CANOVI

CANADIAN ORGANIC VEGETABLE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT
#canovi_alebio

 

CANOVI is a collaboration with the UBC Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, that supports and connects researchers and farmers across Canada to engage in on-farm variety trials and participatory plant breeding projects to: 

  • Trial, evaluate, and share data about vegetable varieties’ flavour, suitability for seed production, and performance in agro-ecological settings.
  • Create new, open pollinated lines of priority crops 

If you are a farmer using agro-ecological methods, and you’re interested in learning about variety trialing and plant breeding, please reach out to your Regional Coordinator about joining CANOVI.

 CANOVI results

VARIETY TRIALS

Few variety trialing programs in Canada address the needs of agro-ecological farmers and seed producers, which has led to a scarcity of information about crop performance in those settings. CANOVI has generated important data about carrots, radicchio, rutabaga, squash, and red bell peppers. CANOVI is currently focused on heat tolerant lettuces, and orange and specialty carrots.

2025 Variety Trialing Resources (coming soon)

Participatory  PLANt Breeding (PPB)

Open-pollinated (OP) varieties are the foundation of farm-based seed saving. Developing organic OP varieties means working with seeds which can be adapted, saved, and shared by farmers, keeping biodiversity in their hands and increasing farm resilience in the face of climate change. CANOVI is currently focused on developing OP lines of specialty and orange carrots for domestic seed production.

2025 PPB Resources (coming soon)

Thank you to our funding partners. This research is part of Organic Science Cluster 4, co-managed by the Organic Federation of Canada and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University, and supported by the AgriScience Program under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.