Looking for new ways to trim production costs, California dairyman turned in 2007 to a variety of conservation tillage practices for forage production in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

It's somewhat ironic that trying to farm right out of college during a period of bad flooding in northeastern Saskatchewan led me several years later to cropping systems research in a semi-arid area where I could really use some of that excess water! Along the way, I did graduate studies in forage genetics at the University of Guelph in Ontario and at the University of Minnesota.

Limited rainfall and plenty of warm chinooks moving east off the nearby Rocky Mountain range in late winter create an environment in which properly managing moisture is essential for Alberta growers.

With expected Environmental Protection Agency approval later this summer of Roundup Ready alfalfa, no-tillers will have a exciting new tool to add to their management arsenal. Having proven valuable with soybeans, corn, cotton, canola and other crops, adding the Roundup Ready technology to alfalfa offers many new forage cropping opportunities.

Stan Rampton once thought his Simmental cows were just a way of squeezing some productivity out of the marginal, uncroppable land that makes up about one-third of his western Manitoba land base.

Last spring, David Richesin planted only 66 acres in corn, down from the 82 acres he planted in 1998.

Hop aboard the “ag-train” and join us for an excursion to Tennessee’s scenic Monroe County. Located 50 miles southeast of Knoxville, the 660-square-mile tract lies in the Great Valley of eastern Tennessee along the western slopes of the Unaka Mountains.