Research

Background

Continued improvements in the yield and nutritional quality of barley grain and annual forages are essential to maintain a competitive cattle feeding sector in Canada. Western Crop Innovations (WCI) in Lacombe is Canada’s only crop breeding program dedicated to and making a deliberate effort to improve feed grain and cereal forage crops with livestock production in mind. Utilization of new breeding techniques and strategies, especially those using genomic techniques like marker assisted selection, help to speed up the breeding process.

Objectives

• Improve the efficiency of the breeding program at WCI by developing and applying new next generation genotyping technology to concentrate desirable genes into elite breeding lines.
• Supply relevant genomic data and genetic markers to breeders.
• Utilize marker assisted selection to improve the precision of selection of breeding lines for crossing.

What they did

Current parent lines already being used in the breeding program were genotyped to create a genetic database of desirable traits. This allowed for intentional crossing efforts to improve phenotypes such as disease resistance, yield, nutritional quality, fibre digestibility, smooth awns, etc.

They used a technique called Kompetitive allele specific polymerase chain reaction (KASP) to identify where differences in the genetic makeup of each line existed and how those differences affected important traits in 200 barley and 75 triticale crosses per year.

They also tested the ability to use currently available wheat markers to predict traits in triticale.

What they learned

This project yielded two new barley varieties – one feed (FB22816) and one malt (TR21665) – as well as one new triticale variety (T301).

Using the newly refined methodologies, this team was able to expand the number of DNA markers for the barley breeding program across 44 different traits, including disease resistance, flowering time, awn type, sprouting tolerance, early maturity, root angle, water logging tolerance, semi-dwarfism, and lodging. Similar genotyping strategies are being adapted for the triticale breeding program. These newly discovered genetic markers will be integrated into the WCI breeding program and used in marker assisted selection processes.

What it means

Through this project researchers were able to advance plant breeding with improved methodology to support future breeding efforts, and speed up the release of new varieties. The breeding and release of new feed grain and cereal forage crops is a long term, incremental endeavor. Continued investment in this area doesn’t pay dividends immediately but ensures that continuous improvement in important traits like yield, standability, digestibility, disease resistance, etc. occurs well into the future.