Matthew Bakker is an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Manitoba (UM). Bakker grew up in Winnipeg and completed his undergraduate degree in environmental studies and biology at Dordt University in Iowa. Working as a lab technician for a company that produces biological control products triggered an interest in research, and he went on to earn a doctorate in plant pathology at the University of Minnesota. Bakker lives outside Winnipeg with his wife and three daughters.

Where did you work before the UM?

I completed my post-PhD training at Colorado State University and then worked as a research scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture before I joined the UM just over three years ago.

What got you interested in this area of work?

I’ve been interested in agriculture and its impacts on the environment for a long time. Nothing we do to the world has as big of an impact on it as agriculture does. When I decided to go to graduate school, I wanted to work with a specific supervisor (Dr. Linda Kinkel, University of Minnesota) so I went into plant pathology so she could mentor me. Plant pathology is a fascinating field and a really important one. Disease is a major limitation on agricultural production and there is a lot of wasted effort and wasted production because of it. If we can reduce that disease in one way or another, we can have a real impact on society. It’s a meaningful and fun field to work in.

Tell us a bit about what you’re working on at the UM.

I lead a research group and work one-on-one with five graduate students, as well as various undergraduates that rotate through the lab. The focus of most of our research is Fusarium. We are currently in the second year collecting data for a project called Examining Fusarium growth and interactions with barley trichomes under the hull, which is supported by Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA), together with SaskBarley. The idea of this research was, looking forward, how do we better manage Fusarium head blight or prevent damage from the mycotoxin that is involved with that disease? I really think plant breeding is the most effective and economical approach. In that case, as a microbiologist, how can I support the breeding programs with new information or new targets for selection?

In talking with the barley breeders at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Brandon, we came up with a question that seemed worth exploring: are there morphological features on barley that make it more or less susceptible to Fusarium colonizing it successfully? There were a few indications in the scientific literature that the trichomes of barley plants provide opportunities for Fusarium, such as by trapping their spores and making it less likely that they wash off the plant. We thought we should look at this characteristic more closely, so that if it does seem significant, the breeding program can try to change that trait in the plant. We are using high-power microscopes to characterize these trichomes in a number of barley lines and are inoculating Fusarium onto these tissues to see whether its growth relates to the trichomes in some way. We are working to determine if this trait is part of the plant that we should aim to manipulate to get better Fusarium resistance.

Another project supported by MCA (together with the Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership program) is Achieving full integration of microbiology into assessments of soil health in Manitoba. The idea behind this research is that we want to understand how agricultural management impacts the microbiology of soils, and how might that in turn impact future productivity or disease risk.

This research is an add-on to a larger project run by AAFC where they are doing the field manipulations and measuring impacts on chemical and physical soil properties, but they weren’t addressing the biology. I saw this as an opportunity to add an assessment onto their experiment, to understand what’s happening with the bacteria and fungi in these soils in response to different management practices. This will let us make a more holistic assessment of the impacts of these management practices on soils. We want to get a better understanding of our Manitoba soils and how management practices affect soil biology in addition to the chemistry and physics.

I also teach two courses: Microbes in Our Environment, and Introduction to Biogeochemistry, which is tracing the movement of elements like nitrogen and phosphorus through the environment, looking particularly at how the action of microorganisms changes the chemical form or influences the movement of elements.

What can you say about the value of farmers providing funding and support to your organization?

It’s been really critical to be able to figure out what are the meaningful questions to ask and what is going to have an impact on society. Having support from the farmers has really helped with that. I’d like to express my gratitude to farmers for entrusting me with some of their research dollars and to say that I am always open to hearing from them about what their priorities are in terms of research needs.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

We are using those funds to ask questions that are intended to meet farmers’ needs. I’d like to repeat that I am always open to hear from people what their priorities are in terms of research needs, especially in relation to my expertise, diseases of cereal crops and soil microbiology. Our research is really intended to serve farmers. Ultimately, our research should result in farmers experiencing fewer losses to disease.

This funding also provides the resources for me to support additional students training as microbiologists that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Having these highly qualified trainees who understand plant diseases and how to do research is going to serve the agricultural community over time.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

My family keeps me busy! We are currently working at some home renovations.

What gets you most excited about your work?

The chance to understand better and learn something new about the living world, which I think is endlessly fascinating. Having lived in various other places and done research, the agricultural scene in Manitoba is really fun. I love the diversity of cropping systems that we have here, and I hope it continues to be a feature of our agricultural system in the future.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?

The idea that most of what is required to do good research is persistence, which isn’t complicated: you just have to keep on going.

Follow @Bakker_Lab on Twitter!

Head to www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ScienceExposed to view the Science Exposed photo contest. Vote for your favourite research image from this year’s selection to help determine the 2022 People’s Choice Award!

Shaun Sharpe is a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) at the Saskatoon Research and Development Centre (Saskatoon RDC). Sharpe grew up in Nova Scotia and completed his bachelor’s degree at Mount Allison University and his master’s at Dalhousie University. He then moved to Florida, where he completed his PhD research on strawberries and his post-doctoral research on tomatoes, peppers and occasionally cucumbers at the University of Florida. He and his wife now live in Saskatoon with their dog and cat.

What is the best part of your job?

I think the best part of my job is getting to work with plants every day. They are such a big part of my life that I’m very thankful to be able to have this as my job, and as one of my passions outside of work. I’m very grateful this is the path I was able to go down.

What got you interested in this area of work?

I wanted to be a veterinarian (my wife is one now) but after a very tough first day in the clinic, I changed my mind quickly. I met a professor at Mount Allison who brought out my interest and passion for plants. He worked in forestry primarily, and had me teaching three different courses for him. I did my project with him and he is the one who sort of gave me the direction to go for my master’s and PhD, and where to go from there. When I was getting ready to do my PhD, Nathan Boyd moved to Florida and was looking for students. That’s where my interest in weeds and their underlying ecology came from, learning in his program and learning how to do research from him.

Tell us a bit about what you’re working on at AAFC.

The top priority for my research program is to prevent and mitigate risk associated with herbicide resistance. For resistance, the major complication is a result of the long-term use of herbicides. The result is too much accumulated death of plants, which is a consequence of how we are choosing to control those weed populations (spraying herbicides). We want to attack this underlying issue and look at what we can do to reduce the amount of death without necessarily removing the option of herbicides, but to take the pressure off of them. Over time, the populations are building, so the end goal of my program is to pull infestations downward by helping to provide farmers with alternative options.

The idea behind the Stimulating germination of wild oat and volunteer cereals from the soil seed bankproject was to provide farmers with a control strategy to use in the fall, post-harvest, to rely on frost to kill seedlings, or pre-seed as part of a stale seedbed strategy with an herbicide. Wild oats tend to flush after the crop has emerged and I think part of the issue is that we’re not getting good control later in the season (there is more coming up after the spray window is gone). Those wild oat populations emerge and replenish themselves, keeping that pressure on our herbicides. Ultimately, we are hoping that we can reduce our baseline infestation that will help with prolonging herbicides and the amounts of plants emerging later.

The project with the pyroligneous acid (wood vinegar) was a one-year project of greenhouse work testing a few applications and trying to develop a use pattern we could use in the field. The question was, can we reduce infestation by applying a product that stimulates the seeds out when we want? If we could stimulate them to come out, especially wild oats (which have a very complex dormancy), we could use additional methods of control. While there has been some work with fertilizers, pyroligneous acid hasn’t been used in the field as much. We completed 24 different experiments and developed a use pattern for field applications and identified some concentrations of pyroligneous acid. This research should be published later this year.

What can you say about the value of farmers providing funding and support to your organization?

It’s absolutely critical. AAFC is part of the public service, there to help Canadian farmers with the issues they face on their farms. It’s feedback from the farmers that helps us understand what the major issues are that they are facing on their farm. A lot of times that is through the commodity organizations or through agronomy extension. Their support means everything.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

It directly benefits farmers because firstly, it helps to train new individuals on the Prairies about herbicide resistance issues. For example, students through my program and those hired through the Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP). As well, it helps researchers better understand the issues farmers are facing and learn where they are severe. With research, it’s never just identifying a problem and saying, “Here is the end of the road and here is the answer.” It’s usually asking more questions, like, “What is the resistance and how is it impacting different facets in different environments?” Farmer support helps me understand these issues more closely and build information to apply to other areas that have the same issue. Resistance is an issue that faces everybody.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

We have a couple of rescue horses my wife and I enjoy spending time with – it’s great to be able to go out and visit them. I also really enjoy gaming when I have the time.

What gets you most excited about your work?

I think it’s better understanding a problem we don’t really know the answer to. Doing experiments as a way to better understand issues that are very ongoing for our environments really excites me.

What are you excited about for the future of agriculture?

I’m very excited about the development of technology. I think it’s a very booming area and there’s going to be a lot, possibly even an information overload for some. There is a lot of promise and a lot of potential tools to hopefully make life easier for folks. Not necessarily to replace anybody, but to give people tools to make their lives much easier.

Follow @shaunsharpe9 on Twitter!

Breanne Tidemann is a weed scientist in weed science and field agronomy with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) based in Lacombe, AB. While her original ambition was to be a dentist, partway through her degree she realized she did not enjoy working with teeth all that much. Instead, she spent a summer working with AAFC where she fell in love with agriculture research. She moved on to complete her master’s degree and PhD at the University of Alberta. Tidemann is currently on maternity leave, although you will still catch her online and in the field occasionally, and lives in Blackfalds, AB, with her husband and two little boys.

Where did you work before AAFC?

I started working with AAFC partway through finishing my PhD. I worked previously as a summer student for Dow AgroSciences and for Cargill as a crop scout, as well as my original summer in agriculture research with AAFC as a student.

What got you interested in this area of work?

During my summer position with AAFC I really became interested in weed science. I was working on the weed management crew at the Scott Research Farm. As I was working through the scientific method of asking questions and learning how things work, I realized the work we were doing like trying new herbicides was something my dad could use on the farm, or a specific weed was becoming problematic and we were looking for new ways of managing it. So, it was really that application of science that drew me in.

Tell us a bit about what you’re working on at AAFC?

Our program is focused on integrated weed management strategies and my research is focused around alternative weed management strategies in conventional cropping systems. We are trying to discover additional strategies to help farmers reduce reliance on herbicides and manage the selection and evolution of resistant weeds. For example, I’m doing a bit of work on harvest weed seed control (a strategy used in Australia) to discover its potential fit in Western Canada. I also collaborate closely with Charles Geddes and Shaun Sharpe on weed biology work.

Developing decision support tools for effective herbicide use in the face of herbicide resistance is quite a unique project in my program. It stemmed from a conference presentation I was giving at an agronomy update in Alberta a couple years ago. I was presenting on using effective tank mixes and multiple modes of action and discussing how sometimes our understanding (or the marketing) of effective modes of action makes us think that we’re doing the right thing when in fact we may not be. For example, we’ve got two actives in the tank as per marketing guidelines, but the actives might not both have activity, or perhaps we’ve got resistance to one or we’re not using the correct mix rate. All of these types of situations can easily occur and prevent farmers from getting the full benefits from the products. At the end of my presentation a colleague in the audience asked me if some type of decision support tool exists to help farmers work through some of this information. That was my “Aha!” moment and this project stemmed from there.

The project began in April last year (2021) when Christine Cock was hired as a term technician. She is currently building the database, collecting herbicide labels and their actives, including which weeds they are effective against. The goal of the project is to create a tool farmers can go into and say, “I’ve planted this crop, I want to spray this product, what other products could I add that would give me another effective mode of action? ”We’ve developed a prototype of the application and are testing to ensure the coding and crop/herbicide selections are working correctly. For now, the focus is on building the database so we can include selection in all the crops grown in Western Canada and all the weeds found here. The project is funded by Manitoba Crop Alliance, Alberta Wheat Commission and Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission.

What can you say about the value of farmers providing funding and support to your organization?

Funding from farmers tells me that the research we are doing is something they can incorporate on their farm, and that we are working on issues that are important to them. The goal of all of our research is to help farmers.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

Hopefully, we’re doing work that is useful to them and are providing results they can use on their farm. In this case, particularly, we hope to be able to hand farmers a tool that they can actively use when they are making herbicide decisions on their farms to help manage resistant weeds and prevent further resistance selection.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I love to read! I am a very avid reader. I also crochet a little bit here and there and I play the violin.

How do you celebrate agriculture?

Teaching my boys about agriculture is certainly one way. We live in town now, but my oldest son (4 years old) sure knows what a combine does and what tractors are! I love my job and I love what I do, that’s why I still work while I am on maternity leave. It’s more of a day-to-day lifestyle than a big celebration. I certainly buy canola oil and Canadian-made products at the grocery store and try to ignore the non-GMO certified labels.

What gets you most excited about your work?

The potential to ask questions to everyone, not just the experts but to farmers and my peers. There’s always something new to look at or something interesting to stumble across in research. I think my technicians sometimes dread when I come out to the field to help them because I tend to squirrel off into seeing something off topic or get distracted by a weed. There is just so much to learn, and for me, it’s so much fun.

Follow @breannetidemann on Twitter!

Professor of wheat breeding and genetics at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) and director of the Crop Development Centre (CDC), Curtis Pozniak grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and lives in Saskatoon with his wife Maureen and two sons Marcus and Jonathon. Curtis has an undergraduate degree in plant science and environmental science and a PhD from USask where he is now a professor.

Where did you work before USask?

I’ve been a professor at USask since 2003. After I completed my graduate degree in 2002, I moved into a faculty breeding position in the CDC and in 2020 I became the director for a five-year term.

What got you interested in this area of work?

I was born and raised in Saskatchewan and I’ve always been interested in agriculture. I came to university to become an agronomist, so I could go back to work on the farm where I grew up, but I got hooked on genetics and plant breeding and decided to stay. I met some really interesting professors and I think it was the mentorship from a number of professors and people that really piqued my interest and supported me along the way. In a way, it’s a bit of a Cinderella story to be able to work at the university I trained at, in the province where I grew up, in an industry that is important to me and my family.

Tell us a bit about what you’re working on at USask.

As plant breeders, we focus on a number of traits when we are improving varieties for western Canadian farmers. Its important to have disease resistance, for example, to ensure the variety has yield stability, so disease pathogens don’t infect the plants and ultimately the yield. We focus on the five priority-one diseases in Western Canada: Fusarium head blight (FHB), leaf rust, stem rust, stripe rust and common bunt. We are working on a couple of projects that focus on some of these key priority diseases, funded partially by Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA).

FHB is one of the biggest challenges for disease resistance breeding in Western Canada. Durum wheat, which is what I focus on, is possibly the most susceptible of the wheat classes that we grow in Western Canada. Although there is very little genetic resistance to FHB in durum wheat, there is some that tends to be controlled by what we call minor genes. Essentially, minor genes don’t have a large effect on their own, but when combined one at a time, you get this slow build up of resistance. The objective of the Multi-pronged FHB management strategy in Western Canada through insights into pathogen virulence mechanisms project is to identify those genes and how they work and bring them together in this additive way to collectively improve FHB resistance in durum wheat. That project is interesting because we are focusing on both the plant and the pathogen. When you think about diseases, the interaction between the plant (the host) and the pathogen is either a resistance response or a susceptibility response. We are identifying the genes that cause resistance in the plant, but we are also trying to understand the pathogen and what the pathogen is doing to infect the plant. We hope that if we bring those two pieces together, we will have a complete picture of how the host and the pathogen interact with one another so we can make plants more resistant.

Maximizing durable disease resistance in wheat is another interesting project where we are identifying novel resistance genes that haven’t yet been deployed in plant breeding. Through this project, we are collecting and screening some of wheat’s wild relatives (wheat species that still grow in the wild) with the diseases that are important for our environment. We identify those that are resistant and perform very detailed genetic studies to identify the underlying genes that are causing that resistance. Next, we bring those resistant genes into commercial varieties that farmers want to grow.

What can you say about the value of farmers providing funding and support to your organization?

Support from farmers is critical to our success. It’s an excellent example of a win-win relationship, where farmers are funding research that is important to their farms and, in turn, our breeding programs are tackling the problems with the biggest impact on farms. It’s an intimate relationship where there is two-way communication on the research priorities we can focus on, and then deliver on in the form of improved varieties for western Canadian farmers. In my program and certainly in the CDC, funding from farmers keeps us grounded in working on the priorities of farmers and in tackling those big problems that are immediate for them.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

Ultimately, in the form of new varieties – new, high-yielding varieties that are resistant to diseases and are marketable with the end-use quality profile that demands a premium in the international markets. We’ve done a number of studies at the university that have shown in our CDC programs for every dollar invested by growers they are getting a $12 return. It’s an excellent example of the benefit that farmers are getting through new varieties.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I’m a singer and guitar player in a rock and roll band in Saskatoon. I’ve been a musician my whole life, playing concerts, cabarets, gigs and parties since I was about 10 years old. Once a week, the band gets together and we play songs – I really enjoy that. It helps me turn off from work and do something completely different that is artistic and fun. It’s sort of my adrenaline rush. Summer is looking busy, so that’s good!

What is the best part about your job?

The diversity of what I get to do. In my own research program, I focus on developing new varieties for western Canadian farmers. I focus on durum wheat, as well as Canadian Prairie Spring Red wheat, but I also have a strong genetics and genomics research program that focuses on developing molecular tools that then flow in and assist the plant breeding program. And in my role as the director of the CDC, I get to engage with the industry, industry partners and our stakeholders from across the value chain. I get to work with some great scientists every day, it’s a very diverse place. That’s what I really like about my job, the diversity and connecting that basic research to varieties that are ultimately grown in farmers’ fields.

How do you celebrate agriculture?

I live ag! Celebrating ag is seeing the varieties that the CDC and my collaborating breeders develop grow on our farm. That is the celebration – to see the fruits of our research growing in a farmer’s field.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?

Don’t take the easy road, think outside the box. When I was in my PhD, I wanted everything to be perfect and it never really was. Then I realized it was because I was anticipating the outcome instead of seeing where the path takes me. Always keep an eye to the future.

Follow @CurtisPozniak and @CDC_USask on Twitter!