Agriculture on the Canadian Prairies is certainly changing.
           While that has been obvious with the emergence of canola as the major crop supplanting wheat, it came into focus again last week in attending the annual East Central Research Foundation field tour near Yorkton.
           Certainly there was every indication canola will remain the major crop for a good stretch of time moving forward.
           The reason is twofold.
           On the marketing side of things, canola is a high value crop based on its oil. As long as the premium prices remain, the dollars generated per acre will draw producers to grow significant acres.
           That demand to grow more and more acres is being aided by varietal development. Canola has seen major jumps forward in terms of new varieties which offer producers two things.
           On the one hand the expected bushels per acre continue to climb. A forty-bushel per acre crop was not so long ago a near myth among farmers. Today, such a crop would be looked at as a disappointment.
           And one long-time agrologist I sat beside on the tour trailer said he sees the potential for yields to improve further, suggesting crops of 75-bushels per acre crops will soon be achievable.
           Going hand-in-hand with the growth in yield potential are varieties which address a growing range of in-crop problems.
           We have seen resistance to certain herbicides genetically put into certain varieties, opening up canola to use those herbicides for better in-field weed control.
           There were plots on the tour of recently developed varieties offering resistance to sclerotinia, a fungus which has been an issue for producers, especially in years with lots of moisture or high humidity.
           There was also talk of varieties coming soon which will offer a natural, albeit limited, resistance to club root, a major concern in Alberta.
           What may start as limited resistance may grow to encompass better protection as breeding lines are refined.
           But the changes in farming went beyond canola varieties.
           Quinoa, is today a niche crop, but acreage has grown to 30,000 this year. That is still small in terms of overall prairie acres, but work is ongoing to have at least some herbicides approved for the crop, which would make growing the crop more attractive.
           There is also work ongoing to have the crop labelled a cereal in the United States, which would make exports simpler.
           The combination will help quinoa acres grow.
           Soybeans are now in some rotations, but the potential is massive. The crop is new this far north, and varietal development which has been essential for canola, could do the same in the next decade or two for soybeans.
           Ditto corn, although that development may be slower, based on the heat unit needed for the crop.
           Research of course will be the key, and that is something which must be maintained to feed the changes needed by prairie farmers.
