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PhiBer Commercialization
Success
Starter Cultures and Antibiotic
Resistance
Dr. Rick Holley at the
University of Manitoba is using an ARDI grant
to investigate whether starter cultures used in food
manufacturing have antibiotic resistance. Starter cultures
are important in cheese, sourdough bread, sauerkraut, pickle
and sausage manufacturing. "Antibiotic resistance is
problematic in human clinical medicine," notes Holley. "Do
starter culture bacteria serve as reservoirs for antibiotic
resistance? Maybe there's no risk, for these organisms to
serve as reservoirs, but if there is, we have to take steps
to ensure we are not unwittingly making things worse."
Pea Bar Travels
A Manitoba-made snack bar
 containing
peas is being shown at conferences around the world.
Best Cooking Pulses developed the pea bar at the
Food Development Centre in Portage la
Prairie with the help of ARDI funding. The
bar has been shown in Honolulu, San Francisco and most
recently, in Toronto at the Pulse Food Symposium.
ARDI announces support for new projects
at U of M
In December, ARDI announced
eight grants worth more than half-a-million
dollars. Research questions relate to human health,
nutrition, food, water, soil and plant health. "You can
easily see the links between agriculture, agri-food and
health," said ARDI Chair David Gislason at
a news conference held in the Atrium of the U of M's
Agriculture Building. ARDI research "is all about enhancing
the viability of agriculture in Manitoba, but clearly, it's
also about enhancing the health of Manitoba's citizens."
Dr. Michael Trevan,
Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences,
speaks at ARDI news conference in December 2007.
Ag Days Winner
Charlie Main, of
Virden, won ARDI's contest to identify the berry pictured in
Brandon's Ag Days program. We sent Charlie a basket full of
Manitoba food products made by companies that have received
ARDI funding. Products included John Russell Honey,
Miinan Wild Blueberry Salad Dressing,
Prairie Lane Saskatoon Topping and Northern
Forest Diversification Wild Mint Tea.
Council Meetings
ARDI Council meets twice in March to review funding
applications submitted by the Feb. 1 deadline.
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Efficient Irrigation: Plants Draw their
own Water as Needed
Ranjan Sri Ranjan
explains how water is continuously available to pepper
plants through tubes.
If you tend to over-water
or under-water your plants, you'll love the self-watering
system being developed at the University of Manitoba.
 The
system allows plant roots to draw water directly through a
capillary-irrigation system made of porous material. If you
look closely at the photo to the left, you can see that the
soil in the plastic cups is actually resting on a membrane
above a layer of water. Pressure prevents water from leaking
out freely under gravity. Also visible in the photo are
small, clear tubes running out from the bottom of the cups.
These tubes ensure water is always available for the plant
to draw into the soil. The micro-pores on the membrane allow
water to pass through only when the plant's roots generate a
greater negative pressure against the membrane. Dr.
Ranjan Sri Ranjan with the Department of
Biosystems Engineering says it's negative pressure
that allows the plants in your house or yard to move water
into the roots from the surrounding soil. In Ranjan's
experimental greenhouse, negative pressure also draws water
through membrane into the root zone.
"The water is constantly
available, stored just beneath the plant's root systems,
"says Sri Ranjan. "Since the irrigation is entirely
controlled by the plant's water needs, different plants with
different water needs can be grown side-by-side without
drowning each other out."
Even savvy greenhouse
operators with drip irrigation systems can save water by
allowing the plant to determine its own water needs. That's
because traditional drip irrigation systems send a
predetermined amount of water to the soil even when the
water needs of adjacent plants are different. Over-watering
can be avoided with skilled greenhouse staff, but some water
may still ultimately be wasted, through evaporation into the
air.
Sri Ranjan is currently
evaluating the water use efficiency of different greenhouse
plants using the capillary-irrigation system. He is also
trying to establish optimal root volume for various plants.
In conventional irrigation, large root volume is required
for temporary storage of water between two irrigation
events. In this system, since the plants take up water and
nutrients directly from the porous membrane, the root volume
need not be as large as in traditional pot-based growth
systems, leading to a reduction in volume of potting media.
The peppers shown above would normally be grown in much
larger pots, meaning that the capillary-irrigation system
may free up valuable greenhouse space, potentially without
any loss in yield.
Sri Ranjan's research is
expected to lead to the development of low-cost,
self-watering greenhouse production systems suitable for use
by remote northern communities. ARDI and
Manitoba Hydro are funding partners in this
project.
PhiBer Bale Accumulator a
Commercialization Success
 Today,
PhiBer's Bale Accumulator is sold throughout North America.
Back in 1999, the accumulator was still just a great idea
that needed to be tested.
At the time, the people at the Crystal
City, Manitoba office of PhiBer Manufacturing
knew they were on to something with their design for a large
square bale accumulator. ARDI provided a $50,000 grant to
help PhiBer fine tune the design, including changes to the
wheels and the electronic control system. The company also
needed to come up with a way to adapt to various tractor
hydraulic systems. In the years since, PhiBer has continued
to refine the features and options of its flagship product.
PhiBer's Business Manager Rick
Lussier (pictured with the accumulator at Ag Days
in Brandon) says ARDI funding helped the company move
forward faster. "The accumulator is still the bread and
butter of our business," says Lussier. The accumulator
allows producers to group bales into a package that will
match both loader capabilities and stacking preferences.
PhiBer Big Bale Accumulators are now sold throughout North
America through Case New Holland and Krone North America.
PhiBer is also mounting accumulators on Hesston/Massey/John
Deere/Freeman and the new Taarup balers from Europe.
As PhiBer said nearly ten years ago in
a report to ARDI, "Designing and developing prototype
equipment is expensive and time consuming, requiring
rigorous field-testing, and implementing modifications
before achieving a marketable product. PhiBer Manufacturing
Inc. is pleased that ARDI supports small rural based
manufacturing industries that create employment and enhance
community development." PhiBer is now looking outside of
North America and into Europe for its next marketing
challenge. |
