It’s a typical June day in central Saskatchewan — a little windy, with sun trying to push through the clouds. A busload of people is touring the research plots at Bayer CropScience’s new wheat-breeding centre, near Pike Lake, south of Saskatoon. The bus includes wheat breeders, farmers, and executives — plus a little girl sitting with her parents and grandparents, her Barbie’s feet poking through her knit bag.
The bus rumbles past a yield-trial block. Tom Zatorski, a wheat breeder with Bayer, jokes that it’s a little early to host a wheat field day, as the young wheat plants look like grass.
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At first glance, these rows don’t look much different than any other wheat trials, but then we come to more advanced lines that are producing hybrid seed. The blocks are alternating male and female strips, explains David Bonnett, who leads Bayer’s hybrid wheat-breeding program in North America. The male strips look uniform, but the female strips are more variable, as some were seeded later.
“Here we’re producing around 1,000 new combinations that we’ll be testing next year, in addition to the ones that we already produced in previous seasons,” Bonnett says.
Will farmers pay?
Bayer plans to have a marketable hybrid within eight years, and the German multinational isn’t the only seed company with its eye on hybrid wheat. Carlos Iglesias, Syngenta’s head of wheat breeding in North America, expects to launch the first hybrids by the end of this decade, according to an article on the Syngenta website. DuPont Pioneer’s website says hybrid wheat is in the proof-of-concept phase.
This isn’t the first time seed companies have attempted to launch hybrid wheat varieties. Australian farmers had access to hybrid wheat in the 1980s, and in the ’90s, Monsanto had a hybrid wheat program which wasn’t overly successful.
Convincing farmers to trade traditional inbred lines for hybrids may not be an easy sell. They will need to see consistent yield gains and profit before they pony up for hybrid seed each year.
Of course, they’ve paid for years for hybrid corn, soy and canola, and Bayer is betting big that they’ll do the same for wheat. Over 10 years, the company will be investing $1.9 billion into wheat globally, says Marcus Weidler, head of seeds for Bayer in Canada. The centre near Pike Lake is part of a $24-million investment into Canadian breeding efforts.
During the first stages of a hybrid wheat program, “the hurdles are much, much higher,” Weidler acknowledges, requiring a larger initial investment.
One challenge is that wheat doesn’t lend itself to hybridization. Breeders must develop a female line that doesn’t produce pollen, and a male line whose pollen travels far enough to fertilize the female line.
But there are benefits, too. Bonnett cites higher, more stable yields and increased vigour. And breeders can advance varieties more quickly in a hybrid program, Weidler says.
Focus on yield
Despite shifting from a line breeding to hybrid program, in some ways their breeding targets remained relatively unchanged, Zatorski says. The main goal is still to produce a very high-yielding variety. “And most importantly, a stable-yielding wheat.”
Yield protection is important, too, says Bonnett. Wheat breeders are looking for resistance to everything from stripe rust to fusarium.
“We have access to useful resources, genetics, for those traits. And really good selection methods and environments to bring that all together,” Bonnett says.
The 480 acres Bayer purchased near the South Saskatchewan River is an asset in itself. It is, as Weidler says, “a beautiful piece of land.” Agronomist Arling Kemppainen explains that it’s a clay loam that holds moisture, yet is well drained.
Each quarter has centre-pivot irrigation, allowing Bayer employees to irrigate for even germination and disease work. And it’s a short drive from Saskatoon, giving Bayer access to the University of Saskatchewan’s talent pool.
Bayer also has a greenhouse at Saskatoon’s Innovation Place, where the first crosses are made. The greenhouse is also used to increase seed and get three growing seasons out of the year. Zatorski adds they can also send material to New Zealand in the winter to speed the process.
Wheat breeders have a small amount of seed to work with when they first sow it in the fields — about 1,000 kernels or 20 grams, Zatorski explains. Once it’s in the field, the goal is to not only create genetic diversity but also produce more seed so they have enough for yield testing across Western Canada.
Although Bayer waited until this spring to officially open the centre at Pike Lake, the wheat-breeding program is already underway. Last year the company’s hybrid production blocks produced hybrid seed to grow in yield trials across Canada.
Quality
Yield and disease resistance aren’t the only traits wheat breeders are trying to incorporate into hybrid varieties. Between quality labs in Nebraska and Pike Lake, Bayer employees will be testing thousands of lines a year. Rhett Kaufman, Bayer’s wheat quality manager, says early-generation material is tested for protein, loaf volume, gluten strength and falling number.
Kaufman says the goal is to weed out poor performers before doing yield trials, allowing breeders to focus on parental development for hybrids during yield testing.
Asked whether the Canadian grading system creates more challenges for him and the wheat breeders, Kaufman answers yes and no. While varieties are scrutinized a bit more, there’s a clear target, he says.
“If it falls within that window, it’s going to be in that class,” he says. In fact, they’re using the Canadian grading system as a model for their other North American programs, he says.
As the open house wraps up, delegates sit down for lunch under an open tent. Much like the bus, each table is a mix of people — farming families, agronomists, researchers from public and private industry. Throughout the day I’ve also noticed high-level bureaucrats, executives, and politicians from the federal and provincial governments, including Saskatchewan’s official opposition.
It’s perhaps the best indication of how important wheat and agricultural research are to this province, which Weidler calls “the heartland of wheat production,” and to Western Canada as a whole.
