Showcasing innovation that will lead to more Canadian grown food
By Luke Edwards
From advanced AI and fancy robotics to friendly bugs and fungi, visitors to last month’s What’s Growin’ On open house learned how researchers are working to make sure more of the food Canadians eat is food produced in Canada.
The annual event hosted by the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre this year focused on greenhouse production and how it can continue to fill gaps in Canada’s food system. Rotating through four presentations, visitors learned about high-wire growing, how advanced robotics could help commercial greenhouse operators, integrated pest management programs and a Vineland project that seeks to reduce waste by finding ways to reuse stonewool substrate.
“This is our chance to showcase Vineland,” said Ian Potter, president and CEO of VRIC.
“We’re here to support Canada’s innovation system, and especially horticulture.”
With renewed interest in buying local in the midst of the trade war U.S. President Donald Trump has launched against Canada, the timing couldn’t have been better. For some of the visitors, at least, food sovereignty was on their minds as they toured the Vineland campus.
“The scope is absolutely amazing,” said St. Catharines resident Judith Turner, who said Canada has for too long relied on cheap produce coming over from the U.S.
“We should be growing our own food,” she said.
Commercial greenhouse production is big business in Ontario, though a lot of it is related to ornamental flower production. However, more and more fruits and vegetables are being grown indoors. According to Stats Canada, greenhouse fruit and vegetable production surpassed 866,000 tonnes in 2024, up from 687,000 in 2020. Ontario leads the way with nearly three quarters of that production.
Traditionally, three crops are most associated with greenhouses: cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. At What’s Growin’ On, visitors learned how operators use high wires to train the cucumber and tomato vines to ensure strong yields and a steady supply of vegetables.
“It’s a very efficient way of growing things,” said research scientist Sarah Papp.
The high-wire system allows for better light distribution and more dense planting. But before the vines can be attached to the wire system, the seeds need to germinate, and in greenhouses it’s a little different than what one might do in a field or garden.
Using unique substrates, in this case the popular option of stone wool, Papp described how a small block helps the seed germinate while ensuring the grower minimizes water and fertilizer use. A dripper inserted into the stone wool block provides the seed and young plant with exactly what it needs.
“Growers can make fertilizer recipes tailored to each species they’re growing,” she said.
With those tailored recipes, the plants quickly grow and the small blocks are then placed on larger lengths of stonewool to help the roots expand.
Soon the vines are large enough to attach to the high-wire system, training them to reach upwards instead of spreading out horizontally.
As they begin producing fruit, the high-wire system can be adjusted so the fruit is always at prime picking level.
And that’s where some of the work research scientist Dan Bath shared comes in. For several years Vineland has been working on technology to help growers both manage their plants and harvest them. He showed off a device created with the help of Vineland experts that can harvest cucumbers without the risk of making the costly mistake of accidentally snipping a vine.
For computers, a green cucumber on a background of green vines and leaves makes it easy for it to be confused. But the visioning technology combined with a closed loop cutting device that detects a potential fruit and then inches its way up until - using a pinching method to measure the diameter - reaches the end of the vine, allows the computer to harvest cucumbers safely.
“Just by the diameter of the pinch, we know when we’ve reached the end of the cucumber,” he said.
The technology isn’t designed to mimic human harvesting or even replicate its speed, Bath said. However, it’s about creating technology that can offer alternatives and offer a return on investment that companies can then make commercially viable.
Technology is also being used to monitor the health and progress of the greenhouse plants. Visioning systems can take scans of the plants and by inputting as much data as possible, growers can create a “digital twin” of a greenhouse system to use computer models to predict outcomes and test how certain decisions could affect the plant.
It’s not always computers and robots that growers rely on, however. Rose Buitenhuis, director of biological crop protection, showed visitors how beneficial bugs can play a key role in the fight against disease and infestation.
“Biologicals take advantage of natural enemies the pests have,” she said.
In the last several decades greenhouse operators have increasingly moved to these biological options as Canada began regulating pesticide use more stringently and as some pests developed resistance to pesticides.
By developing an ecosystem of beneficial biologicals - Buitenhuis said it requires a team of agents working together to kill the pests at every stage of their lives - greenhouse growers can essentially use Mother Nature to control any outbreaks.
The work of Vineland researchers doesn’t just end at harvest, as research scientist Jason Henry shared. Multiple projects have looked at ways to dispose of the waste created by greenhouses in the form of leftover plant material, clips, and substrates. Currently, much of that goes to Ontario landfills, which causes environmental concerns. And with increasing tipping fees, there’s an economic impact as well.
Henry and his team have specifically been studying options for reuse of substrate, specifically stonewool. With the help of a grant from the Greenbelt Foundation, they’re looking to see how viable it would be to use old stonewool substrate as a soil amendment. Mixing it in with the soil could help with water retention and prevent crop loss during droughts.
Vineland has been studying the issue for several years, and this year took it out into the TreeCulture Research Park, which has several self-contained plots where researchers can test projects in a more real-world setting but still make key measurements and tests.
Further expansion of greenhouse fruit and vegetable production can come in the form of berries, Papp said, something she’s been focused on with a recent project. Strawberries have become a more popular greenhouse crop, giving consumers Canadian grown strawberries year round, and other berry crops are being explored as possible options.
For Abigail Stevenson, from Caistor, it was her first visit to the What’s Growin’ On event and she came away impressed with how much work and research goes into every step of the process.
“It was very informative, I appreciate how interconnected it all is,” she said.
As for Potter, the event is a way to show off not just the innovation Vineland supports, but the people who make it happen.
“We have expertise that is amazing,” he said, adding the team is world renowned for their skill and knowledge.
And that skill and knowledge will continually be put to the test as Canada faces an uncertain future.
“This supports a more resilient food sector,” he said. “These tools will help us be more efficient and more sustainable.”
Ultimately, he said it’s about giving consumers what they want, when they want it, and how they want it.
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