b"Darin Gibson with Gaia Consulting terminating a Darin Gibson with Gaia Consulting stands in a field near herbicide trial near Winkler, Man.Newton, Man.product is supposed to protect against Colorado potato beetlesThe product will also be tested over a few years, however, (CPBs) then they need to use it in a potato field which has highfor contract research companies they work by the year and are incidences of CPB infestation. never sure what exact work they will receive from companies When a client comes to us with testing, whatever they'reeach year.looking at, a certain pest, we endeavour to find that pest in theWe don't do trials just for interests sake. Unless somebody province. If it's a certain soil type, we endeavor to find that. Wewants to do something, we don't do it. The nature of contract have great relationships with the growers, and quite often they'reresearch is we get paid to do whatever the client wants us to do, so kind to let us do research in their fields, Debbie Jones with GaiaGibson says. Consulting explains in an interview in Portage la Prairie, Man.The contract research companies also pay attention to which potato cultivars are more susceptible to diseases. Jones says theyll listen at grower meetings to find out which cultivars are showing susceptibility and then will use those for testing. For trials you need a susceptible variety, and you need the conditions that will be conducive to development of the disease or harbour the insects or whatever that you're testing against, and you got to have the weeds, Gibson adds.And while it may seem that these contract research companies are on the hunt for all things bad in growers fields, they only are because they want to help growers in the long run.We want to help the grower so much, like providing information and whatever. If it's providing information to the crop protection company, so they're getting products out or anything like that, Jones says. Even though they may be the first to work these products, contract research companies arent always exactly sure what the products theyre working with are. Companies will provide the new products to them as numbered products. For different products, we don't even know what they are. Then they'll bring us a protocol that might have, for example a seed treatment fungicide trial, and it'll be 10 different treatments in different products alone or in combination, that we're testing for, Gibson explains.The tested product will be compared to established standard products in the industry to see what the products efficacy is. Theyll also test the product at a number of rates for usage ranging from the minimal usage to the maximum that the company has providedthis is a testing requirement of the PMRA. SPUDSMART.COM Winter 202237"