After things dried out for a while, crops in our area were looking pretty good. On Friday and Saturday we got hammered with just over 100 mm (4 inches) of rain. The ditches are full, crops are underwater on low-lying land, and the are flood advisories in southeast Manitoba and the Interlake. I do not [...]
I ran across ColorBrewer2.org a few days ago. This looks to be a tremendously useful tool for cartographers. It lets you see how distinguishable different colors are on a map. When I’m making maps it often happens that I use two colors that are too much alike for two completely different data classes. Unfortunately I [...]
Sometimes it can be awkward to figure out what herbicides to use to control a combination of weeds in a crop. You may also miss out on some less pricey or more effective options for weed control. This is where a herbicide selector program can come in handy. I was unable to find one for [...]
I find this very encouraging: Video roadshows transform African agriculture. The best estimates I’ve seen are that over 10% of the world’s population is undernourished. Something that helps the hungry people of the world feed themselves better gives hope that someday there will be food enough for all. Ron spent a number of years in [...]
Ron went to the Western Canada Farm Progress Show yesterday. One of the things that impressed him was seeing the Bullet Seeder from Australia. We’re constantly encouraging our clients to slow down when seeding – maybe they should get these so they don’t have to!
This is a rough year for grain farmers across the Prairies. In Manitoba it took a long time to get the crops in due to the amount of water in the fields. Some areas are still too wet to seed. Our clients managed to get most of their fields seeded, so now we’re just hoping [...]
There are a number of animals out there that grow their own food – Interesting Thing of the Day takes a look at Non-Human Farmers. I wonder if they do plant counts?
When you take a photo with a digital camera, it records a ton of information about the photo. This information is usually saved in Exif or ITPC. Here’s a partial list of the information that may be recorded: Camera Manufacturer Camera Model Date and Time Photo x-Resolution Photo y-Resolution Exposure Time FNumber MaxApertureValue Flash Focal [...]
Last week we checked out some canola fields and found a fair amount of flea beetle damage and spotted a number of striped flea beetles happily munching away. The damage was extensive enough that we thought we might have to recommend spraying to control the voracious little beasties. We went back on Monday and the [...]
I was out in the rainy cold field today wondering how much colder than usual it’s been this year. One way of measuring the amount of heat that a plant or insect population has received during a growing season is Growing Degree Days. Growing Degree Days are calculated by adding the maximum and minimum temperature [...]
