Ontario Grain Farmer Magazine is the flagship publication of Grain Farmers of Ontario and a source of information for our province’s grain farmers.

Grain Farmers of Ontario

January 2017

In this issue:

An agriculture ambassador

THE 2016 GRAIN DISCOVERY ZONE SEASON

January 2017 - Brianne Curtis was the Grain Discovery Zone ambassador for the 2016 fair and event season. This is her personal account of her experience touring the province promoting agriculture and the Good in Every Grain. SINCE…
Cropside: OCC trials

AGRONOMIC INFORMATION FROM ONTARIO'S CROP SPECIALISTS

January 2017 - A COMMON QUESTION regarding Ontario Corn Committee (OCC) hybrid trials is — how valid are results if practices on my farm are more intensive than the hybrid trials? To help answer this, Intensive Management (IM)…
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Online influence

January 2017 - “STORYTELLING IS THE essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is.” ~Tim O’Brien Connecting with the non-farming public is often described as our greatest challenge in agriculture. One could also say,…
Understanding precision agriculture

WHERE DO MANAGEMENT ZONES MAKE SENSE?

January 2017 - GROWERS MIGHT KNOW from experience that they have areas in their fields that consistently deliver high yields season after season — and other parts that just aren’t very productive at all. But is having that…
Be compaction aware!

A FARMSMART FOCUS

January 2017 - SOIL COMPACTION SEEMS to be a fact of life in most farming operations. We all seem to have it at different extremes at different points in time. While compaction is most often associated with a…
Chairing corn seed production quality

ONTARIO'S SECRETS TO SUCCESS

January 2017 - SEED CORN GROWERS in southwestern Ontario produce some of the best quality seed in the world and the reasons why are clearly exemplified by Jeff Wilson. Wilson is the current chair of the Seed Corn…
GFO Newsletter for January 2017

January 2017 - GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM GRAIN FARMERS OF ONTARIO Canadian Field Crop Cluster – request for letters of intent The Canadian Field Crop Research Alliance (CFCRA) has begun the development of a Canadian field crop…
Barley intensification

CLOSE COST ANALYSIS REQUIRED

January 2017 - AT THE 2016 harvest, we saw much less barley come to market in the Guelph area. Many Ontario barley growers were down on average yields, but there were still a lot that were above average.…
Ontario corn into 2017

January 2017 - FOR ONTARIO CORN producers, the marketing challenge ahead is great. The story in the grains sector is one of great surpluses. In 2016, American farmers produced the biggest corn crop on record. With benign weather…
Market side: Futures trading basics

LESSON 24: TRIANGLE FORMATIONS

January 2017 - This monthly educational series will feature the basic workings of the futures and options markets and how they can be utilized to help farmers with risk management. THIS LESSON WE will discuss the descending triangle…
Marketing wheat

DECISIONS AND STRATEGIES

January 2017 - ONE OF THE more significant market influencers in the Ontario wheat business is that 2016’s big crop is going to leave a large carry out of old crop wheat inventory as we move into the…
2015-2016 market review

ALL ABOUT THE BASIS

January 2017 - WHEN LOOKING BACK at the last marketing year for corn, soybean, and wheat crops, the predictions for large grain supplies to weigh heavily on the markets were realized. But it could have been worse for…
Business side: Negotiating on the farm

CONVERSATIONS WITH BUSINESS EXPERTS

January 2017 - (J.M) WHAT ARE NEGOTIATION SKILLS? (M.M.) Negotiations skills are really just effective communications skills. Negotiations are a process where two parties communicate their needs and interests, listen to each other, and try to agree on…
Global economic factors

WHAT'S AFFECTING YOUR BOTTOM LINE?

January 2017 - THE RAPIDLY CHANGING peaks and valleys of commodity markets can be difficult to navigate at the best of times. Throw global economic factors (or macro markets) into the mix and analyzing grain markets can appear…
Another voice

FROM THE CEO'S DESK

January 2017 - GRAIN FARMERS OF ONTARIO strives to have elected representatives who are reflective of our farmer-membership. We’ve made progress, but we still have work to do. Through our Grains in Action program (which takes place every…