Grainswest - Tech 2024

Tech 2024 Grains West 20 PERSON PLACE & THING “ The biggest challenge is developing varieties that are early maturing yet high yielding. ” financial investment because we need many technicians. This program is quite productive and has lots of potential. I look forward to exploiting that potential in a good way to bring the best out of it for the next 25 or 30 years. GW: How will the U of A program meet its breeding goals, and what is its timeline to deliver new varieties for Alberta’s northern Parkland region? GB: It takes nine to 11 years before farm- ers get the seed in their hand. That time- line is reasonable. So, we need to envision what the priorities of growers will be 10 years down the road. We are one of North America’s north- ernmost wheat breeding programs. We are in an ideal location to breed for the Parkland region. And there is more grain acreage to the north of Edmonton on the Prairies, including the B.C. Peace region, than in the whole province of Manitoba. However, I will not exclusively breed for the Parkland region. I have three main breeding goals in the two market classes. One is high-yielding CPS wheat. And I will breed CWRS wheat for the Parkland region and the standard Prairies. GW: What challenges do you face in the development of new varieties for the northern Prairies? GB: The biggest challenge is develop- ing varieties that are early maturing yet high yielding. If you look at the Parkland region, growers are still growing varieties like AAC Brandon and AAC Viewfield, which are not necessarily early maturing. Sometimes farmers may think they don’t need early maturing varieties, but one in five years they can get an early frost, and it damages the crop because of pre-harvest sprouting. Also, the Parkland region gets more moisture. This means plant varieties suitable for southern Alberta or southern Saskatchewan grow taller and then lodge. We have to breed shorter, early maturing varieties with strong straw. However, when we introduce shortness and early maturity in a variety, yield goes down. Today, we need a variety that yields like Brandon or Viewfield and has the matu- rity of Parata, which is five days earlier maturing than standard wheat varieties. Five days can make a lot of difference. That will be a game changer. GW: How tricky is it to produce varieties that perform well in the field yet have high-quality end-use characteristics? GB: Each wheat breeder runs two programs. One is breeding and one is genetics. Breeding is all about developing varieties, and genetics is improving traits and developing the parent plants for cross- es that will give us a variety. Wheat breeders deal with more than 20 quality traits they stack in a variety. Each trait should be above a certain threshold. As far as quality goes, it is challenging to breed a perfect variety. For example, when we cross a non-Canadian line from a non-adapted region, we start to deal with a lot of end-use quality problems. You cross the best, you hope for the best. For example, most of the lines our program developed have poor Fusarium resistance relative to other programs. We do have elite breeding lines with really good Fusarium resistance, but these prob- ably have poor performance for some of the end-use quality traits. It’s challenging, but it’s not impossible. And again, it’s about choosing the right parents for crosses. But if we do it right, and if we have large enough breeding populations to select from, it is possible to breed varieties which are very high yielding, early maturing and have premi- um end-use quality traits that meet the requirements of the CWRS class. GW: Will emerging data technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) further enhance the breeding process for your program? GB: These technologies are beneficial for research and will add value to the breeding process. But breeding is about making crosses, and there is no quicker way to grow the wheat. AI will be of use for discovery, maybe characterizing traits relevant to breeding, but for developing varieties, phenotyping and the actual field work and making crosses, I don’t think AI can expedite the process. It can be one of the many tools that we use to make selections or add value to the breeding pipeline, but nothing more than that. GW: What’s next for the U of A breeding program? GB: The U of A breeding program has done very well in the past, and I hope to take it a few steps forward. With the vari- eties Dean Spaner developed over the last few years, we have good germplasm to work with to breed even better varieties. The program shares and exchanges germplasm with other public wheat breeder colleagues at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and universities. That’s crucial for public wheat breed- ing. But my biggest goal is to increase the [acreage of U of A varieties under cultivation]. That can only happen if we bring forward very competitive varieties, and that requires a lot of time and ded- ication. I am very keen to contribute to an impactful breeding program Alberta farmers can take pride in. This is the only Alberta program that breeds for the CWRS class. And we will need more financial support from produc- er groups over the coming years. With that additional support, we will achieve good results in the short and long term.