West of Delhi, 1933 The research station

In 1933 the federal government set up a substation of its Harrow research station on 20 hectares of leased land about 4 kilometres west of Delhi, to study flue-cured tobacco in the new belt. G. Lloyd Haslam was the first officer in charge.S1 The first buildings were a two-storey pack barn and three curing kilns, and a glass greenhouse went up that first winter.S1

It grew quickly. The government bought the land, with an adjoining 20 hectares, in 1938; the station became an experimental farm in 1962, bought another adjoining 20-hectare farm in 1965, and became a full research station in 1967.S1 Its first field day, in August 1934, drew 400 visitors; by the early 1980s the annual event drew as many as 5,000.S1

Its work shaped the crop: irrigation research from 1953, a storage pond in 1956, and Canada’s first bulk kiln, bought for testing in 1961.S1 Before tobacco ended, it was already looking ahead, with a University of Guelph peanut programme from 1977 to 1980 and a new crops programme from 1981.S1

By 2012 the station, by then called the Southern Crop Protection and Food Research Centre, was working on specialty crops such as ginseng, hemp and hops, field vegetables, and minor-use pesticide trials, on 160 acres west of Delhi.S44S45 A 2012 Better Farming report described it as “a centre of tobacco research in its heyday” that had become “a showcase for alternative crops.”S43 It was cut in the federal budget of March 2012 and closed on 31 March 2013.S43S45 An industry study that year weighed uses from a water research institute to an agri-food innovation centre.S45 What has become of the site since, we are still finding out.

Photos wantedThe station, any decadeField days, the kilns, the greenhouses, the staff. We don’t yet have a photo of the station we can share.Share a photo →