Novozymes and Syngenta team up on product registration

Biological manufacturer Novozymes and chemical/seed giant Syngenta, have announced a global marketing and distribution agreement for Novozymes’s microbial-based biofungicide Taegro, a microbial-based fungicide based on the naturally occurring Bacillus subtilis bacterium. Novozymes says Taegro targets fungal diseases such as rhizoctonia and fusarium on fruit and vegetables, and its application is expected to be expanded to

Building nitrogen on the range through better grazing management

Low rainfall during the growing season is the most obvious factor causing reduced grass production. However, low available mineral nitrogen at less than 100 pounds per acre is responsible for greater than half of the reduction in herbage production. “Most grassland pastures managed with traditional practices have mineral nitrogen available at 60 to 75 pounds


Alfalfa hays: merging myth and reality

One of the most misunderstood feedstuffs in the horse industry today is alfalfa hay. Its position in the feeding program of horses is both revered and spurned. To unravel its benefits and the harms it is necessary to understand the nutrient-rich profile of this hay. When understood, it is the overfeeding of alfalfa hay, not

Analysis: European biofuel push proving hard to reverse

European policy-makers are discovering the difficulty of curbing a biofuel industry they weaned five years ago as a low-carbon alternative to crude oil, but which is increasingly at odds with the environment and food production. To halt or reverse a $22-billion European biofuel industry requires a sound justification. The problem with biofuels is that calculation


CME Group buys Kansas City exchange, heading off rival ICE

Reuters / CME Group is buying the Kansas City Board of Trade for $126 million in cash, cementing CME’s dominance in world grain futures markets and keeping rival IntercontinentalExchange from gaining an important foothold. It is CME’s first exchange purchase in five years since it wrapped up a buying spree that put the Chicago Mercantile

Resort taps into “cow power” to get skiers to the summit

Reuters / Cow manure will be used to power skiers to the top of a Vermont resort this winter as part of a growing effort to generate electricity from a byproduct of the state’s iconic dairy farms. Killington, one of the largest ski resorts in New England, will use 300,000 kilowatt hours of electricity made


Group eyes technology to turn garbage and straw into oil

It looks good on paper but it sounds too good to be true. A Manitoba group is keen to find out if a Swiss machine can actually make synthetic crude oil out of garbage, straw and manure. “This does work on paper and is working in other places (including Germany),” consultant Normand Mabon said at



Japan corn users urge U.S. to limit ethanol

Six key groups of corn users in Japan, the world’s biggest user of the grain, have urged the United States, the world’s biggest supplier, to cut back on using corn to make ethanol, so as to ease a supply shortage due to the worst drought in 56 years. In the first request of its kind,

Our response ability

Did you hear the story about the Winnipeg bus driver who gave away his shoes to a barefoot guy he saw on the sidewalk? It was pretty hard to miss. Perhaps the most enlightening aspect of that story, which was picked up exhaustively locally, nationally and then internationally, was that it was news at all.