Blog: Meet a Researcher

Meet a Researcher – Belay Ayele, professor in the Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba

Belay Ayele grew up in Ethiopia and completed his educational training around the globe. He earned his master’s degree in seed physiology at Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands and his PhD was focused on plant hormone physiology at the University of Alberta. He then moved to RIKEN Plant Science Center in Yokohama, Japan, as a postdoctoral fellow to enhance his background knowledge and training in plant hormones. After Japan, he completed a second postdoctoral training at Iowa State University, before joining the University of Manitoba (U of M) as a professor in the Department of Plant Science.

He currently lives in Winnipeg and enjoys watching sports, including soccer and tennis, in his spare time.

What got you interested in this area of work?

Everything starts from the seed. During my master’s studies, I was curious about seeds – in particular, seed physiology and how that affects the eventual productivity and quality of all crops. If we make the seeds better, can we have better yield? If so, how can we achieve this goal? That is where my curiosity started.

I am interested in plant hormones, plant-produced compounds that control every aspect of crop growth and developmental processes, one way or another.

Tell us a bit about what you’re working on at U of M.

My research here at the U of M funded by Manitoba Crop Alliance and other funding partners is mainly focused on two areas: pre-harvest sprouting (PHS) and lodging in wheat and barley. My research also investigates abiotic stresses in cereal crops.

There are around nine different forms of plant hormones. These compounds are produced in plants at a very small concentration, but they are critical, as they control a wide range of the crop’s growth and developmental processes, as well as its interaction with environment, which ultimately influence yield and quality. We are studying these plant hormones – mainly how to fine-tune their levels in crops by controlling their production and degradation. Fine tuning their levels is pivotal to enhance the productivity of crops and their performance under a variety of stress conditions, such as drought, excess moisture, salinity, heat, etc.

With respect to PHS, our study is focused on two of those plant hormones, as they are major regulators of seed dormancy and germination. They are called gibberellin and abscisic acid. Gibberellin enhances germination and abscisic acid promotes dormancy. The balance between these two hormones is the critical regulator for the seed to germinate/sprout under field conditions after maturity when there is rain or high humidity and cool temperatures.

As for lodging, when severe, it can cause up to 80 per cent yield loss. We are looking at questions like what makes the plant grow excessively/attain excessive plant height? How can we control that excessive growth/plant height? The main factor that controls plant height or stem elongation in plants and consequently causing lodging is gibberellin.

Using this knowledge, we are working on increasing the mechanical strength of the stem and inhibiting the excessive elongation of the internodes, especially the lower internode as lodging usually occurs around the lower internodes.

The main objective of this area of my research is to generate genes or molecular markers that can be used by breeders to facilitate the development of pre-harvest sprouting or lodging-resistant wheat varieties.

In addition to research, I teach crop physiology courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level. I provide research training to students who will become future scientists.

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

This support is critical, as it advances our research and our discovery of solutions. Eventually, the results of our work will be used to mitigate some of the problems farmers are facing and will contribute to saving or maximizing their income. We are addressing problems and finding solutions to enhance the productivity of cereal crops on the farm.

Because of this funding, I can explore new knowledge, make new discoveries and develop new molecular tools or genomic tools that will help mitigate the problems that farmers are facing. At the same time, I train students who become our next generation of scientists and industry leaders in agriculture.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

Our focus is to generate molecular or genomic tools that will help breeders speed up the development of new varieties that are resistant to pre-harvest sprouting, resistant to lodging or resistant to abiotic stress factors. Our work will have important contributions in providing farmers with more varietal choices.

How do you celebrate agriculture?

We celebrate in the classroom by teaching the students about plant hormones and their role in agriculture. That is part of the celebration for me: trying to share what I learn, what I do in my research and the results I generate from my research program. In addition, my students go and teach ag in the classroom at high schools and junior high schools, and we participate in farm tours and conferences to present our findings.

What are you excited about for the future of agriculture?

I think what is exciting is with the current advances in agricultural technologies like genome sequencing, we have more tools and resources available. Year to year, they are being updated and advanced, helping trim the time it takes to produce tangible results. So, I think the future of breeding and finding genomic and molecular tools will be faster than ever. The availability of advanced technologies and the resources generated by these technologies are exciting.

Pierre Hucl is a wheat breeder at the University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre (CDC). He is also a professor of plant science and the Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Research Program Chair in CWRS Wheat, Specialty Wheats, and Canaryseed Breeding and Genetics.

Hucl began his undergrad in botany but eventually switched to plant science. He completed his master’s at the University of Guelph and worked for a couple of years as a peanut and coloured dry bean breeder there before moving to Saskatchewan to complete his PhD in wheat. Hucl has two daughters, one in Saskatoon and one in Winnipeg, and lives in Saskatoon with his wife.

Where did you work before the CDC?

I worked for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool for about three-and-a-half years before I joined the CDC in 1990.

What got you interested in this area of work?

I think I’ve always had an interest in genetics without realizing it. I worked for a plant breeder at the University of Guelph for my first summer job in the discipline of crop science. I was working with dry beans and was given the responsibility of planting an international nursery. I was told it was mine and I needed to look after it from planting (by hand), hoeing in the summer, to harvest. Years later, a variety came out of that nursery that became the dominant white bean in Ontario. I saw the evolution from what came out of my original work – that’s kind of what piqued my interest.

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

Plant breeding is a bit like miniature farming. Watching the weather radar, looking for hail, all those kinds of things, and dealing with the consequences of bad weather. My summer is spent in the field pretty well every day.

Then we come indoors in October and start dealing with field data and disease nursery data. I have to make decisions and decide what is going to move into the grain quality testing lab, for CWRS or any other type of wheat. I make decisions every day as the data comes in.

In terms of research projects, I do the statistical analysis to ensure things are working properly. As we finish our grain quality data collection for the breeding program, I decide what will move forward into the registration testing system. I make the decisions on what is going to go to the field at the CDC. In the past, I supervised graduate students. Currently, I sit on a number of graduate student advisory committees and chair a number of departmental administrative committees.

In one of our current projects, funded partially by Manitoba Crop Alliance, we are looking to develop higher-yielding CWRS varieties, while maintaining grain protein levels and baking quality. This project began in 2021 and has been funded for three years. We just completed reporting on the first test site from last year, not a whole lot of data mind you, but it was pretty clean statistically. We increased protein by 0.9 per cent and increased the dough strength, but decreased the yield by three per cent. Now we need to determine if we can pump these genes into some higher-yielding backgrounds and increase yields while keeping a decent quality profile.

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

In this day and age, it’s critical. I am convinced that without check-offs and commission funding, many of the programs in the public sector would have disappeared a long time ago.

I think it’s important for breeders to have contact with the board members and get an idea of what’s important to farmers. It’s even more critical nowadays because in the old days, we used to have a lot of field days and we had a lot of direct contact with farmers. Now, a lot of that contact is made through social media and it’s very easy for people to end up in their own little academic silos.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

I think the farmers can sway what direction breeding programs head and ensure that they work on problems they are facing on their farms. Whether it’s problems of disease, grading or new technology, for example.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

Before I had my spine fused, I was playing soccer five or six times a week. That was my mind clearing activity. In October last year, I started walking soccer.

What gets you most excited about your work?

To be able to start something from scratch – have the idea, execute it and maybe have it actually work. To me that is exciting; being able to be inquisitive and try different things.

What is your favourite food or favourite meal to cook?

I have lots of favourite foods. I’m big into seafood. I like a lot of things that are chewy like squid, jellyfish, chicken gizzards, all the things that gross out my daughters. But every week I cook a different pulse. That is something I started doing after I had surgery and was stuck at home for a few months.

Elizabeth (Liz) Brauer is a research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa. She earned her bachelor of science and master of science degrees at the University of Guelph (U of G), her PhD at Cornell University and completed her post-doc in Ottawa with AAFC. Brauer lives in Ottawa, ON, with her husband and two sons.

Where did you work before AAFC?

After my master’s, I did a short research position at the International Potato Centre in Lima, Peru. I was there for seven months, and it was a great experience. I also worked at the Boyce Thompson Institute – an NGO focused on plant research located on the Cornell University campus.

What got you interested in this area of work?

My interest in plants really came from my family. My grandmother was raised on a farm in Congress, SK, and my great grandfather bred roses in a greenhouse in Calgary, AB. Both sets of my grandparents had an appreciation for gardening, and I grew up with this appreciation of plants. At our house we grew vegetables in the garden from seed. When I was 16, I took over as the head gardener and I made a lot of mistakes on my quest for really good vegetables.

This laid the groundwork for my interest in plants in general, and then an intro to plant biology course at U of G, taught by John Greenwood at the time, hooked me into the world of plant science and the potential of research as a career. All the things he talked about in that course really explained what I saw in the garden by trial and error. Barry Shelp at the U of G gave me my basic training in research, and I’m very grateful to him for that.

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

Generally, my lab is focused on addressing key agricultural problems in cereal crops. We focus on the physiological and genetic traits of plants and how we can manipulate some of those traits to improve production value. We collaborate with other groups to improve crop performance – breeders, for example, to try to feed into breeding pipelines or if there is a specific trait that can help solve a problem.

While we tend to work more on disease than some of the other traits, we are also involved with phenomics. Phenomics, or high-throughput measurement of plant traits, is a new “big data” approach to try to improve efficiency of monitoring in the field. For example, breeders only have time to visit the field once in the field season to look at a specific trait. Our goal is to implement sensors and cameras to give them information to make the best selections possible. We are currently developing the tools to do phenomics in the field environment on both wheat and barley.

The Targeting mycotoxin resistance to control Fusarium head blight (FHB) project began in 2021 and is supported by Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA) and Saskatchewan Barley Development Commission. This work is a collaboration between research groups at AAFC and Olds College of Agriculture & Technology in Alberta. This project builds on previous work that we published in 2018 and the discovery of this gramillin, a fungal compound that promotes FHB severity in barley and is toxic to plants, killing cells within hours. We are trying to figure out how it works in the plant and our goal is to develop resistance to the new mycotoxin. This is a new form of resistance that we’re trying to take from the discovery with basic science research and deploy it into the hands of Canadians through genetics.

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

Support from farmers is crucial for our work. It is very important to us that we are serving the community of Canadian farmers because our role, as I see it, is to address their issues using the research tools we have. When I started this position in 2019, I went to farmer forums and I heard directly from them that FHB was a huge problem and that deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination was really important to them in cereal production. Throughout the whole value chain, it is a huge cost for all our taxpayers to have to test for DON constantly. So, farmers need solutions that are practical and easy to use, and I think genetics and new variety development is a really good delivery system for that.

This relationship gives us not just the monetary support, which is important to be able to do the research and bridge the gaps that we need to, but also gives us the motivation to see what we are doing is important to the farmers who are generating the food for Canadians. We are very grateful and happy to be working together with farmers.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

We have a couple of different goals with this work. We are trying to address both the DON and FHB issues by delivering (over the long term) varieties that are going to be more resistant for farmers. In this particular project, what we’re doing is laying the groundwork for us to be able to find molecular markers in order to feed into breeding pipelines, so we can track that gramillin resistance and bring it into new, elite barley varieties. In the end, we are working to provide farmers with solutions in the form of either genetic or chemical treatment options.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I enjoy hiking and travelling, and I love long-distance swimming (open water), although I don’t get to do it enough! My longest race was five kilometres, and I did that in under two hours. It feels a lot like research actually – having a goal and you just keep going for it. Don’t give up. It hurts but keep going.

Who or what inspires you?

I get inspiration from a lot of things. My job involves interacting with a lot of different people with very different perspectives. Farmers, industry, people like brewers and maltsters, as well as academics and students from the university. I think the exciting thing is the integration of these different perspectives and seeing where problems converge and where we can really make a difference for a lot of different people.

What is a good piece of advice you’ve received?

This came from Sophien Kamoun at The Sainsbury Laboratory, one of the most influential plant pathologists of our time. He gave a talk at Cornell and had lunch with the graduate students. I remember a number of us were working on this one plant disease that’s great to work with in the lab but not particularly agriculturally relevant. We made a lot of progress in understanding plant-pathogen interactions by studying that disease, but he politely suggested that we should work on a disease that matters. And that really stuck with me because it was true. There are a lot of people who are directly and indirectly affected by plant disease and agriculture. Shifting our emphasis away from model organisms and instead applying our knowledge to agriculture can not only generate really interesting discoveries, but also impact a lot of people.

Follow @liz_brauer on Twitter!

Doug Cattani is the perennial grains breeder and agronomist at the University of Manitoba (U of M), with over 35 years of perennial grass breeding and perennial grass and legume seed production experience.

Cattani holds a bachelor of science in agriculture and a master’s degree in plant breeding, both from the U of M, and a PhD in plant production ecology from Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands. He lives in Winnipeg, MB, and is married with three children and four grandchildren.

Where did you work before the U of M?

Before the U of M, I worked at provincial and federal government levels, in private industry and at another academic institution.

What is the best part about your job?

The best part of my job is being outside in the field interacting with plants and producers.

What got you interested in this area of work?

My first summer job as a university student was with the forage breeder here at the U of M and they happened to be working on seed production in perennials. After that, I worked for a year on vegetables and a year on wheat and barley, but I’ve predominately worked on perennials and I thoroughly enjoy it. A major focus has been on seed production and breeding for seed production.

Tell us a bit about what you’re working on at U of M.

From a research perspective, because I work with perennials, we are worried about what is happening 365 days of the year. Freezing rain, no snow, too much snow, all the problems people are worried about when dealing with perennials. Generally, from snow melt to when snow comes to stay, we are in the field evaluating our crop, watching it to determine ae we getting disease? Are there insects? Winterkill? We are looking at all the factors that go into the long-term survival of a perennial.

We are looking into the potential of adding intermediate wheatgrass as a perennial grain into western Canadian cropping systems. Earlier work brought about the selection of adapted materials for Western Canada, and current research looks to move the breeding along to traits with agronomic importance to sustainable production systems.

Currently, I am working with Dr. Matthew Bakker, U of M, in this research and we are looking at the genetics related to Fusarium head blight resistance and to seed size, as well as agronomic production systems for integration into a “typical” crop rotation in Western Canada. Practices identified for integration into typical crop rotations are especially promising for Manitoba, where precipitation tends to be higher than Alberta or Saskatchewan.

In the winter, I also teach courses, which have ranged from general agricultural production through to genetics, plant breeding, forage production and grassland science.

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

In our system it’s almost imperative we get farmers’ support. For me personally, I am working on developing a new commodity, so the willingness of farmers to support research looking to potentially change the landscape of farming in Western Canada is critical for me to be able to move forward.

It also provides contact with farmers to bounce ideas off, have them test the materials and to work out the glitches of production on research-scale plots. Even though I have run experiments where our individual plot size is close to three acres, we are still not on a farm-scale production level. Having farmers grow it and work with it on their farm provides us with a better idea of what some of the challenges will be and, potentially, some of the best practices we could utilize.

How does that funding and support directly benefit farmers?

Hopefully, there is the potential for a new crop in the future – one that will aid in the aspects that have become quite popular in last couple years (like soil health). It’s generally accepted that having perennials on the landscape allows for less soil erosion, better nutrient and water utilization, and once established, you have ground cover 365 days of the year.

I think it would fit well with the current soybean, canola, wheat system that a lot of farmers are using. It will maintain soil health throughout the whole cycle of having the annual and perennial crops in a rotation. There are a number of potential benefits that could accrue from utilizing a perennial in a rotation.

It is important to understand this research is in its infancy. When I was an undergraduate student, I was told it was a stupid idea and it would never work. Then 25-30 years later, this idea came out again and there were people willing to work on it, seeing the potential direction of where the earth is heading and where production agriculture has taken us. We should be able to make progress over the next couple of decades to where we have something that will be tangible. Think of soybeans 20 years ago. How many acres did we have? Look at how much research has gone into getting soybeans to Western Canada. There is a risk, but there are definitely rewards in this type of research.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I enjoy photography to an extent.

What gets you most excited about your work?

The potential of it and seeing the progress we’ve made. I’ve been doing this for 12 years and when I started, Manitoba Forage Seed Association industry reps said with intermediate wheatgrass they could average around 500 lbs/acre for maybe three years and then that’s it. The tests we just ran over three years (two of them very dry), we averaged over 600 lbs/acre a year. In this last year, with our best management program, we were at 750 lbs/acre in the third production year.

Just employing selection within Manitoba and some of our production methods we’ve been able to bump the yields up approximately 50 per cent. Quite encouraging that in a relatively short period of time, taken what industry told me was the norm, to now be up through relatively trying years and have results I am quite happy with. I see there is more potential.

What are you excited about for the future of your sector/agriculture?

We’re always going to need agriculture. I see agriculture is probably at the forefront in a lot of ways of taking climate change seriously. The industry understands the risks to production and realizes the need to continue to be productive at the current levels, but to do it in a manner that has less impact on our environment. Agriculture is taking a lead in a lot of this.

The road to perennializing some aspects of production agriculture is being led by the Land Institute out of Salina, Kansas. There is currently research taking place on six continents, with perennial rice being the largest success story to date. Research is needed in order to make progress and with the younger researchers becoming interested, we are seeing an influx of new ideas and newer skill sets into this research area. Researchers from four of the continents recently co-operated to evaluate some newer materials to get a better understanding of adaptation and how climate change could influence where different perennial crops could be grown.

David Whetter is owner and agri-environmental consultant at AgriEarth Consulting Ltd., a company focused on adding value and providing environmental solutions for agriculture across the Canadian Prairies and beyond. He earned his bachelor’s degree in agroecology and master’s degree in soil science at the University of Manitoba (U of M).

As a soil scientist and professional agrologist, Whetter has been providing innovative, effective and practical agricultural-environmental solutions to the industry for over 20 years. Much of this work has been focused on soil-water management, largely for irrigation and drainage projects. Whetter lives in Winnipeg with his wife Michelle and their two daughters, Ellie and Emerson.

Where did you work before AgriEarth Consulting?

Following graduation from U of M, I worked with AXYS Environmental, a consulting firm based out of Calgary. I was the first hire for AXYS Agronomics in 2001, a division focused on agri-environmental issues. I was hired by Jim Hicks, who quickly became an important career and life mentor for me. The company was bought out five years later by Jacques Whitford and then again in 2009 by Stantec Consulting. At Stantec Consulting, I was the business centre managing leader for environmental services in Winnipeg. While I enjoyed this role, the interactions with my team and the experience it brought, I had slowly drifted away from my passion, agriculture. That was a driver behind the decision to refocus on supporting sustainable growth in agriculture and launch AgriEarth Consulting in 2017. I also wanted to be around home more to be able to enjoy time with my two young kids, and starting my own business allowed for that.

What got you interested in this area of work?

My roots are in agriculture. My dad grew up on a family farm at Chain Lakes near Dand, MB, and my dad and brother continue to farm together today in seed production near Hartney, MB. They are the co-operating producers in our current soil and water management research project. While I am not involved in the farm, this research I am working on has been really great for me, as it has brought me back to the farm and enabled me to work a little more closely with my dad and brother.

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

I support a range of clients through various evaluations of their soil landscapes to support agri-environmental planning, permitting and management. Most of my work is related to irrigation and drainage. For example, if someone wants to develop an irrigation program in Manitoba, they need an Environment Act License. I would support them through that process. More recently, I’ve been getting involved in drainage as it becomes a more prominent practice in Western Canada.

I have recently been working on some large-scale irrigation feasibility studies in Saskatchewan. Through this process, I provide information to the province on how to prioritize areas for irrigation development around their existing reservoir system.

Another interesting project I completed recently was providing agricultural leadership to an engagement program on First Nation involvement in agriculture across the Prairie region.

I am also involved in work for industrial clients such as Manitoba Hydro and others developing infrastructure, advising on how to develop their projects while minimizing the impacts to agricultural land use and production systems.

Research is a growing component of my work. The Best practices for soil and water quality, excess water management and drought resiliency in an undulating soil-landscape in southwestern Manitoba project is a significant component. We are interested in better understanding how tile drainage performs in variable soil landscapes in southwestern Manitoba, an area representative of a broad region of the Canadian Prairies.

In this research we are looking at how water flows through tile at different landscape positions, as well as the quality of the water coming out of the tiles, including nitrogen, phosphorus and salts. It is our hope that outcomes of this research will help industry make drainage management decisions in the variable landscapes across the region. We’re also adding edge-of-field treatments to the primary project next year. Those are practices specifically geared towards improving water quality before it leaves the field. Ultimately, we are interested in field-scale learnings on practical and cost-effective treatment practices for Western Canada.

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

We couldn’t do this type of applied research without them. Their co-operation, collaboration and investments allow this type of meaningful research to be done. It is my hope that this type of research project, with a strong knowledge transfer and demonstration component, can help bridge the gap between lots of good research that is being done in the lab or at a fine, plot scale, and what farmers experience on the land and some of the challenges they face. I think our co-operating producers realize and understand that and we appreciate their contributions and willingness to participate. We also appreciate their patience in accommodating our activities in their field and care in working around our many monitoring equipment installations throughout their field!

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

In the case of our current soil and water management research project, we aim to provide information that is directly applicable to understanding effectiveness of beneficial management practices for dealing with the double-edged sword of excess water and drought limitations that farmers in these variable landscapes experience. Producer funding and access to their land and production information allows for this type of practical, applied research with the objective of providing value to farmers’ operations.

In terms of value, it’s a longer-term outlook getting to the point where we better understand how to apply best practices for soil and water management in these variable landscapes. But again, we really appreciate their commitment and hope they feel they are getting good information back through the process, or at least see the potential for that as the research activities and monitoring efforts progress.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I keep active with recreational hockey, and our family loves to mountain bike and ski/snowboard. These sports get us outside enjoying nature all year. Travelling and exploring our amazing world is a big passion I share with Michelle. Our travel adventures have taken a bit of a back seat thanks in part to COVID-19, but the bug is still there, and we look forward to continuing to explore the world together with our kids.

What gets you most excited about your work?

The opportunities in agriculture. I’ve been involved in agriculture environmental consulting for over 20 years and just in last two to three years there has been a whole new energy. Unfortunately, much of this is connected to lots of the challenges we are having around climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and more extreme weather, but agriculture is getting a raised profile and an increased level of importance – not just as a means of producing food, but as part of the solution to some of the environmental challenges we are having. This is exciting to me and translates into opportunities for the type of work I do. I believe the future of agriculture is bright and there are lots of opportunities to improve on the already great work farmers and industry are doing to feed the world and protect our soil landscapes.

Who or what inspires you?

It’s always inspiring to see how farmers manage to do what they do, year in and year out. Dealing with the various levels of adversity – from uncertainty in markets, to dynamic weather conditions they have to deal with – they keep doing it.

I have always felt fortunate for the support I have received from family, friends and colleagues throughout my career. I mentioned a mentor of mine, Jim Hicks, who sadly passed away 13 years ago. He had a profound impact on me and inspires me to this day to enjoy life to the fullest – focus on family and loved ones first, travel and enjoy good food, and to work with passion but not lose sight of what is most important in life.

Having young kids also changes one’s perspective. That ties into looking forward and looking for better ways of doing things. They keep me inspired to keep doing what I think is my best part in that.

Visit agriearth.ca for more information.

Tyler Wist joined Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Saskatoon Research and Development Centre (RDC) as an entomologist in January 2016. Wist earned his master’s degree in specialty crops from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) and completed his PhD at the University of Alberta. Before completing his master’s degree, he was an undergraduate at USask and worked for the city of Saskatoon in pest control where he got his passion for controlling insects. Wist lives in Saskatoon with his wife and three daughters.

Where did you work before the Saskatoon RDC?

Before I was working at the Saskatoon RDC, I was working at the Saskatoon RDC. I did a post-doc there under Chrystel Olivier, entomologist, working on aster yellows and cereal aphids in wheat, barley and oats and looking at the natural enemies that were attacking them.

We created an app, Cereal Aphid Manager, which includes economic thresholds for each crop, the ability to track aphid populations (if they are increasing or not) and natural enemies and how many aphids they can take out of a population in a day (the dynamic action threshold).

We are still collecting data and refining the model, but the app is freely available.

What is the best part about your job?

Well, it’s definitely not the paperwork! I think the best part is when I can actually get out into the field and see the insects in action and watch what they are doing on the plants.

For example, we had some cereal leaf beetles in my wheat crop this year, so I brought them in and put them under the microscope and made a video of the cereal leaf beetle larva feeding. Now I can connect that feeding behavior to those longitudinal feeding scars they leave on the leaves. It’s really, really fascinating to watch.

This and other videos are all available on the Field Heroes YouTube channel or @FieldHeroes on Twitter. If you are into beneficial insects like I am, I would suggest getting in touch with this account. It’s full of fun and great, short bursts of information teaching you about different beneficial insects, like what they do and how many pest insects they can kill in a day.

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

Since my post-doc, I’ve been running multiple projects looking at the effects of aster yellows on different crops. We looked at camelina and wheat, and then I got involved in a flea beetle project looking at the striped and crucifer flea beetle. Through this research, we revisited economic thresholds to see if anything changed based on different parameters in the field. Alejandro Costamagna led this research with entomologists in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta working together on the same issue.

When I first joined AAFC, my mandate was to solve wheat midge, which I thought was already solved with the SM1 gene. As I learned more about it, I realized single gene resistance is not something you want to rely on for the rest of your wheat-growing career, as it can break down quickly. We’ve seen it in canola where diseases have overcome single resistance genes in no time.

Back in 2013 and 2014, there were big outbreaks of wheat midge up in the Peace River region where they had never seen it before, and then it was everywhere. This sparked a project looking at tools used to monitor wheat midge through Jennifer Otani, AAFC and master’s students.

I am currently reviewing data from the third year of the Alternatives to Sm1: hairy glumes, awns and egg antibiosis for managing wheat midge research project. Through this research, we are taking a few different traits that have the potential to reduce wheat midge on the plant, such as hairy glumes, awns and egg antibiosis, and stacking them on top of the SM1 gene to protect it. We have found that some of these traits work together to make the SM1 gene work better. We are not certain if it is one gene or a few genes, but when it is in a plant with SM1, it takes the resistance up to almost 100 per cent, which is very exciting.

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

The value is huge. Thank you very much for all of those check off dollars that go through groups like Manitoba Crop Alliance and other commodity organizations. We have the clusters (five-year projects) for larger projects that you get a lot of people working together, but without the research dollars from farmers themselves, we wouldn’t be able to do these smaller, but important, projects, or even the large, cluster-type projects. Thanks very much for believing in us.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

We are working on these traits that, hopefully, can reduce the need for insecticides and reduce the effect of insects on your crops. The direct benefit to farmers is increasing yield and decreasing damage and reducing insecticide inputs. That is sort of my goal in doing my research.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I do plenty of things outside of work! I started playing soccer after about a 20-year hiatus. I don’t play well, but I play in a men’s indoor and outdoor league in Saskatoon. I coach my youngest daughter in soccer and I enjoy riding my bike. I am pretty involved at church as well.

How do you celebrate agriculture?

By wearing my RealAgriculture hat and my #MidgeBusters t-shirt out in the field. I try to transmit the things I’ve learned to the people that need to know them (agronomists, farmers). I also like raising a glass of things that are produced by agriculture, say from a barley or rye crop.

What gets you most excited about your work?

The interaction of insects with the plants and the insects with each other. Finding new forms of resistance and finding new ways to protect plants from insect attacks gets me really interested and excited.

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Xiben Wang was raised in China and completed his bachelor’s degree in plant pathology at Nanjing Agricultural University in Nanjing, China. After he finished his undergraduate degree, he moved to Canada to complete his master’s in plant science at McGill University in Montreal, QC. He moved on to earn his PhD at the University of Manitoba (U of M) in the in Department of Plant Science and is now a research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Morden Research Development Centre (RDC). Xiben lives in Winkler, MB, with his wife and son.

Where did you work before the Morden RDC?

After I earned my PhD, I worked at the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg in the area of cereal pathology before coming to work at the Morden RDC.

What got you interested in this area of work?

Both my parents worked in agriculture. I can still remember spending most of my summers in my dad’s lab looking at samples he collected from growers’ fields under the microscope. When I was working on my master’s and PhD, I also had very good mentors who were really hard workers. They encouraged me to study problems that were appearing and to work to fix those. This is what really got me interested in working in agriculture.

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

My program covers multiple aspects of diseases on small green cereals (wheat, barley and oats). We use different techniques to identify disease pathogens to try to get a better understanding of the species present in farmers’ fields. We work to determine what is the most important pathogen of concern and what damage it may cause.

Another part of my program is working with breeders to try to develop varieties that have increased resistance against Fusarium head blight (FHB) and other major leaf spot diseases found on barley and oats. I operate a disease nursery at Morden RDC for FHB and different barley leaf spot pathogens.

I’m interested to see the impact different management practices can have on soil microbial communities through metagenomics analysis. In the Crop rotation affects disease suppressive soil microbiomes project funded by Manitoba Crop Alliance along with Western Grains Research Foundation and CAP Ag Action, we are looking into whether different crop rotations may promote some groups of bacteria and suppress others.

For example, in a cereal-over-cereal rotation, we see an increase in abundance of the Fusarium pathogen we know will infect the cereals. But in other crop rotations, such trend is not observed. We want to see whether we can identify a certain rotation type that can promote beneficial microbial populations (plant growth promoting bacteria). By doing so, we hope to be able to determine the bacteria most likely present on your farm and what impact it might have (beneficial or negative). If that impact is negative, we’d then look at the recommendations to minimize that.

The long-term goal is to incorporate several sites in different provinces to generate multi-year data sets, so in the long term, we can identify the general trend of what we expect under different crop rotation practices. Hopefully, we can minimize our reliance on commonly used fungicides to control different diseases that are common to barley nodes or wheat.

This project is almost in the second year and we are nearly finished analyzing the data we gathered from the first year. We are expecting to have some preliminary results next year.

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

Our work is directly related to farmers. We try to identify what the most important threat is and look at the possible solutions, as well as what we can do to increase the varieties they grow and minimize the costs they may have to try to combat diseases.

I want to express that the funding from farmers is very important for us to be able to continue the work that we do.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

There is a direct value to farmers. Take the surveillance work we do, for example. It is very important to gain a better understanding of what major diseases are in fields causing damage, and how it might result in yield loss. When we know what the risks are we can study the best way to control them to minimize yield losses. We study these pathogens so we can develop a strategy to mitigate the losses and try to develop varieties with better resistance, so that farmers will have less risk of loss due to these pathogens. The surveillance work also allows us to monitor the emerging diseases in farmers’ fields and be proactive on potential issues.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I love to spend time with family and go to sports. Soccer is my favourite sport – I play and I love to watch as well. Go Brazil!

What gets you most excited about your work?

There is always something new for me to study and new techniques to learn. I think that is what gets me most excited. I love to visit farmers’ fields to do surveys. When we find something that we don’t know, I get really excited about the challenge to try to figure out what it is.

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

Always look for something new. Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly – study first, verify second and then you’ll get your conclusions.

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.

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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.

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