A Prairie broadcast journalist for 40 years, 840 CFCW agricultural director Dean Thorpe has produced and hosted The Alberta Ag Show for nearly two decades. The AM country music station’s one hour radio news program is familiar lunchtime listening across rural Alberta. Each weekday at 12 p.m., Thorpe takes to the microphone at the station’s Edmonton studio with one question in mind: What do farmers need to hear today?
A new hulless food barley variety dubbed “black caviar” is now available for seed companies to license. Produced by a breeder at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Brandon Research and Development Centre, the currently unnamed HB23150 will be available to farmers in two to three years once it is licensed, registered and propogated.
For years the North American beer industry has contended with a gradual downturn. Since 2019, beer sales have dropped 11 per cent. According to Beer Canada, 2025 domestic beer sales were down 2.4 per cent compared to 2024. For imported beer, the decline was noticeably steeper, as Canadians drank 8.6 per cent less such beers in 2025 versus a year prior.
Initiated in July 2025, the V6 Odyssey port terminal project is billed as “Canada’s first low-carbon, enhanced efficiency fertilizers and commercial phosphate fertilizer terminal.” Situated on the Saint Lawrence River south of Ottawa, it’s a joint venture between V6 Agronomy and the Port of Johnstown. As it receives Prairie commodities such as durum wheat, lentils, potash and sulphur via CN Rail, it will send matchback railcars of phosphate and specialty fertilizers to the West.
On July 22 of last year, Western Crop Innovations (WCI) held its inaugural field day at its farm facility near Lacombe. Overcast but bright, drizzle was the order of the day, and guests were dressed appropriately in multicoloured rubber boots and raincoats. Curious about the organization, which launched April 1, 2024, this event drew about 150 farmers and assorted ag industry representatives. As chair and area farmer Kevin Bender welcomed the assembled guests in the shelter of the farm’s spacious service garage, the event felt like a birthday celebration, albeit a damp one.
A newer, faster and more accurate approach may detect morphological changes associated with DON contamination in Fusarium-damaged wheat kernels. New research from the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan indicates existing test methods can be improved.
In early February, the federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) rejected an emergency use application submitted by the Alberta and Saskatchewan governments to make strychnine available for use against gophers.
Until his 2025 retirement from official duties after 13 years, Fawcett area farmer Gordon McCann oversaw shinny games and hockey practices and maintained the ice at the Fawcett Community Hall and Arena. Its schedule now includes men’s and children’s leagues, and its two curling sheets are central to the community’s annual cabaret and bonspiel to be held this year in late January. Nicknamed Iceman McCann by young skaters, he continues to take on occasional volunteer arena activities and will field a team in the bonspiel.
On the Olds College Smart Farm, data is rolling in from an ongoing research project that utilizes the Raven Augmenta Field Analyzer. This camera vision machine learning technology senses crop conditions using digital imagery to adjust input application during field operations. Unlike current methods that rely on pre-determined maps, the camera uses an algorithm to make instantaneous decisions about the rate of inputs to apply on crops.
For nearly a decade, Sexsmith area farmer and Alberta Grains region 6 director Greg Sears has opened his fields to researchers for pest studies. These researchers set traps, use sweep nets and record findings. During a routine sweep in 2022, the net captured a donkey click beetle (Dalopius asellus), an uncommon type.
