Saskatchewan celebrates Global Biotech Week!

Sep 26, 2022

Agriculture Minister David Marit has proclaimed September 26 to October 2, 2022, as Global Biotech Week in Saskatchewan. This week celebrates the role biotechnology plays in the agriculture industry and beyond.

Approximately one-third of Canada's agricultural biotechnology sector is in Saskatchewan and the province is considered a leader in the field. Saskatchewan joins other regions across Canada and around the world to celebrate Global Biotech Week each year.

"Scientists use biotechnology to grow Saskatchewan's economy by developing new crop varieties that are more resistant to disease and pests, weather-related stress and more; delivering vaccines to protect our livestock; and enhancing environmental sustainability of the sector," Marit said. "Global Biotech Week celebrates the work of researchers and raises awareness of the important role the sector plays in agriculture and the life sciences."

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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.