Something old, something new: revisiting the diamondback moth (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae) life table after 65 years

Nearly 65 years ago, D.G. Harcourt developed the first of 74 life tables of the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (Linnaeus) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), on the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and at nearby sites. This work is cited whenever authors discuss the life history of the diamondback moth and its parasitoids in Canada. Since Harcourt’s study, climate change, urbanisation, and crop diversity may have altered the population dynamics of both the diamondback moth and its natural enemy community in the original study area. To follow up on Harcourt’s work, we used two approaches to build life tables to describe mortality factors in the field and the natural enemies attacking diamondback moth in Ottawa: destructive sampling of mature cabbage, Brassica oleracea Linnaeus (Brassicaceae), plants similar to Harcourt’s approach and a modern sentinel-based approach with an enemy exclusion cage treatment. After 65 years, the primary parasitoids attacking diamondback moth remained the same, although more parasitoid diversity was revealed by the destructive sampling technique. Total mortality and parasitism levels also remained similar. In one notable difference, we attributed more diamondback mortality to predation. Overall, however, diamondback moth population dynamics have changed little in Ottawa in the decades since Harcourt’s studies.

Sir Charles Edward Saunders, Dominion Cerealist

Charles Edward Saunders was born in London, Ontario, in 1867. His father, Sir William Saunders, was the first director of the Dominion Experimental Farms (1886–1911). Charles received his B.A. with honours in science from the University of Toronto in 1888 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1891. He attempted a career in music, his first love, from 1893 to 1902. With his father, Charles attended the 1902 International Conference on Plant Breeding and Hybridization in New York, where he learned of Mendel’s theories of inheritance and their applicability to plant breeding. When he began work in 1903 in the Division of Cereal Breeding and Experimentation at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, he used the knowledge he had gained at that conference. It was Charles’s goal to achieve “fixity” in the varieties that had been bred and released using phenotypic mass selection, prior to his tenure as Cerealist. He selected four heads from the wheat variety Markham and in the winter of 1904 he performed a “chewing test” to select for gluten elasticity and colour. Seeds from two heads were chosen, and seeds from one went on to produce the variety Marquis after extensive yield trials on the Prairies. Marquis was 7 to 10 days earlier than Red Fife, the standard bread wheat of the Prairies. The earliness and tremendous yield of Marquis wheat resulted in the rapid and successful settlement of the Great Plains and countless billions of dollars in revenue to Canada. By 1923, 90% of the spring wheat in Canada and 70% in the USA was Marquis. Charles continued as Dominion Cerealist until his retirement in 1922. He was knighted in 1934, and died in 1937.

EFFECT OF Phytophthora megasperma ON YIELD AND SURVIVAL OF RESISTANT AND SUSCEPTIBLE ALFALFA CULTIVARS

Performance of some artificially inoculated Phytophthora root rot (PRR) resistant and susceptible alfalfa cultivars was determined under field conditions at the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa. Yields of both resistant and susceptible cultivars were reduced after inoculation; however, the resistant cultivars outyielded the susceptible ones. The resistant, inoculated cultivars showed less winterkill. There is still a need for improving PRR resistance in alfalfa, and thus increasing yield potential.

The Polish Art Treasures in Canada, 1940-60

The Case of the Polish art treasures in Canada presents two important issues: the question of immunity of a foreign state’s public movable property and the question of state responsibility for such property.Removal from Poland and Entry into CanadaIn 1940 the Canadian government permitted the duty free entry into Canada, as property of the Polish state, of a number of cases and trunks containing Polish art treasures which had been removed from the museum at the Wawel Royal Castle in Cracow before invading German armies could seize them. The treasures were stored in the Records Storage Building at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, on the clear understanding that Canada was to assume no responsibility for their safekeeping. At no time was an inventory of the treasures given to the Canadian government.