b'SEED GROWER PROFILEHolmstrom Seed Farm: Family and Integrity FirstPrinciples and focus on relationships keep the people at HolmstromSeed Farms workingand singingin harmony.FARMERS COME IN two types: those who farm to live, and those who live to farm. Killam, Alta.-based seed grower Darrell Holmstrom is entirely the second. Though he has logged a full three and a half decades in the certified seed business, hes just as excited about this years harvest as hes ever been. You dont know until youre actually out there. It can look good when youre walking the field, but you just dont know until its actually coming down, he says. We had rain and rain and rain, but the barley looks incredible, and Im amazed at the quality in the peas. I just want to get into it so we can see how some of our newer varieties did. Holmstrom has been growing pedigreed seed since 1985. Today, he grows 950 acres of pedigreed wheat seed, 350 acres of pedigreed barley, 330 acres of pedigreed green peas, and a few acres of both pedigreed oats and flax, as well as hybrid canola. Hes particularly excited to be growing a new midge-tolerant CWRS wheat called AAC Wheatland. Unlike full-sized Unity, which he tried in 2010/2011 but found it had so much straw itFarming is a family affair at Holmstrom Seed Farms. In the above photo is Ryan kept the soil cold long into the following spring, AAC Wheatlandand Rebecca Steel. Rebecca is Holmstroms youngest daughter.is a strong-strawed semi-dwarf.We got amazing yields out of Unity. Amazing. But then we had frozen canola the next year, so it ended up costing money. What I like about Wheatland is that its yield potential is incredible, it stood up well through this years rain, and it doesnt have the straw mass of Unity, so its not going to hold cold in the ground, he says. Watch for AAC Wheatland to launch in the fall of 2020. He also grows ACC Elie, an early season, high yielding, semi-dwarf CWRS with good fusarium head blight resistance, and ACC Redberry, an early maturing, high yield and high protein full-size CWRS. Last year was a dry year, so a lot of Redberry got lodged in this years rains because of a carryover of fertilizer. It was pretty high-yielding, but you have to be careful about overfeeding Redberry. Elie, you can feed pretty heavy, so that was probably a better fit this year.Holmstroms barley acreage is divided between three varieties. The newest is CDC Fraser, a 2-row malting barley, which is impressing him so far with its tremendously highAlberta seed grower Darrell Holmstrom.yields and decent standability. That said, this is just year one 42seed.ab.ca'