Construction is underway at the University of Saskatchewan that will see critical facility improvements within the College of Agriculture and Bioresources.
Two new facilities are being built - the Harrington Plant Growth Facility and the Soil Science Field Facility - while a portion of the Crop Science Field Lab is being renovated to provide additional workspace for the Crop Development Centre.
The new Harrington Plant Growth Facility, which is named after barley breeder James Harrington, will provide critical indoor plant growth rooms for breeding programs and pathology research, as well as new lab spaces for researchers.
The new Soil Science Field Facility will provide improved efficiency for soil research with modern facilities for plant processing and drying, plant threshing rooms, and workshop spaces.
The total cost of the project is $11.8 million, with producer-based organizations picking up most of the tab.
The Western Grains Research Foundation will contribute the largest share at $7-million. The Executive Director of the Western Grains Research Foundation Wayne Thompson says it expands the capacity for research in Saskatchewan and Western Canada. "Having these new facilities will accelerate the ability to develop new crop varieties and do more research into soil plant health. Many of the things the university is already doing, but they'll be able to do more."
The two new state-of-the-art facilities will provide more space to accommodate research on several crop types, including wheat, barley, canary seed, chickpea, durum, dry bean, faba bean, flax, perennial forages, lentil, oat, and pea and support research for soil health, soil fertility, and plant production.
Angela Bedard-Haughn, the Dean of the University of Saskatchewan College of Agriculture and Bioresources says in addition to crop development research will also focus on environmental issues, such as climate change and its impact on agriculture. "It also allows us to look at climate scenarios that we know are coming, but that we haven't necessarily experienced yet." She says particular combinations of really extreme drought conditions, even if it happens to be a wet period in Saskatchewan but we're doing work on drought, or for us to look at combinations of, you know, increased humidity or increased levels of carbon dioxide."
In addition to the $7-million in funding from the Western Grains Research Foundation, $2.3 million is coming from the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission, $850,000 from the Saskatchewan Barley Development Commission and $400,000 from the Saskatchewan Oilseeds Development Commission. The federal and provincial governments will contribute $1 million from the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership.