The western producer june 30, 2016

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THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016

VOL. 94 | NO. 26 | $4.25

BIG SPENDERS |

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OPTIMISM REIGNS

Prairie crops in great shape So far, so good: satellite mapping technology shows crops in good health across Prairies BY SEAN PRATT SASKATOON NEWSROOM

The potential exists for a western Canadian bumper crop barring significant, widespread weather problems in the second half of the growing season. Satellite images show that crop vegetative health is either higher or much higher than normal across the prairie region. “The bulk of Western Canada is

looking very good at this point,” said Gordon Reichert, senior scientific adviser for Statistics Canada’s Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Section. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) map is light green or dark green for almost the entire region indicating a beautiful crop is on the way. It is an almost identical-looking map when he compares this year to last year and even to the record-

shattering 2013 crop. Reichert says those kinds of maps generally correlate with big-yielding crops. “But it’s still mid-season and anything can happen,” he added. Bruce Burnett, weather and crop specialist with G3 Canada, puts little faith in NDVI maps at this point of the season, with two months left until harvest begins. “Is it a bumper? I don’t know,” he said. “It’s too early to tell to be honest.”

What he does know is that the crop is in much better shape than it was last year at this time. “Generally speaking, all of the crops look pretty good,” he said. They are looking so good that the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan felt compelled to issue a news release warning the railways about what could be coming. SEE PRAIRIE CROPS, PAGE 4

PLANT RESEARCH

Crop spray designed to combat drought Chinese researchers say trials show the spray protects the plant from water loss Manitoba reporter Robert Arnason recently learned about the latest advancesin agricultural biotechnology while attending the Plant Biotech 2016 conference in Kingston, Ont. For more stories from the conference, see pages 14, 15.

KINGSTON, Ont. — Chemicals are used for nearly everything in farming, from killing flea beetles in canola to controlling wild oats in wheat or defeating white mould on soybeans. Such products are usually designed to fight a specific problem, but a Chinese plant science institute has developed a chemistry to tackle a more universal challenge: drought.

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“There have been various chemicals … that supposedly can protect plants from drought. We’ve compared ours to pretty much everything we could find on the market. This has much higher (efficacy),” said Jian-Kang Zhu, of the Shanghai Centre for Plant Stress Biology and a professor of horticulture at Purdue University. Zhu, who spoke at Plant Biotech 2016, which was held in Kingston

June 18-19, said his team in Shanghai has been working on the spray for five years. The researchers published a paper in 2013 on the first version of the chemical in the journal Cell Research. Scientists have since developed a second generation of the chemical, which is much more effective than the original formulation. CROP SPRAY, PAGE 5

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TOP LEFT, CLOCKWISE: Rain at the right time in many areas has produced fields of green: barley, field peas, lentils, fababeans, flax and forages are doing well, although disease threatens peas and lentils. | MICHAEL RAINE, KAREN BRIERE PHOTOS

u|xhHEEJBy00001pzYv-:' JUNE 30, 2016 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Stn. Main, 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

SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923

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