New resources on the way for BC farms under pressure from pests and disease

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — British Columbia is home to a prolific fruit and vegetable production sector, satisfying local consumers and exporting $1.2 billion in products to markets around the world. However, the last few years have seen climate-driven shifts in plant production, as well as the proliferation of pathogens and pest species.

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Three new Genome British Columbia (Genome BC) funded research projects are developing tools to help farmers protect British Columbia’s valuable crops. These projects share a common goal: to improve precise detection and early intervention, allowing the agricultural industry to better manage threats.

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Two projects counter pests: the first improves tests for identifying parasitic nematodes that attack plant root systems. The second is developing an environmentally safe biopesticide that uses yeast to reign in wireworms that affect many of BC’s major agricultural crops.

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The third project involves producing diagnostic tools to more quickly identify pathogens that cause substantial economic losses in multiple types of fruit crops.

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Keeping parasite detection services up to date

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Plant-parasitic nematodes (PPNs) are translucent, microscopic worms that feed on plant roots and tissues, causing stunted growth, decreases in yield and higher susceptibility to disease and other parasites. They can affect nearly every economically important crop and have resulted in over USD $173 billion in annual losses to the global agriculture sector.

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In British Columbia, a number of potentially damaging PPN species can be found in vegetable and berry fields, vineyards and orchards, posing risks to the agriculture and horticulture sectors. The province currently lacks diagnostic services for PPNs as current methods are costly, labour intensive and require deep expertise for species-specific identification.

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To overcome this challenge, Dr. Paul Adams (Kwantlen Polytechnic University), Dr. Paul de la Bastide (BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food (BC MAF)) and Dr. Thomas Forge (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC)) are leading a project to create diagnostic qPCR tests to detect and quantify eight economically significant PPN species in BC. Soil samples are being collected from across the province, screened for PPN species and then used to validate the accuracy and sensitivity of the different qPCR tests.

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These novel tests will ultimately allow the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food’s Plant Health Laboratory to provide a nematode diagnostic service that is crucial to crop producers, supporting early detection and informed pest management decisions.

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Novel, environmentally friendly pest management

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Wireworms are a known pest to potato, corn and cereal growers in British Columbia. These insects are click beetle larvae that cause extensive crop damage — an annual average of over $11 million in Western Canada — by feeding on roots, seeds, stems and tubers.

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Dr. John Husnik and his team at Renaissance Bioscience are developing a targeted, natural solution to protect crops from these pests using yeast and RNA interference (RNAi). This is a biopesticide contained in a biodegradable yeast cell used as bait. The treatment method degrades naturally, making it an environmentally safer option than chemical pesticides.