Robert Bors

Award for Distinction in Outreach & Engagement - Spring 2009

Bob Bors’ contributions to fruit breeding and establishing commercially viable fruit crop production in North America and around the world have earned him the 2009 Outreach and Engagement Award.

The assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the College of Agriculture and Bioresources has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses specializing in fruit crop production, plant propagation and nursery management, and greenhouse structures and crops.  His scholarly work includes dozens of lectures, one book and a number of academic articles and reports.

Bors was instrumental in the breeding and commercializing Dwarf Sour Cherries, the prairie apple and Haskap (also called blue honeysuckle), varieties now propagated in seven provinces varieties.  Besides maintaining fruit germplasm collections, he has amassed hundreds of Haskap and interspecific strawberry plants, the most genetically diverse collections in the world. He has co-operative fruit projects across Canada and with researchers in the United States, Russia, Mongolia and Japan. 

His commitment to outreach and engagement is most evident in his work on creating food industries for local crops. Not satisfied to simply create or improve a fruit cultivar, Bors helps establish a viable industry in which crops can flourish, growers can succeed and consumers can enjoy locally grown and produced products.