Developing extreme climate-resilient canola varieties

通过这一提议，我们的目标是确定耐旱性背后的分子机制，并产生能够耐受极端天气条件的优良油菜品种，这些极端天气条件每年都会造成重大的收入损失。油菜籽是加拿大的主要经济作物，为加拿大经济贡献了约193亿美元。近年来，由于全球变暖导致天气模式发生极端变化，油菜籽作物不断面临严重干旱，导致收入损失超过20-30%。此外，早春和晚春极端霜冻条件也分别影响幼苗的建立和适种。因此，在不断变化的气候条件下，设计新的油菜籽性状，使其能够适应不可预测的温度波动，对于维持油菜籽产量至关重要。我们最近发现，降低内源性类固醇植物激素水平会增加模式植物拟南芥（油菜的近亲）的耐旱性。我们建议同时使用转基因和非转基因方法来生产油菜籽植物，这些油菜籽植物对加拿大最佳生长条件下很少遇到的天气条件具有弹性。从长远来看，这项技术将与实验室中已经在进行的耐寒油菜平台相结合，以创造新的油菜品种。该提案与战略研究课题“生物技术/产生适应气候变化的植物”下的“环境与农业”目标区域直接一致。我们的支持组织Siniazo Biotech Inc.拥有一系列专有分子遗传技术的独家授权权利，这些技术赋予模型作物耐旱性，这在目前的行业中是无与伦比的。中新亚氮生物科技将积极参与提案和研究目标的制定，并在项目期间继续提供定期指导，以培育可商业化的具有气候适应性性状的油菜品种。实现该项目的目标将导致开发一种新的具有气候适应性的油菜籽性状，使其能够在具有挑战性的条件下保持产量，并为加拿大生产者提供巨大的经济和社会经济效益。

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.