Manitoba Agriculture and Food Knowledge Exchange

Intro: 0:00
The way we grow and produce food is ever changing, shaped by consumers and the climate in which we live and farm. Research at all points of our food system is essential for continuously improving food's journey from farm to table. The Manitoba Agriculture and Food Knowledge Exchange explores timely research innovations and applications that make our food system better than ever. Join us for today's podcast.

Peter Frohlich: 0:27
Hello and welcome to Changemakers, a Manitoba Agriculture and Food Knowledge Exchange podcast series. My name is Peter Frohlich. I am the Research Development Coordinator for the National Center for Livestock and the Environment (NCLE) at the University of Manitoba. In each episode, we chat with an academic member of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the university to find out about the research they're working on and how this research is shaping agriculture and food production in Manitoba and beyond. We also get to know the researchers and get to know the person behind the discoveries. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Xiaopeng Gao, who is an associate professor in the Department of Soil Science. Thanks for joining us, Xiaopeng.

Xiaopeng Gao: 1:04
Thank you for having me, Peter. And it's always a pleasure to share our research. I appreciate this opportunity.

Peter Frohlich: 1:11
So, Xiaopeng, before we get into the details about your awesome research, can you please let us know why you decided to become a researcher and maybe a little bit about the path that led you to become associate professor of the Department of Soil Science?

Xiaopeng Gao: 1:25
Yeah, thank you for the question. Maybe I can start start a little bit from where I grew up. So originally, I'm from China. I grew up a family, but my parents, they don't have a farm, but my grandparents, they have farmland. So during my childhood, I was always involved in all different kinds of field activities like harvesting, like plotting, like tillage. At that time, everything was done basically by hand. So I do understand the challenges that farmers can face growing their crops there, that could be including the poor soils, that could be including the unpredicted weather, that could have some bad management decisions there. So especially for China, it has a large population there. Every farm has only a very small piece of land. They always treat it as a treasure. Then I go to university, I picked agriculture, more specifically soil chemistry for my undergraduate education there. So and then when I was doing my master in China Agricultural University, I actually picked plant nutrition. After that, I went to the Netherlands to do my PhD, which is also in soil science. So really my education background always focusing soil science, plant nutrition under the umbrella of agriculture

Peter Frohlich: 3:03
You alluded to some differences between farms in China and farms in Canada. What are some main differences?

Xiaopeng Gao: 3:11
Yeah, as I mentioned, one key difference is the acreage of the land. So in China, they always have a small land. But in Canada, you know, our farmers here, they usually have huge land area, you know, for production. Another key difference is actually the application of the technology or the modern machinery, right? So it's in China, even nowadays, because they have this small land limitation there, they are very limited in term of using the large machinery for their operation. But here in Canada, we really rely on those development of the technology of the machine for the farming.

Peter Frohlich: 3:53
When did you start with the university as an associate professor?

Xiaopeng Gao: 3:58
You don't know how old I am. That will tell I am actually old. I did my undergraduate between 1995 to 1999 in 1999 with a major in soil science, soil chemistry. Following that, I did my master in China Agricultural University in Beijing. And after that, I was offered a PhD position at Wacken University in the Netherlands. And that's where I started to work on a project looking at micronutrient availability in crops. And we set up different field trials. I also I also did a bunch of controlled environment, greenhouse studies, soil incubation studies, and also a little bit modeling work during my PhD, basically to look at how the plants, especially the root of the plants, take up the nutrients from the soil and how that nutrients is being translocated into the grain of the crops

Peter Frohlich: 5:05
You mentioned that land is treasure in China, and I think that's a really good way to look at agricultural land. Why did you decide to study soil? We drive in the country and we see black, dark, brown soil. What's so interesting about soil that we need to be attentive about?

Xiaopeng Gao: 5:24
As everyone said, soil is not only the dirt. When we look at the agriculture production, soil is just the base stone for the production system. It interests me in terms of the soil science because it's life, actually. You know, the soil, it contains a lot of things out of your imagination. So it's a lot of complicated interactions between the different physical, chemical, and also the biological components of the soil. It contains all different size of the microbials in the soil, you know, from the tiny bacteria, fungi, to a larger size of even some animals like mice right like they all live all a part of their life in the soil and interact with you know the different components of the soil and then that affects not only the crop production but also the livestock production you know basically that's how where we get our food from so that's where I start to grow my interest in the soil focus the soil science from my undergraduate to my graduate study, so it seems that go together with my life.

Peter Frohlich: 6:52
So it seems if we don't take care of the soil or if we don't understand what's happening in the soil, then that has an effect on crop production, right?

Xiaopeng Gao: 7:00
That's correct. So to understand the crop production system, to know how much the soil can produce sufficient enough food, to support the growing population as you have to understand what's been happening in the soil what soil it's providing you know I have a specific research interest in terms of looking at the nutrients so you have to understand how much available plant available nutrients are in the soil now which is very much different from the total amount of the soil it's being affected by the texture of the soil by the type of the soil by the pH of the soil you name it it's it's a lot of factors that can influence the plant availability, nutrients, in terms of the nutrients, and also that basically affects how much food you can grow from that soil

Peter Frohlich: 7:55
That's a really important concept, is yield. So you talked about nutrients in the soil. Which nutrients does your work focus on?

Xiaopeng Gao: 8:03
Okay, I work with different nutrients. I have some work looking at nitrogen. So nitrogen is the most limiting mineral nutrients for the plants. So basically, across all parts of the world, nitrogen fertilizer is being needed to grow the plants, right? What I do there is to look at how we can improve the soil fertility management in terms of improving the nitrogen use efficiency, but at the same time to mitigate its loss to the environment. And one very specific interest is to look at the greenhouse gas emissions, because part of the nitrogen fertilizer, that you apply it to the soil, gonna be lost to the atmosphere as a form of the nitrous oxide, which is very powerful greenhouse gas that can affect the environment. And other than nitrogen, I also work with other nutrients such as phosphors and also the micronutrients. In terms of the micronutrients, my main interests are focusing on two nutrients, zinc and iron. And why is that? It's because zinc and iron, they are two micronutrients that are most related to the human health. So across the world, there is over 2 billion people are actually potentially insufficient in terms of iron and zinc. So that is a big number, and we call it hidden hunger. So that's very much related to the human health. And one term we use in my research is called biofortification. So that refers to how you can improve the bioavailability of the micronutrients especially iron and zinc through agriculture practices or the approaches such as you know you can try to improve their concentration and bioavailability through plant breeding or you can try to improve that through traditional agriculture practice like fertilization crop rotation like organic farming so there's a how to enhance their concentration in the edible parts of the plants it's a main research interest. I do have a few projects looking at that in this aspect.

Peter Frohlich: 10:17
Okay, so zinc and iron, so they're both important in human health. Do we not have enough zinc in our crops now? It seems maybe that increasing yield has an effect on zinc amounts in crops. Is that correct?

Xiaopeng Gao: 10:30
Very good question. So the zinc and iron, so they are defined as micronutrients, which means the plant, in general, they need a relatively small amount for their growth. Because I will just use the Canadian prairie soil as an example here. In our soil here, our soil generally has high organic matter. It means our soil are generally fertile, and they, in general, they are not deficient in terms of micronutrients, such as iron and zinc. So we have done, in our department, you know, many researchers have done some previous works looking at how that affects the plant productivity, depending on the crop species, we don't see much impact in terms of the crop yield. But the key thing we are looking right now is how that affects their accumulation in the green. The key challenge we are facing right now in terms of their bioavailability because it's not only their concentration, but also how available they are to the human consumption. So when I'm talking about the bioavailability, it's one very common index we use in the research is actually the phytate to zinc or the iron ratio. So phytate is the main storage form of the phosphorus in the crop grains, and we call it as anti-nutritional compounds. So if you have too much phytate in your grain, it will bind the micronutrients such as zinc and iron super strongly and decrease their availability for the human consumption. So when we use that as an index to look at the different, for example, the wheat cultivars across Canadian agriculture systems. We have done some research about this in previous work, and we found that it's much, much lower than being required by the human consumption. Of course, you can get zinc from some animal protein-based food, like the fish. They are, in general, contains more micronutrients. But the problem with crop production is that about 70 or 75% of our wheat grain, for example, is actually being transported to other parts of the world. And for many parts of the world, especially for those developing countries whose main calorie intake is based on the major foods, so how to improve the micronutrient bioavailability, it's a strategy not only for Canadians, but also for people around the world

Peter Frohlich: 13:07
In your work, you're trying to increase the bioavailability of zinc in crops. What happens if we don't have enough zinc in our diet?

Xiaopeng Gao: 13:15
In terms of its impact on the human health and it's, so the zinc, it's an essential nutrient, you know, for human. And if you don't have sufficient zinc there, you may have the disease, especially in the young kids. If they don't have enough zinc and their growth is being affected and, you know, they can be developing the different type of disease These can affect metabolisms and also the function of your body because both zinc and iron, they are a key component for basically all enzymes that are involved in the metabolism of the human body.

Peter Frohlich: 13:55
So it's very important in our health. So now we know that benefits are for humans, but what about farmers? What about producers? What is the benefit of increasing ability for producers?

Xiaopeng Gao: 14:05
I mentioned that our soils are in general fertile in terms of providing the micronutrients, but still we have some high pH soil here. We have some soil that contains high level of the bicarbonate. For those soils, they can still experience zinc deficiency, especially when you grow some sensitive crops like the corn, and that's where you may have zinc deficiency that can decrease your productivity. But other than that, another fact about zinc and also iron is, of course, like I said before, it's being related to the nutritional quality of the crop. So right now, not like the protein, which is considered as a premium for the farmers. So if they can green high protein, for example, the spring wheat, that's where they get higher economic return, right? Somehow related to their financial income. But right now, the micronutrient concentration or the bioavailability, they are not considered as a premium. But we do think It should be there in terms of the nutritional quality in the future to produce the value-added grain other than just looking at the protein itself.

Peter Frohlich: 15:21
To summarize, what are the main methods to increase the viability of zinc crops?

Xiaopeng Gao: 15:27
My lab is doing different types of research in this aspect. I'll just give you a few examples here. I am a graduate student who is looking at how organic farming affects the micronutrient bioavailability. We are working together with Dr. Martin Enns from Plant Science using Greenlee long-term crop rotation study. So this study site has been established for over 30, 35 years already. We have collected the historic green samples, including wheat, and we have a new ESCAL project looking at the flaxseed as well. And what we did there, we collected the historic green samples from this study site, and then we analyze how the concentration of the micronutrients and also the phytate, as I mentioned before. So basically looking at the bioavailability of the micronutrients, how they are being affected by organic farming versus conventional farming, how they are affected by the different crop rotations, in terms of whether it is a continuous annual crop versus where you incorporate some perennial crops like alfalfa, into your crop rotation systems. So what we basically found is that when you have organic farming, especially if you're in combination with diverse crop rotation system, you can almost double the zinc and iron bioavailability using those strategies. So of course there are some challenge in terms of the organic farming, how we can further improve productivity in terms of crop yield, because we do have limitation about the phosphorus. in this organic farming. But if you look at the micronutrient bioavailability there, the organic farming is a very processing strategy to enhance their bioavailability. And I also have another student looking at how the different fertilizer strategy. So we are looking at different forms of the fertilizer, including zinc sulfate, which is a product that contains zinc and also sulfur and also the phosphorus in its composition. position there and we basically looking at how we apply the different source of fertilizer and also at a different location whether you apply it as a band or you apply it together in the fire when you do the planting and how those different practice affect zinc uptake by the plants affect its accumulation in the crop green and my one of my students is working on this project we have done two year field trial at two different locations in southern Manitoba, and the student is just working on the data analysis at this point, writing up the thesis, and we are looking to have more information from this aspect.

Peter Frohlich: 18:21
At the end of your research, would there be best management practices that producers and farmers could adopt?

Xiaopeng Gao: 18:27
One of the key purposes or the goals of our study is to generate or develop some BMPs that the farmer can directly use. I give you a lot of examples about the micronutrient but I also do some works about the nitrogen in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions. So I worked with Dr. Meredith Newton from our department in terms of looking at how the 4R impact agronomic and also environmental impacts of the nutrient management. So what we found there is that I just tell you a key funding from across many years, many sites, and also one of my students doing some meta-analysis for this region. And what we found there is that if you can use the enhanced efficiency nitrogen fertilizer, such as the Super U, which actually incorporates nitrification inhibitor and also a ureth inhibitor into the products, you know, slow down the nitrogen transformation in the soil. Okay, so by using this product, we found that it can effectively improve the fertilizer nitrogen use efficiency. And at the same time, it can reduce the nitrous oxide emission by 30%. And we also found this product is more effective when you have a situation like warm and wet early season, because that's where the nitrogen is more likely to be lost to the environment under the wet and warm conditions there. Just based on our research, we have developed some fact sheets to introduce this technique that the farmers can directly use for their practice, you know, not only to enhance the fertilizer efficiency, to improve their productivity and economic return, but also that can reduce the negative impact on the

Peter Frohlich: 20:22
You just answered my last question is what's the effect on the environment and, of course, the farmer benefits because they can now use less fertilizer, right? Can you just elaborate on the 4R? It's a technique, right, 4R?

Xiaopeng Gao: 20:33
So the 4R nutrient, called the nutrient stewardship, actually refers to to apply the right rate of the fertilizer at the right place using the right source at the right time. So that's where we explain the 4R. So in terms of when, where, how, and how much you apply the fertilizer in terms of its efficiency. And how commonly is this technique used by producers? Okay, across the prairies, actually, we are doing a very good job in terms of for our techniques. I'll just give you an example here. Based on our research, the banding relative to the broadcast of fertilizer is much more efficient in terms of the fertilizer application. In our case, we have over 85 or even 90% of the farmers across the prairie, they are doing the banding fertilizer rather than just spreading them on the surface of the soil. That's a very effective way to prevent the loss and at the same time to improve its efficiency.

Peter Frohlich: 21:42
Well, we've heard a lot about your work, and I think it's amazing to me how your work affects human health, and it affects producers, and it affects yields, and it affects how much money the producers will make. So really incredible work. Now, out of all these incredible findings, what is the one finding that sort of sticks out in your mind?

Xiaopeng Gao: 22:02
In general, my work is looking at how we improve the soil fertility in terms of the agriculture sustainability, right? When we talk about the sustainability, my understanding of the term is actually it should at least have three meanings there. So first of all, a sustainable agriculture should produce sufficient food, enough food for people to eat. And the number two, it should be, that's where, you know, we talk a lot about the food security. Believe it or not, there are still people around the world who don't have enough food So that's the number one goal of the sustainability. And the number two, you need to protect the environment. So the agriculture production should not negatively affect the environment in terms of the land, in terms of the water, in terms of the air. It should be environmental friend management, you know, to keep the system sustainable. And lastly, that's where, you know, we should produce not only enough food, but the good quality food. So that's where we talk about talking about the nutritional quality, and also that's where we talk about the disease. Healthy food, sustainable agriculture system should also aim to produce not only enough food, but also healthy food for human consumption. I go back to what's the most exciting part of this research there. I'm just excited about everything, but I can maybe share a finding from my research. When we look at how the roots of the plants take up the nutrients from the soil, we are basically looking at two different strategies. So number one is about the adsorption area. So how much area in the soil the roots of the plants can explore. That's where different root structure or the colonization with the microalgae fungi can play a role in terms of exploring more area in the soil. And another mechanism is actually to improve the chemical availability of the nutrients. And how plants can do that? The plants, they can modify the pH in the soil by acidifying the soil by releasing some proton. They can also release some organic anions that can actually form compounds with the nutrients to enhance their availability to the plant. So this is two different mechanisms there. I have done work with both. But what is very interesting is actually if we look at plant stress in terms of taking up the nutrients, they cannot have both strategies at the same time. So plants, they are smart. So when they take the carbon from the atmosphere, you know, through the photosynthesis, when they invest their carbon to take up the nutrients from the soil, they either put the energy on developing more root systems or developing more colonization or the network with the mycorrhizas to explore more areas, or they develop these mechanisms by releasing the organic acids, for example, to mobilize the nutrients from the soil. But they cannot have both strategies at the same time. This is very important because if you think this from a breeding perspective, you should either focus on one of the two strategies, but it's very hard for a breeder to combine the two strategies together on the same plant count. I find this very interesting. when I do this research in this, call it interactions between the root and the soil.

Peter Frohlich: 25:45
So, and the area around the root is called rhizosphere, right?

Xiaopeng Gao: 25:50
Rhizosphere, exactly, okay, yeah.

Peter Frohlich: 25:51
So, after you've done your research, this project, what are the next steps? What do you see happening in 10 years with this kind of research?

Xiaopeng Gao: 25:58
One thing my group is very interested in to do in the future is to look at the impact of climate change. Okay, maybe I should use a different word, not climate change, but rapid climate change. Like what we see nowadays about the wildfire in Manitoba here, you know, zoos are Climate, rapid climate change, they're going to have impact. Not only the crop production, but also the livestock production. But my main interest is to look at how this climate change is going to affect nutritional quality of the crops. Very much related to my research about the micronutrients with iron and zinc. And recently, my group was approved with a CFI funding. And with this CFI, we are in the process of building a growth channel. And this growth chamber has a very unique feature, so that can precisely control not only the temperature and the moisture, but also the CO2 concentration. So with those very unique characterization, we can actually simulate the climate change under the controlled environment. So what we do there, you know, we can set up the different scenarios. So what happens, let's see, if the atmospheric CO2 concentration increases by 20%, from the current level, what can that affect the crop productivity and the nutritional quality? So we can do those type of work under the controlled environment with this new infrastructure supported by the CFI

Peter Frohlich: 27:29
That's absolutely amazing that you can do controlled studies in a lab, control the climate conditions in your apparatus. It's wonderful. I mean, your research is amazing. It touches on so many great points in agriculture. Now, to get to know you a little bit, what is something interesting beyond science that keeps you going?

Xiaopeng Gao: 27:45
One thing I want to share, I have two kids. My daughter is 10 years, Emily, and my son is eight years, Jasper. But my son recently, I enjoy the family time, but recently my son, Jasper, is learning how to play chess, and he's very much into it. I don't know much chess before, but we start to play together a lot, and myself also start to learn chess together with my son, and we are having a lot of fun. Interesting to see how kids think, they make the move, and they start to increasingly start to understand the rules of the chess. It is a complicated game, but I like to see how my kids develop the strategies, the static, you know, to play the game. I enjoy those moments.

Peter Frohlich: 28:37
Yeah, it's a nice game to start when you're young because it trains your brain to think creatively, strategically. I remember being in New York City and seeing chess sets in the park I wish they would have that for kids to play. I have one more question for you. There may be some high school kids that could be listening to this podcast and they may be thinking about their future and what do they want to do after high school. And some of them may be thinking about food production and agriculture. What is the message that you would give to them as they sort of make decisions in the future?

Xiaopeng Gao: 29:04
I think my suggestion there is if you ever wonder what's the food, your daily food you eat on your plate, it's being produced, you know, no matter plant-based or animal-based there. If you ever wonder how the soil is more than just a dirt in terms of how it is life. And also, if you like any outdoor activities, agriculture is the right path for you to go. And Manitoba, it is a great place to learn agriculture because we are very much an agriculture-based province. That's a very significant component of a professional economy. Basically, it's a base for the for Manitoba.

Peter Frohlich: 29:46
Essentially, you pretty much will always have a job if you go into agriculture. Yeah, that's the message. And that's why I into it because there will always be work. People need to eat, right?

Xiaopeng Gao: 29:50
Of course, yeah. If you want to help with people, especially farmers, that's the right place to go.

Peter Frohlich: 30:01
Thank you so much, Xiaopeng. And that's it for today's episode of Changemakers. Thank you, Dr. Gao, for chatting with me today about your fascinating research and about your path to become a researcher. And thank you all for listening. Join me in future episodes of Changemakers to hear about other fascinating fascinating research being led by agri-food innovators at the University of Manitoba.

Xiaopeng Gao: 30:20
Thank you for having me.