Improving the energy content of forage legumes – Part III
- Project No: 2025F3699R
- Lead Researcher(s): Hari Poudel (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canda)
- Collaborators: Stacy Singer, Champa Wijekoon, Akilu Alemu (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada); Bill Biligetu (University of Saskatchewan); Gavin Chen (University of Alberta)
- Year Started: 2025
Background
The origins of this project go back several years (see related research at the bottom of this page). Forage breeding takes a long time, and several traits must be improved in concert before new varieties can be released. While this particular effort is focused on increasing forage lipid content in alfalfa and sainfoin, the breeders must also make sure that additional productivity and quality traits are not negatively impacted. The previous breeding cycles have increased lipid content to around 15% higher than the control populations. However, more work is required to ensure the new populations are stable as they progress through additional breeding cycles before new varieties can be released. Both conventional breeding and CRISPR/Cas-9 gene editing (considered non-GMO) techniques are being explored.
Objectives
The objectives of this project are to:
- Advance high lipid alfalfa and sainfoin populations by two generations
- Initiate multi-location field studies in western Canada
- Evaluate the potential of genomic selection and genome wide association studies to select high lipid populations sooner
- Assess lipid content and secondary metabolites in gene edited populations
- Quantify the changes in nutritional quality, digestibility and enteric methane production via lab based methods
Implications of the Research
This project continues previous investments by ABP, the Beef Cattle Research Council and other funders. With continued research and development, eventually this work will lead to new varieties of both sainfoin and alfalfa with higher energy content.
This project is also supported by Results Driven Agriculture Research
