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Evan Shout with Maverick Ag spoke at the Saskatchewan Cattle Feeders Association's Feedlot School about HR Agriculture has a bit or work to do on policies, procedures and standardizing team communication to make your and your teams life easier. 65% of famers are 55 year or older while the under 35's are under 10%, this means a lot of land will be sold or rented in the next 20 years as people retire and farms consolidate. Sorting out a plan for your family and team as well as structures in your business is key going forwards!
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TH4678 RR is a round up ready variety from Thunder Seed that is available for the 2026 growing season. This variety has tremendous height to it and fantastic tonnage potential. In the pictures below you will see TH4678RR in a plot against a competitor, the height on TH4678 RR is exciting for what potential it can bring!   Irrigation net returns are the top 3 images with dryland net returns the bottom 3 images. These are cost and value approximations and don't include land rent, machinery, or overhead. In the graphs, cereals are yellow, winter crops orange, and special crops blue on irrigation chart & brown on the dry land chart.       Another trial done by the Wheatland Conservation Area out of Swift Current, tested nitrogen efficiency between AAC Yellow 80 and Andante mustard. Results were amazing to see, AAC Yellow 80 responds drastically better than Andante when you try to push your yield with Nitrogen.  Blair took part of the Sask Mustard AGM at the end of the Western Crop Production Show. Below is a seeding rate trial that was done by the Wheatland Conservation Area out of Swift Current. The results shows that with increasing your seeding rate does not increase your yield potential. The sweet spot seems to be 8-10 Ibs/acre on yellow mustard, yields drop drastically off after that.   Sometimes things just work so well that no one gives much thought to how they work—or who is footing the bill. I have heard that the public may contribute 60-70% of the cost of breeding right now. (I could be wrong on that %)
Historically, the taxpayer funded the lion's share of breeding and agronomy work in Canadian agriculture. Over time, those public services have dwindled. To fill the gap, we’ve seen a patchwork of farmer contributions: commissions, rail overcharges, and royalties paid at the point of purchase. Certified seed sales royalties do not pay for the cost to breed a variety, not even close. This spring an article was written on the topic of: Is Breeding Broken The seed industry saw this coming . In 2013, the seed industry urged farmers to explore options to keep our system competitive. The conversation resurfaced in 2019. The current model, a hybrid of government and farmer funding, has created a non competitive seed breeding sector. We have inadvertently created a system that "picks" winners and losers. This has made the Canadian landscape too risky for private breeders to enter and compete effectively. To be clear: there is still a place for the taxpayer. Pure, non-competitive science and foundational research can still be driven by the public purse, crop commissions, the WGRF, seed companies and more. But for commercial variety development, the reality is clear: public breeding is going away. As farmers, we must take responsibility for the genetics we rely on today and the innovation we will need tomorrow. This means everyone must contribute. Whether through Variety Use Agreements (VUA), End Point Royalties, or another value-creation model, the specific mechanism is less important than the principle: everyone must pay into the breeding system to drive innovation. If we transition to a system where breeding functions as a competitive business, it will attract global investment and provide farmers with more options. Breeders will no longer just chase registrations; they will compete for market share by producing the specific traits that perform best on your farm. We have great varieties currently but a breeding program can only produce so many crosses and the total crosses have been dropping over time. The speed of gains could be increased for drought, irrigation, root diseases, FHB, yield under your conditions, insect pests and more. As Darcy Pawlik of the Wheat Growers Association recently suggested, it’s time for farmers to take control of our genetic future. We need to treat plant breeding like the business it is. When breeding functions like a normal business, it attracts competition—and competition is what ultimately brings value to the farm gate. The Canadian Grain Commission published cereal charts of varieties grown over the past 5 years, it's amazing how many of these we are not selling any more!    Because of our booking software Seedtrakr we are starting to generate better statistics on our farm of what we sell and varietal trends. does it tell us what to grow for next season? No 😂 : popularity, market trends, and luck play a large part on what sells for us. Below I have a chart showing the acres seeded by the crop we sell. We took the total volume of seed sold, divided by the average use rate of that crop type to make this chart. Whats amazing is that barley is our top crop, and that no crop dominates our sales. Further below that we have it broken down by variety total bu as a % of that crop type so you can see varieties moving in and out of the lineup over time, some varieties are in and out fast!  Should you only grow one durum variety? I'd suggest no, each season brings its own challenges and sometimes rain! Some varieties seem to have more risk to bacterial streaming/blight. Some have more lodging risk, and others are longer season and some seem to respond better to PGR's We have one customer blending AAC Stronghold and AAC Grainland on dryland to take advantage of the wet years vs dry as each one has a fit (see below) AAC Brigham VB
AAC Schrader
AAC Stronghold
AAC Frontier Fall 2026 launch:
Demo Plot 2025: AAC Brigham VB led the durum yield demo in 2025 For standability Stronghold was the best, followed by Succeed VB/Brigham VB, then Frontier, then Schrader. We often hear people relating stem solidness to standability but it is not the case. Solid stem does not automatically mean it stands better. Maturity was all very similar.    Normally we grow lentils on dryland but for the past 2 season we had our red lentils on irrigation. Our CDC Proclaim field might have had excess water late June early July but it ended up averaging 64 bu per ac. (seed is clean and ready to ship) We used 65 lbs per ac of 11-52 in seed row and targeted 14 plants per sq foot. Should you grow Lentils in 2025?
Here is some information from APG on lentil market classes and production. & SPG also has some great lentil production info as well. FMC has a nice lentil growing guide as well: https://ag.fmc.com/ca/sites/default/files/2024-02/7776%20Lentil%20Manual_Print_2024_Jan19.pdf Herbicides
Lentil Seed We have Clearfield red and green lentils available and the acres seem to keep growing! Some of our customers don't use the group 2 herbicide due to carry over risks, so it's up to you if you use the traits possible on these varieties. Reds are earlier and shorter vs. green lentils. CDC Lima CL - Large Green
CDC Jimini CL - Small Green Lentil
Yields According to AFSC reported yields CDC Lima large green can yield like CDC Maxim. If you are growing a red lentil, CDC Proclaim has been a solid variety in dry and wet years, that it's a wonder anyone grows CDC Maxim or others still, see AFSC reported yields for 2024 season and back.  Ryan Denis from the WTF Podcast has a great brand new episode from his podcast talking about fertilizer, and to Chuck Penner on markets and tariffs. Listen here
Ryan is our December 4th Seed Update speaker so listen in & plan to attend to hear his candid opinions on farming decisions! We have been asked to be the first farm to donate acres to the "Growing Something Bigger Than a Harvest" campaign. The goal is to bring cardiac care to Lethbridge, and we have pledged 5 acres! For more info: https://crhfoundation.ca/content.php?n=495  Recent testing of farmer submitted samples of Kochia to Dr. Charles Geddes show we have a problem with this mode of action as well https://x.com/charlesmgeddes/status/1966575193046085770 Authority, and many other trade names offering residual kochia control or suppression are part of this group.  We will have a booth at Agri-Trade - Nov 5-7th in Red Deer, come and say hi!. See image below:  Is it possible to triple wheat yield? Interesting discovery: https://newatlas.com/science/mutant-wheat-triple-yields/ Here is a nice summary of the powdery mildew problem in canola in 2025: click here
We offer FCC crop input financing, but we need to know at the time of booking so we can make sure you are set up. If you are arranging financing for other inputs with FCC already, please list us as a supplier if you will be using FCC with us.
Western Seed Association Conference - Oct 27-30th - Kansas City - Booth
Agri-Trade - Nov 5-7th - Red Deer - Booth Alberta Potato Conference & Tradeshow - Nov 18-20th - Red Deer - Booth Stamp Seeds Seed Update - Dec 4th (tentative date) - Enchant Alberta Pulse Growers Zone 1 MTG - Dec 9th - Taber Praire Cereals Summit - Dec 10-12th - Banff Western Tractor Days - Jan 8-9th - Medicine Hat - Booth Crop Production Show - Jan 13-15th - Saskatoon - Booth Ag Expo - Feb 25-27 - Lethbridge - Booth More to come! Pulse Canada president Greg Cherewyk talks to RealAg about the current status of pulse trade talks: link here
RDAR has some cost share funding for virtual fencing from OFCAF funding:
https://abpdaily.com/health-production/rdar-expands-grazing-program-to-include-virtual-fencing/ Treatments:
Peat Inoculant on Seed for up to 30 Days
 We have reduced to 4 varieties in the CWRS sales lineup this season because these new varieties don't have competition! We have dropped all other CWRS because these are such a step change in genetics. (& because we can't carry 10 CWRS 😁 Pricing is out now: AAC Westking
 Should you only grow one durum variety? I'd suggest no, each season brings its own challenges and sometimes rain! Some varieties seem to have more risk to bacterial streaming/blight. Some have more lodging risk, and others are longer season and some seem to respond better to PGR's We have one customer blending AAC Stronghold and AAC Grainland on dryland to take advantage of the wet years vs dry as each one has a fit (see below) AAC Brigham VB
AAC Schrader
AAC Stronghold
AAC Frontier Fall 2026 launch:
Demo Plot 2025: AAC Brigham VB led the durum yield demo in 2025 For standability Stronghold was the best, followed by Succeed VB/Brigham VB, then Frontier, then Schrader. We often hear people relating stem solidness to standability but it is not the case. Solid stem does not automatically mean it stands better. Maturity was all very similar. TH4678RR continues to shine as the silage data comes in. Finishing with 29.4 tons/acre in this trial. It has awesome stay green to it, which keeps it moisture longer so you don't have to chase moistures with the chopper! TH4477 GT also did great in this trial as well! It is a dual purpose variety for Southern Alberta. Great silage yield potential as shown in this trial but also has great grain yield potential! Pricing is available now, talk to Blair at [email protected] or call the office 403-739-2233  |
AuthorsBlair Balog - Seed Specialist at Stamp Seeds Archives
February 2026
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