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B.C.’s AgriForest receives funding to develop clean planting stock

AgriForest Bio-Technologies Ltd., a plant biotechnology company based in Kelowna, B.C., has received advisory services and funding of up to $187,980 from the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC/IRAP) for its research and development project entitled “Development of vertical growing system for the purpose of hardening-off tissue culture-derived plants of berry and grapevine crops.”

The project combines the advantages offered by tissue culture and photo-autotrophic micropropagation technology to produce virus- and disease-free planting stocks in commercial quantities in much shorter timeframe under high-density vertical growing systems.

The growing area will be integrated with wireless sensor network technology which will monitor and deliver precise inputs of water and nutrients and carbon dioxide under optimal photosynthetically active radiation ad per plants growth requirements at different stages of development.

According to Kamlesh Patel, AgriForest project manager, the successful completion of the project will help AgriForest produce over a million plants of elite varieties of economically important agricultural and horticultural crops.

AgriForest was also selected as the recipient of the “Excellence in Agriculture Award for 2022″ by the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce.