History of Agricultural Research in Morden with Walter Dedio

The first pioneer and idea about a research station in Morden began with Stevenson in 1870. He had an orchard with different fruit trees. It was in 1915 when the government bought the land from Mr. Gibb. The land was already originally marked, as it belonged to the city. The first street was named Main Street, while the adjacent highway was Victoria Avenue. In 2015, we had our Centennial Celebration. It was C. Boyle, a foreman-manager, who got a tree nursery and steer feeding trials going. In 1916, S.A. Bjarnason was appointed . He planted 25,000 apple seedlings and a sheep flocking. In 1917, bee colonies were added and an apple and plum orchard was established. Also, several buildings were constructed. In 1918, E.M.Straight took over and enlarged the orchards to include spruce trees and brought in strawberries, beans, corn and chickens.

Most of the station superintendents would hold the job for a few years, however, W. Leslie had it from 1921-1957. During this time, he added new buildings, introduced tobacco, cereal grains, soybeans, and perennial flowers along with Percheron mares and Ayrshire cattle.

In 1929, the apple variety, Mantet, appeared. It was at this time that more professionals were brought in to provide advice with different aspects, including producing foundation vegetable seed. In 1946 the research program expanded to include cereals, corn, soybeans, sunflower, flax and ornamentals. These were crops grown in the area and required more research.

In 1960, several programs such as cattle, mares, and chickens were discontinued. In their place, plant breeders. pathologists and chemists took over and the programs became more sophisticated. They would share their results with international scientists.

When I was offered a job and arrived in Morden in1973, there were breeders of sunflower, flax, buckwheat, and peas along with pathologists to assist them. There was some ornamental breeding done.

There were some notable scientists from this era. Most of which was Henry Marshall. He started as a gardener at the Brandon station from 1946-1970. Some superiors were rather annoyed at him, presumably he was doing what they were supposed to do. He had only a 9th grade education. Then he was transferred to Morden where he worked from 1970-1981. There he developed 35 new vegetable and ornamentals, as well 5 roses, some muskmelons, willows and tomatoes. He also was able to master statistics. In 1989, he published Flora of the Pembina Valley. He received numerous awards including a Doctorate.

Dr. Eric Putt started in 1937 at Saskatoon, working with sunflowers. After serving in WW2, he was hired as an agronomist in Altona. There, he got the oil crushing plant going and stayed there from 1947-1952. He improved the oil content of the Mennonite garden variety before it was replaced by the Soviet Union ones like Peredovik which was much higher in oil content. He moved to Morden in 1953 and was director from 1966-1979. He was presented with an award in 1980.

More recently Dr. J. Mazza won distinction for his plant chemistry work. He has many publications. He continued his work after his retirement in B.C. where he received a grant. Unfortunately, he developed dementia and passed away in his late 70's.

When I took over the sunflower breeding, cytoplasmic male sterile lines had been discovered in France and made available. This led to development mostly by American companies of much higher yielding hybrids.

Early corn research was done for silage in Ontario, then the University of Manitoba. 

John Giesbrect started producing hybrids in Morden in the1970s. The Brandon station took over in the early 1990s. Ed. Kenaschuk took over the flax breeding in 1961. In 1990, Dribnenki worked on low linolenic lines along with Rowland in Saskatoon.

The pea breeding was shifted to Manitoba in 1960, where Kenaschuk started. S.T. Ali Khan took over from 1967-1992. Another breeding crop was buckwheat done by Clayton Campbell.

In the1990s, most of the breeding and research with special crops such as sunflowers, peas and buckwheat were terminated to put more emphasis on the bigger crops. In 2014, the Research Station in Winnipeg was closed and the scientists transferred to Morden.

Now come to the third era. The work done is mostly away from field breeding. Some breeding is done with dry beans and soybeans.  More details about each scientist's work can be found on the internet. Earlier research work and results would be published in journals. Now it is all on the internet. Other areas of research at Morden are crop pathology, study of geonomics, proteonomics, crop product system, quality traits, improving foods as well as sustainable and profitable agri-systems. Now they have equipment which was not available during my tenure. The station was originally the Morden Experimental Farm. Now it is called Agriculture Canada Research Station.