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Feature Stories
Attacking mites in
winter
Boosting folate in women
Two new hemp
varieties
A 2005 ARDI plant
breeding
grant is helping to move varietal research forward in Manitoba's
emerging hemp industry.
Parkland Industrial Hemp Growers
is preparing to register two new hemp varieties (including the one
shown below) with the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency,
Health Canada and the
Canadian
Seed Growers' Association, as a result of
plant breeding work conducted over the past four summers.
One of the new
varieties has been bred specifically for its improved fibre quality
and quantity. Hemp stalk can be used to make products such as paper,
insulation, non-woven matting and composites for the automotive and
aerospace industries. Certified seed of the newly registered variety
Alyssa will be available to farmers this
spring.
Pouring Boreal
Gold
Doug Eryou (above) pours sap obtained
from birch and other boreal forest trees.
Photo
courtesy Frank Fieber, North Roots Magazine
With the help of an
ARDI grant,
Doug Eryou
of
Channel Development Corporation
in Flin Flon has been combining the sap of several of Manitoba's
northern trees to make a syrup he is calling
Boreal Gold.
Eryou initially set out to make a
birch syrup,
but he has found he can make a better product by combining the sap
from several different trees. He is now in the process of moving
Boreal Gold from a local phenomenon to a commercially available
product. Eryou is keen to use Manitoba's natural resources in a
sustainable fashion, generating new employment along the way.
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Targeting honey
bee parasites over the winter
A student prepares hives for monitoring in anticipation of
fumigation
University
of Manitoba scientists have developed a new method for dealing with
the world's most serious
honey bee pest,
but unfortunately for beekeepers in warmer climates, the solution is
truly made-for-Manitoba.
Varroa mites are relatively new to
Manitoba, first appearing in beehives around 1990, but their
presence was soon noticed by those in the honey industry. "If left
untreated, these mites will kill colonies outright in two to three
years," says
Dr. Rob Currie
at the Department of Entomology. "Even at low levels of infestation,
they have a huge effect on honey production, reducing productivity
to 100 lb per hive, when normal productivity is 150 to 250 lb per
hive."
Dr. Currie joined
the University of Manitoba's Department of Entomology in 1991 and
shortly after began the first of a series of experiments to
determine whether formic acid applied in indoor wintering facilities
could control these mites.
"Normally,
chemicals to control mites are applied to beehives in the middle of
the summer," says Dr. Currie. "Apiaries are generally scattered
around the countryside and beekeepers have to drive to each hive
four to five times each summer."
Many beekeepers in
Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta bring their honey bee colonies
indoors during the cold winter months. Dr. Currie says this method
of
wintering colonies indoors is
unique to beekeepers in Canada's Prairie provinces
and presents a competitive opportunity: "This highly reliable and
cost-effective method of controlling honey bee parasites through
winter fumigation in wintering buildings can reduce labour input
costs, reduce the amount of chemical used and improve worker safety
by eliminating repeated low-dose exposure to formic acid in the
fields."
Dr. Currie's most
recent
ARDI-funded experiment has shown that repeated low-dose
exposures of formic acid kill the mites but do not kill the
all-important queens. Dr. Currie is currently in the process of
seeking approval from the Pesticide Management and Regulatory Agency
for this specific use of formic acid. He estimates the
economic
savings for beekeepers in western Canada
could total
$770,000
in one year from direct reductions in the chemical costs alone.
Unscrambling myths regarding egg consumption and health
 A
group of young women will soon be consuming folate-enriched eggs as
part of a new clinical trial getting underway at the University of
Manitoba. Dr. Jim House,
with the Department of Animal Science,
wants to determine if the folate found in the enriched eggs is more
available for absorption than the folate found in vitamin pills. Dr.
House, in an earlier
ARDI-funded project, developed a folate-enriched egg and then
demonstrated through animal trials that egg folate is highly
available.
Most of us are aware that women with
poor folate status around the time of conception are at increased
risk of giving birth to children with neural tube defects. Women
with low folate intake are also at increased risk of miscarriage. As
a result, doctors frequently encourage women of childbearing age to
increase their consumption of folate, often through folic acid
supplements. The trouble is that most women of childbearing age in
the U.S. and Canada still have folic acid intakes below the
recommended 400 micrograms per day.
Through
pre-screening
trials,
Dr. House and his colleagues have collected evidence that, while
young women in Manitoba have better folate status than initially
anticipated,
more than 30 per
cent
of the
women were not achieving the recommended daily allowance of 400
micrograms per day. "Results from our pre-screening trial show us
that additional measures are required to ensure that women are
receiving adequate amounts of folate from their diet," says Dr.
House. "Our next study will provide us with the answer as to whether
the folate-enriched egg provides a way to improve the folate status
of Manitobans."
In the next few weeks, a group of
young women will be participating in the final phase of the study to
determine the bioavailability of folate in enriched eggs. Dr. House
will speak about his research at a lunch-time speaker series
sponsored by the University of Manitoba's Office of the
Vice-President (Research) on Nov. 30. ARDI is joined by the
Canadian Egg
Marketing Agency
and
Manitoba Egg
Producers
in providing financial support for this project. |
