MFGA Looking For Green Gold Program Participants

Mar 30, 2021

The Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA) Green Gold Program (Optimum Alfalfa Harvest Date) represents MFGA's longest-running producer-based program for Manitoba forage producers.

With 30 years of program delivery, the group is once again seeking producers with hay fields that are mostly alfalfa, fairly new, and in good condition for testing through the May/June growing season until the first cut.

Over recent years, MFGA has enrolled fields across eastern, central and western Manitoba, and would like to have all areas of the province represented.

Benefits: receive results from Green Gold fields twice weekly from our MFGA-coordinated sampling start-up until first cut, providing you with insights and real time information around the relative feed value (RFV) and when might be the best first cut for your alfalfa field.

Eligibility: You must agree to sample your field twice weekly (Monday & Wednesday) and submit to Central Testing Laboratory Ltd. via courier. (Costs covered by MFGA).

Video: Finding a Balance of Innovation and Regulation - Dr. Peter Facchini

Regulations help markets and industry exist on level playing fields, keeping consumers safe and innovation from going too far. However, incredibly strict regulations can stunt innovation and cause entire industries to wither away. Dr. Peter James Facchini brings his perspective on how existing regulations have slowed the advancement of medical developments within Canada. Given the international concern of opium poppy’s illicit potential, Health Canada must abide by this global policy. But with modern technology pushing the development of many pharmaceuticals to being grown via fermentation, is it time to reconsider the rules?

Dr. Peter James Facchini leads research into the metabolic biochemistry in opium poppy at the University of Calgary. For more than 30 years, his work has contributed to the increased availability of benzylisoquinoline alkaloid biosynthetic genes to assist in the creation of morphine for pharmaceutical use. Dr. Facchini completed his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at the University of Toronto before completing Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biochemistry at the University of Kentucky in 1992 & Université de Montréal in 1995.