THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2014
VOL. 92 | NO. 7 | $4.25
Coverage from the NCBA meeting in Nashville: P.5
GROWING WITH FARMERS FOR 90 YEARS
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National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says COOL ‘travesty’ needs fixing
P.88 Ground beef tops shoppers’ grocery lists
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ANIMAL HEALTH | HOGS
PED found in 11 Ontario barns Feed supplier issues voluntary recall BY BARB GLEN LETHBRIDGE BUREAU
RESEARCH | CROPS
RNAi key to glyphosate resistance Promising research | Glyphosate mixed with RNAi molecules effective against resistant plants BY ROBERT ARNASON BRANDON BUREAU
VANCOUVER —Weed scientists have worried for years about the lack of new technologies and chemistries needed to fight herbicide resistant weeds. However, something new is now on the horizon.
Monsanto has discovered that it is possible to kill glyphosate resistant weeds with a biological technique called RNA interference (RNAi). Doug Sammons, a senior fellow with Monsanto who studies the management of glyphosate resistant weeds, said greenhouse and field tests indicate a mixture of glyphosate and an RNAi biological molecule can
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kill glyphosate resistant Palmer amaranth. “The combination of RNA plus glyphosate results in the (weeds) being controlled,” Sammons told the Weed Science Society of America annual meeting held in Vancouver Feb. 3-6. Sammons showed photos of patches of glyphosate resistant Palmer
amaranth from field trials conducted last year. Glyphosate alone failed to kill the weed in one of the patches. “(But) when we include our trigger (RNAi) with our glyphosate, we get a bare ground plot,” he said. SEE RNAi KEY, PAGE 3
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SEE PED FOUND, PAGE 2
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u|xhHEEJBy00001pzYv+:= FEBRUARY 13, 2014 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4 The Western Producer is published in Saskatoon by Western Producer Publications, which is owned by GVIC Communications Corp. Publisher: Shaun Jessome Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240
Two sections of a 1938 dairy barn, at 110 feet long apiece, make their way at a crawl on highway 785 from their former home near Pincher Creek, Alta. The trip took them over the Oldman Dam and onto a new foundation at Heritage Acres, a museum featuring antique farm equipment and historic buildings. The move didn’t go exactly as planned. Cold weather caused equipment problems and it took two days for the barns to make the 16 kilometre trek to the new site. | BARB GLEN PHOTO
Eleven Ontario hog operations had been infected with porcine epidemic diarrhea virus as of Feb. 10. Feed may be connected with its arrival and spread. Ontario Agriculture confirmed PED DNA has been found in swine feed samples but did not provide further details. Livestock feed supplier Grand Valley Fortifiers of Cambridge, Ont., issued a voluntary recall Feb. 9 of swine nursery products that contain porcine blood plasma. It urged other feed manufacturers to do the same. Kansas State University experts have identified porcine ingredients in feed as a possible source of the virus in the United States, where PED has spread to 20 states. Grand Valley voluntarily recalled three products and advised producers to stop feeding any they had bought since Jan. 1.