Grants and Contributions

Participation in the Canadian agtech mission and the GreenTech Amsterdam June 10 to 14, 2024. Delegation led by the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) to establish relationships with key customers, end-users, investors and other international firms, and to develop international partnerships and potential project ideas under the Eureka, Eurostars, and Cluster Programs.

Develop digital adoption plan

This project is designed to enhance Upper Canada Growers ability to document the movement of plant materials, primarily produced in-house but also purchased, throughout their growth until final sale as nursery product or further into Orchard plantings for fruit production. Implementation of this program will allow us to improve our metrics and efficiency by giving us more reliable access to key information across all verticals. This will aid not only in traceability, but our inventory and costing processes as we will be able to view data relating to different value stages and product movement in real time.

This project aims to purchase and install a precision variable rate irrigation / fertigation system.

We would like to hire this candidate as she has extensive expertise in tissue culture and will allow our company to more efficiently complete protocols to be able to produce a greater number of products via in vitro propagation. The knowledge she brings from her graduate work and subsequent industry experience will inform her ability to adapt existing protocols to similar plants that we have had less than ideal results with thus far. In turn, we will provide the opportunity for application of her skills and further development of new, transferrable skills within a broader variety of products and increased volume of production - adding valuable industry experience to her credentials.

Micropropagated plants are physiologically different from normal plants as they have reduced photosynthetic activity, lower wax deposits, poorly functioning stomata, underdeveloped root systems and few leaf and root hairs. These deficiencies can be overcome by inoculating explants with beneficial bacteria. Bacteria provide biological hardening which accelerates the speed of plant production as well as inducing lignification, stimulating stomata function, and thereby reducing water loss, enhancing photosynthetic capacity, etc. The technology can double the rate of tissue culture production and thereby reduce costs. It increases plant survival after transplantation from tissue culture conditions, as well as enhancing the overall quality of th

Development of tissue culture protocol for sweet cherry by analyzing the factors that inhibit proliferation and by optimizing conditions that will allow successful and sustained growth of sweet cherry cultivars.

Using tissue culture technology to produce virus indexed grapevines for the wholesale market, thereby increasing growers’ ability to mitigate crop loss due to pathogens.

This project is designed to enhance Upper Canada’s plant propagation efficiency of producing high quality plants in tissue culture. The 3-D printed platform for growing cultures in both solid and liquid medium at the same time combined with optimized light will increase multiplication of heathy plants.

This project aims to develop the ‘micro graft’ technology for apple tree using tissue culture raised rootstocks and scion plants. Completion of this project will enable Upper Canada Growers to reduce the cost of propagation and enhance efficiency of tree production with significant economic advantages, job creation in Ontario, and expansion in international markets.