Research Themes
The CBL at the University of Alberta focuses on wheat variety development for the wheat producers of the western Canadian Prairie provinces.
Wheat Breeding
The major wheat market class we work on is the Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) and high-yielding Canada Prairie Spring Red (CPSR) market class. CWRS wheat is known for its superior milling and baking qualities. The main breeding objectives are to develop wheat with improved grain yield, reduced plant height and lodging, suitable end-use quality, and resistance to the five priority 1 diseases, including the three rusts (leaf, stem, and stripe), common bunt, and Fusarium head blight (FHB), to maximize the profits of the wheat industry. As the most northern wheat breeding program, a specific objective is to develop early maturing varieties for the short growing season of the Parkland region of western Canada. Our wheat breeding efforts are divided as follows: (i) breeding CWRS for the Parkland region, (ii) breeding CWRS for the longer-season regions of western Canada, and (iii) breeding CPSR wheat for western Canada.
We carryout all breeding activities in collaboration with other wheat breeders in western Canada. We provide services to other wheat breeders by growing their yield trials and breeding material in the disease nurseries (including the largest stripe rust and FHB screening nursery in the country) we manage. We also coordinate the Parkland Wheat B and registration trial, which includes lines from other western Canadian wheat breeding programs.
We use a combination of conventional (modified pedigree, single seed descent, shuttle breeding) and modern (doubled haploids, marker-assisted selection, genomic selection) techniques to speed up line development and improve the efficiency of selection in the varietal development process.
Over the last 15 years, we have developed more than 19 bread wheat varieties that meet the agronomic, disease resistance, and end-use quality requirements of wheat market classes grown in western Canada. Notably, we have developed two of the earliest maturing (Go Early, Parata) and one of the highest yielding (Alotta) wheat varieties in western Canada. We have significantly improved the rust and FHB resistance in our wheat germplasm.
Genetics and Genomics
Wheat
In addition to variety development, we also study genetics/genomics of trait expression encompassing searching new traits and genes relevant to Canadian wheat industry. We are dedicated to identifying genes/genomic regions that control traits of economic importance in cereals, particularly wheat. Our focus includes traits that control early maturity (vernalization response and earliness per se), resistance to leaf, stripe, and stem rusts, FHB, bacterial leaf streak (BLS), and leaf spotting diseases. We were pioneers in identifying the vernalization response gene combinations of western Canadian spring wheat and studied the effect of different gene systems governing flowering time.
We have developed genetic stocks combining major vernalization response, rust resistance, and FHB resistance genes/QTL. Our ongoing research includes hybridizing western Canadian wheat with the Watkins landraces to identify and introduce novel sources of stripe rust and FHB resistance. Additionally, we are investigating and introducing Biological Nitrification Inhibitor (BNI) traits using CIMMYT wheat material. With collaborators across Canada and internationally, CBL led the development of several genomic resources on cultivated wheat as well as cultivated and wild wheat relatives (particularly D-genome progenitor of bread wheat i.e., Aegilops tauschii).
Our lab has contributed significantly to the wheat research community by identifying several genomic regions/QTL for economically important traits through mapping in bi-parental populations and genome-wide association studies (GWAS). We have several bi-parental populations that segregate for maturity, grain quality, plant height, nitrogen use efficiency, and resistance to wheat rusts, FHB, and leaf spotting. We are also researching the genetics of drought and heat tolerance in wheat to improve these traits in future varieties.
Our goal is to identify markers linked with the mentioned traits in wheat and develop breeder-friendly markers such as KASP to increase selection efficiency. This will facilitate the pyramiding of multiple genes for improved agronomic and disease resistance traits. We have conducted studies on genomic prediction for various traits and plan to implement genomic selection in the breeding pipeline to modernize our breeding program.
Barley
At CBL, we also study genetics of disease resistance in barley and to that end, we have collaborated with barley breeders in Canada to develop genomic resources and molecular markers. We are working closely with Crop Development Centre (CDC) of the University of Saskatchewan to clone first ever barley scald resistance gene. We have developed sequence assemblies, transcriptomic data, and skim-sequencing data on several elite barley varieties as well as genetic stocks. One of the largest barley projects that CBL is leading focuses on genebank genomics to characterize 20,000 barley landraces and genetic stocks from the Plant Gene Resources of Canada (PGRC), which is the Canadian genebank and best known for its barley collection.
Key Genomic Resources Available Upon Request
- Genome assemblies of Aegilops tauschii (D-genome progenitor) accessions TOWWC116, TOWWC078, TOWWC031.
- Genome assemblies of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum): Jake, Wat.1190580, Wat.1190308, Wat.1190766.
- Genome assemblies of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare): Harrington, CDC Copper, SB050739, RP41T1,
RP40Y5. - Genome assemblies of wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum): WBDC0348, WBDC0349.
- Transcriptomic data on stripe rust infection time-course on wheat, barley, and wild wheat.
- Transcriptomic data (on 5 different tissue types) on all three lineages (L1, L2, L3) of Aegilops tauschii.
- Genome assemblies and genomic resources on cereal pathogens: comprehensive genomic resources on North American Puccinia striiformis races, Fusarium graminearum isolates, multiple Fusarium species, Xanthomonas translucens pv. translucens, X. translucens pv. undulosa isolates, Puccinia hordei.
- GBS data on Triticum monococcum panel.
- GBS data on 20,000 barley landraces from Canadian genebank.
Barley Breeding
We are excited to be branching out into the development of Barley varieties suitable for the western Canadian Prairie provinces in the very near future