Wally Andres
Station Manager
University of Guelph
Office of Research
Simcoe Research Station
1283 Blueline Rd. Box 587
Simcoe, Ontario, Canada N3Y 4N5
Email: wandres@uoguelph.ca
Phone: 519-426-7127 x344
Fax: 519-426-1225
2011 marks the 50th Anniversary of the Simcoe Research Station.
Please come and join us as we celebrate
on July 14, 2011.
Click here for details [pdf 119 KB]
Station Facilities
The Simcoe Research Station of the University of Guelph, Department
of Plant Agriculture has 86.8 hectares of land on the edge
of the highly productive Norfolk sand plain in the central
Erie region. Its mission is to help strengthen the fruit and
vegetable industries in the potentially highly productive
zone along the north shore of Lake Erie.
Simcoe operates research programs covering vegetables, fruits, and various alternative crops for the sandy tobacco soils of the area. The ratio of research input is about 70 % vegetables and 30 % fruit, which reflects the approximate distribution of horticultural production in the Lake Erie counties.
Soil and Climate
Latitude 42 ° 51'N; Longitude 80 ° 16'W; Elevation 240.5 meters (above mean sea level).
Soils: Norfolk sand plain (course sand and sandy loam)
Southern Ontario's soil and climate make this area in many respects the most suitable in Canada for horticultural crops. This is particularly true in the southwest region where over 50 % of Canada's Class 1 land is located.
Norfolk county, location of the Simcoe Campus, is one of the most southerly counties of Canada. Most of the county is well-drained naturally by streams which flow southward into Lake Erie. Traditional crops of the area have been tobacco, apples, small fruits, market vegetables and canning crops. Sand or sandy-loam soils make up about two-thirds of the total land area with the balance tending toward loam, clay loam and clay.
Weather
The weather station at Simcoe is on the campus 10 kilometers north of Lake Erie. The experiment station's hourly readings of temperature, precipitation and wind have been maintained since January 1962. Prior to 1988, weather data was collected at Simcoe by both manned and automated stations by the Atmospheric Environment Service.
Subsequent to the closure of the manned station in Dec 1987, OMAFRA established in August 1988 an automated station based on a Campbell Scientific CR-21X data logger to provide weather data for scientific research purposes. Data are recorded with hourly averages saved and daily summaries calculated.
Contact:
Dr. Alan McKeown - amckeown@uoguelph.ca
Simcoe, Ont. Weather - http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/
Greenhouses
Simcoe has a range of four outer-connected heated glasshouses covering 670 m² and a greenhouse-headroom/ propagating area. There are also four Conviron E15 Chambers with a growth area of 1.4 m² each, with CMP4000 controllers connected to a central host computer for controlled environment studies. Installed in 1996, they are equipped with a high light package in addition to base features.
Contact:
Wally Andres - wandres@uoguelph.ca
Simcoe Post Harvest Evaluation, Handling, and Storage Units
The Simcoe Experiment Station has a unit of six cold storages with an approximate capacity of 90 m³. One of these is permantly assigned to seed storage, and another is equiped with a Filacell unit for storing leafy products at high humidity.
Contact:
Wally Andres - wandres@uoguelph.ca
How to Find Us
The Department of Plant Agriculture Simcoe Station, 1283 Blueline Road, is located 5 kilometers east of Simcoe adjacent to Highway 3. To reach the main entrance exit Highway 3 north on Blueline Road.
View Larger Map
Exact Location
These latitude-longitude co-ordinates can be plugged into your mapping software to get the exact location for our Simcoe Campus:
42.85684,-80.265598 (see it at Google Maps)
