Activating Crops Activating Genomics in Crop Breeding

In ACTIVATE, our research is encouraging practical and diverse crop rotation. We will pioneer an innovative, multi-species breeding strategy focused on a target crop rotation rather than individual crop species. More specifically, we are selecting lentil varieties for breeding based on their ability to sequester nitrogen for use by wheat grown after them. In this way, our breeding strategy is meant to produce optimal pairs of lentil and wheat varieties that perform well together in rotation. Our research will make estimates of climate benefits and producer income streams associated with climate-smart crop rotations possible.

In 2019, agriculture was responsible for approximately 10% of Canada’s green house gas emissions with over ¹/₃ (24Mt) being derived from crop production systems (ECCC NIR 2021), with 12.75 Mt emission coming from synthetic fertilizers. Our plan includes two routes to lower greenhouse gas emissions: by reducing quantity of synthetic fertilizer applied and ensuring that future cultivars use nitrogen more effectively. We aim to reduce nitrogen fertilizer use in both wheat and lentil by about 20%, through new cultivars bred for increased nitrogen use efficiency and, in the case of lentil, bred to make nitrogen more available to the future crops in the rotation.