The tariff will be “over and above our normal tariffs already being charged,” Trump said in a media briefing.

“The Supreme Court did not overrule tariffs. They merely overruled a particular use of IEEPA for tariffs.”

Trump said his administration would also launch several investigations “to protect our country from unfair trading practices of other countries and companies.”

WHY IT MATTERS: While Canadian agricultural goods largely escaped tariffs under the CUSMA trade agreement, U.S. President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs created significant uncertainty.

Trump signed an executive order later Friday imposing a 10 per cent ad valorem tariff to take effect on articles imported into the U.S. starting Tuesday (Feb. 24).

Section 122 allows the president to impose duties up to 15 per cent or quotas for up to 150 days, the Retail Industry Leaders Association explained in a post.

“Specifically, Section 122 allows the President to impose duties of up to 15 per cent or quotas for up to 150 days on imports from all countries, or selectively against countries that maintain unjustifiable or unreasonable restrictions on U.S. commerce.”

The new 10 per cent tariff will not be imposed on any CUSMA-compliant “goods of Canada and Mexico,” the White House said in a fact sheet later Friday.

Nor will it be imposed on “certain agricultural products, including beef, tomatoes, and oranges.”

Other imports exempt from the new tariff will include “natural resources and fertilizers that cannot be grown, mined, or otherwise produced in the United States or grown, mined, or otherwise produced in sufficient quantities to meet domestic demand” as well as “certain critical minerals, metals used in currency and bullion, energy and energy products.”

Among other specific goods, pharmaceuticals and electronics, it will also not apply to “passenger vehicles, certain light trucks, certain medium and heavy-duty vehicles, buses, and certain parts of passenger vehicles, light trucks, heavy-duty vehicles and buses.”

Trump on Friday separately announced the continued suspension, first imposed on Feb. 1 last year, of duty-free de minimis treatment for low-value shipments, including goods shipped through the international postal system. Those goods will also be subject to the new 10 per cent tariff.

In a separate social media post Saturday (Feb. 21), Trump said he would instead set his new Section 122 tariff “effective immediately” at “the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15 per cent level,” but as of Sunday (Feb. 22) had not yet issued a new or updated proclamation or executive order to that effect.

Canadian groups react

Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Keith Currie told Glacier FarmMedia in a text that he hoped the Supreme Court’s decision would bring back some stability to cross-border trade. However, he noted that we’d have to wait and see what other tools the Trump administration utilizes.

“Obviously this court decision supports what we’ve been saying about the tariffs not being justified,” Currie said.

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling that the IEEPA tariffs are unlawful is welcome news for equipment manufacturers, which have spent the last year navigating higher input costs and mounting trade uncertainty,” said Kip Eideberg, senior vice-president of industry and government relations for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, in a statement.

“What equipment manufacturers need most is certainty so they can make long-term decisions that benefit their workers, their customers, and the broader economy.”

Following Trump’s vow to impose other tariffs, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers reiterated equipment manufacturers’ need for certainty while making longterm decisions.

The justices, in a 6-3 ruling authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld a lower court’s decision that the Republican president’s use of this 1977 law exceeded his authority.

Trump says he’s “ashamed” of SCOTUS members

Trump, in comments at the White House, condemned the ruling as “terrible” and lashed out at the six justices who ruled against him.

“I’m ashamed of certain members of the court – absolutely ashamed – for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said.

Trump has leveraged tariffs – taxes on imported goods – as a key economic and foreign policy tool.

“Our task today is to decide only whether the power to “regulate … importation,” as granted to the president in IEEPA, embraces the power to impose tariffs. It does not,” Roberts wrote in the ruling, quoting the statute’s text that Trump claimed had justified his sweeping tariffs.

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress, not the president, the authority to issue taxes and tariffs.

Tariffs have been central to a global trade war that Trump initiated after he began his second term as president, one that has alienated trading partners, affected financial markets and caused global economic uncertainty.

Trump has called his tariffs vital for U.S. economic security, predicting that the country would be defenseless and ruined without them.

“Foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years are ecstatic,” Trump said on Friday. “They’re so happy, and they’re dancing in the streets, but they won’t be dancing for long that, I can assure you.”

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, had allowed Trump’s expansive exertion of presidential powers in other areas in a series of rulings issued on an emergency basis, and Friday’s ruling represented the biggest setback it has dealt him since he returned to office in January 2025.

“It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think,” Trump said.

“He cannot”

Roberts, citing a prior Supreme Court ruling, wrote that “the president must ‘point to clear congressional authorization’ to justify his extraordinary assertion of the power to impose tariffs,” adding: “He cannot.”

Trump has leveraged tariffs – taxes on imported goods – as a key economic and foreign policy tool. They have been central to a global trade war that Trump initiated after he began his second term as president, one that has alienated trading partners, affected financial markets and caused global economic uncertainty.

The Supreme Court reached its conclusion in a legal challenge by businesses affected by the tariffs and 12 U.S. states, most of them Democratic-governed, against Trump’s unprecedented use of this law to unilaterally impose the import taxes.

Trump’s tariffs were forecast to generate over the next decade trillions of dollars in revenue for the United States, which possesses the world’s largest economy.

Tariffs will likely need to be refunded

Trump’s administration has not provided tariffs collection data since December 14. But Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists estimated on Friday that the amount collected in Trump’s tariffs based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act stood at more than $175 billion (C$239.4 billion). And that amount likely would need to be refunded with a Supreme Court ruling against the IEEPA-based tariffs.

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress, not the president, the authority to issue taxes and tariffs. But Trump instead turned to a statutory authority by invoking IEEPA to impose the tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner without the approval of Congress. Trump has imposed some additional tariffs under other laws that are not at issue in this case. Based on government data from October to mid-December, those represent about third of the revenue from Trump-imposed tariffs.

IEEPA lets a president regulate commerce in a national emergency. Trump became the first president to use IEEPA to impose tariffs, one of the many ways he has aggressively pushed the boundaries of executive authority since he returned to office in areas as varied as his crackdown on immigration, the firing of federal agency officials, domestic military deployments and military operations overseas.

Trump described the tariffs as vital for U.S. economic security, predicting that the country would be defenseless and ruined without them. Trump in November told reporters that without his tariffs “the rest of the world would laugh at us because they’ve used tariffs against us for years and took advantage of us.” Trump said the United States was abused by other countries including China, the second-largest economy.

U.S. could invoke other legal justifications: Bessent

After the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in November, Trump said he would consider alternatives if it ruled against him on tariffs, telling reporters that “we’ll have to develop a ‘game two’ plan.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other administration officials said the United States would invoke other legal justifications to retain as many of Trump’s tariffs as possible. Among others, these include a statutory provision that permits tariffs on imported goods that threaten U.S. national security and another that allows retaliatory actions including tariffs against trading partners that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative determines have used unfair trade practices against American exporters.

None of these alternatives offered the flexibility and blunt-force dynamics that IEEPA provided Trump, and may not be able to replicate the full scope of his tariffs in a timely fashion.

Trump’s ability to impose tariffs instantaneously on any trading partner’s goods under the aegis of some form of declared national emergency raised his leverage over other countries. It brought world leaders scrambling to Washington to secure trade deals that often included pledges of billions of dollars in investments or other offers of enhanced market access for U.S. companies.

But Trump’s use of tariffs as a cudgel in U.S. foreign policy has succeeded in antagonizing numerous countries, including those long considered among the closest U.S. allies.

IEEPA historically had been used for imposing sanctions on enemies or freezing their assets, not to impose tariffs. The law does not specifically mention the word tariffs. Trump’s Justice Department had argued that IEEPA allows tariffs by authorizing the president to “regulate” imports to address emergencies.

Tariffs generated $195 billion

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if all current tariffs stay in place, including the IEEPA-based duties, they would generate about $300 billion annually over the next decade.

Total U.S. net customs duty receipts reached a record $195 billion (C$266.8 billion) in fiscal 2025, which ended on September 30, according to U.S. Treasury Department data.

On April 2 on a date Trump labeled “Liberation Day,” the president announced what he called “reciprocal” tariffs on goods imported from most U.S. trading partners, invoking IEEPA to address what he called a national emergency related to U.S. trade deficits, though the United States already had run trade deficits for decades.

In February and March of 2025, Trump invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, citing the trafficking of the often-abused painkiller fentanyl and illicit drugs into the United States as a national emergency.

Trump has wielded his tariffs to extract concessions and renegotiate trade deals, and as a weapon to punish countries that draw his ire on non-trade political matters. These have ranged from Brazil’s prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, India’s purchases of Russian oil that help fund Russia’s war in Ukraine, and an anti-tariffs ad by Canada’s Ontario province.

IEEPA was passed by Congress and signed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter. In passing the measure, Congress placed additional limits on the president’s authority compared to a predecessor law.

The cases on tariffs before the justices involved three lawsuits.

The Washington-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with five small businesses that import goods in one challenge, and the states of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont in another.

Separately, a Washington-based federal judge sided with a family-owned toy company called Learning Resources.

— Additional reporting by David Lawder and John Kruzel. With files from Jonah Grignon and Geralyn Wichers.

The post Trump declares 10 per cent global tariff after Supreme Court decision appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Sold in the early 2000s, it came in an “EZ Squirt” bottle and, if memory serves, was a lurid shade of brownish-mauve.

My grandmother bought it for me and my three siblings. She also got us a bottle of green ketchup. Compared to today’s pushes for additive-free, all natural less processed foods, food marketing back in the early ‘oughts’ seems a bit like a fever dream. I can only imagine how much food colouring went into purple ketchup back then.

Today though, if they really wanted to, they could probably make it without artificial colours thanks to a recent development in genetic engineering.

This August, United States-based Norfolk Healthy Produce got Health Canada’s approval to bring The Purple Tomato to Canada.

This seems to have flown under the media’s radar. I heard about them from an Australian crop breeder at a University of Manitoba lecture this fall.

Researcher Cathie Martin at the United Kingdom’s John Innes Institute used genetic engineering techniques to take genetic traits from snapdragon flowers, and apply them to tomatoes.

In case you were wondering, snapdragon blooms are, in fact, edible, according to a few gardening websites I checked. It doesn’t sound like they taste good, though.

Martin brought in the traits that boost the presence of the pigment anthocyanin in the tomatoes.

Anthocyanins are widespread in nature. They contribute to plants’ red, violet, blue and orange colouring according to a 2021 paper from the National Library of Medicine. It’s the same group of water-soluble compounds that give red, purple or blue veggies their hue and have been praised as antioxidants. In this case, they gave Martin’s resulting tomatoes a rich purple colour.

“Recent human and animal surveys revealed that (anthocyanins) are functional compounds able to increase antioxidant defences, diminish free radical damage, chronic inflammation and the risk of mutations, and attenuate, or even mitigate, the development and progression of many non-communicable and degenerative chronic disorders,” the paper said.

According to Norfolk Healthy Produce, the anthocyanins in purple tomatoes may provide benefits like anti-inflammatory effects, improved vision health and better cardiovascular health. One serving of the purple tomato delivers a similar amount of anthocyanin as a serving of blueberries, the company’s website says.

That’s not what drew me to them, though. I only thought about making purple salsa and purple pizza sauce. Perhaps even ketchup?

Based on Norfolk’s website, seeds for The Purple Tomato were only available for sale in the U.S. in 2025 and sales are closed for the season. We’ll have to see if they’re made available in time for our 2026 gardens.

The post Introducing the purple tomato appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Popular in produce-growing areas of the northern United States such as Minnesota, high tunnels are slowly making their way onto Manitoba fruit and vegetable operations. Much of that interest came from Manitoba Agriculture’s efforts to identify practices that maximize the benefits of these semi-permanent structures.

WHY IT MATTERS: Indoor vegetable production doesn’t have the same mark on Manitoba’s agricultural sector as in some other provinces, but there are companies making a go of it in the Keystone Province.

Under the lead of Tom Gonsalves, a vegetable specialist with Manitoba Ag, researchers have been conducting a series of tests since 2014 to see what grows best in its own built-from-scratch high tunnel in Portage la Prairie.

So far, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and spinach have proven their hardiness under its arched frame.

Perhaps their most crucial feature is the ability to extend vegetable farmers’ growing seasons, said Gonsalves.

“If we’re comparing it to field production, you’re going to get in a couple of weeks earlier and depending on how hard the frost is in the fall and how soon it comes, you’re going to get anywhere from a few days at a minimum to probably a number of weeks (in the fall).”

Tomatoes are among the plants that fare best in the tunnel. “We’ve shown you can generate higher marketable yields from tomatoes in a high tunnel versus field production. We have data to back up that statement.”

Gonsalves explained some differences between greenhouses and high tunnels.

First, a greenhouse is a permanent structure grounded by a permanent foundation. They’re usually equipped with electricity, permanent heat and ventilation systems plus glass or plastic covering. They can be used year-round “if you’re prepared to pay the heating bill,” he said.

Meanwhile, a high tunnel is a semi-permanent structure set up on the soil. A standard high tunnel is made of large metal hoops covered by polyethylene plastic. They range in size from 10 to 30 feet wide, nine to 12 feet high and 96 to 100 feet long, according to the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Most high tunnel operators plant right into the soil. In greenhouses, crops are grown in either pots or containers with soil.

“(It) doesn’t have the same degree of engineering required (as a greenhouse),” said Gonsalves.

“In our world here in Manitoba, most municipalities wouldn’t require an engineering certificate to put up a high tunnel, whereas if you’re building a greenhouse, being basically a building, you would require some municipal approvals.”

A greenhouse can be covered in glass or plastic, but glass is generally too rigid for high tunnels.

“One of the purposes of a high tunnel is that it’s cheaper to build than a greenhouse. As soon as you start using a more rigid frame with glass in there, if the frame shifts it’s going to crack the glass,” says Gonsalves.

There’s no permanent heat or powered, forced-fan ventilation in a high tunnel, but temporary heaters can augment heat if necessary. Controlling heat and ventilation in a high tunnel is often done the old-fashioned way: rolling up the sides and opening and closing doors.

Gonsalves and Bruce Berry, a vegetable grower with Almost Urban Vegetables in St. Norbert, Man., identified some of the pros and cons of vegetable producers using high tunnels:

Pro: They extend the season

Gonsalves said one drawback of high tunnels is that it costs more to produce crops versus a field, but that can be offset by the longer seasons they enable.

“Your gain is you get a longer season which gives you more marketable yield and a longer window to sell your crop.”

The high tunnel in Portage averages a one- to four-week extension in the spring and one to three extra weeks in the fall. Although not temperature-controlled, Gonsalves says it offers the growing produce an extra three to five degrees Celsius in borderline freezing temperatures.

“If we go through October where the lowest temperature is, say, minus two or three, we have no death in our high tunnel due to frost.”

However, if there’s an extended period of cold temperatures in, for example, late September, that can quickly lead to a large amount of plant death from frost, putting the producer “behind the eight-ball” for harvesting, says Gonsalves.

That’s when some economic decisions — such as whether or not to continue investing labour in the crop — will likely have to be made.

Berry has found some workarounds to frost, including interplanting tactics such as seeding hardier vegetables such as lettuce earlier than more frost-vulnerable crops.

“(The lettuce will) be out by the time that the tomatoes start really growing tall and shading them.”

Pro: They can be profitable

“We’ve shown with a number of crops … that we can get probably $5,000 to $9,000 income (per year) out of our tunnel,” Gonsalves said. “That varies on the crop you choose and varies on the price in a given year.”

This profitability allowed Manitoba Agriculture to pay the investment off in around two to three years, he says.

“I would challenge any business person to come to me, or come to anyone, with a business plan that shows their capital costs can be paid off in two to three years .”

Pro: They’re flexible

The sheer number of vegetables Manitoba Agriculture has proven high tunnel-worthy is a testament to their flexibility, said Gonsalves.

In addition to the vegetable crops proven to be successfully grown in a high tunnel, the researchers have also evaluated kale, Swiss chard and leaf and romaine lettuce. However, Gonsalves said there’s still more work to be done to gain significant data on that group.

Berry’s seasonal high tunnel crops include tomatoes and cucumbers, but he’s also successfully grown okra. He has three kinds of tunnels — high, mid and low — that are used based on specific crop needs. High-growing vegetables, for example, are usually reserved for the high tunnel.

“We’ve done eggplant in (the high tunnel), but then we realized we could do the eggplant in the mid tunnel. Same with peppers. We realized, ‘Oh, they don’t get very tall — we can do those in the mid tunnel.’”

Con: They can be pricey

Although high tunnels can be profitable and not as expensive as a greenhouse, the initial investment can be heavy. High tunnel kits are generally sold for $10,000 to $12,000, said Gonsalves, although Manitoba Ag was able to build its own for around half the price.

And just like vegetable production can be more labour-intensive compared to grain cropping, high tunnels can further increase labour costs due to a lack of mechanization, he says.

However, a little know-how and experimentation can cut the cost of a high tunnel by some measure.

Berry built one out of a garage shelter — a temporary, portable structure usually used to protect parked vehicles from the elements — on his farm. These tend to retail for hundreds of dollars compared to the thousands asked for high tunnel kits.

“(They have) a very light-duty frame with a tarp over them. And so we just said, ‘Well, we put clear poly over that and it’ll be a high tunnel. And so we did and that worked quite well.’”

A used greenhouse frame can also serve as a high tunnel frame, said Berry. But the most important consideration takes place before the structure is ever placed on the soil.

“Get the soil built up the way you like it before you put the tunnel on top. It’s hard to do that after. That’s obvious, I guess, but maybe not.”

High tunnel users need to identify their goals around these structures and recognize the management practices that drive optimum results, he adds.

“If you make really early produce with it, do you have a place to sell that early produce? And can you make enough to make it worthwhile? You have to understand, I guess, what your goals are with it.”

Con: They can be high maintenance

Berry also said high tunnels can be a nuisance to maintain.

“You’ve got more to do to look after this thing. The poly only lasts four years and then if it gets degraded, it might just rip off from the wind. So you can have maintenance there.”

They can also be a vector for soil salinity if not managed correctly. Berry says leaving the cover on all winter can create salinity leading into a dry spring.

“There’s so much evaporation because it’s hotter. And with no rain, if you’re not careful, you can get salinity building in it. Whereas in an open field, the rain is going to sort of wash those salts back down.”

The post High tunnels make for longer vegetable growing season in Manitoba appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“It’s a little bit surreal, because we’ve been at it for such a long time, but at the same time, we’re all so ready,” said Maria Deschauer, managing director of Vermillion Growers.

Why it matters: The facility has been noted for its use of technology, including a water reclamation system, digital controls and sensors and structure designed for efficiency.

July 27 marked the grand opening of the company’s state-of-the-art greenhouse in northwestern Manitoba. The event comes after seven years of planning, raising capital and building, according to Deschauer.

Construction began in August 2022. The previous year was dedicated to laying down 18 kilometres of underground pipe and conduits.

The first tomato plants will go in at the beginning of September, Deschauer added.

Vermillion Growers plans to raise tomatoes hydroponically. The small plants put in this fall will grow and produce all winter, then be torn out and replaced next summer. The first crop is expected to yield around 10 million pounds (4.5 million kilograms, or 4,500 tonnes) of tomatoes on the vine — groups of still-connected tomatoes sold at supermarkets.

It sounds like an enormous quantity, but it’s a “very, very small percentage,” of the tomatoes Canadians eat, and will only displace a few per cent of what is typically imported, Deschauer said.

In 2019, Canada produced about 270,000 tonnes of tomatoes and imported nearly 60,000 tonnes, mainly from the United States and Mexico, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada data shows.

The Dauphin company will be working with distributor Red Sun Farms, which has connections with grocers like Loblaws and Federated Co-operatives Ltd. Its tomatoes will be sold in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, according to Deschauer.

The site will require 30 to 34 full-time employees, she said. At the moment, about 60 per cent of their workforce is composed of newcomers from Ukraine.

Vermillion Growers also has plans to expand up to 70 acres of growing space, allowing it to grow more varieties and eventually add cucumbers and peppers. This could require up to 210 workers, said Deschauer.

The company is partnering with Assiniboine Community College to give practical learning experience to the school’s horticulture students. Then it may be able to offer jobs to those students.

In 2020, Vermillion Growers told the Co-operator it had chosen the location because it’s within a half-day drive of Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon, putting it in range of major grocery distributors.

The community was also supportive, Deschauer said in a July 25 interview. Community members helped fund the company through the province’s Small Business Venture Capital Tax Credit program, which gives a tax credit of up to 45 per cent to individuals and corporations who back Manitoba startups.

Vermillion Growers raised about $3.5 million through that program, Deschauer said.

The post Enormous Dauphin greenhouse opens for tomato production  appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

But the titanic tomato growing soilless here in the United States Botanic Garden greenhouse for more than a year seems benign enough, but its size and age make it unique.

It doesn’t contain foreign DNA so it’s not a genetically modified organism.

Nor was it created through mutagenesis by exposing it to radiation or chemicals.

Its genes were not edited.

It’s just a tomato, albeit one that has already had its first birthday and is about 36 feet long with vines thicker than your thumb.

“Our gardener set our hydroponic system and I think he has really tailored the nutrients very specifically for tomatoes,” Devis Dotson, public affairs and exhibits specialist for the United States Botanic Garden (USBG) says in a May 27 interview. “To be honest, I think it’s super happy to be getting more tailored nutrients than it ever would outdoors.”

A month earlier, Dotson showed this remarkable plant to members of the North American Agricultural Journalists Association in town for their annual meeting.

USBG is surprised how long this tomato has not only lived, but how it remains so healthy, he said.

It’s part of the USBG’s latest exhibit running until December 2023 called ‘Cultivate: Growing food in a changing world.’

Agriculture takes many forms, including hydroponics, where water mixed with nutrients feed plants indoors without soil, where lights replace the sun and pests can be more easily managed.

“Indoor growing, or controlled-environment agriculture, can produce seasonal crops year round and keep short-lived crops like peppers alive and producing food for years,” reads a sign by the tomato display.

“The tomato plant is usually grown in the tropics as a perennial plant but in other areas it is mostly grown as an annual plant,” says the North Dakota State University’s website. “The plant originated in Chile and now has spread all throughout the world. It is the second most widely grown plant in the world and is the No. 1-grown garden plant.”

And then there’s the age-old question: Is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

It’s both, according to Britannic online.

“Tomatoes are fruits that are considered vegetables by nutritionists,” the site says. “Botanically, a fruit is a ripened flower ovary and contains seeds. Tomatoes, plums, zucchinis, and melons are all edible fruits, but things like maple ‘helicopters’ and floating dandelion puffs are fruits too. For some reason, people got hung up on tomatoes, but the ‘fruit or vegetable’ question could also work for any vegetable with seeds.”

This tomato has been flowering and setting fruit for months. Staff pick the ripened tomatoes.

“It’s being pruned as necessary but not necessarily to keep it short,” Dotson says. “It’s already the length of the room and wrapping back the other direction at this point. As growth continues… and if necessary, we’ll wrap it and bring it back the other way again. We’ve got the vertical supports to support it throughout as necessary.”

While tomatoes are self-pollinating the tomato is exposed to outside breezes as greenhouse windows automatically open and close throughout the day, Dotson said.

The downside is the potential introduction of a disease, something staff are watching closely for.

“It’s definitely a daily watch,” Dotson said.

The USBG’s agriculture exhibit shares “the stories of agriculture from the people who grow the food and the important cultural connections food provides to modern techniques and scientific innovations that make agriculture more sustainable and productive,” the USBG said in a news release.

“Visitors can explore the galleries and gardens to learn how inventive ideas in agriculture, both scientific and social, sustain and enrich life and how growing and cooking food connects people with each other and their communities. Agriculture, the science and technique of growing crops and livestock, depends on innovating how we grow plants. Agricultural innovation and knowledge sharing continue today in laboratories, on farms, and at botanic gardens like the USBG.

“Visitors can see dozens of colourful varieties of corn and learn about the wild relatives of modern plants we eat, go hands on to explore the science of agriculture through microscopes and hand lenses, dive into the stories of the many different peoples who have farmed the land through the centuries, and enjoy the smells of the plants that connect several local chefs with their food cultures as they share their stories in their own words.”

The post Titanic tomato is science fact, not science fiction appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The final vision of what will, by next year, be the province’s largest commercial vegetable greenhouse, built from the ground up for sustainability and efficiency, may still take some imagination. The construction site is still largely empty, outside of acres of prepared soil and the rough frame of what will one day be the company’s warehouse.

By this time next year, however, Vermillion Growers hopes to be growing its first crop of tomatoes, to be marketed year round to grocery stores as tomatoes on the vine.

Why it matters: The project could blaze a trail for a larger commercial horticulture sector in Manitoba.

It’s a model that hopes to capture the health and taste benefits of locally grown produce, Vermillion Growers managing director Maria Deschauer said, along with a pitch for a lower carbon footprint, since produce from Dauphin does not have to be shipped as far.

Tomatoes have consistently been the most imported vegetable in terms of volume since at least 2014, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, while Canada was the sixth-largest vegetable importer in the world as of 2018.

“Logistically, it’s a good location,” Deschauer said. “It will ensure that we’ll actually be able to harvest our product when it’s ripe and be able to get to the grocery stores in a timely fashion.”

Dauphin is within a half-day drive of Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon, she added, putting the greenhouse within range of major grocery distributors.

History

The story of Vermillion Growers starts with Deschauer’s brother, Lucky, a Dauphin resident with 35 years of experience in construction and property management and a longtime interest in greenhouses.

At 15 years old, according to his biography on the company website, Lucky and his father began experimenting with greenhouse designs, with a project list including a 20-foot glass greenhouse for winter vegetables.

Then, almost four years ago, Lucky Deschauer decided the time was right to fill what he saw as a gap in Manitoba’s agribusiness landscape.

“My brother Lucky was really the instigator, the founder of this company as he’s been interested in greenhouse and vegetable production for a long time,” Maria Deschauer said. “It wasn’t until recently — I guess the last 15 years — that greenhouses have become more and more profitable. So all of a sudden the expense of setting one up became viable and I think that’s what brought us to this industry.”

Lucky Deschauer’s research, including tours of greenhouses in Ontario, eventually convinced him that Dauphin was a viable location. Gas, electricity and water were all available on site, Maria Deschauer said, while Dauphin’s cool climate actually lent itself to the project, despite the relative lack of growing degree days compared to southern Ontario.

“It’s easier to heat a greenhouse than it is to cool one,” she noted.

The region isn’t totally without greenhouses, Maria Deschauer concedes. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, there were 102 vegetable greenhouse farms in the Prairies as of 2018. At the same time, greenhouses in Manitoba accounted for little of Canada’s production. About 69 per cent of greenhouse vegetables in 2018 came from Ontario, followed by British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec. All other regions in Canada accounted for a combined one per cent of the country’s production.

Current local greenhouses tend to be small, compared to the 10-acre first phase of the Vermillion Growers project, let alone the 60-acre footprint the company hopes to expand to within five years of opening, she said. Nor do they tend to produce year round.

The current market environment also looks good for local produce, she noted. Public attention to food security has rarely been higher than during the COVID-19 pandemic, with worries earlier this year over potential supply chain disruptions.

The company’s first phase will be limited to tomatoes on the vine — chosen largely because of the crop’s resilience and ease of production, as well as the popularity of tomatoes — although the company says it hopes to eventually expand to other produce.

Waste not, want not

The completed greenhouse will be a web of infrastructure, sensors and digital controls, all geared for energy, water and nutrient efficiency.

The efficiencies start with the physical design of the facility, according to project engineer Cormac Foster. The greenhouse will be outfitted with a water reclamation system, designed to minimize waste and make the most out of natural rainwater and snow.

The 10-acre footprint of the greenhouse means a lot of roof to collect precipitation, Foster noted, water that Vermillion Growers saw as being needlessly lost. Looking for solutions, the company turned to Winnipeg engineering firm Eng-Tech Consulting to develop a system for drainage.

The resulting gutters will not only carry water from roof run-off, but also gather condensation from the inside of the glass ceiling. That water will then feed into the irrigation and nutrient system hooked up to each hydroponically grown plant.

“Basically, you’re capturing the water from the roof of the greenhouse and running that through a series of pipes into retention ponds where you can store that water and then utilize that water for irrigation purposes inside the greenhouse, for your crop,” Foster said.

Greenhouse construction is also part of the design. Floors on either side of the central, east-west walkway will slope slightly, creating gravity flow for waste water to run through the north-south-running row gutters. That water will then be collected and recycled. Exterior support columns, meanwhile, will double as water transport.

“Those columns are actually hollow,” Foster said. “So the columns are actually connected to the gutter system that’s in the roof and when the rainwater runs through the gutters in the roof, or if there’s snow that’s on the roof that melted, that melted snow then runs through the gutters and filters down into the columns themselves.”

With the greenhouse still under construction, it is still hard to say how much water the system will actually save, he noted.

Energy efficiency

Alongside water reclamation, the company has turned its gaze to energy efficiency. Like all greenhouses, Vermillion Growers will have relatively high heating needs, but has turned to a biomass boiler, sourced out of Triple Green Products in Morris, rather than natural gas.

The company has said fuel for its biomass system will be drawn from wood industry byproducts.

“We’d be taking on the waste stream from another industry and utilizing that for our energy source for our biomass system,” Foster said.

No agreements have been signed, he added, although he says the company is in discussion with several “relatively local” potential suppliers.

Yet more technology will focus on getting the most out of sunlight.

The company plans to install a system of energy screens, sourced from Swedish textile company Ludvig Svensson, vertically along walls and horizontally across the facility’s roof.

The double-layered fabric screens are designed to trap energy that would otherwise leach through the glass walls and ceiling.

“Glass is typically not a very efficient material. You lose energy through glass,” Foster noted. “We need the glass, because we need the light transmission from the sun, but then the energy screens allow us to capture that heat inside.”

That ability to trap energy is especially relevant in Dauphin’s cold winters.

The company also expects an advanced ventilation system will help manage temperature and humidity evenly through the whole vertical space, a common challenge in greenhouses and a particular issue for the Vermillion Growers project. Design plans for the facility call for plants to be grown vertically along strings, creating potential issues if climate is not even throughout the entire height of the structure.

“You end up with plants that are extremely tall, and then as it grows and as it fruits you end up pulling the plants down and wrapping it around the grow gutter and it continues to grow up to the roof,” Foster said.

Vermillion Growers turned to yet another European company for a solution. The Hinova VentilationJet system promises to control humidity by circulating cooler, drier air from the peaks of the greenhouse to the main growing area below, pushing up the warmer air.

The Dutch company has linked the system to reduced disease concerns, given the more controlled humidity.

Overarching it all, are the digital climate controls.

The network of technologies throughout Vermillion Growers will be managed through a PRIVA climate control system, Foster said, something that he says will both allow for automatic efficiency, as well as future improvements. Humidity, ventilation, lights, temperature, the carbon dioxide dosing system and the drip system that feeds water and nutrients will all be centralized under PRIVA controls.

“PRIVA is really controlling and monitoring everything,” Foster said. “So that allows us to track all of the data, because there’s sensors all throughout the facility, so we can keep track of our climate data, nutrients, water use, energy and track that.”

Government support

The Manitoba government seems to agree with Maria Deschauer’s optimism around the future of the business.

In late June, the province announced up to $4.2 million in tax-increment financing for the project. The tax break would be offered through the Manitoba Works Capital Incentive (MWCI), which “rebates the incremental education property taxes generated by a project for up to 20 years,” the province said.

At the time, Economic Development and Training Minister Ralph Eichler pointed to the MWCI’s mandate for diversifying Manitoba’s economy.

“We select projects like Vermillion Growers’ new greenhouse that focus on economic development and long-term job creation and substantially improve property values,” Eichler said in a June release.

The first phase of the project is expected to create 30 full-time job slots, ramping up to 180 positions once the project reaches its five-year goal for expansion.

The project also earned praise from Agriculture and Resource Development Minister Blaine Pedersen, who said the greenhouse was “very important from a food security standpoint.”

Vermillion Growers is on track to plant its first crop between March and August 2021, although Deschauer noted that some equipment from overseas may be delayed.

The post Innovation on the vine appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

If you’ve never made your own fresh salsa, stop everything and make a batch right now; you’re going to love it. Simply mix together your favourite combination of tomatoes, onions, peppers, hot peppers, garlic, cilantro, salt, pepper, cumin and lime juice. That’s all there is to preparing a delicious batch of fresh salsa or pico de gallo.

Enjoy it with tortilla chips or in various recipes, but never ever can it.

In order to safely can salsa at home, it is important to use a recipe that has the correct level of acid (pH) and is heat processed for the correct time. The combination of acid and heat ensures potentially dangerous micro-organisms are deactivated and do not pose any health risks. Improper canning of salsa greatly increases the risk of foodborne illness including potentially fatal, botulism.

The easiest way for home canners to ensure the correct pH and processing time is to follow a recipe from a credible source that regularly tests their recipes. Three such sources are the National Center for Home Food Preservation, Bernardin Canada and Ball Canning. Between these three sites there are well over 20 different salsa recipes to choose from.

When you find a tested recipe that matches your preference, it’s important not to alter the ratio of low-acid (onions, peppers, garlic) and high-acid (vinegar, lemon or lime juice) ingredients. To personalize your recipe and keep it safe, here are some things you can and cannot change.

• You can change the amount of dried spices and herbs, but do not add additional fresh leafy herbs like cilantro, oregano, basil or parsley.
• You can choose whatever type of tomatoes you wish including green tomatoes or tomatillos, but do not use any affected by frost.
• You can mix and match any type of sweet or hot peppers, but do not use more than the total amount called for in the recipe.
• You can change the variety of onion used, but do not add more.
• You can add or remove sugar or salt as desired.
• You can use lemon or lime juice instead of vinegar, but you cannot use vinegar instead of lemon or lime juice because vinegar is less acidic than bottled lemon or lime juice.
• You can use less vegetables like onions, hot peppers, peppers, garlic and cilantro, but you cannot use more.
• You cannot change the cooking method or processing time specified.
• You cannot drain or squeeze out extra liquid before canning. This removes necessary acid. If you want, drain extra liquid just prior to serving your salsa.

With these tips for safe canning in mind, here are some of my favourite salsa recipes.

Classic pico de gallo

This is a fresh tomato salsa where you’re in control of the ingredients. It is not suitable for canning.

• 6-7 plum or Roma-style tomatoes (other varieties work but produce more liquid)
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1/2 green, yellow, or orange sweet pepper, chopped 1/2 to 2 hot peppers, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp. chopped cilantro or parsley 1 tbsp. lime juice
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
• Salt and pepper to taste

Wash tomatoes, slice and remove seeds to limit the amount of liquid in your salsa. Dice tomatoes and toss in bowl. Add chopped onion, sweet peppers, hot peppers, garlic, and cilantro. Mix in lime juice, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. Let sit for 30 minutes to blend flavours, then enjoy. Store remaining salsa in fridge for 3-5 days. Bring to room temp before serving and drain any liquid.

Yield: 3-4 cups.

Source: www.gettystewart.com

Tomato salsa with paste tomatoes

This recipe works best with paste or Roma tomatoes. Slicing tomatoes will create a more liquidy salsa.

• 7 quarts (28 cups) peeled, cored, chopped paste tomatoes
• 4 c. seeded, chopped long green chilies
• 5 c. chopped onion
• 1/2 c. seeded, finely chopped jalapeño peppers 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 c. bottled lemon or lime juice
• 2 tbsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. black pepper
• 2 tbsp. ground cumin (optional)
• 3 tbsp. oregano leaves (optional)
• 2 tbsp. fresh cilantro (optional)

Yield: About 16 to 18 pints (500-ml jars).

Combine all ingredients except cumin, oregano and cilantro in a large saucepan and heat, stirring frequently, until mixture boils. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add spices and simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot into clean, hot pint jars, leaving half an inch of headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean paper towel; apply two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes (pint jars).

Source: National Center for Home Food Preservation

Fresh vegetable salsa – with tomato paste

This salsa is a little thicker and more sauce-like thanks to the tomato paste.

• 7 c. (1,750 ml) chopped tomatoes, 7-8 medium-large 2 c. (500 ml) coarsely chopped onions
• 1 c. (250 ml) coarsely chopped green bell pepper
• 8 jalapeño peppers, seeded and chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (156 ml) tomato paste
• 3/4 c. (175 ml) white vinegar
• 1/2 c. (125 ml) chopped cilantro, lightly packed 1/2 tsp. (2 ml) ground cumin

Yield: 5 pints (500-ml jars).

Blanch, peel, seed and coarsely chop tomatoes. Measure 7 cups (1,750 ml). Combine tomatoes, onions, green pepper, jalapeño pepper, garlic, tomato paste, vinegar, cilantro and cumin in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil; boil gently, stirring occasionally, until salsa reaches desired consistency, about 30 minutes.

Ladle hot salsa into clean, hot pint jars, leaving a half-inch of headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace
if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean cloth; apply two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes (pint jars).

Source: Bernardin

The post My favourite salsa recipes appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Late blight — the same fungal disease responsible for the Irish potato famine in the late 1840s — was detected July 16 in a potato field near Carberry.

Last week there were more than 15 infected fields, Manitoba Agriculture plant pathologist Vikram Bisht said in an interview Aug. 10. Most are in the Carberry area but late blight has also been found near Sydney, Melbourne and Glenboro. The disease was also found in a market garden near Oakville.

“The message to home gardeners is if you… are seeing the (late blight) infection and have not sprayed fungicide the plants will go down and die very quickly,” Bisht said. “The fruit will also get infected and it will appear with brown spots. They don’t store very well.

“If your leaves have infection, harvest as many of the fruits as you can, then destroy the plants. Put them in black garbage bags and keep them in the sun. After two to three days they should get cooked very well and that will destroy the disease. If you throw the plants in the compost pile the plants will not dry quickly enough and will continue to sporulate. Those spores will be a risk to commercial potato producers of Manitoba.”

Lesions

Late blight symptoms are similar on tomatoes and potatoes. Manitoba Agriculture’s website says to look for for small, light to dark green, circular to irregular-shaped, water-soaked spots.

“During cool, moist weather, these lesions expand rapidly into large, dark brown or black lesions, often appearing greasy,” the site says. “The lesions are not limited by leaf veins and as new infections occur and existing infections coalesce, entire leaves can become blighted and die within a few days. The lesions may expand down petioles and stems of the plant.”

Late blight lesion on a tomato leaf.

The late blight strain found in Manitoba is US23, which is very aggressive in tomatoes and potatoes, Bisht said. He suspects the fungal disease spread in high winds during during recent thunderstorms.

Although more than 15 cases of the disease have been found in some cases only a few potato plants were infected, Bisht said. The infected plants have been destroyed.

“The growers are trying to keep on top of it with a five- to seven-day (fungicide) spray schedule,” he said. “Commercial potato growers currently appear to be managing.

“It would be good to see some dry weather because every three or four days we have rain events and that is creating trouble. The commercial potato growers are at risk basically if the home gardeners do not do a good job (controlling late blight).”

Commercial growers can control late blight with fungicides that contain chlorothalonil or mancozeb. Home gardeners can spray copper sulphate.

Air circulation

Garden tomatoes and potatoes are also more susceptible to late blight if plants remain damp, which can occur when plants are thick, preventing air circulation. As a result weedy gardens are more at risk, Bisht said.

Bisht also recommends gardeners buy late blight-resistant tomatoes.

Gardeners should buy new certified seed potatoes next spring and plant healthy-looking tomatoes.

Infected volunteer potatoes could be a disease source and should be destroyed. Volunteer tomatoes come from seed, which doesn’t harbour the disease.

Late blight was found in Manitoba last year, but not until Sept. 11.

So long as the crop is growing it’s susceptible to late blight infection.

Potatoes infected with late blight can rot in storage. Late blight doesn’t rot potatoes, but the damage it causes allows other infections that cause rot to develop.

Treating potatoes with phosphorous acid (Phostrol, Rampart and Confine) as they go into storage can protect them from rot.

Although some fields have suffered due to excess moisture and others have been damaged by hail, most were doing well as of Aug. 12, said Keystone Potato Growers Association Inc. manager Dan Sawatzky.

CORRECTION, Aug. 14, 2016: Late blight symptoms can first appear anywhere on tomato or potato leaves, not just on lower leaves as reported in a previous version of this article.

The post Manitoba potato growers, gardeners need to scout for late blight appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

I blissed out on John Denver music in the 1970s, so lines from his songs are forever burned in my brain. While picking tomatoes the other evening, this one naturally started looping through my head.

I mentioned awhile back that we tried a different gardening method this year, using raised beds instead of rows. The now huge and rangy tomato plants in them are pushing and shoving each around for more room. It actually looks like a tiny crop, at just 6×3 feet, but I’m getting glorious tomatoes off the vines every night now.

We planted six varieties, including Tiny Tims and Tumblers, plus a Roma, a Manitoba and an Amish Paste, and two yellow tomatoes. We’ve now got sumptuous orangey, yellow and red tomatoes in various sizes, and as sweet and juicy as you could ever ask for.

How’d your tomatoes do this year? I called Country Crossroads gardener/writer Albert Parsons in Minnedosa to find out what he’s seen in his, and other gardens, in western Manitoba. That early-June frost which killed so many gardeners’ plants, including their own, was a setback, but the rest of this warm summer has been kind to tomatoes, he told me.

“We’ve had a good year. I found our tomatoes ripened quite quickly this year,” said Parsons, noting they’ve had ripe tomatoes from the second week of July on.

The Parsons plant many different varieties, this year adding several new cherry-type tomatoes to their collection. They also grew Tumbler, plus a yellow pear-shaped tomato, said Parsons. (I’ve grown one just like it in other years — Fargo Yellow Pear — from heirloom seed supplier Heritage Harvest Seeds in Graysville, Man. and loved both the look and taste of this little tomato, too). Sweet 100 is another tiny tomato the Parsons grew, plus another their neighbours introduced them to called Sun Sugar.  “It’s an orange-yellow tomato that’s very, very sweet.”

All of them are in a bowl the Parsons keep on their kitchen counter this time of year.

“Every time you go by, you can have a piece of candy,” said Parsons.

Naturally, raw is this Manitoba gardener’s favourite way to eat a tomato.

I’m sure many of you remember taking tomato sandwiches to school in autumn — soggy but good especially if the bread was thick. Possibly the most traditional way many of us still enjoy homegrown tomatoes is “stewed” (canned) and served in a small bowl beside the main meal. Do you still dress up a mac and cheese with your canned tomatoes?

More of my tomatoes end up in the freezer instead of jars these days, largely due to too many tomatoes and not enough time. But I plan to can a few this fall. We feel ready for winter with a row or two lined up on a basement shelf. Of course, if we add up the costs of seed/plants, water, jars, hydro and time, they cost more than buying them, but like the song says…

Here are a few recipes courtesy of Peak of the Market (www.peakmarket.com) to enjoy all those tomatoes you aren’t freezing, canning or eating raw this fall.

• 3 medium-size tomatoes, peeled and slicedSalt1 deep-dish pie crust1/2 c. fresh basil, chopped1/2 c. green onions, chopped 1 c. mozzarella cheese, shredded1 c. cheddar cheese, shredded 3 tbsp. mayonnaise Pepper to taste1/2 c. bacon, cooked and crumbled

Place tomato slices on baking rack and sprinkle with salt. Let set for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, using fork, make several holes in bottom and side of pie crust. Bake in preheated 375 F oven for five to six minutes or until lightly brown. Let cook for about 15 minutes. Pat tomato slices dry with paper towels. Arrange half of slices in bottom of cooled pie crust. Scatter half of basil and half of green onions over tomatoes. Add rest of tomato slices and top with remaining basil and green onions. In a small bowl combine mozzarella, cheddar, mayonnaise, pepper and bacon. Spoon cheese mixture over tomatoes, spreading out as evenly as you can. Bake in preheated 375 F oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until browned. Then carefully arrange a loose tent of foil over top of pie to prevent the crust from overbrowning. Continue to bake until cheese is brown, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool at least 20 minutes before slicing.

• 4 medium tomatoes, sliced1/4 c. fresh parsley, chopped3 tbsp. olive oil1 tbsp. each white and red wine vinegar1 tbsp. fresh basil, chopped 3/4 tsp. granulated sugar1 tsp. each salt and pepper

Arrange tomatoes on plate. Sprinkle with parsley. Whisk together remaining ingredients and pour over tomatoes. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

• 4 slices ham, thinly sliced4 eggs1/4 c. cheddar cheese, shredded1 tomato, diced1 tsp. fresh basil, chopped

Line 4 lightly greased muffin cups with ham. In small bowl crack 1 egg. Whisk with 1/4 tsp. basil and 1 tbsp. tomato. Pour egg into ham cup and top with 1 tbsp. (15 ml) cheese. Repeat with other 3 eggs. Place pan in preheated 350 F oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on rack for 5 minutes. Remove breakfast cups from muffin tins and serve.

The post Tomato Pie appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The full genome sequence of a tomato breed known as Heinz 1706, and a draft sequence for its closest wild relative Solanum pimpinellifolium, were publaished in the journal Nature on May 30.

Researchers who carried out the work said that together the sequences provide the most detailed look yet at the functional parts of the tomato genome and show order, orientation, types and relative positions of all of its 35,000 genes.

The sequences should help researchers find the links between certain tomato genes and the characteristics they determine, and will also extend scientists’ understanding of how genetic and environmental factors affect the health of a crop.

“Tomatoes are one of the most important fruit crops in the world, both in terms of the volume that we eat and the vitamins, minerals and other phytochemicals that both fresh and processed tomato products provide to our diets,” said Graham Seymour, a professor of biotechnology at Nottingham University, one of 300 scientists involved in the Tomato Genome Consortium (TGC).

Good model

The tomato is also a good model to investigate the process of fruit ripening, so understanding its genome should help reveal the molecular circuits that make fruits ripen and give them their health-promoting properties, the team said.

“For any characteristic of the tomato, whether it’s taste, natural pest resistance or nutritional content, we’ve captured virtually all those genes,” said James Giovannoni from the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, who was part of the U.S. tomato sequencing team.

Tomatoes represent a $2-billion market in the United States alone, while in Britain the market for tomatoes is worth around 625 million pounds ($980 million) a year.

The research also offers some insight into how the tomato and its relatives diversified and adapted to new environments over the years.

The scientists said the findings show the tomato genome expanded abruptly about 60 million years ago. Some of the genes generated during that expansion were involved in the development and control of ripening, making them particularly interesting to tomato breeders.

The TGC involved scientists in 14 countries including Argentina, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, Britain, the United States and others.

Giovannoni said the work has implications for other plant species.

Strawberries, apples, melons, bananas and other fleshy fruits share some characteristics with tomatoes, he explained, so knowledge about the genes involved in fruit ripening could potentially be applied to them, helping breeders and growers to improve food quality and cut costs.

“Now we can start asking a lot more interesting questions about fruit biology, disease resistance, root development and nutritional qualities,” he said in a statement.

The post Tomato genome project bears fruit appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.