Research Priorities

Research is a key priority for Manitoba Canola Growers. Annually we commit 22-25% of our budget to funding research initiatives, with additional funding to support communication and continuing education for growers in Manitoba. We are committed to making grower dollars go further, and through partnerships and government funding we increased every grower dollar invested in Manitoba into 8 more dollars of research funding, supporting nearly $5.8M in total research in 2018.

The MCGA Research Committee has clearly defined objectives that are reviewed annually and support research priorities identified by Manitoba growers. For 2018-19, our research priorities include:

1.     Agronomy Research

a.     Diseases (priorities include clubroot, sclerotinia, blackleg, and verticillium)

                                      i.     varietal resistance

ii.     forecasting

iii.     rotation implications

iv.     disease implications

v.     surveillance

vi.     emerging or potential threats

b.    Insects (priorities include flea beetles, swede midge, bertha armyworm, cutworms and diamondback moth)

                                      i.     forecasting

ii.     economic thresholds and management

iii.     beneficial insects

iv.     emerging or potential threats

c.     Weeds

                                      i.     managing herbicide resistance

ii.     surveillance

iii.     cultural management

iv.     emerging or potential threats

d.    Agronomic Practices (priorities include practices that cut costs or increase productivity)

                                      i.     straight combining of canola, pod drop and pod shattering

ii.     optimum application rates given cost of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer (max $ to spend)

iii.     seed mortality and survivability

iv.     precision seeding

v.     precision farming

vi.     Variable rate fertilizer

vii.     new product evaluation i.e.: ESN, N-Serve, Super Urea

viii.     fertilizer efficiency

ix.     Extreme moisture management

2.     Market Development (priority is developing new uses for canola)

a.     Canola oil

b.     Canola meal

c.     Canola-based biodiesel

d.     Other canola products

3.     Variety Assessment

a.     Canola varieties that do well in water saturated soil

b.     Post commercial variety evaluation

4.     Other Research

a.     Human health benefits of canola products

b.     Animal health benefits of canola products