Source: GRDC's The Crop Doctor

Applying molecular markers to plant breeding can significantly reduce the time and cost of developing new varieties.

The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is therefore encouraging the development of molecular markers through its $3.1 million annual investment in the Australian Winter Cereals Molecular Marker Program (AWCMMP).

AWCMMP is a national R&D effort using the latest molecular marker techniques to improve the Australian grain industry’s productivity and sustainability. It currently features wheat and barley components.

Outcomes are used by plant breeders, including those associated with the WA Department of Agriculture and Food who used molecular markers to produce acid tolerant breeding lines of the malting barley varieties Baudin and Hamelin.

AWCMMP Advisory Committee Chairman and GRDC Western Panel member, Professor Richard Oliver said molecular markers identified a gene’s presence directly from a leaf or grain sample without having to resort to years of costly testing across numerous sites.

This technology is changing the way breeding programs operate and will provide significant efficiency and productivity improvements.

Australian plant breeders prioritise the traits for which molecular markers are developed and implemented and the GRDC has therefore developed a framework for a co-ordinated wheat and barley breeding strategy.

The technology is most commonly applied in marker assisted breeding, which enables accelerated back crossing, pyramiding genes, analysing and selecting quantitative traits, identifying hybrids, selecting resistance to pests and diseases not present in the country or region and analysing alien chromosome segments.

Molecular markers are also used in variety identification through DNA fingerprinting and have been invaluable tools for fundamental studies to improve our understanding of genome structure and behaviour.

The Crop Doctor is GRDC Managing Director, Peter Reading