Before a new wheat line developed at the Crop Development Centre in Saskatoon is registered in Canada, it probably passes through the hands of Connie Briggs, a research officer at the new Grains Innovation Lab at the University of Saskatchewan.
According to Briggs, early generations of experimental wheat lines are first tested for basic characteristics, such as protein levels and falling number.
As they progress through the selection process, they undergo more testing that enables plant breeders to better understand their milling characteristics, baking properties and overall grain quality.
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In the final stages of selection, the most promising lines are ground into flour, delivered to the baking area of Briggs’s lab and transformed into fresh aromatic loaves of bread.
Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the flour is in the bread it produces.
“We call this area the bake lab,” said Briggs as she walked through a section of the new Grains Innovation Lab, a 1,500 sq. metre facility, which officially opened this summer.
“We do a lot of early generation screening tests to determine protein levels sedimentation and falling number and, for advanced lines, we go all the way through milling it into flour so we can look at things like flour protein content, ash, starch pasting properties, water absorption, farinograph properties, mixing strength and finally to baking.
“It’s all so we can have better bread.”
Briggs is one of dozens of employees who work at the Grains Innovation Lab to analyze the properties of new crop lines that have been developed by CDC plant breeders.
Staff at the facility also work with durum, feed barley, malting barley, oats, pulse crops, flax and a variety of
other crop types.
The work at the lab provides critical information to plant breeders that allows them to decide which crop lines have a promising future in Canada.
The lab, which was completed at cost of about $7.3 million, was built as an addition to an existing crop science field laboratory at the U of S.
Officials at the university have known for years that a new, more spacious facility was needed.
The lab comprises a baking facility for wheat, a malting facility for testing malt characteristics of experimental barley lines, a wet chemistry facility for assessing the characteristics of all new crop lines, a milling room, a grinding room, additional storage, office and support space and a new drying facility to dry down crops that are harvested from experimental plots at the CDC.
“What this facility represents is a renewal and increase of space for the work we do on grain quality testing and protocol development,” said Dorothy Murrell, managing director of the CDC.
For Briggs and fellow research officer Gene Aragnosa, a major benefit of the new facility is having more room for equipment and having all lab facilities located close to one another.
Experimental crop lines harvested from CDC plots are placed in the drying room at the end of the hall, just steps away from where Aragnosa, Briggs and other lab personnel conduct their tests.
Storage facilities are also located on site, meaning samples no longer need to be transported across campus.
“We used to do all this testing at the other building,” said Briggs.
“Now it’s all very convenient because it’s all together in one spot. We have a mill room and a grinding room right across the hall so everything we need is right here.”
“In addition to space, I think one of the main advantages is the logistical efficiency of the new facility…,” added Aragnosa, who oversees workflow and testing procedures in the wet chemistry lab.
Aragnosa said the wet chemistry lab, like all labs in the facility, was designed to deliver data to plant breeders quickly and efficiently.
Lab technicians in the wet chemistry lab test new crop lines for a variety of compositional characteristics including starch, sugar, phytate and beta glucan content and fatty acid characteristics.
A few steps down the hall, beer cans and beer bottles from around the world are arranged in a display case.
In the nearby malt lab, small samples of experimental malting barley lines can be processed to determine if samples offer the malting characteristics that domestic and foreign brewers seek.
“In the malting process, of course, you have grain that goes through the germination process and then the germination is stopped,” said Aragnosa.
“Once that’s done, there are about four or five chemical tests that (are performed) in the wet chemistry lab … and based on the chemical data that we get … the barley breeders can then make further informed decisions as to which of those varieties are going to be tested and moved forward.
“It’s very convenient to have all of the lab facilities located in the same building. It makes everyone’s job easier.”
