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Development of high yielding, Eastern Canadian winter wheat cultivars and germplasm with increased resistance to FHB and leaf diseases and good agronomic and quality performance

Development of high yielding, Eastern Canadian winter wheat cultivars and germplasm with increased resistance to FHB and leaf diseases and good agronomic and quality performance

Principal Investigator: Lily Tamburic-Illincic

Research Institution: University of Guelph

Timeline: April 2018 – March 2023   

Objectives:

  • Development of Canadian Eastern soft red winter (CESRW) germplasm and cultivars with high yield, required quality characteristics and increased resistance to diseases and tolerance to cold, drought and lodging.
  • Development of Canadian Eastern white winter (CEWW) germplasm and cultivars with high yield, required quality characteristics and increased resistance to diseases and tolerance to stresses.
  • Improvement of Fusarium head blight (FHB) symptoms, Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK) level and DON accumulation, in two classes of winter wheat, by developing new resistant breeding lines and cultivars and generating FHB data for marker-assisted selection (MAS) and quantitative trait loci (QTL) validation.

Impacts:

  • Growers will have an opportunity to grow improved, high yielding winter wheat with increased resistance to FHB and other diseases, increased tolerance to stresses and good quality characteristics.
  • Better marketing opportunities for wheat produced in Ontario and other regions of Eastern Canada.
  • Reduced toxin levels in the grain at farm gate.
  • More consistent winter wheat yield and quality, even during FHB and different leaf disease epidemics.
  • Lower yield and quality loss due to developed germplasm and/or cultivars with increased resistance to cold and drought tolerance, lodging, diseases, and DON accumulation.
  • Public and private breeders will benefit from germplasm developed and it will be available for new crosses.

Scientific Summary:

In this project our goal was not to identify new Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) but to validate QTLs identified by our research group (and other research groups), across our breeding lines, and use previously identified markers in Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS) for faster development of new and improved cultivars.  We proposed to develop new Canadian Eastern soft red winter (CESRW) and Canadian Eastern soft white winter (CEWW) wheats for Eastern Canada, mainly Ontario and Quebec, with 5% better resistance to FHB than ‘Marker’ (official moderately resistant (MR) check named by the Ontario Cereal Crop Committee (OCCC)) and 5% higher yield than average yield for ‘Branson’ and ‘Ava’ (official agronomy checks named by OCCC).

Every year our new doubled-haploid (DH) winter wheat lines were planted in Ridgetown in single rows, plus DH lines from the previous year in one-replication yield plots in Ridgetown and in replicated, multi-location preliminary and advanced yield trials in Ontario (Ridgetown, Tupperville and Winchester). We evaluated cold and drought tolerance, lodging, heading date, maturity, plant height, general agronomic performance, and disease resistance. After harvest, winter wheat was tested for yield and kernel characteristics (i.e., test weight, thousand kernel weight and protein level), while a selected number of advanced lines were tested for additional quality characteristics by SGS Agriculture and Food. New wheat cultivars will be registered with CFIA/VRO, licensed to seed companies and available to growers and industry.

Finally, we proposed to develop winter wheat breeding lines (germplasm) for two wheat classes, with increased resistance to specific diseases, lodging, cold and drought tolerance. For cultivar development we focused on crosses with elite sources to identify breeding lines with good quality and high yields. For germplasm development we used both adapted and Asian sources with unique disease resistance and stress tolerances. Developed breeding lines will be immediately available to public and private breeders for new crosses.

Results

We developed new winter wheat germplasm and cultivars, with excellent cold and drought tolerance, disease resistance, required protein level and increased yield. As in the past, we used mainly doubled-haploid (DH) technology for faster development of new breeding material. We selected the best performing lines (compared to current agronomy, quality, and disease checks) for testing in Orthogonal and Performance trails, managed by the Ontario Cereal Crop Committee (OCCC), with the goal to develop new cultivars with better performance than cultivars currently available to Ontario growers. Quality testing was performed in SGS Canada Inc. laboratory in Guelph. We maintained Fusarium screening in an FHB-inoculated nursery for testing germplasm and cultivars from our breeding program, Orthogonal bread, Orthogonal pastry trials and Performance testing. Lines with lowest FHB symptoms were additionally tested for FDK level and DON accumulation. The best performing lines for all Fusarium-related traits were selected.  In January 2023, OCCC supported the registration of new CESRW (CA 19-232) from our breeding program. Yield of CA14 19-232 was higher and FHB resistance was better than the official OCCC checks.

External Funding Partners:

SeCan

The project was funded in part by the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, a collaboration between the government of Ontario and the University of Guelph.

Project Related Publications:

Tamburic-Ilincic, L. 2023. Progress in breeding Winter Wheat for FHB and DON resistance. OCCC Research Activity Reports. January 23, 2023.

Tamburic-Ilincic, L. 2022. Update from UGRC breeding program. OCCC Research Activity Reports. January 26, 2022.