Crop Development Centre/Department of Plant Sciences,University of Saskatchewan,51 Campus Drive,Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,Canada S7N 5A8Mini-biographyBunyamin Tar’an is a pulse crop breeder at the Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. His research focuses on breeding chickpea to develop high-yielding, high quality, early maturing and disease resistant varieties for the western Canadian growing regions. In support of the breeding program, research is conducted in the areas of genetics of disease resistance both in cultivated and wild relatives species of chickpea, genetics and physiology of characters affecting earliness, and genetics of traits-related to seed quality.
As a member of GL-TTP we are expecting to closely interact with legume researchers and other breeders and to actively involve in collaborative research projects especially on the application of genomic research to plant breeding. As breeders we believed that we could play a role to link the basic research with industrial application through the development of improved varieties.
Breeding Pulse Crops for the Northern Great PlainsBunyamin Tar’an, Tom Warkentin, Albert Vandenberg, Kirstin Bett and Sabine Banniza
Crop Development Centre/Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan
51 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5A8
bunyamin.taran@usask.caThe pulse crop breeding program at the Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan that includes pea, lentil, chickpea, dry bean and faba bean is the largest in North America. Typically, approximately 100,000 plots of different generations of breeding materials of all pulses are evaluated each year in breeding nurseries across western Canada. The target area of the breeding program is the northern Great Plains, which is typically characterized by short growing season, large diurnal ranges in temperature, and by highly variable precipitation. The main goals of the breeding program are to develop pulse crop varieties for western Canadian producers and to develop germplasm to address the future challenges and opportunities for the industry. Both food and feed markets, and to some extents the industrial applications, are the targets. The major objectives of the breeding program include good adaptation to the target growing areas, high yield, disease resistance, good agronomic characters and superior quality suitable for human consumption and animal feed.
To reach these objectives both conventional and marker-aided selections were used. The marker-aided selection in particular was used whenever it is feasible and appropriate. Few examples where MAS have been successfully applied in the breeding program will be presented.
Choice of parents for each pulse crop is a critical decision to a successful breeding program. Parents used in crosses come from various sources including commercial cultivars, advanced lines from the CDC breeding program, advanced lines from collaborator breeding programs around the world, and national and international germplasm collections. The use of exotic germplasm to address specific needs and to broaden the genetic base is increasingly important; however, this has contributed to only a small fraction of the total crosses in our program. Lack of accurate data, adverse effects to yield and quality and linkage drag limit the use of exotic germplasm. Information such as allele variations for specific genes of important traits would be needed to efficiently use more exotic materials in the breeding program.
