SARM warns of drought impact on rural communities

Jul 25, 2023

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) wants more to be done to address the drought crisis in the province.

In a news release, SARM said it’s concerned over the severe dry conditions plaguing agricultural regions of the province and there is an urgent need for immediate action to mitigate the devastating effects of the prolonged dry spell.

SARM President Ray Orb said the affected region, encompassing several municipalities and agricultural communities, has been experiencing below-average precipitation levels for an extended period.

“As of now, approximately twenty rural municipalities have notified SARM about declaring states of emergency for drought. With the impending weather forecast, it’s anticipated this number will continue to rise,” Orb said.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.