Photo description:

Summer student Rylen Brown pitchforks straw into plastic bins so the straw can be used to cover plots in the barley nursery at the Brandon Research and Development Centre on Wednesday. According to James Tucker, a research scientist at the Brandon RDC, the straw will provide spores to create disease within the barley plots so that he and his team can study the plots and find barley strains with natural resistance to spot blotch, a common barley disease. The nursery consists of 12,000 plots. Spot blotch can limit barley yield and affect the quality of the grain. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)