Genome British Columbia is funding three research projects aimed at developing technology-forward tools to help farmers protect the region’s fruit and vegetable crops, which export more than $1 billion in products annually.
Sally Greenwood, Chief Operating Officer at Genome BC, says that “genomic tools can provide efficient, sustainable ways to manage and protect valuable output from growers in the province,” which is more important than ever as “the demand for domestic food production increases.”
“Biotechnology and agrifoods are two important sectors in British Columbia,” Greenwood affirms. “Linking them boosts the potential for both sectors to thrive and provide benefits for the people and province of BC.”
One project aims to tackle plant-parasitic nematodes, which are translucent, microscopic worms that feed on plant roots and tissues, thus causing stunted growth and thereby reduced yield.
The province lacks diagnostic services for PPNs as current methods are costly and require deep expertise for species-specific identification.
To overcome this challenge, Dr. Paul Adams of Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Dr. Paul de la Bastide of the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and Dr. Thomas Forge of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will create diagnostic qPCR tests to detect and quantify eight economically significant PPN species in BC.
Wireworms are another problem—a known pest to potato, corn, and cereal growers in British Columbia. These insects cause extensive crop damage by feeding on roots, seeds, stems and tubers.
Dr. John Husnik and his team at Renaissance Bioscience are developing a targeted, natural solution to protect crops from these pests using a combination of a biodegradable yeast cell used as bait and RNA interference.
Such a treatment method degrades naturally, making it an environmentally safer option than chemical pesticides.
“RNAi is very, very target specific,” explains Dr. Husnik explains, who is confident after having validated trials on Colorado potato beetles.
“A field-ready, omics-based biopesticide will empower farmers with a sustainable solution, while also positioning BC as a global leader in agricultural innovation,” he believes.
A third project—led by Dr. Shauna-Lee Chai of AAFC and Dr. Pragyan Burlakoti of BC MAF—aims to strengthen disease control for fruit crops by developing tests that can more effectively identify a specific pair of major pathogens identified by the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food’s Plant Health Lab as “particularly challenging to the management of the province’s berry and tree fruit plants.”
Despite ravaging local fruit crops for decades, little is known about the various strains of these pathogens and how they affect different types of fruit.
Principal Investigator Dr. Rishi Burlakoti will generate whole genome sequencing data for both pathogens and develop rapid, sensitive PCR and qPCR diagnostic tools. These tools will allow the pathogens on infected plant tissues to be identified at the species level.
“We’ve been using tests that are 20 years old to detect these diseases,” laments Dr. Chai, adding: “We’ve seen the struggle of farmers.”
“This is a great application of genomics-based tools to update our processes for the future,” Chai posits.
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Local Research Targets Innovation at Intersection of Biotech and Agriculture was first posted on July 21, 2026 at 11:46 am.
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