Selected Research Highlights
2000-2001

1. New Information System Helps Manage Land and Water Resources
2. Wheat Varieties Show Resistance to Fusarium
3. Cranberry Pests Get Their Own Guide Book
4. Scientists Battle Soil Carbon Loss
5. New Species Specific Assay for the Causal Agent of Potato Wart
   
6. Scale Insects of the World Database
7. Biodiversity Databases
8. Automated Fungal Identification
9. A Modified Gene Confers Mycotoxin Tolerance
10. New Approaches to Determining Spatial Variability at the Field Level
11. Impacts of Climate Change and Prediction of Mycotoxin Levels

New Information System Helps Manage Land and Water Resources — Farmers, planners and municipalities in Eastern Ontario can now ‘point and click' their way to information on soils, land and water resources as part of a new online Regional Environmental Information System (REIS). REIS was developed by researchers at the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa in partnership with several municipalities and Autodesk Canada Inc. REIS provides a regional information base, data analysis and planning tools for proactive decision-making, and improves the capacity to anticipate and prevent environmental problems on a cost-effective basis. Current applications of REIS address issues of water resource management, regional nutrient mangement and agricultural land evaluation. Already launched in Eastern Ontario (http://reis.agr.ca), the National Land and Water Information Service is expected to gradually apply the REIS concept across the country.
Contact: Ian Jarvis

Wheat Varieties Show Resistance to Fusarium — When it comes to developing new wheat varieties, the trait that breeders want most is resistance to Fusarium Head Blight, a disease caused by the fungus Fusarium graminearum. This fungus is extremely devastating in reducing crop yields. It degrades grain and product quality, and safety due to residues from mycotoxins. Scientists at the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa, have identified Fusarium resistance genes in a Brazilian spring wheat variety Frontana. This gene has been successfully incorporated into winter wheat. In subsequent collaboration with industry science partners, genes from the winter wheat genetic stocks with Fusarium resistance have been transferred into large number of winter wheat lines via a haploidy biotechnology procedure. The first winter wheat Fusarium-tolerant line has been submitted for registration in Canada. Further new varieties are expected in coming years.
Contact: Radhey Pandeya

Cranberry Pests Get Their Own Guide Book — Pests have made their way into the fields of cranberry farmers in Quebec, despite the relative newness of the industry there. Until recently, Quebec's cranberry farmers had to rely on the U.S. for pest information. But thanks to the work of scientists at the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre and a number of other stakeholders, an identification guide to cranberry pests in Quebec has been published and is now available. Entitled Insectes ravageurs de la canneberge au Quebec - Guide d'identification, the publication is the result of more than three years of research, including field surveys, experiments on insect feeding and rearing habits and a collection of over 3000 photographs. The guide was developed for easy reference, and is well adapted for Quebec cranberry producers and integrated pest management workers. The guide is currently available in French with the English edition now in press.
Contact: Jean-Francois Landry

Scientists Battle Soil Carbon Loss — Carbon is the major component of organic matter in soil. Without carbon, soil is not healthy, and unhealthy soil is not conducive to sustainable agriculture. The problem is, carbon levels in soil may diminish in some situations, perhaps as a result of global warming. Scientists at the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa are on a mission to rescue soil from depletion of this essential element. They have developed a new technique using particles of soil organic matter to accurately measure changes in soil carbon levels and determine what is causing the change. This research will provide agricultural workers with information about the impacts that climate change has on soil, and when and how to rebuild organic matter levels to keep soil healthy and productive over the long term.
Contact: Ed Gregorich

New Species Specific Assay for the Causal Agent of Potato Wart — The discovery of the potato wart fungus, Synchytrium endobioticum, resulted in an embargo on Prince Edward Island potatoes in October 2000. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency required a sensitive molecular assay to further support its massive soil testing effort. Research first was needed to sequence DNA for S. endobioticum, the fungus responsible for causing potato wart disease, directly from infected tubers and infested soil. Scientists of the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa designed PCR primers for the Chytridiomycota, the phylum to which S. endobioticum belongs. These were used to obtain ribosomal DNA sequences from infested soil or infected potato samples, and from old herbarium specimens (including a 1903 diseased potato) in the Centre's Canadian National Collections. Sequences for related fungal species and genera were generated allowing the phylogeny of S. endobioticum and close relatives to be worked out successfully. Unique oligonucleotides for S. endobioticum also were determined. A very sensitive PCR/hybridization assay, capable of detecting one spore per gram of soil, was developed and can be used with field samples.
Contact: André Lévesque

Scale Insects of the World Database — The Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa has collaborated with other international experts to develop a database system, and provide internet access, to all aspects of scale insect (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) identification, life history, distribution, hosts and economic importance. The Centre's important role was to develop BASIS (Biological and Systematic Information System) software and then load 14,450 published scale insect references for 22 of the 27 scale insect families. The database will be used as a tool to assist efforts around the world in reducing the $5 billion damage caused by plant-feeding scale insects.
Contact: Gary Gibson

Biodiversity Databases — Researchers at the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa have collaborated with curators from 37 institutions and private collections to publish the major reference text entitled Butterflies of Canada. Major collaboration with the USA (Smithsonian Institution and others) and Mexico (CONABIO) resulted in the production of a Butterflies of North America database.

The Centre has also produced major digital databases on mites, leafhoppers and cutworms with collaborators in government labs, museums and universities throughout North America. Of importance were partnerships established with the University of Kansas, CONABIO, INBIO, US-NBII and NABIN to share biodiversity expertise and technology. The Centre was the lead agency for the Biota of Canada Information Network, created under the memorandum of understanding to establish a federal bioinformatics network signed by the five natural resources departments of the Canadian federal government. The Centre was the lead agency for Canadian involvement to establish a global bioinformatics network - the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).
Contact: Don Lafontaine (Butterflies); Ian Smith (Biodiversity)

Automated Fungal Identification — The microplate technology for rapid fungal identification, developed in collaboration between the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre (Ottawa) and industry partners, now has been commercialized as BIOLOG. Fungal growth and redox metabolism in 96 test wells can be measured photometrically in a microplate reader and compared to a database of known reactions. This allows the rapid screening of over 550 food and air-borne fungi including mycotoxigenic species in the genera Fusarium, Aspergillus, Penicillium and Stachybotrys. The new technology has allowed successfull rapid identification of aggressive strains of Tricoderma harzianum, contaminants found in commercial mushroom beds. A second application was the automatic identification of seed borne pathogens (Fusarium and Colletotrichum) on cereals and legumes.
Contact: John Bissett

A Modified Gene Confers Mycotoxin Tolerance — The mycotoxin, deoxynivalenol (DON), produced by Fusarium graminearum has been shown to inhibit eukaryotic protein synthesis. The postulated action site is the 60s ribosomal protein L3 (RPL3). At the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa, a modified rice cDNA encoding the RPL3 has been introduced into a model plant system using Agrobacterium tumefasciens. Leaf explants with modified RPL3 tolerated DON whereas the wild-type did not. Modified suspension cultures tolerated higher DON concentrations. This gene might also protect corn and other cereals.
Contact: Linda. Harris

New Approachs to Determining Spatial Variability at the Field Level — Airborne hyperspectral reflectance, which provides a crop image at various wavelengths, has been developed at the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa as a technique for the early detection of crop stress. In associated research to assess variability in large field plots, data on the draft of tillage implements, obtained using ECORC's instrumented tractor, was found to be correlated to soil strength.
Contact: Elizabeth Pattey (Reflectance), Neil McLaughlin (Tractor)

Impacts of Climate Change and Prediction of Mycotoxin Levels — The potential impacts of climate change have been assessed at the Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa using models and agro-climatic variables. Results indicated that increases of 200-500 Crop Heat Units in the Atlantic region of Canada by 2010-2039 would increase grain corn and soybean yield by 600 and 150kg/ha, respectively, for each 100 CHU rise. There was increased risk of damage to overwintering crops such as alfalfa and winter wheat due to reduced cold acclimation in the fall and loss of protective snow cover. In another study, statistical analysis of data from Eastern Ontario on weather and mycotoxin levels (deoxynivalenol, DON) in corn allowed the prediction of crop DON levels using rainfall and average temperature over 10 day periods.
Contact: Andy Bootsma