b'IN AG RESEARCH,FUNDING IS EVERYTHINGChallenges in finding research dollars can affect not only how researchers do their jobs, but impact the number of innovations farmers have access to.Marc ZienkiewiczFOR NEARLY A quarter-century, Brian Beres led a winter wheat agronomy project at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Lethbridge facility. This year he found out that the project would no longer be funded.It was a shock, and he took to social media to let his follow-ers know about the change.This was a big blow to us and our collaborating colleagues since our work was historically supported by stakeholders across three provinces, and winter wheat offers up many benefits in the context of climate mitigation, so it was a surprise to see it dropped from the research cluster proposal, he says.Winter wheat agronomy, like all the other aspects of his agronomy program, relies on competitive funding processes to acquire the resources to do work that stakeholders have established as a priority. Hes been fortunate with winter wheat as it has been supported by various stakeholders, includingWheat breeder and geneticist Gurcharn Singh Brar started his career at farmers like Gary Stanford, past chair of the Alberta Wheatthe University of British Columbia in 2020.Commission, who consider it an essential area of work. However, its never been easy with winter wheat as its a bit of an orphan crop and not easy to integrate in the minds of some farmers. This reluctance has made it difficult to gain trac-tion on sustainable acres, causing the number of acres to dip up and down a median of about a million acres or so, Beres said. Its a problem that researchers in the seed and ag space know all too well, as theyre all connected and what affects one pro-gram affects everyone on the collaborating team, Beres says. Thats why I spoke up about it on Twitter, to communi-cate to producer and industry stakeholders, particularly winter wheat growers, because I think there is this assumption that the knowledge pipeline for agronomy isnt affected by this type of disruption. There was no other winter wheat agronomy research actively being pursued west of Ontario, so this break in conti-nuity is significant. We all appreciate the scarcity of industryBrian Beres is a research scientistGary Stanford is past chair of the and government research dollars, and competing prioritiesin agronomy at Agriculture andAlberta Wheat Commission. vying for those dollars, but this type of work will be hard toAgri-Food Canadas Lethbridge resurrect as researchers including myself move on to differentfacility.crops and projects.38GERMINATION.CAJULY 2023'