Black Legged Tick

Beekeepers on front line of tick invasion

Both rural and urban Manitobans should keep a wary eye out for the blacklegged tick as its territory expands


If Kateryn Rochon is a little bit weary by mid-afternoon, it’s no wonder. It’s field season for the University of Manitoba entomologist, who has embarked on a joint mission with the Manitoba Beekeepers Association to better understand tick-borne diseases. That means getting up at the crack of dawn to check traps set the night before,

Two drone pupae of the Western honey bee with varroa mites.

Mites could play role in variable bee losses

Honeybee losses are all over the map in Manitoba this year, as experts eye the impact of the varroa mite

While the numbers are still preliminary it appears one word will likely characterize winter loss for Manitoba beekeepers this spring — variability. “The one thing I can probably say without having any hard numbers, just from preliminary reporting, is that we’re going to have a lot of variability in winter loss this year,” said Rheal


Canola under pressure from cutworms, flea beetles

Manitoba Insect & Disease Update summary for June 1

Insects Cutworms and flea beetles on canola continue to be the insects of greatest concern. The cool, damp weather from the last few days would have slowed cutworm feeding, and the soil moisture, where not excessive, may help the plants compensate for feeding. Cutworm levels are quite variable, hard to find in some fields, more

A pea/oat/tillage radish cover crop seeded in early August, pictured on October 17.

Cover crops breaking out of livestock niche

Benefits of cover crops shown to accrue to grain portion of mixed operations, causing some without livestock to consider them

Cover crops could be a game changer for Manitoba, and not just for mixed crop and livestock operations. Typically those farms have been the earliest adopters of this new technique, said Michael Thiele, who works with the province’s grazing clubs through a Ducks Unlimited program. “These guys growing cover crops are finding that using and


The state of Minnesota has made buffer zones mandatory as a way of protecting streams from nutrient run-off. But a Manitoba researcher says they may not be as effective as first believed.

New research raises red flag over buffer strips

A University of Manitoba researcher says riparian buffer 
strips may not be the answer to preventing nutrient run-off

New research from the Univer­­sity of Manitoba raises questions over the effectiveness of buffer strips often used around cropland to filter out nutrients before they reach waterways in run-off. David Lobb, senior research chair for the Watershed Systems Research Program and a University of Manitoba soil science professor, says riparian buffer strips are “highly inefficient”

PIN chair Dustin Williams says winding up the organization was a difficult choice, but the right one.

Pulling the pin on the Prairie Improvement Network

The organization will create a scholarship endowment with remaining funds

After spending nearly two years struggling to reinvent the organization, the board of the former Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council (MRAC) is winding up the group. The Prairie Improvement Network (PIN) as it is now known, will cease to exist as of Mar. 31. Directors agreed last week, during a final annual general meeting held by


Phosphorus-laden solids separated from hog manure in a storage shed on Lauren Wiebe’s farm near St. Malo.

Manure separation could be key to P accumulation issue

Removing phosphorus-rich solids from nitrogen-rich liquid allows both 
local use and economical transportation to other farms

A unique method of separating nutrients in hog manure, based on European technology, may give livestock producers another way to deal with excess soil phosphorus in southeastern Manitoba’s livestock alley. The method involves separating out the solids in manure from the liquid, using an automated conveyor belt system. Solids in hog manure are high in

Solitary nesting bees, like this native leafcutter bee, will get better houses that will augment their numbers through a University of Manitoba open competition.

Building a better beehive

The University of Manitoba has opened an international competition aimed at giving bees better housing

Wild bees need homes too. That’s the simple idea behind an international design competition opened by the University of Manitoba on Mar. 1. The competition hopes better housing for the beleaguered insects will help address a pressing biological issue — their declining numbers. Bee houses were chosen as the focus of the competition because they


Winnipeg Galina Beilis is the owner of Dairy Fairy, a small-batch cheese company, making a traditional cheese at the University of Manitoba’s Dairy Plant.

Winnipegger introducing a new ‘old’ cheese to the market

Dairy Fairy cheese maker Galina Beilis has eaten this fresh cheese since she was a child. Now she’s making a business producing and selling it

Galina Beilis’s cheese might be new to Man­itoba, but as she’ll tell you, there’s really nothing new about it. The recipe is as simple as it is old. Farmers and villagers have been making it for centuries and it dates back to the discovery of milk going sour when you left it at a warm

Brian Amiro and Karin Wittenberg look over their presentation at Crop Connect in Winnipeg.

Prairies to play pivotal role in future food production

Climate change will provide both challenges and opportunities for Prairie producers by the year 2050

What will Prairie agriculture look like in the year 2050? That’s something a diverse group of experts and researchers set out to determine in a Green Paper presented at the Alberta Institute of Agrologists, titled Moving Toward Prairie Agriculture 2050. “Our future includes change from a number of perspectives, we understand some better than others,