Company Overview

The Potato Research Centre, situated on a 300 hectare site is one of 19 Centres across Canada within the Research Branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The administrative responsibility of the Centre includes the Potato Breeding Substation at Benton Ridge, New Brunswick. Activities focus on research in potato breeding, Potato Pest Management, and physicological soil and water management and conservation; and maintains the national repository of potato gene resources. Research topics and concerns range from national to provincial. The Potato Research Centre has a national mandate for Potato Development. The Centre has a full time staff of 82, including 17 scientists. It is co-located with the New Brunswick Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and two additional Branches of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: the Market and Industry Services Branch and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

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Additional Details

Legal Name: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

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Products

• Environmental Products And Services
• In-field Monitoring Systems To Track Soil Loss, Nitrates And Pesticides In Surface And Ground Water.

  The Potato Research Centre conducts field studies on soil erosion, surface water quality, and leaching of agrichemicals to groundwater. Particular emphasis is placed on potato production systems on rolling topography underlain with fractured bedrock. Observations range from plot-scale soil/agrichemical movement on the soil surface or within the root zone, to aggregate water quality impacts at the watershed level under actual farming conditions.

  Several research and on-farm sites have been appropriately instrumented with combinations of flumes, field drains, weather stations, water samplers, piezometers, and other equipment to permit both short and long term data acquisition. Types of real time data collected include: in-field soil loss and associated fertilizer loss (mass); sediment and selected pesticide concentrations in receiving streams; leaching losses of nitrates and selected pesticides from the crop root zone (concentration and estimates of mass); and nitrate and selected pesticide concentrations in groundwater with depth (3m-25m).

  The research team consists of soil physicists, pedologists, agronomists, engineers and chemists, and includes cooperative arrangements with local universities, industry associations, other Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Centres, and related Federal and Provincial agencies. Several publications have been prepared on various aspects of this work. Activities are ongoing and new initiatives continue to be evaluated.

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