Robin Booker

Glacier FarmMedia staff

Robin Booker is a reporter with Glacier FarmMedia.

Stories by Robin Booker

LEFT: In a wheat field in one year of researchers’ experiments, different varieties are noticeable because of physical differences – namely colour or hue and whether the head has awns. RIGHT: The difference is apparent in a fungicide application within one variety. The left side of the photo shows the control that had no chemical fungicide applied. The slightly darker colouring of the wheat is largely due to disease. RIGHT: The fungicide-sprayed plot. The lighter colouring is healthier wheat, which often has a few additional days to mature, thereby increasing yield.
Crops

Wheat and more wheat, multiple varieties grown in one field

Researchers have found that several wheat varieties mixed in the same crop offer disease and insect protection

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Glacier FarmMedia – Growing multiple varieties of wheat together can reduce disease pressure just as much as a fungicide application does, according to research out of Pennsylvania State University. Julie […] Read more
More power, brighter lights and a more comfortable cab are improvements Versatile made to its DeltaTrack and large frame four-wheel-drive tractors for the 2022 model year.
Machinery

Versatile tractors receive ‘mid-cycle refresh’

Deltatrack and large-frame four-wheel-drive tractors come with same engine but have been tweaked to deliver more power

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Glacier FarmMedia – Versatile DeltaTrack and large-frame, four-wheel-drive tractors have been updated with more power and comfort for the 2022 model year. “It’s a mid-cycle refresh,’’ said Adam Reid, vice-president […] Read more
When it comes to spraying, Trimble is working on systems that will decide what fields should be sprayed by looking at the crops’ growth stage and weather conditions.
Machinery

Trimble looks beyond the headlands in the future

Autonomous operations stretch past the fields’ edges and work with whole-farm operational logistics

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Glacier FarmMedia – Horsch and Trimble are working together on autonomous-agricultural robots. Phillip Horsch, owner of Horsch, tweeted a video of a robot pulling a planter during its spring testing […] Read more
Goldacres recently built a sprayer that uses Bilberry’s spot spraying program and is towed by a SwarmFarm Robotics platform.
Machinery

Finding green on green and dead where it needs to be

Spot spraying: Reliably identifying green weeds among a green crop has long been a goal for spot spraying herbicides

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Glacier FarmMedia – There’s a race to build computer programs that instantly differentiate weeds from crops within images taken by sprayer-boom mounted cameras. Green-on-brown spraying, where cameras identify plants on […] Read more
The iScout devices can be placed in any field that has an LTE cellular signal. These are solar powered, which reduces maintenance.
Crops, News

Solar-powered trap hunts what bugs crops

Insects pose for mugshots and get identified in a digital lineup before the scouting call gets made to the farmer

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Glacier FarmMedia – Metos Canada offers remote monitoring of crop pests with a lineup of IOT (internet of things)-based devices, called iScout. Why it matters: Crop monitoring tools can help […] Read more
Farm equipment makers say the next 20 years of innovation and change in machinery technology and design will be at least as dramatic as the last two decades and it will change farming forever.
Machinery

Debating the future of farm equipment

Some will be large, but there’s also a trend to smaller machines powered by renewable energy

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Glacier FarmMedia – Four leaders of major companies that sell farm equipment in North America came together for a panel discussion on what agriculture will look like in 20 years, […] Read more
Don’t forget to inspect the rubber track itself. Look for any loose or missing internal guide lugs and external treads and pay special attention to any cuts or rips in the rubber that expose the inner steel cords.
Machinery

Maintaining tracks improves life and performance

There is a common misconception that track systems increase maintenance time and costs, but companies say no

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Glacier FarmMedia – Track systems built for agriculture applications have come a long way during the past decade, but as with anything, they require maintenance. There used to be a […] Read more
Bobcat’s new V923 also has a maximum height of 23 feet, but it has 130 h.p. and a 9,000 pound lift capacity.
Machinery

Bobcat handler gives bigger reach, power

Telehandlers were once seen as a nice option on the farm. For those who have them, they are now a necessary tool

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Glacier FarmMedia – Bobcat beefed up its telehandler lineup with the introduction of the V923 VersaHandler this summer. The company already offers a V519 telehandler that has 74 horsepower and […] Read more