Brownfields Remediation

I'm not one to follow a trend, but when it's a worthwhile trend such as the remediation of prime land (please see the current installment of The Ontario Agrologist Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2006) I'm all for it.

The feature article is succint: prior industrial use in key strategic locations that were vacated before the induction of the Brownfields Statute Law Amendment Act (October 2004) continue to be unused because of contamination by industrial chemicals. Yet, these lands represent prime real estate because of their location, particularly since cities are expanding to encompass them.

There exist two principal means to remediate brownfields (so-called because the vegetation is sparse in these areas due to high concentrations of industrial pollutants). The first method is to remove the contaminated soil for transport to a landfill. The second method involves the remediation of the soil on the site, without removal of contaminated material.

The second option is the better of the two in my eyes. Why? Because with the "dig-and-dump" method, the problem is simply transferred to another location. Additionally, the logistics of containing the contaminants for transport adds to the bill. Transportation also adds risk to the remediation efforts, especially since vehicle accidents can cause toxic spills.

On-site remediation can be done using plants and microorganisms. Research done at the University of Guelph's Environmental Biology Department demonstrate the ability of several microorganisms (bioremediants) to degrade complex contaminants such as PCB's, hydrocarbons, and other toxic molecules. Plants have also been demonstrated, in association with symbionts such as mycorrhizas, to be able to take up significant levels of metals which can then be recovered in the vegetation after harvest.

There may be unforseen problems associated with using plants for brownfields remediation - not detrimental to the remediation efforts or containment of contaminants - not at all! I am referring to the possibility that the decreased ecological activity of soil microbes may actually make these lands breeding grounds for plant pathogens, or make the plants more susceptible to disease. Why would this be a concern - since the plants will be harvested, and they'll likely have a short lifespan anyways?

The answer lies in the efficiency of the brownfields remediation efforts. One has to remember that special equation: time = money. Efficiency can be measured as the amount of time it takes to remove the contaminants from the land. If plants get sick and die sooner than expected, the whole effort takes longer (a key aspect of using plants is that the longer the plant is in place, the more contaminants it will be able to remove from the soil), thereby adding to the bill.

To reduce this possibility, a clear plan to supplement additional soil microorganisms complimentary to the bioremediants and mycorrhizal symbionts will help to circumvent this issue. The addition of biological control agents (microorganisms with a proven antagonistic or preventative action against plant pathogens) to the foliage will help to maintain plant health.

Clearly, this regime would have to be carefully developed, but the various parts of the mechanism are already available. What needs to be developed is the practical application stage - taking the results out of the laboratory and applying them.

Plant Pathology... what's it good for?

Whenever I'm out and about in the streets of Ottawa, I frequently bump into people who ask what I do for a living. The first words out of my mouth are invariably, "I'm a plant pathologist." The response this statement elicits varies: I've been asked if this means I'm a tree doctor. Others ask if I'm a landscaper.

One way I get around this is by asking them if they have a garden, lawn or tree with spots on the leaves. Then I ask what they do to prevent the spots from spreading - a very common answer was to spray the affected areas with a general-purpose pesticide. From this, I explain that if they were to have someone like me look at their affected plants/lawn/trees, they could probably get away without using general-purpose pesticides (which aren't very effective in many cases), or with a very minimal application of a specific pesticide targeted to the disease. At this point, they become highly interested because nowadays, no-one likes having to use pesticides, either self-applied or commercially applied.

It's interesting though, because the point here is that although people have a heightened awareness of the environmental and health implications of pesticides, few seem to have an awareness of what could be done to help reduce their use. One has to go to the source of the need for these pesticides - disease and insect pests - in order to determine the need for chemicals. Excess pesticide use in the past has already forced many of the causal agents to develop resistance, so other methods are needed.

A few key points to remember are:

1. if it's a plant, remove affected parts, clean the plant litter off the soil surface, ensure proper watering and fertilizing regimes are in place, and many insect pests can be taken care with a dilute solution of water and biodegradable soap;
2. if it's your lawn, ensure you know what you're looking at - dog urine causes nitrogen burns which look like a disease, june bug grubs are also major causes of lawn damage, fairy rings and mushrooms are caused by overwatering - many dead areas, if caught early, can be taken care of by replacing the sod in that area;
3. if it's your tree (i.e. a maple or crabapple tree) many leaf spots can be reduced in the following year by ensuring the leaves are raked and any fruit has been discarded of.
4. try a biological remedy. Many biological control agents are becoming available off-the-shelf at gardening outlets.

Some of these items can be reviewed on my other blog entitled Plant Doc, What's Up?

However, the situation becomes more complicated where large agricultural operations with monocultures of genetically homogenous plants are involved. The uniformity of the population generally means that there's lots of food for the pathogens and insects! In these cases, a rigorous integrated pest management (IPM) program coupled with a good integrated nutrient management program can reduce losses and avoid complications arising from changing environmental/agricultural legislations and policies.

Meeting Theo Blom

I met with greenhouse floriculture specialist Theo Blom at the University of Guelph while I was there (see previous post). He had interesting things to say about my Easter Lilies posting, particularly the fact that the origins of most, if not all, lilies are propagates of those produced by 10 farms across the California-Oregon border. One thing that he mentioned which struck me in particular, was that these farms are primarily cattle-oriented.

"The reason for this," Dr. Blom remarks, "is that the lilies deplete a lot of nutrients from the soil. The land is divided into strips so that only one strip contains the crop of lilies for a period of three years, while the others are seeded with grass and allowed to fallow, or are used as pasture for the cattle." Dr. Blom went on to explain that the ten farms are located within a very narrow swath of land, each very close to one another.

When I asked why, Dr. Blom explained that the climate in this patch of land across the California-Oregon border is relatively protected from extreme climate changes through its proximity to the Pacific and the mountains. Lilies are also endemic to the region, earning its title as the Lily Capital of the World.

Lily operations are not without their pros and cons, as explained in a previous posting of mine, as well as in this article from www.sfgate.com. In short, the climate is also beneficial to insect and microbial pests, so the bulb producers utilize a heavy regime of pesticides. The pesticides have been found in well water from as many as 11 locations in close proximity to the farms. Runoff into the nearby rivers also threaten the local fishing industry.

Clearly, the bulb producers and the locals want to arrive at a solution that's sustainable and reduces the use of pesticides. I see several ways that they can co-ordinate their integrated pest management (IPM) program into their series of rotations of lilies, fallow, and pasture land. If you are interested in hearing more on this, please contact me or post a reply!

Interesting Breakfast Meeting

As I mentioned in my last post, I attended a breakfast meeting (one of a series hosted by the Guelph Partnership for Innovation) and was pleasantly surprised when the speaker turned out to be Dr. Gord Surgeoner. In summary, Guelph is very well poised to be "the place to go" when it comes to agricultural and environmental innovation - that is, Guelph has a lot to offer biotechnology and agricultural/environmental companies and governmental agencies. In fact, the entire region from the GTA to Windsor is experiencing first-hand, the benefits of having these service- and product- based industries close at hand. The immediate benefits are closely associated with the development of synergy rather than competition - each of these organizations and comapnies are complimentary to one another rather than at each others' throats.

However, there is evidently a "centralization effect" in which the people in the immediate region are those that immediately benefit from having this 'synergistic cluster' (as I have heard it be called), and the benefits clearly are linked to proximity. At one point, after the presentation, I raised the very real possibility that many small business owners and farms might feel alienated or otherwise isolated, particularly where the rest of Ontario (North of the GTA) is concerned. I discussed ways we could alleviate and lessen this potential impact. Of course, it helped that I was speaking from the perspective of someone living just outside of Ottawa!

Your thoughts and comments on this would be greatly appreciated within this post, and especially in the discussion groups you can sign up for (links and sign-ups are located in the bottom right-hand panel of this blog).

I was just reading the Ontario Agricultural Services Coordinating Committee (OASCC) Annual Report Presented to the Canadian Agri-Food Research Council2002-2003 (light reading before bed) and preparing my itinerary for the next few days this week.

So far, my week looks like this:

May 9:

• @9:00 am - Leave Ottawa
• @ 3:00 pm - Meeting for peer-reviewed journal article #1
• @ 4:00 pm - Meeting for peer-reviewed journal article #2

May 10:

• @ 10:00 am - Meeting to discuss display materials for Conference #2
• @ 11:00 am - Meeting to disuss Intellectual Properties
• @ 1:30 pm - Project proposal meeting at Ontario Institute of Agrologists

May 11:

• @ 7:15 am - Guelph Partnership for Innovation Breakfast at Ramada Inn
• @ 10:00 am - Project proposal meeting with past president of Canadian Phytopathological Society
• @ 1:30 pm - Attend M.Sc. defense at the University of Guelph
• @ 3:00 pm - Meeting in Kitchener with business gurus at TECHVIBE
• @ 6:00 pm - Meeting to discuss need for novel projects aimed at quickly moving products from the lab to actual retail situations

May 12:

• @ 10:00 am - Project proposal meeting at Flowers Canada (Ontario) HQ
• @ 12:30 pm - Two poster presentations at the Regional Canadian Phytopathological Society Conference (Conference #1) hosted in the Guelph Turfgrass Institute
• @ 6:30 pm - Pre-Conference dinner for Conference #2

May 13:

• @ 8:45 am - Give welcome speech for Conference #2
• @ 10:00 am - Staff display booth #1
• @ 11:00 am - Staff display booth #2
• @ 1:30 pm - Participant in Panel Discussion

May 14:

• @ 9:00 am - Leave Guelph
• @ 3:00 pm - Arrive Ottawa (home!)

As an aside, I was also featured in an on-campus publication called @ Guelph which can be read here

Consider an Agri-Tour for your next vacation!

The last time I went to Egypt, I booked the trip through an Agri-Tours package. This is a great package - it has everything you want to see: trips to the Pyramids, the Temples, Aswan Dam, even Abdou Simbel. The difference between this package and a "regular" tour package is that it also shows you Egypt from an agricultural standpoint. I'll confess; I've been to Egypt quite a few times, but while going down the Nile or driving to a temple, I've always wondered what they grew on the land, and how they coped with the encroaching desert! Now I know, and this experience has been invaluable.

This tour company (Tours Cure-Vac) was established in 1986, and also does Agri-Tours to numerous other international places as well (Mexico, Peru, Syria, and Africa are a few). The best part is, if they do not have an established package to a destination you request, they will develop one tailored to your specifications.

After my first Agri-Tour, I spoke to them about promoting these packages among the agricultural community in Canada. You may contact me with further questions, or you can contact Tours Cure-Vac directly (please tell them Nathan referred you to them).

April 25, 2006

To recap activities in the past couple of weeks, GCI Life Sciences is meeting with key personnel from the Ontario Institute of Agrology (OIA) and Flowers Canada (Ontario). The agenda items include representation at conferences including both the Canadian Greenhouse Conference and the ETech conference among other items.

We have also developed several case studies that demonstrate what we've done in the past, which will be included on this site soon. We will also be including links to key industry groups involved in Ontario agriculture, including the two mentioned above. To supplement our discussion groups (links and registrations for each are located in the side panel to the right), we are contemplating including links to interesting or offbeat postings related to agriculture or environment from other discussion groups.

Easter Weekend

GCI Life Sciences wishes everyone a Happy Easter!

Easter lilies are seasonal and traditional flowering plants. 95% of the bulbs for the Easter lily market are produced by 10 farms along the California-Oregon border.

More information on these unique flowers can be found at this site. The plants are under special controlled conditions and nutritional requirements to bloom specifically for the Easter Holiday.

Some issues specific to Easter Lilies include fungus gnats, Pythium root rot (on which my M.Sc. and Ph.D dissertations are on) as well as Rhizoctonia. Graeme Murphy, a colleague from OMAF outlines these issues quite well in his article titled "Fungus Lilies And Easter Gnats (or something similar)".

Many of the issues surrounding Easter lilies can be combated with a little bit of foresight and planning. Producers familiar with the crop know many of the tricks of the trade that surrounds the management of these issues, but new problems arise almost on a yearly basis, and so do solutions. There are a few biologicals on the market, but it's hard to pick just one and say it'll do the trick. Experimentation with several biologicals is time consuming and yields ambiguous results if not done properly.

But why experiment in the first place? Well, one greenhouse can differ from others - research greenhouses in which the tests are done in originally are rigidly controlled, meaning that the natural fluctuations in temperature, light or even nutrition are absent or minimized to such a degree that it would be almost uneconomical in a commercial facility. The results should then be approached with a degree of salt-taking!

Secondly, it's not a good idea to rely on one or even two methods of preventation and/or control - something that many experimental trials fail to cover. Think of your strategy as being comparable to a rocket launch. In case the primary system (your first choice of biological control) fails, you want to ensure there's a back-up in place at the same time the primary is working. What, then, if the back-up fails too? The rocket (your crop), if no third or fourth fail-safe is in place, crashes. This is a bit of a hard-case example which illustrates the worst-case scenario, as a 100% loss is clearly not an acceptable solution.... but it's a scenario that can be preventable with a plan and some hindsight.

Clean Water Act: more info

More information on how the proposed Clean Water Act impacts agricultural producers can be found in the February 2006 publication of The Eastern Ontario Farmers Forum which also includes a list of areas with ground water aquifiers (Almonte, Carp, Munster Hamlet, Kings Park, Kemptville, Merrickville and Westport) and surface waters (Smiths Falls, Perth, Carleton Place, as well as two areas on the Ottawa River near the city of Ottawa).

Agricultural Legislation in Ontario: Part 1

The Nutrient Management Act of 2002 (NMA) is a key landmark legislation in Ontario that helps to consolidate and simplify previous legislation (both federal and provincial) and directs activities relating to the environmental safety of waterways as well as surface and ground waters. (important changes to the assistantship programme can be found here, and more information can be found at the website for the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association)

The overlying principle of the NMA was to control agricultural runoff, which included manure, pesticides/herbicides, fertilizer (including hydroponic nutrient solutions), and other materials that potentially contribute to environmental pollution. The NMA is based on solid scientific research that demonstrates the harmful effects of agricultural runoff on fish and other aquatic life, land/aquatic plants and microbial diversity. In fact, by adhering to the NMA, farmers potentially reduce problems in their crops. Changes in microbial diversity is a key contributor to increasing disease and reducing crop productivity in the long term.

Although the NMA is solidly in place, Ontario has proposed a Clean Water Act (CWA) in 2005. Already, some issues have been identified by Ontario Pork which can be read in their report here. These valid concerns can be broadly applied to other agricultural operations including fields and greenhouses.

April 3, 2006

Today, in order to put emphasis on the agricultural aspect of the Life Sciences Division, we have re-done our business cards to read "Agricultural Consulting and Life Sciences" - it may seem inconsequential, but often business is lost because of vague or unclear titles. For example, Life Sciences could mean health care, microbiology, and so on - it may not be immediately clear that agriculture also falls under this heading.

We will be beginning a letter-writing campaign to key industry personnel, groups, and associations in Ontario to describe our services and develop additional contacts.

March 28, 2006

In addition to writing the new discussion groups, I wrote the first posts for each, just to get things started. I could not think of much, except for an article that I read in New Scientist or Nature (I forget which) that described the effects that antibiotics excreted in urine and manure of livestock had on microbial communities and plants in the soil that the manure sludge was applied to (This posting can be found in Agricultural Issues in Field Crops). Look for more in the other two discussion groups involving greenhouse and hydroponic crops.

Additionally, I identified a few areas (in Ontario) in which the Life Sciences Division of GCI could make an impact in. I did a lot of reaserch during my M.Sc. and Ph.D. with various independent operations in Leamington, Ontario (which is the largest growing area for greenhouses and hydroponic operations in the entire expanse of North America... the amount of produce from hydroponic crops in Leamington accounts for more than the entire corresponding U.S. industry!)

As such, many of the independent operators I came into contact with, whether part of my research or not, would be pleased to have my continued interest and input in their operations. The thing about me, and which I hope to instill within the working environment of the Life Sciences Division of GCI, is that every contact should feel like they came out of the meeting with something that will benefit their organization, even if it's just a first meeting. I view consulting as a "give-and-give" situation in which the client has the first and last word on everything - the consultant is merely incidental, and guides the client to their own business solution. True, the framework, guidance, and actual solution and its implementation may represent the work of the consultant, but ultimately the credit belongs with the client for first identifying the need, then initiating the work.

Thus, the true key to a successful operation is the ability to recognize that certain task and work needs to be delegated either to a subset of your own employees, and where that experienced subset does not exist, to an outside source. By providing the experience base located within the Life Sciences Division of GCI, we know we will be able to dispense not only clear advice, but also a plan to implement this advice, and the manpower to oversee and implement it through from start to finish.

I know that this must be beginning to sound like an advertisement! I have to admit that it is, of a kind, but it is also an indicator of the conviction, determination, and confidence of the kind of experience that we have, and will be able to provide to you.

March 27, 2006

Today, I created a few discussion groups that will attempt to provide a forum for independent producers to discuss issues and problems related to their operations. The moderators involved in each discussion will then have a chance to review and research the 'common theme' that appears immediately obvious during any one week, then write a comment on this common theme for the group. Not only will this provide a starting reference point for producers, but it will also keep people involved with the Life Sciences Division an opportunity to test their mental mettle! These discussion groups are listed in the sidebar to the right.

However, the following disclaimer applies: we are not responsible for any losses or damages resulting from our advice on any single topic so long as it is applied through these discussion groups. This may sound alarming, but this disclaimer is standard practice in consulting, as similar issues/problems can be caused by different factors in many cases. For individual solutions, we strongly suggest you contact Nathan and arrange to have a consultant meet you in person.

March 25, 2006

Today, I researched ideas for marketing strategies based on my agriculture-based experience, knowledge and skills, aimed towards the agricultural community in and around Ottawa.

What do I mean when I say "agricultural community?" This is a community of independent agricultural producers of field and greenhouse crops, including those involved in horticulture, ornamentals, tree & berry farms, and nursuries. This extremely diverse market exists, particularly in the area spanning the distance from within Ottawa, past Kemptville, to Prescott (or highway 401).

Although most agricultural advice can be solicited from federal and provincial sources, many issues and problems encountered in agriculture occur suddenly and need immediate solutions that can only be arrived at from understanding the issue/problem on a first-hand basis. So what does this mean for my market strategy? Obviously there is a need for marketing (i.e. advertising) but what is the best way to go about doing it? The best way to display ourselves? How should we make ourselves accessible to farmers/producers in this area? These were some of the questions that came up at this point.

Read Me First!

Welcome!

I started this blog to allow interested people follow what I do on a day-by-day basis, and will also be using it to post hints or how-to-do's that will potentially reduce headaches during normal field or greenhouse operations, including tips on irrigation, soil, greenhouse & hydroponic infrastructure, identifying and eradicating insect & disease pests as well as how to choose your biological control and manage nutrients and environmental variables to reduce the potential for problems. In essence, any hints, how-to-do's and tips you read will be all about how to prevent problems in the first place, and when they do occur, how to manage them so you get the best possible yield out of your crop.