WGRF gets major funding boost

It was all smiles at Saskatoon’s Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) on Tuesday as Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, announced an investment of over $4 million under the AgriScience Program –Clusters Component, part of the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

“Agronomic practices that support resilient and profitable crop production are vital to our sector and to Canada’s economy,” said Minister MacAulay.

“This important research will be done across the country through this cluster and will help to give farmers better solutions to the agronomic challenges they face while improving profitability and incorporating climate-friendly practices to keep the sector well-positioned for the future.”

Agronomy, or the science and practice of crop production and farmland management, brings together knowledge of how plants, soils, insects, microorganisms and climate interact with each other in a given area.

The Agronomy Cluster will deliver innovative research and knowledge transfer resulting in more resil - ient, productive crops and increased yields.

WGRF makes investments in crop research to benefit Western Canadian grain farmers. One of the priority areas for WGRF is funding integrated crop agronomy.

To reach this goal, the WGRF has established six cross-cutting research priorities: weed management, disease management, insect pest management, plant nutrition, response to weather variability and climate change, and sustainable resource management.

“Opportunities and challenges in crop production cannot always be addressed by studying individual crops in isolation, it’s impor - tant to include the interaction of crops within a cropping system,” said Laura Reiter, chair, Western Grains Research Foundation.

“This Cluster provides WGRF the opportunity to continue funding multi-crop agronomic research that will ultimately provide farmers valuable insight and tools as they tackle widespread agronomic challenges.”

It’s expected the research activities in this cluster will generate a better understanding of the relationship between soil moisture conditions and the productivity and profitability of management strategies in western Canada, increase eco - nomic returns through developing and optimizing site-specific cropping systems in Western Canada, and facilitate the adoption of a biovigilance-based approach to weed mitigation in the Canadian prairies.

The Cluster consists of research activities in each of the AgriScience program priority areas: Climate Change & Environment, Economic Growth & Development, and Sector Resilience & Societal Changes.