SaskCanola invests in canola research, launches website and seeks farmer feedback on research priorities

The Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission (SaskCanola) has committed $825,000 to 9 research projects funded under the Canola Agronomic Research Program (CARP) in 2022.

“Proposals are reviewed by the grower association research committees,” said Keith Fournier, SaskCanola research chair, “so the research projects that receive funding are chosen by farmers for farmers, with an ultimate end goal of the results maintaining canola’s competitiveness and increasing on-farm profitability.”

These research projects range from one to five years in duration:

• Continue monitoring L. maculans populations following the introduction of new resistance genes (Dr. Gary Peng, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) – $94,000
• Drought tolerance in Canola through modulating a novel gene family (Dr. Jitao Zou, National Research Council) – $55,711
• Updating the Critical Weed Free period in canola (Dr. Rob Gulden, University of Manitoba) – $87,477
  Meta-analysis of small plot trials to examine the relationship between crop development and environmental conditions (Christiane Catellier, IHARF) – $7,500
• Generation of canola lines with increased heat and drought tolerance (Dr. Guanqun (Gavin) Chen) – $137,229
• Balancing economics, action, and seed production for glyphosate-resistant kochia in canola (Dr. Charles Geddes, AAFC) – $82,500
• Climate change resilience of Prairie oilseed crops and their below-ground microbiota under drought (Dr. Tim Dumonceaux, AAFC) – $167,200
• Deploying disease signal pathways to fight canola pathogens (Dr. Jaqueline Monahan, Queen’s University) – $131,404
• Climate-smart canola: quantifying soil- and fertilizer-derived nitrogen sources and greenhouse gas emissions (Dr. Melissa Arcand, University of Saskatchewan) – $62,038

For more information, visit the new SaskCanola website.