Grant: Engage Grants Program

Grapes production in greenhouse setting is an art in the United Kingdom and is practiced successfully in the United States, but not yet in Canada. Canadian Distribution Channel (CDC) Inc. was founded in 1996 and produces local, high quality liquor for Ontario and overseas markets. They are diversifying their activities and products. One of the main areas of expansion for CDC is wine production and agritourism. They are planning to establish an indoor grape botanical garden at their new facility in Peterborough, Ontario. This indoor vineyard will be home to several grape varieties from all over the world with purpose of wine production and agritourism. The main challenge for establishing indoor vineyards is lack of data on optimum settings including growing media and fertigation regime that enable optimum growth and high long-term productivity of vines. The proposed research goals are to (i) determine the optimum growing media, and (ii) assess fertigation regime for grape vines in a greenhouse. The research findings will be relayed to CDC Inc. and will provide them with the necessary information to establish their greenhouse grape vineyard. The success of this project will allow viticulturists to produce grapes out of season or to grow varieties that require more heat than possible outdoors, and provides agritourism income opportunities. The combined commitment of the primary researcher and CDC Inc. is a key component to successful completion and dissemination of this project. CDC Inc. has been already showed interest to establish a long-term research relationship with research team at Trent University and continue the research on other unexplored aspects of indoor viticulture such as mimicking the winter dormancy.