Bugs in a Jug

Madison Kostal on August 14, 2024

The last few years have seen rising production costs and this affects the financial bottom line for producers. Synthetic N fertlizer prices have risen nearly 30% since the start of 2022, following 2021’s 80% increase. As a result, producers are looking for alternative ways to supplement nutrient management and in particular reduce the application of synthetic N fertilizer. One option is to explore the use of commercially available biological products which contain N fixing bacteria.

Objectives

  1.  Source 6 commercially available microbial-based products as replacement sources of N for non-leguminous crops.
  2.  Demonstrate the impact of biological treatment on crop yields compared to various rates of synthetic Nitrogen fertilizer synthetic on canola, wheat and corn.

Unraveling wheat Sprouting to Boost the Market for Manitoba Wheat (MANI-S-WHEAT)

Madison Kostal on August 14, 2024

Climate changes is promoting unpredictable temperatures and rains, affecting wheat marketability. Pre-harve prouting Project aims to add-value to downgraded hard red spring wheat due to sprouting by providing producers tools to mitigate the excessive enzyme activity through milling and bakery conditions. Likewise, the project will provide growers information to be considered in breeding programs for increasing wheat resistance to climate impact enhancing the competitiveness of Manitoba wheats.

Objectives

  1. To quantify changes in sprouted wheats beyond just α-amylase and include starch and gluten
  2. To determine if the phenolic acid content in wheats could explain their susceptibility to sprouting.
  3. To correlate alpha-amylase activity with phenolic acid content in CWRS.

Searching for resistance to bacterial leaf streak in wheat and barley

Madison Kostal on April 26, 2024

Bacterial Leaf streak is an emerging disease that has been reported in many cereal-growing regions of the world. The disease has become a recurring problem in the upper midwest of the United States since the early 2000’s; currently it is one of the most important foliar diseases in many wheat-growing areas. In Canada, the number of outbreaks reported has been on the rise in the past decade, espicially in southern Alberta. In Saskatchewan, there have been earlier reports from southern areas. In 2022, reports of serious levels of the disease are coming in from all over the irrigated region of Southern Alberta and one durum wheat grower from southeast Saskatchewan. The magnitude of yield loss due to BLS in barley has not been rigorously investigated, although severe infections were estimated to cause up to 15% loss. In wheat, yield losses up to 40% due to this disease have been reported. The disease is know to occur in Manitoba, despite the lack of reports in the last couple of years, the threat is still present.

Falling Number in CWRS Wheat

Madison Kostal on April 26, 2024

Falling Number (FN) is used to evaluate the amount of sprout damage in wheat, a critical component of wheat quality. FN is the amount of time in seconds it takes for a plunger to fall through a slurry of ground wheat and water. When a wheat kernel starts to sprout there is an increase in the enzyme alpha-amylase. The greater the level of alpha-amylase, the thinner the slurry, and the faster the plunger will fall through it. A higher FN value indicates the wheat is ‘sound’ and there is less sprout damage. Sprout damage is a concern in years with wet harvest conditions. While FN is not a grading specification, there is a strict tolerance for sprouted kernels and milling companies may request a specific FN value as part of their contract. Typically, bakers and millers are looking for Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat to have a FN greater than 350 seconds. FN is important to customers because sprout damage can impact the processability and end-product quality of food products containing wheat flour.

Marker assisted pre-breeding for Alternative Semi-dwarfing genes and anther extrusion in durum and bread wheat

Madison Kostal on April 12, 2024

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is the most important fungal disease that affects wheat throughout cereal growing regions of Canada. It is one of the five priority-one diseases of wheat in the cultivar registration system, and an “intermediate” resistance reaction is required for cultivar registration. While integrated control methods are practiced by producers, cultural practices and fungicides are not completely effective to control FHB; therefore, improving host genetic resistance is an attractive strategy to achieve meaningful control. More than 20 reduced height (Rht) genes have been reported in wheat, but the two semi-dwarfing Rht-1 homoeoloci, Rht-B1 and Rht-D1, have been widely employed in wheat breeding worldwide since the Green Revolution. Semi-dwarf cultivars are generally less prone to lodging, especially under high water and nitrogen conditions that are conductive to increased harvest index. Unfortunately, it has been well documented that the two genes are associated with Type 1 susceptibility to FHB. Several studies have collected data on anther retention (AR) or anther extrusion (AE), plant height and FHB resistance, and 60% and 40% of the QTL for AR/AE and plant height, respectively coincided with FHB resistance QTL.  Therefore, breeding for reduced FHB susceptibility conditioned by morphological and developmental characters such as high AE and alternative dwarfing genes can be an effective strategy to reduce FHB infection in wheat.

An accelerated disease phenotyping system to select wheat germplasm resistant to FHB and stripe rust

Madison Kostal on April 12, 2024

In recent years a concept and technology, an accelerated disease phenotyping system, sometimes referred to as ‘speed-breeding’, has been developed with the aim of shortening the breeding cycle. The technique utilizes optimal light quality, light intensity, photoperiod and temperature control to accelerate photosynthesis and flowering to reduce the generation time. Besides application in breeding programs, speed-breeding technology can be used to screen some key adult plant traits and accelerate the phenotyping process. This is particularly important for disease resistance phenotyping that must be done at the adult plant stage. Another bottleneck is the labor intensive and environment dependent disease assessment procedures and the lack of efficient phenotyping tools. During this project, the study team will integrate an accelerated disease phenotyping system to accelerate plant development to the adult stage with an automated phenotyping platform and develop a digitalized rapid disease phenotyping (dRDP) system under controlled-environment conditions.

Improving barley salinity tolerance and functional quality by characterizing root, GABA, and gene expression responses

Madison Kostal on April 12, 2024

In terms of salt tolerance, evidence suggests that key root adaptations underlying barley resistance to salinity include limiting uptake of sodium into the root and sequestrating into root vacuoles to limit sodium movement to the shoot. GABA may play a role in the maintenance of a balanced NA+/K+ ratio which is a vital adaptive mechanism in salt tolerance. Salinity tolerant and sensitive barley genotypes will be identified and assessed in field environments differing in salinity levels. Agronomic and plant growth traits including chlorophyll amount will be assessed and a combined analysis with indoor phenotyping data will identify field-relevant traits which best maintain productivity and yield under saline conditions. Phenotypic variation for root or shoot traits observed within the barley germplasm under saline stress in Objective 1 will be utilized for genome-wide association mapping to identify genomic regions significantly associated with tolerance. To further understand the role of GABA in salinity tolerance and it’s functional food potential, mutants which nullify GABA breakdown will be created. To characterize the infra-red processed high GABA barley lines, pre-germinated barley bran will be analyzed for elevated GABA level.

Combining higher anthocyanin levels, enhanced quality, and improved disease resistance in the purple wheat

Madison Kostal on April 12, 2024

Anthocyanins are water-soluble phenolic pigments responsible for red, purple, blue, or even black colors in fruits, vegetables, grains, flowers, and other pigmented plant tissues. They are important components to be included in the human diet especially due to their roles in human health as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and anti-cancer agents. Anthocyanin-pigmented grains such as purple or blue wheat contain comparable levels of anthocyanins to fruits and vegetables but since they have a longer shelf life represent an ideal source of anthocyanin consumption via functional ingredient development. In previous research projects the study group have increased the anthocyanin levels, milling and baking quality of purple lines up to a certain level. They have also stacked multiple durable disease resistance genes in other CWRS. The work under this project will now do the same for purple wheat.

Imaging for improving Fusarium damaged kernel and deoxynivalenol resistance in Canadian wheat.

Madison Kostal on April 12, 2024

In this project, the study team will focus on dissecting FDK through the use of innovative digital imagining in order to develop a classification based on the degree of FHB infection in the kernel to refine the genomic regions associated with the resistance. They will also develop a statistical model to predict DON concentration associated to the different FDK classes and validate the associated resistance loci. FDK and DON are top priority traits for the wheat breeding and pathology programs because they are associated with end-use quality and food safety, which is one of the biggest concerns of Canadian wheat growers and national and international food industry.

Functional use of core pathogenicity genes to develop mitigation strategies against blackleg of canola and FHB of wheat

Madison Kostal on April 12, 2024

The most desirable approach to protect crops against pathogens is to breed cultivars with disease resistance (R) genes. However, current methodologies to discover new R genes are labor intensive and are limited by germplasms that are effective against a single or a few isolates of a pathogen. This is further exacerbated by crop domestication where purging of genetic diversity in elite lines relative to older land races and ancestral species, resulting in limited/small gene pools that lack the immunodiversity needed to respond to emerging pathogens. One of the solutions is to harness the natural immunodiversity of crop relatives and ancestral species to identify new R-genes. While this approach holds tremendous promise, it suffers from its challenge; how do you identify useful and deployable R-gene diversity from poorly studied species? This proposal uses an innovative, functional approach that harnesses the natural diversity of pathogen effectors to identify both resistance and susceptibility genes.

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