What your checkoff gets you

Grainews is starting a new series called “What your checkoff gets you.” We invite all producer groups that collect a checkoff to send short articles to describe one project that exemplifies checkoff dollars well spent. This is a chance to provide some good useful information to Grainews readers and for readers to see how their checkoff benefits them. We kick off the series with the following from the Western Grains Research Foundation, written by Mike Espeseth, WGRF communications manager. We've also got the Canola Council of Canada and Saskatchewan Pulse Growers lined up to provide the next two in the series. If you're part of a group (oat growers or mustard growers, for example) and you'd like to be next in line, let me know.

WGRF: Bugs don't know borders

While insect forecasting isn't a completely new concept, what is being achieved through an innovative project that is partially funded through the WGRF is adding a new dimension to the insect pest analysis that is already taking place.

Currently the entomology specialists who work within each of the Prairie provinces do not have a high level of collaboration when it comes to analyzing and forecasting pest outbreaks across provincial boundaries. That is about to change.

Owen Olfert, a research scientist with the Saskatoon Research Centre of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, leads a project called the Insect Monitoring Group. This group will bring together research conducted provincially to create a region-wide monitoring program.

As all farmers know, insect pests do not stop their destructive tendencies just because they have crossed a border. Often when a pest outbreak occurs in one area, it is eventually felt across an entire region. This project will prove to be important to the creation of risk warnings and forecasting to help farmers develop risk-reduction strategies on their farms.

WGRF collects a checkoff of 50¢ per tonne for barley (in B.C., Sask., and Man.) and 30¢ per tonne for wheat in the four western provinces. WGRF does not collect the barley check-off in Alberta.