Page 255 - PC2019 Program & Proceedings

PLANT CANADA 2019

P83. Spring wheat breeding for eastern canada – challenges and opportunities
Burt, A.; X. Wang; A. Cummiskey; D. MacEachern; H. Voldeng
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The Spring Wheat breeding program for Eastern Canada is an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
(AAFC) research program that is supported by a combination of grower funds and government research
grants. The program produces spring wheat cultivars for growers across Eastern Canada, including
Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces. The program operates at two research centres in the AAFC
system with staff located at Charlottetown, PE and Ottawa, ON. While the geographic area covered by the
program is large, facing different regional requirements and priorities, the spring wheat acreages in
Eastern Canada are relatively small. This creates a unique set of challenges for a small breeding program
to address. The Eastern wheat program has traditionally produced tall, high yielding varieties with high
levels of resistance to Fusarium head blight and powdery mildew, but with lower protein and milling
quality than typical of Canadian export quality hard red spring bread wheat. The breeding program is
currently focussed on increasing milling quality and resistance to rust and lodging while maintaining and
building on the traditional strengths of the program.

Andrew Burt (andrew.burt@canada.ca)

P84. Assessment of genetic structure of coleoptile length in spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
using a genome-wide association study
*
Khadka, K. ; M. Kaviani; A. Navabi
University of Guelph

In wheat growing regions which are subject to moisture deficits, deep planting is a common practice. In
such environments, wheat varieties with longer coleoptiles are preferred, since short coleoptiles may
affect the germination and overall crop yield. However, development of semi-dwarf varieties with Rht-
B1b and Rht-D1b, the gibberellic acid (GA) insensitive dwarfing genes, has limited the development of
dwarf/semi-dwarf wheat cultivars with longer coleoptiles. Therefore, the objective of my study was to
assess the variability and genetic basis of coleoptile length in a diverse panel of spring wheat with 318
genotypes by performing a genome-wide association study. The panel was genotyped by using genotype
by sequencing (GBS). A randomized complete blocked design (RCBD) with two factors (one with and
the other without GA treatment) and three replications was used to phenotype the panel for the following
traits: coleoptile length, root length and root-shoot dry biomass using a cigar-roll method. The plants were
grown for seven days in a growth chamber at 20˚C after 48 hours of cold treatment. The results from the
genome-wide association study (GWAS) will be presented.

Kamal Khadka (khadkak@uoguelph.ca)

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