Agriculture Canada’s facility in Morden, Man., is still known for its roses, even though the program ended years ago
MORDEN, Man. — Roses are a complicated symbol, representing love, life, death, beauty, purity and passion.
However, roses rarely represent agriculture and rural life, except at Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Morden.
The Morden centre celebrated its 100th anniversary last month, and roses were front and centre at the event.
That’s because the centre was home to a major breeding program for ornamental and horticultural plants.
The hardy rose program and ornamental and horticultural research ended years ago when the centre shifted its focus to agricultural crops, but the breeding done at Morden is still producing new varieties.
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The Canadian Nursery Landscape Association will soon release a rose developed at Morden, a white and yellow rose known as the Oscar Peterson, which will become the newest entrant in the Canadian Artists Series of roses.
Sharra Hinton, executive director of the Manitoba Nursery Landscape Association, said the Oscar Peterson rose represents a fraction of the research done at Morden.
“The Morden Research Station, it’s played a huge role in the plants that we have available for our landscape on the Prairies.”
Wilbert Ronald, who worked as a plant breeder at the research centre from 1965-82, said the ornamental and horticultural research at Morden is still making an impact and well beyond Western Canada.
For instance, the emerald ash borer, an invasive species from Asia, has destroyed tens of millions of ash trees in North America. Scientists are now evaluating the potential of an ash tree developed in Morden to determine if those genetics can protect and maintain the continent’s ash tree population.
“The front line battle is being fought in Ohio, based on the Mancana ash, which was named right in Morden in 1976, and the two hybrids of it that we developed,” Ronald said, who now owns and operates Jeffries Nurseries in Portage la Prairie, Man.
“They are the front line sources of resistance to Emerald ash borer.”
Morden scientists also produced other fruit and ornamental trees and flowers, which have beautified thousands of homesteads and backyards in Canada:
- The Goodland apple was introduced in 1955 and was planted on thousands of homesteads and backyards across Western Canada in the 1960s and 1970s.
- The Prairie Cascade is a hybrid willow tree that Ronald said is the “No. 1 weeping willow in North America.”
- The Never Alone Rose is integral to the Never Alone Foundation, which the Canadian Football League Alumni Association supports to help people diagnosed with cancer. A portion of the sales from Never Alone Roses at garden centres across Canada goes toward the foundation.
Ronald said the nursery industry and the Agriculture Canada research centre in Vineland, Ont., continue to do breeding work on roses, but the contribution of Morden scientists will not be forgotten.
“Morden has such a heritage, it’s tremendous. The industry really misses Morden.”
robert.arnason@producer.com
