research update
MIKE WALLIS Research planting set to begin
Two bogs ready as prep work completed at new five-field cranberry facility in Delta.
By Judie Steeves I
t’s expected that two of the five cranberry bogs being created at the new B.C. Cranberry Research
Centre in Delta will be planted this year.
Farm manager Mike Wallis reports
there are five fields, natural peat bogs now with drainage tile and the irrigation main lines and laterals installed and a 50x70-foot shop building has been completed on the site.
“The intention is not to create another Agassiz (where the federal agricultural research centre is located). This is owned by growers who are paying a special levy,” he explains. It’s a dedicated area for grower- initiated research—the sort of research they already do in their fields now —but this will make it possible for that work to be done at a separate facility.
10 British Columbia Berry Grower • Summer 2013 There is no B.C. breeding program
or experimental space for cranberry research in this province, yet it is the largest cranberry producer in this country. This is the first such facility in Canada. Federal researchers such as entomologist Sheila Fitzpatrick, who has been doing research into cranberries for years, will now have space to conduct trials. In the past, half were compromised
or data lost because of unintentional interaction with growers, who weren’t able to isolate experimental areas, noted Wallis.
Sometimes that resulted in trials
with data that wasn't usable. As well, it will act as a demonstration farm for evaluating new varieties released from such sources as Rutgers University in New Jersey, under local growing conditions, to help assess which ones might do best under conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Each of the five bogs is 2.5 acres in
size, and the idea is to use one for new variety evaluations, one for evaluating commercially-released varieties and one for different strains of more-common varieties such as
MCHALE: DEUTZ FAHRKUHN PHONE: 604.826.3281 FAX: 604.826.0705
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