The full class will be formally inducted in April
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A forage breeder with more than 40 years of experience is headed to the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame.
Bruce Coulman, whose time in ag includes head of the plant sciences department at the University of Saskatchewan and as a research scientist with AAFC, will be enshrined during a ceremony in Saskatoon this April with five other inductees.
The inductees were revealed during the Western Canadian Crop Production Show.
“I was quite surprised and very humbled,” Coulman told Farms.com. “I know a number of folks who have been inducted, so to be included among them is a great honour.”
His interest in breeding and crop varieties started in high school when he worked with a crop science program.
In his professional career, he developed 24 novel forage varieties in nine different species. In some cases, they were the first of their kind.
A hybrid grass stands out as a key accomplishment, Coulman said.
“Smooth bromegrass has been around a long time and is quite a good hay species, but it doesn’t regrow very well after first cut,” he said. “Meadow brome is a little different that it doesn’t yield as much but it regrows really well. We made crosses between these two types of bromegrasses to combine the characteristics of the grasses and that’s been very popular among beef producers.”
During his career, Coulman supervised the research of 40 graduate students and witnessed the evolution of crop and forage breeding.
But nothing replaces field level trials, he said.
“You’ve got to grow them in the field and evaluate them there because that’s where the farmers grow them,” he said. “It can take multiple years before you get a good handle on how the crop performs in different conditions. No matter how fast some things in crop breeding evolve, nothing will replace the benefit of being thorough.”