Prairie farmers are one step closer to growing “biotech wheat.”
McKenzie wheat was officially registered by Agriculture Canada late last month, and limited quantities should be available to farmers in 1999.
“It’s the first registered wheat in Canada derived through biotechnology,” said Rob Graf, a wheat breeder with Saskatchewan Wheat Pool’s research and development division.
But it certainly won’t be the last.
“Everybody is using this technology now,” said Graf, who developed the wheat using technology developed in a partnership with researchers at the federal government’s Plant Biotechnology Institute in Saskatoon.
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By using a technology known as doubled-haploid breeding, researchers were able to shave more than two years off the time it traditionally takes to develop a new variety, In this case, it took just over seven years.
“I’ve been flying high for several months,” said Graf, the 37-year-old native of Humboldt, Sask.
Although a product of biotechnology, McKenzie does not fall into the category of genetically modified organisms or transgenic plants, which have been targeted by some environmental and consumer groups.
“In this case no alien genes have been added through any kind of genetic engineering system,” said Kutty Kartha, director general of the biotechnology institute. “These are all natural genes. We just use the technology to speed up the process.”
High yielding
The new variety is a high yielding red spring wheat, with a 15 percent yield advantage over Neepawa and a five percent advantage over the recently released AC Barrie, according to preliminary results.
Its time to maturity is equal to Neepawa or Katepwa and two days earlier than Barrie, and it has excellent leaf and stem rust resistance. It also has good sprouting and weathering resistance, a trait inherited from one of its parents, the variety Columbus.
Graf said McKenzie seems do particularly well in Manitoba, where it recorded a 20 percent yield advantage over Neepawa in field trials, but is well-adapted right across Western Canada, based on internal Sask Pool tests and some industry evaluation tests carried out this year.
McKenzie has been designated as a new “check variety” in Agriculture Canada’s central bread wheat co-operative registration trials. The trials are conducted each year in the rust-susceptible area of the Prairies, essentially from Saskatoon east.
Graf said it’s unusual for a new variety to become a check, but McKenzie’s high yields led to the decision to drop Katepwa and replace it with McKenzie.
“I think this really attests to the merit of the new variety,” he said.
While McKenzie is the first wheat developed through doubled-haploid technology, it has been used more extensively in oilseed breeding programs. For example the canola variety Quantum was developed that way, and pool researchers are working on a mustard plant with canola-type oil.
In a traditional breeding program, the scientist makes a cross and then produces successive generations. It usually takes four to six generations of breeding to get what is known as a “true breeding line”, or one in which the resultant seed will produce a virtually identical offspring.
Using doubled-haploid technology, after the original cross is done and hybrid plants are produced, the technique is used to reduce the amount of time needed to get a true breeding line.
The resulting plant, which has half the genetic material and is sterile, is then treated with a chemical that doubles (hence, doubled-haploid) the number of chromosomes, resulting in full fertility.
“It’s an exact copy of what’s there and so it’s true line breeding in one step, rather than through several years,” said Graf.
McKenzie is named after Roy McKenzie, former manager of Sask Pool’s farm service division and the man primarily responsible for the company’s decision to get involved in research and development.
