Improvement of Nitrogen Fixation Trait in Wheat and Triticale

Term: 3 years, beginning in 2021

Status: Ongoing

Funding Amount: $53,125.00

Lead Researcher(s): Dr. Alicja Ziemienowicz (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)

Funding Partners: Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC), Alberta Innovates (AI), Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF), Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR)

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Project Description

Cereal crops are high value staple crops for humans and feed for livestock. Cereal crop growth is limited by nitrogen (N) availability in soil. In agriculture nitrogen limitation is circumvented by application of N fertilizers, which present significant costs of wheat and triticale production and contribute to environment pollution. The proposed research into wheat and triticale that can fix atmospheric N2 for their own needs would increase cereal crop productivity in nitrogen deficient soils and enhance sustainability of system management practices in agriculture by reducing the amount of N fertilizer application, thus saving both money and the environment. This project aims at creating a generation of triticale and wheat varieties with a stable trait of Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF), by genetic engineering of crop plant mitochondrial genomes with the nitrogen fixation genes (nif) originating from BNF bacteria. The proposed research would advance the BNF trait by stabilizing the trait in triticale and wheat engineered varieties and transferring the trait into the cultivars of high agronomic importance for Canadian agriculture. The key long-term outcomes from developing stable N2 fixing wheat and triticale would include improved competitiveness, profitability and sustainability of prairie agriculture.