Brian Cross, The Western Producer, August 18, 2016
Plans to introduce a new province-wide forage testing program in Saskatchewan are proceeding as planned, according to government officials who attended a recent forage industry field day near Saskatoon.
Terry Kowalchuk, provincial forage specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, said work is continuing in hopes that demonstration sites will be established and plots seeded by next spring.If that happens, the first data from the testing program would likely be available in 2018.
“It’s really about allowing producers to understand what the performance of commercially available forage varieties is in their region,” said Kowalchuk, who is spearheading efforts to get the testing program off the ground. “I think this is very important information for the forage sector.… Forage is the foundation of the beef industry and the livestock industry in this province so understanding what varieties and what species to put in is very important for producers … and for the province.”
Discussions about setting up a province-wide testing program started a few years ago. In 2014, the Saskatchewan Advisory Council of Forage Crops identified the lack of a co-ordinated testing program as a critical gap in provincial programming.
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Posted August 21, 2016