Date posted: March 15, 2006

The road to variety registration

The key steps and the role of PRRCG.

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 six to 10 years or more, 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, who have operated under the PRRCG banner.

The best performers are recommended for federal variety registration to the CFIA's Variety Registration Office, 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. Creating genetic variability for traits of interest

Searching for this cocktail of traits and pulling them together involves years of breeding and selection. Breeders begin by selecting parental germplasm from various sources, based on the goal of the breeding project. Populations are then produced, assessed for the traits of interest and selected for advancement. The process is repeated for several generations until the package of desired traits of are "fixed."

Lines put forward for registration are typically the product of six to 10 years of breeding. In some cases, this time may be reduced through the use of off-season nurseries or advanced breeding and selection techniques.

3. Prairie-wide testing of top prospects

Once breeders are satisfied they've developed a crop line with potentially beneficial traits, the line can be 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 committees that have operated under the PRRCG, which includes nearly all the major Prairie crop development researchers, along with industry, producers and various end-user representatives.

4. Evaluation and recommendations

The crop lines that survive this rigorous testing can be put forward by the plant breeder for support of registration at the PRRCG meeting, held every February. Since 1989, the PRRCG's mandate has been to act as a recommending body to the CFIA, which makes all final decisions on which candidate lines are approved for federal variety registration. PRRCG members critically examine the data generated on the candidate lines and decide which to recommend to CFIA. Depending on the crop, candidate lines must have demonstrated equal-to-or-better-than performance over standard or "check" varieties, to gain support for registration.

Recently, the PRRCG has undergone a transition to shift formal recommending power to each of the former PRRCG subcommittees. These four subcommittees essentially operated independently, with the PRRCG executive umbrella providing a rubber stamp on subcommittee recommending decisions. However, the new structure will allow the new committees to handle their own appeals processes, operate under their own CFIA-approved procedures and deal directly with CFIA. As a result, 2007 will mark the first meeting of the former PRRCG participants under the new name "Prairie Grain Development Committee," which will continue an umbrella function to facilitate joint meetings and speak on issues of common interest.

5. CFIA Variety Registration Office grants final approval

Crop lines that fall under the mandate of the new recommending committees that have traditionally operated under the PRRCG banner, must still be assessed through the committee system before they can advance for consideration be recommended for registration. The committee 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 committee recommendation, and the large majority of these are accepted, barring unforeseen plant safety or market concerns.

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