By Riley Turetsky
GPCI Student
On Dec. 7, 2021, Grades 11 and 12 students at Gilbert Plains Collegiate Institute (GPCI) were given the opportunity to sit in on former GPCI student, Chris Manchur’s “Agriculture through a Microscope” presentation.
The presentation aimed to give rural high school students a chance to experience science in a way that would otherwise be out of reach for them because of their rural location. Manchur managed to make the presentation relatable by centering it on agriculture, the main economic stimulus in the area.
Manchur is currently attending the University of Manitoba as a master’s student in the Department of Biological Sciences. He first got into agriculture from his experience on his family farm, along with a project he did in a high school course called “Topics in Science.” This is where he learned about GMO’s, and specifically, the golden rice situation.
After graduating in 2015, Manchur went to the U of M to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture from 2015 to 2020, where he studied plant biotechnology and crop protection.
Afterwards, he moved to pursue a master’s degree in Agricultural Sciences. His work focuses on researching new biotechnologies, more specifically, replacements for current fungicides with the more environmentally friendly RNAi technology.
Farmers need to know if their crops can withstand the disease, and that’s where Manchur and science comes in. He uses his degree to help farmers control their crop diseases by introducing an innovative technology called RNAi (RNA interference). It seems to be the next generation of fungicides because it can remain environmentally friendly unlike our modern chemicals that carry the risk of being toxic and environmentally hazardous.
Manchur centered his presentation on the problems that farmers and others in the agriculture industry, face. Those things consist of droughts, flooding, costs of fertilizer and seeds, prices of crops, etc.
However, the biggest threat that farmers must endure is diseases. Manchur explained that diseases can lower yields, which impacts farmer’s profits and the amount of food available around the world. Manchur taught us about four diseases in the presentation, as well as speaking about how a single disease can reproduce into numerous variants called strains.
During his presentation, Manchur conducted two experiments with the assistance of the GPCI students. In the first experiment, he presented a method called Gel Electrophoresis, which is a laboratory method used to separate DNA, RNA and protein fragments according to their molecular size. This technique allowed the students to see which strain of a disease they were working with.
In the second experiment, he used a method called Disc Diffusion Assays, which is a method to test the effectiveness of different concentrations of fungicide. In the experiment five petri dishes were contaminated with a certain pathogen and then five separate concentrations of fungicide, ranging from as high as 1,000 ppm to 0.01 ppm, were placed in each petri dish respectively. The idea was to pinpoint the lowest concentration that supplied enough protection from the pathogen, without the concentration of fungicide being too high. This can help farmers lower cost and the environmental impact of their sprays.
Towards the end of his presentation, Manchur spoke to the future high-school graduates in the school about post-secondary education opportunities in agriculture.
He provided the necessary information about the University of Manitoba, the agriculture programs they offer, and scholarships offered for those programs.
Along with quizzing the students about everything they have learned and offering prizes such as sweaters, water bottles and more to those who participated in answering his questions.
The presentation was eye-opening and provided an excellent opportunity to see the real-world applications of science beyond our general high-school courses.
