This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of Organic Science Cluster 4. The Organic Science Cluster is an industry-led research and development endeavour co-managed by the Organic Federation of Canada and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University. It is also supported by the AgriScience Program under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership together with over 80 funding partners.

This episode, my interview with Dr. Juli Carillo, associate professor in the faculty of Land & Food Systems at UBC Vancouver.

Together with her UBC colleague Dr. Claire Kremen, Juli’s Organic Science Cluster 4 research is exploring how on-farm habitat can be amended to intensify beneficial ecological interactions. Translation: how can we increase and support biodiversity on the farm that in turn supports farm production goals? Juli joins me to outline her project and her results so far.

This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of Organic Science Cluster 4. The Organic Science Cluster is an industry-led research and development endeavour co-managed by the Organic Federation of Canada and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University. It is also supported by the AgriScience Program under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership together with over 80 funding partners.

This episode, my interview with Dr. Loren Rieseberg, Professor of Botany at UBC Vancouver about his Organic Science Cluster 4 research.

Dr. Rieseberg and his team are combining genomics, ecophysiology, and participatory plant breeding with a goal of developing climate resilient veggie cultivars that are better adapted to organic production systems. Translation: this project wants to create improved, open-pollinated carrot and lettuce varieties for Canadian organic farmers, and Dr. Rieseberg joined me to tell me about combining traditional and technological breeding techniques in order to do so.

This podcast was funded by the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund. Funding for the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund.

This episode, a focus on cover cropping north of the 60th parallel, where long days and short growing seasons limit the applicability of the standard advice about cover cropping that was developed for farmers much further south.

We’ll learn how the unique climatic and growing conditions in the north influence which benefits of cover cropping to prioritize and which species to plant, and the limitations to and challenges of growing a cover crop successfully.

You’re going to hear from two people in this episode: an Alaska-based soil scientist and a Yukon-based veggie grower.

Caley Gasch is a research assistant professor at University of Alaska Faribanks. She leads a research program focused on soil ecology, plant-soil interactions, how soils respond to environmental change and how we can build and maintain healthy soils.

Sarah Ouellette grows mixed veggies at Sarah's Harvest, 50km north of Whitehorse.