Canadian National Wheat Cluster: Activity 9 – Building economic value in winter wheat through improved hard red and soft white genetics for Eastern Canada

Objectives:

• Development of Canadian eastern hard red winter (CEHRW) wheat varieties with resistance to abiotic (winter hardiness and preharvest sprouting) and biotic (Fusarium head blight (FHB), powdery mildew (PM), and leaf, stem, and stripe rusts) stresses with high adaptation to eastern Canadian agro-ecological zones (Ontario to the Atlantic Provinces) and end use quality targeting the food industry.
• Development of Canadian eastern soft white wheat varieties (CESWW) with resistance to abiotic (winter hardiness and preharvest sprouting) and biotic (Fusarium head blight (FHB), powdery mildew (PM), and leaf, stem, and stripe rusts) stresses with high adaptation to eastern Canadian agro-ecological zones (Ontario to the Atlantic Provinces) and end use quality targeting the food industry.

Impacts:

• Higher performing winter wheat varieties for farmers increases their productivity and the sustainability of crop rotations.

Scientific Summary:

The proposed research aimed to develop new hard red and soft white winter wheat cultivars adapted to eastern Canadian production areas. The objective was delivery of new winter wheat cultivars with high grain yield, superior disease resistance (including Fusarium head blight and powdery mildew resistance) and end-use quality targeting the food industry to permit eastern producers to deliver their production to local millers or into export market streams.

The AAFC Ottawa winter wheat breeding program has been rebuilding since Dr. Humphreys starting in 2014 and the program continues to get established.

A new AAFC hard red winter wheat line (Ug-26-32) was supported for registration and this line has been used as an elite parent in the AAFC eastern winter wheat program. Unfortunately, no commercial partner was found for the variety.

A new, resource efficient, microculture-based doubled haploid (DH) system was implemented at the Ottawa Research and Development Centre (ORDC). While the system is still experimental, it has been used to produce hundreds of DH new lines for the AAFC winter wheat program.

Improvements were made to the hard red winter wheat program whereby early generation populations are now grown across eastern Canada (Harrow, Ottawa and Charlottetown) with the aim to build superior environmental resilience into germplasm within the breeding pipeline.

External Funding Partners:

This activity was funded in part by the Government of Canada under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership’s AgriScience Program, with industry support from the Canadian Field Crop Research Alliance (CFCRA) members, including: Atlantic Grains Council; Producteurs de gains du Quebec; Grain Farmers of Ontario; and SeCan.

Project Related Publications:

None.