Grainswest - Fall 2022

Fall 2022 Grains West 48 New breeding technique used to create drought tolerant wheat Cropdevelopmentbreakthrough GRAIN SCIENCE NEWS OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, University of Calgary plant breeder Marcus Samuel has demonstrated impressive drought-tolerant proof-of-con- cept improvements in wheat using an in- novative, non-GMO breeding technique. The project has received $398,000 in funding from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, Results Driven Agricul- tural Research, the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions, SaskWheat and the Manitoba Crop Alliance. Samuel hopes to bring these same drought tolerance gains to elite wheat varieties nearing commercialization. “We have showed with a sort of outdat- ed variety that this actually works,” said Samuel. “Under drought conditions, the parental line just collapses but the new lines get through with flying colours. Now, can we do the same mutations and recreate this in elite varieties—the best varieties that are coming to the market in the next year or two? If we could ac- complish this, I think it will be a signif- icant improvement in the way we think about crop development for Canada.” Rather than trying to find the specific genes that cause drought tolerance, then adding them into a line, Samuel attacks “Under drought conditions, the parental line just collapses but the new lines get through with flying colours.” —Marcus Samuel With the aim to accelerate the development of drought-tolerant wheat varieties, plant breeder Marcus Samuel will create a wide variety of random and varying mutations that can then be mined for the trait.