Episode 3:

Keith Downey

Transcript

Toban Dyck  00:03

This is the extensionist conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck and I’m Jay wetter.

Jay Whetter  00:13

Hey, Toban. Have you ever been to Chicago? No, well, Campbell and I, my younger son and I, we went to Chicago in eight in August, we were over there to watch the Blue Jays. They’re playing at Wrigley Field, which is rare because the Blue Jays are in the American League and the cubs are in the National League, and so they don’t play very often. So the opportunity to go watch the Blue Blue Jays and Wrigley was too tempting to pass up. But we went on this architectural river cruise on the Chicago River. And so they pointed out all these huge buildings, and they’re really impressive. Some of them are turn of the 19th century, or early 19th century, interspersed with like brand new, modern, really interesting architecture, the gold and the new but one of the things we stopped by was merchandise marked Well, have you ever seen the movie The Fugitive? It’s one of my favorite movies, and it says Harrison Ford, and he’s accused of killing his wife. And then,

Toban Dyck  01:12

so for those of you who’ve never seen the fugitive,

Jay Whetter  01:17

oh no, that’s right, that’s in the first scene.

Toban Dyck  01:19

Oh god, you’re not giving away. No, I’m not giving away anything. Okay, good.

Jay Whetter  01:22

So then he spends the rest of the movie solving his wife’s murder, because the police think he did it, and so they’re not even trying to solve it. So it’s so the premise is pretty cool, but so he said, in Chicago, the event happens in Chicago and and then he’s, he’s out in the countryside, and they don’t know where he’s gone. He’s on the lamb, and then he calls him and says, I didn’t kill my wife. Like, basically this phone call to the police, yeah. And they’re like, like, we don’t care. And but they then they play back the tape over and over, and they’re like, Okay, you know how they gathered around this room, or they’re listening to the tape, and they’re like, wait a second, go back to that bit, back up. And then they cut away all of the other extraneous sounds, and they can hear in the background the PA system for the L train, and it says, merchandise marked. And they and they say, Oh, our guys come back home kind of thing, yeah. And then ever since then, I’ve this. I Well, I love the movie. I’ve said this, yes, I’ve got this merchandise mark is kind of it’s a great movie. Always been in the back of my mind. So anyway, I just, I love the building, the cruise, if you go to Chicago, love the

Toban Dyck  02:32

cruise. I’ve heard, I’ve heard my wife’s done it. She can’t, yeah, yeah. She loved that. We had a

Jay Whetter  02:36

lot of fun. We were only there for two and a half days, saw two games of baseball, and then this, this cruise, and a couple other things, but there’s

Toban Dyck  02:43

a, there is a connection between Chicago and Winnipeg, right? Like, there’s like,

Jay Whetter  02:46

Chicago at the North That’s right,

Toban Dyck  02:49

yeah, that would be the connection. Yeah, yeah, no, very but you just using that as a vehicle to talk about your favorite movie, The Fugitive, which is also so the other day, my brother was over, and we were chatting about movies, and we were having a discussion about, like, what are they? Like, the funniest movies you’ve ever seen. And so in my head, and I haven’t watched this movie now for decades, but it’s a movie called Pure luck, and I think it’s, it’s Martin Short, oh yeah. And he shares the spotlight with. I forget who he does it with, but my memory of that movie is so, so funny, but I’d love to watch it now. What I still think it’s funny, just like the Dumb and Dumber, Dumb and Dumber, so dumb and dumber came up and like, you know, Step Brothers and you know, stuff like that. But also like those old Peter Sellers films like clue so yeah, like the Pink Panther or the party? You know, we don’t know the party, but I know the Pink Panther one. Yeah, I

Jay Whetter  03:46

don’t know if they hold up either, but Napoleon Dynamite is good, and it’s newer. Have you seen Napoleon Dynamite? I have. It’s good. A guy had a, I was at a on a work trip down to Fort Worth, and we went to this piano bar, these two guys. And then I, the guy pointed to me and said, I look like Napoleon Dynamite. How

Toban Dyck  04:04

did you feel about that? Very insulted. Yeah. See,

Jay Whetter  04:08

that is not a nice thing to say to somebody.

Toban Dyck  04:15

Jay, looks like Napoleon Dynamite. Did you do the dance?

Jay Whetter  04:18

Well, after watching Abby’s video of me running, I thought, okay, yeah, yeah, dynamite

Toban Dyck  04:27

esque. I love it. I love it. I got Seth Rogen once. Oh, yeah,

Jay Whetter  04:34

that’s a nice thing to say.

Toban Dyck  04:36

I was wearing, like, my thick rim glasses. And this is, like, this is probably 10 years ago.

Jay Whetter  04:40

Someone walks up to me at a pub, and I wish someone would say I looked like Seth Rogen.

Toban Dyck  04:44

I didn’t feel that way though I didn’t like but I think it’s like our natural impulse just to be like associate the worst qualities of that person now that we

Jay Whetter  04:52

just feel like you remind me of Steve Buscemi

Toban Dyck  04:56

right in my acting. Quality. He’s a great actor. Should we?

Jay Whetter  05:02

Should we move on?

Toban Dyck  05:03

Let’s get into it. I’m pretty excited about this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Whetter  05:07

We’re talking with Keith Downey, yeah, who

Toban Dyck  05:09

you know, and I don’t. So I’m really looking forward to Yes. Like, this is

Jay Whetter  05:13

the most bizarre introduction to a fantastic conversation with he’d be like Harrison Ford.

Toban Dyck  05:19

Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, onto

Jay Whetter  05:23

the podcast we have Keith Downey, one of the fathers of canola, who ties in really nicely with our sponsor, Sask oil seeds. A big thank you to saskoil seeds for all the support. We really, really appreciate it. We couldn’t do this podcast without SAS oil seeds and the support they’re providing us. And you know, if anybody else wants to step forward, we’d welcome their support as well. But for today, Sask oil seeds, yes, thank

Toban Dyck  05:48

you. Big thanks, yeah, yeah, onto the show. Thanks for listening today, and thanks to Sask oil seeds for sponsoring this episode, five nominations were received to fill four director positions on the newly formed Sask oil seeds board. An election will take place in November. All registered SAS canola and flax growers are encouraged to exercise their right to vote. Visit sascanola.com to view candidate. Bios, you Thank you. Thank you, Keith, for joining us. It’s a it’s a real honor. I gotta say when, when Jay said that we were able to interview you and the role that you’ve played, and what I’ve come to understand that you’ve played in the in the industry, it’s, it’s a true honor to be here chatting with you. And thank you so much for taking the time

Keith Downey  06:42

Well, thank you for

Jay Whetter  06:43

inviting me, Keith. You’re known as one of the fathers of canola. Yes. What does that mean? What

Keith Downey  06:49

does it mean? Well, I guess it means that I was there at its birth in Canada, at least, and that well from way back into when we had rapeseed, and the Father of canola refers to the first identification of fatty acid composition that was without the long chain fatty acids that characterized rapeseed oil and were considered to be nutritionally undesirable, and then the next problem was with rapeseed commercialization is that the meal contained sulfur compounds, and these were anti nutritional factors that resulted in poor weight gains and feed efficiencies for non ruminant animals. So we searched for material in rapeseed that might not have these and at Susten, we were able to find variety out of Poland that was low, and then we were able to breed to insignificant levels of These compounds and put the two together, and result was canola,

Jay Whetter  08:43

right? Okay, perfect. So we’re not going to go through the whole history of canola here. Yeah. So, so this is the 60s, and then into the 70s, you and Balder Stephenson together, as the two fathers developed low rustic acid, the fatty acid you mentioned, and low glucosinolates, which was that that anti nutritional compound you mentioned, mentioned that made canola suitable for both human on the oil side and animals on the feed side. But we want to pivot right away, right off the top, and ask you if you think we could have another canola today, like another, this type of of a revolution in in the crop rotation, and bringing another high value, high demand crop onto the Canadian Prairies. Could, could this all happen again?

Toban Dyck  09:34

And with, sorry, just to, just to add to that, just to add to today’s question, certainly, like you mentioned, doesn’t have to be canola. It could be, you know, a new crop in any, in any, in any,

Jay Whetter  09:45

yeah, a cereal or a pulse, for sure, yeah,

Keith Downey  09:49

yes, I think that’s possible. The the industry has to say, basically, what we want. You. And to make it commercially viable, sometimes they don’t know what they want, and that makes it interesting for the researcher, because he may have some ideas as to what they would like, but he has to go on his own and figure that out, and then take it to the to the industry that way. But yes, I think there could be some breakthroughs, particularly with the pulse crops, because they haven’t really had the long term breeding background that I think we’ve had in rapeseed, and there is a lot of variation there in terms of quality, and that I think could be exploited.

Jay Whetter  11:01

And do you think, Keith, that there is a need for a new, better or just an enhanced pulse crop on the prairies?

Keith Downey  11:09

Well, I think there’s potential for it. I don’t know about a new crop, but something with revised quality factor could be. But I’m, I’m not familiar enough with all the ramifications that are in the pulse crops at present time to you know, predict what those should be. But, yeah, there’s, potential for for crops. Triticale, of course, was a new one that came on the scene in the in the 70s, and so there’s always the possibility, particularly with interspecific crossing and gene transfer and gene editing to change the characteristics of all our major crops To where they may have more nutrition or yield or quality in various ways.

Toban Dyck  12:31

Yes, sorry, Jay, I actually hadn’t anticipated asking this question, but at the time, when you were pivotal in creating canola, will have been a very specific kind of regulatory environment, or a very specific arena where you researchers had very, perhaps a different relationship with industry than they do now. And do you do you have a sense of how that’s changed over, over time?

Keith Downey  12:57

Well, the regulations have got very much more complicated, particularly when we get into the gene transfer and gene editing aspect. But regulations got in the way very early on with our introduction of canola into the edible oil in Canada. I can give you an antidote on that. When we first introduced rapeseed, of course, it was an industrial crop in Canada and But Hank sells Dr Hank salmons and Bill White of the federal government. The Ag Canada and National Research Council both saw rapeseed as a possible edible oil for Canada. So when the when the war was over and the change over to from steam engines to diesel came in, the alternative was well export market for the seed or domestic market, and we were able to save the crop with the export market to into Europe and later Japan. But the push was on, really, from Saskatoon to get the oil utilized as a domestic edible oil. And the wheat pool in Saskatoon had a crushing plant. And. And they made arrangements with gatuso to have rapeseed oil marketed in combination with other oils like olive oil, and it began to be used a little bit in margarine making, and because the oil had a different fatty acid composition to all other edible oils with the long chain fatty acids, the nutritionists got interested in it and in in the University of in in London,

Jay Whetter  15:51

West Western University in London, Ontario, yeah, okay, yeah.

Keith Downey  15:55

Had rapeseed oil to rats. And behold, the rats didn’t do very well, particularly when they were under stress. And this information came to the attention of the health and welfare and they did some more experiments on rats and Jack Reynolds, who was at the in charge of quality at the wheat pool crushing plant, got a phone call at seven in the morning to say that this is health and welfare and you have to cease and de his the manufacture of rapeseed oil for edible purposes and remove everything from the shelf. And that was that was a shock. And so the pool got in touch with Mr. J Gordon Ross of Moose Jaw, who was the MP for Moose Jaw, and who was a good friend of Powell, who was a very powerful minister in Parliament, and who had been really the czar of prices and way and price and Something of the war effort, and so he had been initially involved in crushing rapeseed from the very beginning. This is Jay Gordon Ross So Jay Gordon went over to see the individual at health and welfare that issued the order, and the civil servant who did that said he was very busy and he couldn’t meet with Jay Gordon. So Jay Gordon sat in the office most of the afternoon, and when the individual left his office to go home, Jay Gordon took his arm and said, We need to go back in and have a discussion. And so Jay Gordon told the individual that rapeseed oil had been used in Europe all through the war and in Japan, it was the premium oil, and that in all of this, There had never been any concern raised with the edible oil usage of rapeseed oil, and that he’d better resend they ordered. And he did. And so that say that saved the crop. Keith, can

Jay Whetter  19:16

you because the timeline is interesting. When was this? Was this the 50s?

Keith Downey  19:23

Yeah, it would be the late 50s. Wow, yeah. I can give you the, I can give you the exact date and a lot more background for that if you, if you want Jack Reynolds recorded everything, and there is a well sort of a thesis in the University of Saskatchewan library.

Toban Dyck  19:53

So maybe we can link to that at some point. Yeah, Keith,

Jay Whetter  19:57

I want to, I want to come back to some of these characters you mentioned. Particularly Bill White as a pivotal person in this whole story. But I want to know a bit about you, and where were you at this time? So I think so. Bill White was World War Two, like, ish, like the 40s. Yeah,

Keith Downey  20:13

he was, he was before that.

Jay Whetter  20:16

But okay, what were you doing in 1940

Keith Downey  20:21

Well, I was in, I was in high school, and where was that in Saskatoon.

Jay Whetter  20:30

You’re in Saskatoon. Okay, so is Saskatoon your hometown? Yes, you were in high school in Saskatoon when Bill White was doing his thing. So obviously you didn’t know that you were going to be the father of Noah 30 years, 30 years later.

Keith Downey  20:47

But I I do remember hoeing the first rows that we received at the CFI, or, sorry, at the Dominion forage crops laboratory where Bill White was the was the senior was the

Jay Whetter  21:10

head, so you were some, some kid they hired to go out there and hold the weeds.

Keith Downey  21:15

Yeah, well, during Yes, during the war, they couldn’t find labor. And Bill White’s wife was a distant cousin of my mother, and so Bill asked my mother whether I could come out and help them. And so I got hired at 25 cents an hour for a 10 hour day, actually, when I was in, I think grade eight and and I I went back and worked for them every summer after that. So I was well familiar with the plots and and so on. And I also, I think I bagged the first rows of rapeseed that came into the country to self them at that at that stage,

Jay Whetter  22:25

that is amazing. So you have a really early connection. No, oh, yeah. Like, you’re not going to like me doing this, but I’m just doing some mental math here. So if you’re in grade eight or so around 1940 that means you must have been born in 1927 Oh, so you’re getting close to 100 This is the part. Well,

Keith Downey  22:51

yeah, it’s, it’s on the horizon.

Toban Dyck  22:56

That is, that is amazing. I’m just

Jay Whetter  22:57

amazed that you could, you can remember all these dates and names I

Keith Downey  23:01

can’t remember anyway. So yeah,

Toban Dyck  23:09

so in this, in this process of creating, I don’t know if you are you? Are you a sports fan? Keith? Do you watch hockey or,

Keith Downey  23:16

Oh yeah, not as not a rabid fan, but certainly the Rough Riders, sure, sure.

Toban Dyck  23:24

I think of, I think of when, when the whole scouting world targets a young athlete, and they, and they put all the mics and video cameras on that person, and they, they kind of treat him like a star before he is one, he or she is one. And I always think about the pressure that those kids are under to achieve what the world thinks they’re going to achieve. So when I think of you in your role, was there a moment when you thought we are on the cusp of something really big, and there, did you feel any tremendous pressure to see that through. And what did that look like for you?

Keith Downey  24:05

Well, the realization that something might be possible happened when I gave a talk at the AOCs American Oh say, chemist. Meeting and I got a prize for the best talk. They had a little tea ceremony at the station to celebrate this. And one of the colleagues came up to me and said, Well, what? What goals have you set for yourself? And I never really thought about that. It. And I said, Well, I’d like to make a contribution to a lasting contribution to agriculture in Saskatchewan and Canada, and not knowing that anything really would come of it. And I guess that was the first being put on the spot sort of thing to what are your ambitions, or what do you think you might like to do with your life? And so fortunately, and I’ve been lucky all my life. I think that was able to achieve a goal that I had set for myself.

Jay Whetter  25:49

Keith, did you write that goal down and pin it to your desk so you could look at it every day?

Keith Downey  25:56

I was too busy for that.

Jay Whetter  26:00

I ask you that because I’ve heard from from sort of business management specialists, that if you write down a goal, you’re more likely to achieve it. So I was wondering if you had ever written that goal down and used it as your guiding light. No, no.

Keith Downey  26:15

I probably forgot all about it after that, because things happen so fast, interestingly, you know, talk people talk about how they hate their job and so on. And I just found that I loved my job, and things really happened fast. If you really look at the timeline that we were able to achieve breakthroughs, I couldn’t wait to get to the office after I took a couple of days holidays or something, I had to and get get home Saturday, and I had to go to the office on Sunday to see what had happened while I was away. You know,

Jay Whetter  27:18

were you somewhat motivated by a friendly rivalry with Balder Steffensen. Was was part of it, that that you really he doesn’t want to No, no, no,

Keith Downey  27:30

no. Steph and I were friends, and we exchanged materials. For example, I think I sent him the liho because we had a collection, and he found the lower level of and I found the zeros, and that’s in the note that we joint published and and then when we found low glucosinolate material Bronowski, I sent him that right away. And yes, we were competitors, in a way, but we were very friendly competitors. So,

Jay Whetter  28:25

and you were Keith, you were with agriculture and agri food Canada in Saskatoon, yes, Balder Stephenson, the other father, was at the University of Manitoba.

Keith Downey  28:34

Yeah, yes. It’s interesting note that Steph was originally hired as a soybean breeder, and he very quickly determined that rapeseed had a much better future than trying to get soybeans to where they are today, which you can now grow soybeans in Western Canada.

Jay Whetter  29:04

Keith, you also had roots in pulses, right? Or it was, or is it alfalfa?

29:10

Alfalfa? Okay,

Jay Whetter  29:11

so, yeah, so a legume, but not a pulse, yeah,

Keith Downey  29:15

yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I started out as alfalfa breeder at the Lethbridge Research Station, and there we had a joint project in Lethbridge and Saskatoon. So in Saskatoon, Dr Bolton was the leader, and the objective there was to develop an alfalfa that was winter hardy and also resistant to. A root rot disease that was moving into western Canada very quickly, and we were very successful in doing that. And that’s beaver alfalfa. And when I looked at the recommended list back about 15 years ago, it was still on the recommended list, so I think we did a good job of bringing alfalfa there. And when Dr Bill White moved from the head of the lab Agriculture Canada lab in Saskatoon to be the dean of agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan. That left an opening and Dr Bolton, who was the alfalfa breeder there, moved into head of the lab, and I left an opening, and they called me back, and when I walked in the door, they said, you know more about this Little program on rapeseed than anybody else. So you take that and alfalfa breeding over? And I said, Oh, sure, I don’t. I’m always interested in in rapeseed. And a few years later, they came along and said, well, now are, are you an alpha, an alfalfa breeder. Are you a rapeseed breeder? I’m a rapeseed breeder. There’s lots of potential there, you know. So,

Toban Dyck  31:50

so our Jay and I’s whole thing here with this podcast, and kind of what we’re really interested in, a lot of things, of course, but extension, so, AG, agricultural extension is kind of what kind of drives these, lots of these conversations, and being able to take complex material and diffuse it or share it with a broader audience. I’ve had lots of discussions with with colleagues and friends. Daryl Dimitri from Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers. I know, he lent me a book that the University of Guelph used to publish on on as a textbook, a handbook on how to be an good ag extension is, you know, do good egg extension. And some of the lament is that this is, this has changed over the years, and it isn’t as big of a focus as it used to be. They don’t, they don’t teach it anymore in universities like they used to have you noticed that change and and maybe comment on that a little

Keith Downey  32:52

bit. Yes, I think that was a major concern when the extension department at the University of Saskatchewan, more or less disappeared, and that was that was a concern. But the Ag ag reps, as we called them, Saskatchewan became a pretty good source of information and tried to take over what, what the university used to do, the extension department really was very important to The University, because it sort of tied the population, or the certainly the rural population, very close to the university. And the university had a very strong cheerleader section from the farming population because of that, and I think they lost some of the advantages when the when the extension department disappeared.

Toban Dyck  34:18

So one of the things is when I look at extension and chat with somebody with with your experience. Do you have a sense of what is a really effective way to extend information, like in your years? What has been? What has been most Yeah, what has been most effective?

Keith Downey  34:39

Well, the province of Saskatchewan used to publish a booklet which was fairly thick on agricultural matters, and it had a. Uh, you know, all the recommended varieties it had, what information on tractors and and all the basic information that a farmer at that time would be looking for to manage his operation to the best of his ability. I don’t whether that really exists anymore. A lot of what I’ve seen happening is that advice to farmers has been commercialized, and you have team leaders or or coaches or whatever, on a on a paid basis, and that’s that’s an industry now. Is that the best way to do it? I don’t know. I i saw very early on in in Chile that all the farmers down there had their own personal managers, basically because they were big operations, and I’ve and that’s what’s happening here. And we’ve got big operators, and they can’t know all that they need to know. And so they have got a coach, and that helps them with the management and certainly reduces the stress. And I think it’s working, but it’s it’s an extra cost on farm operations, which didn’t used to be there, but because the farms are so big, they need this, and I guess it’s an effective way to bring management.

Toban Dyck  37:21

Yeah, Keith, I

Jay Whetter  37:22

want to, I want to build on that farmer need, and come back to a few topics. And right back to our opening question is, could, could we have another canola? And I, I think it’s really interesting how canola came about, and that it seemed like it was not necessarily government driven, although there were lots of government staff on board, but, but it was filling a market need on the prairies, we needed another significant cash crop. And I feel like we’re, are we? I think like we’re in that mode now. And maybe it’s, maybe it’s a pulse crop for rotation purposes. So, so maybe there’s a need there for a pulse crop that could fit in there between oil seeds and cereals that has a big market push, that is easy to grow. So, so where would would you start with farmers then? And the farmer need is that? Well, the beginning.

Keith Downey  38:18

Well, I think you’ve got as far as western Canada is concerned, I think you’ve got an example that’s emerging at the present time, and that’s soybeans, I mean. And that really development came about because of the work that was done in Ottawa and ag, Canada and Ottawa, where breeding for early maturity was was the goal and and the the industry has taken That germplasm and built on it to where we now have the possibility that soybeans could be a major crop in Western Canada, and that, you know, it’s been a long time coming, but you know When I mentioned that Steph was hired as as a soybean breeder. So you look at the timeline there, and it’s, it’s, it’s been a very long time to bring that about, but it’s, it’s coming, and it’s probably going to be made even more environmentally changed so that, or at least it changed so that our environment can allow soybeans. To be extended, to be where it’s a major crop,

Jay Whetter  40:08

so I wanted to build from that. So now we’ve identified the need there and the possibility back in the canola days, the way you’re seeing, me to describe it, you had collaboration across provincial boundaries. You also had collaboration between, you know, public sector researchers like you and Balder Stephenson. It was really interesting how your story about Jay Gordon Ross, the OLC processor, there Moose Jaw jumping in to keep the momentum. But so how? And this is where I wanted to come back to Bill White. How important is it to have a champion or leader like one, one or two key people with a vision to push forward?

Keith Downey  40:56

Oh, I think that’s always crucial in the introduction of any technology, and usually, you can find the right person in the right place at the right time.

Toban Dyck  41:16

You don’t

Keith Downey  41:17

know where they are and you didn’t select them to begin with. They they have to be ready, and they have to be visionary. I think so. I’ve met a lot of people like that in my day, and sometimes it works out for them, and sometimes it doesn’t, but if you don’t have a leader, it’s not going anywhere. As long as there’s potential and somebody sees it, they’re not going to let go of it, and they’re going to drive it, and hopefully they have the the personality to make that goal. You have to you can’t be a loner. If you’re going to drive something, you’ve got to be a cooperator, and you have to build a community. Because today, even in my time, you don’t do it all alone. You’ve got to have a team, and that team, you know, the we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, either Steph or I, if it hadn’t been for the three people at the National Research Council, Bert, Craig Claire, Young’s and Les wetter, they were the ones that researched and developed new techniques to be able to search for the lower rusic and glucosinolate and the low glucosinolate, these were entirely new processes. And bird Craig took his PhD in, I think was Minnesota in chemistry, and came back and introduced gas chromatography. It was a brand new methodology, and NRC built their own instrument. And prior to that, to be able to find out what the chain length of the various fatty acids were in an oil took a pound of seed and a week’s time for A technician to do one sample, and that only gave you chain length, and so it wasn’t possible to breed for fatty acid composition efficiently with that, and Burt was able to first get the gas chromatograph, which gave you the fatty acid composition of an oil within 20 minutes, and then we finally got it down to to less than five and and the sample size half a seed. Uh. So you, you analyzed it all from half a seed, and you grew the other half if it, if it had the composition that you were looking for.

Jay Whetter  45:11

I really like that. You brought up that story, Keith, because I because when you told it to me the first time a number of years ago, I just thought, This is amazing. So

Toban Dyck  45:17

I gotta, I gotta dig a jump in here. So you said you mentioned somebody less wetter. So I’m going to turn the tables to Jay here as Jay wetter. And is he holding back on us? And is he actually part of this story in a way that he hasn’t been truthful about any connection? The

Jay Whetter  45:39

spelling is not the same. I don’t think, I don’t think he has an H in his name, if

Keith Downey  45:43

I recall, no, no, he doesn’t. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  45:47

but this, but this, this half seed technique. Keith, right. So, I mean, this is getting into the weeds a little bit with some of this chemistry, which, but it is, it is a pivotal point in the development of canola. Is that if we couldn’t do this gas spectrometry, or whatever that word was he used, we couldn’t tell whether the new oil had low or no arousic acid. We needed this test, and then we needed it to be fast, and then this half seed. I’m not going to ramble on about this, but this, this half, this half seed idea, where you you shave off kind of the top end of the seed study, that oil, but you kept the embryo because it was a bit like finding a needle in a haystack, wasn’t it? Is that? So if this was the one seed that had that trait, you didn’t want to destroy it, you wanted to be able to grow it again. Well,

Keith Downey  46:39

it was critical for the development of lower rusic Polish type or B brass garpa, because brass rapa is out crossing it, whereas napis is self polling to a large degree, about 80% so you couldn’t use the same technique that you could use in napis, because if you found a seed in Rappa, that was the right composition, you had destroyed it and, and there wasn’t any self seed to go back to to say, Okay, I’ve got this particular line that I can now multiply up and and bring forward, because the in Rappa, it would have that plant would have out crossed to everything else, and you start all over again, and you never get anywhere. So the the answer was, can we? Can we break off a cotyledon on the seed and analyze the oil from that half seed, and then we wrap the other half with the other cotyledon and the growing point And the root in a moist paper to germinate, and then once we ran the sample and found what we were looking for, which was that one seed, we had something to go back to and propagate, and So that that was critical for bringing the brass garpa. That was possible because we discovered that the oil composition in the developing seed is controlled by the developing embryo and is not contributed by the mother plant, which is the normal way you would expect it to happen, like the glucosinolates, for example, are all contributed into the sea by the mother plant, but with the fatty acid composition that was controlled by the developing Gambit. We were chatting

Toban Dyck  49:31

before this interview a little bit, and I know Jay will probably get here on his own, but I wanted to jump in in developing canola I’m assuming you had some engagement with farmers, and there was some interaction between like getting them to adopt a new crop. Do you have experience? Did you can you talk a little bit about that? Were there challenges along the way, in getting in, getting in, getting grower participation in this new. New innovation?

Keith Downey  50:02

Well, no, actually, we changed over the crop from high rusic to low rusic in two years. And I don’t think any change in crop ever happened so fast and so complete. They really wanted the market possibilities that that rapeseed presented to them, and they didn’t. They didn’t want to lose that market, and so they were very encouraging that way. Yeah, and it was rapeseed was very important to many farmers, particularly those in the northern areas, because at the time, you had the Wheat Board, and the Wheat Board sent established quotas for wheat delivery, and wheat was The major crop, of course, at that time and that those quotas were okay for southern areas where farms were bigger, but in the northern area where the yield was higher and The farms were smaller, they couldn’t make any profit with the Wheat Board quotas, they could only deliver a small amount of what they produced. So when rapeseed came along, which was a cast crop, and they could deliver it off the combine the northern growers. That was a lifesaver, and it continued to be that way until the demise of the wheat guard. It almost sold itself. And the other thing that occurred, of course, was that the domestic crushers said, don’t deliver any hybrid material to us. We’re going to check it and we’ll turn you back if you don’t. So the farmer said, Well, I can either sell it to the export or I can sell it domestically. But I’m not sure which will be the best deal for me, so I’d better grow the lower rusic and and then I’m safe I can deliver it to the export market, over to the local Crusher. So that also really spearheaded the changeover. Do

Jay Whetter  53:13

you have another question on those lines, because I want to pivot to something else.

Toban Dyck  53:17

What do you want to pivot to? I

Jay Whetter  53:19

might ask into keyspray a little bit.

Toban Dyck  53:21

Isn’t that what this whole hour has been about? Anyway, I do have one more question. I like to chat like, so the name canola, you know, I, you know, I think do walk through that process. Were there challenges along the way? Was there a bit of like a eureka moment, when you, when you, when you put the words together and it made sense, and it just landed. Well,

Keith Downey  53:44

well, that’s an interesting area. Okay, when, when we got the first varieties of lower Rusik? Well, actually, before, yeah, the first varieties at the very beginning, we said, well, we need to analyze this and crush it and show to our customers that this is what is an advantage, and that it crushes the same way and it handles the same way, and so you don’t have to worry about changing your processes. And so to do that, we multiplied the seed and down in California and brought it back so we had an extra season of growth and could multiply it by. You know, the multiplication in in rapeseed, in canola, is about. 1000 to one, whereas with wheat, you have a much, much lower so you have to do several multiplications before you can really extend the distribution across the country. So we took that initial multiplication, and we gave part of it to the seed growers, and part of it to the crushing companies. And the meeting that we had with all the players at that time, we said to the crushers, you go over into the corner there and sort out who’s going to crush it, because we didn’t have enough to give everybody one. And so they did that, and they crushed the seed, and then the oil went to Canada packers for analysis and and assessment, because they were the only company that had a lab quality lab that was capable of analyzing in and assessing where this would fit in the in the commercial use of lower rustic oils and and the meal milk Bill arranged with nutritionists all over the in the university that were interested, and he sent out samples to the various universities, the nutritionists, the swine people and the poultry people and so on and so from the oil perspective, it went to Canada packers. Canada packers took a look at it and said, Hey, this is really interesting. This could be a very good cooking oil or salad oil. And they said, We’ll patent it. And they did, and all the industry said you can’t do that. You were part of a research organization, and we depended upon you to service Canada’s interests, and the patent is still there. But they said we won’t enforce it, but we need to classify it. And they came up with the name Canberra, c a n for Canada, and b r A for brassica. And I was given the responsibility to put this where it wouldn’t be trademarked, and so I put it in the public domain. What I didn’t realize was that that didn’t cover the company name. And a company, I think it was in Eastern Canada, decided, hey, we’ll call ourselves Canberra, and Canberra exists today, and that killed the name. Well, they let it drop. But then when we got the lower glucosinolate, plus the lower rusic into what we call canola today, it wasn’t long before the industry got tired of saying, I’ve got some low rustic, low glucosinolate rapeseed for you. And so the crushing industry came together and said, We need new name. And so the committee there retained the the Canada C, a n, and added on Ola. And of course, there’s a lot of discussion as to where the OLA came from, and it just sounded like oil. And gatuso used to have a have rapeseed oil that they called, I’ve forgotten what they called, but it ended in Ola. Yeah, that was what was told to me, that it sounded like oil, and there’s Mazola, and there’s a couple of oils that have Ola at the end. And so I think as far as I could learn, that’s where canola came from.

Toban Dyck  1:00:27

Yeah, that’s very interesting, Keith, I

Jay Whetter  1:00:29

want to ask you this is so back to, you know, could there be another canola? And this is what I wanted to tap into your brain a little bit you talked about, you know, the next leader, the next champion, you know, having the right characteristics. But what would your advice be to to the next Keith Downey, some young high school kid out weeding, weeding plots of some some new crop, or someone breeding alfalfa, and realize no, the opportunity is, is in this new crop. What would your advice be to that young, new Keith Downey,

Keith Downey  1:01:15

be ready. You gotta be you gotta be ready. You got to read widely. You got to keep your mind open, and you got to see behind beyond the next year or five or 10 years, to visualize what could be possibility. So yeah, and hopefully you’re in the right place at the right time. That’s critical. Of course,

Toban Dyck  1:01:58

you have another question, don’t you? I mean, I have a million more questions, but I understand go for it. So we talked a little bit about soybeans. It, you know, it’s become a fairly significant crop, especially in, you know, growing in western, Western Canada, big in Manitoba, obviously, canola has such a strong Canadian identity, a in its name, and B, it just, it’s just managed to kind of be a strong association with, with Canada. I think my gut is some of these other crops, because they’re traded on such a global basis. You know, we’re, you know, soybeans were Brazil, and you know, we’re us big producers. Is, do you have advice for how could we make some of these crops, some of these huge crops, more Canadian than they are? Is there a way to kind of achieve that kind of Canadian identity that that was achieved with canola?

Keith Downey  1:02:54

I don’t know. I’ve never thought of the need for that? Yeah, rapeseed, of course, was growing well before it came to Canada. It was very important prop to Sweden, for example, over the war years and and, of course, it’s become very important in in France and Germany and Britain, and has always been a major crop, or at least it before The war was a major crop in Japan and and and China. So it it became a Canadian Well, it was a Canadian invention thanks to bird Craig and Claire Young’s and Les wetter had the who had the knowledge and and curiosity and to come up with, with new processes that had never been available before to examine and research oil seeds.

Jay Whetter  1:04:27

Keith, you, you, you’re still involved. Yeah, I’m not sure whether you ever consider yourself to have retired. Why? Why do you why do you keep yourself so engaged in the industry, oh,

Keith Downey  1:04:44

because so interesting. And there’s never a dull moment with canola. There’s always something happening that sometimes. Sometimes it’s not a good thing, but it’s happening, and you have to pay attention to it, or something bad might happen. No, it’s it just so interesting that I keep reading and and I keep watching, and I keep hoping that we’re going to be able to keep up with the with canola, because Canola is almost be too successful for its own good. We lay out smorgasbord there for all those insects and diseases that just love operating in canola. So on your toes.

Jay Whetter  1:05:56

One other thing you keep doing is you keep communicating and and we really appreciate you joining us. Is there when you agreed to be on this, this podcast with Toban and with me? Was there one thing that you wanted to say that you haven’t had a chance to say yet?

Keith Downey  1:06:14

Well, there’s one story that you might be interested in, and that’s how did we come to be growing Braska wrapper or Polish type on 75% of the canola acreage in the early years? Where did it come from? And there’s a whole story

Toban Dyck  1:06:40

that’s for our next interview. Thank you. So that was like, That was incredible. It is always kind of, is this is poignant, right? I mean, chatting with people who are in their 90s and who have led, you know, careers like Keith has and are still sharp and engaged and open minded is to me, always, you know, I have, I have a grandfather like that. It was in his 90s. He was very similar, right? He’s, he still reads and, you know, interested in exploring ideas. I love it.

Jay Whetter  1:07:33

Cares deeply about the success of the canola industry. It’s so it wasn’t a job for him, No, it was his life. No, and I love that. I think if we’re going to have a champion for any aspect of agriculture, we need people to come forward who just live and breathe the success of agriculture on the prairies, like Keith, yeah.

Toban Dyck  1:07:54

No, I, I agree. And just, you know how it was, how he talks about his team, or not, he would never even say his team. I’m attributing words that he never used the team, right, like he was part of this group and and his crisp memory of, you know, he admitted that some things fade over time, but the names of the people that he worked with to develop this are, you could tell are crisp and like they are there in his head, for sure.

Jay Whetter  1:08:27

I like this notion that I don’t know maybe it was, it was lots of government people, but it seemed like it was a grassroots thing, to use that stale word, but it was like it needed to happen, like it was something that kind of brewed on the prairies, and these people were helping make it happen. But it wasn’t like it was a government directive to say we must do this. It was, it kind of grew out of necessity.

Toban Dyck  1:08:54

Yeah, and that’s really, I’m glad you brought that up, so that strong connection between that the market need and the cropping decisions farmers were making, right? So they they saw the need, the opportunity was obviously clear to them, and so it was no issue. He said, to get them to grow, to grow this crop, because it was so clearly meeting that need. And I would love to know if that could be, you know, replicated today, is it? Could we make, could we make that connection between, you know, any advancements, whether it’s a new crop or just a new trait introduced into an existing one, and that and that market need and the opportunity, right? And I feel like that’s a that’s a that was a really, that was a really interesting point, along with the whole idea of needing strong characters, yeah, so the whole idea like that, like, you know, that oil, the you know, the the crop, had its challenges, right? Like, there was, there was these, these rats that weren’t, that weren’t dealing with it well, but to get that champion in and say, come in. Just be that strong spokesperson for an oil that it is the J Gordon Ross, that’s right. I wrote down. He said, Nope, that’s

Jay Whetter  1:10:07

not good enough. We’re, we’re going forward. It’s people have been eating it for years, millennia, probably in other parts of the world. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  1:10:15

how critical that pivot, like that point was for the crop, right? Yeah, right, right? And so that could have just what was, what was that? Was that a? Was that a, like a bar conversation with a with a regulator? Or was it a, was it a scheduled meeting? Or was it

Jay Whetter  1:10:30

and he just sat well, he sat outside that guy’s desk or office all day, and he was leaving, was not what it was. And then he just pulled him aside and said, No, we’re going back in there and we’re this is enough, enough of that, yeah, like that, that,

Toban Dyck  1:10:42

that, that, to me, is so pivotal, right? That’s such a because if that didn’t happen, could we, could, could we rewrite that history? But history

Jay Whetter  1:10:51

have been rewritten, yeah, not for that one person in that one act, yeah? Again, how

Toban Dyck  1:10:56

many moments like that are key, or kind of, or kind of, the characterize innovations, right? Where you have, you know, it was whole nine on a shot three, or my, you know, pitching wedge out. And I was chatting with so and so about, you know, you know, you know, that kind of stuff, right? Not to be golf, but whatever, yeah, that was quite fascinating. Yeah, also, and feel free to interject here, because I feel like you have a lot to say, because my first time meeting Keith, you know, you know him. So the other thing was, when we talked about extension, and he said they just in, they used to make that book, yeah, that booklet that had, you know, variety information, tractor. So obviously, like technology or implements and information and kind of all you’d need to grow, grow the crop. And I think I got the sense that they would produce this on a regular basis. And I’ve thought about that like, I’ve had conversations with people about about kind of, re introducing that kind of thing. There’s, there’s a strong bent to say that that’s done like, given the current media climate. But I would, I would counter that, and I’d say it’s a gap that, that, that they’re, you know, that could be, could be filled,

Keith Downey  1:12:16

right? Yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:12:17

well, I think if, if we think of the extensionists as a podcast with great thinkers, great leaders in agriculture, yeah, we just had one of those conversations.

Toban Dyck  1:12:29

Also the story about the name Canberra, yeah, and like, how that patent still exists. I’m like, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe everybody knows that. Maybe everybody knows that. But I got the sense it was like, Oh, this is gold. But did you was that all familiar to No,

Jay Whetter  1:12:44

well, I might have heard that Canberra part before, but I’d forgotten about that. So good. So actually, so we might be growing Canberra, if not for that instead of canola, has such a nice ring to it.

Toban Dyck  1:13:00

I mean, his connection to the pulse industry also is very interesting, and how he saw real opportunity there, in terms of a new Colin

Jay Whetter  1:13:08

Baldur Stefansson starting in soybeans, right?

Toban Dyck  1:13:11

Yeah. Thanks for listening today, and thanks to SaaS seeds for sponsoring this episode, an exciting new event is coming to Saskatchewan mid January. The SAS crops forum will include commission, annual general meetings, four keynote sessions, plus extensive networking opportunities. Registration opens November, 1 visit sascanola.com to learn more.

Jay Whetter  1:13:40

This has been a burr forest group production. We also want to thank the people you don’t see.

Toban Dyck  1:13:44

We’re here. We’re chatting away with our guests, but there’s tons of people who work behind the scenes to make this podcast happen.

Jay Whetter  1:13:51

Ryan Sanchez,

Toban Dyck  1:13:52

our director, Ashley Robinson, is the coordinator, and Abby walls, our

Jay Whetter  1:13:56

producer and editor. Thank you for listening. We are the extensionists conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. My name is Jay wetter and I’m Toban Dyck till next time you.