THERE are few disappointments greater than having what seemed a sure thing wiped out before its potential is realized.
For farmers, that can be a bumper stand of wheat hit by frost or a bin of selected malting barley rejected after long storage. One day the farm’s financial picture looks good, the next it is a wreck.
But in a few years, these two disappointments might become history thanks to the work of scientists.
The Canadian Grain Commission’s research laboratory has found a way of using a standard grain quality test to allow maltsters to determine the shelf life of the barley they buy.
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A rapid visco analyzer test measures the viscosity of starch, which can be used to identify weather-affected seed that looks good but has started to prepare for germination. If used soon, this seed still has the germination level needed for malting, but it will deteriorate more quickly than unaffected grain.
The test would allow maltsters to call for the short shelf life grain first, avoiding the disappointment of having selected barley rejected after months of storage. That could quickly add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars saved across the Prairies in a year.
Another scientific breakthrough could save millions.
University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre researchers have created a frost-tolerant spring wheat breeding line. Dubbed Saskhardy No. 8, it has two to three degree C improvement in frost tolerance compared to other spring wheats. Such protection could mean the difference between No. 1 and feed.
Even when frost doesn’t strike, cold tolerant varieties have the advantage of a longer growing season, allowing more flexible management, and perhaps lower herbicide costs through better crop competition.
The work received financial support from Saskatchewan Agriculture, a couple of federally funded research funds, Ducks Unlimited and SeCan. Farmers were also important supporters through their wheat checkoff administered by the Western Grains Research Foundation.
More breeding is needed to combine Saskhardy’s frost tolerance with the attributes of today’s spring wheat varieties.
This project, the success of which was the culmination of 12 years of work within a larger wheat breeding program, shows the importance of long-term, stable financial support of crop research.
It and the barley test also highlight how relatively modest investments in agricultural research can have enormous paybacks. To avoid even one frost disaster such as the ruinous event last year that cut crop revenue by as much as $500 million would more than pay for all the federal agricultural research in Canada for over a year.
This is an important fact Ottawa and the provinces must remember when drafting future budgets and their allocations to agricultural research.
