Buzzworthy Funding Program Helps Blueberry Growers ‘Bee’ Successful

Jul 08, 2022

The government is investing an additional $100,000 in the Blueberry Pollination Expansion Program to support blueberry growers who keep bees to pollinate their crops.

“Beekeepers’ pollination services are essential to the production of blueberries and other crops in Nova Scotia. To grow more blueberries, we need more bees to pollinate the plants – it’s that simple,” said Greg Morrow, Minister of Agriculture. “These additional funds help address a need and encourage growers to invest in keeping more hives.”

Blueberry growers may apply for funding to expand the number of hives they keep or purchase equipment to improve efficiency in their bee operations.

The program is one of 14 Canadian Agricultural Partnership programs now accepting applications for 2022. The partnership is a five-year federal-provincial-territorial cost-shared initiative that supports farmers and agri-businesses. In Nova Scotia, the annual investment is $7.4 million.

Source : Novascotia.ca

Video: New research chair appointed to accelerate crop variety development

Funded by Sask Wheat, the Wheat Pre-Breeding Chair position was established to enhance cereal research breeding and training activities in the USask Crop Development Centre (CDC) by accelerating variety development through applied genomics and pre-breeding strategies.

“As the research chair, Dr. Valentyna Klymiuk will design and deploy leading-edge strategies and technologies to assess genetic diversity for delivery into new crop varieties that will benefit Saskatchewan producers and the agricultural industry,” said Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn (PhD), dean of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at USask. “We are grateful to Sask Wheat for investing in USask research as we work to develop the innovative products that strengthen global food security.”

With a primary focus on wheat, Klymiuk’s research will connect discovery research, gene bank exploration, genomics, and breeding to translate gene discovery into improved varieties for Saskatchewan’s growing conditions.