A plants’ ability to withstand chilling and frost damage will dictate the geography in which production can occur. Global warming is predicted to increase chilling and frost injury in crops. It is important to note that frost injury is one of the key factors limiting production. In corn, chilling injury is an ongoing constraint for global production and expansion which affects food, feed and fuel supplies. Corn is an important model system as it is the largest crop, on a tonnage basis, produced in the world.

The most critical region for winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) winter survival is the crown. Exposure to different environmental cues during cold acclimation improves the crown’s resistance to freezing. This key fact is not taken into account in the design of controlled environment experiments and may not reflect actual mechanisms of cold hardiness in the field. Acclimation to multiple environmental cues under fall field conditions could explain the improved freezing survival of field as opposed to chamber acclimated plants.

The purpose of the project is to generate soybean plants able to tolerate whole plant submergence and waterlogging (soil submergence). This will be achieved by inducing Pgb, a gene normally present in soybean and known to confer tolerance to excessive humidity, through genetic manipulations. Correlative studies between Pgb expression and performance under excessive water conditions will also be conducted in commercial varieties of soybean. Similar studies will be conducted to assess the effect of altered Pgb level to drought stress.

The role of infectious disease in declining productivity of wild salmon in BC is poorly understood. We will combine novel genomic technologies with traditional fish health methodologies and more broadly identify the microbe exposure of BC salmon. By doing so, we can examine their evolutionary relationships and their epidemiological distribution patterns over time and space as well as assess the pathogenic potential through histopathology, functional genomics, proteomics, and other clinical measures of condition.

"Underwater logging is the process of logging trees from underwater forest. It is expected that underwater logging will significantly increase in the coming years as the amount of flooded forests continue to grow due to dam construction and the availability of sophisticated underwater logging technology. Concerns about potential negative effects of underwater logging, like degradation of water quality and disturbed fish habitat, have led to the demand for sustainability criteria and certification system that can control underwater logging.

The proposed research project will conduct feasibility studies on the purification and conditioning of industrial, hemicellulose derived C5 sugars from a number of potentially commercial liquor fractions, derived from lignocellulosic biomass. In the first two Mitacs projects, enzyme hydrolysis showed considerable benefits over traditional acid hydrolysis for S2G’s bio-glycol production. However, relatively high enzyme loadings were still required to achieve fast and efficient hydrolysis!

The great number and variety of factors influencing the survival of migrating salmon smolts in the early marine environment makes it difficult to understand the causes of recent declines in smolt survival and salmon population productivity. We will combine novel methodologies (biotelemetry and biomarkers) simultaneously to examine a variety of factors influencing the migratory behaviour and survival of sockeye and steelhead smolts in the Salish Sea.

Although the benefits of using timber in mid- and high-rise construction (namely reducing the environmental footprint by sequestering carbon and cost savings through reduced construction time) are undisputed, there are perceived shortcomings with respect to a corresponding lack of appropriate design guidance for seismic loads. Overcoming these perceived shortcomings will allow timber, and
its wood product derivatives, to further expand into the non-residential construction sector.