Canadian National Wheat Cluster

Lead Researcher: Dr. Santosh Kumar (AAFC – Brandon)

Summary: Due to higher rainfall and temperatures in the Eastern Prairies, disease problems including leaf rust and fusarium head blight (FHB) occur annually, in addition to problems caused by the orange wheat-blossom midge. This project will develop CWRS cultivars that combine FHB resistance, broad-spectrum rust resistance, common bunt and loose smut resistance, and midge tolerance into the semi-dwarf genotypes that have high protein levels and are high yielding, as well as contribute to novel germplasm development of CWRS wheat for sustainable production of disease resistant high-quality export wheat.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Yuefeng Ruan (AAFC – Swift Current)

Summary: This project will target the gaps in durum cultivar development and continue improvement of grain yield while meeting the agronomic needs of producers and quality requirements of end users. The breeding program will focus on building fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance using existing variation within adapted cultivars and will continue to transfer genes for FHB resistance from bread wheat to durum wheat. Other issues that will be addressed include maintaining or improving genetic gain for resistance to diseases including leaf, stem and stripe rusts, leaf spot, common bunt, loose smut, and to the insects including wheat stem sawfly and orange wheat blossom midge. Selection will be performed under conditions to improve tolerance to environmental threats including cold, drought and heat in new germplasm and commercial cultivars.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Richard Cuthbert (AAFC – Swift Current)

Summary: This project will provide CPSR with an advantage over CWRS in certain markets and will enable Canada to compete directly with the Australian medium quality wheat market classes, US Hard Red winter, Argentinian market classes and wheat from Black Sea origins. This activity will respond to the growing potential of niche markets for CPS red, and will pursue desirable protein quality, good milling, and end use processing quality. The development of cultivars in CPSR will also focus on mitigating the threats from wheat midge, leaf rust, stem rust, yellow rust, common bunt, leaf spots, fusarium head blight, and pre-harvest sprouting.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Gavin Humphreys (AAFC – Ottawa)

Summary: Winter wheat is the most important small grain cereal crop in eastern Canada This project is designed to incorporate genetic resistance to wheat diseases including Fusarium head blight (FHB), which results in reductions in grain yield, crop grade and inferior end-use quality, and powdery mildew (PM), that can result in grain yield losses as high as 40 per cent. Crosses will be strategically designed with parents that are rated MR or R for FHB and PM. Finally, high preharvest sprouting (PHS) resistance for winter wheat producers will be improved in varieties to protect the grade of their crop.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Richard Cuthbert (AAFC – Swift Current)

Summary: The CWRS class faces numerous threats from pathogens (leaf rust, stem rust, yellow rust, fusarium head blight (FHB), common bunt, loose smut, leaf spotting diseases, insect pests (orange wheat blossom midge and sawfly), and environmental conditions such as drought and heat stress. In response to these threats, this project will strive to develop cultivars which maintain strong yields and optimal protein levels suitable to the Western Prairies.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Harpinder Randhawa (AAFC – Lethbridge)

Summary: This project responds to the growing potential of the CPSR class for value added niche markets, and will focus on desired protein concentration, with stronger gluten and good milling and end-use quality. It will also focus on mitigating the major production threats for spring wheat through improved resistance, including FHB, wheat midge, rusts, common bunt, leaf spots, and pre-harvest sprouting.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Harpinder Randhawa (AAFC – Lethbridge)

Summary: Among the various classes of wheat, CWSWS has a high-yield potential and plays an important role in rotations with high-value crops such as potatoes, canola, sugar beets and beans under irrigation. Soft white spring wheat has unique intrinsic quality characteristics for its multiple end-uses which cannot be substituted by any other western Canadian wheat class. This project will provide further improvements in disease and pest resistance (especially for FHB and rust) in the forms of effective gene pyramids and desirable pest resistance combinations in high-yielding, agronomically superior cultivars adapted to the various wheat production regions.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Robert Graf (AAFC – Lethbridge)

Summary: As part of the ongoing breeding program, new CWRW wheat cultivars with higher grain yield, good cold tolerance, excellent agronomic type, improved disease resistance, and suitable end-use quality will be developed. Continued germplasm development to broaden the cadre of deployed disease resistance genes for stem rust, leaf rust, stripe rust, common bunt, fusarium head blight, as well as other important traits will be part of the project. End-use quality concerns regarding protein concentration and gluten strength have been partially addressed with recent cultivar registrations but further improvements, including protein concentration, will be sought.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Brian Beres (AAFC – Lethbridge)

Summary: This project will build upon the knowledge developed from previous winter wheat agronomy projects with a focus of overcoming issues related to successful integration of winter wheat into cropping systems common to Canada’s agro-ecozones.  This project aims to determine how best to manipulate agronomic factors for winter wheat which include optimum canola harvest timing, productivity and crop sequencing with winter wheat; understanding the role of growth habit in relation to differential crop and soil responses; determining how system integration and intensity effects influence winter wheat production and interactions with disease, weed and insect pests; and determining the influence of preceding break crops on succeeding winter wheat crop responses in the Canadian Prairies.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Silvia Barcellos-Rosa (CEROM)

Summary: The purpose of this activity is to develop field-ready spring wheat cultivars adapted to Eastern Canada that will improve producer net returns, meet grain ingredients for end-users, and contribute to environmental sustainability. New breeding technologies will be employed to develop new varieties with higher grain yield, grain quality for the milling industry, and improved resistance to major diseases, especially to fusarium head blight.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Peter Pauls (University of Guelph)

Summary: This activity will involve enhancing and improving a novel gene pool of winter wheat to develop new winter wheat germplasm and varieties adapted to south-western Ontario, in particular, and Eastern Canada, in general. The project aims to develop new winter wheat varieties that incorporate enhanced multiple disease resistance and tolerance against abiotics with improved quality and higher and more stable yield.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Pierre Hucl (Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan)

Summary: This project intends to develop spring wheat (CWRS, CPSR/CNHR, CWHW) and durum (CWAD) cultivars for Western Canada with improved yield, short, strong straw, and a good disease resistance package (leaf rust, stem rust, stripe rust and FHB). Emerging diseases such as stripe rust will form a primary breeding focus, as will other current diseases such as FHB. Resistance breeding to the wheat stem sawfly and midge will also be emphasized. All new cultivars will have end-use quality characteristics requested by export and domestic customers, emphasizing grade protection and dough-strength improvement.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Andrew Burt (AAFC)

Summary: This project will focus on the development of spring wheat germplasm adapted to Eastern Canada and the development of hard red spring (CEHRS) wheat varieties with high grain yield, improved fusarium resistance, and powdery mildew resistance with good local adaptation to eastern Canadian agro-ecological zones (Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Provinces) and end-use quality suitable for the milling and baking industries.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Kelly Turkington (AAFC – Lacombe)

Summary: This project will examine cropping system-based strategies to lessen the impact of fusarium head blight (FHB). The research will evaluate how cropping strategies may reduce the amount of inoculum (primarily infested crop residues) and reduce the extent of host infection. This project will encompass all classes of wheat with individual research centres focusing on locally adapted classes of wheat.  The research will look at capitalizing on current knowledge of FHB to investigate integrated crop management strategies that may lessen the severity of FHB and level of DON contamination.

Lead Researchers: Dr. Sylvie Cloutier (AAFC – Ottawa) and Dr. Curt McCartney (AAFC – Morden)

Summary: Pre-breeding, which includes the identification of useful genes in species other than the cultivated wheat species and their transfer into cultivated wheats, is important to reinvigorate breeding programs and provide breeders with options to quickly respond to arising disease threats. This project will establish a Canada-wide pre-breeding platform that will supply all Canadian wheat breeding programs with useful markers and germplasm carrying new resistance genes, as well as a searchable database that will contain all relevant data collected during the evaluation process.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Alejandro Costamagna (University of Manitoba)

Summary: The main goal of this research is to incorporate oviposition deterrence (OD) as a new tool to control orange wheat blossom midge (wheat midge) populations and maintain the genetic resistance currently based on the Sm1 gene. The recent development of wheat cultivars with both sources of resistance (e.g. Vesper) provides an ideal system to test the effects of gene pyramiding (i.e.: stacking more than one resistant gene on the same variety) on wheat midge damage and population densities.

Lead Researcher: Dr. Anita Brulé-Babel (University of Manitoba)

Summary: The objectives of this activity are to develop Canada Western Special Purpose (CWSP) winter and Canada Western Red Winter (CWRW) wheat cultivars that are disease resistant, short and strong-strawed, high yielding, cold hardy, and suited to the higher moisture regions of the eastern Prairies. The primary target market for the CWSP class is the feed and ethanol industry, while the CWRW lines are targeted for domestic and export milling markets. In addition, this activity will provide training for undergraduate students and develop germplasm for use by graduate students as part of their training.