Pollen beetles were susceptible to three of four insecticides tested. Yield reductions was detected at 7-9 beetles per plant but not at four beetles per ten sweep. Pollen beetles were not detected in the Prairies provinces and no native parasitoids were found attacking pollen beetle larvae in Atlantic Canada.

Crop residues supply critically needed carbon (C) and nutrients to the soil. These residue-derived resources support plant growth and the formation of soil organic matter, a cornerstone of soil health.

The ability to integrate stable clubroot resistance into new germplasm is needed to protect the economy while ensuring sustainability and growth in canola growing regions.

Prairie crop producers have been seeking effective approaches to increase crop yields, improve resource use efficiencies or minimize input costs, enhance agroecosystem resiliency and the whole-farm economics, and decrease the negative impact of farming on the environment while protecting the soil resource. To achieve those multiple goals simultaneously, a systems approach must be taken where Best Management Practices (BMPs) are integrated together for the entire farm.

Surveillance of crop health issues provides growers, extension staff, researchers, government agencies, and industry stakeholders with information that enables informed decision making with respect to integrated pest management, setting research/funding priorities, product placement, and pest distribution and severity.

The Prairie Pest Monitoring Network is a collaborative project. Monitoring data is released on a weekly basis when insect pests pose the greatest threat to crop yield.

Crop residues supply critically needed carbon (C) and nutrients to the soil. These residue-derived resources support plant growth and the formation of soil organic matter, a cornerstone of soil health.

This project aims to contribute to the development of elite canola varieties that are resistant to pathogen infection for the betterment of the canola industry.

Climate change is presenting challenges to established agronomic practices and can stretch the adaptive capacity of currently available crop cultivars due to extreme weather events such as early and intense heat and drought conditions. Adapting to such challenges within a suitable time frame will require the application of modern tools of plant breeding and genomics for plant improvement, along with the exploitation of existing breeding lines that possess inherent traits conferring resilience to such stresses.

The objective of this project was to utilize archived small-plot canola agronomic trial data and corresponding regional weather data to conduct a meta-analysis to examine the relationship between environmental conditions and canola emergence.

This project will contribute to more efficient and sustainable weed management practices by optimizing canola genetics, plant stand densities and herbicide programs to achieve the above benefits.

Improving crop tolerance to drought is essential for maintaining yield stability under the continued threat of climate change and a key factor for achieving sustainability in agriculture by saving water resource usage. Molecular breeding focusing on monogenic transgenic intervention has so far achieved limited success in the development of drought tolerance in crops. This project focuses on a gene family that is the basis of quantitative trait loci (QTL) affecting drought tolerance in Brassicaceae.

This project aims to help guide the effective use of cultivar resistance, which, when used in combination with other management practices will help mitigate the impact of blackleg on the Prairies.

Several clubroot-resistant canola cultivars have been developed in Canada, however the newly evolved Plasmodiophora brassicae pathotypes have overcome some of the resistances. The long-term objective of this project is to diversify the clubroot resistant genes in Canadian canola for clubroot resistance and develop molecular markers for these resistances.

This will accelerate the breeding of improved canola varieties as breeders from academia/government/industry use this service to phenotype larger breeding programs.

Aster leafhoppers are the main vector of Aster Yellows Phytoplasma (AYp) in the Canadian Prairies. AYp causes Aster Yellows (AY) disease in many plant species but can greatly affect canola in outbreak years.

Clubroot disease in canola and other brassicas is caused by the pathogen Plasmodiophora brassicae. Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan conducted a five-year study to identify and characterize effector proteins and their role in the establishment and progression of clubroot disease.

The uniformity of a spray deposit is fundamental to a successful spray application. Spray dosage is directly related to pesticide performance. The timely, accurate and efficient application of pesticides is an important activity in modern crop production methods.

Crop rotation is an important component to sustainable, healthy agroecosystems aiding in disease suppression, nutrient cycling and risk mitigation. In this study, researchers examined the agronomic impacts of crop rotation strategies including canola-canola; canola-wheat; and canola-pea-barley.

Researchers with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada recently completed the genetic mapping of the blackleg resistance gene Rlm11. Rlm11 is effective against the L. maculans isolates carrying the avirulence gene AvrLm11, which is found in 95 percent of L. maculans isolates collected from western Canadian canola farms.