58 / SEEDWORLD.COM OCTOBER 2017 “In regions with more snow, a lower winter hardiness rating may not provide much additional protection, but you never know. You don’t want the grower to just assume that they’re going to get a lot of snow cover next winter. You might not get as much snow in a given year, so it might be a good idea to go with an alfalfa that can withstand exposure to the cold better.” He recommends retailers work with their customers to determine the variety that is the best fit for their specific situation. Improving Yield, Persistence, Quality The advances in alfalfa products, such as high-quality winter hardy varieties, are due in part to the work of people such as Annie Claessens, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Quebec Research and Development Centre forage breeder. Claessens is part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers working to improve the forage crop. Like most breeders, alfalfa breeders strive to boost yields. The key is lowering the dormancy, but doing so can have unwanted effects on alfalfa persistence. It’s an interesting conundrum that Claessens and her team are challenged with. “We’re trying to help growers extend the alfalfa growing season from late summer through to early winter, so we want less dormant cultivars. However, when they’re less dormant, they generally have lower winter survival.” Some significant gains have been made in recent years, like the kind Lutterotti refers to, where winter hardi- ness has been improved while keeping fall dormancy the same. But there’s a ways to go, Claessens notes. “Those two traits can be improved simultaneously. We’ve developed an indoor selection method to decrease dormancy but increase freezing toler- ance, which is one of the most important factors in lowering winter survival under our climatic conditions.” Breeding for better freeze tolerance involves creating plants with perennial organs (crown and roots) that can with- stand freezing temperatures. Her team has been able to increase the freezing tolerance of alfalfa by 9 degrees Fahrenheit. Claessens and her colleagues are also working on disease resistance, which is the second most important factor for lowering winter survival. Breeding efforts focus on Phytophthora root rot and Aphanomyces root rot to reduce the effects of cold and wet soil conditions. Phytophthora root rot can survive for many years in the soil, and may attack alfalfa even after long rotations to other crops. Aphanomyces root rot, caused by a pathogen very similar to Phytophthora, attacks both seedlings and adult alfalfa plants and can dramatically reduce yield. “We’ve developed an indoor selec- tion method to identify which plants are highly and moderately resistant to those diseases,” Claessens says. “We can select plants with greater resistance and breed them to rapidly develop lines that are better able to resist those pests.” Boosting quality also remains the mis- sion of alfalfa breeders such as Claessens. “Our goal is to have cows produce more milk from the alfalfa they consume, either by increasing alfalfa’s digestibility or energy content so the microorganisms in their stomach can have more energy to process the protein,” she says. “By increasing the energy content, we can increase milk production from forages, increase protein content of the milk, and reduce nitrogen loss in the environment.” Exciting new alfalfa varieties don’t just appear overnight. Claessens notes that breeding programs are expensive, and new sources of germplasm and funding are always being sought. It can take many years for a new alfalfa variety to hit the market. More than GE At this time, HarvXtra alfalfa with Roundup Ready Technology is available only to growers in Eastern Canada and is confined to the sale of seed for hay production. All seed production takes place in the United States. “The reduced lignin trait is more important than the Roundup herbicide resistance, in my opinion,” says Mike Peterson, global traits lead for FGI. “The Roundup Ready trait is a nice add, but it’s not the main feature driving the sales of this product. “The HarvXtra always comes first when we describe the product.” GE alfalfa isn’t the only product FGI is working on. It’s also making strides with conventional alfalfa, an example being an attempt to offer stronger resistance to Anthracnose stem rot. Anthracnose is caused by Colletotrichum trifolii. This fungus can attack leaves, but most characteristi- cally attacks stems and crowns. While resistance has been built into many varieties, Peterson says it’s beginning to break down. The disease is rare in Western Canada, but it’s more prevalent in the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada. “Even with Aphanomyces root rot, which has been around for over 20 years, the industry is finding there’s still a lot to be gained by breeding new varieties resistant to additional races of this impor- tant disease,” he adds. SW Mike Peterson serves as global traits lead for Forage Genetics International. Annie Claessens is a forage breeder at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Quebec Research and Development Centre.