Results from new research projects funded the Alberta Agriculture Funding Consortium will benefit prairie producers.

The AFC consists of 18 agricultural organizations that leverage and coordinate funding to support sustainability, diversification, and long-term growth for agriculture and the food industry in Western Canada.

One of those groups is the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission.

For 2022-23 Sask Wheat has committed over $467,000 to four projects funded through AFC.

Sask Wheat Chair Brett Halstead says the projects focus on efficient fertilizer application and studying herbicide resistance.

He notes this is a multi-province, collaborative funding effort that will develop tools producers can use to assist in the sustainability and profitability of their farms.

The projects funded include :

 - Fostering further network development through the Prairie Crop Disease Monitoring Network with Dr. Kelly Turkington, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) - Lacombe.
- Dissecting herbicide resistance in wild oat to design novel efficient molecular diagnostic tools with Dr. Leonardo Galindo-González, Canadian Food Inspection Agency  - Ottawa.
- Understanding the interactions of N fertilizer technologies, fungicides, and the soil microbiome to optimize sustainable agriculture with Dr. Monika Gorzelak, AAFC - Lethbridge.
- Field sensing phenocart data management and image analysis pipeline development to improve cereal crop characteristics with Dr. Keshav Singh, AAFC - Lethbridge.

Sask Wheat has committed over $6.6 million to 56 projects through the Alberta Agriculture Funding Consortium since 2016.