Heat stress can be a killer on the job site. Outside of the direct consequences such as heat stroke, heat stress can cause incidents due to loss of focus or excessive fatigue on the job.
Heat cramps are painful, brief muscle cramps. Muscles may spasm or spasm involuntarily. Heat cramps can occur during exercise or work in a hot environment or begin a few hours later.
There are two types of heat exhaustion. Read more
Your family is your pride and joy. Whether you are raising children, watching out for your partner, or checking in on Dad after a long day in the field, you would do anything to keep them safe, while preserving the farm experience for future generations. ATVs on the farm ATVs are used on our farm […]
February 16 was Canada’s Agriculture Day and the students at Naahii Ridge Public School in Ridgetown, Ontario, had the chance to celebrate the day with many volunteers from the agricultural community.
“Canada’s Ag Day was a great opportunity for us to talk to the students about why the Canadian Ag industry is so important,” says Amy Caron, Communications Specialist for Dow Seeds. “Dow Seeds was very fortunate to work with some great community volunteers to bring that message to the students at Naahii.”
Students from grades 4, 5 and 6 listened to presentations on the importance of the Ag industry and the various career opportunities this sector offers. The students then participated in the “Canada’s Ag Day Trade Show” where they travelled around the gym to various stations to talk to the volunteers about what they do in the Ag industry.
Students had the opportunity to talk to: Cara McCready, a Greenhouse IPM Specialist with OMAFRA who talked about beneficial pests and pest management; Jane Lawton from Chatham-Kent 4H about the organization and how to become involved; Janice Anderson from Pioneer about the importance of Women in Ag; Rob Reid, Dairy Education Center Manager, University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus, who spoke on what happens in a dairy barn; Grace Jones, a Dow Seeds Territory Sales Rep, spoke on the importance of business and crop planning with farmers; Travis Roodzant from Thompsons Limited talked to the kids about agronomy and the use of drones in that process; Madison Trozzi, a high school senior who completed her co-op in the Dow Seeds Seed Lab showed the science behind ag industry and Eric Bastiaansen, an egg farmer from Thedford talked about how your eggs get from his farm to your grocery store.
Students from Grades 1 to 3 didn’t miss out on the festivities. Cassi Boersma, a part time teacher with Naahii and the Farm Safety Coordinator for Ridgetown, spoke to this group of students about the importance of ATV and farm safety.
Other organizations who helped support this event were FCC, Ag in the Classroom and Agriculture More Than Ever.
“We only had a couple of hours to share our stories with these students,” says Caron. “However, there were some great questions and hopefully some great conversations around their dinner table that night.”
Click for more information on Canada’s Agriculture Day.
Source: Ridgetown Independent News – 1 Main Street, Ridgetown, ON (519) 674-5205.
Blenheim, Ontario, Canada – July 14, 2016
Thompsons Limited is pleased to announce that Rob Wallbridge has joined the company as Organic Specialist.
Rob grew up on conventional dairy and cash crop farms in Central and Eastern Ontario. He comes to Thompsons with more than 15 years of experience in organic crop certification, production and marketing.
Rob is a registered Certified Crop Advisor (CCA-ON) and is a board member with the Organic Council of Ontario. He is also a volunteer member of both the AAFC Organic Value Chain Roundtable and the Livestock Working Group of the Canadian General Standard Boards’ Organic Technical Committee.
This appointment will help solidify and build Thompsons profile as a major international player in the organics supply chain.
Follow Rob Wallbridge on Twitter.
About Thompsons Limited
Established in 1924, Thompsons was purchased by The Andersons, Inc., and Lansing Trade Group, LLC in 2013. Thompsons is an integrated supplier of value-added agricultural products and services to growers in Ontario, Minnesota and North Dakota and to food processing customers worldwide. Thompsons owns and operates 12 elevators, 11 retail farm centers, 2 seed processing plants, 5 bean processing plants, a wheat processing plant, and 9 certified organic facilities. For more information, visit Thompsons Limited online at staging.andersonscanada.com.
Media Contact:
Dawn Betancourt, President, Thompsons Limited
Phone: (519) 676-5411
Now that your crops are in the bin, it’s important to learn how to keep them conditioned and stored properly.
Throughout the winter months it’s important to monitor your soybean temperature, and to aerate your bins.
If you haven’t sold any beans then coring out your bin can be an option to remove some fines, and help stir the grain a bit.
It is important to make sure that soybeans are stored at a 14% moisture or lower. Don’t assume that because your beans went into the bin really dry, you don’t have to aerate. Those low moisture beans are still hot and need to have the field heat removed. Read more
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Fewer farmers are sampling their soils. In Ontario, the numbers say fewer than 30 per cent of farmers test every three years, even though this trend is leading to a data gap at a time when everything else seems to be changing too, such as the rapid climb in yield potentials, and elite corn hybrids that are so much more efficient at extracting nutrients.
Also worrying is that the experts are lining up to tell us that, one way or another, more farmers are mining their soils. Read more
Early corn yield estimations are a great way to get out into your field and start to predict the yield of different varieties given the growing season. It allows a grower to start making harvest decisions, marketing decisions, and to estimate needed storage capacity.
Generally doing a kernel count every 10-15 acres is recommended. For soils that are extremely variable, doing a kernel count every 5-10 acres would be beneficial. Select random spots in the field when walking through as you are trying to get the best representation of the field.
Calculating soybean yields can be difficult. Plant spacing, soil types, environmental factors, insect and disease stress can all affect the final yield. Pod numbers, seeds per pod, and seed size will all control yield.
The earliest time to begin yield counts is around R5-R6 stage with the R6 stage being preferred (a pod on any of the top four nodes of main stem full of seed.). By R6, all flowering will stop, pods have developed, and seeds in the pods are mostly filled. The accuracy of counts will always increase the closer you are to harvest.
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