Chia: a new crop for organic production in Québec
Description
Because of its high omega content, chia is one of the foods that we now call "super food" or functional food. Chia, as an opportunity crop, can help make organic farms more diversified and profitable. This two-year project, conducted at the Organic Agriculture Innovation Platform, compared the effect of three seeding dates and three seeding rates on chia yields. Pests and diseases that could damage the new crop were also monitored. The project included an evaluation of production costs and an analysis of the economic and technical feasibility of growing chia.
Objective(s)
- Determine the potential of chia as a crop in Québec
- Test the feasibility of using early-blooming chia varieties developed in Kentucky,
- Identify best cropping practices
- Conduct a technical and economic analysis to check whether this crop would be profitable in Québec
From 2015 to 2018
Project duration
Field crops
Activity areas
Organic farming
Service
Québec-grown organic chia could attain yields exceeding those in Argentina.
Partners
Growing Forward 2 | Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation du Québec - Innov'Action Programme | Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada | Agri-Fusion 2000
This may interest you
Using controlled drainage to optimize water and nutrient uptake by crops
This project relies on the continuous measurement of field water table heights; water exports; as well as sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus runoff into drains at four field-crop production sites.
Researcher: Aubert Michaud
Developing a mechanical weeding strategy for narrow-row organic field and vegetable crops
Experimenting narrow-row crop weed control strategy on three crops: green beans, peas, and soybeans.
Researcher: Maryse Leblanc
Development of cover crop techniques and their adaptation to the Estrie region
IRDA was in charge of conducting the economic analysis for this project carried out by Club agroenvironnemental de l’Estrie (CAE Estrie).
Researcher: Luc Belzile
