Updates from Vineland Research and Innovation Centre

Collaborating for innovative impact

A current project into onion thrips is a perfect example of Vineland’s relationship with OMAFRA and the University of Guelph in action. Thrips is a pest affecting a wide range of ornamental plants causing widespread damage that renders plants unsaleable.

Flower growers had always believed that western flower thrips was their dominant thrips species, but it was OMAFRA’s Sarah Jandricic, PhD who discovered a case of mistaken identity and determined the real culprit as onion thrips. She brought her discovery to Vineland’s attention and together with Rose Buitenhuis, PhD and U of G entomologist Cynthia Scott-Dupree, PhD developed a research project to address the issue.

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Leading the way to healthy Canadian landscapes

Vineland is on the cusp of an exciting new chapter in its long-standing urban greening work. A value chain-wide consortium is being established to help address common urban landscape challenges and will be accompanied by new infrastructure on the Vineland campus dedicated to greening Canada’s landscapes.

“This new initiative is about addressing research gaps that are common across the whole stakeholder spectrum and being able to identify and trial solutions in real world landscapes that will have widespread benefits,” says Darby McGrath, Vineland’s Senior Research Scientist in Environmental Horticulture. The economic impacts of failed urban plantings are considerable and a coordinated approach to horticulture research will help increase the competitiveness of the nursery landscape sector in a multitude of ways.”

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Yukon Sun ™ to be added to the 49th Parallel Collection of roses

Two new beauties are slated to be added to Vineland’s growing 49th Parallel Collection of bred-in-Canada garden and landscape roses. Aurora Borealis™ will be officially released in 2021 and the first yellow rose in the collection, Yukon Sun™ will become available in 2023.

Both of the new releases fulfill Vineland’s key priorities for the program: roses that can be planted virtually anywhere in Canada that are cold hardy and highly black spot resistant. They were developed in collaboration with the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association which has rights to varieties from the discontinued Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada hardy rose breeding program.

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