Olga Piedrahita’s expertise in plant health and pest management is helping Niagara College students participate in research projects, making them immediate leaders in the greenhouse industry.

Olga, coordinator of the college’s Greenhouse Technician program and coordinator of Horticultural Research at Niagara Research, has been involved with the research and innovation team since 2003, overseeing projects in areas including integrated pest management, nursery and greenhouse operations and green rooftops.

She makes sure that projects undertaken with industry partners not only benefit the client in the increasingly competitive greenhouse sector, but also the students, giving them hands-on experience that is often tied into her course curriculum.

Recent projects that Olga has participated in include Control of Foxglove Aphids, a study of an evolving pest in greenhouses and how it might be controlled using biological measures.

That project is important to students because the aphid is creating a crisis situation for greenhouse growers, giving them a chance to be part of a solution that is needed in the immediate term.

Even though the project determined that the presumed method of control was not effective as originally thought, the students still learn the importance of product testing before use, Olga added.

Olga studied plant science and horticulture at the University of British Columbia before returning to her native Columbia, working as a consultant in the horticulture industry for three years.

She returned to Canada and did her graduate work at the University of Guelph, earning a degree in environmental biology and entomology.