Grainews is starting a new series in Wheat & Chaff called “What your checkoff gets you.” We invite all producer groups that collect a checkoff to send short articles to describe one project that exemplifies checkoff dollars well spent. This is a chance to provide some good useful information to Grainews readers and for readers to see how their checkoff benefits them. We kick off the series with the following from the Western Grains Research Foundation, written by Mike Espeseth, WGRF communications manager.
BUGS DON’T KNOW BORDERS
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The WHO’s cancer research agency has now put atrazine, a herbicide well known to corn growers, in the same potential-hazard category where the agency put glyphosate.
While insect forecasting isn’t a completely new concept, what is being achieved through an innovative project that is partially funded through the WGRF is adding a new dimension to the insect pest analysis that is already taking place.
Currently the entomology specialists who work within each of the Prairie provinces do not have a high level of collaboration when it comes
to analyzing and forecasting pest outbreaks across provincial boundaries. That is about to change.
Owen Olfert, a research scientist with the Saskatoon Research Centre of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, leads a project called the Insect Monitoring Group. This group will bring together research conducted provincially to create a region-wide monitoring program.
As all farmers know, insect pests do not stop their destructive tendencies
