40 GERMINATION.CA JULY 2019 AAC BRANDON is Canada’s No. 1 wheat in terms of CWRS acreage. As it’s about to receive a Seed of the Year designation, we find out exactly how AAC Brandon man- aged to take such a coveted spot in the world of Canadian wheat. The breeding team had great sup- port. Says breeder Ron DePauw: “AAC Brandon is a testament to both the pro- ducer checkoff implemented in 1995 and strong engagement from producers which helped to set goals for our research. We were extremely fortunate at the time to be able to build a very good team of scien- tists and technicians and give them a clear mandate on what producers were looking for. AAC Brandon was very much a team effort. It wasn’t just me.” It did many things at once. AAC Brandon was released in the fall of 2014 to provide growers with a wheat that could give them high yields and high protein levels in a strong strawed semidwarf with moderate resistance to Fusarium head blight. Accomplishing this was not an easy feat, says DePauw. “There’s a negative cor- relation among these traits — protein goes down as yield goes up. We had to develop a correlation shifter to get higher yield but no loss in protein in a plant with stacked traits.” It fit growers’ needs on all fronts. DePauw says: “We wanted a variety to fit into the current production system where farmers practice reduced tillage. That meant you had to have a strong-strawed semi-dwarf so plants would stand up and farmers do not have to process so much straw. But, as plants get shorter, they might have smaller root systems, and might be lacking water and nutrient use efficiency. We built a much stronger plant to over- come these deficiencies.” It performed in all kinds of weather. “When it was first released we were in a cycle of wet, high lodging and fusarium pressure on the eastern Prairies. Growers were looking for short, strong straw and an MR to fusarium. AAC Brandon per- formed really well in those wet years where lodging was a big issue,” says Todd Hyra, western business manager for SeCan. But that wasn’t the end of the story, he emphasizes. “In 2017 and 2018, the weather was hot and dry, and the yields growers were seeing from AAC Brandon kept going up. We had areas with only a few inches of rainfall and we were hearing stories of 80-plus bushels per acre, which you didn’t see or hear of in hot dry conditions at the time. So that gave seed growers the confi- dence to grow AAC Brandon year-in and year-out. “We’re heading into year five now and it’s been a massive success for SeCan and for farmers.” It went viral. DePauw notes that when growers began to see the benefits of AAC Brandon, they didn’t keep it a secret. “Farmers so liked it they must have all hit Twitter because in 2016 it jumped to 11.6 per cent of CWRS acreage and was No. 1 in its second year. Most CWRS varieties don’t achieve five per cent. I thought, ‘OK, that’s about where it will peak.’ In 2017 it went to 24 per cent and in 2018 it went up to 36 per cent, which was incredible. AAC Brandon must have hit almost exactly what producers wanted in a wheat in terms of fitting their production practices.” 5REASONS AACBRANDONHITTHEMARK Ron DePauw’s game-changing variety of CWRS wheat has been honoured by Seed of the Year. Here’s how DePauw and his team hit the bullseye with the No. 1 wheat in its class. Marc Zienkiewicz 3NEWCOMERSYOU SHOULDKNOW ABOUT Seed of the Year was once again able to offer three scholarships (two in the West and one in the East) to students enrolled in university and currently completing a Masters or PhD in plant breeding/genetics. Go online and check out our interview with Longfei Wu, Ana Vargas Palacios and Harwinder Sidhu! Visit germination.ca/3-newcomers SPONSORSMAKEIT HAPPEN! Seed of the Year would like to acknowledge its sponsors: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Alberta Barley Commission, Alberta Wheat, Canterra Seeds, Canadian Seed Growers’ Association, Canadian Seed Trade Association, FP Genetics, Nutrien Ag Solutions, Richardson International, Sask Wheat, SeCan and Western Grains Research Foundation.