Director's Message

First of all, I express my sincere thanks to all those made our dreams to come to reality.

Christmas tree and greenery industry is Atlantic Canada’s rural economic nerve center. We are faced with scientific, trade, marketing and promotional challenges and competition from the artificial tree and as well from the Fraser fir market in the US. Needle drop from the post-harvest trees and wreaths threatens our industry and several industry members have faced this in their business operations. Increasing pressure from the customs and quarantine apparatus from various countries that we export has also become a recent challenge. Recognizing these issues, I took this as a personal challenge and committed to help the Atlantic Canada Christmas tree industries to move to the future. Our future rests with strong research, innovation and development that need to bring to the market, science and knowledge-based products, technologies and services. This is impetus for the survival of the Christmas tree industry.

We have come a long way. We started with a small experiment to help the Christmas tree Council of Nova Scotia in 2005 to address the need drop issue and slowly progressed and continued to provide research support to the industry through small projects funded by Christmas tree council of Nova Scotia. Recognizing that we cannot do research the way we do, which may take over 25-30 years before we come out of any solutions, working with the NS, NB, NF and PEI producers, government agencies and Infor Inc and researchers in various universities, established Atlantic Canada Christmas Tree Research and Development Consortium to identify the research priorities and manage research directions and establish a center of excellence for research in Christmas trees. With the support of our producers, council members, consortium members, government agencies, I could develop proposals and attract funding from NSERC, AgriFutures ACAAF program, NB Growing Forward program and NSDNR.  In 2009, we submitted an R and D proposal to ACOA under the AIF program, which was announced in January 2010. This has allowed us to establish the Christmas tree Research Centre (CRC) addressing various research questions and seeking solutions for the real problems of the industry.

NSAC as a lead institution, with UNB as a partner in this initiative there will be several researchers begin working on various aspects on tree molecular breeding, tree physiology, needle abscission physiology, needle abscission prevention technologies and silviculture-based pest control and biocontrol technologies. The Center and Consortium will be located at NSAC.

This Research Report is the first volume that presents the work that has been done by the Consortium researchers at NSAC and UNB. While, we have miles to go, this is just the beginning.

I anticipate that the agreement will be signed and our recruitment process will start soon and by next year, we will have all our team in place to address and contribute to the industries urgent problems.

I take this opportunity to sincerely thank Len Giffin, Ex-Executive Director, CTCNS for working with me through the process. In addition, I would like to express my sincere thanks to our research platform leader, Dr. Quiring, UNB for his contribution and my research group, Ms.Azure Adams (Research Technician), Mr. Mason MacDonald (NSERC Ph.D. Fellow), Mr. Aru Thiagarajan (NSERC Ph.D. Fellow), Mr. Scott Veitch (Research Assistant). But for the constant support and sustained effort of our Smart Christmas Tree and Technology Initiative Steering Committee members, this would not have happened – I would like to sincerely thank each one of them. The financial support rendered by CTCNS, NSERC, NSDNR, NBGrowing Forward, AgriFutures NS, NB, Department of Natural Resources, NS; Department of Agriculture and Aquaculture, NB, Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, NL; members of the Smart Christmas Tree Research Cooperative and the producers for their cash and in-kind contribution to this initiative.

Together, we could sustain and contribute to the rural green industry of Atlantic Canada and I am humbled by your support and contribution to this initiative.

Future looks better than yesterday.

Sincerely,

Raj Lada

Professor

President, Atlantic Canada Christmas Tree Research and Development Consortium

Director, Smart Christmas Trees and Technologies Initiative.