b"WINTER WHEATThe First Cut is the DeepestShock, dismay as Alberta winter wheat agronomy program axed.THE ORIGIN OF WINTERwheat in the West has a long, scrappyresearch now comes through the S-CAPS for Sustainablehistory. What was truly an overlooked, if-I-have-time crop choiceand carries with it major changes from its predecessor, the Canada for fall has been transformed in a generation to become one of theAgricultural Partnership (CAP). Top priorities now include climate highest yielding, most agronomically reliable crops for farmers onchange mitigation and greenhouse gas reductionsBeres views the Prairies. There have been many key players that have helpedthis as a big time missed opportunity. raise the profile of winter wheat, especially in Alberta. The currentThe irony of winter wheat is that it's always been positioned as a face of this success is Brian Beres, a federal senior research scientistsort of ecofriendly crop because it provides not just the agronomic focused on agronomy at the Lethbridge Research and Developmentand economic benefits, but also an array of ecosystem services, he Centre. Of his 32 years in public service, 23 of those have focusedsays. It's one of the ideal crops for no-till farming systems and on winter wheat agronomy research. Usually, though, winter wheatcritical for nesting habitat of upland gamebird species. So, as we is looked at one way, and one way only. march towards this increased prioritization on climate smart It's a bit of an orphan crop, says Beres. It's never going to thatagriculture on the farm, its one of the more resilient crops best sort of premium export class of wheat or anything like that, but it'spositioned as a solution for climate mitigation. We're now dealing got a lot of value to grain merchants, the stakeholders, and growerswith a proposal that was dead before it even got rolled into a cluster of winter wheat, yet it gets overlooked. A good, high protein winterproposal and submitted to Ottawa.wheat is often used to blend off shipments of CWRS to enhanceTo receive funding through a crop cluster, researchers write supply to meet a certain customer spec with respect to grain proteina project proposal and then send it to a funding body, such as a or some other quality parameter. crop commission or funding consortium, who will represent the Despite that, breeding and agronomy research has alwaysfunders as the industry applicant. The funding body reviews all the received regular funding over the years and Beres imagined hisproposals believed to have the best chance of being funded, before 2022 funding application would be no different. However, when hesubmitting them to the Programs Branch of Agriculture and Agri-put forward his latest funding application to extend winter wheatfood Canada. From there, projects will be funded, or they wont.agronomy for another five years, it was outright rejectedwhollyBeres sees the abrupt change in direction with two-fold denied even $1 of financial backing. A major funding program forconsequences. The first is that this isnt just an Alberta-centricA field of AAC Goldrush hard red winter wheat being harvested in 2021. PHOTO: ALEX GRIFFITHS20seed.ab.ca"