The 2017 Alberta Weed Survey took two years to complete and was carried out by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) with funding from the Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC), Western Grains Research Foundation, the Alberta
Pulse Growers Commission and the Alberta Canola Producers Commission. The previous Alberta survey was carried out in 2010.

Barley was once a dominant crop on the Canadian Prairies, with farmers planting nearly 14 million acres of the golden grain in 1971. By 2017, however, the number fell to just under six million acres. Farmers, faced with depressed prices and slowly declining yields, have been switching to more profitable crops.

No longer the stuff of science fiction, the invasion of farms by robots is imminent. Dubbed mobile agricultural robotic swarms—or MARS, for short—they are now primarily geared to seeding maize, but such vehicles are expected to eventually carry out various field tasks.