Ontario farmers protect fruit & vegetable crops with innovation, technology

Apr 16, 2024

Guelph ON, – For decades, Ontario’s fruit and vegetable growers have used sustainable practices to safeguard their crops against pests and diseases. Now, advances in both technology and science mean they can use these tools and practices in ways that are even more sustainable – environmentally and financially.

New tools from smart sprayers with weed-identifying cameras and systems that can predict plant disease to drones and laser weed zappers are increasingly in use on fields and in greenhouses, orchards and vineyards across Ontario.

Brian Rideout, a fruit and vegetable grower from Chatham-Kent and chair of the crop protection committee at the Ontario Fruit & Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA), emphasizes the continuous learning journey of growers when it comes to protecting crops.

“As growers, we continue to learn more and more every day about crop protection practices on our farms,” says Rideout. “Many of the practices we’ve traditionally used have sustainable benefits that we are only now fully appreciating.”

One example of this is cover cropping, where crops are planted for the purpose of covering the soil instead of being harvested. Traditionally this has been done to improve soil health and reduce erosion, but research is showing that there are many additional benefits like controlling weeds that have become resistant to sprays and attracting helpful insects and pollinators.

Many farmers also use an approach called Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which involves scouting for pests and diseases, targeted treatment only when necessary and using beneficial or “good” insects to go after ones causing damage to horticultural crops. Pheromone disruption controls pest populations by naturally interrupting their ability to reproduce, and predictive systems can give growers a heads up the level of risk posed by certain diseases so they can take preventative action.

Some farmers are also experimenting with robotic weeding systems, laser weeders that zap unwanted weeds in the field, and drones that allow for quick surveillance and analysis of crops for potential problems.

“When I look at the tools we have available to us now versus what was available when I first started farming, we are much more targeted and efficient, and we can use products that benefit us as well as the environment,” Rideout says. “More than ever, growers are thinking about worker health, public health and their own health as well as that of the environment as we adapt technology to protect our crops.”

More information about how Ontario fruit and vegetable growers are growing fresh Ontario produce sustainably is available on the OFVGA website. The OFVGA is one of the province’s oldest farm organizations and is the voice of Ontario’s 3,500 fruit and vegetable farmers on issues affecting the horticulture sector, including food security, sustainability, and grower profitability and competitiveness. The sector grows produce in fields and greenhouses across the province for fresh and processed consumption. Visit, or follow @OntFruitVeg on Twitter or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ofvga.

Source : OFVGA

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”