AG e-news July 19, 2018
News and events from the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
News and events from the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
UPCOMING EVENTS
Now to August 25 – Check out the summer family events Saturdays (and one Thursday) at the Bruce D. Campbell Farm & Food Discovery Centre. The next one is an Ice Cream Party this Saturday, July 21 – drop by between 10 am and 2 pm. Call 204-883-2524 or email ffdc [at] umanitoba [dot] ca for more information. See the entire summer schedule at http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/discovery_centre/events.html.
Wednesday, July 25 – Crops-A-Palooza is is a one-day, hands on, free, in-field learning interactive event that brings together the best research and agronomy extension professionals and farmers to learn how to grow the best crops. A number of University of Manitoba members will be presenting. This free event runs 9:00 am – 3:00 pm in Portage la Prairie. Learn more and register online at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/crops-a-palooza-2018-registration-45358067200.
Thursday, July 26 – This will be the second of three Organic and Ecological Farming Field Walks organized by the Natural Systems Agriculture group. Join them in Glenlea, MB, from 2:30 to 4:30 PM, where the walk will explore long-term organic vs. conventional rotation plots – focus on weeds, soil health and economics (year 27); manure application in organic systems to restore crop productivity and soil carbon; restoring poor-performing organic grain-only plots by intensifying green manure additions; and testing oat varieties under organic production (conventional oat varieties and organically bred oat varieties). Directions: Turn west off Hwy 75 at “Research Station Road” at the Glenlea research farm (20 km south of Winnipeg) and follow signs.
Friday, July 27 – Blue Bomber game at Investors’ Group Field. Parking restrictions will be in effect most parking lots starting at 6:00 pm. Complete details about alternate parking locations and other event dates are listed at http://umanitoba.ca/parking/igf.html.
Thursday, August 9 – This will be the third of three Organic and Ecological Farming Field Walks organized by the Natural Systems Agriculture group. Join them in Carman, MB, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, where the walk will explore mechanical weed control in cereals, dry edible beans and green manures. Includes in-crop tillage, CombCut and inter-row tillage; grazing warm-season cover crops and cover crop mixtures; testing oat varieties under organic production (conventional oat varieties and organically bred oat varieties); seed increases of farmer-bred wheat lines – what are the possibilities for farmers to breed and market their own varieties?; using spring fallow to control Canada thistle; and moisture conservation in organic cropping systems. Directions: 1.8 km west of the junction of Hwy 3 and 13 at Carman.
August 12-17 – The International Biotechnology Symposium themed “Supporting a Healthy World” will be held in Montreal and is co-organized by the National Research Council of Canada, McGill University, the University of Waterloo, and BIOTECanada. From disease-resistant crops to vaccines that keep livestock healthy, biotechnology has a big role to play in the sustainable development of our natural resources. This event is held every two years in a different country. IBS2018 is a great opportunity for science faculty and grad students to attend, network, and present their latest research. See details at http://www.ibs2018montreal.org/en/index.html.
Thursday, August 16 – The Manitoba Soil Science Society is holding its Summer Tour on the theme “Interlake Soils: What’s Shaking Between the Lakes”. The tour will run 7:30am-5:30pm. Highlights include a tour of a commercial limestone quarry; nutrient management issues unique to the Interlake incl. annual cropping & forage production; and a visit to the PESAI Research Station to view tile drainage and excess moisture trials. Get your feet in the peat! Soil pit and exercises led by our “pit crew”. CCA credits available: 5.0 in Soil and Water Management and 0.5 in Nutrient Management. Bus departs from Sobeys parking lot (Kenaston & McGillivray) in Winnipeg at 7:30 or 8:15 at the Tim Horton’s parking lot in Stonewall. Advance registration required ($85/person; students $55 until Aug. 3) and includes lunch. For more info, visit https://www.mbsoils.ca/event/summer-field-tour/
Wednesday, August 22 – Pulse Tour in Morden – Join the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers for coffee and a tour of the dry bean breeding program at 10 am at the Morden Research and Development Centre.
Thursday, September 13 – There will be an NSERC Scholarships and Fellowships Information Session in the Senate Chamber Room – E3-262 Engineering from 9 am to 12 noon. NSERC staff will give a presentation on how to prepare a scholarship or fellowship application. Please register for a spot at https://manitobagrad.hobsonsradius.com/ssc/eform/N70B0GC0M00kx6700tBal.ssc
Saturday, September 29 – There is a pre-ISNN-conference course add-on entitled “Precision Nutrition in Practice” which is hosted by Dr Martin Kohlmeier and Olivia Dong. Cost: $125 (plus 5% GST). Details and registration at www.isnn2018.org.
September 30-October 3 – The 12th Congress 2018 International Society of Nutrigenetics-Nutrigenomics will take place in Winnipeg, MB. The Scientific Program will include presentations from internationally renowned speakers on cutting edge areas of research and new discoveries in genetics/genomics, and nutrition. Check out the website at www.isnn2018.org. (See call for abstracts in General News below)
Wednesday, October 24 – Save the date for the 10th Annual Kraft Lecture, which will feature Daniel Sumner, Frank H. Buck, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis. More details to come.
November 27-28 – Presented by the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association, the Regenerative Agriculture Conference themed “Adapting to Today’s Food and Farming World” will be held at the Victoria Inn in Brandon, highlighting opportunities to boost farm profits using farm systems and ground level-thinking that enhances available natural resources such as healthy soil and intact grasslands. The conference will feature speakers from across North America, including Martin Entz, Plant Science, who will discuss and demonstrate how livestock and grain farmers can apply the principles of regenerative agriculture. Learn more and register at https://mfga.net/conference/.
STAFF AND STUDENT NEWS
Chengbo Yang, Animal Science, was awarded the Canadian Society of Animal Science Young Scientist Award 2018. This award, sponsored by Masterfeeds, is in recognition of the significant contributions that Chengbo has made to livestock nutrition and nutritional biochemistry.
Kalynn Spain has joined the Faculty in the role of Student Recruitment, Job Placement and Co-operative Education Coordinator. Kalynn comes to us from Keystone Agricultural Producers where she played a key role in supporting the organization’s executive and Board of Directors, along with working extensively with KAP’s Young Farmers Committee. Prior to joining KAP, Kalynn founded Small Farms Manitoba, a network of direct-marketing producers that now operates as Direct Farm Manitoba. She has also worked for St. Norbert Farmers’ Market as its farm inspector. Kalynn brings experience working with organizations such as FortWhyte Farms, Manitoba Start, and Harvest Moon Society. She can be reached at kalynn [dot] spain [at] umanitoba [dot] ca or 204-480-1488, or in person in Room 160 Agriculture Building.
Albert Bazinet has been appointed to to the Agricultural Attendant position at the Glenlea Research Station as of July 3. Albert has been working at the Research Station just under two years with the Dairy and Ruminant Teams and in his new role Albert will work with the Dairy Team in the new robotic dairy facility.
Bill Poluha has been announced as the Liaison Librarian for the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. Bill has extensive experience as an academic librarian and a research interests in gastronomy and flavour perception knowledge translation, information literacy, mobile learning and marketing within academic libraries. Bill can be reached at 204-474-6334 or 204-474-6197 or bill [dot] poluha [at] umanitoba [dot] ca, or by Booking a Consult http://libguides.lib.umanitoba.ca/prf.php?account_id=37200.
Chengbo Yang, Animal Science, and seven of his graduate students, research associate Dr. Shangxi Liu and visiting scholar Dr. Yajing Wang attended the 2018 American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) and the Canadian Society of Animal Science (CSAS) Joint Annual Meeting and trade show held in Vancouver July 8-12. Janghan Choi, Xiaoya Zhao, Chongwu Yang and Shangxi Liu made poster presentations. Faith Omonijo, Zhigang Tan and Yajing Wang made oral presentations. Zhigang and Janghan have been awarded the 2018 CSAS Graduate Student Travel Fellowship sponsored by Canadian Science Publishing and Agricultural Institute of Canada.
Song Liu and graduate students Warren Blunt, Chris Dartiailh, and Wei Li from Biosystems Engineering delivered oral and poster presentations of their research at the 47th World Polymer Congress held in Cairns, Australia, from July 1-5. Song presented “Reversible pH-responsive polyurethanes for on-demand intravaginal drug delivery”. Warren presented a poster “Rheological characterization of culture medium for microbial polyhydroxyalkanoates production” and an oral “Uniformity in monomer composition of medium chain length polyhydroxyalkanoates synthesized by Pseudomonas putida in low oxygen environments”. Chris presented a poster “- Effect of carbon substrate on mechanical and thermal properties of medium chain length polyhydroxyalkanoates” and an oral “Oxidative cleavage of unsaturated medium chain length polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) – a post-treatment method to customize PHA polymers”. Wei presented a poster “Bacterial triggered release of potent biocide from core-shell PHA nanofiber”.
Rotimi Aluko, Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, was an invited speaker at the Royal Golden Jubilee PhD Symposium held June 7-9 at Pattaya, Thailand. The title of his presentation was “Antihypertensive and antioxidant effects of multifunctional hemp seed peptides after oral administration to spontaneously hypertensive rats”. From June 11-13, Rotimi held research collaboration meetings with Faculty members in the School of Bioresources and Technology, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand. On June 15, Rotimi attended the Bangkok inception workshop for the recently SSHRC-funded and UofM-led “Dried Fish Matters” project, which will examine the socioeconomic and nutritional aspects of dried fish markets in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand. He will lead the investigation of nutritional composition of traded dried fish varieties along the market chain.
Emelia Adator, Ph.D. student in Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, attended and presented at the International Association for Food Protection, held July 7-11 in Salt Lake City, United States. Emilia’s topic was “Assessment of antimicrobial resistance in Escherichia coli isolated from Beef Production Systems and Human Sewage” and she is supervised by Claudia Narvaez-Bravo and Tim McAllister.
Ronald R. Marquardt (professor emeritus, Animal Science) and Srinivasa Madhyastha made a research presentation at the 40th Mycotoxin Workshop held in Munich, Germany, June 11-13, entitled “Neutralization of the toxic effects of aflatoxin B1 in an animal model (Zebrafish) using either an antibody or an aptamer”. The results demonstrated that both the antibodies and the DNA aptamer (a chemical antibody) were 100% effective at neutralizing the toxicity of aflatoxin B1. The technology has the potential to be applied in all animal feeds and with all mycotoxins. Both binder technologies have been patented (pending) by the authors.
Fifty-seven US Senators and senior staff visited the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre on July 14. They were guests of Minister Ralph Eichler and toured the FFDC with Myrna Grahn and new Dairy Barn with Tracy Gilson. Dan Mazier and Myrna spoke to the group about the Canadian Journey to Public Trust, basic agronomy and crops in Manitoba and the animal industry including dairy, hogs, eggs and beef.
Megan Bourns, Soil Science, and her M.Sc. thesis project will be featured in the pillar ad that the U of M will be installing in the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport as part of the University’s Innovation campaign. Watch for it on your next trip through the airport!
IN THE NEWS
Members of the Department of Entomology were featured on CTV Morning Live (July 9) – Jason Gibbs talks about wild bees https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1435010; Gina Karam talks about stable flies https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1435023; Crystal Almdal talks about lady bugs https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1435036; Kateryn Rochon talks about ticks https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1435046; and Rob Currie talks about honeybees https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1435069.
Visiting Professor Lindsay Brown, University of Southern Queensland – Australia, and Ph.D. student Ashwini Sharma were highlighted along with Peter Jones, Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals in a CTV News story (July 13) for the new Healthy Ageing Study – https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1438939&binId=1.1164782&playlistPageNum=1
Francis Zvomuya, Soil Science, has been interviewed by numerous media outlets regarding soil in St. Boniface.
Winnipeg Free Press (July 17) – https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/lead-in-st-b-soil-samples-exceeds-safety-limits-province-cites-byelection-for-silence-on-urgent-issue-488441601.html
CBC News – https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/st-boniface-gardens-heavy-metal-contamination-1.4750141
Kristen Matwychuk, Farm and Food Discovery Centre, was interviewed in the story “Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre hosted 65 school tours this school year” on mysteinbach.com (July 9) – https://www.mysteinbach.ca/news/3152/bruce-d-campbell-farm-and-food-discovery-centre-hosted-65-school-tours-this-school-year/. Kristen was also interviewed on Farmscape.ca – http://newsletter.farmscape.ca/w/ruA0mZ8rYaEVX7d1hBNThA/f8HMprSHJtCUF2C0eBHEYw/5892YKsIQWCAYQ2ms75qY7vA.
Kristen and two able volunteers – Julianna and Grace – demonstrated ice cream making on CTV Morning Live (July 19) – https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1441985
Michele Rogalsky, School of Agriculture, was interviewed in the article “U of M reinvents its agriculture diploma program” in the KAP Farmers Voice (Summer 2018) – http://news.umanitoba.ca/kap-farmers-voice-u-of-m-reinvents-its-agriculture-diploma-program/.
PUBLICATIONS
Consumer interest in prebiotic ingredients added to dairy beverages is related to their potential capacity to improve human gut health. Osmotic potential changes elicited by the prebiotic molecules can drive phase separation of the milk’s casein micelles, thereby impairing beverage quality. In a collaboration between the University of Manitoba and Tarbiat Modares University in Iran, it was shown that the concentration of prebiotic was not only important, but also its molecular weight if phase separation in the fortified dairy beverage was to be prevented.
Shahla Teimouri, Soleiman Abbasi & Martin G. Scanlon (2018). Stabilisation mechanism of various inulins and hydrocolloids: Milk-sour cherry juice mixture. International Journal of Dairy Technology 71: 208-215.
Ronald R. Marquardt, professor emeritus, Animal Science, and Suzhen Li, published an invited featured review entitled: “Antimicrobial resistance in livestock: advances and alternative to antibiotics” in Animal Frontiers 8(2):30-37, 2018. The article is jointly published by the American, Canadian and European Societies of Animal Sciences and can be viewed on Google Scholar.
GENERAL NEWS
The Glenlea Research Station Shop phone number has been changed to 204-297-0913 effective immediately.
The Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals is conducting a study to investigate the benefits of consuming fruit products during ageing. The study is open to men and women 65 years and older, have a body mass index of less than 30kn/m2, not suffering from a chronic disease and not taking any medications. Participants will be compensated for their contribution to this study. For more information Dr Peter Jones, principal investigator, phone: 204-474-9989, email: healthyageing [at] umanitoba [dot] ca, website www.rcffn.ca.
IST Audio-Visual is hosting demonstrations of AV equipment for faculty and instructors. These sessions will take place throughout August. Sessions will demonstrate how the electronic classroom works; the features of the room that are available to instructors; and basic troubleshooting procedures. More information including dates and times at http://news.umanitoba.ca/save-some-stress-and-sign-up-for-classroom-audiovisual-demonstrations/.
PMUSER (the Proceedings of Manitoba’s Undergraduate Science and Engineering Research) has received funding from the Ag Endowment Fund to put together a special volume featuring undergraduate research in Agricultural and Food Sciences as part of their 2018 publication year. All peer-reviewed submissions are eligible for consideration for the $250 Best Paper Award! Formats might include opinions/perspectives on current topics, essays on value of summer research, short communication research papers, mini-reviews, and extension style articles. Email Matthew Doering (Editor-in-Chief) at pmuser [at] umanitoba [dot] ca for more information.
The Amazing Agriculture Adventure will be held at the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre and the Richardson International Kelburn Farm from September 18 to 20. Over 1,000 students are registered for this annual event, organized by Agriculture in the Classroom – Manitoba (AITC-M), and volunteers are needed as class hosts and station facilitators. If you can lend your time and energy to this educational hands-on experience for Grade 4 and 5 students, visit the AITC-M website before September 1 at http://aitc.mb.ca/get-involved/volunteers/registration/winnipeg-aaa-volunteers-needed/.
Call for Abstracts for ISNN2018 – Present your latest discoveries! The 12th Congress of the International Society of Nutrigenetics-Nutrigenomics is September 30-October 2. All abstracts will be published in Lifestyle Genomics. Abstract deadline has been extended to August 15. Check out the preliminary program online and submit your abstract today for one of the 10 sessions – www.isnn2018.org.
The Government of Canada is currently seeking applications from diverse and talented Canadians from across the country who are interested in becoming a commissioner with the International Joint Commission (IJC). Established under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, the IJC prevents and resolves disputes between Canada and the United States regarding shared waters. Learn more and apply here! http://ow.ly/DzD830kNRQE