BASF Canada has committed $250,000 to the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) to help establish a research chair position focusing on pollinator health and biodiversity. The $50,000 per year contribution, over five years (2021-2025), will go towards the creation of a permanent, tenured veterinary research chair, with a focus on pollinator… Read More
The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) has announced Dr. Phyllis Shand as the 2021 AMSA Industry & Organizational Leadership Award recipient. Shand is a professor of meat and food science in the department of food and bioproduct sciences at the University of Saskatchewan whose research program focuses on physicochemical, biochemical, and functional aspects of muscle… Read More
The University of Saskatchewan is establishing a new beef industry integrated forage management and utilization research chair position. The intent of the position is to connect the study of soils, plants, animals, economics, and ecosystems, to top into forage crops’ full range of benefits. “The chair will help to address concerns raised for a number… Read More
A University of Saskatchewan researcher is set to receive $2.5 million to improve processes of transforming pulses into novel food ingredients, new bioplastics, and high-value biomedical materials. Dr. Yongfeng Ai has been awarded the funding from the federal government and province of Saskatchewan as part of Saskatchewan’s Strategic Research Initiative Program, which announced its theme… Read More
In the uncertainty of a national carbon strategy and how a carbon offset system will work, farmers’ contributions to sequestration and carbon emission mitigation efforts are frequently minimized. It seems the more knowledge there is about the exact amount of carbon sequestered in agricultural land, the more power farmers may have in lobbying for exemptions… Read More
Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan have been awarded nearly $5.7 million in grants that will support 32 wide-ranging projects. Included in the project list is a study on cattle temperament that’s worth $152,500, titled “Development of a chute-side test to use feedlot cattle temperament as an indicator of disease resilience.” Dr. Diego Moya, Western… Read More
Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) has announced the creation of an endowed chair in wetland and waterfowl conservation position at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). As of July 1, Mitch Weegman, an avian ecologist, will take on a teaching position and a research program that will address pressing environmental issues in the Department of Biology. “Saskatchewan,… Read More
The University of Saskatchewan (USask) has been awarded $6.76 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to help conserve bison and other threatened animal species. The announcement follows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement of more than $518 million to support the infrastructure needs of universities and research institutions across the country. The wide-ranging research… Read More
First off, predictive soil mapping takes the information from the soil surveys in the 80s and 90s that were limited by technology, and improves the resolution of the generated maps and overlays polygons digitally, that contain more soil information. “Instead of knowing each polygon has three or four different soil types, you actually have an… Read More
After a year of building, prototyping, and delivering services to select customers and partners, the Omics and Precision Agricultural Laboratory (OPAL) has been launched by the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S). OPAL was founded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, and… Read More
Is there a tool out there or a method for assessing and interpreting soil health? Research out of the University of Saskatchewan could provide such a tool, where farmers could put in their soil data, find out their soil health score, and receive interpretation and management advice. “Soil health is defined as its capacity to… Read More
Nitrogen use drives growth and crop yield — it’s also expensive and prone to being lost from the soil. There’s so many combinations of the right rate, place, form, and time, that nitrogen management is always a hot topic for discussion. This episode of The Agronomists features Greg Stewart, lead agronomist of Maizex Seeds, and… Read More
It would be hard to create a more perfect pest than a wild hog. Largely a product of escaped domestic pigs, wild hogs now cover more than a million square kilometres of Canadian landscape. They have few natural predators, can survive harsh winters, breed several times a year, and manage to evade most human contact…. Read More
SaskTel and the University of Saskatchewan (USask) have announced a partnership to launch a “living laboratory” at the Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence (LFCE), south of Clavet, Sask., to test, develop, and demonstrate agricultural technologies. Through a memorandum of understanding, the two organizations will focus on smart farming research and innovation to “accelerate transformation… Read More
Canada’s Food Price Report, currently jointly released by Dalhousie University and the University of Guelph, will go national in 2021, with members of the University of Saskatchewan (USask) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) added to the project team. “When we started this project a decade ago, we always wanted to make it fully… Read More