Dr. Donald Smith

During his 35 years at McGill Donald L. Smith (Distinguished James McGill Professor) has conducted research in the production and physiology of crop plants, with an emphasis on plant-microbe interactions, most recently, within the context of biofuel feedstock production. Specific areas of research have been: nitrogen metabolism, nitrogen fixation, low temperature stress and legume nodulation, methods for injection of metabolites into plants, cereal production, plant growth regulators, intercropping, inter-plant competition, plant-microbe signaling, plants and climate change, biofuel crops, cannabis, crop stress responses and biochar as a soil amendment. Work on microbe-to-plant signals and plant stress responses has is leading to climate change resilient crop production systems. He has trained 82 graduate students, ~2/3 at the Ph.D. level, published >350 papers, generated thirteen patents, started a spin-off company (Bios Agriculture Inc.), and commercialized technologies now applied to ~100 million ha of cropland per year. He has been cited more than 14,000 times and his current H index (Research Gate) is 61. He has been principal investigator on research grants totaling ~$80 million. He currently led BioFuelNet, which was just finished a 5-year cycle of funding ($50 M), which led to an additional $10 M to fund Biomass Canada through AAFC