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AG e-news January 16, 2018

News and events from the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences

January 16, 2018 — 

News and events from the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences

UPCOMING EVENTS

January 16-18 – A number of faculty and students are speaking at this week’s Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon Manitoba. Amy Mangin – Tuesday, January 16 on “Nitrogen Management for High Yielding Spring Wheat in Manitoba”; David Lobb – Wednesday, January 17 on “Managing Surface Water on Farm to Achieve Both Agricultural & Environmental Benefits”; Katherine Stanley – Thursday, January 18 on “An Ecosystem Approach to Farming for Improved Profitability, Stewardship & Job Satisfaction” and “Not My Grandpa’s Organic Farm”; and Kim Ominski – Thursday on “Seeking Sustainability Through Innovation: A Look at the Cattle Industry”. Full details and locations at https://www.agdays.com/schedule/.

Thursday, January 18Samantha Pauls, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, University of Manitoba & CCARM, will be giving a seminar entitled “Anti-inflammatory properties of alpha-linolenic acid and its oxylipins in macrophages” at 11:00 am in the Samuel N. Cohen Auditorium (St. Boniface Hospital Albrechtsen Research Centre, 351 Tache Avenue, Winnipeg). Everyone is invited to attend.

Tuesday, January 23 – The Department of Animal Science is hosting a Graduate Student Information session and pizza lunch. Come join us to learn about our M.Sc. program and discover opportunities in animal systems for post graduate studies. Session runs 11:30 am – 1:00 pm in Room 219 Animal Science Building – students should RSVP to Dr. Chengbo Yang (chengbo [dot] yang [at] umanitoba [dot] ca) by January 19, 2018.

Wednesday, January 24 – The next seminar in the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences Seminar Series will be held at 3:30 pm in the Carolyn Sifton Lecture Theatre, 130 Agriculture Building. Argenis Rodas-González, Department of Animal Science, will present “Bison Meat: Colour Matters”.  Refreshments will be served at 3:00 pm in the Atrium. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Friday, January 26 – A new workshop series entitled “Applied Skills in Food Preparation” organized by the Farm and Food Discovery Centre aims to help students in Food and Human Nutritional Sciences apply the knowledge they learn in their classes to everyday food practices in their own lives and in their future professional work. Through a series of hands-on workshops, participants will learn practical kitchen and food skills that will help them use their nutrition and food knowledge for healthy, everyday food preparation. These workshops aimed at students but are open to anyone interested. The first workshop is “Super Soups from Scratch” with Getty Stewart, PHEc on January 26 from 4 pm to 6 pm in the Barbara Burns Food Innovation Lab, 410 Human Ecology Building.  Some of the sessions have a fee and registration deadline. For a full description and location/time of the workshops visit http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/discovery_centre/media/Applied_Skills_Worshops_2018.docx.pdf. For more information or to register, call 204-883-2524 or email ffdc [at] umanitoba [dot] ca.

Tuesday, January 30 – A Department of Entomology Seminar will be presented by Dr. Christian MacQuarrie, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada on “Combating The Green Menace – ecology and management of the emerald ash borer in Canada”. Refreshments at 10:00 am, seminar begins at 10:10 am sharp in 220 Animal Science/Entomology Building. All are welcome.

Wednesday, January 31 – There will be a Soil Science Seminar with Dr. Steve Crittenden, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Brandon at 12:30 pm, Room 346 Ellis Building. Everyone welcome.

Wednesday, January 31 – The first talk of the Food Systems Research Group monthly seminar series will feature “Urban Food Systems: Winnipeg Food Deserts and the Winnipeg Food Council” with Joyce Slater, Associate Professor, Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, at 3:00 pm with discussion to follow in Room 130 Agriculture Building. “Food deserts” have emerged over the past 20 years as spaces of concern for communities, public health authorities and researchers because of their potential negative impact on dietary quality and subsequent health outcomes.  Food deserts are residential geographic spaces where low-income residents have limited access to retail food establishments with sufficient variety at affordable cost. A novel method for assessing food deserts will be presented, along with discussion of the value of food deserts as a metric in food security research.  We will also be discussing the new Winnipeg Food Council, whose mandate is to provide advice on agricultural and food related policy to the City of Winnipeg. 

Wednesday, January 31James Frey, B.Sc. Agribusiness and M. Natural Resources Management, will be giving a lecture about his experiences abroad to second year Agriculture Diploma students in Room 172 Agriculture at 2:30 pm. James works as a Diversification Specialist with Manitoba Agriculture in Roblin, and partners with the Parkland Crop Diversification Foundation. Previously, he worked as a project officer with Mennonite Central Committee, implementing an agricultural development project to introduce Conservation Agriculture techniques on North Korean cooperative farms.  He has also worked with Dr. Martin Entz on Natural Systems agriculture and organic systems research.  All are welcome to attend.

February 1-2 – The Manitoba Soil Science Society 61st Annual General Meeting will be held in Winnipeg. The focus of the 2018 AGM is “Remembering the Dirty 30’s: Lessons learned, forgotten and rediscovery”, but submissions on other topics in soil science will also be considered. Both oral and poster presentations are welcome. Graduate student presentations are judged with awards for the best oral and poster presentations. Complete contact information and abstracts must be submitted by December 20, 2017. Contact msss [at] cc [dot] umanitoba [dot] ca for more information.

Tuesday, February 6 – The Department of Animal Science will be hosting a Special Seminar in honour of Dr. T. K. Cheung, a former student of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences who has made significant contributions to the Department of Animal Science. Our guest speaker this year is Dr. Tim McAllister, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – Lethbridge, who will be giving a talk in 219 Animal Science Building at 11:30 am.  The title of his talk is “Are prions just a bad nightmare relegated to an infamous part of Canadian agricultural history?”. All are welcome to attend.

February 7-8 – The Manitoba Swine Seminar 2018 will take place at the Victoria Inn Hotel & Convention Centre. Among this year’s speakers are Laurie Connor, Animal Science, and Qiang Zhang, Biosystems Engineering. The organizing committee includes Martin Nyachoti and Chengbo Yang from Animal Science. Register online and check out the complete program at www.ManitobaSwineSeminar.ca.

Tuesday, February 13 – The University of Manitoba speaker series Visionary Conversations hosted by President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. David Barnard resumes with the presentation “Are Black Canadians equitably represented in positions of power and influence?” at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (85 Israel Asper Way). Doors open at 6:30 pm, panel discussion 7-8:30 pm and reception at 8:30 pm. Admission is free but seating is limited. RSVP to rsvp [at] umanitoba [dot] ca or 204-474-9071. More information at http://umanitoba.ca/visionaryconversations/.

February 23-24 – The 2018 Prairie Organics Think Whole Farm Conference will be held at the Keystone Centre in Brandon. This year’s conference will highlight producers and researchers discussing livestock, horticulture, grains, pulses and oilseeds. The conference features a 26 000 sq ft tradeshow and business to business meetings, connecting buyers and sellers of organic grains. The conference is FREE TO STUDENTS and volunteering slots are available. For conference agenda and to register: www.prairieorganics.org. Email: info [at] prairieorganics [dot] org for more information.

 

STAFF AND STUDENT NEWS

Samantha Pauls, postdoctoral fellow supervised by Drs. Harold Aukema, Carla Taylor and Peter Zahradka, received a 2017 CCARM  Trainee Service Recognition Award for her exemplary assistance with the Rapid-Fire Research Symposium. http://www.sbrc.ca/2018/01/ccarm-awards/

Rotimi Aluko, Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, was the invited foreign Faculty and Instructor for a two-week course December 11-22, 2017, on Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals, which was held at the Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh, Haryana, India. The course was hosted by the Department of Nutrition Biology with funding provided by the Indian Government under the Global Initiative for Academic Network (GIAN) program. There were 27 participants from 8 different states. Details of the course and recordings of the classes can be found in the following link: https://cuh.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=5c90ed73-6016-4f38-a93a-6d19a842ac4d.  Click on each course content in the left panel to view and listen to the lecture.

The Tenth Annual Chili Smackdown last week featured seven diverse entries and although they were all delicious, School of Agriculture instructor Reg Dyck and his “Chuckwagon Dip” took the Smackdown belt. A big thanks to all who entered the competition and to our judges Karin Wittenberg, Jackie Edelson and Brian Archibald. The FASO chili lunch raised $400 for Siloam Mission.

Start of a new year means that a number of academics will be headed off on research study or administrative leaves. The following academics will be on leave: Emma McGeough – Jan 1/18 to June 30/18; Julieta Frank – Jan 1/18 to June 30/18; and Yvonne Lawley – Jan 1/18 to June 30/18.  Still on leave until June 30/18 is Harry Sapirstein. Returning from leave as of Jan 1/18 are Ehsan Khafipour, Kris Dick, David Lobb, Ying Chen and Mario Tenuta

 

IN THE NEWS

A new piece of equipment at the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals was featured in the article “Model stomach arrives at U of M” in the Manitoba Co-operator (January 11) -https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/news-opinion/news/local/model-stomach-arrives-at-u-of-m/

The research conducted by Getahun Legesse, Animal Science, and the beef cluster team was featured in “Beef’s Shrinking Water Footprint” in Canadian Cattlemen (January 2018) on page 20 at https://static.agcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/CCT180108.pdf and in the Manitoba Co-operator (December 28) at https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/livestock/less-water-needed-to-produce-beef-today/.

Christine Rawluk, National Centre for Livestock and the Environment, was quoted on mySteinbach.ca in the story “Scientists explore risk of manure fertilized soils in spreading PED” (January 2) – https://www.mysteinbach.ca/news/2329/scientists-explore-risk-of-manure-fertilized-soils-in-spreading-ped/ and on Farmscape – http://www.farmscape.com/f2ShowScript.aspx?i=26342&q=Scientists+Explore+Risk+of+Manure+Fertilized+Soils+in+Spreading+PED.

Doug Cattani, Plant Science, was interviewed by Radio-Canada in the story “Une nouvelle céréale du Manitoba pourrait bientôt prendre le marché d’assaut” (December 30) – http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1073234/nouvelle-cereale-manitoba-kernza-grain-plante.

Jason Gibbs, Entomology, was interviewed for the story “MSU Creates Michigan’s First Bee ‘Census’ ” on WKAR (December 20) – http://wkar.org/post/msu-creates-michigans-first-bee-census#stream/0.

Karin Wittenberg, Dean, was quoted in the article “Changes Coming To U of M Agriculture Diploma Program” on Pembina Valley Online (December 18) – https://pembinavalleyonline.com/ag-news/changes-coming-to-u-of-m-agriculture-diploma-program.

 

PUBLICATIONS

Westphal, M., Tenuta, M. and Entz, M.H., 2018. Nitrous oxide emissions with organic crop production depends on fall soil moisture. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 254, pp.41-49.

Bannerman, J.B., McCornack, B.P., Ragsdale, D.W., Koper, N., and A.C. Costamagna. 2018. Predators and alate immigration influence the season-long dynamics of soybean aphid (Hemiptera: Aphididae). Biological Control 117: 87-98. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049964417302177.

The Canadian Journal of Soil Science has selected the paper below as “Editor’s Choice”. To read more, click the link. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/journal/cjss. Liu, K., Lobb, D.A., Miller, J.J., Owens, P.N., and Caron, M.E.G. Determining sources of fine-grained sediment for a reach of the Lower Little Bow River, Alberta, using a colour-based sediment fingerprinting approach. Canadian Journal of Soil Science dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjss-2016-0131

Pulses are good sources of vitamins and minerals as well as antioxidants. However, we do not fully understand how nutrient profiles are affected by processes such as milling and baking. Lisa’s paper from her MSc thesis examined how substituting 10% yellow whole or split pea flour (various particle sizes) into white wheat flour affected the phenolic and antioxidant profile of the bread baked from it. Lisa D. Davies-Hoes, Martin G. Scanlon,  Abraham T. Girgih, and Rotimi E. Aluko. Effect of Pea Flours with Different Particle Sizes on Antioxidant Activity in Pan Breads.  CEREAL CHEMISTRY 94 (2017) 866-872

 

GENERAL NEWS

Attention Grad Students! The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is a research communication competition that challenges graduate students to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries so they can be presented concisely to a non-specialist audience. Deadline is January 29 and the heats take place end of February, with the final on March 21. First place prize is $1,000. You can find out more information at www.umanitoba.ca/3mt/.

Bruce (BSA/58, LLD/07) and Lesley Campbell have generously offered to match all gifts to the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre endowment fund, up to a total of $250,000.  This will provide an opportunity for donors to double their impact on the agriculture outreach being done at the Farm and Food Discovery Centre and help teach another generation of Manitobans about the agricultural industry’s important role in feeding Manitoba and the world.   Gifts can be made online or by phone at 204-474-9195.

80 urban men needed for the TMPLR study – researchers are looking for volunteers for a research study examining health in Manitoba. we are looking at the interaction between diet, physical activity, sleep and their association with chronic diseases. If you are between the ages of 30-46, you may be able to join our study. For detail information please contact TMPLRtrial [at] umanitoba [dot] ca or 204-480-1042.

10 participants with high blood pressure needed for Garlic Study – The University of Manitoba is conducting a study to investigate the effects of aged garlic extract on high blood pressure. The study is open to non-smoking men and women ages 18-75 with elevated blood pressure. Participants will be compensated. For more information, contact 204-474-9989 or garlictrial [at] umanitoba [dot] ca.

Volunteers Needed – Ag in the Classroom- Manitoba’s Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month (CALM) Program is a classroom program delivered at various schools with farmers and agriculture industry representatives to help students learn about agriculture throughout the province during March. The time commitment can be a minimum of 1 hour, half a day, or a full day over multiple days in different classrooms. We will give you all the materials you need to make this program an unforgettable success. Register to volunteer at http://www.aitc-calm.ca/ by Friday, January 19.

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