LUARS Summer Tour 2018

LUARS will be conducting its first annual summer tour jointly with the Thunder Bay Agricultural Research Association (TBARA) and Thunder Bay Soil and Crop Improvement Association (TBSCIA) on July 24, 2018; 10 AM – 12 Noon. Apart from our regular staff, you will see some new faces (of four brilliant Masters Students from the Lakehead University working as Summer Interns with us) and a lot of other new things as follows:

New Crop Varieties: We have added over 30 new varieties of spring wheat and barley, soybean, edible/Navy beans, canola, mustard, flax and quinoa!

• Alfalfa: RR alfalfa (Mission HBXRR), Instinct, WL319HQ, WL354HQ and 135; most of which have resistance against alfalfa diseases.
• Hard Red Spring wheat: AAC W1876 and Dakosta.
• Canadian Western Spring wheat (CWRS): AAC Connery, AAC Viewfield and CDC Landmark VB.
• Spring barley: AAC Bloomfield.
• Soybean: NSC Greenridge RR2Y, NSC Sperling RR2Y and NSC Starbuck RR2X.
• Edible beans: AAC Whitestar, AAC Y012 and AAC Y015 (the last two are yellow!).
• Navy beans (never tested before at Thunder Bay!): AAC Argosy, AAC Shock and Nautica.
• Liberty Canola: L241 and L255; which don't have a shatter reduction trait.
• Flax: CDC Dorado (Yellow).
• Oriental Mustard: AC 200.
• Quinoa: R9-1-15, RG-1-15, AG-2-15, CV-1-15, BC-1-15, PV-7-15, RIL-28-16, D-P-1-15, CP-1-17 and RIL-33-16

New Agronomic/Fertilizer Use Research: We have the following new experiments this year that could be of interest to you:

• Overcoming challenge of establishing Galega by cultural and chemical (herbicides) means.
• Maximizing yield and quality of Galega through integrated use of fertilizer nutrients.
• Exploring possibility of Galega seed production in Thunder Bay.
• Alternate perennial forage legumes; comparing Alfalfa, Galega, Red Clover, Trefoil and Sainfoin for high yield and better feed quality.
• Optimizing Nitrogen (N) and Sulphur requirements of malting barley (CDC Bow).
• Evaluating fish waste as a source of N for spring wheat production.
• Strengthening research on quinoa; we have four experiments on quinoa varieties, seeding dates, seeding rates and row spacing.
• Increasing winter wheat hardiness.
• Evaluation of winter rye as a cover crop at different seed rates and fertilizer regimes for soybean production.
• Determining how late we can go for seeding winter rye.

You are welcome to join LUARS Summer Tour on July 24, 2018!