If you were asked to picture a Canadian farmer selling grain, you might imagine a truck, loaded up at the farm, headed for the local elevator.

With more than a handful of classes to choose from, deciding what wheat to put into the ground can be a tough decision. Farmers need to constantly look at their growing conditions, soil and climate type, market potential, and if it’s needed as a crop rotation to break up pest and disease cycles. Three Hills-area farmer and writer Sarah Weigum asked three Alberta farmers: How do you decide what type of wheat to plant?

Down in feedlot alley, corn is solid.
It produces well and it feeds a lot of cattle. Inevitably, the question comes up, “Could there be another opportunity—the opportunity to grow far more acres using new grain corn varieties developed for the western Prairies?”

Plant growth regulators (PGRs) may be the next big wave of crop management tools helping farmers to increase cereal crop yields and profitability, but the products that have been widely used in Europe and other parts of the world for decades still have to earn their stripes in Canada.

A spectre is haunting the world’s wheat farmers, and its name is UG99. Spread by spores that can cross oceans, Ug99 is the latest mutation of a crop disease called stem rust that has been feared throughout history. Known since ancient times, it was considered a curse in what is now Israel. To the Romans, it was a deity to be appeased with sacrifices and processions, lest their crops be destroyed.

There was a time when your smartphone said something about the type of person you are. The stereotypes labelled BlackBerry people as serious business types who valued email security over frivolous entertainment. iPhone users just wanted to have fun with music, videos and web surfing. The Android owner was a rebel who rebuffed the “Big Two” and sought to support an upstart and more open mobile operating system.

Every couple of years, my dad asks if I’m serious about spending the rest of my life in “the city.” I’m always surprised by the question because I never actually thought I would last in Calgary for 10 years, let alone 20.

Over the past several years, high cereal and canola prices have brought growers a good return on their investment. The prices have been better than what growers could have even imagined a decade ago. As a result, net farm incomes have been higher and growers have enjoyed the benefits.

Lorelle Selinger is the canadian barley supply chain manager for Prairie Malt Limited (PML) and Cargill Malt. A farm girl from Holdfast, SK, she studied agricultural economics at the University of Saskatchewan prior to working in the Biggar and Loreburn elevators for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. Switching gears in the late 1990s, Selinger moved to Winnipeg, MB, and traded grain for the Canadian Wheat Board. In 2012, she started her current role at PML, commuting between Winnipeg, Biggar, SK and Spiritwood, North Dakota.

In 2012, droughts, storms and other weather events combined to make grain, cereal and pulse production particularly challenging for farmers around the world. There was an upshot, though: those with a crop to sell had a relatively easy time doing so throughout late 2012 and much of 2013. Forward sales were easy to find, basis levels were wonderfully narrow or even, imagine, slightly positive, and profit margins were healthy for most of the major and minor crops. Many farmers were able to pick up the phone to make a sale and deliver it a week later.