industry. She said it has the promise of cutting new variety development time in half or less. Of course, speeding up the development of new varieties has been an elusive goal of plant breeders for many, many years. Biotechnology and work at the gene level has promise and has led to the use of “markers” to identify and transfer positive traits easier and more quickly. Sjoberg said genetic sequencing allows researcher to detect genes linked to markers and transfer these traits between varieties without going through the entire time-consuming, plant-breeding process. For example, there is a determinate and indeterminate gene in tomatoes that are utilized for production of varieties based on whether they are developed for fresh or processed production. A bush or processed tomato variety will have the determinate gene, which means it will grow to a specific size for the goal of achieving a uniform, one time harvest. A fresh market tomato variety will include the indeterminate gene, which allows it to continue to grow and produce marketable tomatoes over a long period of time. Researchers have the ability to identify those traits by utilizing gene markers during the breeding process. Sjoberg briefly discussed a couple of other breeding techniques being utilized that also can speed up the process. One is the use
of a technique called double haploid or dihaploid. It is a tissue culture technique that allows breeders to develop uniform lines from a population of plants in one generation. Copies can be made without going back to the traditional method of combining parent 1 and parent 2. The WSU researcher said it is another way to shave time off of the original breeding timeline. Of course, speeding the breeding process is great for seed companies and growers who are always looking for varieties with improved traits, be it disease resistance, increased shelf life, more flavor, easier to harvest, more uniform and a host of other positive characteristics. But the Australian breeders pulled no punches in discussing their motivation for speed breeding. In a video report found online, researcher Lee Hickey of the University of Queensland said: “Nine billion people…nine billion mouths to feed by 2050, and our crops that we are growing today aren’t good enough to get the job done. So we need breakthroughs in genetics. We need to build these crops to be more productive under warmer climates, (and) more variable droughts. Not to mention rapidly evolving pests and pathogens.” The research has been going on for eight years with several articles published in scholarly journals explaining the effort more thoroughly, available on the internet.
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JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2019
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
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