You won’t get any argument on that count from Ron Tone. He founded Tone Ag Consulting in 1996, following a 17-year career as a farmer. His independent agricultural consulting firm specializes in damage claims, crop scouting and manure management, and works with dozens of clients throughout Manitoba.

Tone was one of the featured speakers at the 2024 Manitoba Agronomists Conference, held Dec. 11 and 12 in Winnipeg. Fittingly, the theme of his presentation was tough conversations to have with farmers and how both new and seasoned agronomists can best handle those difficult discussions.

Tone recalled one particularly challenging conversation he had with a client 10 years ago. The farmer had filed an insurance claim alleging his flax crop was damaged by drift from glyphosate sprayed on a neighbouring farm.

Tone visited the farm to gather information for the insurance claim. There he met with the owner and the neighbouring farmer and patiently listened to what both sides had to say.

While the two farmers were friendly toward each other when they were together, each had a much different take on the situation when Tone spoke with them separately. That’s why he recommends agronomists speak with both parties independently when dealing with insurance claims and spend some time analyzing the data they gather before making a recommendation to the insurance company.

“I go and take that information and usually sit down and think about it for a while after I’ve seen the claim, go over the two responses and then try and make a decision,” he said, adding he and staff will usually review things, such as wind speed and direction, before rendering a decision.

“The lesson there is (it’s best) to talk to them separately.”

Tone started his career in agriculture working as a representative for an agricultural company in Ghana, West Africa, for three years. He returned home to Manitoba after that to operate his own farm near St. Pierre-Jolys but decided to get out of the business in the 1980s when interest rates started to skyrocket.

A career in agronomy had always been in the back of his mind. He decided the time was right to pursue it since there weren’t many sources of independent advice available to farmers in the area.

Tone said one of the biggest challenges for him when he was starting was understanding how to build relationships with farmers with whom he had no prior contact.

“At first I didn’t realize how important it was,” he said.

“I thought, well, I’m coming in with all this information. My head (was) nice and big. I thought, ‘I can tell the farmers here what to do now and how they should be doing it.’” But over the years, he realized it’s important to build and strengthen relationships with each farmer “because as you get growing with confidence in what you’re doing he’s going to listen to you more and more.”

A key part of building those relationships, Tone said, is earning the trust of the client and developing a two-way dialogue with them. “That’s where you build your relationship.”

As farmers get to know you, they trust you, and you can tell them what you need to, he said.

“I’m always careful about doing that, going in and (right) off the bat telling them, ‘This is what you should be doing.’ By understanding your client, you can get an idea how far you can go in these things because you can turn them off pretty fast… if you start coming in with a big head like you know everything.”

Tone recalled how he put thousands of kilometres on his truck during the first couple of years after starting his business. When he wasn’t meeting potential clients at their farms, he was attending community meetings and ag shows where he got to know people and explain how he could help make their operations more efficient and profitable.

Those face-to-face meetings and the word of mouth they generated played an essential role in helping him build the business.

“The approach that I usually use (with clients) is to say just how much can you do on your farm. I’m basically here supplying an extra set of eyes,” he said.

“Yes, in some years where there is no crop disease or very little or the farmer already has his plans, he’s going to spray regardless in his canola and beans so he doesn’t really need a crop scout.”

But in tough years, when, for example, “weeds start coming in,” agronomists can help, he said. “We go out there on a weekly basis to make sure things are growing well and if the chemical didn’t work, we see that right away.”

One of the toughest conversations for an agronomist to have with a farmer can be when they are asked why they should pay for their services when the local ag retailer input company can provide the same thing for free.

Tone’s advice to fellow agronomists is to highlight exactly what kind of services they provide to clients and how they differ from those provided by input companies.

“I basically lay out the different things we do: coming out once a week and then giving them a report, showing them what I saw out there, plant populations, how the crops are doing, what we’re following up with after spraying is done,” he said.

“There’s a whole list of things I go through to show them what we do. We’re going across the field. We’re not just going and stopping the pickup truck on the edge of the field and walking in 50 yards or whatever and saying this is what you need… in that part, but the rest of the field is great.”

Again, Tone said it all comes back to relationship building and that’s something that doesn’t happen overnight.

“There’s (got to be) patience there too. I would say I used to be a person who would jump out and get upset and angry about things,” he said. “I’ve learned over the years that it’s probably not the best thing to do. Patience pays off and (helps build)… a relationship where they can see you’re somebody they feel they can work with.”

The same advice holds for agronomists working with producer organizations, Tone said. Tone has first-hand experience with that. He played a key role in helping the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers develop the On-Farm Network in 2014. The network conducts research on new products and practices to provide growers with answers to an assortment of production-related questions including disease-fighting tools and fertility treatments.

Tone said the inspiration for the network was that provincial and federal governments were cutting back on the funding they were providing for research at the time, and pulse and soybean producers didn’t know where to turn to get answers on subjects such as how much inoculant to use and the best time to apply it.

One of the toughest conversations an independent agronomist can have is often with themselves: When do I want to retire and what kind of transition plan do I want to put in place for the business?

Tone found himself in that spot about eight years ago. He was looking to cut back his workload and was interested in selling off a majority interest in the business. Luckily, two of his employees made an offer to buy the business and he now works for them.

“They took over and it’s been quite a neat transition.”

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On-farm research, why it’s important and how best to conduct it were the focus of a panel discussion at this year’s CropConnect conference, held Feb. 12 and 13 in Winnipeg.

The panel was moderated by Daryl Domitruk, executive director of the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, which operates the on-farm network that helps farmers test new products and practices for soybean and pulse production.

Domitruk says on-farm trials play an important role in translating the results of scientific research into knowledge that producers can use.

“The challenge we have in farming, is that those answers derived by scientists have to be converted into something useful. Virtually every bit of scientific research that occurs on any given day is important. The trick is to make it useful,” he says.

“That’s what on-farm testing is. It takes the same principles as what the lab coat person used and applies them to a farm. In doing so, the main thing that it accomplishes is that it takes that knowledge and puts it in the context of a farm. That is constraints like money, time, equipment, labour, competing uses of resources. It puts it in those contexts and helps the farmer distill … what is useful to them.”

An on-farm trial is defined as the use of different strips or sections in the same field to provide a side-by-side comparison of two or more different practices or products.

Al Manshreck was one of three farmers who took part in the panel discussion. He operates a 3,000-acre family-owned farm near Deloraine, Man. where they grow wheat, barley, canola, beans and oats.

Manshreck began conducting on-farm trials on his farm about a decade ago when he first started growing edible beans and realized “they need more babysitting” than many other crops. That was especially true when it came to determining the right amount of nitrogen to apply.

“We first started (with) 70 pounds. Then we started fooling with that thinking: you put more on, it’s going to be better. Well, we put more on and it wasn’t,” he said, laughing.

“It got to the point where because they’re a higher-value crop, we needed the on-farm testing. It was a fit for us (because) instead of going down and looking in the hopper and saying this strip was fuller than the last strip, we needed to know how many pounds we got on a particular application, whether it’s zero nitrogen or nine pounds of nitrogen.”

Tap into experience

Scott Mowbray runs a 2,000-acre grain farm near the town of Cartwright in south-central Manitoba. He started conducting on-farm trials eight years ago to deal with the highly variable topography of his land, which features both sandy and heavy clay soils. One on-farm research project he’s currently involved in, with University of Manitoba researchers, looks at how cover crops impact his farm.

Mowbray said one of the lessons he has learned about performing on-farm testing is to seek out help from producer groups and other organizations that have experience in conducting such tests.

“Eight or 10 years ago we were doing a few trials, a few products here and there, and not doing a proper job. We weren’t replicating things properly. We weren’t getting proper data and then we weren’t crunching the numbers on that data,” he says.

“Working with the different organizations and people we do, they do all that work for us so it’s been significantly easier. You’re just committed to a little bit extra time to maybe change the application rate or add a different product. Other than that, and a little bit of extra work at harvest, it’s pretty simple.”

Mowbray stresses it’s important to fully understand the results of any on-farm testing in order to reap the benefits of it. For example, while the cover crop testing on his farm has been a money-loser, it has resulted in improved soil health over time.

“Trying to do the math on that and put a dollar value to some of those things is challenging,” he says. “That’s why it’s great to work with people outside of the farm that maybe have a little more knowledge in crunching some of those number and are able to give you some data that you can compare.”

Dean Buchanan runs a family-owned mixed farm near Crystal City in south-central Manitoba that produces cattle and pedigreed seed. He says he’s been doing on-farm testing for years and it’s proven to be a good fit for his operation.

“I always ask a lot of questions (on the farm) so I need answers to those questions. What if we did this or what if we didn’t do that? On-farm testing has helped us figure that out. Do we need to put extra inoculant on our soybeans? Do we need to see more flax?” he says.

One pass or two

Buchanan says some of the field tests he’s participated in have resulted in changes to practices on his farm. For example, he now does just a single pass with soybean inoculants and fungicides on peas rather than the two passes he used to do. Testing also helped him determine that the seeding rate for flax could be lowered, with yields remaining virtually the same.

While each individual trial may not make a huge difference, he points out that cumulatively they can.

Mowbray urges growers who are considering doing on-farm testing to do their homework before signing up to use any products they may not be familiar with.

“It’s amazing the number of products people will try and sell you and they have very little proof to back it up,” he says.

“It’s very important for farmers to make sure when companies are trying to sell them something to ask for replicated third party data from an organization like a university or a college. Make sure they have proper data, that it’s not just a sales brochure. It might only be a couple of bucks an acre which is cheap insurance. But why (spend) a couple of bucks an acre if it’s not doing anything?”

It’s almost a given that some on-farm trials aren’t going to produce any kind of positive response.

Still, that shouldn’t discourage producers from investigating new products or practices, Domitruk says. In such cases, he says, the question that needs to be asked isn’t whether the product worked, but whether there was a need for it in the first place.

“This is where we’re moving in our program to better define what the problem is because on-farm testing, like all research, can do as good a job to help you understand what the problem is as it can to finding a solution to the problem,” he adds.

Manshreck says trials that don’t produce positive results can be just as valuable as those that do — “because the result means that we don’t have to use it, we don’t have to pay for it, we don’t have the hassle of having to do it.”

Mowbray says it’s important for producers who consider doing on-farm trials for the first time to make sure they have equipment that’s “sized a little nicer.” He recalled one on-farm trial he conducted using a 44-foot drill and a 35-foot combine header that left narrow strips between plots, which required a second pass. He now uses a 50-foot drill that doesn’t require a second pass.

He also suggests producers who haven’t previously conducted on-farm trials to think small the first time out.

“The big thing is just start simple. Make sure you’ve got something manageable logistically for you in spring and it’s going to provide you some data that’s going to be useful. There’s no point to doing something just because it’s one of the protocols. You might as well try something that’s going to give you some information that’s useful on your farm.”

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James Tansey, an insect pest management specialist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, urged growers to be vigilant, even though grasshopper numbers were relatively low in many parts of the province in 2024. The one exception was the province’s southwest.

There were two main reasons for those lower numbers overall. Cool, wet conditions in the spring slowed the embryonic development of several insect pests including grasshoppers. Those damp conditions also led to a rise in naturally occurring fungal diseases such as Entomophaga grylli, which can be lethal to grasshoppers and help keep their numbers in check.

The concern now is that hot, dry conditions in many parts of the province in mid to late summer and well into the fall of 2024 provided ideal conditions for female grasshoppers to lay their eggs, says Tansey. That could lead to a large increase in the province’s grasshopper population if conditions are warm and dry this coming spring.

“If we get another warm spring like we saw in 2023, then we could certainly see a significant increase in grasshoppers again,” Tansey says.

“Are we going to see the numbers like we saw in 2023? Unlikely, but it could still be a major regional issue. I think growers need to keep their eyes open, so they’re not surprised if we do have a long, dry spring.”

Tansey says it could have been a much different story about grasshopper pressure in 2024 had last the spring been warm and dry. In the few parts of the province where conditions were warm and dry, very high numbers of eggs were placed in the ground and grasshopper populations in those locations “took hold with enthusiasm and they really sped through… development relatively quickly.”

There are more than 80 different species of grasshoppers present in the Prairies but only a handful pose a risk to crops, Tansey told the audience at the Agronomy Update.

The migratory grasshopper has historically been one of Saskatchewan’s major pests but has been supplanted recently by the two-striped grasshopper.

One of the main differences between the two species is that migratory grasshoppers are ambivorous and will eat “anything green that’s not nailed down” while their two-striped counterparts are folivorous and prefer broad-leafed crops such as canola and pulses.

Also on radar

Another insect pest Tansey says growers should be on guard against this coming spring is Hessian flies: small, mosquito-like insects that pose a serious threat to cereal crops such as wheat, barley and rye. They can cause serious damage to a crop and are considered one of the worst cereal pests in the world.

Tansey says Hessian flies had not been reported as a significant pest in Saskatchewan since around 2013 or 2014, but the province recorded a significant uptick in their numbers in 2023, which continues to be a cause for concern. Significant populations were noted in North Battleford, Demaine, Leroy, Carstairs and Shaunavon in 2023.

One of the most common signs that Hessian flies are present in a crop is lodging. Tansey says if the stem of a plant is broken off at its second or third node the damage was likely cause by the tiny flies. However, if a cereal plant’s stem is broken near its first node, the damage was likely caused by wheat stem sawflies.

There are no pesticides registered to control Hessian flies. The primary means of controlling them is regular crop rotation.

Tansey adds that tillage can be effective in helping to control Hessian fly populations but “tillage comes with its own challenges, so you need to weigh that as well.”

ALSO: Gophers go further

A vertebrate pest plaguing Saskatchewan growers for some time now is Richardson’s ground squirrels — more commonly known as gophers.

They were particularly a problem for the province’s canola growers in 2024. Last spring’s cool, wet conditions meant canola crops were slow to develop in many regions. Gophers normally tend to congregate near the edge of a canola field because they don’t like tall plants that can block their sightlines.

However, because last year’s crop was late to develop, they were able to move further into fields and establish more of a presence.

“They were munching on those seedlings and pretty severely in some cases,” says Tansey.

Tansey says it’s too soon to say how much of threat Richardson’s ground squirrels will pose in 2025 and it will depend in part on what kind of weather the province experiences this spring. He points out the province is continuing to track their presence through an online survey available to farmers. He is currently working on a model that will use AI to incorporate that data and provide some predictive power about where they could pose a threat to crops.

In 2023, the federal Pest Management Regulatory Authority deregistered the use of strychnine to control gophers. The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture has since been studying the effectiveness of some alternative products that farmers can use in place of strychnine.

Tansey says several zinc phosphide products such as Burrow Oat Bait and ZC Rodent Oat Bait appear to be statistically similar to strychnine in terms of their efficiency. An added bonus of their use is that zinc phosphide breaks down into gas which later escapes the cadaver and leaves little in the way of residue in a field. Some anticoagulants, including Rozol RTU Field Rodent Bait and Ramik Green, have also been shown to be effective.

The key to using any kind of poison bait products, Tansey says, is to install them early before crops start to emerge and gophers develop “bait shyness.”

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Tyler Wist, a field crops entomologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Saskatoon, spoke about the threat aphids can pose to some crops at the recent Saskatchewan Agronomy Update conference.

Wist says aphid populations can “explode” in a short period of time and can pose a serious risk to small grain and pulse crops if left unchecked. In 2024, his department received multiple reports of aphid damage from several regions of the province.

A large part of the threat aphids pose is the fact that they reproduce quickly and can build up their populations very fast. For example, pea aphid populations in pulse crops can double in a matter of just five or six days.

“That’s why I say don’t turn your back on aphids. You can check them one week and then you come back the next week and all those aphids have reproduced. All those aphids that were there before, they’ve now had a chance to feed on your crop, plus now you got all these new aphids” causing damage, he says.

“If you have aphids in your field, keep an eye on them.”

The three most common types of crop-damaging aphids found in Saskatchewan are pea aphids, English grain aphids and bird cherry-oat aphids. English grain and bird cherry-oat aphids are most commonly found in small grains such as barley and oats while pea aphids favour pulse crops including faba beans, lentils and peas.

Aphids cause damage by sucking sap from within the plant. In the case of pulses, if the plant becomes stressed during the flowering stage, it can drop its flowers and seed pods fail to develop as a result.

Wist’s advice to growers is to start scouting for aphids in pulses and small grains by the second week of July, as that’s when their populations typically start to grow. English grain aphids can usually be found in the head of a cereal plant where the seed is starting to fill. Bird cherry-oat aphids can be found in the head but other parts of the cereal plant as well. Their populations can be patchy, which is why Wist says it’s recommended that between 50 and 100 plant heads are checked during scouting.

Make sure they’re dead

There are several measures growers can take to help control aphid populations in their fields.

One of the methods researchers in Saskatchewan have been studying is the impact of plant timing on aphid populations. That includes early planting (mid-May), medium planting (late May) and late planting (early June). Preliminary results indicate crops seeded early tend to have fewer problems with aphids compared to those seeded later in the season.

“Those (late) ones always yielded far worse then than the earlier-planted ones,” says Wist. “Whether or not it was due to aphids, or had something to do with not enough heat units or degree days to get the yield out, we don’t know for sure. But every year the late-planted ones yielded terribly.”

To spray or not to spray is a question many farmers ask when dealing with aphids. Wist points out it can depend on the type of crop being grown. In the case of small grains, once the plant has reached the soft dough stage and the grain has filled, aphids can’t cause any more damage to the plant, so spraying is no longer required.

READ MORE: Keeping aphids in check, online and off

It’s more difficult to assess in pulse crops, he adds, since there’s no evidence to indicate a “stop point” where aphids can’t do any more damage to a plant, and in peas, the older stages have a higher tolerance for pea aphids, as shown by a higher economic threshold.

If you’re going to spray for aphids, Wist recommends conducting a follow-up inspection of the field that has been sprayed, to make sure the pesticide that was used had the desired effect.

“When you spend all that time and money to spray your field and nothing happens to the population when it’s sprayed, it’s frustrating,” he says. “Go back and check after the label says you can go back in the field. Go back and check to make sure that those aphids actually died when (you) sprayed.”

Wist says one area of concern regarding the use of pesticides to control aphids is that they appear to be developing some resistance to some pyrethroids, including lambda-cyhalothrin.

Prairie predators

Beneficial insects can also play an important role in controlling aphids in the field, according to Wist.

Golden-eyed lacewing flies are ferocious predators that feast on pea aphids and kill them by sucking out their innards. Braconid wasp larvae like to gorge themselves on aphids. They kill hosts by laying their eggs inside them, which then hatch with the offspring eating the aphid from the inside out, then cutting a hole in the back end of the host to escape. Lady beetles are also effective aphid killers and can eat as many as 50 to 85 aphids in a day.

Recent research conducted at the University of Calgary indicates one of the spinoff benefits of beneficial pollinating insects being present in a field is that they can cause a spike to yield in many cases due in part to the cross-pollination they promote. That cross-pollination can also help a crop stand to set more evenly and mature more consistently.

Wist says one way farmers can boost the presence of beneficial insects in their fields is to convert unproductive areas into refuges that can help attract them. However, he cautions growers “not to put all their eggs in one basket” and to use whatever integrated pest management tools are available to them to control aphids.

Aphids ahoy?

Predicting when aphids could be a problem is difficult to do, since they tend to migrate from one location to another due to winds. In addition, Wist’s recent data indicate pea aphids may be overwintering on perennials such as alfalfa. The good news in that case, Wist says, is that cold winter temperatures could keep those populations under control.

As for whether aphids could be a threat in 2025, Wist says that will depend largely on weather conditions during the growing season. Aphids tend to prefer mild temperatures around 20 C which is typically when they thrive. Aphids won’t reproduce and can quickly die out when average temperatures are sustained around 30 C or warmer, he adds — like what happened in 2021 under July’s “heat dome.”

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Francois Eudes is the director of research, development and technology for the science and technology branch at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) at Lethbridge. As part of his role, he oversees AAFC’s breeding, innovation and crop germplasm development.

Eudes says a big part of the multigenerational approach to breeding new varieties of cereal crops such as wheat and barley is eliminating offspring that won’t perform at sufficiently high levels.

“The selection process is much more about the elimination of poor genetics among the sister lines. We’re going to eliminate the poor-performing one under selection for some traits and move the better one to the next generation where another selection is going to be done,” he says.

The development of new cereal crop varieties is unique in comparison to most other crop types. Most of the crop breeding efforts in Western Canada are conducted by the public sector. That includes AAFC as well as post-secondary institutions such as the University of Saskatchewan, through its Crop Development Centre (CDC), the University of Alberta and the University of Saskatchewan.

In most cases, those institutions don’t directly commercialize the varieties they develop. Instead, they partner with stakeholders such as seed companies to commercialize those varieties through variety licensing agreements.

Curtis Pozniak, a professor and director of the CDC at the U of S, says it takes, on average, eight to 10 years to develop a new variety, which means breeders need to “have a bit of a crystal ball” when determining what the priorities need to be for future varieties.

The main areas of focus for breeders are typically yield and reliable yield performance in a range of different environments and soil types; disease and insect resistance; and tolerance to abiotic stresses such as drought and heat.

Marketability is another important consideration when developing new varieties of cereal crops, Pozniak adds.

“If you look at barley used in brewing, there’s a very specific quality profile that’s in demand by the industry and by the end-use customer. Likewise with wheat and durum, the quality profiles are very well defined in terms of what our customers are looking for,” he says.

“It’s all about developing the package of yield, reliability and marketability that’s most important, really pushing the yield envelope and having that combination of agronomic traits and pest-resistant traits that growers are demanding, while still maintaining that marketability and end-use quality.”

Like most crops, cereals have had to endure a wide range of severe weather conditions across Canada in the last several years, including drought and extended periods of extreme heat.

While that has been an important consideration when it comes to breeding efforts in cereals, it is not an entirely new breeding target. Pozniak says plant breeders have historically tested new cereal varieties in a wide range of conditions in order to select products that will perform well across a range of environments, and that continues to be the case.

“I wouldn’t say we’re necessarily focusing more on selecting for heat and drought tolerance. That has always been a breeding target, but the extreme heat and drought like we experienced this past summer have really provided us with the opportunity to evaluate those genetic combinations that do well,” he says.

Ellen Sparry, general manager of C&M Seeds at Palmerston, Ont., agrees. She recently came across a paper from the Canadian Journal of Research from 1936 referring to studies on drought resistance in spring wheat.

“It is always on a breeder’s radar to try and select the right varieties that combat drought and other climate challenges. That’s why we test varieties over several years before taking anything to commercialization,” she says.

That said, breeders are having to look at things in a slightly different, climate-induced light, she adds.

For example, changing climates have forced plant breeders to respond to shifts in disease. Sparry cited an example of a winter wheat her company developed that was wiped out in a single year due to leaf rust.

“It had good tolerance and then we had a shift one year and it was all but wiped out of the marketplace,” she says.

Eudes agrees climate change and extreme weather conditions are prompting plant breeders to look at some things in a new light. For crops such as wheat, he says that includes looking at varieties that have been grown in other countries to deal with even hotter and drier conditions and adapting that germplasm so those varieties can be successful here in Canada.

‘Nimble’

Plant breeding has traditionally been a marathon rather than a sprint, but some new tools have the potential to change that.

Gene editing technology has been around for some time but it’s still a relatively new concept in terms of Canadian agriculture. AAFC seeded the federal government’s first plots of gene-edited wheat in Lethbridge earlier this year.

Sparry says gene editing has the potential to be a game-changer when it comes to breeding new varieties of wheat and other cereal crops.

“I think it’s always on a breeder’s mind that they have to be nimble, which is not an easy thing to do in a breeding program,” she says. “Perhaps gene editing can get us there a little quicker. Hopefully, this is a goal that allows breeders to adapt a little bit quicker to changing situations.”

Tyler Groeneveld concurs. Groeneveld is the North American director of grains and oils for Corteva Agriscience. The company spends $4 million a day on research and development and, he says, a tool like gene editing has the potential to unlock a host of new opportunities.

“The advent of gene editing and our expertise with that particular modern plant breeding tool means that we’ll be able to identify and commercialize traits of interest and seed technology quicker than we would in the traditional biotechnology route to market,” he says.

Another relatively new tool that could help plant breeding efforts is phenomic selection. It’s a low-cost, high-throughput alternative to the use of genetic markers, employing spectral data to predict complex traits with statistical models that use software algorithms.

Eudes says phenomic technology is still relatively new here in Canada but has been in use in Europe for more than a decade already. In one example of its use, multiple data sets could be collected via drones to monitor a crop and predict its performance even before that crop has reached maturity.

“That way, a decision could be made earlier, either to continue the evaluation of the line or essentially eliminate that line,” he explains.

‘Diversification’

As these new tools and technologies continue to evolve, new varieties of cereal crops are being introduced into the developmental pipeline.

Earlier this year Corteva introduced its new Trusource wheat. Trusource is a high-fibre durum wheat that provides increased dietary fibre in everyday foods such as pasta. It’s currently available to food companies for trial in product development and will be released commercially to farmers sometime in the next few years.

“Trusource wheat will bring new nutritional innovation to wheat and … benefits compared to traditional wheat. It supports improved gut health and blood sugar management. It helps promote satiety (fullness),” Groeneveld says.

“It’s a very exciting opportunity when we look at market diversification and increase in value for a crop that Canada is known for — being a very high quality, reliable supplier in durum to the global market.”

AAFC is expected to announce its next set of co-op trials and which lines it will register following the Prairie Grain Development Committee’s meeting in February.

Eudes says one of the most promising cereal crops AAFC has in its developmental pipeline is a durum wheat that was developed in Swift Current. It has been shown to have intermediate resistance to fusarium head blight (FHB) — the first durum wheat in Canada to be so rated. It was registered in February 2023 and should be available to farmers within the next two years.

In addition, AAFC breeders are working on a new higher-performing variety of milling oat as a replacement for AC Morgan which, Eudes says, is getting “a bit old,” having been around since 1999.

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The 49-question online survey was conducted between the spring and fall of 2023. A total of 10 producers from Alberta and Saskatchewan who were early adopters of the technology responded to the survey. The results of the study were published in the September 2024 edition of the Canadian Journal of Plant Science.

While there have been various Canadian studies on impact mills, this is the first one to look at harvest weed seed control (HWSC) that incorporates actual on-farm experiences.

AAFC research scientist Breanne Tidemann says even though researchers had previously conducted small-plot research and field trials on HWSC technology, there were some knowledge gaps and it was important to gather real world data about its use.

“No matter how much small-plot research or even field trial-scale research you do, it’s not the same as a farmer using it on all their acres for multiple years,” says Tidemann, who led the research study.

“They just get insights and experiences that we can’t get.”

Tidemann says while the survey used a relatively small sample size, the 18 weed seed mills that were part of it represented 60 per cent of the machines estimated to be in used in Canada in 2023.

Those results, she adds, will provide a baseline that researchers will be able to revisit down the road to determine changes to the adoption rate and who is using the technology.

The study focused on several key issues including who is using HWSC technology and why; challenges they have encountered with it; crops it is being used with; maintenance and fuel costs; and how effective it is in controlling problem weeds.

The survey results indicate most of the responding producers who use the physical impact mills for HWSC operate larger farms (10,000 acres or larger). Those producers equipped a majority of their combines (75 per cent) with the mills, but acknowledged they were strategic about their use since they had a limited number of the machines available.

Survey respondents indicated wild oat (60 per cent) and kochia (50 per cent) were the top weeds that motivated them to adopt impact mills on their farm.

Tidemann says she was somewhat surprised to see wild oat ranked so high.

“All the research that we’ve done has shown wild oat loses its (weed) seeds early so there’s some challenges using harvest weed seed control for wild oat. But I’m not surprised that it’s pushing people to try alternatives,” she adds.

The survey results also indicated operating a weed seed mill behind a combine adds an additional $1.40 in fuel costs per acre. Tidemann says it’s up to individual farmers to determine how affordable that is, since it largely depends on the size of the farms they operate.

On average, producers said it cost them about $1,500 a year in maintenance per impact mill, including greasing the mill as well as changing parts such as bearings and belts. Tidemann says it was difficult to pinpoint a precise figure since many respondents had only recently adopted the technology and were estimating what their costs would be. Longer-use adopters who completed the survey indicated annual maintenance costs of about $1,750 for each unit.

Participating producers were also asked about limitations or challenges they experienced when using the mills on their farm. Most respondents (70 per cent) identified mill plugging due to green material as a significant limitation they encountered. One of the primary sources of green material identified in the survey was kochia.

“A very large patch of kochia that’s essentially choked out all the crop, if you try and take that in one fell swoop, you will be unplugging the back of your combine. There’s got to be enough dry materials to push it through,” Tidemann says.

Despite that, a number of respondents identified kochia as the weed that showed the greatest response in terms of mill use. They also noted reduced use of herbicides with grassy weeds such as wild oats and green foxtail when using an impact mill. Wheat (90 per cent), canola (80 per cent) and lentils (80 per cent) were identified as the crops in which mills were most utilized.

Producers were also asked to estimate how long it will take to recoup the investment they made when they purchased an impact mill. The most common response was three to five years (60 per cent) followed by six to eight years (20 per cent).

“It’s reassuring that those people that are adopting are going in with the mindset that it’s going to take some time and they’re not expecting an immediate response which is going to lead to people stepping out of it before they would maybe see the impact,” Tidemann says.

Respondents were asked to identify sources of information they consulted when considering the use of impact mills on their farm. The two most common responses were manufacturers/retailers and other early-adopting farmers.

“The mill companies makes sense,” says Tidemann. “The second one, early adopting farmers, was interesting. To me, what that’s saying is it’s all good and fine to have someone like me out talking to them, but you’re going to get a whole lot more bang for your buck if you have a farmer that’s actually using the thing. They want to hear from farmers who are using the machines.”

Resisting resistance

Jason Waldenberger was one of the farmers who participated in the AAFC study. He operates a 6,500-acre grain farm just north of Moose Jaw and has been using an Australian-manufactured Seed Terminator impact mill there for the past three harvests.

Waldenberger says he’s an “easy sell” when it comes adopting new technology and became interested in HWSC equipment several years ago after meeting a fellow farmer who was already using it. He was prompted to start using it himself after noting growing chemical resistance among weeds in the fields where he was growing pulse crops.

He says participating in the study was a no-brainer since anything producers can do to help the research community also helps themselves.

“We’ve got some fantastic people working in our industry,” he says. “I think anytime we can work with those kinds of people or pass along information and vice versa, they can then do really good, steady work and help us make better decisions and give us feedback on what they’re finding.”

Tidemann says the data gathered through the survey could help manufacturers make adjustments to their products to address some of the concerns producers raise.

It may also help provide some direction for future research in terms of HWSC technology. Survey respondents were asked to identify research that was still needed regarding impact mills. The three most common responses were efficacy on weed densities, their impact on precision spraying and grain loss calculations.

“There’s still lots of things that we don’t know (about the technology) and this gives us an idea of what’s important on-farm,” says Tidemann.

HOW IT WORKS: Appendage for destruction

You may know what a weed seed mill is, but you may not know how it works.

Here’s a snapshot of what it does and how it helps prevent weeds from growing and spreading.

First, the mill is attached to the rear of a combine. Then as a crop is harvested, weed seeds come out of the back of the combine and are fed into the mill where they are spun at a high rate of speed which damages the weed seeds and renders them nonviable. This material is then spread back in the field.

In addition to controlling weed seeds, the mills also help stop the spread of weed seeds during harvest, lower herbicide costs, and reduce selection pressure for herbicide resistance.

Some of the most popular HWSC devices include the Redekop Seed Control Unit, the Integrated Harrington Seed Destruction, the Seed Terminator and the WeedHOG.

The post What the weed seed smasher survey says appeared first on Grainews.

Many southern portions of the province received above-average rainfall amounts this spring, which has turned out to be a mixed blessing for corn producers in the region.

While those rains helped promote early germination and plant growth in fields, the abundance of wet stuff meant the roots of those corn plants didn’t grow as deep as they normally would, since they could access moisture and nutrients close to the soil surface.

As a result, nutrients near the surface became depleted and corn plant roots weren’t developed enough to drill further down into the soil to access additional sources.

The concern heading into this year’s harvest is those nutrient-deprived corn plants could show quality or yield losses.

“The first rains were obviously a huge blessing because we were planting into really dry conditions,” says Morgan Cott, agronomy extension specialist for special crops with the Manitoba Crop Alliance.

“It’s just that the rain kept coming and a lot of areas were getting waterlogged. Some areas were getting stunted because of the water sitting in the fields. Like anything, if corn is sitting in water for too long, it can’t breathe. There’s no oxygen so it’s just sitting there not doing anything. Some plants will die while others won’t but they never sort of rejuvenate.”

Manitoba Agriculture’s growing season report shows just how wet some corn-growing areas of the province were early on this season. Portage la Prairie received 177 mm of rain between April 15 and June 2, which is 193 per cent of the average rainfall it receives during that period of time. Meanwhile, Brandon received 162 mm (213 per cent) while Morden received 189 mm (190 per cent) and Rivers had 167 mm (211 per cent).

All that moisture meant corn plant roots tended to develop more laterally than vertically. The lack of root material meant those plants had difficulty accessing much-needed nutrients as they leached downwards into the soil over the course of the season.

“Roots are lazy. Roots will go where they have access to everything they need. Why would they be digging down deep if all the water and all the fertilizer was sitting there with them in those first couple of months,” Cott says.

Table: Prairie grain corn acres planted

Source: Statistics Canada. * – figure deemed “too unreliable”

‘Rebound’

It’s a situation that concerns Jill Verwey and her husband Ray. They operate an 8,000-acre grain and oilseed farm just south of Portage la Prairie. They planted about 400 acres of corn this spring and ended up having to reseed about 130 acres to canola as a result of the damp conditions.

Now, their fingers are crossed that their remaining corn acres will rebound enough to produce a decent yield.

“We did get some good rebound once we had some heat. But we’re still a ways away from knowing what the effects of this year will be on the corn crop,” she says.

“That early cool, wet weather will probably have an impact at the end of day on yield. We’ll probably not see as good a yield as what we would have expected, had we had a better start in the spring. How much that loss is going to be, we won’t know until the crop’s in the bin. It’s hard to make that call at this time of year. It will definitely be more favourable… if we have some good growing conditions over the next little while.”

Cott agrees it’s too early to know how much nutrient loss occurred this season and what impact it could have on yield.

One way growers can tell if their corn plants are suffering from nutrient loss, she says, is to check the leaves near the bottom of the plant. If they have already started to fire off, or drop, it’s a likely indicator of nitrogen deficiency. Browning or yellowing lower leaves is another likely sign of nutrient deficiency.

The bad news is that if that’s the case, there’s not much growers can do about it at this point. Even if they were to apply a top dressing, it’s likely too late in the season for the plant to take it up. Normally, top dressing has to be applied to corn at the V4 stage when there are four leaves and leaf collars are visible. Foliar sprays aren’t a solution either since they can cause damage to the crop, Cott adds.

Cott says it’s really up to individual producers to determine whether to put all of their fertilizer down up front or to split it up with a top dressing midway through the season. The challenge with a split application is that producers never know when it’s going to rain or when the rain will stop, so that later application could end up having a negligible effect.

Cott’s advice to corn growers is to scout crops early and often so they can detect in a timely fashion if any nutrient deficiency is occurring and are prepared to act quickly.

“If the weather is either too dry or too wet where we are in extremes either way, then keeping your eyes on the field is the best way to know what might be the best thing to do for fertility,” she says. “It’s just important to be scouting everything as much as you can so you know what’s going on. It takes a lot of time but it’s valuable to do so.”

Depending on how the current situation plays out, this year could be something of an anomaly for corn production in Manitoba. Over the last dozen years, the number of corn acres in the province has grown from about 300,000, in 2012, to more than 500,000 in 2024. Last year, the province produced a record 1.79 million tonnes of grain corn, which represented 11.8 per cent of Canada’s total corn production.

While those numbers could drop slightly if there are any significant yield losses in the province this year, Cott expects that upward trend to continue over the long term.

“I honestly think it’s just that it’s a relatively easy crop to grow. Guys have seen success with it. Making the investments needed to be growing corn isn’t seeming like a real hit to the farm,” she says.

“There are benefits to making an investment in a drier and planters and bins. Making those investments is a lot more appealing now that we’ve seen steady success with grain corn in Manitoba. It’s a lot more justifiable.”

The post How rain posed mixed blessings for this year’s corn appeared first on Grainews.

The Canadian Prairies Trusted Advisor Partnership (TAP) plans to launch its first cohort of about 15 agronomists in January 2025. It will serve as a Canadian counterpart to the North Dakota Trusted Advisor Partnership, which was founded in 2022 to provide soil health training to certified crop advisors in that state.

The Canadian Prairies TAP is being coordinated by the Sustainable Food Lab, a U.S.-based non-profit organization focused on promoting sustainable food production. It has received support from General Mills, PepsiCo, Bimbo Canada, Nature United and South East Research Farm.

Assiniboine College in Brandon will host TAP’s online curriculum and co-ordinate issuing continuing education credits to program participants.

The goal of the program is to upskill agronomists by providing them with the latest information on sustainable land management practices which they can then share with their farm client base.

Project co-lead Ben Harris, a staffer at Sustainable Food Lab, says it made sense to expand the program into the Prairie provinces, as most of the companies sponsoring its U.S. equivalent also have a footprint in this country — and this will boost their ability to enhance supply chain resilience on both sides of the border.

Another reason for offering the program in Canada is that most agronomists and farmers who are looking to push the envelope with soil health practices don’t have easy access to information on how those practices are being developed or used on farms, says Luke Struckman, project co-lead and a consultant with the Sustainable Food Lab.

“If you are a farmer or agronomist who is interested in experimenting with or implementing the latest soil health practices on your farm, there’s not a lot of good information out there. There isn’t a central hub you can go to,” Struckman explains.

“TAP is really about translating that cutting-edge science into practical on-farm advice.”

The agronomist-led curriculum for the multi-month course will be mostly video-based, and learners will be able to access it online through Assiniboine College’s website. The program’s two lead agronomists are developing and filming the content, with input from Nature United; Yvonne Lawley of the University of Manitoba; Lana Shaw, executive director of the South East Research Farm; North Dakota TAP team members including Lee Briese, a core author of the TAP curriculum; and Elizabeth Reaves, senior program director at Sustainable Food Lab.

The online modules are being edited by a professional film production company, In House. Some of the subjects the course will cover include zone management, intercropping, managing salinity, erosion management and reducing soil compaction.

Participants will also take part in weekly Zoom meetings, during which they’ll be able to discuss topics covered online, how to approach farmer clients interested in learning more about soil health practices, and how best to share information with them.

A messaging platform will also be set up so agronomists can engage with one another in real-time, and those conversations can be archived and accessed again in the future to help build a long-term community of practice, Harris says.

Struckman says one of the key differences between the Canadian Prairies TAP program and other similar initiatives is that it focuses not just on the science of soil health, but also on developing relations with farm clients.

“That’s super important,” he says. “A lot of technical materials out there don’t address the best ways to approach farmer clients and help them adopt soil health practices.

“This is all voluntary. This is not to force farmer clients to take on soil health practices. It’s more about if a client has an interest, the advisor will be equipped to help them with it.”

So far, about 30 certified crop advisors have graduated from the North Dakota TAP program.

On top of providing agronomists with the latest information on soil health, logistical considerations and common barriers to adopting sustainable agricultural practices, the program has also been important in building stronger social networks, Harris says.

“It’s created a sense of camaraderie and reduced the sense of isolation that farmers and agronomists can feel if they’re interested in trying less common practices that can be perceived by neighbours as being a bit ‘out there.’ That social piece is really important,” he says.

“It’s also providing confidence, which is harder to measure and more ambiguous than hard skills development but is really just as important in a lot of ways. When it comes down to it, if an agronomist or farmer doesn’t have the confidence to either recommend or adopt a practice, even if they feel like they have all the knowledge to do so, they just won’t.”

Abbey Wick was one of the founders of the North Dakota TAP while she was working as a soil health extension specialist at North Dakota State University. One of the most gratifying aspects of being involved in the program, she says, was seeing how crop advisors who went through it developed a bond with other members of their group and were able to share information on practices that were successful for the farmers they work with.

Those advisors are now able to screen through potentially confusing information and present it to clients in a clear and concise manner, she adds.

“We’ve definitely seen a lot of interest in it here,” Wick says.

“I think that it’s now expanding from North Dakota into Canada … is really promising. We’re showing the model, even though it’s not perfect yet, and this approach is a valid and effective way to get more acres transitioned into soil health practices that are suitable and reasonable” for long-term adoption.

Struckman says he hopes the Prairie version of the program will help convince agronomists and their farm clients to adopt the latest science-driven soil health management techniques as part of their day-to-day approach to food production.

“We hope it sort of de-risks new practices’ adoption,” he says.

“A lot of these practices, these newer practices, are not necessarily easy to implement. The idea is that if agronomists can lean on their peers to help walk farmers through these new practices, that eliminates a good deal of risk. They will have that peer network to draw upon. They won’t have the same kind of growing pains that many early adopters have gone through.”

Although the TAP program is available in North Dakota at no cost to participants, the Prairie version will charge a nominal fee to help recoup some of the costs of providing the program.

While the initial cohort of learners in Manitoba and Saskatchewan will be relatively small, organizers expect class sizes to grow for future sessions. Over the next five years, plans call for the Canadian Prairies TAP to train more than 225 agronomists and introduce conservation agriculture to over 500 farmers by 2029. The program could be expanded to other provinces, including Alberta, if there’s sufficient interest, Harris adds.

The post Soil health training served on TAP for Prairie agronomists appeared first on Grainews.

Grainews recently spoke with several prominent seed companies about new soybean varieties they have in the development pipeline and the impact shifting weather patterns are having on their developmental efforts.

Weather challenge

Allan Froese is a soybean product placement scientist for Syngenta in Western Canada and helps oversee the company’s efforts to develop new varieties.

Changing weather patterns have always been a challenge when it comes to seed breeding efforts, he says, but those efforts have become even more challenging of late, with drought and large rain events becoming more commonplace.

“That significantly affects how we can understand how our products will perform … and definitely makes for more of a challenge,” he says.

“Something we’ve been focusing on for several years now is finding products that have broad-acre adaptability that can handle stressful conditions. In order to achieve that, we’ve put a large focus on improving the disease tolerance of our varieties. We want to make sure that as the climate changes… we’re bringing products that can deal with those changing environments.”

As a result, Froese says, Syngenta is now conducting more trials across a larger geography, to ensure the company has a better understanding of how a new product will perform in a wider variety of conditions.

In the near term, Syngenta will be offering varieties containing the Enlist E3 and XtendFlex herbicide tolerance traits. The Enlist E3 platform provides tolerance to 2,4-D, glyphosate and glufosinate herbicides while XtendFlex offers dicamba, glyphosate and glufosinate tolerance. Froese says while some companies will only provide one or the other platform, Syngenta is committed to providing growers choice by offering both trait technologies.

Changing climate

Liz Knutson is the Canadian marketing leader for Corteva Agriscience. Knutson says the company has always been focused on conducting extensive localized breeding and testing to deliver varieties that perform across a wide range of geographies and environments. The upside to that, she says, is that with an ever-changing climate, products that were suitable in one region may suddenly be an appropriate fit elsewhere.

“Because we have those localized programs, as we see agronomic challenges shift or as we see climate patterns shift, we may already have products in the arsenal that may be easily moved or transitioned to other footprints,” she says, citing relative maturity as a good example of that.

Knutson says shifting weather patterns also means listening to what farmers have to say about their needs and potential solutions has become more important than ever.

“Our breeders are always looking forward and taking into account those changing environmental and agronomic pressures where we’re growing new varieties. That includes focusing on yield-limiting diseases and any kind of challenges our farmers might face. We want to be responsive to the market, so as we hear those concerns continue to pop up, we do our very best to address them,” says Knutson.

Corteva recently launched Pioneer brand Z-Series soybeans in Canada, a series offering 20 new varieties. It was available in limited quantities for 2024 and will get a full commercial release for 2025. It’s the fifth soybean series in Pioneer’s 50-year history and Knutson says it represents a generational leap in yield potential and superior disease resistance.

As for what the company has in its developmental pipeline, Knutson would only say Corteva’s next round of soybean product launches will be enhancements on products that are already available.

“We’re really honoured every time a farmer chooses a Corteva-branded product. That’s why we continue to put $4 million a day into our R&D pipeline,” she says.

Important efforts

Stephen Denys is director of market and product development for Maizex Seeds, a southwestern Ontario seed company that sells corn and soybean into Western Canada.

Maizex has one of the largest pre-commercial testing programs in the country and every new variety it develops or licenses must go through a rigorous screening process. Denys says those efforts have become even more important as the climate has continued to evolve.

“One of the reasons we do multiple years of testing is to find varieties that are consistent over differing environments and geographies,” he says. “That way we get to see things under a different range of environmental conditions, and you try to commercialize something that’s going to give a consistent performance, whether it’s a drier year or a wet year.”

One of the results of climate change is a corresponding evolution in disease pressure, Denys says.

As a result, testing new products can’t just focus on agronomics but also the disease front, to make sure seed products evolve as the environment evolves, he adds. In Manitoba, for instance, iron chlorosis tolerance is necessity, but testing also covers sclerotinia and other diseases.

In terms of future soybean releases, Maizex is looking to add new Xtend and Enlist varieties with 2,4-D and Liberty tolerance and with early maturity over the next three to four years.

It’s also planning to launch an Xtend HT4 package that would provide tolerances to dicamba, 2,4-D, Liberty, glyphosate and another herbicide all in the same bundle.

Adapting to changes

Nikki Vercaigne is the campaign marketing manager for DeKalb West with Bayer CropScience. She says the company’s priority for developing new soybean varieties is to focus on products with increased yield potential and a strong disease resistance package that are a fit with growers.

Vercaigne says Bayer’s breeding program takes into consideration the impact of climate change on how the company develops those new products.

“We continue to adapt our research protocols and trial locations to adapt to the changing environmental conditions, specifically looking at heat units and rainfall to maximize soybean genetic potential,” she says.

“Our development pipeline also takes into consideration anticipating future agronomic challenges to help ensure we’re supporting future grower needs with soybean varieties that help solve those challenges.”

DeKalb’s newest soybean release is the DKB007-91XF variety which is being launched for the 2025 growing season. It’s a high-yield-potential variety with medium bushy architecture, strong emergence, great standability and the XtendFlex herbicide system that offers glyphosate, dicamba and glufosinate tolerance.

It’s also looking to launch its own HT4 soybean package within the next three to five years. It would be the company’s first soybean trait system to offer tolerance to five different herbicide active ingredients that Vercaigne says would give growers greater application flexibility to help manage resistant or tough to control weeds.

The post Changing weather, changing varieties appeared first on Grainews.

While he likely wasn’t talking about canola, the industry’s ability to change with the times has been a key factor in its continued success in this country. It’s been estimated Canada’s canola value chain generates around $30 billion in economic activity.

The industry’s willingness to change with the times is evidenced by agricultural companies investing millions of dollars a year to develop new varieties of canola. Those efforts have become even more critical in recent years due to ever-changing climate conditions and disease pressures.

Grainews recently spoke with some of the country’s leading seed companies to find out what new hybrids they are developing, what their process is for developing those products, and how climate change is affecting those efforts.

Extreme weather impact

Canterra Seeds takes a slightly different approach to developing new varieties than do most seed companies. Canola product manager Courtney Welch says the Winnipeg-based company doesn’t have its own breeding program and instead works with several genetics partners who license their products to Canterra.

This strategy provides several advantages over traditional breeding programs, she says.

“Working with various different breeding partners we can have a wide range of maturities, as an example,” she says. “Another thing is that it allows us to have various herbicide tolerance types. We’re not limited to just LibertyLink or just TruFlex. We always have a wide variety of traits in our lineup.”

More extreme weather patterns, such as drought and excess rain, have definitely had an impact on Canterra and its genetics partners’ efforts to bring new varieties of canola online, Welch says. Thus they now make even more of an effort to look at multiple sets of data from multiple years, to zero in on which new varieties will or won’t fit.

“What we try to do, to make sure we have our bases covered in terms of that weather variability, is testing crops over a wide range of geographies,” she says.

“Not only do our breeding partners have their testing programs, but we are also testing potential candidates ourselves across the Prairies, in geographies that our testing partners may not have plots at, so we’re covering an even wider geography than they are able to do on their own. We want to make sure we have something that fits a wide range of areas. We’ve definitely expanded our footprint.”

One of the latest offerings to come through Canterra’s developmental pipeline, for example, is CS3300 TF, a TruFlex canola the company plans to release commercially as soon as next year. It’s the earliest maturing product the company has in its canola portfolio.

As for what comes next, Canterra and its partners are currently testing five new LibertyLink experimentals in both breeder and strip trials. They offer a wide variety of maturities along with a straight cut trait and excellent disease resistance. Welch says one or two of those new varieties could be commercialized within the next year or two.

“We can be a bit choosy when it comes to working with our breeding partners,” Welch explains.

“We want to make sure we’re advancing something that is unique to our portfolio in terms of different traits or different maturity levels and different disease resistance and include the best-yielding products in our portfolio.”

Disease resistance a priority

Nutrien Ag Solutions conducts its own in-house breeding program at its breeding facility in Saskatoon. The company’s R&D team conducts testing of any new products that come out of that facility at one of its 17 research locations and 105 trial sites across Western Canada.

Canola product line manager Jennifer Dale says disease resistance continues to be a priority for the company in its efforts to develop new varieties, particularly blackleg and clubroot. Pod-shatter resistance that allows canola crops to be straight cut is another consideration the company has been paying close attention to.

Dale says climate change has been at the forefront of the company’s conversations when it comes to its canola breeding efforts. Those conversations have focused on not only drought and some of the other stressors crops are facing, but also the changing growing season.

“We’ve had some great falls, but if you look at three years ago we had snow in the fall, so we’ve got to make sure those varieties can withstand any conditions that we throw at them,” she adds.

The most recent offering to come out of Nutrien’s developmental pipeline under the Proven Seed brand is PV 783 TCN, launched at Ag in Motion in July. Dale says the company is excited about that variety’s potential and the fact it will provide growers with more flexibility.

“This clubroot hybrid is a fit whether growers want a wider harvest window or to straight cut,” she adds.

Genetics flexibility

BrettYoung Seeds works closely with several genetics companies, including Forge Genetics and DL Seeds to drive its breeding efforts. Eric Gregory, BrettYoung’s director of marketing, says the advantage to this approach is that it allows the company to able to respond quickly to the needs of growers in Western Canada.

“The advantage is we’re not beholden to our own breeding program per se. We have some flexibility in terms of where we license genetics from. We like it that way because of the fact we can bring germplasm to the market that we feel fits the Western Canadian grower and the needs of our own portfolio. Having the flexibility to shop around a bit for products that fit … is important,” he says.

Gregory says climate change has made new product development and selection far more challenging for a company such as Winnipeg-based BrettYoung.

“The variability within the data sets that are being produced, in terms of maturity and yield performance and other aspects — it’s requiring breeders to create or generate even more data that is geographically dispersed across Western Canada than they would have in the past,” he explains.

“Traditionally, I think, canola has sort of been marketed as one product that fits all kinds of places, and that’s definitely changed over the last number of years. It’s certainly not to the level of where corn has become regionally targeted, but we know for a fact that certain hybrids are going to perform better in certain geographies than others do. We’re really trying to pull together a portfolio that meets the more regional needs of what farmers have.”

BrettYoung rolled out two new canola hybrids earlier this year in limited quantities and production is expected to ramp up for the 2025 growing season.

The company is continuing to build its LibertyLink canola portfolio. It’s been working with DL Seeds to develop eight new LL hybrids that are in co-op trials this year. The company expects to license one of those hybrids and have it available to growers for spring 2025. It will carry both the Pod DefendR and Clubroot DefendR traits and be mid-maturity and suitable for most growing regions.

Prairies a primary focus

Corteva Agriscience has had a presence in Western Canada for more than 30 years and conducts its own canola breeding efforts at a number of locations including Edmonton, Saskatoon and Carman.

Canola breeding lead Chad Koscielny says the region is a primary focus of the company’s breeding efforts.

“The western Canadian grower is one of the most progressive growers around the world,” he says. “Canada is a very favourable environment to do research and deliver value to the grower.”

Koscielny says climate change is making that research more challenging and is something on which the company has had to increasingly focus as it develops new products.

“One of the pieces of that … that we’ve implemented, and it’s really had a favourable impact, is genomic selection. What you’re able to do with that is use multi-year data to predict the performance of products that have never been tested in a specific environment,” he says.

“Accelerating genetic gain was the primary driver for us. It’s also allowed us to stabilize some of the genetic gain so you can understand what’s going on and you’re not as the mercy of those events such as 2021 or 2022 when some of those more severe droughts occurred.”

Among the latest canola hybrids to emerge from the Corteva developmental pipeline was P617 SL, the first canola hybrid in Western Canada that has a fungicide equivalency for sclerotinia. Koscielny says it’s an “exciting” new product especially in areas like Manitoba and Saskatchewan where growers have been dealing with excess moisture this season.

“This is one that’s really going to help growers when they get it on the farm and they’re hemming and hawing about whether they should spray or not. This is one where you’re able to go, ‘I’m not going to spray this one,’” he says, adding it also has some of the best-in-class clubroot genetics.

Corteva has several new canola products in its developmental pipeline that Koscielny expects will be released sometime in the next one to three years. While increased yields and additional blackleg and clubroot protection are high priorities, the company is also devoting considerable attention to verticillium tolerance.

“It’s an exciting time. We have all the traits and the pieces of the puzzle or ingredients for the recipe. It’s all about fitting them into the highest-yielding genetics and being able to deliver it to growers. We’re really focused on sustainability and the long-term value that we’re bringing to growers.”

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