Canada's Largest Indoor Farm Show Underway In Brandon

Jan 16, 2018

The 41st edition of Manitoba Ag Days gets underway today at the Keystone Centre in Brandon.

An estimated 50,000 visitors are expected to pass through the Keystone Centre over the course of the next three days (January 16-18). The theme this year is "The Year of the Young Farmer".

Ag Days General Manager Kristen Phillips says 40 years is a huge accomplishment.

“We’re very proud of ourselves to reach 41 years!" she commented. "We’ve got 14 inventors in the Inventor’s Showcase, 17 new products, 10 entries in the Farm Safety Feature, 35 bulls in the Bull Congress, and more!”

Phillips says the show has remained successful due to it being exclusively agriculturally-based.

“We’ve stuck true to our roots,” she says. “We’ve stayed at a 100% pure agricultural, meaning every single one of our exhibitors is ag related. And so, there’s something for everybody at the show.”

The Ag Days committee was able to secure the Brandon Curling Club again this year, acquiring over 550 exhibitors.

“The Keystone Centre is this amazing facility,” says Phillips. “We can actually be spread out over 540,000 square feet, which allows us to be Canada’s largest indoor farm show.”

Source : Steinbachonline

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.