It’s the calm before the storm here at Farm Equipment headquarters on New Year’s Eve. With our Precision Farming Dealer Summit set for Jan. 6-7 in Louisville, Ky., and the upcoming issue of Farm Equipment going to print just 2 weeks after that, January is always the most action-packed month of the year for us.
Jason Bradley spent 20 years of his career as ranch manager at a 50,000-acre grazing operation in west-central Alberta, so he understands why people react with skepticism to the idea of raising a herd of cattle on a working solar farm. "The first thing people think is, 'You can't put cattle on [a solar farm]. They're just going to rub on the panels and wreck them,"' Bradley said. But as the CEO of Calgary-based Sun Cycle Farms, Bradley believes the doubters have already been proven wrong. This fall, Sun Cycle conducted a pilot project that grazed cattle inside a grid-connected solar farm in southern Alberta — something Bradley said proves that livestock production and renewable energy can successfully co-exist. "It was not just to prove it to ourselves — I knew it could be done in an existing solar facility," Bradley said. "But we had to prove to the asset owner, to the insurance company, even to investors that are looking at this and show this is a part of the solution." Sun Cyc
Every 3-5 years, you should sit down and evaluate your DMS. Based on this evaluation, you will either decide to stick with your provider, or you will start laying down the building blocks to make a necessary change.
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.'s Farm Equipment Sector (FES), part of Mahindra Group, has released its tractor sales figures for December 2024. The company reported a 22% increase in domestic sales which were at 22,019 units, compared to 18,028 units in December 2023
AS FARMERS PREPARE for the 2025 planting season, disease patterns seen in 2024 in canola and pulses offer a bit of familiarity with a taste of challenges to come. While 2024 didn’t bring dramatic surprises, trends like the rise of verticillium stripe and steady threats like blackleg, clubroot, and sclerotinia continue to shape the landscape for farmers. As far as root rot on pulses go, there are encouraging signs that farmers may be reaping the rewards of longer rotations. “Verticillium is becoming more prevalent,” explains Mike Harding, a plant pathologist at Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation. The disease, caused by a soilborne fungus, is showing up more frequently in survey samples and anecdotally across Alberta. “We’re picking it up more in our surveys, and agronomists are reporting more cases this year than ever before,” Harding says. While not yet widespread, verticillium appears to be spreading steadily. “It’s a gradual increase in our surveys, but on individual fields, far
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