Tour highlights agricultural research

THUNDER BAY – An annual tour of the Lakehead University Agricultural Research Station highlighted the facility’s success in supporting innovation by local farmers, at a time when the facility’s future funding is in doubt.

About two dozen members of the local agricultural community joined director Tarlok Singh Sahota for a walk through fields blooming with the results of numerous experiments at the station’s Little Norway Road location on Tuesday.

It was an opportunity for farmers to see the results of those experiments first-hand, said Sahota.

“We believe seeing is believing,” he said. “We’ve been doing good work, and that good work shows because it’s applied on the farm. If we keep on doing research here and nobody applies it, then there’s no use.”

The station looks to run at least one new experiment every year, whether that involves a new crop, fertilizer, or approach to planting, he said.

This year, they’re trialing Anvol, a product that delays the release of nitrogen from urea, preserving more nutrients for uptake by crops and leaving less to run off into the environment.

They’re also testing hypotheses around the benefits of growing three varieties of wheat together in various proportions.

Peggy Brekveld, a Murillo-area dairy farmer and the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, said she’s one local farmer who’s benefited from the station’s research by incorporating research about micronutrients in the growing of corn.

“The annual crop tour is an opportunity for us to take a look at what’s happening in the fields, what kind of response you get to different fertilizers, and which varieties are performing the best, in this special place where all of the variables are the same,” she said.

“For me as a farmer, I might consider when this type of alfalfa is doing better than another, I would choose to buy that one next season.”

The station has also demonstrated that crops including canola and soy beans are viable in the region, she said.

“They actually thought soy beans wouldn’t grow in Thunder Bay, because we’re too cold,” she said. “What the research here showed is that we could grow soy beans, and the reason is we have longer sunlight hours.”

As it approaches the end of a five-year funding agreement put in place when Lakehead University took over the agricultural station in 2018, Sahota said he’s hopeful there will be continued support for LUARS to continue its work.

Its current funding, around $2.65 million over five years, will expire in March 2023.

Brekfeld echoed his wish that the station can continue to operate.

“I’m really hopeful there’s still going to be funding for LUARS after this five-year cycle,” she said. “I think the trials they’re doing here work into this common goal of bettering the environment, doing more with less, and ensuring we’re feeding the soil.”