b'of AC Foremost is proven by the fact it has returned more royalties to the breeding institution than any other CPS- A HORSE FOR EVERY NEEDRed variety marketed by SeCan, Downey adds.AC Foremost resulted from a unique Pan-Prairie col- Fun fact about AC Foremost: According to SeCan R&D laboration among pathologists and breeders from threeManager Jim Downey, with AC Foremost, producers breeding centres of AAFC. Two breeding streams werelearned they could ride multiple horses with the variety usedin the first stream, E. Czarnecki, J.J. Nielsen, andas it could be sold into food, feed and ethanol markets A.B. Campbell (AAFC Winnipeg) are credited with back- depending on price and delivery opportunitiescrossing resistance to loose smut.In the second stream, Julian Thomas, K.J. Degenhardt, and R. Morrisson (AAFC Lethbridge) backcrossed the major gene Bt10, which confers resistance to common bunt from BW553, developed by H. McKenzie, into HY320. DePauw and fellow AAFC researcher Ron Knox (who happens to be the 2023 CPBI Plant Breeding & Genetics Award winner) demonstrated that HY320 comprised a mixture of hard kernels and soft kernels. Streams one and two were intermated, and selected for hard kernels, bunt resistance and loose smut resistance (Ken Preston from the Canadian Grain Commission Grain Research Lab was involved in the classification of the breeder lines for kernel hardness that became Biggar red spring wheat).In 1989, F7 seed was grown in unreplicated plots near Lethbridge, Swift Current, and Portage la Prairie to assess agronomic adaptation. This led to the selection of the line HY392, which was supported for registration in February of 1994. The rest, as they say, is history. AAFC researcher Ron Knox. Now-retired AAFC wheat breeder Introducing a variety into the marketplace has lotsRon DePauw.of challenges. Timing often is an important part; theres probably lots of good varieties that have been overlooked just because of when theyre introduced, Knox says.Canadian Grain Commission summary of CNHR insured Sometimes the timing is a bit offnobody has acommercial acres, AC Foremost comprises 74 per cent of crystal balland a really solid variety gets passed bythe CNHR acres in Alberta and 24 per cent of all CNHR because growers dont see the value at that exact moment.acres on the Prairies.But a year or two later, that variety could have caught onThe CPSR breeding program at AAFC Winnipeg used if it would have been introduced then. AC Foremost wasthe hard kernel Biggar lines and intermated streams 1 and one of those varieties that was in the right place at the2, which they designated BiggarBSR (meaning Biggar with right time and just happened to hit the mark. bunt and smut resistance). Out of this program flowed AC Foremosts legacy hasnt even yet been fully estab- Enchant, Conquer, AAC Foray, and AAC Tenacious. lished; its genetics remain strong and its still being used toThe University of Saskatchewan Crop Development create groundbreaking new wheat products, SeCan notes.Centre has made use of AC Foremost and other parents The loose smut resistance and bunt resistance ofwhose ancestors trace to BiggarBSR. Syngenta used AC AC Foremost continues to be effective to all prevalentForemost to produce its spring wheat variety 5700PR, races, except race T9 of loose smut. According to a 2022which has become a go-to variety for CPSR growers. JANUARY 2023GERMINATION.CA 33'