Sask Minister of Environment speaks at the SPCOA annual convention

Jun 16, 2023

Hon. Dana Skoropad, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Environment, addressed a packed room at the Moose Jaw Heritage Inn this week. He was the speaker at the annual convention for the Saskatchewan Pest Control Officers Association (SPCOA).

During his presentation, Skoropad covered invasive species, an update on the Southwest incinerator project, and hunting regulations among other topics. He provided an overview of some regulatory changes and noted what progress is being made.

Invasive species
To provide an example of the impact invasive species have, Skoropad addressed a recent test of Saskatoon storm-water retention ponds.

“So even though it is against both provincial and federal legislation to release that fish into a wastewater stream, many people have done so. Saskatoon has really struggled with this, so we have worked with them… And you can imagine, over 1,000 pounds of goldfish came out.”

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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.