To keep pace with increased global demand for wheat, new technologies must be developed and deployed to accelerate and improve the efficiency of selection. The wheat DNA sequence holds the key to genetic improvements that will allow growers to meet the increasing demands for high quality food and feed produced in an environmentally sensitive, sustainable, and profitable manner. This information will be mined for sequence nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using proven bioinformatics platforms, and with input from the International Wheat SNP Working Group (IWSWG), will then be converted into one of the first high throughput Illumina Infinium platforms for wheat. This proposal ultimately is aimed at developing genomic tools and increasing genomic capacity in Canadian wheat and programs. The research proposed here will generate the first high quality sequence of chromosome 6D, which will represent Canada’s contribution to the international sequencing effort led by the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC). In addition, the team will develop a sequence capture array to perform targeted sequencing of the best available Canadian wheat cultivars.
ActiveAgriculture & Agri-food
Climate Action Through Grazing (CAT-G)
Competition/Funding OpportunityGenome Canada - Climate-smart agriculture and food systems- interdisciplinary challenge teams
Project Lead(s)/Co-Lead(s)Carolyn Fitzsimmons (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC)/University of Alberta) & James Cahill (University of Alberta)