotations.

Deciding what crops to put in rotations and in what sequence can make the gears in your head grind. Fear not farmers, we have the answers for you based on our novel crop rotational study.

Scott Gillespie, Agronomist of Plants Dig Soil, talks about interesting things he saw in southern Alberta fields over the 2020 growing season.

The high value specialty crop project fits with Farming Smarter's mandate to change the way people farm.

A steady domestic market, seeding/harvest timing and lots of upside yield potential spur annual increases in Alberta's corn acres. Corn offers an ever-expanding line-up of herbicide tolerant and insect resistant hybrids with lower heat unit needs.

Mike talks to Diane Westerlund about the provincial soil benchmarking project.

The industrial hemp project called Agronomic Influences on Fiber & Grain builds on a previous hemp project led by Dr. Jan Slaski at InnoTech Alberta. These trials were built on the knowledge we gained from the first projects and on questions that arose the first time around.

Mike Kaake did a 150 hour Digital Media practicum with Farming Smarter in September 2020. During this time, we asked him to produce five podcasts.

The purpose of rolling barley is to push rocks into the soil so that the chopper header does not hit the rocks, avoiding damage to the equipment. However, there seems to be no common time to roll and rolling occurs at many different stages of crop growth.

This unit's goal is to share learning that comes from Farming Smarter and other researchers. The unit produces all external communication and extension.

The research unit run by soil scientist, Gurbir Dhillon Ph.D., and research coordinator, Mike Gretzinger, leads grant-funded research projects either led by Farming Smarter or in collaboration with researchers from other institutions.

Lewis Baarda, On-Farm Research, leads the Field-tested unit doing field-scale research with farmers and farm managers.

Harvest time is a busy time of the year. It is hustle and bustle to get everything done on time. In the rushed panic, safety may not be on everyone's mind. To help keep everyone safe during harvest, here are tips for harvest safety.

The custom research unit, led by research associate Trevor Deering, does research for private companies on crop protection and management products and techniques.

You can't get away from the sawfly, but you can keep the damage they do to a minimum.

Soil is one of the most important components involved in growing crops, yet soil biology is not well understood, and the physical characteristics have not been monitored. Now there is a study that is hoping to fix that.

Farming Smarter instituted some organizational restructuring that could help them grow in size, quality and impact. Ken Coles, Executive Director of Farming Smarter, says restructuring the organization into smaller business units will help it meet some goals.

The project was made with the idea to find out what the effects of rolling at different stages of crop growth to see what stage of the crop would be recommended best for rolling barley.

While the differences haven't been earth shattering, so far a three-year southern Alberta study looking at the effect of different treatments on wheat shows the combination of using a fungicide and timing of irrigation might have a slight benefit in reducing fusarium head blight (FHB).

Pollinator project aimed to develop a long term, comprehensive, cost-effective and sustainable seed mix to conserve natural insect pollinators and enhance local biodiversity in southern Alberta.