Reading Time: 5 minutes What a tangled web. That’s one way to describe the system of checkoffs to support cereal research in Western Canada. From a centralized system administered by a single agency, the plan has splintered into six separate checkoffs and five different producer-run wheat and barley commissions in three provinces. This patchwork will simplify a little on […] Read more
Checkoffs to become a checkerboard
The plan is for a single checkoff next August 1, but will different provincial recipients all go in the same research direction?
Row upon row of fusarium
At this ‘nursery’ at Carman, Man., researchers simulate exactly the conditions wheat farmers fear — warm, humid and loaded with fusarium spores
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s incredibly labour intensive,” says Anita Brûlé-Babel of the FHB screening process. She should know. A professor at the University of Manitoba, Brûlé-Babel established the FHB screening nursery at the University’s Carman location back in 2001 and has managed it ever since. “It’s much more efficient to do disease screening in a nursery like this, […] Read more
Wheat’s turn to shine
Despite shrinking government support in recent years, there have been remarkable research payoffs, and new investments promise even more
Reading Time: 5 minutes High prices have made some of the advances in canola yields look pretty good in recent years, masking the fact that average Prairie wheat yield increases have been even higher. But with new private and public research investments and recognition that it’s not just a necessary part of the rotation, wheat is starting to grab […] Read more
Why weed surveys matter
Regular inventories across the Prairies provide a valuable indication of emerging problems
Reading Time: 4 minutes Every decade or so since the mid-1970s, scientists at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), with the help of many others, have co-ordinated and compiled weed surveys in each of the three Prairie provinces, counting, mapping, noting changes and marking trends. The most recent survey was conducted in 2014 and 2015 in Saskatchewan, with financial assistance […] Read more
Sprayer speed a turbulent topic
As sprayers go faster, aerodynamics start to come into play. A PAMI project is evaluating if they affect spray deposition
Reading Time: 3 minutes On the surface, spraying seems straightforward. But a closer look at the multitude of factors that can influence how best to get product from the spray tank to the plant surface reveals something akin to a massive puzzle with a couple of pieces missing. One of the people trying to make that picture complete is […] Read more
WGRF research offers faster herbicide testing
WGRF-funded research offers a rapid test to determine whether your weed escapes are Group-2 herbicide resistant
Reading Time: 4 minutes You sprayed 10 days ago and yet that patch of wild oats is still thriving. So you do what farmers across the Prairies do in this situation: take a sample and send it in to the Crop Protection Lab (CPL) in Regina and wait. Depending on the problem, some answers come in just a few […] Read more
Crop pest scouts may gain from ‘app’lied knowledge
Insect ID is a challenge — but Prairie entomologists say there will soon be an app for that, and a whole lot more
Reading Time: 7 minutes One of the most challenging aspects of crop protection will always be the flying, crawling and chomping critters that show up every season, hoping to take a bite out of your profits. There are a lot of them, they can be hard to tell apart, and wind and weather can determine if insects arrive in […] Read more
Shatter losses in straight-cut canola
PAMI research funded by WGRF shows that the type of header makes a difference
Reading Time: 5 minutes Halfway through a study examining the role that harvest equipment plays in shatter losses when straight-cutting canola, Nathan Gregg is noticing some trends. “We saw higher losses out at the edges of headers,” says Gregg, a project manager with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) in Humboldt, Sask. “And losses dropped off as you moved […] Read more
The long-term battle of fighting crop diseases
Fighting crop disease isn’t a single-season job — you’ve got to be in it for the long haul and protect and maintain the capacity to do the work
Reading Time: 7 minutes In the winter of 1820, farmers at the embryonic Red River Settlement, at what is now Winnipeg, faced disaster after their seed grain was destroyed. The colony had dabbled in wheat production for the previous few years, but with little success. It was make-or-break time for the cold-hardened and dispossessed Scotsmen who had migrated via […] Read more
Wheat class changes see the end of KVD
Kernel visual distinguishability (KVD) ended on paper in 2008, but new changes to wheat classes mean it will also end in practice
Reading Time: 4 minutes For decades, it was “What you see is what you get” when buying Canadian wheat. Not only did new varieties have to perform well in the field and in the bakery, they had to look similar to all the other varieties in their class. That helped ensure the consistency which has been such a strong […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
