Features

What if dairy farmers could improve their cows’ health and enhance milk’s nutritional quality through understanding their animals’ feeding behaviour?

We know more about mink sexual development thanks to University of Guelph researchers and local mink farmers. It may not be a “romantic” topic for Valentine’s Day, but it is certainly a story about relationships.

Lead researcher Jamie Ahloy Dallaire and Prof. Georgia Mason, Department of Animal Biosciences, found that young male mink who spent more time playing as juveniles showed more vigorous sexual performance as adults.

As a way of ensuring their long-term viability, Ontario’s rural communities should do more to attract and keep newcomers in their municipalities – and a University of Guelph professor has developed some recommendations on how to best do that.

Changing demographics are leaving many rural areas struggling with declining populations, and although immigration is a key solution, most of the province’s immigrants prefer to settle in large urban centres like Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton or London.

Wikipedia’s reputation as a go-to source for information is clear in the English site’s statistics; it receives 7.7 billion page views per month, but is it a reputable source for information?

The information on pet nutrition is certainly much more credible today, thanks to Prof. Kate Shoveller’s pet nutrition class that gathered reputable information on 32 different pet nutrition topics for submission to the site.

There’s a refreshing research project taking root across Ontario that’s set to help grow Ontario’s craft cider industry. University of Guelph researcher John Cline is beginning the third phase of his three-part project that will help build sustainable, value-add opportunities for Ontario’s agri-food sector.

After 10 years of working in the family business, Cassandra Loomans, B.Comm. ’07, is preparing to take the lead.

Many OAC alumni families are working through the difficult process of passing down farmland, ownership of a business or leadership of a company. Succession planning may be awkward at times, but when the two generations (or sometimes three) do it right, the process benefits everyone.

It’s an old saying that holds true for the Chudleigh family. This story of third-generation apple entrepreneurs started in 1939 when Eric and Marion Chudleigh began apple farming in Dixie, ON. Eric imported a new experimental apple rootstock from England and started propagating trees that were size controlled by the rootstock.

For some, farming is in their genes and every career path seems to always end up leading back to the land. Joe Maxwell comes from a long line of farmers who immigrated to Canada from England in 1854. He grew up working on his parents’ farm in Bruce County and in 1947 he left to attend the Ontario Agricultural College. By the time he graduated in 1951, he wanted to go his own way and had no desire to return to the farm.

A lot has happened in the past 100 years. From the first electric can opener to the first mobile phone, the human population has continually innovated and improved upon products of the past. However, to have something last 100 years is an uncommon feat.

You may not think of hazelnuts as a local food, but researchers at the University of Guelph are working to make hazelnuts just as “Ontarian” as strawberries, asparagus and peaches. Hazelnuts could soon be added to the long list of Ontario produce available to consumers who are looking to buy and eat local.