Developing extreme climate-resilient canola varieties

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Through this proposal we aim to identify molecular mechanisms behind drought tolerance and generate superior canola varieties that are tolerant to extreme weather conditions that inflict significant losses in revenue on an annual basis. Canola is the major cash crop in Canada and contributes ~19.3 billion dollars to the Canadian economy. In recent years, due to extreme changes in weather patterns observed due to global warming, canola crop is constantly exposed to severe drought conditions that result in more than 20-30% loss in revenue. In addition to this, early and late season extreme frost conditions also affect seedling establishment and proper seed set respectively. Thus, engineering novel canola traits that allow resilience to unpredictable temperature fluctuations is imperative to sustain canola yield under changing climatic conditions. We have recently uncovered that reducing endogenous levels of a steroid plant hormone results in increased drought tolerance in the model plant Arabidopsis (close relative of canola). We propose to use both GM and non-GM approaches to generate canola plants that are resilient to weather conditions that were seldom encountered under optimal growing conditions in Canada. In the long-term, this technology will be combined with the frost-tolerant canola platform that is already in progress in the lab to create novel canola varieties. This proposal is directly aligned with the 'Environment and Agriculture' target area under the strategic research topic 'Biotechnology/generation of climate-change-resilient plants'. Our supporting organization Siniazo Biotech Inc. owns exclusive licensed rights to the suite of proprietary molecular genetic technologies that confer drought tolerance in model crops that is currently unparalleled in the industry. Siniazo Biotech will be actively involved in development of the proposal, research goals and continue to provide regular guidance during the project to generate canola varieties with climate-resilient traits that can be commercialized. Achieving the objectives of this project will result in development of a new climate-resilient canola traits that will allow sustained yield under challenging conditions and provide great economic and socio-economic benefits to Canadian producers.