OTTAWA—A team of crop scientists at the University of Saskatchewan played a leading role in sequencing the genome of wheat variety that could lead to better varieties in the future.“Essentially we have completed the wheat genome jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces put together in their correct positions and order, providing an enormous advantage for breeders when searching for genes that control important traits in the crop,” said Curtis Pozniak, researcher and wheat breeder at the Crop Development Centre at the university's College of Agriculture and Bioresources.“This breakthrough research will help produce better wheat varieties over the long term. “With funding from a range of partners and cutting-edge sequencing technology from our industrial partner NRGene, our research team at the U of S played a key role in the international consortium's success, a discovery that has the potential for disruptive innovation in wheat improvement.”Agriculture Canada wheat breeder Richard Cuthbert said, “Breeders will now have the information they need to identify economically important traits more rapidly, which will better enable development of wheat varieties with increases in yield, enhanced grain quality, improvements in disease resistance and more resilient to environmental stresses.The result will be more nutritious grain that can be grown more effectively and efficiently in harsher climates,” he said. Serge Buy, CEO of the Agriculture Institute of Canada, said, “This is a great example of how agricultural science can help society and Canada's agricultural sector move ahead. This is a reminder that agricultural science needs to be properly funded.”Cam Dahl, President of Cereals Canada, said the genome breakthrough “is a good news story. The work will significantly enhance our ability to bring on new varieties and new traits. It will be especially valuable when combined with new plant breeding techniques, like gene editing.”The genome breakthrough was disclosed in the journal Science in mid-August.It is the highest quality sequencing of the billion-piece jigsaw puzzle that is the bread wheat genome genome sequence, the university said. It involved the bread wheat variety Chinese Spring.“This was long considered an almost impossible task—the wheat genome is five times larger than the human genome and more complex—but also a critically important one in an era of climate change. Wheat is the world's most widely cultivated crop, accounting for 20 per cent of all calories consumed throughout the world.”For the last 13 years, more than 200 scientists from 73 research institutions in 20 countries have been endeavouring, through the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium to complete the genome sequence for bread wheat and make publicly available the new genomic assembly for breeders seeking to develop improved varieties.Pozniak led Canada's contribution to the wheat genome initiative through the Canadian Triticum Applied Genomics (CTAG2) project, which also includes scientists from the National Research Council, Agriculture Canada, the University of Guelph, and the University of Regina.“The new genome assembly provides a chromosome-by-chromosome representation rather than the fractured picture available previously and will elevate wheat research and breeding to a level equal to, or even better than, other major crops,” said Andrew Sharpe, director of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of Saskatchewan's Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) and co-lead for the CTAG2 project.In Canada, wheat accounts for more than $4.5 billion in annual sales and, when value-added processing is factored in, contributes more than $11 billion each year to the Canadian economy. With the world's population expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, Maurice Moloney, executive-director of GIFS, said the genome breakthrough will have a major impact on global food security. “In light of climate change, water shortages and limitations on the availability of arable land, we will need to rely on plant genetics to increase wheat productivity,” he said. “Solving the massive puzzle of the wheat genome will go a long way towards accomplishing that, similar to the growth that was made in maize and rice crops after their reference sequences were assembled.”The new sequence produced using NRGene's technology was the backbone of the wheat genome discovery. This work was funded by Genome Canada, Genome Prairie, Western Grains Research Foundation, Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission, the Alberta Wheat Commission, and the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.A number of international partners also contributed to the effort, including researchers at IPK Gatersleben in Germany, Kansas State University, Tel Aviv University and Illumina Inc.The next step for the U of S team will be to initiate a larger-scale international initiative to sequence the more than 10 cultivated wheat varieties from the main growing areas across the globe. The 10+ Wheat Genomes Project, started last year and led by Pozniak, is using the same NRGene technology to sequence the genomes.Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.