Brandon researchers working to develop more climate

Brandon researchers working to develop more climate-resilient crops

Producers in Manitoba and across the Prairies face challenging growing seasons

Hundreds of acres of crops that are part of a high-stakes game of survival surround Manitoba's Wheat City.

While the climate is changing in real time, researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's research and development centre in Brandon are racing to breed resilient crops that can withstand weather and disease pressures while maintaining profitable yields for farmers.

"We can't control the weather," wheat breeder Santosh Kumar says. "The only thing we can control is what we do about the weather."

The research farm in the southwestern area of the province is one of almost two dozen stations across Canada working to select the most resilient crops possible.

It's a process that takes years.

Kumar starts his growing season with 300,000 hopeful plant candidates. He'll spend years methodically culling these seeds, aiming to find a handful of candidates capable of withstanding Mother Nature's whims. That includes developing early-maturing crops that can be harvested sooner.

The time between the inception of an idea and the final market product can be about eight years or longer, as researchers grow, map and analyze a plant to determine its resilience.

From there, they scale up production, growing a base seed count of just over 550 pounds to thousands of pounds of certified seeds that can be picked up by farmers and used in their fields.

While Kumar develops these new crop varieties by cross-breeding plants with the most promise, physiologist Michael Gebre studies how plants physically react to weather.

It's his job to help understand why certain plants prove more resilient than others.

Gebre says they're feeling the pressure to get hearty seeds in fields. Prairie producers continue to face increasingly challenging growing seasons as extreme weather becomes a norm.

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"That's very devastating, and the huge concern for our future agricultural production system or cropping system in the Prairies and globally," he said.

Gebre's been studying droughts for more than decade. He says that as the climate has changed, so have conversations pushing for crop resilience against extreme weather and disease.

"It may be even worse," he said. "We have to be ready to provide solutions so that farmers can adapt those solutions as soon as they're available."

While the future holds promise, it will be hard-won, Gebre said.

The Brandon research station flooded this summer, drowning almost 400 acres and killing many germplasms — living genetic resources— on the farm.

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Floodwaters don't only drown fields. They also create a kink in the research pipeline hose, setting back crops that can thrive on the farm.

Researchers jumped into action to save what they could using quick thinking, moving some samples from the field into the greenhouse as the water rose, Kumar said. That saved two years worth of trials, keeping key genetics flowing down the research pipeline, he said.

Despite these weather challenges, both Kumar and Gebre say crops will become more efficient and resilient each season through careful research, culling and collaboration.

"If we work collaboratively together, whether it's globally or locally or internationally or nationally, we can come up with every valid solution that can support our food chain," Gebre said.

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These incidents are pushing work to study and grow what traits need to be looked at in terms of crop resiliency in the face of extreme weather, Kumar said.

That research is paying off in farm fields.

"Our goal is to not lose the crop — still make some profit, if not the best profit you can," Kumar said.

How Brandon, Man., researchers are helping create more resilient crops

Chelsea Kemp is a multimedia journalist with CBC Manitoba. She is based in CBC's bureau in Brandon, covering stories focused on rural Manitoba. Share your story ideas, tips and feedback with chelsea.kemp@cbc.ca.