The University of Saskatchewan is establishing a crop insect research facility to study both pests and beneficial insects.

Entomologist Dr. Sean Prager will be in charge of the centre which will be established in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources building.

Funding will come from several sources, including 500-thousand dollars from the Western Grains Research Foundation—as part of its 32 million dollar Capacity Initiative.

Garth Patterson is the Foundation’s executive director.

He says the researchers will work with the crop development centre with new crop varieties.

Patterson says producers are helping to fund the research facility, with funding of 700 thousand dollars for the 1.2 million dollar facility.

He says support is coming from Western Grains Research Foundation, SaskCanola, SaskPulse and SaskWheat.

The group is helping to fund the first crop insect research facility at a the University of Saskatchewan, the first of its kind for a Western Canadian University.
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(with files from cjww)