Prairie Pest Monitoring Network Helping Farmers For 20 Seasons

May 26, 2017

The Prairie Pest Monitoring Network is now into its 20th year.It was created to provide timely information on insect pests that are a problem year after year.Meghan Vankosky is a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Saskatoon.

She says they go out to the fields and conduct surveys and send that information out to agronomists and producers to give them an idea when they need to be scouting for.

"It gives metrological data, weather data, how much precipitation across the prairies, wind trajectory information which is important for certain insect pests that blow up from the United States like aphids and diamondback moths, we also have links to all of our monitoring protocols," Vankosky said.

She says updates are sent out to producers on a regular basis.

Source : Discoverestevan

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.