Blueberry research bears fruit at SFU greenhouses

Thanks to innovative research on off-season berry production, winter just got a whole lot sweeter.

Canada’s cold winters and short growing season have long been an obstacle for farmers. Over 75 per cent of fruit eaten in Canada is imported, with 37 per cent coming from the United States. Canada’s blueberry season, in particular, typically only runs from July to September, which means relying on imported berries for the rest of the year.

With the generous support of the Weston Family Foundation, through the Homegrown Innovation Challenge, a team of SFU researchers led by biological sciences professor Jim Mattsson is working to address this by developing homegrown solutions for producing fresh, local blueberries off-season for the first time.

Blueberry plants have complex needs for nutrition, pollination, and pruning, and so far no one has been able to grow them indoors at scale—until now. This past January, Jim and his team successfully grew a crop of blueberries indoors at the SFU Biotech Greenhouse during the winter, with the bushes continuously producing berries until May.

“It was not so simple to get them to produce,” Jim explains. “We exposed blueberry plants to the conditions needed to induce flower buds, but if that treatment is too long the plants will go dormant for several months.”

From greenhouses to grocery shelves

Conversations with local farmers have shown that they are interested if the SFU researchers and their industry partner BeriTech Inc. can show that indoor blueberry production is profitable.

The team is using gene editing to develop new commercial varieties better suited to indoor production. Plants have been bred by humans for thousands of years to select for beneficial qualities such as higher yield and drought or disease resistance. Gene editing allows the researchers to mimic this natural process in a faster and more precise way.

“We’re trying to introduce two traits into blueberry production,” says Jim. “One is making the plants smaller so they're more manageable. The second is producing earlier and more abundant flowers. This way we will be able to produce more fruits earlier.”

The team still has more work to do before locally grown winter blueberries hit grocery stores shelves, but is hopeful that their work will establish a protocol for making further improvements to blueberries and possibly other food crops in the future. The project has since expanded to include testing with raspberries and blackberries to see how the three species can be grown together, making it possible to achieve more efficient use of the greenhouse space—and to obtain fresh berries through the off-season.

Advancing a sustainable future

This vital research is about more than just berries—it’s about the future of food in Canada. Extending the Canadian growing season would not only provide welcome income for farmers, it would also strengthen Canada’s food security against supply chain disruptions, international trade disputes, and uncertainty due to climate change.

Guiding the way toward reducing Canada’s over-reliance on fresh food imports is a key reason why the Weston Family Foundation is supporting important research like Jim’s.

“Canada’s growers and innovators are stepping up to meet urgent challenges in our food system with bold, local, and cost-effective solutions,” says Tamara Rebanks, director of the Weston Family Foundation.