Jennifer Zantinge
Molecular Biologist
Alberta Agriculture FCDC, Lacombe, AB, Canada

    Plant breeding is a long-term process requiring about 12 years from initial crossing to the release of a new variety. Plant breeders need technologies that will make breeding work easier and increase the genetic gain per dollar invested in breeding programs. Modern plant breeding programs use computer technology, Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS), bar coded sample identification and the latest statistical analysis methods. Recently, our knowledge of the chemistry of DNA and proteins, our ability to manipulate DNA and proteins, and understand their functions within the plant cell has advanced rapidly. As a result, many new biotechnology tools have been developed to assist breeders. We at the Alberta Agriculture Field Crop Development Centre and the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Center at Lacombe are now using these new biotechnology tools to improve our Barley varieties. Our long-term goal is to develop barley varieties with multiple disease resistance in various barley variety backgrounds.

    Biotechnology tools are useful to plant breeders at various stages during the breeding process especially after the initial cross, when plant breeders are faced with the daunting task of sorting and selecting the desirable progeny. Traditionally, plant breeders have relied heavily on selecting new strains based only on the phenotype. However, this approach can result in missing some desirable genetic traits that may not be fully expressed. As the environment changes from one year to the next, the ability of pathogens to invade plots also change, and resistance in the original parental strain might have been lost in the selected offspring because it wasn't needed in previous growing seasons. The effective way to select for specific traits such as disease resistance is to maintain a pool of disease resistance genes based on DNA markers.

    New biotechnology tools have been developed to accurately detect differences in the DNA code. These differences ('polymorphisms') form the basis of various genetic fingerprinting techniques. Molecular geneticists have used these techniques to successfully link unique DNA sequences (DNA markers) to specific traits of interest. DNA markers have been demonstrated to be useful tools in marker-assisted selection (MAS) of a number of crops. Currently, we are trying to identify reliable DNA markers that are linked to genes in barley that confer resistance to the fungal pathogens causing scald and net blotch. By using MAS to track disease resistance genes in a population, we will be able to select disease resistant offspring and accumulate different disease resistance genes into various barley variety backgrounds.

    Biotechnology tools are useful to cereal pathologist. In order to control and forecast disease, it is important to be able to rapidly identify pathogens and understand how and why they spread. By using the same techniques used to identify molecular markers in barley DNA, we can also analyze DNA from fungal pathogens. Currently we are trying to identify molecular markers for the scald pathogen in which we can accurately predict the pathogen's ability to cause disease. It is hoped that we will use these molecular markers to classify strains of scald, predict their potential to cause disease and identify barley varieties with effective disease resistance genes.