The implications for the development of self-fertilizing crops are enormous, but research is in its early days, said Bennett. His team is now focusing on identifying the genetic components and the associated microbes that carry out the process.

When the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) moved 29 wheat varieties into the all-new Canadian Northern Hard Red (CNHR) class on August 1, the move wasn’t expected to be controversial. But it was.

On June 5, Bill 2, The Growth and Diversification Act, passed its third and final reading in the Alberta legislature. The Act supports the creation of 3,000 tech spaces in post-secondary institutions and the provision of scholarships. Those in the agricultural sector hope some seats will go to smart farming and food production programs, but this isn’t guaranteed.

Operational software in farm equipment provides many benefits but can also limit a farmer’s freedom to independently
diagnose and repair problems.While manufacturers claim intellectual property rights over this software, farmers are forced to seek the services of an authorized repair provider (ARP) to manage equipment software and diagnose operational issues.

Present in this province for almost a century, stripe rust is not new to Alberta cereal farmers. However, disease outbreaks have been increasing in frequency and severity, creating a push for research into better management of rust.

For farmers puzzling over how to finance new high-efficiency heating systems for barns, solar power installations or other clean-energy upgrades legislation is being designed to assist home and business owners. Bill 10, An Act to Enable Clean Energy Improvements, was passed June 6, 2018, by the Alberta Legislature, and will enable individual municipalities to develop their own clean-energy tax bylaw for cost recovery of approved clean-energy upgrades.

As the recent debut of a new American pale ale called South Side smash revealed, getting to the launch stage with new malt varieties involves critical choices. This beer by Edmonton’s Town Square Brewing Co. is brewed using malt produced by Red Shed Malting and is
the first commercially available beer to feature SeCan’s CDC Bow malting barley.

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.

Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC), Alberta Barley, Alberta Pulse Growers and Alberta Canola Producers have teamed up
with the university and Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) to fund positions in agricultural entomology, soil health and a third chair now in development, the details of which have not been announced. Once candidates are hired, matching funding will be sought from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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.