Manitoba Canola Growers Association recognizes Dr. Stephen Strelkov with Canola Award of Excellence

Feb 14, 2025

Last night, at the CropConnect Conference banquet in Winnipeg, the Manitoba Canola Growers Association (MCGA) honoured Dr. Stephen Strelkov, Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Alberta with the 2025 Canola Award of Excellence.

“Strelkov’s work towards the understanding of clubroot and genetic resistance has contributed to providing Manitoba canola farmers management options to proactively address clubroot,” says Warren Ellis, Chair of MCGA. “Clubroot is increasing in the province and without Strelkov’s work Manitoba canola acres would have suffered a much greater impact.”

Feeling very honoured, Strelkov was touched to be recognized with the award. “It is very meaningful, especially coming from a grower group. I feel like I have had a positive impact from our research, I am very grateful for this recognition.”

MCGA selected Strelkov not only in recognition of his over two decades of research, which has had a significant impact on canola production, but also for his contributions to training the next generation of researchers. Over the past 21 years, he has supervised or co-supervised 44 Master’s and Doctoral thesis’ and is currently guiding 12 more, greatly enhancing Canada’s capacity for clubroot research.

“Being a professor is challenging, but it is also very rewarding,” says Strelkov. “Working with people–students and collaborators–makes it all worthwhile. At the end of the day, it’s gratifying to know that we may have contributed to managing a problem and increased the capacity by training new people to help tackle it.”

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