The Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund (OFCAF) was established to provide funding and support to farmers in adopting practices that store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In Manitoba, funds are available through the Manitoba Association of Watersheds and the Canola Council of Canada. Farmers may only receive funding from one organization for a given eligible beneficial management practice on a given parcel of land. More information on these programs, including a summary of eligibility criteria and beneficial management practices can be found here.
The Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (SCAP) – Sustainable Agriculture Manitoba
The Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (SCAP) is an investment by the federal, provincial and territorial governments to support the agriculture, agri-food and agri-based products sector. As part of the SCAP, the Manitoba government has now opened intake for the Sustainable Agriculture Manitoba (SAM) program, which provides funding to farmers to support the implementation of beneficial management practices that increase the environmental and economic sustainability of agriculture operations in Manitoba. Funding streams that may be of particular interest to MCA farmer members include:
Crop Land Management: Funding to support adoption of cropland management practices that optimize operations and improve productivity. Eligible beneficial management practices include:
Reduced Tillage Intensity
Low Disturbance Placement of Seed & Fertilizer
Preventing Soil Compaction
Reduced Pesticide Use
Soil Landscape Restoration
Perennial Cover for Sensitive Lands
Hazardous Products Storage
More information on the Crop Land Management funding stream is available here.
Water Management: Funding to support the adoption of practices that enhance the supply, efficient use, quality and management of water. Eligible beneficial management practices include:
Increased Irrigation Efficiency
Fertigation
Sub-surface Drainage Water Management
Water Quality
Runoff Control
Water Use Efficiency
Water Supply
More information on the Water Management funding stream is available here.
To be eligible for funding through the SAM program, farms are required to have a valid Environmental Farm Plan (EFP). Information on Manitoba’s EFP can be found here.
Application intake for the SAM program closes at 11:59 pm on Tuesday June 13, 2023. For more information on this program and other SCAP programs you may be eligible for, visit the link below.
Raju Datla is a senior scientist and program lead in resilient agriculture at the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS), a partnership between Nutrien, the Government of Saskatchewan and the University of Saskatchewan (USask). Raju grew up in India and moved to Saskatoon, SK, in 1985. He took a research officer position as staff scientist with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in 1993. He holds a master’s degree in plant embryology and genetics, and a PhD in plant genetics and evolution.
Where did you work before GIFS?
I worked at the NRC Saskatoon as a research officer in the Plant Biotechnology Institute. I was a principal research officer at NRC before I joined GIFS as a senior scientist in December 2019.
What got you interested in this area of work?
It was through my research activities and their key discoveries from performing basic and foundational research in model crop plants. I saw opportunities to translate some of those findings into solutions for performance and productivity challenges in crops. That’s what interested me, translating expertise and discoveries into (maybe) a professional stream. Although it is a long process, you can make impactful contributions, especially working and collaborating with other experts.
Tell us a bit about what you’re working on at GIFS.
The mission of GIFS is to work with partners to discover, develop and deliver innovative solutions for the production of globally sustainable food. With climate change being a major influencer on agriculture, one thing we are looking at in our research is water conservation and if we can make crops that are more adaptive or resilient to those changes.
Another aspect we are looking at is increasing the efficient use of fertilizers by crops. Our research is focused on how to make plants more efficient users of nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphate in Canada.
To address and capture some of these challenging opportunities, we focused on identification and characterization of gene targets associated with resiliency and crop productivity traits.
Our research findings led to the development of the “Targeting reproductive and spike traits for improving grain yields in wheat” project. We have identified opportunities in this program for discovery of new genes controlling spike developmental programs (characteristics) to improve the wheat grain yield potential.
This project is funded by Manitoba Crop Alliance, Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission and Alberta Wheat Commission. We are into the third year of this project and our current focus is on discovery and characterization of genes controlling the spike development, the major reproductive part of the wheat crop, and if we can increase its capacity. We are trying to determine if there is any flexibility and diversity available in the germplasm that we can use to increase the number of grains that can be produced in a spike.
We have developed some candidate lines that can produce more grains, but these are at the early stages and are being controlled and studied in greenhouse conditions.
Eventually, we will be able to identify molecular markers and the underpinning genes that control these spike traits. That is the pipeline for this research, to facilitate incorporation of the desirable spike traits conferring improved grain yields to develop advanced Canadian wheat breeding lines.
We are connected with Canadian wheat breeders, as our discovery and characterization establishment progresses for capturing translational potential to the project’s research findings.
What can you say about the value of farmers providing funding and support to your organization?
Farmers are giving us the funding to be able to do these types of research projects. This funding is helping us discover and develop outcomes that will benefit farmers. It enables us to explore challenging research questions. The continued support from farmers helps us identify what they see on the farm, what they are looking for and/or what challenges they may be facing. There is such a benefit from their knowledge, experiences and support.
How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?
In this particular project, we are dealing with wheat, a very important part of Canadian agriculture, both for its quality and recognition globally. If we can improve wheat yields, that could not only positively impact farmers’ returns, but it could directly impact Canadian agriculture. Farmers would benefit from yield-boosting gene technologies and improved productivity in this crop will positively impact global food security.
How do you spend your time outside of work?
I like to play sports – tennis is my favourite.
What are you excited about for the future of your sector/agriculture?
We are living in very exciting times. There are technological advances happening across multiple disciplines, and they are happening very rapidly. There are more opportunities, but challenges continue to emerge. I think we will continue to get better at advanced technological and biological understanding, positioning us well to take on more challenging tasks to improve climate adaptive sustainable agriculture productivity.
The Prairie Grain Development Committee (PGDC) is responsible for setting standards (merit), evaluating and recommending grain crop candidate varieties for registration in Western Canada. There are four independent recommending committees:
Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale (PRCWRT)
Prairie Recommending Committee for Oat and Barley (PRCOB)
Prairie Recommending Committee for Pulse and Special Crops (PRCPSC)
Prairie Recommending Committee for Oilseeds (PRCO)
The committees are comprised of representatives from the entire value, including variety/trait developers, farmers, commodity organizations, seed industry representatives, grain companies and end users.
In March, the PGDC held their annual meetings in person for the first time since 2019. Two staff and four crop committee delegates from Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA) attended the meetings in Banff, AB.
“It’s extremely important to be involved in the decision-making process,” says Rauri Qually, a farmer from Dacotah, MB, and delegate on MCA’s wheat and barley crop committee.
“Farmers are a key part of the industry. We grow and sustain these varieties, whether developed privately or publicly. It is important for breeders, seed growers, merchants and industry officials to understand our perspective in real world cropping situations. This feedback is essential.”
Nick Matheson, an MCA director and flax committee delegate from Stonewall, MB, agrees that farmer feedback is extremely valuable in this arena.
“Farmers are the actual boots on the ground growing the commodity,” he says. “I think it’s very important to have farmer perspective at these meetings because the varieties need to meet the needs of farmers.”
Mallorie Lewarne, MCA’s agronomy extension specialist for cereal crops, adds that the PGDC is a great opportunity for farmers to directly interact with the scientific community and highlight the issues that are most prevalent on their farms.
“It is at these meetings we get to know the attributes of varieties coming forward for commercialization,” says Lori-Ann Kaminski, research program manager for cereal crops at MCA.
“We are judging upcoming lines against ‘merit criteria’ that we set. Farmers at this meeting can have a voice (vote) on any changes to those merit characteristics and get a look at how prospective lines stack up in field trials over two or three years, depending on crop type, at multiple Prairie locations.”
MCA also invests directly in the delivery of field-ready barley, flax and wheat varieties from Western Canada’s public breeding programs at the University of Manitoba, the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre, the University of Alberta and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Western wheat and barley commissions formed the Canadian Wheat Research Coalition and the Canadian Barley Research Coalition to facilitate this collaborative approach to farmer funding of regional and national research projects in variety development and agronomy, including Core Breeding Agreements, the Canadian National Wheat Cluster and the Canadian National Barley Cluster.
Through these investments, Kaminski says, the “entire value chain is working together to build Canada’s reputation for quality and consistency.”
For Qually, Canada’s reputation around the world of producing the finest quality grains and oilseeds is key to the success of our industry at home.
“The variety registration system allows the industry and whole value chain to work together and decide what lines will be best, while maintaining our status of quality throughout the world,” he says. “It also allows the breeders to listen to the rest of the industry’s concerns and suggestions for making our grain and oilseed varieties all they can be.”
After attending the PRCWRT agronomy evaluation team meeting and annual meeting, Ryan Hueging, an MCA director and wheat and barley committee delegate from Woodlands, MB, says he is confident he will have access to new varieties that will improve profitability on his farm, and that these varieties will contain the quality buyers are looking for.
The variety registration system provides important information (the merit criteria) for farmers, such as disease ratings, agronomy characteristics and quality. This information also goes into Seed Manitoba.
“Farmers can evaluate risks specific to their area and decide on varieties to plant,” says Sheila Elder, a farmer from Wawanesa, MB, and chair of MCA’s wheat and barley crop committee.
“For example, in areas with fewer ‘growing degree days’ a shorter-season crop can be considered; for areas with risk of Fusarium head blight (FHB), a more resistant variety can be chosen; and if a farmer wants to grow a crop that has a higher risk of lodging, an appropriate growth regulator could be considered.”
When asked to share one takeaway from the meetings, there was general consensus recognizing all of the hard work and dedication that goes into developing varieties, as well as the organization, time and skills that go into gathering a large, diverse group together to decide on which lines to advance.
“My one takeaway would be that there is a lot of hard work and dedication put into creating varieties that are progressively improving,” says Hueging. “That comes from a very good collaborative effort to get all members of each specific segment of our industry to share their knowledge.”
Lewarne says she always leaves the PGDC meetings with an immense respect for the plant breeders, as well as the geneticists, pathologists and everybody else who works alongside them.
“Canada has a reputation for its high-quality wheat, and the breeders work tirelessly to maintain or exceed those standards for our customers around the world, while also taking farmers’ needs into consideration,” she says. “It seems like the target is constantly moving, but our Canadian breeders show up each year with new lines that improve on disease, agronomy and quality characteristics.”
MCA staff and farmers at PGDC meetings in Banff, March 2023. From left Rauri Qually, Ryan Hueging (back), Mallorie Lewarne, Lori-Ann Kaminski, Nick Matheson (back) and Sheila Elder.
What happened at Banff in 2023?
Wheat, Rye and Triticale – 12 CWRS, two CWAD, four CPSR, one CWSWS, one rye, one spring triticale, and two winter triticale lines brought forward. Breeders are always working to meet or exceed merit criteria, so a lot of culling happens before lines are brought forward at the committee meetings. All but three were supported for registration (two CWRS and one CPSR). Over the last few years, the committee has been assessing which newer varieties should be used as our standards or checks. New FHB checks are to be implemented in 2024 because current intermediate checks are looking more moderately susceptible, especially for durum. Hoping to do some post-registration testing to update Seed Manitoba.
Barley – 12 lines brought forward (three general purpose, seven malt and two food) and 10 were supported for registration. Both lines not supported were proposed as malting varieties.
Flax – There were no new varieties brought forward this year, as upcoming lines are still in the data-gathering stages.
What happens next?
The recommendations from PGDC go forward to the Canadian Grain Commission for assignment of market class and the Variety Registration Office of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for registration. At the same time, breeding institutions and companies are making decisions about commercialization.
If you are interested in learning more about the PGDC, please reach out to MCA staff, directors or crop committee delegates, or visit pgdc.ca.
As we head into spring, now is the perfect time to brush up on some important agronomy topics.
Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA) has several articles and resources to help farmers implement best management practices (BMPs) on their operations. This resource roundup highlights information for targeting the correct seeding date, conditions and fertility, as well as management options if seeding gets delayed.
Spring cereals
1. Seeding date
We know that weather on the Prairies is unpredictable, and while we hope to get the crop in early, sometimes Mother Nature has other plans. More information on the ideal time to plant spring cereals, the impact of delayed seeding and agronomic management strategies is available in the following articles:
Across the Prairies, seeding into dry soils is inevitable in some years. These dry conditions require careful seeding BMPs to help reduce risk. Learn more from resources listed below, including a special collaboration article between the Alberta Wheat Commission, Alberta Barley, Sask Wheat, SaskBarley and MCA:
Plant population influences all three of the primary determinants of yield: (1) number of heads per acre, (2) number of kernels per head and (3) weight per kernel. Do you know how your selected variety will perform under varying target plant populations? Learn more:
Another important aspect of seeding is making sure your crop has the proper fertility package. The following are important resources for making nitrogen fertilizer management decisions:
While many winter wheat farmers choose to apply most of their nitrogen in the fall, early spring is a good opportunity to evaluate your fertilizer strategy. In the article below, Manitoba Agriculture’s John Heard goes through his checklist of spring fertility considerations:
The winter annual growth habit of winter wheat makes it an effective competitor against many weed species. However, some weed control considerations should still be made. The following article outlines integrated weed management strategies and herbicide options for winter wheat:
Significant snow accumulation throughout winter helps to keep the soil warm enough for winter wheat to overwinter. The following resources cover other factors that impact winter wheat survival, plus ways to assess the survival in your fields:
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.
By Anne Kirk and Chami Amarasinghe, Manitoba Agriculture
The Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Team (MCVET) has been evaluating the effects of fusarium head blight (FHB) on spring wheat, winter wheat and barley varieties under conditions of natural infection for a number of years. Varietal resistance ratings for FHB, as presented in Seed Manitoba, are determined through inoculated trials conducted during the period the variety is tested in the variety registration system. While this provides good information on resistance to FHB, the data generated provides limited comparisons with other registered varieties. Post-registration FHB analysis provides an opportunity to compare fusarium damaged kernels (FDK) and deoxynivalenol (DON) accumulation among registered varieties over a number of locations in Manitoba. Fungicides are not applied to MCVET trials, and FHB infection is the result of natural infection. Due to variety turnover in MCVET trials, ongoing analysis is required to evaluate the response of newly registered varieties.
In 2022, DON accumulation was low at the majority of sites. At the spring wheat sites, mean DON accumulation was below the detection limit of 0.5 ppm at seven of nine sites tested; DON ranged from 0.5 to 4.2 ppm at the two sites where DON was detected (Table 1). Mean DON accumulation at the barley sites was below detection limit at eight of 10 sites and ranged from 0.5 to 1.4 ppm at the remaining sites (Table 2). Mean DON accumulation in winter wheat was below detection limit at six of eight sites and ranged from 0.6 ppm to above the detection limit of 5 ppm at two sites (Table 3). Varieties with the highest FDK and DON levels were generally rated as susceptible (S), moderately susceptible (MS) or intermediate (I) for FHB resistance. However, there is variability in FDK and DON within each of the five resistance categories.
FHB infection is highly influenced by environmental conditions, but there are management options that should be used to mitigate the risk of FHB. The first step is to select varieties with improved resistance to FHB. Resistance ratings published in Seed Manitoba are a good first place to look for disease resistance information. Caution must be used with one year of data, as presented in these tables. Other management strategies include crop rotation and fungicide application.
Thanks to Manitoba Crop Alliance for providing funding to conduct FDK and DON analysis and the Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Team and contractors who provided the harvested samples.
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.
Many major lambda-cyhalothrin products have been made unavailable to Canadian farmers for 2023 due to a label revision. This revision has a significant focus on feed-related commodities, which affects most Canadian commodities, but also includes concerns to human health and safety via consumption.
In sunflowers, Manitobans only had access to one insecticide (Matador) to control lygus bug, which is a significant pest in confection sunflowers due to their ability to negatively affect quality. Matador is now removed from our repertoire, leaving no current chemical options to control lygus bugs in sunflowers. Manitoba Crop Alliance and Manitoba Agriculture are working with industry to determine if an Emergency Use Registration will be possible for the 2023 growing season with any current products that have lygus bug on label but are not registered for use on sunflowers. It is a common occurrence in minor crops to not be included on label, so in these instances it requires a label expansion, which is an extensive process.
Lygus bugs are a major pest of sunflowers because they can cause kernel brown spot, which is a small brown to black spot on the blunt end of the seed. The industry standard allows for a maximum of 0.5% kernel brown spot in confection sunflowers marketed for human consumption. The economic threshold for lygus but in confection sunflowers is one bug per 9 sunflower heads. Each adult lygus bug is capable of damaging as many as 35 seeds per head.
Control of lygus bug is very limited and insecticides (lambda-cyhalothrin) are the most effective option in sunflowers. Cultural options are even more limited. When planning sunflower acres, it is recommended to avoid planting near adjacent canola fields since they are both favourable host crops to lygus bug. Canola does have limited insecticide options available for lygus bug, so in canola-lygus infestation and insecticide application scenarios, those neighbouring lygus bugs will attempt to move out and find another host crop, like sunflowers.
Some environmental and biological control factors from Manitoba Agriculture include:
Weather: Heavy rainfall may reduce levels of early-instar nymphs of lygus bugs. A study in alfalfa found heavy rainfall reduced first generation nymphs of Lygus lineolaris by 50%.
Biological Control: Nymphs of Lygus bugs may be killed by parasitic wasps in the genus Peristenus (Hymenoptera: Braconidae); with parasitism being common in weedy alfalfa stands or uncultivated weedy sites but very low in canola. Damsel bugs, assassin bugs, lacewing larvae, big-eyed bugs and crab spiders can prey on lygus bugs. Protecting these natural enemies by avoiding unnecessary insecticide applications may also help to reduce the impact of lygus bugs.
Manitoba Crop Alliance and Manitoba Agriculture will update farmers and industry of any changes in the insecticide market that affects lygus bug control in sunflowers in the near future.
Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA) is proud to support students who are studying to work in the agriculture industry. MCA’s bursary program is designed to assist with the financial needs of students who are enrolled in a post-secondary agricultural program within the province of Manitoba.
Six students from Manitoba have been awarded with MCA 2022-23 bursaries valued at $2,000 each. The 2022-23 bursary recipients are Kaitlyn Christine Hunt-Delaurier from Laurier, Lianne Rouire from Treherne, Milan Lukes from Gunton, Stephanie Manning from Souris, Hannie Peters from Ile Des Chenes, and Alison Manness from La Salle/Domain.
“I would like to congratulate all our 2022-23 bursary winners and thank all the students who applied,” says MCA Chair Robert Misko. “It is clear from the quality of all the bursary applications we received that the future of the agriculture industry in Manitoba is bright.”
Bursary applicants needed to meet the following criteria:
Have completed their first or second year of post-secondary education at the college or university level (diploma or degree) and are enrolled full-time for the 2022-23 school year in an agricultural program within the province of Manitoba.
Have achieved a minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.0.
Have an interest in wheat (spring or winter), corn, barley, flax or sunflower crops, or agriculture in general, as demonstrated in a brief, one-page letter.
Are from a farm that is a member in good-standing of MCA.
Have not previously been awarded an MCA Bursary.
An independent selection committee was contracted to evaluate the applicants based on their connection to or interest in agriculture, explanation of why they decided to enroll in an agriculture-related post-secondary program, how they hope to benefit the agriculture industry once they have graduated and are in the workforce, and their academics and writing skills.
This year, the selection committee included James Frey, applied production specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, and Rachel Evans, technical sales manager at FMC Canada for Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan.
Frey leads a small-plot research program in co-operation with Parkland Crop Diversification Foundation in Roblin, MB. He holds a B.Sc. in agribusiness and a master’s degree in natural resources management from the University of Manitoba. Prior to his current role, he worked with agricultural development projects in Northeast Asia.
Evans is an agronomist with 10 years of experience providing agronomic advice, research co-ordination and project leadership. She holds a master’s degree in plant science from the University of Manitoba, in addition to being a Certified Crop Advisor and member of the Manitoba Institute of Agrologists.
Thank you to the selection committee for evaluating the bursary applications and congratulations to the 2022-23 bursary recipients!
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.
