WINNIPEG – Canada’s cereal research hub in Winnipeg is getting an $18.6 million facelift, said federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief when he toured Manitoba last week.
Vanclief made the announcement to a crowd of nearly 100 at the official opening of the Cereal Research Centre’s $2 million plant genetics resources facility at the University of Manitoba.
Both projects work together to propel Canada’s reputation as a global leader in genetic research of wheat and oats, Vanclief said.
“In all of our minds there’s always concern that we don’t do enough research. We know that two-thirds of the wheat varieties on the Canadian Prairies were developed here at this centre and the work being done here has improved disease resistance, protein levels and yields.”
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The new centre is proof the 20- cents-a-tonne checkoff that wheat farmers pay for research is worth the money, Vanclief said.
The $18.6 million retrofit project will pay for upgrading the centre’s offices and laboratories.
New plant growth and seed storage facilities, including state-of-the-art climate controlled greenhouses, will nearly double the centre’s wheat and oat breeding programs.
Farmers don’t see the fruits of scientific research in the short run.
But plant pathologist Andrej Tekauz said researchers know that for producers battling fusarium head blight in their wheat crops, every day counts.
“Blight was up last year and with normal rainfall we expect to see it survive into this year,” said Tekauz, head of the cereal disease program.
Losses to the fungal disease in some southern Manitoba fields were as high as 50 percent last year.
New varieties bred to resist crop killers such as wheat midge, rust and fusarium could save farmers money and reduce damage to the environment.
Under the centre’s program, a new fusarium-resistant wheat variety should be available to farmers by 2001. Most of the work now involves genes found in Chinese wheat which carry a resistance to fusarium.
However, new sources may be discovered with the expansion of the facility’s cereal crop germplasm node, Tekauz said.
“The Chinese source is giving us a particular kind of resistance to the spread of the disease once infection occurs. We would also like to find a material that is resistant to the initial infection.”
The team of plant breeders, pathologists, geneticists and biogenetisists at the centre will use the genetic resources collection of over 100,000 lines of wheat, barley and oats and their wild relatives from around the world to develop the next generation of wheat and oat varieties.
Top research facility
Centre director James Bole said the expansion makes the Winnipeg location Canada’s top cereal biotechnology research facility.
Rust specialist Don Harder welcomed the renewed federal support for cereal research. It is vital to maintaining Canada’s leading role in breeding cereal crops, he said.
“We have to have the quality to remain competitive and keep working with the people like the wheat board marketing people and the farmers up here so that we know what we’re aiming for,” said Harder.
Scientists are breeding a white wheat instead of traditional hard red spring for growing niche markets in Asia and Africa. White wheats are preferred in the Asian noodle market and African flatbread market, he said.
The agriculture facility works with specialists at the U of M but has never been part of the university.
