Growing Forward provides $6.5M in funding for crop-related projects in Saskatchewan

The federal and Saskatchewan governments are investing $6.5 million into 38 crop-related research projects funded under the Growing Forward 1 framework program. The projects are being made through the Saskatchewan Agricultural Development Fund aimed at improved methods of crop disease control and weather tolerance and will help achieve the objectives of the Saskatchewan Plan for Growth strategy.

Crop-related projects receiving funding in 2013 include:

* Improved weed management;

* Improved yields for wheat;

* Genetic mapping of blackleg disease in canola;

* Disease resistance in cereals & pulses;

* Improvements in the nutritional value of oats;

* New technologies to assess sprout damage in wheat;

* Herbicide tolerance in mustard varieties;

* Addressing genetic and disease obstacles to canary seed production; and,

* Methods to control and eradicate clubroot in Saskatchewan canola.

The projects are leveraging another $3 million in funding from groups such as the Western Grain Research Foundation, the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, the Sask-atchewan Canola Development Commission, the Saskatchewan Oat Development Commission and the Canaryseed Development Commission of Saskatchewan.

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