PUBLISHED BY MANITOBA BEEF PRODUCERS
JUNE 2026
Chef Anna Hymers recently visited Winnipeg’s Maples Collegiate to cook along with grade-11 and 12 students from the foods and nutrition program. See what she had to say about the experience in her column on page 12. (Photo courtesy: David Hultin/MBP)
Building a Forage-Efficient Cow? BY: MARY-JANE ORR, MANITOBA BEEF AND FORAGE INITIATIVES
$ Finance a new camper, boat, vehicle, or trip, and you could get up to three months of payments covered. Connect with a Sunrise lender to enter. *Some conditions apply. Three (3) winners will be selected, one (1) per Sunrise district. Each winner will receive either three (3) months of payments or up to $3,000 in payments, whichever is less. Winner financing must be approved to qualify. Deadline to qualify July 31, 2026. See branch for details.
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first cycle every year which grows to 50 per cent of the mother’s weight prior to weaning. To better understand Asai-Coakwell’s research, we need to PUBLISHED IN STEINBACH, re-examine an MANITOBA, CANADA important and highly valued measurement in cattle production: gain. page 5
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to its environment. Assessing this information will provide a roadmap to farmers hoping to maximize their herd’s ability to produce healthy calves, wean those calves and produce more calves in the following seasons. The Forage Efficient Cow Project is building upon previous knowledge – including data sets gathered by Manitoba Beef & Forage Initiatives – to help producers select the cattle that best work within their system. Considerations include the mature cow frame, weight, how well she maintains body condition over the year and her ability to produce a calf in the
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To increase profitability in all herd management situations, researchers are developing a new tool to maximize reproductive efficiency. Their work is also changing the very definition of an efficient cow. “Is there a difference in the genome of those cows,” asks Mika Asai-Coakwell, lead researcher for the Forage Efficient Cow Project at the University of Saskatchewan. “Our interest is to study and identify those host genetic factors that contribute to the phenotypic factors.” Simply, the Forage Efficient Cow Project is exploring how the genetics of a particular cow react