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Farmer Reflects on First Year as a Director with the Alberta Canola Board

Jeff Frost, a farmer from the Olds area, has just completed his first year as the Region 8 director on the Alberta Canola board. Frost joined the board in January 2024 following the organization’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) and says the experience has been both eye-opening and rewarding.

“This is the first year of my three-year term, and there’s been a lot to learn,” said Frost. “I had a rough idea of what the board did from attending events and being an engaged grower, but being part of it has shown me just how much goes on behind the scenes.”

Frost highlighted the board’s diverse responsibilities, which include government and industry relations, public engagement, and funding research initiatives.

“There are so many aspects to what we do,” he explained. “Whether it’s lobbying government, engaging nationally, or running promotional campaigns, there’s a lot of important work happening that many producers may not realize.”

Research, in particular, is a significant focus for Alberta Canola. Frost said producer dollars are often directed toward projects that improve farming practices, develop new technologies, and address industry challenges.

“It’s tough to see exactly where all the dollars go unless you’re involved, but it’s clear that research is a big part of it. Knowing that your contributions are driving advancements in agriculture is really encouraging,” he said.

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

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.