Insights and Stories on Crops

Dec. 15, 2023 at 9:49 am CST

Broadly speaking, commercial vertical farming operations are humankind’s attempt to grow food under conditions more controllable than Mother Nature allows and with a minimum of wasted space. Many seem like sci-fi greenhouses: hydroponics, plants growing in stacks or up walls and high-tech sensor setups that seem straight out of the […]

By Don Norman

Dec. 7, 2023 at 10:05 am CST

John Hardman learned much of what he knows about farming from his father. Now Hardman owns Crooked Creek Farms near Dauphin, Man., which he has run for the past 40 years. He succeeded his father, Edwin, who farmed the same land for nearly half a century. One of the most […]

By Jim Timlick

Nov. 17, 2023 at 11:05 am CST

It’s an area larger than the total acreage now farmed in Ontario, yet the prospect of clearing, tiling and bringing the 16 million acres of the Great Clay Belt to productivity is questionable, if not daunting. It has taken producers in Ontario’s ‘Near North’ region of Temiskaming Shores, Earlton and […]

By Ralph Pearce

Nov. 10, 2023 at 9:34 am CST

A new-to-North-America wetland harvester could revolutionize the way wetlands are managed and provide cheap, sustainable fertilizer in the process, according to at least one watershed district that has tested the machine. “It definitely has the potential to be a game-changer for wetland maintenance, drain maintenance and biomass harvesting,” said Redboine […]

By Don Norman

Nov. 3, 2023 at 9:48 am CDT

Carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and organic matter (carbon) in our soils are topics of great current interest. Two big questions that take up much ink these days are: 1) how can we emit less CO2 with farming practices and 2) how can we sequester more carbon (C) in […]

By Les Henry