Agriculture committee  Our vision of precision farming is going to start with mastering the soil sampling side of things first. As Jason alluded to, I invested in a very expensive machine from southern Illinois, and it covers 100 acres in less than an hour. I can pull 4,200 soil plugs. The problem wi

Agriculture committee  We work with six or seven different researchers, so there are a lot of different ongoing projects, but I don't recall any specialized individual who would zero in on just one topic.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. The margins, especially in P.E.I. potato growing, are getting squeezed more and more, and the costs of production are increasing annually. I truly feel that P.E.I. potato producers probably led the pathway for agriculture in Canada in the precision ag area. We are spe

Agriculture committee  It was $900,000.

Agriculture committee  Would you like to answer that, Jason, or Andrea?

Agriculture committee  Sure. Right now we're focusing on soil health and ways to improve organic matter, as he spoke about, and we're working with crops that offer a fumigant benefit to combat...I don't want to be in trouble with the wireworm again. It came in because we're seeing longer growing peri

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. There are chemicals out there that will kill the wireworm parent, the click beetle, on contact, but you are looking at insecticides being sprayed a lot more than they are now, significantly more. The way we're managing it right now is an in-furrow process. It's safe

Agriculture committee  That's a great question. If we start losing more tools in our tool box to manage wireworm, it will be devastating. Wireworm is a funny animal to manage. There are regions that aren't experiencing any problems yet, and there are other regions where production ground is almost n

Agriculture committee  Jason's mentioned that with climate change on the rise, it brings more challenges in managing our pest program.

Agriculture committee  Yes, there we go. Perfect. Can you hear me better now?

Agriculture committee  Excellent. With climate change, in our pest management strategies it is becoming very much of a challenge to combat what I'm going to call an epidemic right now in Prince Edward Island to our potato industry. It is known as the wireworm. One thing we all have to understand her

Agriculture committee  Yes, I understand. Perfect.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable members. As you said, my name is Gordon McKenna. I come from P.E.I. I'm a potato producer. Along with me is my colleague Jason Webster, who is also a potato producer.

Agriculture committee  We were invited up here to tell you folks all about our East Prince Agri-Environment Association, which we formed about three years ago to build a more environmentally sustainable agriculture industry through evidence-based management practices that affect our environment. We ar