Plowing match crowns top plowmen, Ontario Queen of the Furrow

Sep 26, 2023

After four days of fierce competition, the judges at the International Plowing Match and Rural Expo tallied the scores and announced the winners at the Celebration of Excellence gala.

Scott Thomas of Elmwood with 493 (also the winner of the Lloyd Vandusen Award) and Terry Linton of Roseneath with 468 points were named the Champion and Reserve Champion International Plowing Match and Rural Expo (IPM) Champion Horse Plow Person.

The winners earn the right to compete next year in the Canadian Plowing Championships in Wolfe Island, Kingston, Ontario in August.

Representing Ontario next year will be:

Junior Champions: Austin Brodhaecker of Ayr with 572 points; and Alex Cameron of Owen Sound with 506.5 points (also the winner of the Barb McAllistir Memorial Scholarship).

Ontario Championship Tractor Plowing with a Conventional Plow: Brian Davenport of Owen Sound with 604.5 points; and Patrick Sanders of Alvinston with 585 points.

Ontario Championship Tractor Plowing with a Reversible Plow: Daryl Hostrawser of East Garafraxa with 613 points; and Bob Campsall of Cannington with 596 points.

Other award winners included Fred and Helen Davenport Memorial Award — Austin McLeod of Cottam; John S. Moffat Memorial Trophy — Richard Elliott of Strathroy, Champion and Reserve to Colin Doughtery of Scotland; IPM Champion Antique Award — Richard Elliott; and the IPM Champion Tractor Award — Gene Gruber of Richmond, Champion and Reserve to Daryl Hostrawser.

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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.”