Retired engineer and plant physiologist breed small, low light lemon trees.
M.P.M. Nair, a retired engineer, and his wife, Karen Tanino, a plant physiologist at the University of Saskatchewan, have been breeding special lemon trees that thrive indoors in Prairie light.
Nair first started the project more than three decades ago, and now the couple works on it together.
"It makes sense, that especially in northern regions where we're heating our homes anyway," Tanino said. "Why not utilize the windowsills to then convert that to food material."
The challenge is growing a lemon in low light.
Nair says a colleague of his wife's once told him he couldn't do it. "I ended up taking it upon him 16 years later that I fed him lemonade from my tree that I produced in the house."
"I've got one of these reputations, that if somebody says you can't do something, that I will make an attempt to do it if I think it's feasible."
