staff.matters
the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences staff newsletter
November 10, 2004
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is hosting the National Farm Income Symposium - Partnering for Long-Term Sustainability, at the Ottawa Marriott, November 15 to 16. The goal of the symposium is to kick-start an industry-led initiative to determine how primary agriculture producers can derive greater economic benefit from the marketplace. The symposium will bring together farmers, value chain stakeholders and government officials for plenary presentations and group discussions that will examine the issues and lead to recommendations for a course of action. Check out the registration details of the conference online.
Entomology Seminar - M.Sc. student Kathleen Ryan will present a literature review essay entitled "Insect bio-indicators: are butterflies and carabid beetles suitable indicators for evaluating boreal forest health?" on Tuesday, November 16 in 220 Animal Science/Entomology Building. Coffee and doughnuts will be served at 10 am; seminar begins at 10:10 am.
Faculty Seminar Series - The third Faculty seminar will feature Murray Ballance, Plant Science, who will speak on "Research at the Noble Foundation: A protein signal in plant disease resistance?" on Wednesday, November 17 at 3:30 pm in the Carolyn Sifton Lecture Theatre, 130 Agriculture Building. Coffee and donuts will be served in the Atrium at 3:00 pm. Everyone is most welcome!
The Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers is holding a Crop Management Forum on Wednesday, November 17, at the Travelodge East (20 Alpine St) from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm. Presenters will include members of our Department of Soil Science. Mario Tenuta will discuss "Taking the snake oil out of organic amendments to control soil-borne plant diseases", Don Flaten will present "Phosphorous management and the environment - an issue of balance" and Paul Bullock will present "Agrometeorlogy in action -finally, something useful about the weather". All of the day's presentations count towards Certified Crop Adviser credits. For more information, contact CAAR at 989-9300.
Soil Science Seminar - On Thursday, November 18, Dr. Steve Sheppard, Ecomatters Inc. will present "You can't stop ammonia without a program: progress on Canada's ammonia emissions inventory" at 12:00 pm in Room 344 Ellis Building.
The Animal Nutrition Association of Canada - Manitoba Division is hosting a dinner on Monday, November 22 at the Holiday Inn South, featuring guest speakers on vomitoxin and the pork countervail issues. Jim House, Animal Science, will be speaking on management and reduction of vomitoxins in his pearling work. For more information or to register, contact Jan or Herb Schultz at 261-7865 by Thursday, November 18.
Animal Science Seminar - On Tuesday, November 23 at 10 am, M.Sc. student Sanjiv Bhandari will present "Effect of Forage Particle Size on Dairy Cattle Performance" and M.Sc. student Amy Hawkins will present "Bioavailability of Phosphorus in Growing Swine". Seminars are held in 219 Animal Science/Entomology Building. Coffee and doughnuts will be served before the presentations.
The 9th Annual Fields on Wheels Conference is scheduled for Tuesday, November 23, at the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg. This year's theme is "Bottlenecks and Opportunities in the Grain Supply Chain" . View the program and register online.
Smartpark is pleased to present Smartpark INTERACTIVE, a series of networking and information-filled events for researchers, business and government. The first event will feature Craig Wright, Chief Economist with the RBC Financial Group presenting "An Economic & Financial Market Outlook: The Year Ahead" on Tuesday, November 23 at 2 pm in the Lobby Boardroom, 135 Innovation Drive. Seating is limited. All events and parking are free. Call Shelly Goodacre at 474-6200 to reserve your seat today.
The University of Manitoba and Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI) have organized a Dairy Seminar and Open House on Thursday, November 25. The morning program includes seminar presentations from 10 am -12 pm in the Lobby Board Room, 135 Innovation Drive, Smartpark on the Fort Garry Campus. Topics include "The Comfort Zone" by John DeJonge, Artex Fabricators Ltd., Langley, BC; "BSE and Milk Quality" by Rob Berry, MAFRI; "Federal CAIS Program and its Implications for Dairy Farmers" by Peter Blawatt, MAFRI; "Preventing Metabolic Diseases" by Kees Plaizier, Animal Science. The Open House at the Glenlea Research Station willl run from 1:30 - 3 pm and includes tours of the dairy barn and the new metabolism facility, body condition scoring, lighting of dairy facilities, on-farm forage analysis, rumen fistulated cows & ongoing research. For more information contact Kees Plaizier at 474-9500.The Get to Know Research.at your University speaker series is preparing for another exciting slate of researchers talking about the work that they do and how it affects the world we live in. Sponsored by the Office of the Vice-President (Research), these informal one-hour sessions feature talk time and room for questions. On Thursday, November 25 at 7 pm, Eric Bibeau, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and Manitoba Hydro Alternative Energy Chair will present "Alternative energy - The long road toward reducing our dependency on fossil fuels". The presentation will take place at Smartpark, 135 Innovation Drive.
The Manitoba Grazing School 2004 will take place on November 29-December 1 at the Keystone Centre in Brandon. This year's theme is "Tough Choices for Tough Times". Speakers will include Martin Entz, Plant Science, who will present "The Root of the Matter - Soil and Water" and Kim Ominski and Karin Wittenberg, Animal Science, who are presenting "Grazing Strategies that Reduce Gas Make Cents!" For more information, download the Grazing School brochure.
Hog and Poultry Days 2004 is slated for December 1-2 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. The event includes more than 200 exhibitors featuring the latest in hog and poultry production, a pork quality competition, and a speaker program. Visit their website to learn more.
The 9th Annual General Meeting of the National Sunflower Association of Canada will be held December 2 at 9:00 am at the Canad Inns, Portage la Prairie, Registration is free and open to everyone, especially sunflower producers. For more information contact Mel Reimer at 822-9542 or visit their website.
The 5th Manitoba Agronomists Conference is scheduled for December 14 and 15 and registration has begun. For more information or to register, visit the MAC website. Register now as space is limited!
Congratulations to the farm staff of the Glenlea Research Station on receiving a University of Manitoba Outreach Award! The staff were recognized for their outstanding outreach efforts over the past year. Jack Brogan, Dale Rosner and Jody Phillippe will attend the Outreach Award reception on November 16 to accept the award on behalf of the station staff.
Peter McVetty, Plant Science, was in Saskatoon, November 4-5 discussing ongoing research and development collaborations with the Plant Biotechnology Institute of the NRC, and with the Bayer Crop Science Cultivar Development Group.
Martin Entz, Plant Science, has received a grant for $20,000 from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in support of the project "Effect of Green Manure Crops on Yield and Phosphorus Uptake in Following Crops".
Brian Oleson, Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics, attended a pre-Budget roundtable discussion in Ottawa with Minister Ralph Goodale, the federal Minister of Finance, on November 2. The roundtable is a pre-Budget tradition with the Minister of Finance to ensure private sector estimates are taken into account in the budget planning. This roundtable was attended by the chief economists of the major banks, the senior economist of the Conference Board and four other economists to reflect views from the regions and different sectors such as agriculture. This was the second pre-Budget roundtable attended by Brian.
Brian also provided an Agricultural Outlook to the recent annual planning conference of Credit Union Central arranged for the senior management of its credit unions in Manitoba. Brian was assisted by Janet Honey who is working part time for the Department on agricultural outlook and issues in the livestock sector.
Danny Mann and visiting Ph.D. student Javad Khazaei, Biosystems Engineering, recently won the International Commission of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR) Outstanding Paper Award for the paper "Effects of Temperature and Loading Characteristics on Mechanical and Stress-Relaxation Properties of Sea Buckthorn Berries". The award was given at the 2004 CIGR International Conference in Beijing, China, in October.
Fouad Daayf, Plant Science, was recently awarded a University of Manitoba Travel and Conference Sponsorship grant. Fouad will be traveling to France in December for a meeting related to the International Conference on Polyphenols which will be held at the University of Manitoba in August 2006. At the last conference in Helsinki in August 2004, Fouad put in a bid for the U of M to host this bi-annual conference and was successful!
Faculty students gave a great showing at the ASA-CSSA-SSA-CSSS meetings in Seattle October 31-November 4. Chad Jarvis, M.Sc. student in Soil Science, won 3rd prize for his poster. There are sure to be additional awards forthcoming once the judging is complete.
Each fall, the Department of Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics hosts a BBQ to welcome new graduate students and welcome back continuing students. The BBQ was held recently and was attended by staff, students, partners, and Ann Sahlin, an exchange student from Sweden. Thanks to the hosts and all the good cooks, it was a very enjoyable evening. Check out the photographs.
The Food Science Dairy Judging team made up of undergraduate students Melinda Small, Robert Klos and Bethany Franklin and under the direction of Arnie Hydamaka and On Chan (MAFRI), competed November 5 in the annual international collegiate dairy judging contest in Lakeland, Florida with 18 other university teams. Our team placed second in butter judging. Bethany Franklin received an individual third in butter judging.
Take in a tour - Second Year Ag Diploma still has space available on the bus for tours planned for this term. Here's the schedule: November 17 - Glenlea Research Station; November 24 - Shelmerdine's Nurseries and Garden Centre Ltd. If you are interested in attending a tour, please contact Lorrie Koroscil (474-9236) to book a seat on the bus. The bus departs from Parking Lot E at 2:30 pm on tour days.
ATTENTION AGRIBUSINESS GRADUATE STUDENTS - The Douglas MacRorie Memorial Scholarship deadline has been extended to November 19, 2004. The Agricultural Institute of Canada Foundation is offering six annual scholarships of $1500 to agricultural post-graduates majoring in agricultural business, economics, finance or trade. Please see the application and scholarship guidelines online or contact Jean Sullivan at (613) 232-9459 ext. 303.
And speaking of the Agricultural Institute of Canada (AIC), the Institute has recently redesigned its website to increase the functionality and ease of use. Students may want to check out the AIC CareerSite.
Farmers Independent Weekly - This week's column by Alma Kennedy, Animal Science, is entitled "Night Lighting in Dairy Barns". In a project funded by Manitoba Hydro and ARDI, Alma and her team looked at the "safe" intensity of dim night-light for cattle. They discovered that if light with an intensity of 50 Lux is used at night in dairy barns, cows will receive fewer "physiological" hours of darkness than intended, and possibly needed, for good health.
Website of the week - Canadian Economy Online - This is a very comprehensive site devoted to Canada's economy, pulling together many sources of information into an easily navigated and readable format. The site offers information about all the great economic indicators and links to useful statistics: for example, per capita consumption of major food groups. Per capita consumption rose for all food groups in the years between 1992 and 2003. The site also provides many links to government information including the Research and Analysis Directorate of Agriculture and Agrifood Canada.
Be a Faculty Fashionplate! - On Friday, November 12, come to the Dean's Office to try on a Microfleece vest (Women's) or Microfleece pullover (Men's). Then - place your order for the fashion must-have of the year - complete with the new Faculty logo in lime green! Cost is approx $30.00. Delivery in early December.
Summer Session 2005 Innovation Fund - The Continuing Education Division will designate up to $25,000 to encourage the development of innovative programs for Summer Session 2005. The fund is designed to stimulated collaborative, cross-disciplinary courses and programs that will increase a broader community access to the University. Proposals will be considered for programs offered in Summer Session 2005 or developed in 2005 for delivery in Summer Session 2006. Subject to budget considerations, the funds may be available in future years as well. Application deadline is NOVEMBER 15, 2004 firm. To receive an application form, contact Darlene Lecuyer at lecuyerd@ms.umanitoba.ca or 474-6963 or visit http://www.umanitoba.ca/summer/innovation/info.html. For more information call Bill Kops at 474-6198 or Janine Lindsay at 474-8003.
Organic Crop Production on the Prairies - The Faculty is once again offering the online course "Organic Crop Production on the Prairies". The course teaches organic principles and practices of field crops on the Prairies, and is available as credit or non-credit for degree or diploma. The course begins January 5, 2005 and registration deadline is December 1, 2004. For more information, visit the website or call 474-9391.
- Tier II Chair in the area of Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals - deadline January 4, 2005
- Research Associate, Department of Plant Science - position in Plant Genomics, with Genyi Li to be filled as soon as possible
staff.matters is e-mailed weekly on Wednesday afternoon to members and friends of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the University of Manitoba. The weekly news deadline is Tuesday at 4:00 pm. Email Crystal Jorgenson with your news or get in touch with your department staff.matters rep:
- Agribusiness: Judy Powell 9259
- Animal Science and Entomology: Claire Hutchinson 6125
- Biosystems Engineering: Connie Wenzoski 6033
- Food Science: Allison Cranmer 9621
- Plant Science: Bev Godard 8225
- Soil Science: Terry Ramm 8153