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Olds College partners with TELUS Agriculture

Dec 04, 2020

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The partnership increases the college’s applied research capabilities

By Taryn Milton

Staff Writer

Farms.com

Representatives from Olds College and TELUS Agriculture recently announced a $1-million partnership.

The newly formed TELUS Agriculture is investing into the college, allowing the two to work closely together, said Stuart Cullum, the president of Olds College.

Olds College is “able to be a living lab to test, develop and scale some of the technology that (TELUS is) involved in. Also, we'll benefit from some of the technology that they're able to bring forward that provides the foundational layer that allows us to establish our Smart Farm and really provide a tremendous applied research environment for industry and for producers to work together on,” he told Farms.com.

The investment provides funds to support technical staff and components for the 2,800-acre Smart Farm and builds on the connectivity that enables data flow on the farm, said Cullum.

“We're able to work with not only TELUS, but the 50 other partners that we’re already engaged with on the Smart Farm to develop, scale and test technology, at commercial scale, across our 2,800 acres and within our feedlots and our livestock operations,” he said.

The partnership also helps producers and the ag industry in Alberta and Western Canada continue to tackle the challenges and new technology coming out. This also puts students at the cutting edge of learning, said Cullum.

“It's a great learning environment for our students. We're very excited about the work that we are doing with industry to provide these kinds of applied research and learning environments. I think it's critically important, not only for agriculture sector to continue to advance with technology, but for our next generation of graduates and learners to be able to be exposed to those kinds of environments,” he said.

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.