New Crop Varieties: The Journey from Lab to Field – Greenhouses

The greenhouses on campus are often used as teaching tools for the undergraduate and graduate programs offered through the College of Agriculture and Bioresources. They also house and grow the plant materials for the Agriculture building’s atrium, education and extension events, and materials for the U of S Horticulture Club meetings. More importantly, the greenhouses are used for plant research and development, with a specific emphasis on plant breeding.

Breeding Programs in the Agriculture Greenhouses

There are over 20 breeding programs using the campus greenhouses to facilitate their crop variety development. The greenhouses allow for crop breeding throughout the year, providing the opportunity for 3 full growth cycles to be conducted. This offers plant breeders the opportunity to conduct conventional crop breeding programs in the greenhouses no matter what the unpredictable Saskatchewan weather is doing outside.

The Agricultural Greenhouses are also home to the U of S fruit breeding program led by head researcher Dr. Bob Bors. In this program, significant developments have been made for sour cherry and haskap varieties. Breeding work is also conducted for apples, pears, hazlenuts, and other fruits. The success of the breeding program is a result of excellent varieties and unique funding, as 65% of royalty funds go directly back into the breeding program and the remaining 35% are used to purchase equipment and materials. Such a funding model ensures the breeding program maintains the capacity to further their research.

Pest Control in the Agriculture Greenhouses

As you might imagine, pest control is also an important part of greenhouse maintenance. In the past, spray applications and fumigation practices were used intensively to control insect populations. However, in recent years, pest control has shifted to an integrated management approach. Beneficial insects, including small wasps and mites, are introduced to chambers in the greenhouse to control populations of unwelcome, harmful insects such as thrips. Light chemical spraying is also conducted as required. At the end of each plant cycle, each greenhouse is emptied and cleaned to rid the facility of any remaining pests before the new cycle begins. This integrated pest management approach has been quite effective and pest levels remain minimal at the Agriculture Greenhouses.

What is a Poly Greenhouse?

The poly greenhouse added in 2001 is covered with a thick, sturdy plastic instead of the traditional glass. For at home gardeners and farmers, setting up a greenhouse using a polycarbonate covering could be less costly, depending on the quality of material chosen. Polycarbonate greenhouses actually retain heat better than traditional glass due to the internal buffer space between the double wall construction of the polycarbonate sheets. Unlike the glass greenhouses, the poly greenhouse at the U of S is not equipped with air conditioning.  This makes it the warmest of the greenhouses in the summer heat, perfect to host tropical plants, ornamental flowers, and vegetables which can tolerate, and even thrive in, warmer temperatures.

How do Agriculture Greenhouses Provide Benefits to Farmers?

The agriculture greenhouses provide breeders the opportunity to run 3 plant cycles inside the greenhouse and an additional plant cycle in the field, totalling four full growing cycles in one year.  This means that new varieties can be bred and developed potentially four times faster than if breeders only had the ability to grow out one generation of crosses per year outdoors. As a result, plant breeders are able to constantly look for new varieties with improvements over the current varieties available to farmers.  The breeding and research work conducted at the U of S Agriculture Greenhouses is just one of many moving parts in the process of getting a new crop variety developed and ready for commercial use on farms in Canada.