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Author Archives Reynold Bergen

Corn is a common winter grazing crop, but corn alone may not meet the protein needs of all cattle that consume it. Intercropping can help fill the protein gap.
Livestock, Research

Is this a good investment?

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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The Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) projects featured in this column are funded by the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off. When the check-off increased a few years ago, the BCRC’s budget rose from around 15 cents to 67 cents per head marketed. This allowed us to start some new research programs. Now that we’re a few […] Read more
Crops, pastures and haylands throughout Western and Central Canada are parched.
Forages, Livestock, Research

Today’s forage research provides tomorrow’s solutions

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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Today’s research won’t help you weather this year’s drought, but the practical information and advice you’ll read elsewhere in the September issue of Canadian Cattlemen (and at beefresearch.ca) will. Those tips, covering everything from alternative feeds to weaning, all originate from past research done by scientists and refined by producers. But producer-funded research underway today […] Read more
online feedback
Livestock, Research

… Survey says?

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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In last February’s column, I encouraged you to fill out our online beef research survey to help the Beef Cattle Research Council and other industry and government funders develop a clear set of priorities to guide our funding decisions over the next five years. Thanks for responding — we had nearly twice as many responses […] Read more
Overgrazing doesn’t just reduce above-ground growth. It also reduces root growth.
Livestock, Research

Underground herbicides

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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When I was a kid, my dad found Russian knapweed in a pasture along an irrigation canal. He explained that it was important to catch this weed quickly because it can spread very aggressively. Russian knapweed reproduces using seeds as well as by buds growing from its roots (somewhat similar to the sod-forming grasses in […] Read more
The Beef Cattle Research Council has released its five-year research and extension strategy.
Livestock, Research

How Mother Nature hedges her bets

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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Pasture plants are generally classified as decreasers, increasers and invaders. Decreaser species are the plants you want to see and your cattle prefer to eat, so they face the most grazing pressure. Increaser plants tend to thrive when the decreaser species are challenged by overgrazing, drought or other sub-optimal conditions. Invaders (weeds) proliferate when increasers […] Read more
Cattle may be a uniquely efficient solution to some of the problems we see around food loss.
Livestock, Research

Waste not want not

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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When I was a kid, “no dessert if you don’t finish your supper” encouraged us to eat everything on our plates. Others grew up with the guilt-based “children are starving in the Third World” approach. There are more than twice as many people on earth today as there were 40 years ago, so issues such […] Read more
(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)
Livestock, Research

On the road again

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced significant changes to Canada’s livestock transportation regulations in 2019. Previously, truckers could haul cattle for 48 hours before a mandatory five-hour feed, water and rest stop (unless they were within four hours of their final destination). The new regulations require an eight-hour feed, water and rest stop after […] Read more
cattleman on a horse
Livestock, Research

We have questions. You, as a cattle producer, have the answers

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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This column usually tells you about a research project that the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) has supported using Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off funds paid by producers like yourself. Sometimes you may ask yourself “why on earth did they fund that?” , “why don’t they do research on this?” or “do they ask producers what […] Read more
A 2019 report highlighted a few tweaks to common calving management practices that could significantly improve calf survival from difficult births.
Livestock, Research

Get ’em out, get ’em up, get ’em fed, write ’em down…Rawhide!

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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It’s called calving difficulty for a reason. They’re difficult to deliver, it’s difficult for the calf to survive, it’s difficult to watch it die, and it’s difficult to lose the $1,250 the calf could have sold for in the fall. The Beef Cattle Research Council’s 2019 Adoption Rates of Recommended Practices by Cow-Calf Operators in […] Read more
E. coli bacteria.
Livestock, Research

Are E. coli really becoming more heat resistant?

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

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The past few columns have talked about how antibiotic use contributes to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The same survival-of-the-fittest principle applies to environmental stresses such as heat. Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli (STEC, including E. coli O157:H7) are the main food safety concerns in Canadian beef processing facilities. High temperatures kill E. coli, so for many years large beef […] Read more

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