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Planting Date Matters

Ontario’s winter wheat planting recommendations were established in the 1990s using research trials conducted across the province. This research led to the development of the Ontario winter wheat planting date map (Figure 1). This research found that by every day planting is delayed beyond the optimum planting date for a region, 1.1 bu/ac of yield potential is lost. However, with newer genetics and a changing climate, many wondered about the yield potential of later planted wheat and what really leads to increased yields in earlier planting dates. These questions have been answered thanks to new research conducted by Emma Dieleman at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus, under the supervision of Dr. Dave Hooker and Dr. Joshua Nasielski, which provides greater insights into why early planting is so important to maximize winter wheat yield potential.

Four planting dates and two management regimes were assessed and crop biomass accumulation, radiation interception, grain filling rate and duration to compare crop growth and yield formation were measured. The research found that early winter wheat planting increased yields by 10.4 – 50.7 bu/ac (Figure 2). Much of the yield increases could be attributed to an increase in the number of productive heads with early planted wheat having an average of 284-383 heads/ m2 more than the late planted wheat across all locations, regardless of management strategy (Figure 3). Kernels per head and test weight were strongly influenced by environmental conditions during the grain fill period.

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Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

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.”