In 1973, the late Mikio Chiba joined Brock University as Honorary Professor from the then-Agriculture Canada Vineland Research Station, kickstarting decades of impactful agricultural research.This article is part of a monthly series celebrating research breakthroughs and successes at Brock University over the past 60 years. To read other stories in the series, visit The Brock News.
When the late Mikio Chiba arrived on campus in 1973, he planted the seeds for Brock University’s future as an agricultural research hub.
Chiba took up the role of Honorary Research Professor with the Department of Chemistry alongside his position at the then-Agriculture Canada Vineland Research Station.
Four of Chiba’s colleagues — A.J. McGinnis, Humberto Dias, Elmer Hagley and Charles Marks — soon followed him, joining the Department of Biological Sciences as Honorary Research Professors.
Experts in pest infestations and viral infections damaging fruit plants, the group collaborated with Brock researchers and co-supervised graduate students, cultivating new opportunities for agricultural research at the University.
Half a century later, agricultural research at Brock has generated significant results and garnered international recognition.
In the mid-1990s, for example, then-Professor of Biological Sciences Yousef Haj-Ahmad and a biotechnology company called Syrtec Inc. investigated how a type of roundworm could eradicate the grape berry moth, which attacks grapes in the vineyard.
More recently, Professor of Biological Sciences Michael Bidochka and his team published a groundbreaking 2012 study showing a fungus that kills 200 different kinds of soil-born insects also transfers nitrogen from insects into plants, making the fungus a natural plant fertilizer.
In the 1990s, Brock also played a leading role in helping Niagara’s burgeoning grape and wine sector find ways to grow.
Honorary doctorate recipients Donald Ziraldo (LLC ‘ 94) and the late Karl Kaiser (BSc ’74, LLC ’94), who co-founded of Inniskillin Wines, were among the 37 industry and University representatives who formed the Queen’s Landing Forum to discuss strategies for meeting the industry’s local and national needs.
Not long after that meeting, Brock partnered with the Grape Growers of Ontario and the Wine Council of Ontario. Ziraldo and John Howard, then-owner of Vineland Estates Winery, headed up a national campaign that raised $2.1 million from members of Canada’s grape and wine industry to establish the University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) in 1996.
“Our early research focused on innovations in Icewine fermentation to improve a signature Canadian wine and ensure its dominance in the international market, along with best practices to address damage from multicoloured Asian ladybeetles, sour rot, climate change impacts and other challenges facing industry,” recalls Professor of Biological Sciences and CCOVI Director Debbie Inglis.
She says CCOVI’s flagship VineAlert program — funded by Ontario Grape and Wine Research Inc. and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada — made its mark in the industry by helping grape growers avoid grapevine bud injury due to very cold temperatures.
Among its many research accomplishments, CCOVI has leadership roles in a number of nation-wide agricultural initiatives including CLEan plAnt extractioN SEquencing Diagnostics (CLEANSED), projects under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (SCAP)’s AgriScience Cluster and a national grapevine germplasm repository.
A huge nod to CCOVI’s expertise is its leadership of the multi-institutional Research Farm, a state-of-the-art facility aiming to transform Canada’s agriculture ecosystem into a self-reliant, sustainable model that can be applied globally.
Other areas where Brock research is making a difference in agriculture include:
- Professor of Biological Sciences Liette Vasseur conducts an array of sustainable agriculture projects both in Canada and around the world in locations such as Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ecuador, China, Morocco and Benin in her role as UNESCO Chair in Community Sustainability: From Local to Global. She also leads national research projects focused on topics such as organic vineyard cultivation.
- Brock has joined southern Ontario’s Greenhouse Technology Network (GTN), a project funded by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario). Brock research initiatives associated with GTN include using fungi to protect vines from grape mealybug infestation and applying sheep wool to enhance soil quality.
- Brock’s Niagara Community Observatory conducts research on the agriculture industry. Research areas include automation and robotics technologies, historical trends and innovation clusters.
