THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012
VOL. 90 | NO. 15 | $3.75
CHASING DOWN A STORM | P5
SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923
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WWW.PRODUCER.COM
SPRING TUNE-UP
SEEDING | PROGRESS
CRIME | GRAIN THEFT
Canola thieves strike near Bon Accord, Alta.
Seeders hit fields early
RCMP surprised at how easy it is to sell stolen crop BY MARY MACARTHUR CAMROSE BUREAU
Warm April weather | Crops won’t emerge unless soil is at least five degrees
It’s enough to make any farmer sick. At the beginning of March, Kevin Kowalski of Bon Accord, Alta., discovered $100,000 worth of canola stolen from his bins. He’d checked the bins about a month earlier and they seemed fine, but when his hired man went to load the canola, the bin doors were wide open “flapping in the breeze,” said Kowalski. A week later at nearby Thorhild County, Redwater RCMP reported $80,000 worth of canola stolen from another set of bins. A search of the RCMP database showed $13,000 worth of canola also stolen from a farm near Maidstone, Sask., in February. In the news release about the theft, Redwater RCMP expressed surprise at how easy it was to sell the stolen canola.
BY SEAN PRATT & ROBERT ARNASON SASKATOON NEWSROOM, BRANDON BUREAU
Farmers are getting a jump on spring seeding, thanks to favourable weather and moisture conditions. “We’re going to get into the field this w e e k ,” s a i d Ly n n Ja c o b s o n o f Enchant, Alta. Seeding usually starts during the first week of May on Jacobson’s farm. “We’re earlier than typical in this area. We haven’t had any snow for a long time,” he said.“We could have been out seeding a week ago or two weeks if we wanted to, but the ground hadn’t warmed up.” Stewart Wells expects farmers in the Swift Current, Sask., area will be seeding this week as well. Grant McLean, cropping management specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, said many farmers in his province could be planting four or five days earlier than normal because of a lack of snow cover and unseasonably warm early-spring temperatures. Whether the crop emerges earlier than normal remains to be seen because that depends on soil temperature. A wheat crop seeded into five degree soil may take 12 days to come up while one that is planted into 10 degree soil can pop up in three days. Ted Tkachyk was one of the first farmers to get a crop in the ground this spring.
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APRIL 12, 2012 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4
Darcy Roth works on a new Seed Hawk 65 foot air drill, getting it ready for seeding wheat at Raptor Enterprises near Hafford, Sask., on April 5. | WILLIAM DEKAY PHOTO
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SEEDERS HIT FIELDS EARLY, PAGE 2
SEE CANOLA STOLEN FROM BINS, P. 2