News and updates
Keep up to date with the latest articles and new releases from the Farming Smarter.
This trial is a 4-year fully phased rotational trial (each year has each part of the rotation sequence) looking at the effect of cover crops on viability, yield and soil health.
The use of manure is as old as agriculture itself and was an integral part of farming prior to the arrival of chemical fertilizers. However, in recent years,manure is often discussed as a problem, or a waste for disposal. Should it be?
Farming Smarter wants individual farms across Alberta to build a pesticide rinsate biobed system. To facilitate this initiative, it built a mobile biobed on a trailer this winter to guide producers interested in assembling one on their farm.
The earliest active cutworm species on the prairies is the early cutworm (Euxoa tristicula). It is a native species that had an outbreak in beet fields near Taber (around 1970 if I recall properly).
Dr. Claudia Sheedy and Farming Smarter want you to build a biobed to manage pesticide rinsates on your farm.
Dr. Mike Harding, Alberta Agriculture & Forestry, and Farming Smarter worked with Grimmers Canine College to train dogs to detect clubroot in the soil. This pilot project shows that it's possible
Dr. Jan Slaski of Innotech Alberta studies hemp from seed to final product. 2020 will mark his 18th year in hemp research all over Alberta.
Dr. Charles Geddes studies herbicide resistance conducting research in southern Alberta at the Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada research center. He talks with Farming Smarter's Mike Gretzinger
A newly-trending concept is making big waves in both agriculture and food marketing right now: regenerative agriculture. Advocates say regenerative agriculture is the silver bullet for solving climate change, world hunger, water shortages and more...
Farming Smarter and Lethbridge College have long worked collaboratively on a wide variety of projects. Now, they formalized and expanded their partnership as they signed a 15-year "memorandum of understanding" (MOU).
Willejmin Appels, Lethbridge College Irrigation Research Chair joins Ken Coles, Farming Smarter Executive Director for a conversation about progress in irrigation technology and agronomy.
Yvonne Lawley, University of Manitoba, talks about the goals of cover crop use on the prairies. Cover crops can improve soil, conserve water and strengthen a farmers bottom line.
Dr. Randy Kutcher, University of Saskatchewan, is a plant pathologist currently doing a large, multi-province crop rotation study to answer questions about how rotating crops can keep some diseases at bay.
The Farming Smarter podcast began as a joint effort with Lethbridge College under a Canadian Agriculture Partnership grant.
Farming Smarter Director Ryan Mercer and Executive Director Ken Coles in conversation about the role of the organization in southern Alberta farming.
Are you itching to try a novel crop in your rotations? Maybe a little something to boost profits in these turbulent markets?
While Farming Smarter doesn't have definitive answers from year two of its study, Research Manager Mike Gretzinger can offer some insights from the 2019 season.
Farming Smarter found another way to bring you information you can use on your farm! Check out our new podcast series.
Mercer Seeds brought in Farming Smarter this past season to provide an unbiased and scientifically rigorous examination of ATP Nutrition PreCede and ReLeaf products on spring wheat; which is a seed dressing & a foliar nutritional product.
That's our new mission statement in Farming Smarter's new 5-year strategic plan. Hang on! I heard that groan; saw that eye drift onto something, anything else.
Biobeds offer a safe way to dispose of pesticide rinsate on a farm. It can be easy to overlook the potential effects of disposing of pesticide rinsate but this is where the great benefits of a biobed come into practice.
Farming Smarter's three-year hail recovery research project suggests that insurance is the most reliable way to protect from crops loss due to hail damage.
Farming Smarter started into a three-year project led by SARDA this past spring to see if deep banding some nutrients might make a difference to crop health.
Despite the relatively dry weather we've received in Southern Alberta this season, hail is still a prevalent occurrence.
Landowners or land managers that use Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs) to protect riparian zones around water bodies can count on better water quality within the water body...