2022 Province Wide Ontario Biostrip Till Tailgate Tour

Oct 19, 2022

Join your neighbours and new acquaintances on all or part of the 2022 Ontario BioStrip Till,Strip Till, Green lanting and No-Till Tailgate Tour. With sites located in Chatham, Middlesex,Huron, Simcoe, Niagara, Haldimand, Brant, Dundas and Ottawa there is a stop not too far away.

Meet with farmers, researchers, extension and conservation authority people and explore the world of BioStrip Till and Conventional Strip Till farming. Chat with people who have different levels of experience and lots of questions.

The tour is very informal. Join us by parking safely on the side of the road as indicated in the site details table and maps, and meet with the host for what part of the two hour block interests you.

Rain or shine, so bring your raincoat, rubber boots, umbrella and a lawn chair. No refreshments,lunch or washroom facilities provided at the sites so plan accordingly. Note exception for Thursday September 8th last stop of the day where a free meal is available if registered.

What is BioStrip Till? While there are many flavours, it essentially is replacing steel with plants to do the tillage. Often, two different cover crop mixtures are seeded following cereal harvest into distinct paths for next years corn rows, and wheel traffic. The corn row mix dies over winter and the corn is seeded. The wheel row has overwintering covers and they provide footing and stability for equipment next spring and throughout the season including harvest while being terminated with the normal herbicide program. Come and see what the possibilities are.

Source : Ontario Soil Crop

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”