44 | Advancing Seed in Alberta European and North American markets. At one time, one of his winter canola cultivars, Aviso, captured about one-third of the French market. This cultivar has been used as check for blackleg disease resistance by the French official authority. In 2003, Rahman accepted a position to teach and lead the canola program at the University of Alberta (U of A). At the time he joined the university, clubroot emerged as a threat to canola production in Canada. He immediately began work on finding solutions, identifying clubroot-resistant Brassica germplasm, introgressing resistance into Canadian B. napus canola, mapping some of the resistance genes and, in collaboration with an industry partner, developing the first clubroot resistant canola cultivar carrying multiple clubroot resistance genes. Over the past 15 years, Rahman has continued his mission to improve canola for Alberta and Canadian crop producers. He introgressed exotic genes/alleles from different exotic gene pools, such as European winter canola, Chinese semi-winter type and rutabaga, and allied species, such as B. oleracea and B. rapa, into Canadian canola, and developed a canola cultivar by the use of genetically diverse materials. And he contributed to the knowledge of the value of different gene pools for increased seed yield in hybrid canola cultivars. In addition, Rahman has: •  Introgressed earliness of flowering from the C genome of the late-flowering species B. oleracea (Chinese kale) into B. napus canola and mapped the flowering time genes and established their association with seed yield for use in breeding. •  Identified the B genome chromosomes of B. carinata that carry resistance to blackleg disease for the introgression into B. napus canola. •  Developed different fatty acid mutant lines of B. oleracea, including low-linolenic acid (C18:3), and characterized the C18:3 mutations at sequence level for use in the breeding of B. napus canola. •  Mapped several agronomic and seed quality traits and identified molecular markers for use in marker-assisted breeding. •  Developed more than 120,000 SSR markers from the Brassica A genome for use in breeding. •  Developed (solely) four additional canola cultivars for commercialization in Canada. Rahman says the continued evolution of plant breeding has been a boon to the industry. When he entered the plant breeding field, he said only the most traditional plant breeding techniques were in place. “But then in the early 1980s, doubled haploid breeding came about, and it was very fascinating and interesting,” he notes. “Then in the late 1980s/early 1990s a new tool came – the use of molecular markers in plant breeding. This was a big change, and we’re increasingly using molecular markers today in plant breeding.” Other changes Rahman has seen during his career are the development and use of transgenics traits, and the development of hybrid canola cultivars. As science continues to grow by leaps and bounds, Rahman says we should see more integration of molecular markers and genomics tools in breeding of crop cultivars. “We’ve had molecular markers for many years now, but it has not been integrated into most breeding programs that much,” he says. “I expect the use of marker technology to increase as costs decrease.” When he’s not in the lab at the U of A, Rahman teaches an undergraduate plant breeding course, Genetic Improvement of Crop Plants, and the graduate course Plant Breeding. He has also been teaching the graduate course Seminar in Plant Science. Over the past five years, he’s graduated nine M.Sc. students and over the course of his 15 years at U of A, 13 M.Sc. and two Since joining the U of A, Rahman has published 45 papers in refereed journals and eight papers in conference proceedings. Contact us today for all your seed cleaning needs! Manager: Hugh Baier Box 893 Provost AB T0B 3S0 (780) 753-2657 [email protected]