The Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame honoured four new inductees in Portage la Prairie last week for their significant and lasting contributions to the province's ag industry.

The induction ceremony highlighted four individuals, including Weldon Newton of Neepawa, Gordon McPhee of Dauphin, the late Selma Maendal of Portage la Prairie, and the late Jack Parker of Winnipeg.

Maendal, who passed away in 2014, is the first Hutterite to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Her family, respresented by sister, Dora Maendal, was honoured to accept the award on her behalf.

"Her agricultural connection was in connection with computers," Maendal's sister explains. "She set up an ITV system that has to do with computers, and she did a lot of her work in computers."

Maendal also developed Farm History Manager software for recording and maintaining crop records. In addition, she used her organizational and computer skills as part of a schizophrenia research project conducted by the University of Pittsburgh, for which she appeared as a co-author in the American Journal of Pyschiatry.

The Agricultural Hall of Fame notes, "Selma's look into the Hutterite community and its contribution to agriculture in Manitoba," has been published and deemed as a success.

The other inductees' work is not to be understated, as the three other gentlemen made significant contributions, particularly in terms of soil science.

McPhee is known as one of the pioneers of zero-till in the province, a practice which he says took a little while to catch on.

"I used to jokingly say that in the beginning -- because we were doing something different -- the neighbours would take a Sunday afternoon drive to see if our fields would get like the pavement they drove on. But it didn't go that way," he says. "It was an interesting time, and I worked with many other people throughout Manitoba and North Dakota (in zero till)."

Parker, who was honoured posthumously, also worked with soils, serving as the province's first soils specialist for Manitoba Agriculture, beginning in 1946. He was also commissioned to direct and supervise soils, crops, forage, horticulture, and weed control services when the Minister of Agriculture created the Soils and Crops Branch in 1954.

This year's fourth inductee, Newton, majored in soil science at the University of Manitoba, and then went on to run the family hog farm, as well as serve on provincial boards, including Keystone Agricultural Producers, of which he was president for two years.

This year marks the 39th induction ceremony for the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame. The gallery is located at the Keystone Centre in Brandon.