Date posted: March 30, 2004

The five key stages of variety development

A recap of how new crop lines are developed and registered for the PRRCG jurisdiction of Western Canada.

The steps toward variety registration constitute a long process for the many crop lines developed every year at breeding programs across Western Canada. The breeding work itself can take from seven to 15 years, depending on the crop and the approach. This is followed by several years of Prairie-wide testing, as well as a thorough evaluation by the region's top crop experts of the PRRCG. The best performers are recommended for federal variety registration to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which makes final decisions. This journey can be broken down into five key stages.

1. Developing a breeding strategy

The first stage begins at the crop breeding level. Plant breeding institutions, with broad input from a variety of stakeholders, develop breeding strategies based on a wide range of production and market factors. Whether the goal is to find a niche and fill it, boost the performance of tried and true variety types, or come up with an innovative groundbreaker, the strategy ultimately settles on targeting a complex mix of traits. These include everything from agronomic, yield and quality characteristics, to resistance against important diseases and pests.

2. Gathering key traits

Searching for this cocktail of traits and pulling them together involves years of breeding and selection. Breeders begin by gathering a large pool of seed for crop lines - known as the germplasm pool - that contain the targeted traits. Lines are screened for these traits, and the desirable ones are bred with one another, generation after generation, until the breeder develops a single line that has all the targeted traits "fixed" in its genetics.

New cereal lines put forward for registration, such as wheat and barley, are typically the product of seven to 10 years of breeding. The time requirement is usually shorter for special crops and oilseeds because the genetics are less complex and easier to work with. Breeders can slash years off the process for all crops by using winter nurseries in other countries to grow two generations per year, or by using new molecular techniques as a shortcut to identify true breeding lines.

3. Prairie-wide testing of top prospects

Once breeders are satisfied they've developed a good crop line, it is put forward for testing across the region. These Prairie-wide tests - known as the "co-op" trials - are a co-operative effort among breeding institutions and others to facilitate testing under a broad range of soil and climatic conditions. These trials are administered by the PRRCG, which includes nearly all the major Prairie crop development researchers, along with industry, producers and various end-user representatives.

4. PRRCG evaluates and makes recommendations

The crop lines that survive this rigorous testing can be put forward by the plant breeder for registration support at the PRRCG meeting held every February. The PRRCG's mandate is to act as a recommending body to the CFIA, which makes all final decisions on which crop lines are approved for federal variety registration. PRRCG members critically examine the performance data on co-op lines and decide which to recommend to CFIA. Depending on the crop, lines must have demonstrated equal-to-or-better-than performance over standard or "check" varieties to gain registration support.

5. CFIA Variety Registration Office grants final approval

Crop lines that fall under the PRRCG mandate must go through the PRRCG system before they can advance for consideration by the CFIA. The PRRCG recommendations are forwarded to the CFIA's Variety Registration Office, which uses them as a basis to determine if the crop lines will be granted final approval as new registered varieties for Canada. A decision on most lines is made within a year of the PRRCG recommendation, and the large majority of these are accepted, barring unforeseen plant safety or market concerns.

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