Dozens of farmers and agricultural experts loaded onto bleachers at the the Yorkton Research farm on Thursday. They got comfortable in their seats as tractors and trucks began to pull away, dragging the bleachers with them. Three sets of traveling risers rolled across the fields south of of Yorkton. It was an image worthy of a Mad Max movie.
The mobile bleachers stopped at certain sections of the research farm. Mike Hall, Research Manager with the East Central Research Foundation (ECRF), and other specialists hopped out of the stands to explain unique crops and growing techniques. They fielded questions from visitors before climbing back onto their improvised traveling caravan and moving on to the next section.
This guided tour through agricultural ingenuity was the sixth annual research farm field day. The event, organized through a partnership with ECRF and Parkland College, invited horticulture enthusiasts to see, feel, and smell the developments at Yorkton’s research farm on Jul. 12.
“People today saw a number of experiments in cereal,” Hall said. “We had some specialty crops as well, including forage corn and flax and quinoa.”
Hall was excited to share the research farm’s experiments with protein in wheat. He said that last year, due to low rainfall and dry air conditions, people saw low protein wheat numbers. The research farm focuses on addressing that problem.
“Producers are interested in ways to...increase protein in our wheat,” he said. “We showed some strategies today and weighed the pluses and minuses.”
The research farm is a joint effort from ECRF and Parkland College. They combined forces six years ago and secured the land from the city of Yorkton.
“They lease it to us for very little,” Hall said. “We conduct research on that land.”
The supergroup began the research farm field day in 2013. Hall said it provides an important educational tool to farmers.
“Part of our mandate is to get information out to the agriculture industry,” he said. “We’re a place for industry [people] to go if they’ve got some questions.”
Anyone interested in learning more about the research farm can visit www.ecrf.ca.
