prunings
arolyn Teasdale is the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture’s new berry industry specialist, taking over a position formerly held by Mark Sweeney, who has now officially retired. Sweeney will continue to work as a consultant with the B.C. Blueberry Council and with Silver Valley Blueberry Farm in Maple Ridge. Teasdale has spent the last 13 years
C
at E.S. Cropconsult Ltd., where she coordinated integrated pest management services for blueberry, raspberry, strawberry and cranberry crops in the Fraser Valley. “I am very much looking forward to working with the berry industry in my new role,” she says. Teasdale has worked with both the berry organizations and various levels of government and has a good understanding of the issues and the challenges facing the
buildings at the facility in Guangzhou and are going to be installing the vertical growing systems inside them. Then they are going to re-roof the buildings with domes. It is their intention to complete the project by Christmas. Colclough says he will continue to keep ownership of his Surrey property because of the interest across Canada in the biodomes... Wendy Bennett, executive director of British Columbia’s AgSafe (formerly the Farm and Ranch Safety and Health Association or FARSHA), is now chair of the Canadian
Carolyn Teasdale
industry. She has also been a planning adviser for the Environmental Farm Plan program. She will be working out of an office in the ministry’s Abbotsford Ag Center... Tom Colclough, who designed and built a ‘Biodome’ on his Surrey farm to show that fruits and vegetables can be grown in an enclosed atmosphere anywhere in the world, is going to be setting up a large project in China. It will be located in Guangzhou, formerly known as Canton, a city of 10 million people 75 minutes north of Hong Kong. He left for China in early October. “We have a 300,000 square-foot facility in which to construct our biodomes,” says Coclough. “We will be working with Costco, a well-known and well established retail outlet who want to put up a fresh produce facility. They want what we can produce in our Biodomes on their shelves. China has expressed a strong desire to increase its fresh produce capability and that is why we are going there. However the project is not just the growing, it also takes in the logistics, the storage, and the packing and distribution.” Colclough explained that the Costco connection came about through his Chinese partner. “This is a new venture for Costco, who want to look at ways to produce fresh produce in a new light which is something I have been thinking about for some time.” Colclough says they have five
Agricultural Safety Association’s board of directors. She is serving her second year on the CASA board. “I will bring two decades of experience in occupational health and safety to the table, working with the board
and other CASA partners to continue to make safety a priority on farms and ranches across Canada,” Bennett said upon taking the helm last fall. She replaces outgoing chair Dean Anderson, who assumes the role of treasurer. Bennett and Anderson were joined by first-time CASA board members Carolyn Van Den Heuvel of Farm Safety Nova Scotia and Jeff Shaw of SAFE Work Manitoba). Board member David Powers (director of health, safety and environment, Oxford Frozen Foods) takes on the role of vice-chair, while former vice-chair Tara Huestis (farm safety specialist, PEI Workers Compensation Board) continues as a board member. Niels Koehncke (director, Canadian Centre for Health
and Safety in Agriculture) continues as secretary... British Columbia’s agri-food industry is receiving about $900,000 for 16 new projects that support a broad range of products, practices and technologies. The project grants include a total of $58,500 to the B.C. Blueberry Council. It will use $38,500 to test a foliar calcium spray application to help reduce premature fruit drop and increase blueberry yields. A $20,000 grant has been approved to develop a customized smart phone app that will provide growers with information to identify pests and diseases in blueberry fields and identify appropriate control actions. The B.C. Cranberry Marketing Commission, meanwhile, is receiving $1,650 to demonstrate a bumble bee garden, recommend bee- friendly plants to enhance pollination services to growers and validate indicators of key cranberry diseases. Pollination of cranberry flowers is most efficiently done by bumble bees, including those native to the Fraser Valley. The funding comes from the federal and provincial governments under the Growing Forward 2 agreement to provide up to $13.4 million between 2013 and 2018 through the Canada-B.C. Agri- Innovation Program. So far, 95 projects have shared almost $8 million in funding. Funding is still available to support innovation, competitiveness and market development. The program is administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of B.C. Additional program information and application forms are available at
http://iafbc.ca/funding- opportunities/innovation/
Pollination Services ,000 Colonies Available
22 British Columbia Berry Grower • Spring 2016
Blueberry, Cranberry, Raspberry, Blackberry, Strawberry, Currants, Kiwi, Pumpkin, Zucchini, Squash
Contact: John Gibeau President, Honeybee Centre Cellular (604) 317-2088
Email:
Gibeau@HoneybeeCentre.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24