If you’re considering starting or expanding a Prairie strawberry farm, autumn is the time to start sourcing and securing the plants and inputs you’ll need, a producer from one Alberta-based U-pick says.
Tag Archives Crop rotation
So you want to farm strawberries
Fall is the time for Manitoba farmers to set the wheels in motion for the 2026 strawberry field crop
One change to improve Prairie canola yield
Crop rotation and nutrition topped the list for both Canadian farmers and agronomists
A Canola Council of Canada has surveyed growers on their production practices and found rotation and nutrient management key to increasing yields.
Pushing the crop comfort zone
The winners and losers of WADO's experimental crop trials
Rice in Manitoba was a disaster. In 2012, in the Banana Belt region of the province near Melita, the staff at the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) seeded a plot of dry rice to see if they could bring it to harvest. The project fit with their role in Manitoba’s agricultural sphere: They risk the wreck, so
Potatoes see big benefits from water stewardship project
Farmers studied the benefits of in-field and field edge projects for themselves and the community
Improved water stewardship on potato fields in the Lake Winnipeg basin could provide a surprising amount of community benefits, a recent project showed. “Those numbers were way bigger than I would ever expect,” said farmer Chad Berry. Berry, who owns Under the Hill Farms near Cypress River, was one of four farms (covering 34,000 acres)
Long-term plot experiment yields new insights
RESEARCH Ninety-year-old rotations show compounding nature of systemic production changes
When one part of an agricultural system is changed, the effects are frequently found in unexpected places. For example, the earliest no-till farmers were hoping for soil conservation benefits. Research now shows fields in long-term no-till require less fertilizer. Miles Dyck, a University of Alberta soil scientist, provided that information at the Manitoba Agronomists’ Conference
Cover crop training, peer group to begin this summer
Groups offer free courses on cover crops and other techniques
A cover crop training and peer-learning program will kick off with two farm tours this July. It’s one of three free courses through the Farm Resilience Mentorship program (FaRM) hosted in Manitoba by the Manitoba Organic Alliance (MOA) and the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association (CFGA). The course is for both conventional and organic farmers.
Canola council: Widen the scope on clubroot management
The Canola Council of Canada wants producers to layer their clubroot management strategies
The Canola Council of Canada wants you to take a shotgun to your field — at least when it comes to clubroot. [AUDIO: ‘Are we taking clubroot seriously enough?’ – Justine Cornelsen and Dan Orchard] Council agronomists are urging farmers to avoid building a clubroot plan around a single silver bullet. Instead, agronomists Justine Cornelsen
The learning curve of cover crops
Cover crops may have an almost endless number of combinations, but end goals, planting windows and seed costs may help narrow down species selection
It’s not enough to convince producers to give cover crops a shot — there needs to be a game plan. There are plenty of reasons why. Seed can be expensive, especially if there’s no livestock to help recoup that cost through their digestive systems. Many worry the fall seeding window is too narrow to give
Calling all cover croppers!
A survey is looking for hard numbers on the practice and what it looks like on Prairie farms
The University of Manitoba is looking for numbers on local cover crop use, and it’s turning to producers to get them. Yvonne Lawley of the University of Manitoba is spearheading the Prairie Cover Crop Survey, which hopes to gauge how widely and in what form cover crops are taking root across the Prairies. The survey
Fall management key to weed resistance
It’s in the fall you see what worked and what you can change up for next year
When it comes to weed control, fall is often one of your best windows to find out how it’s going and what issues are on the horizon. Tammy Jones, Manitoba Agriculture weed specialist, says the fall season offers a planning window for next year and lets farmers evaluate what went right or wrong this season.
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