Research Projects

In this study, we will test alfalfa meal pellets in a broccoli crop planted on plastic-covered irrigated mounds and we will compare them with two organic fertilizer, in addition to a control treatment in which no nitrogen is added.

This project will develop a versatile tool that will allow to simulate the impacts of agricultural practices on soil organic matter.

This project seeks to create farmer partnerships in which participants work on implementing a three-year forage crop rotation protocol in potato and field crop fields.

This project seeks to reduce the use of chemical insecticides in orchards by controlling apple maggot populations using mass trapping.

A labile carbon input would displace some phosphorus into the soil solution, thus making it available again for assimilation into growing plants.

This project will determine the optimal post-emergent nitrogen dose to apply.

Development of a growing out-of-soil organic raspberries in high tunnels protocol in a profitable and competitive manner with a view to selling products locally or to large retail chains.

In this project, initiated by Agrinova, IRDA will analyze the profitability of techniques used to repel pasture flies in organic dairy production.

This project seeks to develop a knowledge transfer tool to assist organic market gardeners with weed control.

This project will modify current protocols with the addition of labile carbon to preserve or rapidly restore the activity of beneficial microorganisms.

This project relies on the continuous measurement of field water table heights; water exports; as well as sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus runoff into drains at four field-crop production sites.

This project proposes to measure relative humidity and air speed in hog houses and integrate these parameters into the control of ventilation systems.

This project aims to explore and experiment new approaches and ways to preserve, develop, and enhance the MRC’s bio-food sector, and reduce or eliminate the water deficit on the island.

This project aims to develop an accessible and user-friendly web application that let stakeholders search the IRDA potato soil database, one of the largest in Canada, to visualize the impact of growing practices and protocols on the biological, physicochemical, and agronomic characteristics of soils cultivated with different cropping systems.

As part of this project, the soil water status at a chosen blueberry farm will be monitored at 40 spots over the course of the production year. We will seek to identify the relationship between water extraction, physicochemical and environmental factors, and yield levels that could help explain yield variability.