New breeding tools impact Canadian commercial farmer fields

Abstract : The high cost of cultivar development encourages efficiencies to reduce time and costs to develop cultivars. Doubled haploid (DH) technology and marker assisted breeding (MAB) are two such tools that im-prove efficiencies. Since 1997, twenty five wheat cultivars in seven market classes, developed using DH meth-ods, have been registered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. These DH cultivars accounted for more than one third of the Canadian wheat acreage in 2009. The DH cultivar Lillian, eligible for grades of Canada Western Red Spring class and currently the most widely grown wheat cultivar in Canada, was developed using MAB to improve grain protein content with the Gpc-B1/Yr36 on chromosome 6BS introgressed from Triticum turgidum L. (Zhuk.) dicoccoides (Korn. Ex Asch. & Graebn). AC Andrew, a Canada Western Soft White spring DH cultivar, was the most widely grown cultivar in its class for the last two years. The new market class, Canada Western Hard White Spring wheat, is based entirely on DH cultivars. Goodeve, one of the first Canada Western Red Spring cultivars released with the gene