way food companies are working to a greater degree with breeders on end-use attributes. “Food companies are working with plant breeders, and investing in research to develop seed varieties that will create ingredients that can reliably delivery improved texture, flavour, nutritional characteristics and appearance to help them distinguish their food product from their competitors,” she says. This could include “different barley varieties to provide different flavour profiles for beer, specific wheat varieties for increased crisp in crackers, or different soybean varieties to produce varying textures, firmness and flavour profiles for tofu.” Breeding to Commercialization Commercialization of a new variety is quite a long process with many stages. The selection process can start with over one million lines, notes Whiting (see graphic) and typically lasts 12 or more years. Part of that process takes place after breeder seed release. After that point, says Prefontaine, it typically takes Trent Whiting, marketing representative, SeCan Colette Prefontaine, pedigreed seed territory manager, Canterra the more you have to select from; but the more crosses you have, the more you have to manage and the costs are higher. It’s getting common nowadays to speed up the process through contra-season growing trials in places like California and New Zealand, and that’s costly in terms of shipping germplasm and staff and can three or four years of multiplication in the certification process before seed gets to the certified stage and is available for widespread commercial release. “At the very beginning, you do lots of crosses and then select again and again from those crosses as you go along,” says Whiting. “The more crosses you have, 30 www.seed.ab.ca | Advancing Seed in Alberta For your convenience we now have scale on site for quick loading. We are ready to meet your needs. Give us a call to discuss what we can do to help you this spring. Performance Pedigreed Seed Farm Box 1363 Redwater, Alberta T0A 2W0 • Chelsea Tomlinson Cell: (780) 777-5885 Oats CS Camden Barley CDC Copeland HR Wheat AAC Ellie AC Muchmore CDC Utmost CDC Landmark AAC Viewfield CPS Wheat AAC Penhold Faba Beans Snowbird F-B 94 Yellow Peas CDC Amarillo AAC Lacombe AAC Carver www.trueseeds.ca Durum - AC Transcend - AC Strongfield - CDC Alloy HRSW - AC Muchmore - AAC Viewfield HRS Yellow Peas - Abarth Small Red Lentils - CDC Impulse CL - CDC Proclaim CL Industrial Hemp - Finola - Katani - Picolo P E D I G R E E D S E E D V A R I E T I E S E: [email protected] P:403-545-2222 F: 403-545-2218 Quattroventures.com 111043 Highway 3, Bow Island, AB T0K 0G0