This project investigated natural enemies of diamondback moth (DBM), Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae) in the canola cropping system.

The Canola AgriScience Cluster is a five-year research program funded through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) and the canola industry.

To further support the Canadian canola industry, the Canola AgriScience Cluster was amended in 2019 to include activities focused on blackleg and verticillium stripe.

The Canola AgriScience Cluster is a five-year research program funded through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) and the canola industry.

The Canola AgriScience Cluster is a five-year research program funded through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) and the canola industry.

The Canola AgriScience Cluster is a five-year research program funded through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) and the canola industry.

We applied target capture sequencing to canola root galls and soil samples from three fields in Alberta. Sequencing data showed that the clubroot pathogen pathotype 3H was present in two fields. A third field sample showed presence of new mutations in one of the target sequences indicating presence of clubroot pathotype 3H and potentially other pathotype that were not present in our clubroot sequence dataset. We also determined the genotype of blackleg races from three canola stems infected with blackleg and determined a mixture of blackleg species as well as other pathogenic fungi present in these samples.

The Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) was the first veterinary college in North America to begin a honey bee research and teaching program, recognizing the high importance of pollinators for the long-term sustainability of agriculture and food security.

This facility will increase the overall capacity for insect and pest related research and will therefore benefit numerous researchers and projects at the USask. Finally, this facility will result in important training opportunities.

Pathotying with the CCD or race profiling with the NILs is a phenotyping based approach, which can be tedious and time consuming. A genotyping based method could be an ultimate solution for race profiling.

This is the first investigation into the infection by pycnidio- and asco-spores, as well as a mixture via wounds under the influence of cultivar resistance and fungicide seed treatment for blackleg disease in canola. The findings from this study suggested that it is feasible to produce ascospores and pycnidiospores in the lab and use these types of spores to test canola materials for blackleg resistance in both controlled environment and field conditions.

Clubroot poses a significant threat to canola growers. Although genetic resistance is critical for managing the disease, changes in pathogen virulence endanger its effectiveness. Second-generation resistance offers promise against pathotypes that can overcome first-generation resistance. However, without an understanding of pathogen virulence on second-generation resistance, we risk compromising its efficacy. This project provided data on the performance of second-generation clubroot-resistant cultivars in the field, along with insights into the virulence characteristics of pathogen populations collected from these cultivars.

Understanding weed biology is the first BMP for reducing risk of herbicide resistance. This study will result in an understanding of different cleavers biotypes that exist across the Prairies, their emergence phenology, and some of their biological characteristics.

This work will provide crucial information needed by the agricultural industry and growers: field-scale data on how farmers may best balance agronomic and environmental outcomes by adjusting either the timing of fertilizer application or the fertilizer formulation.

Researchers and breeders will have greater confidence that the clubroot material they are working with is actually the correct pathotype, and that a pathotype shift hasn’t occurred part way through their research experiment and/or clubroot resistance breeding program.

The study will compare 1) uncoated and 2) polymer coated mono-ammonium phosphate, 3) liquid ammonium polyphosphate, 4) diammonium phosphate, 5) triple superphosphate, 6) ammonium phosphate sulfate, 7) struvite and 8) granular rock phosphate in broadcast versus banded placement.

This will accelerate the breeding of improved canola varieties as breeders from academia/government/industry use this service to phenotype larger breeding programs. This builds research capacity at GIFS, and will provide a useful phenotyping platform that will be utilized in future research proposals.

Healthy soils form the basis of productive farming systems, and soil health tests can be useful tools to support good management decisions. The concept of soil health recognizes soil as a living and dynamic natural system, a notion that aptly fits in the realm of biology; however, soil health tests are often dominated by indicators of soil fertility and chemistry. Biological indicators of soil health remain understudied and underrepresented in soil health assessments.

MORSE has the potential to increase the adoption of variable rate technologies, which could increase production in SK by 5% while improving environmental sustainability. It could revolutionize the way that agronomic experiments are done by replacing the conventional small plot experiments which have higher variability in the results.

This type of deep knowledge will be particularly essential for farmers facing an increasingly variable climate - they need to understand how and why different areas of their fields might respond under marginal production conditions in order to maximize both their profits and their productivity.