Our project aim to develop a new soil N test that provides a rapid assessment of potentially mineralizable N, corrolated to crop yield outcomes, and can be used to improve fertilizer N recommendations.

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.

Efficient access to alleles in crop relatives is often challenging in polyploidy crop species where the major reserve of valuable alleles often exists in diploid relatives, where reproductive incompatibility is a major impediment.

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.

The knowledge of aster yellow index with dates of leafhopper arrival will lead to improved risk determination for aster yellow outbreaks, more robust (area wide) sampling recommendations and better prediction of ester yellow outbreaks.

Detection of isolated patches of clubroot, while still in the early stages of infestation, would allow producers to develop mitigative measures for smaller more manageable sections of their operations before the disease becomes more widespread.

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.