Kelowna's AgriForest Bio-Technologies Ltd. receives $150,000

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A Kelowna agricultural company has received a $150,000 grant from the province to conduct a three-year research project.

AgriForest Bio-Technologies Ltd. received the grant through the B.C. government’s AgriTech Grant Program, and the money will be used to help the company scale up, add more employees and “support the increase of domestic food production through development and testing of technologies.”

The research project is entitled Lab to Orchard: Integration of Tissue Culture Technology with Environmental Controlled Vertical Growing System for Production of Fruit and Berry Planting Stock. It will be conducted in partnership with UBC Okanagan.

In addition to growing the company and adding more employees, the scientific mission of the project is to source and acquire genetic materials, pilot scale photoautotrophic system development and develop year-round acclimatization and hardening system for micro propagated plants under greenhouse conditions and integrate with a vertical growing system.