Over 300 hail damage claims expected from last week’s severe storm near Ituna

Sep 25, 2019

Hail storm activity in Saskatchewan for the first half of September is described as moderate with minor to heavy crop damage.

The president of the Canadian Crop Hail Association, Rick Omelchenko, says there were over 530 prairie hail claims in the first two weeks of this month, with about two-thirds from Saskatchewan.

He says the biggest storm in this province centred on Ituna, northeast of Regina, last Wednesday.

Omelchenko says the storm also affected the communities of Lipton, Leross, Yorkton, Kamsack and Pelly.

Omelchenko says marble size hail caused total loss in some fields, particularly around Ituna, 135 kilometers northeast of Regina.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.