Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 112 Page 113 Page 114 Page 115 Page 116 Page 117 Page 118 Page 119 Page 120 Page 121 Page 122 Page 123 Page 124 Page 125 Page 126 Page 127 Page 128 Page 129 Page 130 Page 131 Page 132 Page 133 Page 134 Page 135 Page 136 Page 137 Page 138 Page 139 Page 140 Page 141 Page 142 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 146 Page 147 Page 14884 / SEEDWORLD.COM DECEMBER 2016 Collaboration The IWGSC is made up of researchers from across the globe, and Pozniak has been involved since it was formed in 2005. “At that time, a chromosome-by-chromosome approach was being used, and there was a real need to come together as an international community to get the genome mapped,” says Pozniak. “The vision of the IWGSC to focus on a chromosome- based approach meant that the genome could be tackled in 21 individual pieces.” For Eversole, that collaborative attitude was key to the pro- ject’s success. “Just being involved in something that’s going to help wheat growers is very rewarding. The scientific community has really come together, which has been incredible,” she says. In the United States, Jesse Poland, a research geneticist with the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service at Kansas State University, helped to co-lead the project. Accounting for more than 20 percent of all calories con- sumed, the rising global population demands a sustainable and secure source of wheat. This pressures major wheat exporting countries to be at the cutting edge of varietal development. Wheat researchers across the globe will now have a resource that will allow them to better identify genes responsible for adaptation, pest resistance, stress response and improved yield. But according to Pozniak, sequencing the Chinese Spring genome is just the start of an exciting process of discovery. “The genome sequence is like a blueprint of all the genes that make up this variety, but the question is, what do each of those genes do, and how are they important for disease resistance and end use quality?” he says. “That will require a significant amount of effort to decipher biology around how that genome is organ- ized, how those genes are expressed, and how they relate to performance in a farmer’s field.” Poland adds this development sets the stage for a whole new era of wheat breeding, which directly translates to better and faster wheat breeding. Boon to Industry Of course, it’s not only farmers who will benefit, but also the makers of products who supply those farmers with the tools they need to grow better crops and a feed a growing world. John Jacobs, a Belgium-based genomics scientist in Bayer’s Crop Science Division, says that for Bayer as a company in the seed and traits industry, the mapping of the wheat genome is extremely valuable. Jacobs sits on the IWGSC committee as Bayer’s representative. “We want to increase seed potential, introduce disease resist- ance and stress tolerance, and for that we need to understand the genetic basis of these traits. We need to know what those underlying genes are and what they do,” he says. Polland says having a solid reference genome of Chinese Spring wheat will accelerate molecular breeding and genomics. For instance, Bayer works with thousands of wheat lines, and they each have their own sequence. From this [reference genome], Jacobs says they can go to many genome sequences and look at the differences, find out what they mean and under- stand the function of everything that’s in that sequence. He says Bayer is in the early stages of developing a commer- cial hybrid wheat program. It launched its first wheat variety this year, in Ukraine. “It’s only in the last six years that we’ve seen a substantial opportunity for wheat,” he says, adding that this renewed focus on wheat was based, in part, on the expected innovations in wheat improvement, which can now be realized even faster with an unlocked wheat genome. Although the IWGSC includes members from around the globe, he credits Pozniak and the Canadian researchers with helping it through its final stretch. “I think Curtis, his team and Canada in general were especially important in the end, as they secured funding at a moment when there was a breakthrough technology that needed it.” Funding for wheat genome sequencing project was provided by Genome Canada, Genome Prairie, Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, the Saskatchewan and Alberta Wheat Development Commissions, and the Western Grains Research Foundation through the Canadian Triticum Applied Genomics (CTAG2 ) project, Kansas State University through the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program, and Illumina, Inc. Opening the Door For Pozniak, the door to a new world of wheat has been opened, but scientists like him have yet to truly understand what’s on the other side. “We’re excited to start comparing how wheat cultivars are dif- ferent from one another, and understand some of those biological questions about what makes Canadian wheat unique and what makes varieties different from one another at a genomic level,” Pozniak says. The wheat genome is five times bigger than the human genome and very complex, with three sets of seven chromosomes. “We’ve already been able to use the data to develop a number of useful molecular tools wheat breeders are using for cultivar development,” Pozniak says. “Ultimately, we can improve breeding efficiency. That doesn’t necessarily mean we will speed up plant breeding, but breeders will be more efficient — and anytime you can do that, it will result in better varieties for our producers.” SW John Jacobs is Bayer’s representative on the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium committee.