JULY 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC Cattlemen invest in research to boost productivity


Research chairs at Thompson Rivers University, drones, forage benefit from funding research a rancher needs? “Do it


by DAVID SCHMIDT KAMLOOPS – Research is


important and the BC Cattlemen’s Association is doing its part to encourage and support it. BCCA has approved $3,000


a year for five years to establish a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) chair in ecosystems reclamation at Thompson Rivers University. In addition to the BCCA and NSERC funding, Dr. Lauchlan Fraser has secured enough funding to bring the total value of the chair to $2.5 million. BCCA is already supporting


Dr. John Church as the BC Regional Innovation Chair in Cattle Industry Sustainability at TRU and has thrown its weight behind a government plan for TRU to research new options to manage invasive plants in the Thompson Nicola region. “Invasive plants are


overtaking our grasslands and we hope to extend this three-year $2.2 million pilot program across the province in the future,” BCCA research committee chair John Anderson told ranchers at the association’s annual meeting in Kamloops, May 26. Church showed interested ranchers just what he has been up to lately during the education day that followed the AGM. A demonstration of drone technology attracted a large crowd. Church said drones are ideally suited to assist ranchers and the cost has come down to the point that a rancher can get a good drone with good cameras for


well under $1,000. Drones are also compact and rugged enough to be packed up and carried in a saddlebag, then pulled out and used to locate cattle on widespread rangelands. Church is now working on developing hardware and software to allow the drones to read individual RFID tags from a height of up to 200 feet.


Rangeland support Cattlemen also passed a


resolution supporting TRU’s new rangeland research management project at the Laurie Guichon Memorial Grasslands interpretative site in the Nicola Valley. Despite the many research


projects BCCA supports, other provinces still lead the way in supporting beef cattle research. BC allocates just 10% of its national check-off to research. That is well below the national average of 18%, Beef Cattle Research Council science director Reynold Bergen told ranchers. He says the aim is to increase that to 30% when the increased national check-off is fully implemented. “For BC, it would mean


going from 10 cents out of the current $1 check-off to 75 cents out of the $2.50 check- off,” he said. Bergen said improving


productivity has become a bigger priority over the years, with the research council allocating 30% of its 2013- 2018 budget to forage research. “We need to develop better tame and native forages and better management practices for


winter feeding,” he said.


Bergen admitted research funding has been fragmented in the past. To combat that, BCRC has developed a Canadian Beef


Research & Technology Transfer


strategy and is sharing all beef research proposals it receives with other agencies. “They all comment on the


But what if no one has done or plans to do the


DR. REYNOLD BERGEN


yourself,” was the advice ranchers got from Catherine Tarasoff of Agrowest Consulting. Last year, she started working with producers in the Vanderhoof area on individual forage


proposals and it helps us make more informed choices,” he said.


research projects. TopHay Agri-Industries tested six species of alfalfa to see which variety is the most versatile and would allow them to access the high-quality feed market.


“Harvesting alfalfa with higher protein can make a difference of as much as $100 a tonne,” Tarasoff said. Wayne Ray wanted to both


be more efficient and produce a more durable crop. So he asked whether he could seed at a lower rate and/or use a mix of varieties to get the same or better forage yields than he had been. His research showed a five-variety mix of forages seeded at just 12 pounds an acre gave him the same yield as Vision seeded at 25 pounds an acre.


Butch Ruiter wanted to find out if he could reduce his winter feeding costs by using winter kale. He planted kale, harvesting it biweekly after the first frost. The results were extremely


positive, Tarasoff said. “There were no harvesting issues with the poor weather and the protein held up very well.”


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