.
But when Matthew Roy moved from New Hampshire to begin farming in Nova Scotia in 2020, he identified saffron as a promising crop, in part because of the changing climate and saffron’s short growing season. Margaret Skinner, a research professor at the University of Vermont, studies the plant and has been working with Roy on his saffron farm. While warming temperatures make Nova Scotia more hospitable for saffron, other climate effects such as drought and flooding could be harmful, she said.
Doelman says the frost used to appear in October, when temperatures dropped below 0 C for several hours at a time and killed newly planted crops.Doelman says that delay has given farmers the opportunity to plant canola in September, immediately after the typical harvest season for spring canola. The winter crop is then able to grow strong enough to withstand the frost when it arrives in November.
Biological sciences professor Jim Mattsson is leading the research. He says the berries grown in a tightly controlled indoor environment are fresher and taste better than their imported counterparts. The process uses less water, keeps pesticide use to a minimum, and the indoor crops boast a smaller carbon footprint, he adds.
“It has been shown that you can get more than one harvest per year,” he says.” You can get, on the same plants, two harvests per year.” The work also involves exploring how berries grown indoors in Canada can compete with imports from an economic perspective, he says. “It’s real food, eating fresh,” Sopher said in an interview on his farm near Saskatchewan’s largest city.