The First Cut the Deepest for Alberta Winter Wheat Agronomy Research

Jun 30, 2023

Shock, dismay for those in involved as Alberta winter wheat agronomy program axed.

The origin of winter wheat in the West has a long, scrappy history. What was truly an overlooked, if-I-have-time crop choice for fall has been transformed in a generation to become one of the highest yielding, most agronomically reliable crops for farmers on the Prairies. There have been many key players that have helped raise the profile of winter wheat, especially in Alberta. The current face of this success is Brian Beres, a federal senior research scientist focused on agronomy at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre. Of his 32 years in public service, 23 of those have focused on winter wheat agronomy research. Usually, though, winter wheat is looked at one way, and one way only.

“It’s a bit of an orphan crop,” says Beres. “It’s never going to that sort of premium export class of wheat or anything like that, but it’s got a lot of value to grain merchants, the stakeholders, and growers of winter wheat, yet it gets overlooked. A good, high protein winter wheat is often used to blend off shipments of CWRS to enhance supply to meet a certain customer spec with respect to grain protein or some other quality parameter.”

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Video: Alberta Honey: A Day at Molenkamp Honey Farms

When was the last time you read the label on your honey?

We spent a day at Molenkamp Honey Farms with Michael Molenkamp, who has been keeping bees for 17 seasons and runs three to four thousand hives. In mid-September, he was finishing treatments and getting his bees ready for winter, and he walked us through how Alberta honey gets made.

Alberta has just 150 commercial beekeepers running 300,000 colonies, and together they produce 40% of Canada’s honey. Long summer days and golden canola fields give Alberta honey a light flavour that’s hard to match anywhere else.

Molenkamp calls Alberta beekeepers some of the most resilient farmers he knows. There’s plenty of Alberta honey to go around, but a lot on our shelves isn’t from here, so his ask is simple. Give the label a second look and choose honey made by Alberta beekeepers, or buy straight from a beekeeper near you.