By Dori Modney (@Dori_Modney on Twitter)

This week on “In the Field”

Jan 20, 2017 | 4:52 PM

LETHBRIDGE –  During the week of January 16th to the 20th Country 95 radio listeners would have heard “In the Field” features that touched on a wide array of topics from a new Dairy logo, to a Lethbridge College seminar on processed meets, winter wheat opportunties, potato research at the U-of-L and driverless tractors.
 
Dairy Logo:
 
The new year will bring a new milk logo in Canada, as Dairy Farmers across Canada announced in November of 2016 that it was changing its logo.
 
The new logo is blue and features a silhouette of a cow with a maple leaf on it an will replace the old, less-realistic looking animal.  A slightly different logo that reads “Quality Milk” will be used as a certification mark of origin for 100% Canadian milk and Canadian dairy ingredients.
 
The certification of origin logo will be the focus of a consumer inforamtion campaign early this year, to represent Canadian quality milk, which is produced following farming best practices by dairy farmers who have animal welfare, environmental protection and Canadian famiies health at heart.
 
Processed Meat Seminar: 
 
Lethbridge College is offering a two-and-a-hal day seminar on Processed Meats to meet Canadian Food Safety Regulations. It runs from Friday, February 24th to Sunday, the 26th, with lunch provided on Saturday and Sunday. 

Those who attend will join fellow cured and fermented meat enthusiasts ranging from butchers, processors and chefs in a hands on course, highlighting the importance of food safety.

Brad McLeod from Olds College developed this course to meet current Canadian Safety Regulations, and will include an introduction into processed meats, ingredients, calculations, properly monitoring formulations and fermentation.

The event takes place at the College, for more information and to register, check out the Niche meat food safety course
 
Winter Wheat:

A significant reduction in winter wheat acres in the U.S. (to their lowest level in 108-years), should help support prices here in Canada. The information came from Bruce Burnett, weather and crop specialist with G-3, who was commenting on last week’s U-S-D-A crop production report.

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Hard red winter wheat acres are down about eight per cent, dropping over three million acres from last year’s planting.

Burnett says they’re starting to see some of the lower areas that are expected in the upcoming year in the major producing countries, come to fruition.  He expects the lower acreage amounts will help support prices, which is good news in terms of the over-all wheat situation.

U-of-L Potato research:

 New lab-based research projects involving potatos beging this month at the U-of-L.  

 Research Chair, and Plant Biologist Dmytro Yevtushenko, says the focus will be on all areas are of practical interest to the potato industry, especially to local companies and producers.
 
Yevtushenko and other scientists believe growing conditions in Souterhn Alberta are behind the top quality of potatoe(s) coming from the province are much higher compared with other areas. The entire story can be accessed at LethbridgeNewsNow.com

Driverless Tractors:

Many will remember the old Jim Stafford song called Wildwood Weed –  one of the lines was about “taking a trip and never leaving the farm”.  Well now, it appears a tractor can take a trip around the farm and not require the farmer.  

Both Case and New Holland have unveiled their new line of driverless tractors, but one sales manager for Case says he doubts the technology will take off right away. Robert Meier says with the ever-growing need for farm help, it is inevitable that a change to a more automatic workforce in the field will happen some day.
 
The cabless machines are touted as offering a “better use of labour, the ability to integrate into current machinery fleets, and have the flexibility to work unmanned around the clock with real time data monitoring.

However, Meier says getting farmers to accept the idea will be the big challenge and he expects it will take a couple of decades before farms implement the new type of tractor. More information and a video of the driverless tractor can be found at FG-Insight