A new funding initiative from the Western Grains Research Foundation is designed to strengthen cereal breeding programs in Western Canada.
It will provide $3.8 million over the next five years, at approximately $760,000 per year, to develop genomic tools, increase genomic capacity and enhance the use of doubled haploid in cereal crop breeding programs.
Most breeding programs already use some of those tools, but their full potential remains untapped because implementation has not kept pace with new technology.
Breeders now rely on marker technology, which allows breeding programs to evaluate only a few marker trait combinations in a few targeted plant populations.
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The research foundation said in a news release that greater use of genomic technology will mean faster and more accurate identification of the best genes available in seed germplasm to breed into varieties for commercial production.
“Together these technologies can get improved varieties into farmers’ fields quicker and add to the producer’s bottom line,” the statement said.
Foundation vice-chair Don Dewar said the initiative is good news for farmers.
“The potential to accelerate the breeding cycle and speed the release of improved varieties to market is a worthwhile and powerful investment for producers to make.”
The project is led by Curtis Pozniak of the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre and Francois Eudes and Brent McCallum of Agriculture Canada.
Pozniak described it as a “truly public” collaboration that involves all the major public research institutions active in wheat breeding and science.
It will eventually give wheat and barley breeders access to the latest technology to develop higher yielding, disease resistant cultivars to meet the demand of overseas customers.
The foundation is also funding initiatives in fusarium head blight, pest and weather surveillance, agronomy, new crops and crop uses and postharvest handling to address quality.
The funding follows a $1 million investment that it announced last year in the U of S’s phytotron renewal project, which supports research on a broad range of crops.
