Saskatchewan Stock Grower's Receive SARPAL Funding

Mar 10, 2021

The Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association has received its second round of SARPAL (Species at Risk Partnership on Agricultural Lands) funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The $840,000 in funding will help the group build on the success of the programs first five years, and the work they are doing with landowners to protect the Greater Sage Grouse critical habitat in the Province.

Stock Grower President Kelcy Elford says grazing of the native prairie plays an important role for wildlife, like the Greater Sage Grouse.

"We have seen in some cases where the native prairie hasn't been properly maintained. Where it's not grazed at all that actually the tiny chicks that are born won't be able to pass through the grass, and ultimately they perish. So you know they need some tall grass and some that's grazed off, they need to be able to hide in the buck brush."

Over the last five years the Stock Growers have signed more than 40 conservation agreements with landowners, protecting a total of 250,000 acres of grassland and critical habit for species at risk in southwest Saskatchewan.

Elford says it's a program that the Stock G

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Video: Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes | Field Talk Friday

Field Talk Friday | Dr. John Murphy | Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes

Most of us spend our time managing what we can see above ground—plant height, leaf color, stand counts, and yield potential. But the deeper you dig into agronomy, the more you realize that some of the most important processes driving crop performance are happening just millimeters below the surface.

In this episode of Field Talk Friday, Dr. John Murphy continues the soil biology series by diving into one of the most fascinating topics in modern agronomy: root exudates and the role they play in shaping the microbial world around plant roots.

Roots are not passive structures simply pulling nutrients out of the soil. They are active participants in the underground ecosystem. Plants constantly release compounds into the soil—sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other molecules—that act as both energy sources and signals for soil microbes.