Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 1129 Advancing Seed in Alberta | spring.2017 However, Larsen learned that AAFC researchers at Swift Current and some producers who have grown the crop haven’t had as much success with the crop, suggesting the variety is very regionally adapted. So Larsen is doing many crosses with annual rye, perennial cereal rye and wild perennial cereal rye to work towards new perennial cereal rye varieties with wider adaptation, higher grain yields, higher biomass yields and other improvements. One breeding objective is to reduce ergot levels. Although crossing annual and perennial rye is relatively easy because they are in the same genus, the chromosomes from the two parents don’t necessarily pair up properly. That can lead to sterility issues in the offspring, resulting in non-pollinated florets with a high risk of ergot infection. Another objective is to develop lines that head earlier than ACE-1, which is somewhat late heading. Larsen thinks moving the heading date back could result in an earlier maturing crop that would have a more convenient grain harvesting date and that might mature more uniformly. “This perennial cereal rye seems to be fairly indeterminate, so you can have some tillers with heads that are ready to harvest and other tillers that are still undergoing anthesis [flowering] in August. Plus, instead of constantly putting energy into filling grain at the end of August, earlier maturing plants would have time to get ready for winter through September and October,” says Larsen. He is also working on an interesting angle to try to improve the perenniality of the crop. “We have planted annual rye in the spring to see how it grows – does it grow all summer, then go through the winter, and then regrow the next year? Some lines do. Some lines don’t. So we have selected [lines that do regrow] as parents to make perennial crosses to see if that would give more longevity.” As well, Larsen is conducting some agronomy work, including seeding rate and harvest timing trials. He notes that extension recommendations for ACE-1 have advised cutting or grazing the crop at the boot stage because that is optimal for forage quality. “However, we found that cutting at the boot stage knocks back the crop’s survival the following year by half; so instead of 90 per cent, it’s about 45 per cent. That really affected the crop and people’s perception of it.” Wheat X Wheatgrass According to Larsen, breeders are using two main approaches to developing perennial wheat: making wheat x wheatgrass crosses; and domesticating intermediate wheatgrass. “The old, standard approach – people have been trying to do it for 90 years – is to make crosses between annual wheat and a perennial wheatgrass, such as tall wheatgrass or intermediate wheatgrass, which are forage grasses grown on the Prairies of North America,” he says. “The majority of work in that area is actually to bring disease resistance into wheat. But in some cases, perennial wheat has come out as a byproduct, and people have worked with that.” One part of a current project involves screening wheatgrass lines for stripe rust resistance, so the resistance genes can be brought into annual wheat. Larsen is using this approach. He hopes to eventually develop perennial wheat varieties that have the end-use quality attributes of the western Canadian wheat classes, along with a perennial growth habit and good yields year after year. It’s challenging work. Wheat is not as closely related to the vari- ous wheatgrass species as annual rye is to wild perennial cereal rye, so progeny from wheat x wheatgrass crosses have greater problems with sterility and low grain yields. Some chromosomes can get randomly lost during crossing, and that randomness makes it very difficult to develop stable lines for breeding. Also, wheat x wheatgrass progeny tend not to have a very high degree of perennial habit. Larsen says, “Usually they’ll yield a reasonable amount of grain in the first year, but after that, the grain yield is so low that it wouldn’t be worth it for a farmer to try to harvest it.” Domesticated Wheatgrass X Wheat The Land Institute, a Kansas-based agricultural research agency, is a pioneer in domesticating wheatgrass to make it more wheat- like. “The Land institute has made impressive improvements. Compared to a standard forage grass, the domesticated plants look more like wheat plants; they have larger leaves, shorter stature, larger grain and the grain is a little more free threshing,” explains Larsen. Grain from the Land Institute’s domesticated intermediate wheatgrass, called Kernza, is now being used in some small niche markets. Work continues to improve such traits as yield, seed size, disease resistance, free threshing and bread-making quality. Larsen isn’t using this approach but he does conduct some agronomy trials and other collaborative work with researchers who are breeding domesticated wheatgrass, like Dr. Doug Cat- tani at the University of Manitoba.