Brock University’s cutting-edge research that advances Canada’s grape and wine industry is expanding from lab to field to other areas of agriculture thanks to a $3.5-million grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

The funding supports the Clean Agriculture for Sustainable Production (CASP) Field Infrastructure project, which will include the establishment of a Brock-led research farm where scientists from Brock, other institutions and industry will develop agricultural innovations.

“This investment not only transforms research that supports Canada’s $11.6-billion grape and wine industry but allows industry to have access, through research partnerships, to state-of-the-art facilities to identify and produce elite performing plant material,” says Professor Debbie Inglis, director of Brock’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) and core CCOVI scientist. “Establishing all the tools necessary to implement a domestic clean plant program while trialing disease-resistant and climate-resilient varieties will allow industry to become more self-reliant and environmentally friendly.”

Co-leading the multi-institutional project are CCOVI Principal Scientist Sudarsana Poojari and CCOVI researcher and Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Jim Willwerth.

The first phase of the project, the Clean Plant Program, builds on initiatives — including the national grapevine germplasm repository, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency partnership CLEANSED, and the Canadian Grapevine Certification Network (CGCN) partnership — where CCOVI and a wide variety of partners work together to produce certified virus-free grapevines for the grape and wine industry.

Poojari's lab uses methods such as microshoot tip tissue culture therapy and high throughput sequencing (HTS) to produce healthy vines.

Microshoot tip tissue culture is a virus elimination technique where a tiny part of an apical shoot tip of a vine is cut off and grown under controlled conditions. HTS is a genomics-based test with the ability to detect all known and unknown viruses in grapevines with high accuracy and reliability.

The team also includes national collaborators Simone Castellarin from the University of British Columbia and Caroline Provost from Centre de recherche agroalimentaire de Mirabel in Québec.

Source: Brock University March 15, 2024 news release