b'Growers Association, Saskatchewanpoint, may be quality thats comparableshift for a particular disease it could wipe Winter Cereal Development Commission,to our premium quality Canada Westernout the resistance in several varieties, Winter Cereals Manitoba, and theRed Spring class. but were working very hard on that and Western Grains Research Foundation If Graf does that it will be somethingmaking wonderful progress, says Graf.is to develop field-ready CWRW cultivarsthat no one else has tackled, and heGraf has also produced a hard white for Western Canada. Funding from thealready has a line in registration trialswheat variety for specialty marketsDucks Unlimited Canada Western Winterthat could be a prototype.AAC Icefieldand is working on soft Wheat Initiative enhances these efforts.Over the past 20 years, Graf andwinter wheat for the food processing and Another project Graf is workingother western Canadian winter wheatethanol markets.on is the development of premiumbreeders have also made a lot of progress quality winter wheat to add moreincorporating disease resistance into newChanging Landscapevalue for producers and processors.varietiescharacteristics that were rareThere have been a lot of changes since One of the challenges with winterin winter wheat when he started. Graf began his career back in 1987, not wheat has been marketing, says Graf.the least of which was the introduction Historically, weve had a couple ofof doubled haploid technology in the quality deficiencies that, if we couldearly 1990s.correct, would go a long way towardWhen McKenzie was registered in increasing the farm gate price for hardWere at a point1997, it was considered to be biotech red winter wheat. And by increasing thenow where werewheat, but doubled haploid technology price, along with the yield advantage thatis simply regarded as a regular plant winter wheat already has, I feel it wouldcrossing highbreeding process these days, as it should drive acreage. protein lines withbe. There was a lot of excitement at the The first characteristic that Graftime and Canadian breeding programs is trying to improve is proteinthose that havewere early to embrace this technology concentration. We are working onimproved waterbecause it speeds up the process increasing the protein potential fromdramatically, says Graf. Doubled a genetic standpoint, and we haveabsorption tohaploidy has made a big difference, germplasm that makes us very optimisticdevelop varietiesparticularly in winter wheat.that this can be achieved, says Graf.So has the development of molecular Weve developed several lines thatthat correct bothmarkers and sequencing of the wheat show much better protein concentrationdeficiencies. genome, says Graf.We know wheat has along with other desirable traits andover 107,000 genes, and the reference are using them as parents for further Rob Graf genome identified about four million improvements. genetic markers, he says. The big The second quality characteristic challenge now is to associate the traits flour water absorptionhas been farthat were interested in with those more difficult to improve. When flourmarkers. And along with that, we need is milled, the flour absorbs a certainIn fact, Graf has a line that wasan understanding of what the effects amount of water upon mixing to createapproved for registration in 2019 (W569)and interaction of the various genes are. dough, but winter wheat generally hasthat exceeds the requirements for all fiveSo, theres a huge amount of work to be lower water absorption than springpriority one wheat diseases; Fusariumdone, but the future is really bright.wheat, so it produces less dough andhead blight, leaf rust, stem rust, stripe therefore fewer loaves of bread; arust and common bunt.Challenges Aheaddisadvantage to a baker.Disease resistance has been a majorIn the future, Graf sees gene editing Weve been working on thisfocus of my program, but I would stillas a tool that could move the industry characteristic for over 15 years andsay that the resistance package in ourforward in many exciting ways, but that finally have some promising lines, saysCanadian winter wheat varieties isdoesnt mean the plant breeders job is Graf. Were at a point now where wererather shallow. In other words, mostgoing to be without its challenges.crossing high protein lines with thoseof the resistance genes are on theirOur ability to very precisely change that have improved water absorptionown because we dont have effectivegene sequences, possibly turning genes to develop varieties that correct bothpyramids of a number of genes thaton or off, or reengineering defeated deficiencies. The end result, at somewould serve as backups. If theres a racedisease resistance genes are examples of Spring 2020 41'