Vijay Kumar Tiwari didn’t expect to become a hero in the eyes of wheat farmers. But since he and his team at the University of Maryland in Washington, D.C., identified a gene mutation capable of tripling the number of kernels on a head of wheat, the postcards have rolled in. He has received handwritten notes from farmers cheering him on. “They’ve said, ‘We’ve heard the news, and we are really excited about it.’ Hopefully it translates into farmers’ fields,” said Tiwari, an associate professor of wheat breeding.

Prairie winter wheat acres have declined for years, but interest in the versatile crop has been revived. Its renewed appeal coincides with a changing of the guard in wheat breeding circles. Picking up where their predecessors left off, breeders Harwinder Sidhu and Curt McCartney aim to give farmers strong new varieties.

Launched in January, 2021, the Omics and Precision Agriculture Laboratory (OPAL) is the only biotechnology facility of its kind in the country. Created with funding provided by Western Economic Diversification Canada, it is led by the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). The facility was founded in 2019 as a partnership between the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and USask.