Grainswest - Winter 2023

Winter 2023 Grains West 22 M any farmers celebrate the end of a long growing season with a well-earned sunny getaway. For very different reasons, Canadian cereal breeders also frequently head south, or at least ship their breeding material to foreign locales. The work carried out in international destinations allows them to develop new high- quality crop varieties in a timely manner. In a foreign exchange program of genetic material, government breeders have been able to speed up their process by 25 to 33 per cent thanks to strategic partnerships in various parts of the world. These include Argentina, Arizona, California, Chile and New Zealand. Known as contra, or counter, growing seasons, Canadian cereal breeders send early progeny to various locations to be grown during another country’s growing period, which is typically October to March. The two-for-one system helps bring varieties to market much faster. WORLDWIDE WHEAT A typical spring wheat variety will spend half its early life down in New Zealand under propagation at either Palmerston North on the North Island or at Lincoln, on the Canterbury Plains, on the South Island. Since 1997, wheat lines between F1 and F6 are accelerated with the additional growing season provided by the Kiwis. Harpinder is an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada wheat breeder in Lethbridge. He believes the exchanges are foundational to the efforts of Canadian breeders. “It saves time, labour and it becomes efficient in terms of total development time,” said Randhawa. “For all the breeders either from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada or from the universities, it’s a very, very crucial part.” Once nursery trials are harvested in Canada in late September, a breeder will immediately gather the genetic material, package it up and send it down to New Zealand for its late October spring planting. The window has always been tight, and COVID-19 proved to be a serious challenge for everyone involved over the last couple of years. During the pandemic, New Zealand was arguably the most restricted country on Earth and Randhawa said that made everything extremely challenging, most notably the fact he and other Canadian breeders were not able to travel to see their lines perform in the field. FOREIGN EXCHANGE BY TREVOR BACQUE LEAD PHOTO: COURTESY OF ALBERTA WHEAT COMMISSION Cereal breeders speed variety development with contra season crops