BRANDON – Winter Cereals Canada is ready to evolve from a voluntary grower organization to a commission, complete with a checkoff to fund research and development.
At the organization’s annual meeting held Feb. 5 in Brandon, prairie producers voted to initiate the process of becoming a commission. It is expected to take about two years before the legal formalities and voting are complete.
The organization, which got its start in the early 1990s as Saskatchewan Winter Cereal Growers, was set up to promote research into fall-seeded cereals and growing practices.
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
“We’re apprehensive about taking this step,” said WCC president Garth Butcher of Birtle, Man.
“The initial payback to fund research would probably not be very large right now, based on the number of fall-seeded acres. But it seems evident that the winter cereal acreage will continue to increase and funding for further research is definitely needed.”
Last fall, Alberta farmers seeded 100,000 acres of winter wheat, Saskatchewan 250,000 acres and Manitoba 350,000 acres. The total of 700,000 acres set a seeded acre record for winter wheat in Western Canada.
The record for harvested acres was also set last year at 549,822. In some parts of the Prairies, winter wheat acres seeded in the fall of 2002 experienced winterkill and were reseeded to spring wheat in 2003.
Beating fusarium is one reason winter wheat acreage is on the rise in Manitoba. A fall-seeded cereal crop is growing and healthy before fusarium becomes a threat.
“The variety Falcon also accounts for a lot of the new popularity of winter wheat,” Butcher said.
“It has short, strong straw. There’s no lodging. You can apply lots of nitrogen and it gives you lots of yield. It heads out sooner and matures earlier so you can get that part of your harvest done quicker.”
He said Falcon is the direction that growers want to see research take.
“We’re looking for higher-yielding varieties with disease resistance and high product quality so it can be sold into the milling market.”
The rapid acreage expansion in Manitoba is also likely because higher rainfall in the eastern Prairies allows the crop to achieve yields that approach 100 bushels to the acre.
“Guys right now are watching their yield monitors reading well above 100 bu. to the acre in some areas of their fields,” Butcher said.
“The yield potential of a winter wheat variety is always higher than that of a spring variety.”
However, the winter wheat sector seems bogged down because of major problems obtaining registration for improved varieties.
“There are new varieties that are better in many respects than the varieties now available, but they’ve been held up in the acceptance stage of registration,” he said.
“It appears some of the restraints are actually tightening at a time when we need the new varieties that are waiting for registration. Even though the new varieties are better, they are not being registered. One roadblock is visual distinguishability. The committee requires that every new variety submitted for registration be visually distinguishable from other varieties. If it doesn’t look different, it gets dropped regardless of its other qualities.”
He said WCC also wants adequate funding to secure a long-range variety development program.
“Funding from outside sources such as Ducks Unlimited can never be a sure thing over the long term.
“Once we have our own source of funding, we can direct the money into the kinds of research we want to see as farmers. Once we have a secure flow of farmer-generated revenue from a checkoff, we have the potential for matching funds from other sources.”
Butcher said producer participation is vital.
“With a commission, every winter cereal grower automatically becomes a member and has a say in the development of winter cereals.”
The move to a commission from a producer group will follow the established approval process, with public meetings and ballots mailed to all winter cereal producers.
