Blog: Meet a Researcher

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.

Follow @TylerWist1 on Twitter!

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.

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!

Charles Geddes is a research scientist in weed ecology and cropping systems at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Lethbridge Research and Development Centre. Charles grew up on a farm in southern Manitoba and moved to Winnipeg after high school, where he earned his bachelor of science in agroecology and his Ph.D. in plant science at the University of Manitoba. He currently lives in Lethbridge with his wife, Crystal, and their two kids, Olivia and Adam.

What is the best part about your job?

To me, one of the most important things about this job is that I can contribute to some adoption of applied solutions at the farm level. In my position, I have the ability to design research projects that can have a direct impact on the farm. I think that is really important and one of the biggest benefits of the job.

What got you interested in this area of work?

My initial interest came from my days on the family farm. Around the start of university, during the summer I was farming with my dad and we took over a field that was rented for several years previous. We didn’t have a good history on that field and it turned out to be infested with wild oats that had multiple resistance, and it was just a devastating crop year. I like to think that experience is what made me dedicate my career toward helping farmers manage herbicide-resistant weeds.

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

The big focus of our research program at AAFC is herbicide resistance. The program takes an approach where we are focused on the discovery of new herbicide-resistant weed biotypes that exist on the Prairies. We monitor for those biotypes across the Prairies to determine the impact of that herbicide resistance, and we develop integrated management strategies specifically targeting those biotypes.

The “Next generation of prairie herbicide-resistant weed surveys and surveillance” project leads the herbicide resistance surveillance for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In this project, we survey 800 fields across the Prairies over the course of four years and look at the status of herbicide resistance in essentially all field crops across the Prairies and many of the weeds that are present in crops after post-emergence herbicide application. The “Glyphosate resistance kochia survey” is a post-harvest survey looking at the status of herbicide resistance in kochia, specifically, with the difference being the timing of the survey because kochia seed isn’t viable when the previous survey takes place. These projects are a monitoring component, looking at the status of herbicide resistance across the Prairies and how it’s changing over time. Then we try and link the status of resistance to grower management practices using a management questionnaire.

The other two related projects are “Management of glyphosate-resistant kochia in western Canadian cropping systems,” co-funded through the Integrated Crop Agronomy Cluster, and “Understanding auxinic herbicide resistance in kochia and staying ahead of what’s next.” In general, we know that herbicide resistance in kochia is a growing issue across the southern Canadian Prairies. These projects are specifically trying to develop new and integrated management strategies targeting herbicide resistant kochia. Anything from looking at further understanding resistance in kochia, to looking for types of resistance that aren’t out there to our knowledge but are on our radar – as we think they might be selected for next in kochia – and also looking at integrated management in the field.

We are looking at things like:

• How crop rotation diversity impacts the management of herbicide resistant kochia through alternating crop life cycles
• Swapping out summer annuals in a crop rotation for winter annuals like winter wheat, or perennials
• How row spacing and seeding rates affect the ability of crops to compete with kochia
• Developing management strategies based on the biology of kochia

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

Farmer-based and farmer-led funding makes up the majority of our research program and is extremely important to us. Almost all our work is funded by farmers and grower groups. When we go through these different proposal and review processes, I really appreciate that a lot of the boards that are making decisions are made up of farmers who are dealing with some of these issues. I like to think that my link back to the family farm and a bit of applied experience in farming helps me relate to some of those issues and communicate what we’re trying to do in a way that makes sense at the farm level.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

Several of our projects that are farmer funded tend to be more applied in nature, so the results tend to be directly applicable on the farm. Basically, the money that farmers are investing in research is trying to come up with new tools or strategies to manage these herbicide-resistant weeds we are dealing with on the Prairies. With that, I think they can see a more immediate return on investment.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

In the summertime we really like to go camping, and there are a lot of excellent camping spots in southern Alberta. I also like to play music. I play the violin and guitar – both electric and acoustic, although I don’t get to play as often as I’d like to!

And what are you excited about for the future of agriculture?

I think the future in agriculture is bright and I’m really fortunate to work in this discipline. I think we are also aware of challenges that are coming down the road, specifically related to our research. We know herbicide resistance is an issue that’s growing, and it’s going to be at the forefront of a lot of our agronomic decisions moving forward and in the future. I’m excited to have a contribution to some of those decisions.

What is your favourite food/meal to cook?

I really like turkey dinner. As for cooking, although this probably isn’t considered cooking, I like to brew beer completely from natural ingredients. What I mean by that is I like to go from grain brewing all the way to beer, rather than using home-brew kits. I actually have a hop variety experiment going on in my back yard. We’re growing nine different varieties of hops and that’s what I am using in the brewing process.

Follow @charlesmgeddes on Twitter!

Rob Graf is a winter wheat breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre. Rob completed his bachelor of science in agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), specializing in agronomy, and earned his PhD under the supervision of Gordon Rowland at the USask Crop Development Centre. Rob began his career in 1987 as a wheat breeder with the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and was there for 12 years. During that time, he was part of a team that developed three Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat varieties, including McKenzie and Prodigy. In 1999, Rob joined AAFC as a winter wheat breeder. He currently lives in Lethbridge with his wife, Linda, and is looking towards retirement in October.

Tell us a bit about what you’ve worked on at AAFC throughout your career.

Our mandate is to develop improved winter wheat varieties for Western Canada. In the AAFC breeding program, we’ve concentrated on varieties for the Canada Western Red Winter (CWRW) milling class and, to a lesser extent, feed varieties for the Canada Western Special Purpose class. In a general sense, the objectives of the breeding program are to improve agronomics, disease resistance and end-use quality. The agronomic issues we focus on are increased yields, improved winter hardiness (both prime considerations), increased lodging resistance (strong straw in a range of height options), a range in maturity and good test weight.

As for disease resistance, in Western Canada there are five priority-one diseases that must be addressed for variety registration. These include the rusts (stem, leaf and stripe), Fusarium head blight (FHB) and common bunt. Disease resistance was one of the objectives I felt really needed to be concentrated on. In 1999, disease resistance was only starting to be deployed in the winter wheat varieties being registered. Farmers had to make the choice to grow a variety with leaf and stem rust resistance (important for Manitoba), or a variety with bunt resistance (particularly important in southern Alberta). At that time, FHB wasn’t on the radar for winter wheat, but it was a major issue in spring wheat. That’s one of the reasons why winter wheat acres in Manitoba exploded in the 2000s (the escape from FHB and orange wheat blossom midge) along with the variety CDC Falcon, which had short, strong straw, early maturity and high yields; farmers liked it. Today, we have varieties that have good resistance to all five priority-one diseases and are also working on resistance to other diseases and pests. It took about 20 years, but we’ve been able to get there through some really excellent collaborations with nurseries and testing sites across Western Canada.

A key element to developing varieties that work well in Manitoba was a collaboration with Anita Brûlé-Babel at the University of Manitoba. Her team planted a large leaf-and-stem-rust screening nursery for us that I rated and made selections from every year. We don’t normally see leaf and stem rust in Alberta, so that made a huge difference for Manitoba farmers. The other critical aspect of our collaboration was the provision of an FHB screening nursery. Without that, we couldn’t have made the advances that we did. For example, Emerson, which is still a popular variety in Manitoba, was identified as an FHB-resistant line in those nurseries. Without that nursery, we wouldn’t have known. It’s collaborations like these that are so crucial to the success of any breeding program.

Quality is the third pillar of our breeding program. When I started, the major improvements CWRW needed included increased protein concentration, gluten strength and flour water absorption. Over time, we’ve gradually increased protein concentration and gluten strength, and we’re finally starting to make progress on flour water absorption. My hope is that over the next few years, we will see a substantial increase in winter wheat flour water absorption.

Upon my retirement, Harwinder Sidhu will be taking over the winter wheat breeding program. I’ve been mentoring him for the last year, getting him up to speed on the program, and I think he’ll do an excellent job. He is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Guelph, where his PhD project was focused on genomic selection for FHB resistance in winter wheat.

What got you interested in this area of work?

I grew up on a farm near Humboldt, SK. I remember when my dad changed varieties from Neepawa to Napayo and then Sinton. It was intriguing to me that Napayo had awns (most varieties at the time were awnless), as I thought only barley was awned. A couple of years later, we grew Sinton, which was interesting because it had better leaf rust resistance, which I could actually see in the field. I also remember a wet harvest period in the mid-1970s when Sinton sprouted in the swath and Napayo didn’t. It was those genetic differences in the varieties that got me intrigued, and I guess the rest is history.

What is the best part about your job?

There are a lot of things! I really enjoy seeing the genetic variability when we cross various parents. I also like the interaction with farmers and the industry to hear what their problems and concerns are, and then trying to come up with breeding solutions to address them. When I’m able to deliver a variety that addresses at least some of those concerns, and it becomes accepted and farmers like the variety, it’s a great feeling.

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

The funding farmers provide to breeding programs is absolutely vital to their success. When an industry group approaches AAFC with issues they need to have addressed and are willing to invest, it means a lot. Governments have many priorities for funding, and that goes for farmers as well. The funds received for breeding and pathology programs, and some of the more basic research, are absolutely vital to the successes that we’ve had and to the continued success and prosperity of the industry and Canada.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

The funding support has hugely impacted the number and size of populations that I can handle as a breeder. Breeding is a numbers game. You need large numbers to find those rare segregants that bring together all of the traits that are needed by the industry. It allows us to handle a lot more material, gives us the ability to put trials at important locations, and it supports disease screening nurseries and quality analysis. From a Manitoba perspective, that has been crucial in developing varieties with resistance to FHB, stem rust and leaf rust.

What is one of your major accomplishments over your career?

Within the winter wheat program, one of the major wins was the registration of Emerson. Essentially, we moved from most winter wheat varieties being quite susceptible to FHB, to the first wheat in Canada that was rated resistant. That was certainly a bit of good luck, but as breeders we need to be able to set things up to identify those advances.

What opportunities lie ahead for winter wheat breeding?

Winter wheat has a bright future. From the standpoint of climate change over the medium term, it’s likely that our winters will get milder. Winter wheat provides the opportunity to use early spring moisture that farmers are waiting to dry off prior to spring seeding. Why not use that moisture to build yield? With the possibility of hotter summers, because the crop matures earlier, it may also be able to escape some of the heat stress we get in late July and August. It certainly has an excellent opportunity to fit into our environment, perhaps somewhat better than it has in the past. Not to say that it doesn’t fit now, but I think as time goes on, farmers will see it as a more attractive option. Or at least I sure hope so!

What are you looking forward to most about retirement?

There is a number of things. I am looking forward to taking a break, visiting more with family and friends, and my wife and I enjoy camping and plan to do more of that together. Our granddaughter just turned one, so we look forward to spending more time with her, as well. We’d also like to do some travelling in Canada and the United States, and longer term in Europe and other places.

Who or what inspires you?

There are a lot of people who inspire me! My colleagues and all of the important work that they are doing inspires me every day. Young people and their optimism for the future also inspires me.

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

There are a couple of things, both from my dad. “Pray and live like you’ll die tomorrow; work like you’ll live forever.” The other was, “If you see something that needs doing, don’t wait for someone else to do it.” Those are gems of wisdom I can’t argue with.

Follow @grafwheat on Twitter!

To meet other researchers involved in winter wheat breeding and agronomy, check out our profiles on Curt McCartney and Brian Beres!

Eric Johnson is a Research Officer for the Agronomic Crop Imaging Lab in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). He is also a member of the Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee. Eric earned his Bachelor of Science and his master’s degree from USask. He lives in Battleford with his wife Trish.

Where did you work before USask?

I started my career working with Sask Agriculture in extension as an agricultural representative (now obsolete), and then I became a regional crop specialist. In 1996, I moved to the Scott Research Farm with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada where I started doing weed control research, and was also the test site manager for the Pesticide Minor Use Program until 2015. After that I joined the weeds lab with Dr. Chris Willenborg at USask until 2019 when I moved to the Agronomic Crop Imaging Lab.

What got you interested in this area of work?

Because I worked in the Battleford area with Saskatchewan Agriculture, I had a very close working relationship with the research scientists at the Scott Research Farm. Once they were nearing retirement, an opportunity to work on research became available and I was ready for a new challenge. I’d spent 15 years or so working in extension and I always felt that it would be much easier to do extension if I was actually doing the research myself. The change to research seemed like a new challenge and opportunity where I could combine the best of both worlds.

Tell us a bit about the Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee.

The idea of the Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee came forward to the Canadian Weed Science Society from a farmer from central Alberta, Ken Espheter, and Neil Harker, a retired weed scientist. There was an active Wild Oat Action Committee in the 1970s which originally did all the work on dormancy and the ecology and biology of wild oat that we know today. In the 1990s we ended up with quite a number of effective herbicides at controlling wild oats and, at this time, although there was some resistance developing, the perceptions were that there would be a never-ending pipeline of new wild oat herbicides, so the committee came to an end.

Today, the Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee includes 12 members of farmers, agronomists, industry as well as research and extension people. Our mission is that “we are a cross-industry committee devoted to developing herbicide resistant wild oat management solutions through producer engagement, knowledge transfer and research.” What we are trying to do is not only conduct research and extension, but engage producers in the process so they are involved in developing the solutions.

We received funding from Manitoba Crop Alliance, Alberta Wheat Commission, Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission and Saskatchewan Forage Seed Development Commission for a two-year pilot project to engage producers in developing solutions for resistant wild oats. We have developed a producer group in central Alberta who are conducting field projects and meet periodically to discuss resistance testing with growers who haven’t done it before. The Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee has developed extension materials in the form of infographics that are available on our website. We have also initiated a testing project with selected producers who are suspicious that they have resistant wild oat but have never tested for it. The producers are asked to fill out a short questionnaire. The testing project will involve 30 to 40 producers across Western Canada. At the end of the project, we will conduct a follow-up evaluation on the producer’s perspective of the value of testing.

Unfortunately, we’ve had to deal with COVID-19 and I think we could have had a lot more momentum by having face-to-face meetings rather than trying to do everything virtually. We will be doing an evaluation of the impact of this pilot project after the second year to find out what impact it has had, and what other things could be done to increase that impact or make a difference.

If farmers are interested in resistance testing or want to learn more about it, they can watch this videoabout understanding resistant wild oats on the Canadian Weed Science Society website, email wildoataction@gmail.com or follow @RWildOat on Twitter.

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

Farmers provide funding and support two ways. They provide funding through the producer groups, and through direct support from those who are volunteering their time on the committee. We have some extension people from the producer groups that are providing human resource support by volunteering on the committee. We wouldn’t be able to address some of the current research gaps or engage more farmers without this support.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

I think the main benefits from this funding are hopefully to raise the profile of resistant wild oats, develop farmer-led solutions to manage herbicide resistant wild oats and produce readily available extension materials. If we can get farmers engaged in the research and development of solutions, they will benefit greatly. The long-term benefit from this pilot project for farmers will be to have an ongoing Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I really enjoying gardening, and I golf a little bit in the summer and curl in the winter. I’m getting close to retirement, so I’m going to have to develop some more hobbies!

What is your favourite crop?

I’ve worked on 60 different crop types in my career. I haven’t done any work on it in awhile, but I really liked working with hemp when I was working with it. I’m fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity to work with just about every crop that we can grow in Western Canada.

What get’s you most excited about your work?

Right now, the fact that we are starting to work in the digital age of agriculture is exciting. When I joined the Agronomic Crop Imaging Lab, I thought using satellite/drone imagery was way beyond me. But, because we have some really brilliant post-docs and have attracted some really bright students, I’ve been able to actually understand how they do things. It’s really interesting and it has been quite exciting to see the types of applications we’ve been able to make use of with that type of research.

Follow @ericusaskweeds on Twitter!