Doug Grandel is coming to 10 years with OMEX after a successful career in the seed and Ag equipment industries. Doug lives on a homestead, which used to be a cattle farm. His knowledge about the industry and farming is vast. He combines that with a great sense of humor and dedication to his work. We wished that he told us that he was a die-hard Toronto Leaf’s fan at a start but we won’t hold that against him. In his spare time, Doug enjoys fishing and spending time with his family and grandchildren.

Flowering is one of the most important stages in a crop’s life cycle and often happens during the hottest days of summer – ideal conditions for a less-than-ideal situation: heat stress. When conditions are right for heat stress, it is especially important to pay attention to boron (B) – a micronutrient that is critical to pollen tube growth and the germination of pollen grains and fertilization, helping to ensure good grain fill and yield. 

Soil salinity can occur naturally or be caused by practices used on the farm – continuously irrigating with water that has a high salt concentration, for example. While some crops are tolerant to saline soils, high concentrations of some salts can be toxic to others. Salinity can also hinder a plant’s uptake of water and interfere with the absorption of nutrients. Read more for a closer look at the causes and consequences of salinity and sodicity, along with nutritional solutions to lower the impact on crops.

The 2019 growing season started of dry across most of Western Canada and turned wet starting about mid-summer all the way through to winter snow fall, including an October blizzard in parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Now, over 4.2 million acres (2.5M in Saskatchewan; 1.6M in Alberta and over 260,000 in Manitoba) are still in the swath or standing in the field to-date in spring 2020.

Soil pH is a key factor in farmland as it controls availability of nutrients, microbial activity and crop productivity. Before delving into what causes soils to become acid or alkaline and the steps to take to treat and correct soil pH, we must first establish what is considered an optimal pH for crop production.