Soft wheat producers are urging the federal government to replace Western Canada’s lone soft white wheat breeder, who died last year.
Sadash Sadasivaiah of the Agriculture Canada research centre in Lethbridge died of a heart attack while on a family visit to India in May 2005.
“Our industry depended on him,” said Peter Pepneck, president of the Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission.
Sadasivaiah had worked at the research centre for more than 20 years and was responsible for developing every soft wheat variety now registered for use in southern Alberta.
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Another plant breeder at the centre has taken on his breeding programs on an interim basis, but industry officials say a full-time breeder is a must.
Sadasivaiah’s work will continue to benefit western farmers in the short term, with his latest new variety expected to be approved for registration next month, but Pepneck said the concern is more long term.
“If we have no new varieties coming on stream 10 years down the road, we’ll start falling behind and I would say our industry will pretty well die out.”
He said that during the past decade, Sadasivaiah’s program produced a new and improved variety every couple of years, the most recent being Bhisaj, a high quality, good-yielding variety with good agronomic characteristics.
Pepneck said the commission wrote to agriculture minister Andy Mitchell last year about the need for a new breeder, but didn’t get a response before the election intervened. As soon as the election is over, the commission will renew its lobbying efforts.
Steve Morgan-Jones, director of sustainable production systems for Agriculture Canada, said no decision will be made about hiring a new soft wheat breeder at Lethbridge until a broader departmental review of research priorities is completed and a new business plan is approved by the minister.
“My expectation is we will have the business plan done by the spring of this year and approved by the minister,” he said.
The department held consultations with industry groups last fall, asking for their views on where research resources should be directed.
Pepneck is concerned that Ag Canada’s top officials are more interested in pursuing value-added research than basic plant breeding.
He acknowledged one problem in getting a new breeder specifically for soft wheat might be the size of the industry, with production averaging only about 100,000 tonnes annually over the past five years.
But that could change, Pepneck said, given the potential for future growth of the ethanol industry.
Ethanol producers want high yielding, high energy, low protein wheat, which is a perfect fit for soft wheat.
“AC Andrew is the best recognized variety out there for ethanol,” he said, adding that Sadasivaiah had several new varieties in the pipeline that were even better suited.
“With the germplasm he had in place … he was the most likely person to develop a new variety specifically for the ethanol industry.”
Morgan-Jones acknowledged that the small size of the industry could work against hiring a new breeder, but agreed that the ethanol angle could be a positive.
“We may be looking at slightly changing the direction of the program so that it would become more oriented toward breeding for industrial uses of wheat,” he said.
