UNBC Launches Crop Feasibility Study
Prince George, B.C. – Federal and provincial funding has allowed the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) to launch a cash and bioenergy crop feasibility study this month.
The $83,000 will allow UNBC researchers to study whether a variety of crops could be successfully grown in the Vanderhoof and Fort St. James area.
From left: UNBC associate professor Dr. Steve Helle who is the principal investigator or lead researcher on the project, his research assistant Serena Black, who will be conducting the soil testing, Ken Fawcett, who owns and runs Little Valley Farms with his family and his grand-daughter Megan – photo courtesy UNBC
The study will factor in anticipated changes in climate conditions in the region including increased temperatures, increased spring runoff/rainfall and decreased water availability during the summer.
“I’m very excited. It’s a fantastic project,” says Dr. Steve Helle, an environmental engineering professor at UNBC. “We have a lot of community involvement and community partners and they’re also quite excited about the project so it’s kind of contagious.”
Those partners include the Nak’azdli First Nation in Fort St. James and project partner Little Valley Farms in Vanderhoof. He says both have dedicated small plots of land which are not currently in production.
Helle says the project has a number of goals.
“The immediate goal is to identify crops that we can use to run some field trials on over the next couple of years,” he says.
“The overall goal, the crops that we’re going to choose, we want to use unutilized land that’s not in agricultural production. There are possibilities of growing specialty, distinctive, unique, niche crops that can give the farms diverse incomes or additional incomes.”
Those crops could include specialty plants and vegetables, medicinal and natural health products, traditional First Nations crops and those for seed, grasses and hemp.
Helle says the research, including soil sampling, will continue over the next few months before field trails on the chosen crops begin.
Comments
Just kinda wondering what would be a traditional first nation crop? I was understanding that they had protein and berries as a diet. Please enlightened me.
Corn , potatoes , tomatoes , maple surup , saskatoons , parsnips , wild rice , teas , various beans , tobacco, may grass , acorns , black walnut , hazelnuts , white walnut , chives , echinacea, ginseng , pumpkin , squash, sunflowers , hickory nut , pecans , blueberries , Concord grapes , cranberries , raspberries , pawpaw berries , prickly pear , papaya , thimble berries , winter green , Buffalo berry , plumbs , persimmons, elderberry , peanuts , coco and much , much more . How bland would our world be without the contribution of our First Nations . Imagine a world with out vanilla and chocolate . Brrrr .
From Terrace to McBride to Williams Lake we already know what we can grow.
Ie: Raspberries, Strawberries, Saskatoons, Choke Cherries, Apples, Beets, :Potatoes, Turnips, Carrots, Cabbage, Cucumbers, Hay, and grain crops, Alfalfa, Hazelnuts, and on and on it goes.
The question is not what can we grow, but what can we grow, and sell for a profit.
See here is the money line “The study will factor in anticipated changes in climate conditions in the region including increased temperatures, increased spring runoff/rainfall and decreased water availability during the summer.”
Notice anticipated, well there has anticipation to use anticipation for grant grabbing.
Here is how it works, ht tps://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/05/in-the-middle-of-the-hottest-year-ever-come-record-wheat-harvests/
Since I found this information can I get a piece of the grant, its only taxpayers money.
“I’m very excited. It’s a fantastic project,” yep he is excited for the money and staying employed.
The good doctor should maybe be studying cooling effects not warming
ht tps://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/09/solar-physicist-sees-global-cooling-ahead/
ht tps://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/15/big-chill-substantial-cooling-predicted-within-the-next-few-years/
ht tps://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/21/the-north-atlantic-ground-zero-of-global-cooling/
seamutt; your constant anti-global warming monologue, and posting of links to “junk science” websites is changing no ones mind. But I guess if that is what the fossil fuel industry pays you to do, who are we to get between you and your income?
Have a look at ” watts up with that ” in Wikipedia. You’ll laugh and laugh . It’s the home of climate extremist nut bars . Thank goodness for them . It keeps some of our nut bars off more crazy flat earth sites . Or much much worse .
You take Wiki for gospel, that is so sad.
Sure wish I had the money of you two, no worries of rising energy costs chasing c02 unicorns.
That is all you got you two, no rebuttal, just the usual empty rhetoric. Read the links and come back with an intelligent response if possible, which I highly doubt.
Hey Ataloss you seem to forget that Anthony has solar panels on his as it makes sense in California with the steep rise in electrical costs chasing the idiotic renewable unicorn. Oh also living in the desert also helps. Also did you know he also drives an electric car.
Hey Ataloss how are you doing with your solar system????? Got an electric car yet???????
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