Agriculture & Agri-food

Canola is the largest field crop in Canada, generating $30 billion in annual economic output.  However, Over the past 10 years, yield of this crop has been stagnant due to narrow genetics, lack of new yield trait technology, and is further threaten by recent years of frequent drought and heat stresses in the Canadian Prairies.  […]

ABAzyne Bioscience Inc. is a Saskatchewan-based Canadian agriculture technology company commercializing ABA Boost, a proprietary analog of the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA). ABA Boost enhances plants’ natural stress-response pathways to improve cold and frost tolerance, reduce reliance on fuel-intensive frost-protection equipment, and improve water-use efficiency in high-value perennial crops such as wine grapes and

This project advances agricultural clean technology by developing a sustainable controlled-release nitrogen fertilizer that improves the delivery of nutrients to crops. Conventional fertilizers, particularly urea, are widely used but inefficient, with only 30–35% of applied nitrogen absorbed by plants. The remainder is lost to the environment, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, water contamination, and soil

Vive Crop Protection uses nanoparticle encapsulation for efficient and environmentally friendly pesticide delivery. Synthetic pesticides are anticipated to face increasing regulatory hurdles, and we aim to future-proof our business by developing novel biopesticide products.  RNA-based biopesticides enable pest-specific targeting by shutting down critical genes found only in the pests’ genomes, making them harmless to other

Why is this research important to Alberta? With climate change, Canadian canola yields are increasingly threatened by heat during flowering, with temperatures above 28 °C causing 10–30% yield losses. This threatens farm profitability and the stability of Canada’s $43 billion canola industry. The project addresses key challenges by: Developing and testing a method to identify

Why is this research important to Alberta? Protecting Canada’s highly threatened grasslands through managed grazing, maintaining ecosystems while supporting ranch profitability. Reducing methane emissions from beef cattle using genomics, fecal microbiome analyses, and adaptive grazing strategies. Enhancing grassland soil carbon sequestration by integrating soil microbiome and plant metabolomics data to guide grazing practices. Identifying drivers

The global demand for food is expected to increase by 35–50% by 2050. To meet this demand and alleviate strain on agriculture, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are increasingly applied to oilseeds and cereal crops to maximize yields. However, nitrogen fertilizer contributes to nitrous oxide emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) that is approximately 300 times more

The Canadian dairy industry has committed to a Dairy Net-Zero Pledge by 2050, with a 30% reduction milestone by 2030.  This project seeks to implement a multifaceted approach to lowering dairy industry emissions inventory by an ambitious 55%. To achieve this, the goal of this project is to deliver a roadmap for greenhouse gas (GHG)