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Trendy marketing talks about segmenting customers so you can talk specifically with them, which makes sense as we all have more data available. But how do we provide solutions to your problems and/or opportunities for you with a product you want and need! It's something I think about weekly in all that we do. Thanks to Rick Stamp for sending me the article: https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&tpcc=orgsocial_edit 
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We have had the privilege of touring the Kirkham Collection in Lethbidge in the past, which is a private collection of antique International trucks. They have an open house day Saturday Jan 4th: https://oldinternationaltrucks.com/whens-the-next-kirkham-collection-open-house/ Marian Stamp was awarded this medal last week for her contribution to the agricultural and rural community. People are nominated (Its unknown who nominated her) and she was very honoured to receive this. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/medals/medals-chart-index/king-charles-iiis-coronation-medal.html  We had our staff Christmas party this weekend and two of our staff received 5 year awards. Congratulations to George and Ricky   The dropping Canadian $ has meant that imported feed has stayed high propping up feed barley and wheat prices. Barley:
 We and many of our customers experienced more lodging than normal in 2024. Matt from Premium Ag commented on our summer tour that there was more available nitrogen in the soil in spring vs normal. He also talked about the N being closer to the surface and zone variability in a field. We have noticed that European and American barley varieties have more tillering capacity vs Canadian bred varieties, meaning we should be using lower seeding rates vs others. Irrigation we have been at 25-30 plants per sq foot targets, and dryland 15-25 plants target. I think my strategy for Esma, Sirish, SY Stanza, and Bill Coors 100 on irrigation will be closer to 25 plants now with some people going to back to 20 plants on the Bill Coors 100 variety. We use Moddus PGR on all of our irrigated barley and I think that is the best bet for standability. We even did 2 passes on a weaker standing barley variety in 2024 vs only one in 2023. For irrigated wheats and oats I really like Manipulator PGR. When we do an irrigated winter wheat it seems like the herbicide timing and PGR timing is perfect to tank mix. For spring crops we have done separate passes and or a tank mix with manipulator. Talk to your chemical retailer or the reps below for optimum tank mixing: Manipulator: Jamie Stringam 403 915 6018 Moddus: Sterling Mitchell: 403 461 8321 Remember to talk to your buyer before using a PGR to make sure there are no market risks.  Alberta wheat stem sawfly maps have been posted here: https://www.alberta.ca/wheat-stem-sawfly-forecast
We do have semi solid CWRS & solid durum varieties. Kambeitz farms talk about culture, team dynamics, traceability and more: link here
McDougall Acres Grainex Inc gave a great presentation at our seed update: https://youtu.be/zEd6VE2nTfU They contract, process and export chickpeas based out of Moose Jaw, SK. They are contracting the below varieties (pricing usually comes out early January at the Crop Production Show but you can contact them now to start the process: McDougall Acres Grainex Inc We will be selling their new chickpea varieties and can price seed and use rates now. These varieties are tied to their contracts.
 Terence Koshman of Viterra gave a great presentation on the grain market outlook: https://youtu.be/9WsJRkf6LsY The Canadian $ has been helping feed grain pricing, canola is very volatile as most companies don't want ships to be turned away from China. He has so much good information in here that it's a must listen / watch due to the charts, trends and history with each market. After he talked about the downside risk in durum the price went up over .25 cents per bu a few days later. 😆 In fairness no one really knows for sure but we have to look at all the information we have to make the best decisions for long term.  Canada Malting is interested in contracting new crop AB Dram 2 row malt barley at a number of its locations, contact them for details: https://canadamalting.com/contact/ It's a unique variety as it is a non gn for distilling and should perform like CDC Copland for yield and standability. We have had yields as high as 140 bu averages with AB Dram and we do use Moddus PRG on irrigation to help it stand (but we do on all barley varieties).  Aphanomyces root rot and the root rot complex is a big problem for some farms, Cassandra from The Rack retail group in Saskatchewan sent this to me based on research they did. Seed placed fertility played a big role in pea growth in all cases, herbicides with foliar nutrients vs herbicide alone also impacted disease incidence and plant growth. Details below: 
Remote machine operation has come to heavy equipment: https://www.grainews.ca/machinery/cat-machines-allow-for-semi-autonomous-control/
I wonder how long it will be until we have one person supervising 3-4 machines in a field? CrossRoads – Alberta’s Crop Conference Jan 28-29th in Edmonton has registration open: https://crossroadscropconference.ca/
The Irrigated Crop Production Update 1 day in person conference in Lethbridge will be held January 23rd.
Early bird registration is open now: link here The virtual agronomy update (Jan 14 &15) registration is open: https://www.agronomyupdate.ca/AU2025
Western Tractor or local John Deere dealer hosts a great family event. This year it is in Lethbridge Jan 2&3rd. We will have a booth at it: https://www.westerntractor.ca/western-tractor-days
Many other factors such as movement, logistics of harvest and seeding, crop risk, insects, crop insurance levels, rotation and more will impact what you want to grow. These numbers are all guesses and will be different for each farm but is meant for you to compare to your own numbers. Pricing is a rough number in early December 2024 The yields are hard to pick as spring snow and rains on dryland will help a fall crop much more vs others and there will be differences for longer season dryland crops vs shorter season ones.     As with all varieties we carry, the options available have expanded over the years and there are some specific varieties you should or should not grow based on the situation:
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AuthorsBlair Balog - Seed Specialist at Stamp Seeds Archives
June 2025
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