No abstract

Phenomics or automated phenotyping (AP) is an emerging approach, identified as a priority for future crop breeding research. This approach promises to provide accurate, precise, fast, large-scale, and accumulated phenotyping data which when integrated with corresponding genomic and environmental data is expected to trigger a great leap forward in plant breeding. However, despite promising applications, AP adoption in plant breeding is still in its infancy. It is unclear to many plant breeders how or if much of the enormous volume, diversity, and velocity of imaging and remote-sensing data generated by AP is going to be usefully integrated into breeding programs. This paper develops an economical model of heterogeneous breeders' decisionmaking to examine adoption decisions regarding whether to adopt AP or continue using conventional phenotyping. The results of this model indicate that many interlocking factors, including genetic gain/expected return, variable and sunk costs, subsequent rate of technology improvement, and breeders' level of aversion to AP, are at work as breeders determine whether to adopt AP. This study also provides a numerical example to show the impact of breeders' aversion toward the adoption of a new technology (e.g., AP) on the expected return generated from breeding a new wheat variety.

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The development and adoption of zero tillage has profoundly transformed cropping systems in Western Canada. In this paper, we describe key drivers and aspects of this innovation process and quantify the overall economic impacts of adoption and the benefit cost of research development and extension, which accelerated the adoption. Estimating on-site and off-site benefits we find very high benefit-cost ratios, suggesting a need to maintain institutions that can foster the development of similar innovations. Le développement et l'adoption des techniques sans labour (TSL) ont profondément transformé les systèmes de culture dans l'Ouest Canadien. Dans cet article, nous décrivons les principales causes et les aspects de ce processus d'innovation et quantifions les conséquenceséconomiques de l'adoption etle avantage-coût de recherche-développement et vulgarisation, ce qui ont accéléré l'adoption. Estimer les bénéficies sur site et hors site nous avons trouvé que les ratios avantage-coût est trèsélevé, ce qui suggère la nécessité de maintenir les institutions qui favorisent le développement d'innovations similaires.

The global crop sector is estimated to contribute about 10.4% of global GHGs annually. The Canadian crop sector is assessed as adding about 6.5% to total national emissions. These estimates over report the impact of farming as they ignore the complex interaction of cropping with the environment and the role land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) play in sequestering carbon. This study quantifies the contribution of land use to GHG emissions and removals in the Canadian Prairies crop sector between 1985 and 2016. The modeling effort explores how different farming practices (i.e., conventional tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT), zero tillage (ZT), summerfallow, crop rotations, and residue retention) and input usage rates (i.e., fertilizer and fuel) affect GHG emissions in different soil climate zones and provinces in the Prairies region. The adoption of sustainable practices led to an 80% decline in GHG emissions in the crop sector between 1985 and 2016. Since 2005, the baseline for Canada’s Paris commitment, sectoral emissions dropped 53%, more than is required to meet the 2030 target. Most promising, the crop sector was a net GHG sink between 2013 and 2016 in Alberta and between 2006 and 2016 in Saskatchewan. As positive as these developments have been, more can be done by directing research to identify options for reducing GHGs in Manitoba (which made only minimal improvements as farmers there faced conditions requiring continuous use of conventional tillage practices), to explore better nitrogen management (a major continuing source of GHG from cropping) and by searching for low carbon transport options.