One of the more commonly used natural breeding systems in commercial herds is the multi-sire system. One of the major disadvantages to this system, however, is that producers are often unaware of which bulls are siring calves. The use of genetic technology to assign parentage may allow producers to determine which bulls have sired calves.

Cocktail crops have traditionally been used to help hold the soil when transitioning between different types of cash crops, and are often plowed down before planting the next crop to add organic material and fertility to the soil. Farmers with livestock often select cover crops that can be grazed, adding an additional benefit as feed and the advantage of additional nutrients from animal manure.

SACA secured funding with the Land Stewardship Centre of Canada to launch a Community Stewardship Initiative on Shiningbank Lake. This project was brought forth by Yellowhead County amid concerns surrounding the health of the lake, the lake riparian areas and the land adjacent to the lake.

This initiative aims to bring awareness of riparian health, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, water quality, and shoreline health to landowners, producers and recreational users on or near Shiningbank Lake.

New sainfoin varieties have shown promise for persistence under grazing in alfalfa-sainfoin mixtures, with comparable yields to alfalfa/grass mixes and are bloat mitigating. The threat of bloat in grazing livestock has stymied efforts by the livestock industry to use higher producing forage crops like alfalfa which could reduce the acres required to support livestock production and provide competitive gain opportunities for feeder cattle. The new emerging sainfoin cultivars will offer the livestock industry the opportunity to take advantage of the productivity, flexibility and profitability of legume based pastures. Sainfoin contains tannins that bind with the soluble proteins and inhibit the activity of rumen microbes; thus slowing the rate of digestion of the forages. A rapid rate of forage digestion has been determined to be a major cause of bloat.

One of the sustainable approaches in conserving our native pollinators is active research for the purpose of developing suitable Pollinator Mixes for specific agro-climatic zones in the country; that can help in establishing Pollinator Gardens or Pollinator Habitats or Pollinator Sanctuaries at suitable sites. Such sites could be farm perimeters, hard to access farm areas, agronomically non-productive or unsuitable wasteland areas, wetlands, city, municipal and rural parks, gardens and lawns, kitchen gardens, avenues, boulevards, golf courses, suitable parts of highways etc. Pollinator Mixes could include mixtures of specific wildflowers, native grasses as well as different annual/perennial forage crops that can actively attract insect pollinators in large numbers.

This project researched a system that involved early August seeding of winter cereals, grazing fall growth during the winter and harvesting a silage or grain crop the following year. This dual purpose practice is common in the south-west United States (Winter, 1990) but Canada’s much shorter growing season discourages adoption here (Baron et al. 1999, Salmon et al. 1996). However, studies suggest that winter cereals may extend annual crop production from four to six months (Baron, 1993).

Each year SACA partners with a number of counties to offer Pond Days programming to Grade 4 and 5 students in June. Students are taught about conservation and environmental stewardship, and specifically the importance of riparian areas.

Pond Days is made successful by the number of volunteers that participate each year in manning the various educational stations at the lake throughout the day. Students rotate through the stations, giving them the opportunity to gain hands-on experience on a variety of topics. Topics typically include:

The Canada thistle stem-gall fly is a biological control agent for use in controlling Canada thistle.

The stem-gall fly attacks the stem of the thistle plant, boring in and causing the plant to form gall tissue. Females lay their eggs on the apical meristem (tip) of developing shoots in the early summer, and larvae burrow into the shoots. Larval feeding triggers gall formation, which stresses the plant. The gall becomes a nutrient sink, directing nutrients away from the plant’s normal metabolic & reproductive functions, lowering normal plant function and reproduction. Abnormally developed flower heads frequently occur above the gall, resulting in fewer flowers and lowered seed production. Galls vary in size, depending on the number of larvae present within. Galls may range in size from small (marble) to large (walnut/plum), containing anywhere from three or four larvae to upwards of 25 larvae. The flies overwinter in the gall as mature larvae and emerge as adults in the spring (around June) as the gall tissue deteriorates.

The Canada thistle stem-gall fly is a biological control agent for use in controlling Canada thistle.

The stem-gall fly attacks the stem of the thistle plant, boring in and causing the plant to form gall tissue. Females lay their eggs on the apical meristem (tip) of developing shoots in the early summer, and larvae burrow into the shoots. Larval feeding triggers gall formation, which stresses the plant. The gall becomes a nutrient sink, directing nutrients away from the plant’s normal metabolic & reproductive functions, lowering normal plant function and reproduction. Abnormally developed flower heads frequently occur above the gall, resulting in fewer flowers and lowered seed production. Galls vary in size, depending on the number of larvae present within. Galls may range in size from small (marble) to large (walnut/plum), containing anywhere from three or four larvae to upwards of 25 larvae. The flies overwinter in the gall as mature larvae and emerge as adults in the spring (around June) as the gall tissue deteriorates.

Sainfoin (Onobryschis spp.) is an introduced, ancient, perennial forage legume that has been grown in Europe and Asia for centuries. Traditionally known as “healthy hay”, this cool-season legume can be used as hay, silaged, or grazed in pastures-alone or in a grass-legume mix.

The main interest in sainfoin has been its qualities in resisting bloat. Condensed tannins in the plant bind to protein in feed, allowing it to be digested as a bypass protein, avoiding the problem of large amounts of protein being quickly digested in the rumen--the leading cause of bloat. Studies show that 20-30% sainfoin in an alfalfa pasture can, in certain cases, eliminate the risk of bloat.

Older Sainfoin cultivars, although easy to establish and seed, do not tolerate frequent cutting or grazing, and lack competitive ability to grow with other forages, and therefore cannot be used with alfalfa for reducing pasture bloat.

Sainfoin has previously only been grown for research in Alberta’s brown soil zones. With increasing interest in growing Sainfoin in the west-central region of the province, research to determine suitability in the gray wooded soil zone was needed. Beyond determining the suitability of this crop for this region, varieties were tested for yield and winter survivability from 2013 until 2016 to assess and compare the new and old sainfoin varieties.

For this trial four varieties were grown with Nova ("the older variety") being used as the check. Three experimental sainfoin lines were developed by Dr. Surya Acharya and are designated LRC05-3900, LRC05-3901, and LRC05-3902.

West-Central Forage Association and Yellowhead County, as partners in the Stewardship Alliance for Conservation Agriculture (SACA), secured funding with the Land Stewardship Centre of Canada to initiate the Chip Lake Stewardship Project in 2012. The project aimed to address concerns regarding the environmental condition of Chip Lake, the riparian area around the lake, and it's adjacent landholdings.

The Paddle River Stewardship Group (PRSG), is made up of members of the community (Anselmo) that border the Paddle River. The group was formed in 2009 and took on the task of looking after the best interests of the riparian zone along the Paddle.

In 2010, with funding from Alberta Conservation Association (ACA), riparian assessments were carried out on ten different sites by Cows and Fish from July-September. The results of those assessments were given as individual reports to the landowners as well as an over assessment of the health of the river. It also indicated a number of suggestions that would improve the ecosystems capacity further. The PRSG, in partnership with WCFA, Alberta Conservation Association and West Central Conservation Group (now known as SACA), decided to take those suggestions as sound advice and turn them into deliverables. Some of these deliverables included: exclusion fencing stretches of the riparian area to better manage grazing, introduction of biological control agents (weevils) to control Canada thistle, planting trees to improve declining riparian health, and carrying out water tests to provide benchmarks of overall water quality.

West-Central Forage Association and Yellowhead County, as partners in the Stewardship Alliance for Conservation Agriculture (SACA), secured funding with the Alberta Conservation Association to initiate the Lobstick River Stewardship Project in 2014. The project focused on concerns regarding the environmental condition of the Lobstick River, the riparian area along the river, and its adjacent landholdings.

The need for investigation into the health of the Lobstick River became apparent in 2012, during the Chip Lake Stewardship Project, when the assessed areas on the Lobstick showed a great deal of variation in riparian health; some sites were quite healthy and others were very heavily and negatively impacted.

Beginning in 2009, under the direction and management of WCFA, Alberta producers and specialists evaluated the suitability of triticale swath grazing in terms of nutrition, palatability, practicality and cost. WCFA set up a four-year program in which producers would test spring triticale, winter triticale or a mixture of both as part of their swath grazing systems. Since then, WCFA, producer cooperators and Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) advisors have observed and analyzed the practice in terms of crop production, nutrition, palatability, cost of feeding and overall value within a grazing system.

The Regional Silage Trial was initiated in 2009 with six Applied Research Associations (ARAs) and Forage Associations (FAs) participating with funding from the Alberta Beef Producers from 2009 – 2011.