Wheat is an important agricultural product in Canada. Of total Canadian crop production, wheat is the most widely produced commodity, the majority of which is produced in Western Canada, and is exported to over 80 countries annually. As a vital component of global food supply and an integral part of most Western Canadian crop rotations, continuous investment into wheat R&D is important. Investment into wheat breeding in Western Canada is mostly publicly funded, with producer checkoffs contributing additional research dollars. Producer checkoffs are refundable revenues deducted from farmers’ crop payments at the point of sale that are used to fund future R&D. Currently, the wheat check-off value in Saskatchewan is $1 per tonne of wheat sold.
While investment into wheat R&D results in numerous wheat varieties released each year, and many more under development through the long breeding process, the majority of wheat acreage is planted to a few popular varieties. By investigating the gap between the number of wheat varieties developed, recommended for registration, registered, adopted by commercial seed growers, and planted on significant acreage on the Prairies, we estimated the resulting inefficiency of the wheat R&D pipeline in Western Canada.
Adoption Rates of New Wheat Varieties
The Prairie Grain Development Committee (PGDC) is composed of four independent recommending committees for the various crops grown on the Prairies. The committees are grouped by crop type: wheat rye and triticale; oat and barley; pulse and special crops; and oilseeds. These committees are responsible for testing and evaluating new varieties and recommending registration with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) for those varieties with suites of characteristics equal to or superior to current reference, or “check”, varieties. The Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye, and Triticale (PRCWRT) is responsible for the evaluation and recommendation of new wheat varieties in Western Canada. The majority of varieties recommended for registration by the PRCWRT go on to receive registration from the CFIA.
Between 2000-2021, there were 294 new wheat and durum varieties recommended for registration by the PRCWRT. Of these varieties, 244 went on to receive registration with the CFIA by the end of 2023, 4 of which received interim registration for production in BC only. Of the remaining 240 registered varieties on the Prairies, 222 (93%) appeared in a directory of seed growers from one of the Prairies Provinces, indicating that the variety was commercially available for farmers for planting, leaving only 18 varieties that were not commercially adopted by seed growers.
Though many new wheat varieties have been developed over the past two decades, only a handful of varieties are produced on significant acreage each year. In fact, across the Prairie Provinces, the top ten Canadian Western Red Spring (CWRS), the most commonly produced class of wheat, varieties seeded each year represent between 60-100% of the total CWRS seeded acreage. Of the 129 CWRS varieties that were recommended for registration by the PRCWRT between 2000-2021, only 45, or 35%, were produced on significant acreage in at least one of the Prairie Provinces.
Durum wheat, with its bright yellow colour and good protein quality, is mostly used in the production of pasta around the world. Canadian Western Amber Durum (CWAD), the class of durum wheat grown on the Canadian Prairies, accounts for over half of the world’s total durum exports. Canadian durum production mostly occurs in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Of the 41 CWAD varieties recommended for registration between 2000-2001, 21 (51%) were produced on significant acreage in Alberta or Saskatchewan. Annually, the top ten produced CWAD varieties composed between 88-100% of durum acreage in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
There are many variety characteristics that factor into a farmers’ decision to adopt a wheat variety. These include disease resistance, resistance to lodging, which refers to when the stems of the wheat plants bend or fall over, or end-use qualities, which determine the grain’s suitability for various food or animal feed products, or other uses such as ethanol production. Historically, however, grain yield has been the most influential factor in determining the adoption level of new wheat varieties. Of the CWRS varieties recommended for registration between 2000-2021, the varieties produced on significant acreage yielded an average of 1-6% higher than varieties not produced to the same extent across the Prairie Provinces.
Wheat R&D Funding Inefficiency
Based on available wheat R&D investment data, the annual spending on wheat varietal R&D is estimated to be between $25 – $40 million, which translates to $550 – $880 million spent between 2000-2021. However, of the total wheat varieties that successfully received registration with the CFIA, 7% of varieties made no appearance in any of the Prairie grower directories, and thus provided no economic benefit to farmers, suggesting the research dollars spent on those varieties were not efficiently allocated. Differences in the number of developed, registered, and adopted varieties between the 2000-2010 and 2011-2021 time periods require further investigation, however. Between 2000-2010, 87 wheat varieties were recommended for registration, 78 received registration, and 76 were commercially available from seed growers, resulting in only 3% of registered varieties providing no economic value to farmers at the time of their commercialization. Comparatively, 207 wheat varieties were recommended for registration between 2011-2021, 162 were registered, and 146 were commercially available from seed growers by the end of 2023, resulting in 10% of research dollars spent developing varieties that do not provide direct economic benefit to farmers.
It is important to note that no commodity breeding system is likely to experience 100% adoption rates for all newly commercialized varieties. In addition, varieties that do not receive registration and commercialized varieties that are not adopted may still provide significant economic benefit in the future as parent varieties in future crosses to yield new, superior varieties. However, at the time of commercialization, the potential value of these unsuccessful varieties is unknown.
Conclusion
Overall, the results of this investigation indicate that the Western Canadian wheat variety development system is operating with high efficiency rates. Most varieties that successfully make it through the breeding process and are recommended for registration by the PRCWRT receive registration and are commercialized for Prairie farmers. However, the decrease in the percentage of successfully commercialized varieties between the first and second halves of the study period indicate that despite the over two-fold increase in new wheat varieties developed, the majority of acreage is still being planted to only the top varieties. These results suggest that breeding programs could be made even more efficient by only advancing the most successful varieties, especially regarding yield improvements, to the recommendation and registration phases of variety development.
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Lassoued, R., Sutherland, C., and Smyth, S.J. (2025). Wheat variety R&D investment and adoption in Western Canada. Canadian Journal of Plant Science, 105: 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjps-2024-0144
