Advanced Microbial Diagnostics and Animal Health

Current Projects

Northern Regenerative Agricultural System

Many farmers in Alberta’s north rely on regenerative farming, a practice that promotes soil health while maintaining profitable production. Regenerative farming focuses largely on enhancing soil fertility, biodiversity, water use efficiency, and increasing resilience to climate change through practices such as reduced tillage, rotational grazing, and cover cropping.

The goal of this research is to develop a regenerative agriculture research and education program to enhance ecosystem health and production on northern farms. Regenerative farms are complex, adaptive, and span a diversity of environments, cultures, and values. As such, we have partnered with regenerative agricultural practitioners through the Peace Country Beef and Forage Association, Parkland College and their collaborators in Saskatchewan’s First Nations to guide our research process across local, Indigenous and western knowledge systems. The research program is developed around the most pressing needs of producers, investigating the influence of common regenerative practices on biodiversity, profitability, and animal and pollinator health. This research will provide growers with the tools needed to optimize farming practices and become leaders in the production of sustainably farmed goods while conserving our unique natural resource base in northern Canada.

Honey Bee Health

Honey bees, as all living organisms, are exposed to different kinds of pathogens that affect their survival. Since 2006 honeybee mortality has been increasing worldwide. In an alarming trend, Canadian beekeepers reported overwinter losses that averaged 45% in the last year (2021); doubling previous years. Initial research points toward a surge of biotic (pathogens) and abiotic (weather change, pollution, pesticides) factors that affect stressed and immunosuppressed bees. In addition to diagnostic services, the NBDC supports and conducts research that aims to improve bee health and build sustainability in Canada’s apiculture industry.