The canola crop may be in bloom, but if the flower petals look small or pale instead of that nice vibrant yellow, the crop may be suffering from sulphur  deficiency, says a soil fertility specialist.

 The Calgary Stampede may hand out more than a million dollars in prize money to cowboys, but it also handed one of its most persistent critics a significant propaganda gift following the death of six horses at the 2010 event.

 While one group in California is calling for a boycott of Alberta in memory of 1,600 dead ducks, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has been harping for years that the world’s largest outdoor rodeo has been profiting from animal cruelty, since Guy Weadick first saddled a trick pony to launch the Stampede in 1912. Well the Stampede handed them more fuel for this fire this year after six horses died (or had to be put down) following rodeo and chuckwagon racing events in July.

 There weren’t any of the truly man-made mishaps like chuckwagons colliding on the oval race track. These animals either broke legs, backs, or keeled over from heart attacks from running and jumping and then had to be euthanized.

 It was unfortunate. Unfortunate for the animals. Unfortunate for the owners who I believe really do care about their livestock. And unfortunate that it handed critics fresh and timely ammunition.

 I’m not necessarily a big rodeo fan, although I have gone to several over the years. I like watching the highlights on TV, but in real life and in real time some of these events can drag on and my attention span is short. Maybe if I could afford the $500 per-person in-field seats where I could get a better look, I’d be more of a keener.

 Although I am not a rabid rodeo fan, it’s not because I consider it animal cruelty. I think the calf roping, which now seems to be called tie-down roping, and steer wrestling, probably put stress on livestock that would rather be somewhere else, doing something else. But I suspect most survive none the worse for wear.

 Other events – bronc riding, bull riding and chuckwagon racing, for example – do rely on animals as a source of human entertainment, but I don’t know if it is any worse than polo or thoroughbred horse racing, pigeon racing, pig racing, or teaching a dog to do tricks.

I think a horse that breaks a leg while running a race, or its back while bucking in a corral  – both relatively rare considering the number of horses involved in rodeo events, isn’t a lot different than a race car driver who gets banged up in a high speed crash or a football player who ends up with a compound fracture during a tackle.

 Of course you can always say the big difference is that people have the choice of whether they want to participate in high risk events. Which is true. But, I’m guessing if you turned 500 head of healthy horses lose to run and graze on 100,000 acres of open prairie, with no humans in sight, that after a year, natural causes or natural accidents are going to take their toll as well.

I think it was a mistake that Stampede officials cancelled a night of chuckwagon races saying the track was too muddy. It was a sign of weakness, dressed up as a safety measure. My guess is they just didn’t want to run the risk of another mishap and another dead horse they would have to explain to the media.

In any event, I think it gives do-gooder organizations like PETA that chink in the armor they will pry on over the next few years in an ongoing bid to shut the rodeo down.

One of these days the Calgary Stampede could revert back to true country fair status, where it becomes the home of the largest vegetable judging competition in the world. Of course then, the Stampede officials of the day will have to deal with all the vegan critics distressed over the total disregard and lack of care which allowed carrots to shrivel and, and dare I say it, apples to get bruised. When will the world be happy?

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Even while waiting for fields to dry out, farmers are reluctant to complain about too much moisture. Particularly producers in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan say too much moisture isn’t great, but there have been many years when they face the hardship of too little moisture.

At an indoor “crop walk” in Lethbridge this week about 100 producers shared some thoughts on managing crop land that has received anywhere from eight to 12 inches of precipitation so far this spring. It was supposed to be a field crop walk, organized by Alberta Agriculture and the Southern Applied Research Association to look at research plots demonstrating a number of crop production treatments. But, Ross McKenzie, agronomy research scientist with Alberta Ag in Letbridge said the plots were just too wet. He had been out with pumps to get standing water off the fields, which are near Ag Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre, and it looked like the plants would make it, but having an on-site look would have been a gum-boot only affair.

There was a lot of discussion about crops and moisture and here are a few of the highlights.

·   The southern prairies are considered dry, but 2010 was the fourth year in the last 16 to be considered as ‘wet’ years. They included 1995, 2002, 2005 and now 2010. Lethbridge had about eight inches of moisture in four major weather events this spring, further south at Cardston it was closer to 13 inches, and east towards Bow Island it was about 11 inches.

·   Along with the moisture, average temperatures have been cool, which has delayed the crops anywhere from two to four weeks. Just for interest, at 20 C degree temperatures it takes barley about five days to germinate, at 10 C it takes about 14 days and at five C it takes 25 or more days to germinate.

·   If plants have been under standing water for five days or more, they are probably finished.

·   While yellowing crops under too much moisture is fairly normal, the yellowing could be caused by a combination of factors – cool temperatures, lack of oxygen, and with saturated soils crops don’t have the same nutrient uptake which leads to a lack of nitrogen.

·   If, as moisture recedes, crops don’t look like they are bouncing back from the yellowing, top dressing with nitrogen fertilizer may be an option. Good products are 28-0-0 (urea) and 28-0-0 (UAN liquid) or even 21-0-0-24 (ammonium sulphate). Granular products are good, but the downside in a year like this, is that you still need moisture after application to carry the nitrogen into the soil, or you risk loosing 25 to 30 percent to volatilization.

·   McKenzie says if producers do plan to top dress, aim to apply 30 pounds of actual nitrogen per acre, and “don’t mess around with a 10 pound rate”.

·   A soil test and/or tissue test may not be accurate or timely enough in a year like this to give producers a clear message on whether top dressing is necessary. It comes down to a producer call – look at the crop, if it is a good stand, with good potential, and the potential pencils out with market prices, invest in the top dress application.

·   Unless you are keen on chemfallow, if you have some unseeded fields this late in the season, it might be best to get something seeded and growing to use moisture and control weeds. A cereal can be seeded, if you can make use of green feed in the fall, or perhaps consider a legume such as sweet clover, as green manure. Sweet clover is cheaper than peas and fixes nitrogen in the soil, making it worthwhile, even under a zero-till cropping system. Alfalfa is also a good option on soils prone to salinity.

·   You can also manage those unseeded acres so you can get a winter cereal such as winter wheat seeded in good time in early September.

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Due to the fact that southern Alberta has water up to its proverbial boot tops, the AgTech Centre seeding demo near Lethbridge, AB scheduled for this Wednesday has been postponed until June 30.

With 10 to 15 inches of rain over the past 10 days and more rain forecast for this week, organizers had little choice but to reschedule the event, which was intended to show producers how six leading seeding systems worked.

Hopefully conditions will be dry enough for the event to be held next Wednesday June 30. Anyone planning to attend should watch this blog site or contact Mike Bevans at the AgTech Centre at 403 329 1212 – ext 225 for details as the day approaches.

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What’s the best seeding system you can use? The answer to that may always remain a personal preference. But you can get an excellent idea of how six of the leading air seeders and drills compare at a southern Alberta field day coming up Wednesday, June 23.

Alberta’s Ag Tech Centre is staging a seeding technology demonstration June 23 at the AgTech Centre’s research farm south of Lethbridge on Highway 508.

The six leading systems supplied by SeedMaster, John Deere, Morris, New Holland, Seed Hawk and Bourgault have already been at the research farm, each seeding their respective areas of a 200 acre demonstration site. The six systems will be back on the farm June 23 to provide a live demonstration to producers attending the field day.

“The demonstration isn’t intended to say one system is better than another, but to give producers a first hand look at home different seeders and drills work under similar field conditions,” says Mike Bevans, an AgTech Centre technologist who is coordinating the field day.

“The first 200 acres will have been seeded to crops such as peas, wheat and canola for about one month before the June 23 field day. The first seeding wasn’t done under the best conditions because of the wet spring. But producers can see how the crops are performing and also see how the various systems work.”

At the demonstration day producers can make their own assessment of how different systems handle fertilizer and seed placement, soil disturbance, and residue management. There will also be presentations on variable rate technologies, inter-row seeding, and RTK coverage.

The AgTech Centre research farm is south of Lethbridge, east off of Highway 5 on Highway 508. Or if you are coming in on Highway 4, go west on Highway 508. There will be signs.

Coffee and lunch will be provided at the field day. And in the event of inclement weather the field day will be rescheduled to June 28.  For more information contact Mike Bevans at the AgTech Centre at 403-329-1212, or email michael.bevans@gov.ab.ca.

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I think it is important that North American cattlemen keep those livestock numbers up to avoid the risk of another Ice Age.

I’m still on the fence when it comes to issue of Global Warming – is it happening? Why is it happening? And so on…  But a recent article I read says it was the demise of the wooly mammoth, due to human predators, that led to a major deep freeze nearly 13,000 years ago.

How researchers figure this stuff out, I don’t know – and really who can argue with them since there are no eye witnesses left. But, researchers say it was the herds of belching and farting mammoths, releasing methane gas, trapped in the atmosphere, that kept the climate warm.

When two-legged predators reached the Americas about 13,000 years ago, the mammoth began to disappear and as far as I know became extinct – although I haven’t traveled much around the Prince Albert area of Saskatchewan, so there could be some up there.

The demise of the mammoth triggered what was known as the Younger Dryas cold event. That lasted about 1,300 years, until the Canadian Angus Association began its marketing program.

A couple things come to mind. First, how many of these six tonne beasts were roaming over North America, and second, how hungry were these people? If there were enough mammoths to affect global climate, even with only a 50 per cent carcass yield, that would represent one hell of a pile of burgers at the caveman campout.

The researchers figure as mammoth numbers declined, mammoth methane production dropped from 10 trillion grams per year, to just a few embarrassing releases around the pre-historic watering hole. That cleared the atmosphere and triggered a deep chill.

So if we are going to learn from history, let’s keep those livestock numbers up. Current statistics show there are about 1.5 billion head of cattle in the world, including about 100 million head in the U.S. and 14 million head in Canada.

Sure, there may not be a lot of money to be made in keeping the critters around these days, but I think we have to look at the bigger good for society.  If we don’t keep those cattle numbers up, we’d better be prepared to break out the blankets.

If we really want to get these ‘sickos’ who slaughter horses for meat-sale profit off the street, the only real, long lasting solution is an outright ban on  breeding and ownership of any class of horse in North America by anyone– unless you are a card-carrying member of the Amish community.

The value of or need for the original, four-footed equus-type horsepower has been steadily declining since the first internal-combustion engine was developed more than 120 years ago. We no longer need horses.

If the figures from animal welfare groups are correct (and it would be hard to believe they would be exaggerated) Canadian horse slaughter plants process about 100,000 head per year. And that is not a one-time deal. That is year after year. So to me, year after year we have 100,000 head of unwanted horses being produced somewhere, that end up on the kill floor of horse plants.

And I’ve haven’t run into one commercial ranching operation over the past 25 years in the ag reporting business that raises herds of horses just for slaughter. (I wonder if that has anything to do with the economics?) So again I am assuming the majority of these slaughter horses are coming by ones and fours from the beaten to the nubs, two-acre paddocks of hobby farmers and acreage owners who “really love horses, but no body rides them anymore,” or “we bought a new motor home and want to do more traveling, so we don’t have time for them” or “geez, they are expensive to keep”.

When you look at the whole meat industry, I find it interesting to note that beef animals, pigs and poultry all go to packing or processing plants. Horses, however, go to “slaughter” houses. Horses are slaughtered. Apparently they skip the packing and processing stage and are just slaughtered. 

According to animal welfare/rights groups who are usually able to present crystal clear, well-documented video footage, many of these animals are tortured before being slaughtered. I am sure that is a common practice in the beef processing sector too. I watched a high quality video the other day of someone trying to pickup a crippled beef animal at a packing plant with a front end loader. And if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  I’ve heard that most “packing plants” have a secret room where employees can go at lunch time for the always popular forklift flipping of downer cattle competition. It is usually in the same area as the cockfighting pits. It is important to keep workers entertained and happy.

If you’ve guessed my comments are somewhat sarcastic, you’re correct. As long as so called ‘horse lovers’ are producing boat loads of unwanted horses there is a need and a value for horse processing plants. Even well-cared for working horses come to the end of their day at some point, or circumstances change for well-meaning horse owners, and the animals have to go.

The point is what do you do with these animals, otherwise? If they are not processed, do you let them run wild on the Canadian prairie?  Since people are farming there, maybe we should just have drop locations at National Parks. There is a lot of vacant land there no body uses. Let them live out the rest of their natural lives running free in Banff, or Grasslands or Riding Mountain national parks.

Horse processing plants need to be – and I believe are – properly managed, and properly inspected to ensure that animals are humanely cared for and handled right up to the final moment they are bolted. No system is perfect, so we need to always work to improve.

Rather than trying to close these plants, animal welfare/rights groups should be putting their resources into promoting horse spaying and castration programs, and educating hobby farmers about the misconception that every acre can support five easy-keepers.

If critics can reduce the flow of these unwanted horses to a trickle, these horse slaughter people may not disappear, but at least then they will stop murdering horses and get back to the core business, which is supplying kittens to lucrative Communist fur coat market.

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Just kicking back in the office today, catching up on some reading and on the top of the pile is a new book called “Raising Goats for Dummies”.

I knew there was a series of these trademark bright yellow and black jacketed books on a wide range of topics, but I thought it was 15 or 20 titles about trying to figure out your computer, or specialty software, or genealogy or something. But if you go to the “Dummies” website (www.dummies.com)

there are hundreds of titles (about 1700 actually) on just about every imaginable business, entertainment, or lifestyle topic you can think of.

I saw ones called Arthritis for Dummies, Bath and Sink Refinishing for Dummies, Adoption for Dummies, Beagles for Dummies, even Pope John Paul II for Dummies. I guess for the slower learners there was one called “Sex for Dummies”, and right after that in the list – probably for those who were too enthusiastic about learning the previous topic, was “Divorce for Dummies”.  So if you have no skill in just about any area I highly recommend you go to the Dummies website to see if there is a title there for the topic. (I didn’t see one on Raising Beef for Dummies – not sure what the hold up is there – maybe Pork Production for Dummies is ahead of them on the press).

Back to the goat book. The publisher for Cheryl K. Smith sent me this copy to review. Cheryl started with two Nigerian Dwarves (I assume they mean goats) in 1998 and has never looked back. She is a lawyer by training, and she has actually written several books on goat rearing and husbandry and the Raising Goats for Dummies is her latest. She lives and farms near Low Pass in the coast range of Oregon.

I see she also has a published paper on “What about legalized assisted suicide? : An article from: Issues in Law & Medicine”, maybe that is just in case the goat business doesn’t go so well. (But in all fairness and seriousness, I believe that is just a paper on the legal and ethical issues of the topic and really isn’t making the case pro or con and is certainly unrelated to raising goats).

I am not in the goat business and probably never will be (even though it is all my wife ever talks about is someday getting a herd of goats – as soon as the chinchillas are gone), but I would say if you ever wanted to get a couple goats or a whole herd, it is a very good book to begin with.

It is 325 pages long, easy to read, has some great illustrations and covers the A to Z topics, whether you want a couple goats for the yard, are looking to raise goats for a 4-H project, or want to get into the goat meat, milk and/or fibre business.

The various chapters describes different breeds, housing requirements on the farm, feed requirements, animal care, animal health, breeding, and kidding. And there are also sections about the business of selling meat and milking goats, as well as collecting and marketing fibre.

There is a short chapter on the 10 Misconceptions about Goats, which is interesting.  It isn’t true that they eat everything, they don’t stink (except for the bucks at breeding season), they are smart, and the meat and milk taste good – are a few of the highlights.  There is even a 14 page appendix with goat milk and meat recipes.

Raising Goats for Dummies by Cheryl K. Smith is available from many bookstores that carry the “Dummies” series. It is $24 Canadian. And you can also order it on-line through Chapters/Indigo Books.

Keep me posted on how you make out in the goat business.

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 I work out of my basement office, so it is easy for me to loose track of things. But as we observe Earth Day this week I was just trying to update myself on who is producing biofuels in Western Canada.

Husky has a four-year-old ethanol plant at Lloydminster, Sask. and an upgraded facility at Minnedosa MB, and Poundmaker at Lannigan, Sask. has been operating for many years. There is a fairly new 25 million litre ethanol plant owned by NorAmera BioEnergy Corp. at Weyburn, Sask.  But is there anyone else?

Three or four years ago, at farm meetings, if you weren’t ready to invest in your local, neighborhood biofuel project you were disrespecting motherhood and missing out on a great industry-saving opportunity. When all these ethanol and biodiesel facilities began operating there was a real risk of a shortage of canola margarine, and even wheat to make the bread to spread it on.

I recall at one conference there was a brawl in the alley between a group of biofuel project organizers and a committee planning a producer-run meat packing plant. They were squabbling over available land for their developments. All seems pretty quiet today.

I was just reading this morning a company called BioStreet Canada is working on plans to build a biodiesel plant at Vegreville, AB. They are a bit behind with their plans. It was supposed to be open in 2008 and now they are looking at 2012, but it doesn’t sound like they’ve poured any footings yet.

I’m not trying to be cynical, but I was just curious if there was a flourishing biofuel industry out there and I was missing it.

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Yes, that is just what Agriculture Canada needs is more budget cuts. I was just reading recently where the federal government plans to cut the Ag Canada budget by nearly half – 45 percent – or $1.5 billion over the next three years.

First of all it amazes me that the regular Ag Canada budget is or was $3.5 billion….I think that use to be Canada’s national budget a few years ago. Where have I been? But the new figure will be just under $2 billion by 2013.

I am all in favor of a government saving money, but too often these budget cuts affect the wrong programs. Instead of working on the spare tire around the waist, it becomes a hatchet job on fingers, toes and even arms and legs.

Whether it be a provincial government or the federal department of agriculture, the escalating-trend over the past 10 years has been to get away from the nuts and bolts research and development – the good old R & D – the down-in-the-dirt stuff that can really benefit farmers. The preference is to put more emphasis on supposedly higher profile support programs, which someone hopes will at least impress a senior bureaucrat, gag the opposition, and/or impress voters.

I have seen a number of good researchers who know how plants grow or which end a cow craps from, who get shuffled off into some bureaucratic administration position for a great new save-the-industry program, that makes the director or the minister look good. And those who aren’t pulled out of active service, spend half or more of their time filling out paper work to apply to 125 different funding sources, or trying to schmooze some corporate partner to kick in a few bucks, because there is no core funding for this long term research in the annual budget. 

The other thing I see on visits to research centres is a lot of grey hair. What’s going to happen to fundamental agricultural research when these old farts decide to hang up their white smocks? Are there enough bright young minds coming into the business to carry on this work, who are prepared to bitch and barter for every dime to keep a field research program going?

Yes, I hear people argue that times have changed. Farmers spend too much time worrying about production and they should spend more time on business management and marketing and the global economy. And those are increasingly more important elements of the agriculture industry too.

But damn it all, as we get down to razor thin margins it is also increasingly important that producers have the tools and the knowledge to optimize yields or have the most efficient rate of gain possible. And so much of that depends on independent, unbiased, critical crop and livestock production research.

I know the image of some plant breeder sitting on an overturned five-gallon pail in a variety plot on a 30-degree day, or a livestock researcher up to their armpit with a gloved arm down the back end of a cow may not capture the public imagination like the ribbon cutting of a new art gallery, but if politicians and senior trained-seal bureaucrats keep whacking away at fundamental research and development programs, federal and provincial research centres will become little more than museums themselves.

Save a dollar if you can, but if there was that much fat in the system, why not turn some of that $1.5 billion “cut” back into funding-starved R & D projects. Some how I doubt stripping that $1.5 billion out of agriculture is going to reduce taxes and increase my take home pay any time soon.

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I don’t farm, I am just an all-knowing farm writer. But, one of the most common messages I hear from the experts is for producers to keep the seeding rate up.

There are several benefits to this, which first includes simply having enough plants in the field to optimize your yield, but it is also important for choking out weeds and other benefits.

And in talking with a few producers for March 22 farmer panel of Grainews (which will be out this week) this is also an important consideration for them,  as well. Their experience shows that not all grains (or varieties) are created equal and as good as seeding technology is today, it is worth checking to make sure the equipment is delivering what is supposed to do?

I know producers are always looking for fun things to do, to fill that spare time after seeding, but I think it would be interesting once the crop emerges to go back and actually do a few square foot counts to see if you really do have the number of plants growing according to recommendations.

The recommendations vary, so it is best to check with provincial departments of agriculture or a local crop consultant for their advice on the matter. On the Alberta Agriculture website for example, plant populations for most grains – wheats, oats and barleys – should average 20 to 24 plants per square foot, with canola it could range from 7 to 15 plants per square foot, with peas about seven plants per square foot, lentils about 12 plants, and there are figures for other crops as well.

Since varieties and seed batches can vary, one often-recommended exercise for determining the proper seeding rate is to use the 1000 kernel weight formula. Crop advisor Steve Larocque, of Beyond Agronomy in Three Hills, Alberta, recommends this five step process for calculating cereal seeding rate:

1. Take a germination and vigor test. I like to have a disease test done as well to determine what seed treatments we should be focusing on to control any seed born infections, or find another seed supply.
2. Count out 1,000 kernels. Before you say yah right Steve, you can count out 100 seeds and multiply it by 10 to get your thousand kernels. You may call it cheating, but I call it efficiency and know that the either method yields you the same number.
3. Choose a target plant stand density per square foot. You can get an idea by looking at Ropintheweb's seeding rate information at http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex81?opendocument#targetlook.

4. Estimate the seedling mortality. For example, I use four percent mortality on wheat and barley for the farms I work with based on experience. You may see more or less mortality depending on your seeding practices.

5. Plug the numbers in the formula to determine your seeding rate (lbs/ac).

Here’s the formula: seeding rate (lb/ac) = desired plant population/ft² x 1,000 K wt. (g) ÷ seedling survival rate (in decimal form such as 0.90) ÷ factor of 10.4

So if your 1000 kernels of seed weighed 35 grams and you want a stand of 30 wheat plants per square foot, and you expect 90 percent seedling survival, the actual calculation would look like this:

 30 plants/ft² x 35 g ÷ 0.90 ÷ 10.4 = 112 lb/acre seeding rate.

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I think the Olympics are over – or at least the first round. The Paralympics are yet to come – but it is time I moved on with my thoughts. Blogging is like fish – it is always better fresh, so I am sure a few people are wondering what died on the Grainews webpage.

On a fresh topic, it was interesting to see in a recent news release that the Beef Information Centre (www.beefinfo.org) has partnered with Costco to make available a handy guide on how to cut meat at home. I don’t imagine this is encouraging people to buy a carcass to be cut and wrapped on the kitchen table. But aimed more at those who buy larger portion sizes, which is what you often find at Costco, and then want to repackage this meat. The release mentions sub-primal cuts such as strip loins, rib eyes and tenderloins.

Our experience – in our house -  in the past few months or year timeframe, is that Costco has very good meat. Beef, pork, chicken – whatever you buy it is good quality, flavorful, tender, and reasonably priced.  Sometimes the portion sizes or packaging is a bit big, but otherwise their meat has few surprises.

I don’t want this to get back to my brother-in-law, from whom we bought beef for several years, but to be honest you were never really sure what you were getting. Many of the quality factors were fine, except with tenderness. You’d have a nice steak or roast, with what appeared to be good marbling and yet it was always wait-n-see if it was tender.  And sometimes the nicest looking cuts weren’t all that tender.

We haven’t bought a side a beef for a year or so, for a couple reasons, but in the meantime my wife and I have really been impressed with Costco meats. And I think this meat-cutting guide called Slice and Save is a great idea, too. We can buy a quantity or cut that may be too large for a usual portion, but we and other consumers, will get some advice on how to re-package and freeze smaller portions for later use.

That’s a good marketing strategy.

One other aspect of retail meat sales I wish BIC or retailers could simplify at a glance, is how different cuts stack up for tenderness. BIC has a very nice wall chart that gives you the names of the cuts and where they come from on the carcass – and there is a tenderness rating - but that wall chart doesn’t fit into my wallet. There are 150 different cuts of meat on that chart. I am suppose to memorize this?

I think meat counters should have three sections – Tender, Not Bad, and Tough. And maybe the individual cuts should have one of three little sticker symbols on the packaging – a fork (for fork tender); a steak knife (needs some help); and a chain saw (which means you have to boil the heck out of this).

As I have discovered over the years, not everything with sirloin in the name is created equal.

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Did you hear the one about the three old farm writers, who along with their wives, got together to watch the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics, last Friday? We’re still trying to figure out how they got those whales into the stadium, and all going in the same direction.

You can just imagine the depth of the commentary as these past and present scribes for Country Guide, Canadian Cattleman Magazine, and Grainews, with a combined 313 years of writing experience, got together to watch the opening ceremonies on the host’s new 85 inch, Samsung, High Definition TV set.

Once we figured out which remote actually turns the thing on, we were good to go. And it was a great opening ceremony. Very impressive. Of course at our age anything with bright lights, that is on TV before 10 pm, is entertaining.

Here are a few of the observations:

-       Boy, there sure is a big Indian (Aboriginal Canadian) presence at the opening ceremonies

-       What are those four tall pillars they raised from under the floor? Are they real ice? Are they totem poles? They look like culverts.

-       Where is Andorra? I don’t think I’ve every heard of it.

-       Where is Kyrgyzstan? No wonder the former USSR is in trouble – they made just about every street of the old republic into a new country.

-       Great to see the Canadian Olympic team on parade. Flag bearer, Clara Hughes, seems like a really nice kid.

-       Boy, those native dancers are still dancing. They’ll be tired tomorrow.

-       Wow, Nellie Furtado’s tight blue dress left nothing to the imagination. General consensus it made her butt look big.

-       That was neat to see the images of those whales swimming across the floor of the stadium.

-       They could have left out the segment with the ballet. Does anyone need another drink? Want to see how we can change the size of the picture on this new TV? Which remote do we use?

-       It’s amazing what they can do with lights and a few thousand meters of window sheers.

-       Do 1000 fiddlers really define Canadian culture?

-       Although she short of stuck it to the beef industry, k.d. Lang, was the highlight of the show with her performance. Obviously going vegetarian isn’t the key to weight loss.

-       Governor General Michaëlle Jean is a neat lady. Who is that old guy sitting beside her?

-       Prime Minister Stephen Harper has turned on his robotic arm to wave at the athletes.

-       Who knew that Lloyd Robertson is 76-years-old? I think he covered the first Olympics in 776 B.C.  

-       Speeches were good. Not too much French that was nice. (Not too many anglo-rednecks at this dinner party).

-       Good to see Betty Fox carrying in the flag. And there’s Anne Murray. Is Donald Sutherland really Canadian?  Maybe it should have been Tommy Douglas, but Donald Sutherland…?

-       Barbara Ann Scott doesn’t look any different now than she did when she skated in 1948. (Which we all remember – fortunately NOT).

-       Canadian opera star Measha Brueggergosman, with a three-foot diameter afro hair style, sure has a powerful voice. Does anyone need another drink? Wonder what her hair looks like when she gets up in the morning?

-       Who’s going to light the flame? Don Cherry, Ben Mulroney, what about Steve Fonyo? Poor Steve. He should be allowed to keep his Order of Canada.

-       And Wayne Gretzky gets to light the torch. Guess that was a good choice. Very honorable man who so far hasn’t run into any problems like Tiger Woods. He’s probably the only one who could handle the 10 minute ride in the back of the truck, in the pouring rain, to light the caldron by the waterfront.

-       A good show. Very big production. Well done. A promise from the host that we’ll all be invited back for the next Olympics and he’ll have the remotes figured out by then.

Let the Games begin.

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Just when I thought I knew it all, (or is it that I didn’t want to learn anymore) I spent a day at the Saskatchewan Beef and Forage Symposium in Saskatoon, this week, and got a bad case of information overload.

I was only able to catch 13 of the 17 presentations during the day, but here are some of the highlights. (Many of the presenters were students at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) working on their Masters degrees – so young and yet so smart.

• Alison Ward is working on a project to see if genetic testing might one day help identify cattle who could benefit from Vitamin A supplements to improve carcass marbling. Vitamin A does affect marbling and some cattle may have a genetic disposition to better handle vitamin A than others. If genetic testing can identify those cattle, supplements could be used to improve carcass quality. 
• Dyan Pratt, selected a glamorous project where she is collecting the liquid from rotting carcasses to get a chemical analysis. The whole point of this is, if there is ever a major disease outbreak and large numbers of cattle have to be euthanized and buried, she wanted to evaluate the impact of this liquid or leachate on soil and groundwater. It appears the leachate would be very high in ammonium sulphate, phosphorus, chloride and other compounds, so proper citing of these disposal grounds and even SRM disposal is important to protect the environment.
• Brooke Aitken, of Eyebrow Saskatchewan and a student at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (photo at right)  is trying to determine if there is a way to identify overly aggressive cattle in a beef herd.Some goofy heifers just make poor mothers, and of course other aggressive females, at calving, injure and kill ranchers every year. Some limited surveys she has done shows that 70 percent of producers report having ‘dangerous’ cows, and 70 percent of those producers have been injured by cattle. Surprisingly only 50 percent of injured ranchers say they culled overly aggressive cattle. (Maybe Brooke should be evaluating the 50 percent of producers who don't cull crazy cows). 
• Alin Gannon, at U of S, is looking at the potential of using the bran from wheat used in ethanol production as a feed source for feeder cattle.  Research results are preliminary, but it appears the high fibre bran can replace barley in a feed ration and still produce good gains.
• John McKinnon, who is way to old to pass as a student, is currently Saskatchewan Beef Industry Chair in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Saskatchewan. He has, for several years, been evaluating the use of Dry Distillers Grain (DDG) from ethanol production as a livestock feed source. While a lot of the DDG used in Canada comes from corn ethanol plants in the U.S., as much as 500,000 tonnes of wheat DDG is produced in Canada. Looking at DDG used in backgrounding rations,  McKinnon’s research shows wheat DDG can be a very cost effective ingredient for backgrounding, however he notes it is high in nitrogen and phosphorus, so any surplus nutrients end up in manure making it a challenge to properly manage manure application so it doesn’t overload the environment.

More reports later.

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We were in Lethbridge yesterday to help welcome the Olympic torch run to southern Alberta. We could have seen the flame and the torch bearers in any number of communities. It is actually in Calgary today for a three-day event before it heads west.

We met friends – Adrian and Val Cooke, and son Elliott, in Lethbridge, to mark the anniversary of when we stood together with them, 22 years earlier,  to welcome the Olympic torch to Calgary just prior to the opening of the 1988 Olympics. Val’s sister and brother-in-law Wendy and George were also with us.

I’m not even a big sports fan, but there is something patriotic or important about marking these events that only come along once or twice in your lifetime – sort of like lining up to see the Queen, or The Pope, or seeing Tina Turner in concert during her farewell tour.

The nice thing about seeing the torch in Lethbridge is that it isn’t the huge logistic issue it would be in Calgary. We had a late lunch, and then about 20 minutes before the flame was suppose to arrive, we drove downtown, parked the car, walked over to the CP Rail line, near where the old brewery used to be and waited a few minutes. It would have been a two-hour production in Calgary.

The torch was entering the city from the west side. Hundreds were lined up along the tracks, but there was plenty of room.  Four employees of CP Rail pumped the torch into the city on a hand car across the mile-long High Level Bridge. It stopped about 20 feet from where we were standing on the east side of the bridge.

A bubbling Chantelle Dubois Nishiyama, was the first torch bearer (see photo)  to light the torch off the caldron on the hand car and begin her run through the city. She is a rail traffic controller with CP in Calgary, a graduate of the University of Lethbridge, a private pilot and a downhill skier.

She was just beaming at the opportunity to make this run. It will likely be the highlight of her year. So that was the torch entering the city. We went back to the Cooke’s house for hot chocolate and then a couple hours later went over to Henderson Lake where a few thousand had gathered for closing torch ceremonies and fireworks.

It was great to be part of the whole celebration, but part of it too was thinking where the past 22 years had gone. The kids, who were in strollers in 1988 have grown up, some are out doing their own baby thing. Some of the adults have got a little older, gained a little weight, and are even retired.

Probably, the scarier thing is to think about where we will be 22 years from now. I will be 80. If the Olympic torch run sticks with the current time table. I told my wife, I probably won’t feel like standing on a CP rail track in 2032. Hopefully we have a senior’s apartment somewhere, and she can just roll me over to the balcony, and wake up in time to see the torch jog by. That will be good enough.

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