WINNIPEG – A few years ago, Judy Olson started paying closer attention to wildflowers during long walks with her two children near Woodlands, Man.
The more she looked, the more she wanted to know about them. “It’s just swallowed me up, it really has,” Olson said.
Now, she’s taking a new prairie horticulture home- study program. It’s part of her 10-year plan to retire from her part-time nursing job and start a small wildflower nursery and landscaping business, so she can promote the use of the hearty, yet rare plants.
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Creators of the new program are also hoping green-thumbed farmers looking for ways to diversify their operations will consider the prairie horticulture certificate.
“We knew there were a lot of people out there in traditional agricultural production of grains and oilseeds that were looking for something else,” said Mervin Pritchard, a plant science professor at the University of Manitoba who helped develop the course.
“Horticulture is one of the few areas they could get involved with that is still agriculture and higher value.”
For instance, Pritchard said farmers in Manitoba may be considering growing potatoes because of recent plant expansions in the province, but are uncertain about how to work with them.
“The production of horticultural crops is very intensive, so it’s very highly capitalized. There’s a lot of special kinds of equipment, there’s usually the need for irrigation,” said Pritchard.
“The returns are possibly higher, but it’s going to take a lot of effort and a lot of technology to get there.”
The course was organized by instructors at the University of Manitoba, Assiniboine Community College in Brandon, Man., the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and Olds College in Olds, Alta.
The Prairie Horticulture Certificate program was written by people who live on the Prairies for those who want plants to survive cold winters, dry summers and prairie soil structures.
Through home study, students take several core courses in soils and then branch out into one of four areas: landscaping and arboriculture (trees), fruits and vegetables, greenhouse crops or nursery crops.
Pritchard estimated primary production in horticulture is worth $300 million in Western Canada and growing.
