U of S Agriculture Dean Dr. Ernie Barber, left, watches as news media and visiting seed growers take a close look at the new "huetronic color sorter" that provides for high-speed sorting of seeds by color. Barber told the audience Saskatoon can become "the pulse-crop capital of the world".

Bio/Historical Note: In 1977, Frederick Wesley Kernen (d. 1991), a Saskatoon-area farmer, a graduate of the College of Agriculture (1939), and a part-time extensionist with the Department of Crop Science, made an offer to the university that was the largest gift ever by an individual at that time. To honour his parents, the late Frederick John (1879-1948) and Lucy Ruxby Marie Kernen (d. 1952), Fred W. Kernen offered to gift two sections of prime agricultural land to the university, with full jurisdiction to operate on the lands. Included in the gift were 300 acres of native prairie land, which were to remain un-tilled and be used for ecological research. The station’s 380 hectares of cultivated land is adequate to provide for commercial production and small plot experiments. The Kernen Crop Research Farm is located at the intersections of Highways 5 and 41 on the quickly expanding east side of Saskatoon. Over the last 35 years, the site has accommodated ecological studies, grazing studies, crop breeding, crop production and crop and weed management research in the Department of Plant Sciences. Managed on a four-year crop rotation, the cultivated area of the farm also generates revenue, which helps support the cost of crop research and future development on the farm.

Bio/historical note: Image appeared in the Sept 1, 2000 OCN.