For the online customer, confidence in the purchase of a garment depends on the effectiveness of sizing charts and how the garment would appear as part of an entire outfit. Unfortunately, it is difficult for the customer to precisely predict how the product would fit when worn and just how well the garment coordinates with others. This often leads to consumer regret and an increase in product returns, incurring substantial costs for clothing retailers.
The estimated value of honey bee pollination in the form of increased crop yields in Canada is $2 - $4 billion. In recent years, beekeepers pollinating blueberries have reported an increased incidence of European foulbrood (EFB). EFB is a bacterial disease of honey bee larvae which can lead to larval starvation and death.
The beekeeping industry in Canada has endured often unsustainable high colony losses during the past two decades which, if it continues, could have negative consequences for the entire Canadian agriculture industry. Increasing evidence indicates that infectious diseases, including Nosemosis, play a significant role in high colony mortality.
Researchers from the University of Winnipeg (UWinnipeg) and the University of Saskatchewan (USask) have taken on an ambitious challenge: build the ground for the next revolution in global farming and food production. With support from George Weston Limited and Mitacs, the team is filling a gap within the digital agriculture field by building a robotic system to create an open dataset of Canadian prairie crop plants and weeds.
Potash is a mineral that is mined for use as fertilizer in agriculture. Potash accounted for $6.4 billion in exports from Saskatchewan in 2018 and potash mining represents a large fraction of the economy of Saskatchewan. When mining potash, it is important to avoid mining into areas near water-filled porous rocks since this can cause flooding. As a result, the ability to detect water-bearing regions at a distance, using geophysical techniques, would be highly desirable.
The proposed research project will assess the insect fauna present associated with prairie wetlands, as well as those found in adjacent fields of crop plants (canola, barley, wheat) and restored grasslands. Insects will be collected using various trapping methods to sample taxa exhibiting different lifestyles. Collected specimens will be identified as specifically as possible to determine taxa found in sampled habitats.
Next generation plant breeding requires bringing together many different types and sources of information about different plant varieties, including their genetic information together with how well they grow in different environments. The best ways to organize and integrate these sources of information within a plant breeding program is not well known. In this project, we will work with Nutrien Ag Solutions to devise and evaluate a breeding database and associated software tools to assist and accelerate their double haploid breeding program in canola.
A variety of alternative strategies have been developed for increasing the service life of reinforced concrete structures exposed to corrosive environments. An optimum design or repair strategy requires not only an estimate of upfront costs, but also the means to compare all associated costs against the potential extension to the life of the structure. Unfortunately, however, current asset management practice, which is typically based on tacit or implicit methods for asset condition assessment, performance prediction and management is no longer enough.
The Community Energy Profiles and the CASES Toolkit project is part of a larger partnership involving 15 communities and 16+ private and public sector partner organizations in 4 countries. Co-led by Drs. Greg Poelzer and Bram Noble, the project includes 7 interns with interest in the areas of energy policy, impact assessment, economics, energy systems modeling, social innovation, and capacity building with Indigenous communities, industries, and governments. The benefits of the internships to our Canadian partner organizations are multiple and extend beyond the internships.
Natural Canadian zeolite is an attractive mineral for the restoration of lands disturbed by the extraction of natural resources such as metals, oil and gas. Dr. Wonjae Chang’s Environmental Engineering Lab developed a dualmineral prototype, using Canadian zeolites, for the desalination of potash brine-impacted water. Dr. Chang also demonstrated the significant accumulation of residual potassium in the mineral adsorbents following multiple desalination cycles for potash brine-impacted water. In collaboration with ZMM® Canada Minerals Crop.
