GrainsWest Spring 2021

Spring 2021 grainswest.com 49 BY SARAH WEIGUM To speed up the selection process for FHB resistance, researcher Nora Foroud exposed wheat embryos to Fusarium mycotoxins. Known as in vitro selection, the process may more frequently produce plants that are resistant to FHB. “Knowing now that there is a fairly large durum chromosome segment that comes along with this gene, you have to make sure you’re not bringing along a protein, for instance, that is good for pasta production but isn’t for bread production,” said Hucl. The grain from shorter plants had a small drop in one indicator of gluten quality and a slight increase in falling numbers. As a fol- lowup to the project, milling and baking tests were conducted on a subset of near-isogenic lines, which raised no red flags. One breeding line with the gene made it to pre-registration trials in 2019 but failed to advance due to low test weight. Such “near miss” lines typically become a parent in future crosses, said Hucl. STRENGTH IN NUMBERS Research scientist Nora Foroud works at the AAFC Research and Development Centre in Lethbridge at the heart of Alberta’s irrigation network. FHB and other diseases can potentially wreak havoc on warm, wet irrigated crops. With the partic- ipation of wheat and barley breeders, Foroud has worked to improve resistance to FHB. Since 2014, Foroud has received initial crosses of wheat lines, or F1 hybrids, from plant breeders. Using the immature pollen cells in these plants, she has cultured haploid embryos in her lab. The haploid embryos germinate into haploid plant- lets from which scientists develop doubled haploid plant lines. The creation of doubled haploid lines is a common method of modern plant breeding that allows researchers to develop plant lines with fixed genetics in one generation rather than over several generations of inbreeding. In a process known as in vitro selection, Foroud introduces Fusarium mycotoxins to embryo cultures while they develop. “The theory is that the plants that develop from those mi- crospore cultures have a higher frequency of plants that have resistance to FHB,” said Foroud. Carried out between 2017 and 2020, her project received $120,000 from AWC as well as sup- port from Alberta Innovates and SaskWheat. The three years of work produced about 1,100 barley lines and 3,000 wheat lines that were returned to breeding programs across the Prairies for additional screening. AWC’s Simbo de- scribed Foroud’s contribution to the grain industry as significant. Twenty-one wheat lines produced by Foroud’s in vitro se- lection lab are now in registration and pre-registration trials. Barley was added to the research project more recently, so lines for the crop are not as far along in the screening and registra- tion process. “I’m fairly optimistic that with the number of lines we’ve devel- oped we’ll have more lines feeding into those pre-registration and registration trials,” said Foroud. Last year, she also expanded her research to include durum wheat. AWC has committed to fund- ing Foroud’s in vitro selection research for another three years. Photo:CourtesyofNoraForoud