For the next year, this column will mark The Western Producer’s 100th anniversary by taking a deep dive every week into a past issue of the paper.
The fight against clubroot got more complicated nine years ago.
The introduction of resistant varieties had appeared to solve a lot of canola growers’ problems, but a story in the July 16, 2015, issue reported that a 2014 survey of Alberta fields in which those varieties were grown had discovered 27 fields with unusually high levels of infection.
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Ten strains of the disease were found that were capable of overcoming the new varieties’ resistance.
“It certainly complicates our clubroot situation quite a bit,” said Stephen Strelkov, a plant pathologist with the University of Alberta.
“This does definitely suggest that the problem is more widespread than we hoped.”
Growers continue to struggle with this disease.
In happier news, a backyard rooster from Calgary that lost its feet to frostbite became mobile again, thanks to professors and students in the University of Calgary’s faculty of veterinary medicine and school of mechanical engineering.
Staff made moulds of the bird’s stumps and developed the inside skeleton from hard plastic. These were encased in rubber and made to look like chicken feet.
The angle of the foot was incorrect in the first try, but the researchers eventually got it right and attached the feet to the rooster using zip ties.
“His first few steps were quite awkward, but he actually got into the swing of things pretty quick,” said student Doug Kondro.
The rooster was adopted and moved to an acreage near Didsbury, Alta. It’s name? Foghorn, of course.
Three letters to the editor were published in this issue.
One was in defence of supply management, suggesting that a name change to the Good for Farmers program might help the beleaguered marketing system’s image.
Another one took the Producer to task for running a photo of sheep in poor condition, while the third discussed Canada’s national debt in light of the financial mess that Greece found itself embroiled in at the time.
