PROJECT RESULTS

Expansion and Enhancement of Field Crop Variety Testing in Manitoba

Applicant: 

Dave Campbell and Cam Stockford
Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Team
Carman, Manitoba  R0G 0J0  Canada

Table of Contents:

• Background and Objectives
• Procedure and Project Activities
• Results and Discussion
• Conclusion

ARDI Project:

#00-463

Total Approved:

$62,000

Date Approved:

April 20, 2001

Project Status:

Completed December, 2003

Background and Objectives:

The Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Team (MCVET) is the group responsible for variety testing and evaluation in Manitoba - from planning field trials, to data analysis, to publication of results. The team consists of eleven members representing the Manitoba Seed Growers, the Canadian Seed Trade, Manitoba Canola Growers, Manitoba Pulse Growers, the University of Manitoba, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives.

The publication Seed Manitoba pulls together information on crop varieties and through the MCVET trials assembles relative yield performance data. This provides farmers with a third party source of variety information and performance data. Data for Seed Manitoba is obtained from a number of sites positioned around the province.

Funding for the program comes from a number of different sources. The major contributors are Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, the Agri-Food Research and Development Initiative (ARDI), individual seed companies, grower organizations and individual seed growers.

The objectives of this project were to expand and enhance the field crop variety testing program in Manitoba by:

1. Increasing the number of testing sites.
2. Increasing the number of crop kinds tested.
3. Increasing the number of station years of testing for individual varieties.
4. Increasing the information recorded from the trials.
5. Expanding and enhancing the computer variety selection program (McPIQ) for farmers to use.

Procedure and Project Activities:

• Additional company sites were established at Arden, Brandon, Burnside, High Bluff, Glenlea and Souris.
   
• Data obtained from private seed firm testing programs and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada sites established at Arden, Brandon, High Bluff, Glenlea, Morden, Rosebank, Neepawa, Souris, Ste. Agathe and Transcona was incorporated.
   
• Expansion of the crop kinds under test to include winter wheat and mustard.
   
• Expansion of the level of testing of the smaller acreage field crops including buckwheat, lentils and fababeans.
   
• Expansion of testing to include older high acreage varieties to allow producers to be able to compare newer varieties to the ones they may still be growing.  Currently all crops are tested until they accumulate at least 25 station years of data per variety.
   
• The database format was upgraded to make it more user friendly.
   
• The computer varietal selection program (McPIQ) that can be used by producers in making crop variety decisions was updated and improved.  It is intended that this program will be available in December of each year along with the publication of Seed Manitoba.

Results and Discussion:

The infusion of ARDI money allowed for a number of changes to be made to the program.  It allowed the program to expand to 22 testing sites from the 16 sites that were run in 2000.  Over the last 3 years 149 new varieties were tested for the first time.  In addition to yield evaluations on these new varieties the ARDI funding allowed us to continue to record other agronomic factors such as lodging percent, protein, days to maturity etc. 

New for 2001 were the sites at Burnside and High Bluff.  The continuing sites were Arborg, Boissevain, Brandon, Melita, Hamiota, Dauphin, Treherne, Rosebank, Neepawa, St. Agathe, Transcona, Thornhill, Stonewall and Portage la Prairie.

2002 saw several more changes made to Manitoba’s variety testing program. New testing sites were added, Carman, Glenlea, Souris, Winnipeg and Arden while the location of some others was shifted. Burnside was dropped as a site due to the amalgamation of 2 companies but Souris was added in its place. Protein numbers were generated for the first time for the cereal varieties that were in test. In total there were 62 new varieties in test this year, up from the 43 new ones that appeared for the first time in Seed Manitoba 2002.

2003 saw the initiation of a new canola testing system. The Prairie Canola Variety Testing Organization was formed and coordinated canola testing across all 3 Prairie Provinces.  This lead to new sites being established at La Salle, Letellier, Gilbert Plains, Swan Lake and Treherne. In addition, it allowed us access to data from both Saskatchewan and Alberta. This resulted in considerably more canola data in Seed Manitoba 2004.

2003 also saw a change in publisher of Seed Manitoba. Farmer’s Independent Weekly won the right to publish and distribute the guide. This resulted in a fresh look to the publication with full colour and a perfect binding.  The publication also increased in size from 112 to 116 pages.

Conclusion:

The wide dissemination of the trial results from this project have given Manitoba’s farmers a valuable tool to use in selecting the most appropriate varieties for their farms.

Acknowledgement:

MCVET would like to acknowledge that this project was made possible due to funding from the Governments of Manitoba and Canada through the Canada-Manitoba Agri-food Research and Development Initiative (ARDI).

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