Industry partners: BC Greenhouse Growers’ Association
B – Project Description: objective, duration, value of the project for Canada and China, Outcome expected
Consumer demand for nutritious vegetables is growing. The goal of this project is to develop ways to improve the nutritional quality of greenhouse-grown tomatoes. The study is examining the effects of specific environmental growing conditions and short-term environmental stress on nutritional composition (vitamins, antioxidants, pigments), flavour, and shelf-life of hydroponic greenhouse tomatoes. Changes in fruit nutritional quality due to environmental conditions are being related to the underlying molecular biology as well as to subtle changes in plant function such as growth rate and water uptake (detected with novel monitoring techniques). Since organically-grown vegetables are an increasingly important part of the Canadian diet, organic fertilizer regimes are also being developed to promote higher nutritional quality in greenhouse-grown organic tomatoes. Finally, integrated fruit quality models are being developed to provide a better understanding of nutritional quality in relation to environmental growing conditions and the physiology of the crop.
The project will benefit both Canada and China in providing new growing systems to produce healthier food. It will also provide China with a student not only well-trained in scientific methods, but with knowledge of advanced greenhouse growing systems. The project is 4 years in duration.
C – Internship: Describe the internship program, the expected student qualifications, and the benefits to student
Cloning, reconstructing and function analyzing of the genes and promoters related to late blight resistance and starch biosynthesis in potatoes. Expression analysis of resistant genes and starch biosynthesis genes in different development stages of potato tubers. We employ the latest biotechnologies, such as iRNA interference for gene identification, isolation, expression and transformation in potatoes.
The works should be part of his/her Ph. D thesis. Accomplishment of the research will extend their scientific knowledge and work skills in the areas of biotechnologies, DNA and RNA techniques, genomics, molecular and developmental genetics.
PROJECT ID : 2009_Agassiz_02
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PROJECT TITLE: Diversity of bacterial community in chicken and their environment
Internship location in Canada:
Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre (PARC)
Agassiz, British Columbia
Internship Duration:
12-24 months
Contact: Moussa Sory Diarra
Email: diarram@agr.gc.ca
Phone: 1-604-796-1728
Mailing address: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre,
Supervisor of the student: Dr. Moussa Sory Diarra, Sustainable Production System
The Science Director: Dr. Barry Grace
Other AAFC scientists: Dr. Ed Topp, AAFC in London, Ontario
University partners: François Malouin, University of Sherbrooke
Industry partners:
B – Project Description: objective, duration, value of the project for Canada and China, Outcome expected
Background:
Reversing the spread of antibiotic multiresistant bacteria is difficult due to ignorance of the natural history of resistance genes, the resistant disseminating elements, and the different bacteria harbouring the genetic resistant determinant. Using traditional cultivation and DNA hybridization techniques, we quantified antibiotic phenotype and genotype in bacterial isolates from broiler chicken cecal, fecal and litter samples from commercial and experimental farms. Unexpectedly, resistance to antibiotics like chloramphenicol, not used in poultry production, was prevalent. In animal and poultry production systems, animals are exposed to particulate matter in the air. This includes airborne microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi which can affect the birds and their handlers. Most bioaerosols are not harmful, and some are even part of the normal microflora, but the inhalation of some particles has been proven to cause respiratory problems.
Objective:
1) To study the evolution of the bacterial community from poultry gut, carcass, litter and soil manured with poultry litter to establish the seasonal variation, the spread and persistence of resistant and virulent determinants and the pathogenicity potential of the bacteria in humans.
2) To investigate the seasonal variability and the distribution of antibiotic resistant and virulent determinants of bacteria in aerosols associated with poultry house environment.
Value of the project for Canada and China:
This project will help with understanding the evolution, persistence and spread of emerging pathogens in food and the environment.
Outcome expected:
This project will provide a comprehensive evaluation the impact of poultry production systems in Canada, and how these vary with conventional and innovative practices and technologies that are appropriate for each system. The primary benefits will be to provide poultry industries with production methods that minimize the risk to food and environmental quality while maximizing fertilizer value; to provide regulatory authorities with a science base that can be used for regulations and guidelines; and detailed information on persistence of contaminants.
C – Internship: Describe the internship program, the expected student qualifications, and the benefits to student
English Imperative; graduate student from a recognized university with training in Microbiology and Immunology. Demonstrated experience with the cultivation and identification of bacterial pathogens. Experience with molecular techniques. Experience with techniques for enumeration of bacteria. Experience with practical aspects of broiler management; no allergies to chicken. Initiative. Analytical Thinking. Communication Skills. Team Work.
Candidates applying will be expected to have a training and background in medical microbiology and immunology, molecular biology, control of infectious diseases in animal related to the on-farm food safety.
B – Project Description: objective, duration, value of the project for Canada and China, Outcome expected
The goal of the project is to develop a variety of innovative systems to reduce environmental impact of manure use including emissions of greenhouse gases, ammonia, particulate matter, leaching, and build-up of P in soil. We are developing field and scientific techniques and science that will be of great interest in Canada and internationally. Some examples of our work include effect of ammonia deposition from poultry barns on creating hotspots of leaching and GHG emission, aerial transport of pathogens and advanced methods for balancing nutrients and reducing environmental impact of high intensity livestock farms. We are also developing models for managing farm nutrients on farm level and upscaling to regional level.
A range of research projects can be developed depending on background and interests of the students.
C – Internship: Describe the internship program, the expected student qualifications, and the benefits to student
We are focussed on integrated approaches so the candidate will have the opportunity to learn and study techniques for field experimentation (e.g. advanced application techniques) and a facility to study storage and solids separation of manure and along with measurements (greenhouse gases, ammonia and fine particulates) which we can do at our laboratory. We have excellent collaborators in AAFC as well as at UBC in environmental microbiology (Dr. Karen Bartlett at UBC) and odor/ manure processing (Dr. A. Lau). We also work very closely with the industry due to many years of acquired good will. We have three very special long term field experiments on manure and tillage. Finally we have developed a unique approach to modelling soil N.
PROJECT ID : 2009_Agassiz_04
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PROJECT TITLE: Development of efficient sampling plans for insect pests in agricultural crops to reduce pesticide use
Internship location in Canada:
Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre (PARC)
Agassiz, British Columbia
Internship Duration:
12-24 months
Contact: Todd Kabaluk
Email: Kabalukt@agr.gc.ca
Phone: 1-604-796-1710
Mailing address: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre,
Supervisor of the student: Dr. Todd Kabaluk, Environmental Health
The Science Director: Dr. Barry Grace
Other AAFC scientist: Dr. Bob Vernon
University partners: Simon Fraser University
Industry partners: Renee Prasad, ES Cropconsult Ltd.
B – Project Description: objective, duration, value of the project for Canada and China, Outcome expected
Monitoring of pests in agricultural crops to make pesticide spray decisions has resulted in significant reductions of pesticide applications to many crop-pest combinations, and has great potential for further reductions. In Canada, professional pest management companies monitor a wide range of agricultural crops for a many insect pests, and recommend pesticide sprays when pest insects reach a pre-determined threshold level. The pest management companies retain the large amount of data collected, and these data can be used to determine the suitability of sample sizes (i.e. the number of samples evaluated for pesticide recommendations) used through the calculation of operating characteristic (OC) curves. The OC curves can be used to i) adjust the number of samples sizes to the optimum; and ii) develop alternative sampling methods such as binomial (presence-absence) sampling, so that minimum effort is expended to make reliable pesticide spray recommendations according to a reliable estimate of pest populations.
The goal of this project is to use pest monitoring data to determine the following for a range of pests in several agricultural crops (the crop-pest combinations chosen can include those with relevance to China):
i) the minimum number of samples that will allow for reliable pesticide spray decisions to be made for managing insect pests
ii) the suitability of a binomial sampling plan to be adapted, and the determination of the efficiency of such a plan
C – Internship: Describe the internship program, the expected student qualifications, and the benefits to student
This project is suited to Master’s student or Post Doctoral Fellow with an aptitude for statistics or intermediate mathematics. A Master’s student would generate sufficient results to produce a thesis to be used as a model for application to pest management in China. A Post Doctoral Fellow could use this exercise and its results for more sophisticated adaptation and application to the development pest monitoring in China. More sophisticated adaptations could involve the relation of these data to predator insect populations or decisions on the release of predators or the application of biopesticides.
The candidate would carry out their work at PARC, Agassiz. S/he would use established software programs written in MathCad to analyze data from ES Cropconsult, a large pest monitoring company in British Columbia, Canada. The outcome of the analysis would include the following:
-basic insect population dynamics in selected pest-crop combinations
-establishment of statistical constants for selected insect species, such as mean-variance relationships
-operating characteristic curves that display the probability of correct pesticide spray decisions for full count and binomial sampling plans
The candidate would become skilled in techniques for developing pest sampling plans for agricultural crops. These techniques would directly benefit Chinese agriculture through the reduction of pesticides applied to crops.
The proposed work would be similar to that found in:
Kabaluk, J.T. Binns, M.R., and Vernon, R.S. 2006. Operating characteristics for full count and binomial sampling plans for the green peach aphid (Hempitera: Aphididae) in potato. Journal of Economic Entomology. 99(3): 987-992.
The work would be based on the mathematics in the following book, and accompanying software:
Binn, M.R., Nyrop, J.P., and van der Werf, W. 2000. Sampling and Monitoring in Crop Protection – a theoretical basis for developing practical decision guides. CABI International. ISBN 0 85199 347 8
