Published on Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance (https://www.uoguelph.ca/alliance)

Home > Alliance researchers breeding the perfect wheat to resist major diseases; student-developed ag-tech solution poised to help

Alliance researchers breeding the perfect wheat to resist major diseases; student-developed ag-tech solution poised to help

Submitted by jdavie15 on October 10th, 2024 5:12 PM
A group photo of 11 researchers and politicians stand in front of a tall green combine machine, smiling on a sunny day
Feature image caption: 
Dr. Helen Booker (third from right) spoke with federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Lawrence MacAulay (third from left) and Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Agribusiness Rob Flack (centre) at the Ontario Crops Research Centre in Elora

The U of G wheat breeding program is a feat of industry and government collaboration to supply the world with healthy grains. 

Together with private and public partners and a team of professional staff, graduate and undergraduate students, Dr. Helen Booker breeds varieties for disease resistance but also for traits economically critical to farmers: high yield, optimal maturity time, height and structural strength.

Since Booker took over leadership in 2020, the program has already brought five new varieties of wheat to market.

Initiated in 2014, the wheat breeding program was formed as a partnership between U of G, Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) and SECAN. These organizations represent a large network of grain farmers and seed-growing companies in Canada, with Booker herself filling the GFO professorship in wheat breeding and genetics. The research locations themselves -- the Ontario Crops Research Centre sites [1] in Elora and Ridgetown -- are owned by Agricultural Research and Innovation Ontario (ARIO) and managed by U of G through the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance.

Read the story on the U of G News site: U of G Researchers Breeding the Perfect Wheat to Resist Disease [2]

A new-looking combine machine stands higher than the tall wheat in the field directly behind it.
A specialized small plot combine harvests experimental plots of wheat and accurately measures traits, like yield and grain quality, at the field level. With an investment from the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) [3], a five-year, federal-provincial-territorial initiative, the combine can be found on the field now and is shared among many other breeding programs at the site.
Source URL:https://www.uoguelph.ca/alliance/news/2024/10/alliance-researchers-breeding-perfect-wheat-resist-major-diseases-student-developed-ag

Links
[1] https://www.uoguelph.ca/alliance/research-facilities/research-stations/ontario-crops-research-centre [2] https://news.uoguelph.ca/2024/10/u-of-g-researchers-breeding-the-perfect-wheat-to-resist-major-diseases/ [3] https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/department/initiatives/sustainable-canadian-agricultural-partnership