U of S researchers contributed to the development of canola, a crop that generates about $26.7 billion in economic benefits annually, with 250,000 people working in careers related to the industry.
Bryan Harvey remembers well the moment the “zero” seed that was pivotal to the development of canola from rapeseed was identified in one of the hundreds of samples he was analyzing in the National Research Council’s (NRC) Prairie Regional Laboratory (PRL) run by organic chemist Burton Craig, in the College of Agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan.
Harvey was the first University of Saskatchewan (U of S) graduate student in the early 1960s to work with geneticist Keith Downey, then principal research scientist with Agriculture Canada’s research station and an adjunct professor at the university.
Harvey was feeding some samples into a gas-liquid chromatography machine from a line of rapeseed Downey had screened for lower erucic acid content when Craig, who was standing nearby, noticed a distinctive difference in the fatty acid profile of one sample.
“What is that?” he asked immediately. What the graph signified was that the two genes in the seed both registered zero for erucic acid, when typically rapeseed would register in the range of 40 per cent for the fatty acid. “Well, Burt got out a big stamp, certified it, signed it, dated it and so on,” Harvey recalls.
Harvey went on to cross with regular rapeseed the “zero” seeds that had been produced by Liho, a Polish variety used as forage crop for its leafiness, and worked out the inheritance properties of the trait. It was the first step in developing canola, and that seed was the progenitor to the yellow oilseed crop that has become dominant across the prairies.
Harvey and Downey, in collaboration with the NRC scientists, also developed the “half-seed” technique that was vital to the development of canola by allowing the oil in individual seeds to be analyzed without having to crush them.
The technique involved using a delicate scalpel and forceps designed for eye surgery. They would use the instruments to remove the seed coat from a rapeseed kernel and then peel off the top cotyledon to analyze it for erucic acid content, leaving the bottom cotyledon and attached shoot free to germinate. The method is still used by plant breeders 50 years later.
Harvey explains that their success had much to do with the highly sensitive gas-liquid chromatograph developed by Craig and technologist Martin Mallard, which reduced the required seed sample from about half a kilogram to essentially half a seed.
The next step in plant breeding to develop a readily consumable oil and feed product from rapeseed required the removal of glucosinolates – a growth inhibitor that limited the amount of crushed seeds that can be used as meal to feed animals.
The work done by Downey and Baldur Steffanson of the University of Manitoba to address this challenge led to their recognition as the “fathers of canola.” In 1974, Steffanson developed the first low erucic acid, low glucosinolate, Argentinian variety, called Tower. Then, in 1977, Downey presented the world’s double-low variety of Polish variety rapeseed, suited to northern growing areas.
As a new report commissioned by the Canola Council of Canada points to the stunning impact the co-operative and determined efforts of scientists at the institutions – U of S, U of M, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the National Research Council’s PRL – have had on Canada and its economy by developing canola into a major crop.
William White, a plant breeder with the Dominion Forage Laboratory of Agriculture Canada, and Hank Sallans, an oilseeds chemist with the National Research Council, were among a few scientists who began researching rapeseed in the early 1940s.
And whether it was the early work done by Les Wetter of the PRL and Milton Bell of the university’s animal husbandry department on the use of rapeseed meal, or the contribution of PRL’s Clare Youngs toward developing a method to heat kill the enzyme myrosinase to avoid the creation of undesirable elements in feed, the foundation for canola was laid over three decades of perseverance and co-operation by scientists from several institutions.
The U of S remains actively involved in canola research, particularly in the area of utilization of canola meal in livestock nutrition.
In some years even surpassing wheat at the top of agricultural exports, canola is now on average a $12.2 billion industry in Canada. About 92,000 jobs and $3.9 billion in wages can be traced back to canola grown in Saskatchewan, where 26,000 of Canada’s 43,000 canola farmers reside.
The report by LMC International for the council says canola generates about $26.7 billion in economic benefits annually, with 250,000 people working in careers related to the industry.
Sarath Peiris is a communications contributor with University of Saskatchewan Research Profile and Impact.