“This increased funding will allow PAMI to keep doing what it does best,” PAMI president says.

Ag machinery institute gets budget boost

PAMI slated for $5 million in government funds

The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute will have $5 million in public money added to its budget for the next five years. Funds were announced May 14 between the federal government and province of Saskatchewan and are provided under the $3.5-billion Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership agreement. Why it matters: PAMI has been one of the go-to

Charley Sprenger of PAMI has been settling in at Brandon’s Assiniboine Community College.

PAMI, Assiniboine Community College join forces

The research and development group has added its presence to the Brandon college

The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute closed its doors in Portage la Prairie last year, but the ready source of agricultural research, innovation and equipment development hasn’t left Manitoba. Brandon’s Assiniboine Community College, now in the midst of a major expansion of ag and ag-related programming, has brought PAMI to its main campus. Charley Sprenger, a


“When you’re looking at the sprayer, how it’s physically put together in terms of the structure and how it’s operated, we want to understand how that impacts the potential for spray drift.” – Lorne Grieger , PAMI.

The aerodynamics of crop spraying

Air disturbance from the sprayer itself may be affecting your drift risk

We’ve come a long way with sprayers. We’ve made them bigger, we’ve made them faster and with new visual technology and artificial intelligence, we’ve even made them smarter. Now, research by the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) along with the College of Agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan and Agrimetrix in Saskatoon is asking, ‘Can

A mobile biomass densification system, developed at PAMI in Portage la Prairie and shown here in a 2012 video, was used to process biomass such as straw into solid blocks, for ease of transport or for use in biomass burners. (BioScience Association Manitoba video screengrab via YouTube)

PAMI to close Portage la Prairie location

Revenue challenges in recent years blamed for Manitoba site's closure

The product development, testing and design firm Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI), will be closing its Portage la Prairie, Man. location at the end of July. Citing revenue challenges in recent years as the reason for downsizing, the institute informed staff and clients of the closure of its River Road facility in Portage, prior to

Adding heat, such as from a portable direct flame heater like this one, can turn “poor drying days into good drying days.”

Now is the time to start thinking about conditioning canola

Having the right setup and the manpower capacity for turning bins are keys to avoiding spoilage

Two late and wet harvests in a row have greatly increased canola spoilage — and upped the need to have a conditioning plan in place early on. “It’s really important to consider this topic now when there is time rather than being in the heat of harvest and having to make decisions,” said Lorne Grieger,


New shatter-resistant canola varieties may hold the key to parking your swather.

Pod shatter reduction canola sounds swathing’s death knell

Sixty per cent of Manitoba’s canola acres this year have pod shatter reduction technology, even though the innovation has only been available since 2014

Western Canadian farmers have adopted pod shatter reduction canola faster than expected — and industry officials predict the innovation, which is as much about harvest flexibility as straight cutting, will soon be on almost every acre. “InVigor (canola from BASF), which is on more than half of the acres in Western Canada, this year over

It doesn’t all make it into the grain cart — and if you’re not measuring harvest loss, the amount left on the ground may be a lot higher than you think.

How much grain are you willing to let fall on the ground?

An ‘acceptable loss’ can be a moving target but those who don’t measure harvest lost may be losing far more than they think

Joel McDonald of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute has seen the full spectrum of techniques for minimizing harvest loss. He has seen lead-footed farmers blaze through their acreage, but leave a substantial part of the harvest behind. He has also seen farmers crawl their combine at a mile and a half per hour to avoid

“If you’re covering lots of acres or your commodity is highly valuable, maybe just bombing through that last 20 acres just to get it done might not be the best economic decision.” – Joel McDonald, PAMI

Weighing the balance on harvest loss

Experts are urging farmers to be more deliberate when defining ‘acceptable’ harvest loss

Joel McDonald of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) has seen the full spectrum of techniques for minimizing harvest loss. He has seen lead-footed farmers blaze through their acreage, but leave a substantial part of the harvest behind. He has also seen farmers crawl their combine at a mile and a half per hour to


Stored grain has to be both cool and dry to minimize the risk of spoilage.

Drying grain may become the norm as harvests trend later

Natural air drying with supplemental heat hasn’t caught on in Alberta yet, but it soon could, says expert


Prairie farmers may need to get used to leaving grain in the field at harvest. “Harvest might be starting earlier, but poor weather during the harvest season is slowing down that last little bit of harvest, and there’s more and more crop being left in the field in October,” said Joy Agnew, program manager at

Remaining canola fields were weighed down by inches of snow after September took a chilly turn Sept. 22.

Remaining canola promises tough harvest

September’s sudden snowfall should be treated like a frost if crops were immature and a rain event if pods were ready to come off the field, according to the Canola Council of Canada

Canola growers are casting more than one mournful look to the field after an unseasonable snow dump and chilly rain stopped harvest in its tracks. Manitoba’s weather took a turn to the cold and wet in the last weeks of September, with many regions reporting rain, temperatures well below 10 C and, in a stark