Nearly $11 million in research grants for agriculture from the Agriculture Development Fund was announced at the Crop Production Show in Saskatoon.
The $10.98 million will fund 47 projects with 15 in canola, 10 in pulses, nine in oilseeds, seven in cereals.
The University of Saskatchewan receives $6.6 million of the grants which are funded by government and industry partners.
An interesting project of just over $1 million will study diversity, domestication, discovery and delivery of wheat. The project will domesticate exotic/wild wheat and look for wild wheat genes that are disease resistant.
A $250,000 project studies the interaction of boron and calcium to reduce club root disease in canola.
A $180,000 project seeks to transfer club root resistant genes from black mustard to canola.
A $93,000 project will do a survey and education on herbicide-resistant weeds across the Prairies.
A $250,000 program will investigate value of mustard fibre and protein for the food industry.
Developing a fast-dry durum for early harvest gets $142,900.
A project to develop “cold tolerance” will try to identify canola and soybean genes that will allow early season germination and crop establishment.
A $265,000 project will work on identifying benefits and drawbacks of diverse crops in cereal/canola/pulse rotations.
Lodging resistance in barley is the subject of a $130,000 project.
An $80,000 project will study development of an eco-friendly light weight veneer from crop residue for construction.
A pea starch study got $295,000.
Extracting commercial products and checking health aspects of phenolics from berries got $250,000.
Looking for new tools to manage wild oats received $179,000.
Production of phenolic compounds from ethanol co-product received $360,000.
Production of fuel-like pellets from agricultural residues got $350,000.
A $60,000 project investigates remote sensing of plant stress.
Integrating herbicides with mechanical weed control got $212,000.
Screening wild lentil germa-plasm for resistance to fusarium got $432,000.
Food and beverage use of minimally processed pulse proteins got $300,000.
Eliminating herbicide-resistant kochia weed got $205,000.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
