Farmers are always focused on the future. What’s coming? What’s new?
That’s THE biggest thing at Ag in Motion: what’s new and neat for farming and farmers?
But farmers also have a reverence for the history of farming, of their farming, of the farming they and their families have seen. A small part of that history is on display at the Sask Wheat and Barley tent on the west side of the AIM site, where the producer-funded commissions have grown-out plots of varieties of wheat and malting barley that will stir many farmer memories, while also highlighting where variety development has come to.
I wandered along the patches of Harrington and Metcalfe to Fraser, hearing the history of these varieties as they evolved and replaced what came before. I heard the same of the path of wheat from Katepwa to Lillian to Wheatland. As new varieties rise, old standards fall. Metcalfe – a staple on almost every wheat growers farm for years – has now been officially retired. Harrington turned Canada into a malting barley player. It’s now just part of history.
It’s a fascinating history, produced by much farmer funding of variety development, and it’s something you can check out if you pop by the Sask Wheat and Barley tent. It might bring back memories.
