GrainsWest Winter 2021

Winter 2021 Grains West 48 Crop Development Centre celebrates 50 years of success Goldenanniversary GRAIN SCIENCE NEWS THIS YEAR MARKS A HALF century of barley breeding at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre (CDC). The program has created plenty of top-tier varieties for western Canadian farmers since 1971. CDC scientists screen thousands of barley breeding lines annually in search of those that will deliver key agronomic traits such as improved yield and lodging and disease resistance. These advance- ments add up to greater return per acre, which of course represents more profit for farmers, said Aaron Beattie, an associate professor and head of the CDC barley breeding program. Beattie also holds the title of Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Research Program chair in bar- ley and oat breeding and genetics. The challenge is to wrap all desired agronomic traits into a package that includes desirable end-use characteristics in malt, feed grain or forage. About three-quarters of the breeding program is dedicated to the development of improved malting barley varieties, said Beattie. The balance is invested in feed barley development. A small part of the program also focuses on hulless varieties used for food and malting purposes. “Ultimately, our goal is to develop vari- eties that help make farming operations more efficient, more cost-effective and hopefully more profitable,” said Beattie. “It needs to be a variety that is worthwhile for the producer to grow and also a variety that meets the needs of end-users whether that be in domestic or export markets.” BARLEY PLUS Barley is not the facility’s sole focus either. CDC’s diversified crop breeding program has successfully delivered hun- dreds of crop varieties to farmers for five decades. These additional crops include wheat, durum, oats, flax, field pea, lentil, chickpea, canary seed and dry bean va- rieties. The CDC has released more than 450 varieties since its inception. In fact, CDC varieties account for about 40 per cent of the acreage grown for these crops, including barley, across the Prairies. For certain individual crops, the acre- age represented by CDC varieties is even greater. CDC varieties account for 95 per cent of lentil acreage, 85 per cent for dry peas, 83 per cent for flax, 75 per cent for chickpeas, 73 per cent for canary seed. CDC barley varieties account for 37 per cent and oats 25 per cent. Emblematic of the facility’s importance to farmers, CDC varieties represent 20 per cent of all wheat grown on the Prairies. A JOINT EFFORT WITH INDUSTRY While this is an impressive track record, Beattie said it has been the product of a joint effort. The CDC is supported by farmers, commodity organizations and key corporate players in the agriculture industry, all of which have provided guid- ance as well as the all-important funding that makes breeding programs possible. The Canadian Barley Research Coalition (CBRC) was recently created to provide this direction and financial support to the CDC barley breeding pro- gram. Launched in late 2019, it became operational in mid-2020. One of its first allocations this past September was to award $2.7 million in western Canadian barley check-off dollars to the CDC. “It is a significant contribution to the CDC barley breeding program,” said Beattie. “It really represents the core funding to support our program over the next five years.” The CBRC collectively represents the allocation of check-off funds collected by crop groups and the Western Grains Research Foundation over the past eight years. “The idea to create a barley research coalition has been discussed for some time,” said Lauren Comin, director of research for Alberta Wheat Commission and Alberta Barley. “So, finally, the three provincial commodity associations—Alberta Barley, SaskBarley and the Manitoba Crop Alliance—came together in late 2019 to initiate the crea- tion of the CBRC.” The national, non-profit organization will facilitate long-term barley research investments and take a collaborative ap- proach to funding regional and national research projects in variety development and agronomy. The organization will also work collaboratively to complete core funding agreements with CDC and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “We also felt it was important to have a not-for-profit agency that could represent barley growers in applying for funding from the federal Canadian Agricultural Partnership program,” said Comin. “Ultimately, our goal is to develop varieties that help make farming operations more efficient, more cost-effective and hopefully more profitable.” —Aaron Beattie