Terra Optima Labs Inc. (Terra Optima) has created a circular system which can divert food wastes from landfills and process it into natural soil amendments, fertilizers, and food, using natural organisms. Terra Optima utilizes composting worms that consume food waste and produce a valuable manure output called castings, which has…
While many people love plants and spend good money on them, we may not all be plant experts. You might find yourself asking yourself, when did I water that plant last? Does it need more light? Should I add more soil? That’s why Sidhanth (Sid) Pereira, Founder & Head of Product at EarthOne, knew the market needed a product like this. While Sid was confident in his product, but knew, to be successful, they were going to need someone to help them with marketing. That’s where the Business & Commercialization Innovation Centre (BCIC) came in to help to give them the direction they needed.
Grodan, a manufacturer of stone wool, also known as mineral wool used in commercial greenhouse production, recognized the need to expand current reuse opportunities for its products, and to make these recycling opportunities more readily available in North America.
Niagara College’s (NC) Horticultural & Environmental Science Innovation Centre (HESIC) ran parallel crops of lettuce that were grown in a hydroponic Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) system in NEREA® and standard Oasis® rockwool at the NC greenhouse located in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, with the goal being to determine sodium concentration in both hydroponic solutions and the edible portion of lettuce.
IZC looked to Niagara College’s Horticultural & Environmental Sciences Innovation Centre (HESIC) team to determine if a new soil amendment was going to impact international shipping and handling of plants. The HESIC team created multiple zeolite-peat moss blend ratios and determined dry and wet weights of plants potted in several different pots with zeolite-containing media.
A small-scale trial on leafy greens, specifically lettuce, in Niagara College’s greenhouse hydroponic system, was performed using NEREA® as substrate embedded with nutrients. NEREA® acted as a hydroponic substrate substitution for rockwool media.
IZ approached Niagara College’s Horticultural & Environmental Sciences Innovation Centre (HESIC) team to create multiple NEREA® and peat moss blend ratios to examine the nutrient content of leachate over time. They wanted to understand whether nutrient content within the leachate was affected by the presence of peat moss.
IZ reached out to Niagara College’s Horticultural & Environmental Sciences Innovation Centre (HESIC) team to work together to assess the performance of NEREA® as a provider of a short-term crop’s complete nutritional requirements. A small-scale trial was performed at the NC Teaching Greenhouse comparing germination and performance of Ocimum basilicum (basil) across a range of percentages of NEREA® blended with sphagnum peat moss.
Quick Plug wanted to produce a novel formulation of solid plug media applicable to several different crops, which would effectively reduce time to root emergence, ‘rooting’, without compromising plant health. Quick Plug turned to Niagara College’s Horticultural & Environmental Sciences Innovation Centre (HESIC) to conduct growing trials to evaluate two of their novel formulations.
MetaFLO Technologies (“MetaFLO”) is a Mississauga-based company that markets and distributes chemical reagents with application potential in a variety of industries, including the agricultural sector. The company is in the process of expanding its portfolio to include a new reagent: an algae-based, organic polymer formulated for use as a biostimulant.
