Saskatchewan Pulse Growers is investing in a research partnership it hopes will speed up the introduction of new beneficial crop traits.
The grower group is spending $3 million over the next three years on genomics research that will be conducted at the National Research Council’s Plant Biotechnology Institute and the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre.
“This agreement will lead to yield improvements and increased revenue for Saskatchewan’s pulse industry and its farmers,” said Jerome Konecsni, director general of the NRC-PBI.
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The partnership was announced last week at the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference.
“This project will help us to develop and implement new breeding efficiencies in our program,” said Bunyamin Tar’an, a CDC chickpea breeder.
Pulses are Canada’s fastest growing crop sector, generating $2 billion annually to the farm economy. Canada has become the world’s leading exporter of peas and lentils.
Kofi Agblor, SPG’s director of research, said continued investment in Saskatchewan’s pulse breeding program is required to maintain that status.
“One thing that has kept us ahead is our germplasm. We have been able to grow these crops at costs relatively lower than most others,” he said.
The goal of the partnership is to develop molecular markers that will assist breeders in creating new pulse varieties with improved disease resistance and stress tolerance.
At a recent research conference, Agblor heard a speaker from Monsanto say molecular markers reduced the amount of time it takes for the seed technology company to develop new varieties to seven years from 10 years.
Pulse breeders don’t anticipate that level of success but they are counting on significant time saving when creating new lines of pulses.
“They think it is doable to shave off a year or two easily,” said Agblor.
Money for the molecular marker project is coming almost entirely from growers.
NRC-PBI will receive $542,500 from SPG and is providing its own in-kind contribution of $343,000. Money will be used in part to do some sequencing and resequencing of pulses.
The CDC is receiving $2.14 million from the grower group to develop and test the markers and to make sure they will result in a more economical breeding program.
Some of the traits breeders hope to develop using the markers are bleaching resistance, ascochyta blight resistance, early maturity and improved seed coat colour.
