WORDS & PHOTOS BY CHRIS TIESSEN
For today’s conscientious food lovers, knowing where food is grown can be as important as appreciating how it tastes. But what about being aware of where that food was first developed – before it ever sprouted in a field?
For more than a century, researchers from the University of Guelph’s Department of Plant Agriculture have been breeding high-yield, disease-resistant crops tailored to Ontario’s unique growing conditions. The impact of their work has been enormous: over five hundred improved varieties of horticultural and field crops, generating more than five hundred million dollars annually for the province’s agri-food economy. Much of this work happens at the Ontario Crops Research Centre in Elora – a six-hundred-hectare experimental farm right in our own backyard. Here researchers are doing more than growing crops; they’re shaping the future of food.
In late July I walked the Elora fields with Assistant Professor Mohsen Yoosefzadeh Najafabadi and Professor Emeritus Peter Pauls – two of the university’s leading minds in bean breeding. Among the rows: ‘Dynasty’, a dark red kidney bean co-developed by Dr Pauls and technician Tom Smith. Today ‘Dynasty’ comprises over ninety percent of Ontario’s kidney bean crop and well over fifty percent of the total dark red kidney bean production across North America, and has earned both ‘Seed of the Year’ (2022) and ‘Innovation of the Year’ (2024) honours.
And that’s just one chapter in a long story of homegrown innovation.
This legacy began in 1898, when Dr Charles Zavitz – OAC’s first professor of Field Husbandry – released Ontario’s first commercial soybean, followed by Canada’s first registered variety in 1925. In the 1980s ‘Yukon Gold’, developed by research scientist Gary Johnston in partnership with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, redefined the potato with its buttery texture and golden flesh. ‘Yukon Gold’ remains a household favourite and was named ‘Seed of the Year’ in 2011. Ontario asparagus lovers have the developers of ‘OAC Millenium’ to thank for this tender spring vegetable. Bred by Professor David Wolyn and released in 2000, it now accounts for over ninety-five percent of Ontario’s asparagus production. The variety won ‘Seed of the Year’ in 2005 and an ‘Innovation of the Year’ award in 2019.
At Vineland Station Professor Jay Subramanian has developed peach varieties – Early Blush, Rising Sun, Vee Blush – that ripen at staggered intervals, easing harvest pressure and extending market supply. He’s also working on plums and cherries for Niagara growers. Soft wheat breeding got a boost in 2014, leading to standout pastry-ready varieties like ‘OAC Constellation’ (developed by Dr Ali Navabi) as well as ‘OAC Moon’ and ‘Marker’ (developed, respectively, by current wheat breeders Dr Helen Booker and Dr Lily Tamburic-Illincic). Soybeans remain a strength too, with ‘OAC Kent’ (developed by Dr Istvan Rajcan) and ‘OAC Burton’ (developed by Dr Milad Eskandari) delivering top-tier protein and oil content. And let’s not forget ‘Ex Rico’ – a white bean derived from a black bean developed in Colombia. Registered in Canada in 1980 by Dr Wally Beversdorf and Dr Dave Hume, this bean and the University of Guelph Bean Breeding Program earned ‘Seed of the Year’ in 2012.
From field to fork, the University of Guelph continues to seed the future – one variety at a time.
