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“Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
and the University of Saskatchewan have
been breeding wheat for a long time. On
the Prairies, 86 per cent of the acreage
planted comes from varieties developed
by these programs,” said Bekkaoui.
“The NRC brings expertise in genomics
and biotech to assist with information
and tools to help breeders accelerate
their programs and
understand complex
traits.”
Research will focus
on six projects to
improve the yield
of Canadian wheat
varieties:
• Genomics-Assisted
Breeding (GAB)
will build genomic
resources to speed
up gene discovery
and the ability
to identify and
develop new traits.
• Wheat Improvement
through Cell Technologies (WICT) will
improve efficiencies in double haploid
systems, reducing variety development
times by two to four years.
• Enhanced Fusarium and Rust Tolerance
(EFRT) will work to reduce producer
losses due to disease by identifying
disease-resistant genes and breeding
new wheat varieties with more durable
fusarium and rust tolerance.
• ImprovingWheat Productivity Under
Conditions of Abiotic Stress (Abiotic
stress project) will seek to improve the
drought, heat and cold tolerance of
wheat varieties.
• Targeting developmental pathways
to improve performance and yield
in wheat looks at plant development
and crop performance to better
understand seed development from
early stages to maturity to increase
plant yield and seed production.
• Beneficial Biotic Interactions (BBI) looks
at the interaction of micro-organisms
in the soil as a way to enhance nutrient-
use efficiency and plant health, and to
reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizers.
The CWA marks a shift in focus for
researchers at the NRC, moving from
work on other crops, like canola, to
wheat.
Andrew Sharpe is a research officer at
the NRC and leads the group working
on genomics-assisted breeding. He
said that one of the challenges in wheat
research in the past has been the size
of the genome—it is
five times the size of
the human genome,
and includes a lot of
repetitive genetic
information.
“Over the last few
years, we have seen
the DNA sequencing
technology move
forward in quantum
leaps in terms of
how much data you
can manage,” said
Sharpe. “Technology
has transformed
things. It has enabled
projects to move from pipe dreams to
reality.”
The CWA’s genome-assisted breeding
project is working with Genome Canada
and international networks to map the
wheat genome and build a resource of
genetic information that plant breeders
and other researchers can use.
“We can take those bits of useful
information where we have a particular
genetic variance in the DNA sequence
and turn it into a marker that you can
detect in a fairly routine fashion,” Sharpe
explained. “The marker provides a
beacon that is specific to a particular
variation in a specific cultivar, and the
breeders can use that marker to speed
up the breeding process instead of
having to grow the plants to full maturity
to assess the trait.”
For AAFC Plant Breeder Ron DePauw,
the resources that will become available
to him through the CWA will significantly
improve the efficiency of his work.
“The NRC has a lot of capability
in basic upstream science, and this
new knowledge and technology will
ultimately result in better varieties for
producers,” said DePauw. “As we
increase our understanding and develop
genetic tools or markers that are linked
to the genes that control those traits, we
can select themmore effectively and
accelerate our pace as we go forward.”
Acceleration, in this case, means that
the work being done in Sharpe’s lab
today may not yield results in the field
until after 2020. Even with the advances
in gene identification and propagation,
it takes DePauw eight to 10 years to
develop and register a new cultivar.
The long-term focus and commitment
to collaboration provided by the CWA
partners is a unique model in Canadian
grains research today.
“We believe that going to this alliance
will minimize duplication and provide
complementarity in research,” said
Bekkaoui, who is working to recruit
partners from private industry to join
the CWA. “Sometimes the funding
resource is short and there’s no
strategy, but we want to have a long-
term plan with real impact on the future
profitability of the sector.”
CanadianWheat Alliance
Goals FOR PROFITABLE,
PRODUCTIVEWHEAT
CWA will undertake Research &
Development projects that will im-
prove the yield of Canadian wheat
varieties by reducing losses from
drought, heat, cold and diseases.
The targeted specifications for
new Canadian spring and winter
wheat varieties include:
• Increase yield on a per acre basis
• Increase in resiliency to climate
stresses and diseases
• Shorten and improve the efficien-
cy of the wheat breeding cycle
• Reduce the nitrogen fertilizer
requirements
Winter
2014
grainswest.com
43
“By 2050 we will need
a 60 per cent increase
in food production.
At the same time, we
are facing challenges
from climate change,
limits to expanding
growing areas, and the
availability of water.”
– Faouzi Bekkaoui